The committee said, that verily
To popery it was bent;

For ought I know, it might be so,
For to church it never went.
What with excise, and such device,

The kingdom doth begin

To think you'll leave them ne'er a cross,
Without doors nor within.

Methinks the common-council shou'd
Of it have taken pity,

'Cause, good old cross, it always stood

So firmly to the city.

Since crosses you so much disdain,

Faith, if I were as you,

For fear the king should rule again,

I'd pull down Tiburn too.

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Witlocke says, 'May 3, 1643, Cheapside cross and other crosses were voted down,' &c.- -But this Vote was not put in execution with regard to Charing Cross till four years after, as appears from Lilly's Observations on the Life, &c. of K. Charles, viz. Charing-Cross, we know, was pulled down, 1647, in June, July, and August. Part of the stones were converted to pave before Whitehall. I have seen knife-hafts made of some of the stones, which, being well-polished, looked like marble.' Ed. 1715, p. 18, 12mo. See an Account of the pulling down Cheapside Cross, in the Supplement to Gent. Mag. 1764.

XII.

LOYALTY CONFINED.

This excellent old song is preserved in David Lloyd's 'Memoires of those that suffered in the cause of Charles I.' Lond. 1668, fol. p. 96. He speaks of it as the composition of a worthy personage, who suffered deeply in those times, and was still living with no other reward than the conscience of having suffered. The author's name he has not mentioned, but, if tradition may be credited, this song was written by Sir Roger L'Estrange.1-Some mistakes in Lloyd's copy are corrected by two others, one in MS. the other in the Westminster Drollery, or a choice Collection of Songs and Poems, 1671,' 12mo.

1 Sir Roger L'Estrange was a kind of pamphlet and squib writer to the Court. He died in 1704, aged 88.-ED.

BEAT on, proud billows; Boreas blow;

Swell, curled waves, high as Jove's roof; Your incivility doth show,

That innocence is tempest proof;

Though surly Nereus frown, my thoughts are calm; 5 Then strike, Affliction! for thy wounds are balm.

That which the world miscalls a jail,

A private closet is to me:
Whilst a good conscience is my bail,

And innocence my liberty:

Locks, bars, and solitude, together met,
Make me no prisoner, but an anchoret.

I, whilst I wisht to be retir'd,

Into this private room was turn'd; As if their wisdoms had conspir'd

The salamander should be burn'd;

Or like those sophists, that would drown a fish,

I am constrain'd to suffer what I wish.

The cynick loves his poverty;

The pelican her wilderness; And 'tis the Indian's pride to be

Naked on frozen Caucasus:

Contentment cannot smart, Stoicks we see

Make torments easie to their apathy.

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These manacles upon my arm

I, as my mistress' favours, wear;

And for to keep my ancles warm,

I have some iron shackles there: These walls are but my garrison; this cell, Which men call jail, doth prove my citadel.

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I'm in the cabinet lockt up,

Like some high-prized margarite, Or, like the great mogul or pope,

Am cloyster'd up from publick sight: Retiredness is a piece of majesty,

And thus, proud sultan, I'm as great as thee.

Here sin for want of food must starve,

Where tempting objects are not seen;

And these strong walls do only serve

To keep vice out, and keep me in: Malice of late's grown charitable, sure, I'm not committed, but am kept secure.

So he that struck at Jason's life,1

Thinking t' have made his purpose sure,

By a malicious friendly knife

Did only wound him to a cure:

Malice, I see, wants wit; for what is meant
Mischief, oft-times proves favour by th' event.

When once my prince affliction hath,

Prosperity doth treason seem;

And to make smooth so rough a path,

I can learn patience from him:

Now not to suffer shews no loyal heart,

When kings want ease subjects must bear a part.

What though I cannot see my king

Neither in person or in coin;

Yet contemplation is a thing

That renders what I have not, mine:

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1 See this remarkable story in Cicero de Nat. Deorum. Lib. 3, c. 28. Cic.

de Offic. Lib. 1, c. 30; see also Vol. Max. 1. 8.

My king from me what adamant can part,
Whom I do wear engraven on my heart?

Have you not seen the nightingale,

A prisoner like, coopt in a cage,
How doth she chaunt her wonted tale
In that her narrow hermitage?

Even then her charming melody doth prove,
That all her bars are trees, her cage a grove.

I am that bird, whom they combine
Thus to deprive of liberty;

But though they do my corps confine,

Yet maugre hate, my soul is free:

And though immur'd, yet can I chirp, and sing
Disgrace to rebels, glory to my king.

My soul is free, as ambient air,
Although my baser part's immew'd,
Whilst loyal thoughts do still repair
T'accompany my solitude:

Although rebellion do my body binde,
My king alone can captivate my minde.

XIII.

VERSES BY K. CHARLES I.

This prince, like his father, did not confine himself to prose: Bishop Burnet has given us a pathetic elegy, said to be written by Charles in Carisbrook castle [in 1648.] The poetry is most uncouth and unharmonious, but there are strong thoughts in it, some good sense, and a strain of majestic piety.' Mr. Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors, vol. I.

It is in his Memoirs of the Duke of Hamilton,' p. 379, that Burnet hath preserved this elegy, which he tells us he had from a gentleman, who waited on the king at the time when it was written, and copied it out from the original.

It is there intitled, 'MAJESTY IN MISERY: OR AN IMPLORATION TO THE KING OF KINGS.'

Hume hath remarked of these stanzas, 'that the truth of the sentiment, rather than the elegance of the expression, renders them very pathetic.' See his hist. 1763, 4to. Vol. V. pp. 437, 442, which is no bad comment upon them. These are almost the only verses known of Charles's composition. Indeed a little Poem On a quiet Conscience, printed in the Poetical Calendar, 1763, vol. VIII. is attributed to K. Charles I; being reprinted from a thin 8vo. published by Nahum Tate, called 'Miscellanea Sacra, or Poems on Divine and Moral Subjects.'

GREAT monarch of the world, from whose power springs The potency and power of kings,

Record the royal woe my suffering sings;

And teach my tongue, that ever did confine
Its faculties in truth's seraphick line,
To track the treasons of thy foes and mine.

Nature and law, by thy divine decree, (The only root of righteous royaltie) With this dim diadem invested me:

With it, the sacred scepter, purple robe,
The holy unction, and the royal globe:
Yet am I levell'd with the life of Job.

The fiercest furies, that do daily tread
Upon my grief, my grey discrowned head,
Are those that owe my bounty for their bread.

They raise a war, and christen it the cause,
While sacrilegious hands have best applause,
Plunder and murder are the kingdom's laws;

Tyranny bears the title of taxation,
Revenge and robbery are reformation,

Oppression gains the name of sequestration.

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