Think themselves injur'd that they cannot reign,
And own no liberty, but where they may
Without controul upon their fellows prey.
Above the waves as Neptune shew'd his face
To chide the winds, and save the Trojan race;
So has your Highness, rais'd above the rest,
Storms of Ambition tossing us represt.
Your drooping country, torn with civil hate,
Restor'd by you, is made a glorious state;
The feat of empire, where the Irish come,
And the unwilling Scotch, to fetch their doom.
The sea's our own, and now all nations greet,
With bending sails, each vessel of our fleet.
Your pow'r extends as far as winds can blow,
Or swelling sails upon the globe may go.
Heav'n, that hath plac'd this island to give law,
To balance Europe, and her states to awe,
In this conjunction doth on Britain smile;
The greatest leader, and the greatest isle.
Whether this portion of the world were rent
By the rude ocean from the Continent,
Or thus created, it was sure design'd
To be the sacred refuge of mankind.
Hither th' oppressed shall henceforth resort
Justice to crave, and succour at your court;
And then your Highness, not for our's alone,
But for the world's Protector shall be known.
Fame swifter than your winged navy flies
Thro' ev'ry land that near the ocean lies,
Sounding your name, and telling dreadful News
To all that piracy and rapine use.
With such a chief the meanest nation blest,
Might hope to lift her head above the rest:
What may be thought impossible to do
By us, embraced by the seas, and you?
Lords of the world's great waste, the ocean, we
Whole forests send to reign upon the sea,
And ev'ry coast may trouble or relieve;
But none can visit us without your leave.
Angels and we have this prerogative,
That none can at our happy seats arrive;
While we descend at pleasure to invade
The bad with vengeance, and the good to aid.
Our little world, the image of the great,
Like that, amidst the boundless ocean set,
Of her own growth hath all that nature craves,
And all that's rare, as tribute from the waves.
As Ægypt does not on the clouds rely,
But to the Nile owes more than to the sky;
So what our Earth and what our heav'n denies,
Our ever-constant friend the sea, supplies.
The taste of hot Arabia's spice we know,
Free from the scorching sun that makes it grow;
Without the worm in Persian silks we shine,
And without planting drink of ev'ry vine.
To dig for wealth we weary not our limbs.
Gold (tho' the heaviest Metal) hither swims:
Our's is the harvest where the Indians mow,
We plough the deep, and reap what others sow.
Things of the noblest kind our own soil breeds;
Stout are our men, and warlike are our steeds;
Rome (tho' her eagle thro' the world had flown)
Cou'd never make this island all her own.
Here the third Edward, and the Black Prince too,
France conq'ring Henry flourish'd, and now you;
For whom we staid, as did the Grecian state,
Till Alexander came to urge their fate.
When for more world's the Macedonian cry'd,
He wist not Thetys in her lap did hide
Another yet, a word reserv'd for you,
To make more great than that he did subdue.
He safely might old troops to battle lead
Against th' unwarlike Persian, and the Mede;
Whose hasty flight did from a bloodless field,
More spoils than honour to the visitor yield.
A race unconquer'd, by their clime made bold,
The Caledonians arm'd with want and cold,
Have, by a fate indulgent to your fame,
Been from all ages kept for you to tame.
Whom the old Roman wall so ill confin'd,
With a new chain of garrisons you bind:
Here foreign gold no more shall make them come,
Our English Iron holds them fast at home.
They that henceforth must be content to know
No warmer region than their hills of snow,
May blame the sun, but must extol your grace,
Which in our senate hath allow'd them place.
Preferr'd by conquest, happily o'erthrown,
Falling they rise, to be with us made one:
So kind dictators made, when they came home,
Their vanquish'd foes free citizens of Rome.
Like favour find the Irish, with like fate
Advanc'd to be a portion of our state:
While by your valour, and your bounteous mind,
Nations, divided by the sea, are join'd.
Holland, to gain your friendship, is content
To be our out-guard on the continent:
She from her fellow-provinces wou'd go,
Rather than hazard to have you her foe.
