O'

On the taking of SALLE.

F Jafon, Thefeus, and fuch Worthies old,
Light feem the tales antiquity has told:
Such beafts, and monsters, as their force opprest,
Some places only, and fome times, infest.

Salle, that fcorn'd all power and laws of men,
Goods with their owners hurrying to their den;
And future ages threatening with a rude
And favage race, fucceffively renew'd:
Their King defpifing with rebellious pride,
And foes profeft to all the world befide:
This peft of mankind gives our Hero fame,
And through th' obliged world dilates his name.
The Prophet once to cruel Agag faid,

As thy fierce fword has mothers childless made,
So fhall the sword make thine: and with that word
He hew'd the man in pieces with his sword.

Juft Charles like measure has return'd to thefe,
Whofe pagan hands had ftain'd the troubled feas:
With fhips, they made the spoiled merchants mourn;
With fhips, their city and themselves are torn.
One fquadron of our winged caftles fent
O'erthrew their Fort, and all their Navy rent:
For, not content the dangers to increase,
And act the part of tempefts in the seas;
Like hungry wolves, thofe pirates from our shore
Whole flocks of fheep, and ravish'd cattle, bore.
Safely they might on other nations prey;

Fools to provoke the Sovereign of the fea!

Mad

Mad Cacus fo, whom like ill fate perfuades,
The herd of fair Alcmena's feed invades ;
Who, for revenge, and mortals' glad relief,
Sack'd the dark cave, and crush'd that horrid thief.
Morocco's monarch, wondering at this fact,

Save that his presence his affairs exact,
Had come in perfon, to have seen and known
The injur'd world's avenger and his own.
Hither, he fends the chief among his Peers,
Who in his bark proportion'd prefents bears,
To the renown'd for piety and force,

Poor captives manumis'd, and matchless horse.

Upon his Majefty's repairing of ST. PAUL'S.

TH

HAT fhipwreck'd veffel which th' Apostle bore,' Scarce fuffer'd more upon Melita's fhore, Than did his temple in the fea of time; Our nation's glory, and our nation's crime. When the first * Monarch of this happy Isle, Mov'd with the ruin of fo brave a pile, This work of coft and piety begun, To be accomplish'd by his Glorious Son: Who all that came within the ample thought Of his wife Sire, has to perfection brought. He, like Amphion, makes thofe quarries leap Into fair figures from a confus'd heap: For in his art of regiment is found A power, like that of harmony in found.

* King James I.

Thofe

Those antique minstrels fure were Charles-like Kings, Cities their lutes, and fubjects' hearts their strings; On which with fo divine a hand they strook, Consent of motion from their breath they took : So, all our minds with his conspire to grace The Gentiles' great Apoftle; and deface Those state-obfcuring sheds, that like a chain Seem'd to confine, and fetter him again : Which the glad Saint shakes off at his command, As once the viper from his facred hand. So joys the aged oak, when we divide The creeping ivy from his injur'd fide.

Ambition rather would affect the fame

Of some new structure, to have borne her name:
Two diftant virtues in one act we find,

The modesty, and greatness, of his mind :
Which, not content to be above the rage
And injury of all-impairing age,

In its own worth fecure, doth higher climb,
And things half swallow'd, from the jaws of time
Reduce an earnest of his grand design,

To frame no new Church, but the old refine :
Which, fpoufe-like, may with comely grace command,
More than by force of argument or hand.

For, doubtful reafon few can apprehend;

And war brings ruin, where it should amend :
But beauty, with a bloodless conquest, finds
A welcome fovereignty in rudest minds.

Not aught which Sheba's wondering Queen beheld Amongst the works of Solomon, excell'd

His ships and building; emblems of a heart
Large both in magnanimity and art.

While the propitious heavens this work attend, The showers long wanted they forget to send: As if they meant to make it understood Of more importance than our vital food. The fun, which riseth to falute the Quire Already finish'd, fetting fhall admire How private bounty cou'd fo far extend: The King built all; but Charles the western-end So proud a fabric to devotion giv’n, At once it threatens, and obliges, heaven! Laomedon, that had the Gods in pay, Neptune, with him † that rules the facred day, Could no fuch ftructure raise: Troy wall'd fo high, Th' Atrides might as well have forc'd the sky.

Glad, though amazed, are our neighbour Kings, To fee fuch power employ'd in peaceful things: They lift not urge it to the dreadful field; The task is easier to destroy, than build.

Sic gratia Regum

Pieriis tentata modis. *** HORAT.

† Apollo.

To

To the QUEEN, Occasioned upon sight of Her Majesty's

W

Picture.

WELL fare the hand! which to our humble fight
Prefents that beauty, which the dazzling light

Of Royal fplendor hides from weaker eyes:

And all accefs, fave by this art, denies.
Here only we have courage to behold
This beam of glory: here we dare unfold
In numbers thus the wonders we conceive:
The gracious image, feeming to give leave,
Propitious ftands, vouchfafing to be feen;
And by our Mufe faluted, Mighty Queen :
In whom th' extremes of power and beauty move,
The Queen of Britain, and the Queen of Love!
As the bright fun (to which we owe no fight
Of equal glory to your beauty's light)
Is wifely plac'd in fo fublime a feat,

T'extend his light, and moderate his heat:
So, happy 'tis you move in fuch a sphere,
As your high Majefty with awful fear
In human breafts might qualify that fire,
Which kindled by thofe eyes had flamed higher,
Than when the fcorched world like hazard run,
By the approach of the ill-guided fun.

No other nymphs have title to men's hearts,
But as their meannefs larger hope imparts:
Your beauty more the fondest lover moves
With admiration, than his private loves