A POETICAL ESSAY Devoted to the Glorious Memory Of Our Late QUEEN, Occasion'd by a Number of POEMS, AND SERMONS, Upon Her Death.
Virtutem incolumem odimus,
Sublatam ex oculis quaerimus invidi.
Hor.
LONDON, Printed in the Year MDCXCV.
A POETICAL ESSAY Devoted to the Glorious Memory OF Our Late QUEEN; Occasioned by a Number of POEMS, and SERMONS, upon her Death.
POets, and Priests, alike aspire to Fame,
In paying Tribute to MARIA's Name:
But with this Difference suted to each Trade,
The Poets lay her in a Past'ral Shade,
While th' others make her Heav'ns High Throne invade.
Yet we this pious Fraud might Priests forgive,
Did they conceal the Arts by which they live:
Since they would have't her chief Design did lie
To raise their Faction, call'd the Church, more high;
To cramp the Blessings of her glorious Reign,
And to a few the Sovereign Good restrain;
No wonder that they her a Goddess make,
And for Divine her great Example take.
But as she liv'd, above their Forms, she dy'd,
And seiz'd that Seal of Grace they'd have deny'd:
While at the Folly of the Priests she griev'd:
I go, she said, to the Just Judg above,
Who my sincere Intentions will approve.
Bless'd Words! instructive to all times to come,
Worthy to be inscrib'd upon her Tomb!
An Abstract of those Vertues of her Life,
Which fitted her to be our Caesar's Wife.
Nor was such Sense mere Lightning before Death,
(A Beam from Heav'n ushring her parting Breath)
For long before, her elevated Mind
Was from the Ferment of Church-Dregs refin'd.
Churchmen would have the Rights of Kings Divine,
Not to be sever'd till themselves resign:
But She Religion much more sacred held,
And that her Father against that rebell'd.
To this bright Cause her Hero She resign'd,
Pleas'd when with Rebels, so miscall'd, he join'd:
Nor did She think their Civil Rights below
The Benefit, which Heroes Mankind owe.
Her Holy Dreams did the Success prevent,
Anticipating Fate's benign Intent.
A Canopy of State Angels had spread,
And with a sev'ral Crown adorn'd each Head;
To Man and Wife did equal Right proclaim,
A Right which from the Choice of Heav'n, and Nations, came.
Nor was this all the Vision did contain,
It shew'd the Glories of her shortned Reign;
How prais'd, and how admir'd, She kept the Throne
Making no Crime of Ancestours her own.
Then She the Action at the Boyn descry'd,
How Caesar, and his Fortune, stemm'd the Tide:
How, like the God of War, he Terror spread,
While to sure Victory his Troops he led.
To future Fights She followed on the View,
And amidst thousands his Distinction knew.
Fear hardly ever touch'd her tender Breast,
Whatever Dangers on her Warriour press'd;
She saw his Angel brightning all around,
Healing, if not diverting, every Wound;
Discern'd the numerous Trophies yet in store,
Till humbled France of him shall Peace implore.
Thence, to her raptur'd intellectual Eye,
A more delightful Scene did open lie:
The many Years She numbred by her Smiles,
Peace, and her Hero, are to bless the Isles,
Which the calm Influence through the World disperse;
England being Center to the Universe.
Tho She foresaw how ill Men were prepar'd,
T' enjoy th' Advantages they might have shar'd;
And that She must be hast'ned from our Eyes,
Before we should her Vertues duly prize;
Pretended Friends would her Usurpress call,
Or let a Vail o're her best Actions fall;
The Prospect of the Good that will ensue,
The many Suns with Blessings to renew;
While He, who next to Heaven possess'd her Heart,
Like that, to all Mankind shall Good impart;
Made her not feel the Thorns about her Crown,
Nor could her Enemies extort a Frown.
Could She have Nature forc'd to be severe,
They would have been converted by their Fear.
Yet She in this follow'd Her Saviour,
Who shewing more his Goodness than his Power,
Was disesteem'd by the Rebellious Jews,
Who did their King, ordain'd by God, refuse.
Had either been what Samuel had foretold,
The Manner of the most should Empire hold;
Our Murm'rers had been hush'd with those of old.
The Malice of the Jews Triumphant was,
When Christ to his Celestial Throne did pass:
But Men, through Ages of their Miserie,
What 'tis to fight against God's Pleasure see:
Our Kings, and Queens, of Saxon Blood he chose;
In our departed Queen, and present King,
The best of all that Race he did to Empire bring.
Who would not this kind Gift of Heav'n receive,
Too late will at their Opposition grieve:
They fancy'd, that our Sov'raign's Pow'r decreas'd,
As soon as the soft Partnership had ceas'd:
Not knowing, that the Beams of Light diffus'd,
To yield less Force than when contracted us'd:
Who glory that their Interest now revives,
May want an Intercession for their Lives;
Of ‖ which for Omen they his End may take,
Who breath'd his last, as he his Boast did make:
Death stopp'd his Curses, and his fatal Joy;
God did for this no Instrument employ;
Shewing how that blind Party shall it self destroy.
Some think that Miracles were out of date,
Since the first Ages of the Christian State:
They at the Martyrs Tombs, believe 'em wrought,
In Confirmation of the Truths they taught:
But when new Doctrines set up for Divine,
For then Confusion may not Wonders shine?