In our late fight, when cannons did diffuse
(Preventing posts) the terror and the news;
Our neighbour princes trembled at their roar:
But our conjunction makes them tremble more.
Your never-failing sword made war to cease,
And now you heal us with the acts of peace
Our minds with bounty and with awe engage,
Invite affection, and restrain our rage.
Less pleasure take brave minds in battles won,
Than in restoring such as are undone:
Tygers have courage, and the rugged bear,
But man alone can whom he conquers, spare.
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 shine:
The meanest in your nature mild and good,
The noble 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 Cæsar 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.
Illustrious 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,
entitled, 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 Somersetshire, 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.
In his lordship's family it was that he first gave proofs of his
inclination to poetry, by translating some of Æsop's Fables into
English verse, which he communicated to some learned men, who
understood Latin better than he, by whose assistance and advice he
published them. He was one of the troop of guards belonging to the
earl, and composed an humourous piece entitled the Character of a
Trooper. About the time he was supported by his lordship, he was made
master of the revels for the kingdom of Ireland, and built a little
theatre for the representation of dramatic entertainments, in St.
Warburgh's street in Dublin: but upon the breaking out of the
rebellion in that kingdom, he was several times in great danger of his
life, particularly when he narrowly escaped being blown up in the
castle of Rathfarnam. About the time of the conclusion of the war in
England, he left Ireland, and being shipwrecked, came to London in a
very necessitous condition. After he had made a short stay in the
metropolis, he travelled on foot to Cambridge, where his great
industry, and love of learning, recommended him to the notice of
several scholars, by whose assistance he became so compleat a master
of the Latin tongue, that in 1646 he published an English translation
of Virgil, which was printed in large 8vo. and dedicated to William
marquis of Hereford. He reprinted it at London 1654 in fol. with this
title; The Works of Publius Virgilius Maro, translated and adorned
with Sculptures, and illustrated with Annotations; which, Mr. Wood
tells us, was the fairest edition, that till then, the English press
ever produced. About the year 1654 our indefatigable author learned
the Greek language, and in four year's time published in fol. a
translation of Homer's Iliad, adorned with excellent sculptures,
illustrated with Annotations, and addressed to King Charles II. The
same year he published the Bible in a large fol. at Cambridge,
according to the translation set forth by the special command of King
James I. with the Liturgy and Articles of the Church of England, with
Chorographical Sculptures. About the year 1662 he went into Ireland,
then having obtained a patent to be made master of the revels there, a
place which Sir William Davenant sollicited in vain. Upon this
occasion he built a theatre at Dublin, which cost him 2000 l. the
former being ruined during the troubles. In 1664 he published in
London, in fol. a translation of Homer's Odyssey, with Sculptures, and
Notes. He afterwards wrote two heroic poems, one entitled the Ephesian
Matron, the other the Roman Slave, both dedicated to Thomas earl of
Ossory. The next work he composed was an Epic Poem in 12 Books, in
honour of King Charles I. but this was entirely lost in the fire of
London in September 1666, when Mr. Ogilby's house in White Fryars was
burnt down, and his whole fortune, except to the value of five pounds,
destroyed. But misfortunes seldom had any irretrievable consequences
to Ogilby, for by his insinuating address, and most astonishing
industry, he was soon able to repair whatever loss he sustained by any
cross accident. It was not long till he fell on a method of raising a
fresh sum of money. Procuring his house to be rebuilt, he set up a
printing-office, was appointed his Majesty's Cosmographer and
Geographic Printer, and printed many great works translated and
collected by himself and his assistants, the enumeration of which
would be unnecessary and tedious.
This laborious man died September 4, 1676, and was interred in the
vault under part of the church in St. Bride's in Fleet-street. Mr.
Edward Philips in his Theatrum Poetarum stiles him one of the
prodigies, from producing, after so late an initiation into
literature, so many large and learned volumes, as well in verse as in
prose, and tells us, that his Paraphrase upon Æsop's Fables, is
generally confessed to have exceeded whatever hath been done before in
that kind.
