PANEGYRIC
LORD PROTECTOR,
Of the prefent Greatnefs, and joint Intereft,
of his HIGHNESS and this Nation.
WHILE with a ftrong, and yet a gentle, hand,
You bridle faction, and our hearts command;
Protect us from ourselves, and from the foe,
Make us unite, and make us conquer too:
Let partial spirits still aloud complain :
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 fhew'd his face
To chide the winds, and fave the Trojan race;
So has your Highness, rais'd above the reft,
Storms of ambition, toffing us, represt.
Your drooping country, torn with civil hate,
Reftor'd by you, is made a glorious state;
The feat of empire, where the Irish come,
And the unwilling Scots, to fetch their doom.
The fea's our own: and now, all nations greet,
With bending fails, each veffel of our fleet:
Your power extends as far as winds can blow,
Or fwelling fails upon the globe may go.
Heaven (that hath plac'd this ifland 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 fure defign'd
To be the facred refuge of mankind.
Hither th' oppressed shall henceforth resort,
Justice to crave, and fuccour, at your Court;
And then your Highness, not for ours alone,
But for the world's Protector shall be known.
Fame, fwifter than your winged navy, flies
Through every land that near the ocean lies;
Sounding your name, and telling dreadful news
To all that piracy and rapine ufe.
With fuch a Chief the meanest nation bleft,
Might hope to lift her head above the rest:
What may be thought impoffible to do
By us, embraced by the Sea and You?
Lords of the world's great wafte, the ocean, we
Whole forests fend to reign upon the sea;
And every coaft may trouble, or relieve:
But none can visit us without
Angels, and we, have this prerogative,
That none can at our happy feats arrive:
While we defcend at pleasure, to invade
The bad with vengeance, and the good to aid.
K 4
Our little world, the image of the great,
Like that, amidst the boundless ocean fet,
Of her own growth hath all that nature craves
And all that 's rare, as tribute from the waves.
As Egypt does not on the clouds rely,
But to the Nile owes more than to the sky;
So, what our earth, and what our heaven, denies,
Our ever-constant friend, the sea, supplies.
The taste of hot Arabia's fpice we know,
Free from the fcorching fun that makes it grow :
Without the worm, in Perfian filks we fhine;
And, without planting, drink of every vine.
To dig for wealth, we weary not our limbs;
Gold, though the heaviest metal, hither swims:
Ours is the harveft where the Indians mow,
We plough the Deep, and reap what others fow.
Things of the noblest kind our own foil breeds;
Stout are our men, and warlike are our steeds :
Rome, though her eagle through the world had flown,
Could never make this island all her own.
Here the third Edward, and the Black Prince too,
France-conquering Henry flourish'd; and now You:
For whom we stay'd, as did the Grecian state,
Till Alexander came to urge their fate.
When for more worlds the Macedonian cry'd,
He wift not Thetis in her lap did hide
Another yet: a world referv'd for you,
To make more great than that he did fubdue.
He fafely might old troops to battle lead,
Against th' unwarlike Perfian and the Mede;
Whose hafty flight did, from a bloodlefs field,
More fpoils than honour to the victor 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 fo 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 fnow,
May blame the fun; but must extol your grace,
Which in our fenate hath allow'd them place.
Prefer'd by conqueft, happily o'erthrown,
Falling they rife, 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 fea are join'd.
Holland, to gain your friendship, is content
To be our out-guard on the Continent:
She from her fellow-provinces would 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 fword 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.
Lefs pleasure take brave minds in battles won,
Than in restoring fuch as are undone :
Tigers have courage, and the rugged bear,
But man alone can whom he conquers fpare.
To pardon, willing; and to punish, loth;
You strike with one hand, but you heal with both.
Lifting up all that proftrate lie, you grieve
You cannot make the dead again to live.
When fate or error had our age mifled,
And o'er this nation fuch confusion spread;
The only cure, which could from heaven come down, Was fo much power and piety in one!
One! whofe extraction from an antient line
Gives hope again that well-born men may shine:
The meanest, in your nature mild and good;
The noble, reft fecured in your blood.
Oft have we wonder'd, how you hid in peace
A mind proportion'd to fuch things as these;
How fuch a ruling fpirit you could refrain,
And practife first over yourself to reign.
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