So long the World with Torism was o're-run,
Conviction with so powerful Spells they shun;
That their Magicians will with most prevail
Till their fierce Serpent's swallow'd with its fiery Tail.
For all the Wonders of the blooming Rod,
Men murmur'd soon at Moses and his God.
Such we have here, Men of a slavish Mind,
Like * Russian Wives, griev'd at a Pow'r that's kind:
These the Egyptian Leeks and Garlick chuse,
Before the Manna, those Celestial Dews:
Heav'n to the Wicked would no Heav'n be found,
Till it their former Thoughts and Habits drown'd:
Hence, the old Instruments of lawless Might,
Keep such a pother with a vanish'd Right.
A Right t' enslave all but the Sacred Tribe,
Who liv'd to curse the Rules they did prescribe:
Till their Artillery on themselves was turn'd,
They the apparent Mischief never learn'd.
The Pulpits then join'd with the People's Voice;
And a Deliv'rance was the General Choice:
But when the bloodless Work of Heav'n was wrought,
The Battel being before by William's Angel fought;
Leaving the conj'ring Jesuits to despair;
Since which they can't their Belzebub excite,
But some weak Ghost, impatient of the Light;
That Light which over King and Queen did spread,
And now unites upon the Hero's Head;
The Jesuits, and their Fiends, appearing weak,
Mad Church-men to supply their Places seek.
Now see we the last Efforts of that Rage,
Which has turmoil'd the World in ev'ry Age:
But shall we ne're have Peace till Priests have Power,
Till to a ‖ Desolation they devour?
The Blessings which our Queen bequeath'd these Isles,
Surely, in time will free us from their Wiles:
All private Interest shall to publick yield,
And William long a peaceful Scepter weild:
The Thoughts of mighty Toils and Triumphs past,
Aud their Effects, which shall to Ages last;
Will by Degrees the Pow'r of Grief destroy,
Fitting his Heart to bear new Heights of Joy.
In the mean while the gen'ral Loss we mourn,
A Loss through future Hopes more calmly born:
Great Caesar wants her to divide his Care,
Employ his Love, and in his Vict'ries share:
The Nation her desires in Caesar's stead,
While he must the Confed'rate Armies head:
The Frailty of her Sex her Pattern needs,
(For far a living Rule the dead exceeds)
Yet the Impression was so sweetly strong,
It cannot but with most continue long.
Nature and Grace a kind Contention had,
Which should most charmingly reduce the Bad:
To be particular a Wrong would be,
Where ev'ry Grace presides, why name we two or three?
Yet if Indefinites may have Degrees,
What the Ascendant had one plainly sees:
It was the Love of God, and of his Cause,
Free from vain Frights, and superstitious Awes:
Th' Effect of which, the most conspicuous known,
Was her Accession to the British Throne:
Hence date we Rome's and Tyranny's Decay:
And late Posterity shall praise that Hour,
When She redeem'd us from her Father's Pow'r.
To Filial Duty none had more Regard,
But yet the † Corban call'd for the Reward:
Her Bounty to a Nation prostrate cast,
Was so much in God's Treas'ry wisely plac'd.
When God was to promulge a general Law,
And a Description of himself to draw,
That fit Idea's Men of him might frame,
Suted to the true Import of his Name;
That of Deliv'rer from old Bonds he took:
A Rule on which Princes should often look.
She follow'd thus the Pattern in the Mount,
A Form not valu'd in the Church-Account.
Ye will forgive me, ye deserving few!
That I so often give the rest their Due.
But since the hottest against James his Reign,
Still linger after their accustom'd Chain;
I well may say, many now praise the Queen,
Whose Vertues, while she liv'd, but mov'd their Spleen.
And this Imagination turns the Brain.
In Nations which the Gospel-Light obey,
Preaching is less a Duty than to pray;
Where God, or Nature, Death's Alarm may sound,
And spirit'al Balm to give according to the Wound:
Yet if the settled Form reach not the Grief,
The Party dies without the due Relief.
But tell it not in Gath, or Askalon,
Lest from our Priests by Baal's the Prize be won;
That He † should plead his Fears to quit the Queen,
Who, but for Her, had a poor Curate been.
What had his Life been worth, unless by Her?
Before a Nation's Life he'l his prefer.
Except a Priest, that Man, or Woman, name,
Would not have sacrific'd to endless Fame,
By running to the Jaws of certain Death,
Could they by that hope to prolong her Breath:
Which hov'ring Angels waited to convey,
From her infected House of moldring Clay,
To the pure Regions of eternal Day:
Those Regions, which She ever kept in sight,
Where was her Converse, and * severe Delight:
Like † Solar Rays, while She the Earth did chear,
She, with the Fountain of her Light, was there;
And now is but drawn up into her Sphere.
Nor is more Praise to ‖ Curtius due than thee,
Thou Virgin of immortal Memorie!
Who in thy Bloom of Youth, and Beauty's Pride,
Proffer'dst to take th' Infection from her Side;
Through all thy Pores to let the Venom in,
Heav'n to thy self, to us our Queen to win:
A Queen, who, though short was her Empire here,
A Queen ‖‖ shall be, for ev'ry circling Year;
As long as Men a Monarchy shall chuse,
Or seek the Faults of Princes to excuse.
FINIS.