As to our author's poetry, we have the authority of Mr. Pope to
pronounce it below criticism, at least his translations; and in all
probability his original epic poems which we have never seen, are not
much superior to his translations of Homer and Virgil. If Ogilby had
not a poetical genius, he was notwithstanding a man of parts, and made
an amazing proficiency in literature, by the force of an unwearied
application. He cannot be sufficiently commended for his virtuous
industry, as well as his filial piety, in procuring, in so early a
time of life, his father's liberty, when he was confined in a prison.
Ogilby seems indeed to have been a good sort of man, and to have
recommended himself to the world by honest means, without having
recourse to the servile arts of flattery, and the blandishments of
falshood. He is an instance of the astonishing efficacy of
application; had some more modern poets been blessed with a thousandth
part of his oeconomy and industry, they needed not to have lived in
poverty, and died of want. Although Ogilby cannot be denominated a
genius, yet he found means to make a genteel livelihood by literature,
which many of the sons of Parnassus, blessed with superior powers,
curse as a very dry and unpleasing soil, but which proceeds more from
want of culture, than native barrenness.
Footnote:
1. Athen Oxon. vol. ii. p. 378.
* * * * *
WILMOT, Earl of ROCHESTER.
It is an observation founded on experience, that the poets have, of
all other men, been most addicted to the gratifications of appetite,
and have pursued pleasure with more unwearied application than men of
other characters. In this respect they are indeed unhappy, and have
ever been more subject to pity than envy. A violent love of pleasure,
if it does not destroy, yet, in a great measure, enervates all other
good qualities with which a man may be endowed; and as no men have
ever enjoyed higher parts from nature, than the poets, so few, from
this unhappy attachment to pleasure, have effected so little good by
those amazing powers. Of the truth of this observation, the nobleman,
whose memoirs we are now to present to the reader, is a strong and
indelible instance, for few ever had more ability, and more frequent
opportunities, for promoting the interests of society, and none ever
prostituted the gifts of Heaven to a more inglorious purpose. Lord
Rochester was not more remarkable for the superiority of his parts,
than the extraordinary debauchery of his life, and with his
dissipations of pleasure, he suffered sometimes malevolent principles
to govern him, and was equally odious for malice and envy, as for the
boundless gratifications of his appetites.
This is, no doubt, the character of his lordship, confirmed by all who
have transmitted any account of him: but if his life was supremely
wicked, his death was exemplarily pious; before he approached to the
conclusion of his days, he saw the follies of his former pleasures, he
lived to repent with the severest contrition, and charity obliges all
men to believe that he was as sincere in his protestations of
penitence, as he had been before in libertine indulgence. The apparent
sorrow he felt, arising from the stings and compunctions of
conscience, entitle him to the reader's compassion, and has determined
us to represent his errors with all imaginable tenderness; which, as
it is agreeable to every benevolent man, so his lordship has a right
to this indulgence, since he obliterated his faults by his penitence,
and became so conspicuous an evidence on the side of virtue, by his
important declarations against the charms of vice.
Lord Rochester was son of the gallant Henry lord Wilmot, who engaged
with great zeal in the service of King Charles I. during the civil
wars, and was so much in favour with Charles II. that he entrusted his
person to him, after the unfortunate battle of Worcester, which trust
he discharged with so much fidelity and address, that the young King
was conveyed out of England into France, chiefly by his care,
application and vigilance. The mother of our author was of the ancient
family of the St. Johns in Wiltshire, and has been celebrated both for
her beauty and parts.
