Recovering hardly what he lost before,
His right endears it much, his purchase more.
Inured to suffer ere he came to reign,
No rash procedure will his actions stain:
To business ripened by digestive thought,
His future rule is into method brought;
As they, who, first, proportion understand,
With easy practice reach a master's hand.
Well might the ancient poets then confer
On Night the honoured name of Counsellor ;
Since, struck with rays of prosperous
fortune blind,
We light alone in dark afflictions find.
In such adversities to sceptres trained,
The name of Great his famous grandsire gained;*
Who yet, a king alone in name and right,
With hunger, cold, and angry Jove did fight;
Shocked by a covenanting League's vast powers,
As holy and as catholic as ours:§

'Till Fortune's fruitless spite had made it known, Her blows not shook, but riveted, his throne.

SOME lazy ages, lost in sleep and ease,
No action leave to busy chronicles:
Such, whose supine felicity but makes
In story chasms, in epocha † mistakes;

O'er whom Time gently shakes his wings of down,
Till with his silent sickle they are mown.
Such is not Charles his too too active age,
Which, governed by the wild distempered rage
Of some black star, infecting all the skies,
Made him at his own cost, like Adam, wise.

* Henry IV. of France, maternal grandfather of Charles II. § Note VIII.

First edition, epoches.

This mode of forming the genitive is adopted from the first edition, as smoother than "Charles's."

Tremble, ye nations, which, secure before,
Laughed at those arms that 'gainst ourselves we bore;
Rouzed by the lash of his own stubborn tail,
Our Lion now will foreign foes assail.
With alga, who the sacred altar strews?
To all the sea-gods Charles an offering owes:
A bull to thee, Portunus, shall be slain,
A lamb to you, ye tempests of the main:*
For those loud storms, that did against him roar,
Have cast his shipwrecked vessel on the shore.
Yet, as wise artists mix their colours so,
That by degrees they from each other go;
Black steals unheeded from the neighbouring white,
Without offending the well-cozened sight:
So on us stole our blessed change; while we
The effect did feel, but scarce the manner see.
Frosts, that constrain the ground, and birth deny
To flowers that in its womb expecting lie,
Do seldom their usurping power withdraw,
But raging floods pursue their hasty thaw;
Our thaw was mild, the cold not chased away,
But lost in kindly heat of lengthened day.
Heaven would no bargain for its blessings drive,
But what we could not pay for, freely give.
The Prince of Peace would, like himself, confer
A gift unhoped, without the price of war :
Yet, as he knew his blessing's worth, took care,
That we should know it by repeated prayer;
Which stormed the skies, and ravished Charles from
thence,

As heaven itself is took by violence.

Booth's forward valour only served to show,
He durst that duty pay, we all did owe:†
The attempt was fair; but heaven's prefixed hour
Not come so, like the watchful traveller,

* Note IX.

+ Note X. .

That by the moon's mistaken light did rise,
Lay down again, and closed his weary eyes.
'Twas Monk, whom Providence designed to loose
Those real bonds false freedom did impose.
The blessed saints, that watched this turning scene,
Did from their stars with joyful wonder lean,
To see small clues draw vastest weights along,
Not in their bulk, but in their order strong.
Thus, pencils can, by one slight touch, restore
Smiles to that changed face that wept before.
With ease such fond chimeras we pursue,
As fancy frames for fancy to subdue:

But when ourselves to action we betake,

It shuns the mint, like gold that chemists make.*
How hard was then his task, at once to be
What in the body natural we see!
Man's architect distinctly did ordain

The charge of muscles, nerves, and of the brain,
Through viewless conduits spirits to dispense;
The springs of motion from the seat of sense.
'Twas not the hasty product of a day,
But the well-ripened fruit of wise delay.
He, like a patient angler, ere he strook,
Would let them play a while upon the hook.
Our healthful food the stomach labours thus,
At first embracing what it straight doth crush.
Wise leaches will not vain receipts obtrude,
While growing pains pronounce the humours crude:
Deaf to complaints, they wait upon the ill,
Till some safe crisis authorize their skill.
Nor could his acts too close a vizard wear,
To 'scape their eyes whom guilt had taught to fear,
And guard with caution that polluted nest,
Whence Legion twice before was dispossest:†
Once sacred house, which when they entered in,

They thought the place could sanctify a sin;
Like those, that vainly hoped kind heaven would wink,
While to excess on martyrs' tombs they drink.
And, as devouter Turks first warn their souls
To part, before they taste forbidden bowls, *
So these, when their black crimes they went about,
First timely charmed their useless conscience out.
Religion's name against itself was made;

The shadow served the substance to invade :
Like zealous missions, they did care pretend
Of souls, in shew, but made the gold their end.
The incensed powers beheld with scorn, from high,
An heaven so far distant from the sky,

Which durst, with horses' hoofs that beat the ground,
And martial brass, bely the thunder's soundt.
'Twas hence, at length, just vengeance thought it fit
To speed their ruin by their impious wit:
Thus Sforza, cursed with a too fertile brain,
Lost by his wiles the power has wit did gain. ‡
Henceforth their fougue must spend at lesser rate,
Than in its flames to wrap a nation's fate.
Suffered to live, they are like Helots set,
A virtuous shame within us to beget; §
For, by example most we sinned before,
And, glass-like, || clearness mixed with frailty bore.
But since, reformed by what we did amiss,
We by our sufferings learn to prize our bliss:
Like early lovers, whose unpractised hearts
Were long the may-game of malicious arts,

Note XIII.

+ Salmoneus, tyrant of Elis made such a contrivance to imitate thunder, for which he was destroyed with lightning by Jupiter; which is here fancifully compared to the military terrors, by which the fanatics supported their religious tenets.

§ Note XV.

‡ Note XIV.
First edition has, "like glass."

7

When once they find their jealousies were vain,
With double heat renew their fires again.

'Twas this produced the joy, that hurried o'er
Such swarms of English to the neighbouring shore,*
To fetch that prize, by which Batavia made
So rich amends for our impoverished trade.
Oh, had you seen from Scheveline's barren shore,†
(Crowded with troops, and barren now no more,)
Afflicted Holland to his farewell bring

True sorrow, Holland to regret a king!‡
While waiting him his royal fleet did ride,
And willing winds to their lower'd sails denied.
The wavering streamers, flags, and standart § out,
The merry seamen's rude but chearful shout;
And last the cannons' voice that shook the skies,
And, as it fares in sudden ecstasies,

At once bereft us both of ears and eyes.
The Naseby, now no longer England's shame,
But better to be lost in Charles his name, ¶
(Like some unequal bride in nobler sheets)
Receives her lord; the joyful London meets
The princely York, himself alone a freight;
TheSwiftsure groans beneath great Gloster's weight:||
Secure as when the halcyon breeds, with these,
He, that was born to drown, might cross the seas.
Heaven could not own a Providence, and take
The wealth three nations ventured at a stake.
The same indulgence Charles his voyage blessed,
Which in his right had miracles confessed.
The winds, that never moderation knew,
Afraid to blow too much, too faintly blew;

* Note XVI.

+ Vote XVII.

↑ Note XVIII.

§ So the first edition; the others read standards. The royal standard is meant.