There th' hapless queen amongst an hundred dames,
And Priam quenching from his wounds those flames
Which his own hands had on the altar laid;
Then they the secret cabinets invade,
Where stood the fifty nuptial beds, the hopes
Of that great race; the golden posts, whose tops
Old hostile spoils adorn'd, demolish'd lay,
Or to the foe, or to the fire a prey,
Now Priam's fate perhaps you may enquire :
Seeing his empire lost, his Troy on fire,
And his own palace by the Greeks pofseft,
Arms long disus’d his trembling limbs inveft;
Thus on his foes he throws himself alone,
Not for their fate, but to provoke his own :
There stood an altar open to the view
Of heaven, near which an aged laurel grew,
Whose shady arms the houshold gods embrac'd ;
Before whose feet the queen herself had cast
With all her daughters, and the Trojan wives,
As doves whom an approaching tempest drives
And frights into one flock; but having spy'd
Old Priam clad in youthful arms, she cried,
Alas, my wretched husband, what pretence
To bear those arms, and in them what defence?
Such aid such timés require not, when again
If Hector were alive, he liv'd in vain
Or here we shall a sanctuary find,
Or as in life we shall in death be join'd.
Then weeping, with kind force held and embrac’d,
And on the secret seat the king she plac'd.

Mean

D3

Meanwhile Polites, one of Priam's fons,
Flying the rage of bloody Pyrrhus, runs
Through foes and swords, and ranges all the court
And empty galleries, amaz’d and hurt;
Pyrrhus pursues him, now o'ertakes, now kills,
And his last blood in Priam's presence spills.
The king (though him so many deaths inclose)
Nor fear, nor grief, but indignation shows;
The gods requite thee (if within the care
Of those above th'affairs of mortals are)
Whose fury on the fon but loft had been,
Had not his parents' eyes his murder seen :
Not that Achilles (whom thou feign'st to be
Thy father) fo inhuman was to me;
He blusht, when I the rights of arms implorid;
To me my Hector, me to Troy restorid :
This faid, his feeble arm a javelin flung,
Which on the founding shield, scarce entering, rang.
Then Pyrrhus ; Go a messenger to hell
Of my black deeds, and to my father tell
The acts of his degenerate race. So through
His son's warm blood the trembling king he drew
To th’altar; in his hair one hand he wreaths ;
His sword the other in his bosom fheaths.
Thus fell the king, who yet surviv'd the state,
With such a signal and peculiar fate,
Under so vast a ruin, not a grave,
Nor in such flames a funeral fire to have :
He whom such titles swell’d, fuch power made proud,
To whom the fceptres of all Asia bow'd,

On

On the cold earth lies th' unregarded king,
A leadless carcase, and a nameless thing.

On the Earl of STAFFORD's Trial and Death.

GR
REAT Stafford! worthy of that name, though all

Of thee could be forgotten, but thy fall,
Crush'd by imaginary treason's weight,
Which too much merit did accumulate :
As chemifts gold from brass by fire would draw,
Pretexts are into treason forg'd by law.
His wisdom such, at once it did appear
Three kingdoms wonder, and three kingdoms fear;
Whilst single he stood forth, and feemd, although
Each had an army, as an equal foe.
Such was his force of eloquence, to make
The hearers more concern'd than he that spake;
Each seem'd to act that part he came to see;
And none was more a looker-on than he;
So did he move our passions, some were known
To wish, for the defence, the crime their own.
Now private pity strove with public hate,
Reason with rage, and eloquence with fate :
Now they could him, if he could them forgive ;
He's not too guilty, but too wife to live ;
Lefs seem those facts which treason's nick-name bore,
Than such a fear'd ability for more.
They after death their fears of him express,
His innocence and their own guilt confess.

Their

D A

Their legislative frenzy they repent :
Enacting it should make no precedent.
This fate he could have 'scap'd, but would not lose
Honour for life, but rather nobly chose
Death from their fears, than safety from his own,
That his last action all the rest might crown.

On my Lord CROFT'S and my Journey into

Poland, from whence we brought 10,000 l, for his Majesty, by the Decimation of his Scottish Subjects there.

Who having felt a touch
Of Cockram's greedy clutch,
Which though it was not much,
Yet their stubbornness was such,
That when we did arrive,
'Gainst the stream we did strive ;
They would neither lead nor drive :

Nor lend
An ear to a friend,
Nor an answer would send
To our letter fo well penn'd.

Nor