In the year 1648, distinguished to posterity, by the fall of Charles
I. who suffered on a scaffold erected before the window of his own
palace, our author was born at Dichley, near Woodstock, in the same
county, the scene of many of his pleasures, and of his death. His
lordship's father had the misfortune to reap none of the rewards of
suffering loyalty, for he died in 1660, immediately before the
restoration, leaving his son as the principal part of his inheritance,
his titles, honours, and the merit of those extraordinary services he
had done the crown; but though lord Wilmot left his son but a small
estate, yet he did not suffer in his education by these means, for the
oeconomy of his mother supplied that deficiency, and he was educated
suitable to his quality. When he was at school (it is agreed by all
his biographers) he gave early instances of a readiness of wit; and
those shining parts which have since appeared with so much lustre,
began then to shew themselves: he acquired the Latin to such
perfection, that, to his dying day, he retained a great relish for the
masculine firmness, as well as more elegant beauties of that language,
and was, says Dr. Burnet, 'exactly versed in those authors who were
the ornaments of the court of Augustus, which he read often with the
peculiar delight which the greatest wits have often found in those
studies.' When he went to the university, the general joy which
over-ran the nation upon his Majesty's return, amounted to something
like distraction, and soon spread a very malignant influence through
all ranks of life. His lordship tasted the pleasures of libertinism,
which then broke out in a full tide, with too acute a relish, and was
almost overwhelmed in the abyss of wantonness. His tutor was Dr.
Blandford, afterwards promoted to the sees of Oxford and Worcester,
and under his inspection he was committed to the more immediate care
of Phinehas Berry, fellow of Wadham College, a man of learning and
probity, whom his lordship afterwards treated with much respect, and
rewarded as became a great man; but notwithstanding the care of his
tutor, he had so deeply engaged in the dissipations of the general
jubilee, that he could not be prevailed upon to renew his studies,
which were totally lost in the joys more agreeable to his inclination.
He never thought of resuming again the pursuit of knowledge, 'till the
fine address of his governor, Dr. Balfour, won him in his travels, by
degrees, to those charms of study, which he had through youthful
levity forsaken, and being seconded by reason, now more strong, and a
more mature taste of the pleasure of learning, which the Dr. took care
to place in the most agreeable and advantageous light, he became
enamoured of knowledge, in the pursuit of which he often spent those
hours he sometimes stole from the witty, and the fair. He returned
from his travels in the 18th year of his age, and appeared at court
with as great advantage as any young nobleman ever did. He had a
graceful and well proportioned person, was master of the most refined
breeding, and possessed a very obliging and easy manner. He had a vast
vivacity of thought, and a happy flow of expression, and all who
conversed with him entertained the highest opinion of his
understanding; and 'tis indeed no wonder he was so much caressed at a
court which abounded with men of wit, countenanced by a merry prince,
who relished nothing so much as brilliant conversation.
Soon after his lordship's return from his travels, he took the first
occasion that offered, to hazard his life in the service of his
country.
In the winter of the year 1665 he went to sea, with the earl of
Sandwich, when he was sent out against the Dutch East India fleet, and
was in the ship called the Revenge, commanded by Sir Thomas Tiddiman,
when the attack was made on the port of Bergen in Norway, the Dutch
Ships having got into that port. It was, says Burnet, 'as desperate an
attempt as ever was made, and during the whole action, the earl of
Rochester shewed as brave and resolute a courage as possible. A person
of honour told me he heard the lord Clifford, who was in the same
ship, often magnify his courage at that time very highly; nor did the
rigour of the season, the hardness of the voyage, and the extreme
danger he had been in, deter him from running the like the very next
occasion; for the summer following he went to sea again, without
communicating his design to his nearest relations. He went aboard the
ship commanded by Sir Edward Spragge, the day before the great
sea-fight of that year; almost all the volunteers that went in that
ship were killed. During the action, Sir Edward Spragge not being
satisfied with the behaviour of one of the captains, could not easily
find a person that would undertake to venture through so much danger
to carry his command to the captain; this lord offered himself to the
service, and went in a little boat, through all the shot, and
delivered his message, and returned back to Sir Edward, which was much
commended by all that saw it.' These are the early instances of
courage, which can be produced in favour of lord Rochester, which was
afterwards impeached, and very justly, for in many private broils, he
discovered a timid pusillanimous spirit, very unsuitable to those
noble instances of the contrary, which have just been mentioned.