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Or, out of breath with joy, could not enlarge
Their straightened lungs, or conscious of their charge.
The British Amphytrite, smooth and clear,
In richer azure never did appear;

Proud her returning prince to entertain
With the submitted fasces of the main.

AND welcome now, great monarch, to your own! Behold the approaching clifts of Albion. It is no longer motion cheats your view; As you meet it, the land approacheth you. The land returns, and, in the white it wears, The marks of penitence and sorrow bears.† But you, whose goodness your descent doth shew, Your heavenly parentage and earthly too, By that same mildness, which your father's crown Before did ravish, shall secure your own. Not tied to rules of policy, you find Revenge less sweet than a forgiving mind. Thus, when the Almighty would to Moses give A sight of all he could behold and live; A voice before his entry did proclaim, Long-suffering, goodness, mercy, in his name. ‡ Your power to justice doth submit your cause, Your goodness only is above the laws; § Whose rigid letter, while pronounced by you, Is softer made. So winds, that tempests brew, When through Arabian groves they take their flight, Made wanton with rich odours, lose their spite. And as those lees, that trouble it, refine The agitated soul of generous wine; So tears of joy, for your returning spilt, Work out, and expiate our former guilt. Methinks I see those crowds on Dover's strand, Who, in their haste to welcome you to land,

+ Note XXI.

Note XXII. § Note XXIII.

Choked up the beach with their still growing store,
And made a wilder torrent on the shore:

While, spurred with eager thoughts of past delight,
Those, who had seen you, court a second sight;
Preventing still your steps, and making haste
To meet you often wheresoe'er you past.
How shall I speak of that triumphant day,
When you renewed the expiring pomp of May!
A month that owns an interest in your name :
You and the flowers are its peculiar claim. *
That star, that at your birth shone out so bright,
It stained the duller sun's meridian light,
Did once again its potent fires renew, t
Guiding our eyes to find and worship you.
And now Time's whiter series is begun,
Which in soft centuries shall smoothly run:
Those clouds, that overcast your morn, shall fly,
Dispelled, to farthest corners of the sky.
Our nation, with united interest blest,
Not now content to poize, shall sway the rest.
Abroad your empire shall no limits know,
But, like the sea, in boundless circles flow;
Your much-loved fleet shall, with a wide command,
Besiege the petty monarchs of the land;

And, as old Time his offspring swallowed down,
Our ocean in its depths all seas shall drown.
Their wealthy trade from pirates' rapine free,
Our merchants shall no more adventurers be;
Nor in the farthest east those dangers fear,
Which humble Holland must dissemble here.
Spain to your gift alone her Indies owes;
For, what the powerful takes not, he bestows:
And France, that did an exile's presence fear, §
May justly apprehend you still too near.

*Note XXIV. + Note XXV.
§ Note XXVII.

Note XXVI.

At home the hateful names of parties cease,
And factious souls are wearied into peace.
The discontented now are only they,
Whose crimes before did your just cause betray;
Of those your edicts some reclaim from sin,
But most your life and blest example win.
Oh happy prince, whom heaven hath taught the way
By paying vows to have more vows to pay!
Oh happy age! Oh times like those alone,
By fate reserved for great Augustus' throne!
When the joint growth of arms and arts foreshew
The world a monarch, and that monarch you.

NOTES

ON

ASTREA REDUX.

Note I.

An horrid stillness first invades the ear,

And in that silence we the tempest fear.-P. 30.

The small wits of the time made themselves very merry with this couplet; because stillness, being a mere absence of sound, could not, it was said, be personified, as an active agent, or invader. Captain Ratcliff thus states the objection in his "News from Hell:"

Laureat, who was both learned and florid,

Was damned, long since, for "silence horrid ;"
Nor had there been such clatter made,

But that this Silence did "invade."

Invade and so't might well, 'tis clear;

But what did it invade ?-an ear.

And for some other things, 'tis true,

"We follow Fate, that does pursue."

In the "Dialogue in Bedlam," between Oliver's porter, fidler, and poet, the first of these persons thus addresses L'Estrange and Dryden," the scene being adorned with several of the poet's own flowers:"

O glory, glory! who are these appear?
My fellow-servants, poet, fidler, here?
Old Hodge the constant, Johny the sincere!
Who sent you hither? and, pray tell me, why?
A horrid silence does invade my eye,

While not one sound of voice from you I spy.

But, as Dr Johnson justly remarks, we hesitate not to say, the world is invaded by darkness, which is a privation of light; and why not by silence, which is a privation of sound?

Note II.

The ambitious Swede, like restless billows tost,
On this hand gaining what on that he lost,
Though in his life he blood and ruin breathed,

To his now guideless kingdom peace bequeathed.-P. 30.

The royal line of Sweden has produced more heroic and chivalrous monarchs, than any dynasty of Europe. The gallant Charles X. who is here mentioned, did not degenerate from this warlike stem. He was a nephew of the great Gustavus Adolphus; and, like him, was continually engaged in war, particularly against Poland and Austria. He died at Gottenburgh in 1660, and the peace of Sweden was soon afterwards restored by the treaty of Copenhagen.

Note III.

We sighed to hear the fair Iberian bride
Must grow a lily to the lily's side.-P. 31.

The death of Cromwell, and the unsettled state of England, prevented the execution of those ambitious schemes, which Cardinal Mazarine, then prime minister of France, had hoped to accomplish by the assistance of Britain. The Cardinal was therefore, in 1659, induced to accede to the treaty of the Pyrenees, by which peace was restored betwixt France and Spain; the union being cemented by the marriage of the Infanta to Louis XIV.Charles II., then a needy fugitive, was in attendance upon the ministers of France and Spain, when they met on the frontiers for this great object; but he, who was soon to be so powerful a monarch, experienced on that occasion nothing but slights from Mazarine, and cold civility from Don Lewis de Haro.

Note IV.

The sacred purple, then, and scarlet gown,

Like sanguine dye to elephants, was shown.-P. 31.

This does not mean, as Derrick conceived, that these emblems of authority had as little effect upon the mob as if they had been shown to an elephant; but that the sight of them animated the people to such senseless fury, as elephants, and many other animals, are said to shew, upon seeing any object of a red colour.

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