Volume II Part 24 (1/2)

To pardon willing; and to punish, loath; You strike with one hand, but you heal with both.

Lifting up all that prostrate lye, you grieve You cannot make the dead again to live.

When fate or error had our Age mis-led, And o'er this nation such confusion spread; The only cure which cou'd from heav'n come down, Was so much pow'r and piety in one.

One whose extraction's from an ancient line, Gives hope again that well-born men may s.h.i.+ne: The meanest in your nature mild and good, The n.o.ble rest secured in your blood.

Oft have we wonder'd, how you hid in peace A mind proportion'd to such things as these; How such a ruling sp'rit you cou'd restrain, And practise first over your self to reign.

Your private life did a just pattern give How fathers, husbands, pious sons shou'd live; Born to command, your princely virtues slept Like humble David's while the flock he kept:

But when your troubled country call'd you forth, Your flaming courage, and your matchless worth Dazling the eyes of all that did pretend, To fierce contention gave a prosp'rous end.

Still as you rise, the state, exalted too, Finds no distemper while 'tis chang'd by you; Chang'd like the world's great scene, when without noise The rising sun night's vulgar lights destroys.

Had you, some ages past, this race of glory Run, with amazement we shou'd read your story; But living virtue, all atchievements past, Meets envy still to grapple with at last.

This Caesar found, and that ungrateful age, With losing him, went back to blood and rage.

Mistaken Brutus thought to break their yoke, But cut the bond of union with that stroke.

That sun once set, a thousand meaner stars Gave a dim light to violence and wars, To such a tempest as now threatens all, Did not your mighty arm prevent the fall.

If Rome's great senate cou'd not wield that sword Which of the conquer'd world had made them lord, What hope had our's, while yet their pow'r was new, To rule victorious armies, but by you?

You, that had taught them to subdue their foes, Cou'd order teach, and their high sp'rits compose: To ev'ry duty you'd their minds engage, Provoke their courage, and command their rage.

So when a lion shakes his dreadful mane, And angry grows; if he that first took pain To tame his youth, approach the haughty beast, He bends to him, but frights away the rest.

As the vext world, to find repose, at last Itself into Augustus' arms did cast: So England now doth, with like toil opprest, Her weary head upon your bosom rest.

Then let the muses, with such notes as these, Instruct us what belongs unto our peace; Your battles they hereafter shall indite, And draw the image of our Mars in fight;

Tell of towns storm'd, of armies overcome, Of mighty kingdoms by your conduct won, How, while you thunder'd, clouds of dust did choak Contending troops, and seas lay hid in smoke.

Ill.u.s.trious acts high raptures do infuse, And ev'ry conqueror creates a muse; Here in low strains your milder deeds we sing, But there, my lord, we'll bays and olive bring,

To crown your head; while you in triumph ride O'er vanquish'd nations, and the sea beside: While all your neighbour princes unto you, Like Joseph's sheaves, pay reverence and bow.

Footnotes: 1. The ancient seat of the Sydneys family in Kent; now in the possession of William Perry, esq; whose lady is niece to the late Sydney, earl of Leicester. A small, but excellent poem upon this delightful seat, was published by an anonymous hand, in 1750, ent.i.tled, PENSHURST. See Monthly Review, vol. II. page 331.

2. Life, p. 8, 9.

3. History of the Rebellion, Edit. Oxon. 1707, 8vo.

JOHN OGILBY,

This poet, who was likewise an eminent Geographer and Cosmographer, was born near Edinburgh in the year 1600[1]. His father, who was of an ancient and genteel family, having spent his estate, and being prisoner in the King's Bench for debt, could give his son but little education at school; but our author, who, in his early years discovered the most invincible industry, obtained a little knowledge in the Latin grammar, and afterwards so much money, as not only to procure his father's discharge from prison, but also to bind himself apprentice to Mr. Draper a dancing master in Holbourn, London. Soon after, by his dexterity in his profession, and his complaisant behaviour to his master's employers, he obtained the favour of them to lend him as much money as to buy out the remaining part of his time, and set up for himself; but being afterwards appointed to dance in the duke of Buckingham's great Masque, by a false step, he strained a vein in the inside of his leg, which ever after occasioned him to halt. He afterwards taught dancing to the sisters of Sir Ralph Hopton, at Wytham in Somersets.h.i.+re, where, at leisure, he learned to handle the pike and musket. When Thomas earl of Strafford became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, he was retained in his family to teach the art of dancing, and being an excellent penman, he was frequently employed by the earl to transcribe papers for him.