In all the changes of his doubtful state,
His truth, like Heaven's, was kept inviolate,
For him to promise is to make it fate.

His valour can triumph o'er land and main;
With broken oaths his fame he will not stain;
With conquest basely bought, and with inglorious gain

18

For once, O Heaven, unfold thy adamantine book; And let his wondering senate see,

If not thy firm, immutable decree,

At least the second page of strong contingency,
Such as consists with wills originally free.

Let them with glad amazement look

On what their happiness may be;

Let them not still be obstinately blind,
Still to divert the good thou hast designed,

Or, with malignant penury,

To starve the royal virtues of his mind.
Faith is a Christian's and a subject's test;

Oh, give them to believe, and they are surely blest.
They do; and with a distant view I see
The amended vows of English loyalty;
And all beyond that object, there appears
The long retinue of a prosperous reign,
A series of successful years,

In orderly array, a martial, manly train.
Behold even the remoter shores,
A conquering navy proudly spread;
The British cannon formidably roars,
While, starting from his oozy bed,

The asserted ocean rears his reverend head;
To view and recognise his ancient lord again;
And, with a willing hand, restores

The fasces of the main.

74

TO THE PIOUS MEMORY OF THE ACCOMPLISHED YOUNG LADY

MRS. ANNE KILLIGREW,

EXCELLENT IN THE TWO SISTER ARTS OF POESY AND PAINTING. AN ODE.

1685.

To

[COMING next in chronological order, this elegiac ode affords an immediate opportunity of contrast with the preceding Pindaric. There are some conceits in it, of which, perhaps, the brevet of the young lady in the second line of the first stanza is the most conspicuous; but it is, nevertheless, a pure specimen of this form of composition, and has been pronounced by Dr. Johnson the noblest ode in our language. The first part,' he observes, 'flows with a torrent of enthusiasm.' this opinion it is only fair to oppose that of Mr. Hallam, who says that it has a few fine lines, mingled with a far greater number ill conceived and ill expressed; that it has Dryden's spirit, but is too faulty for high praise. Mrs. Anne was the sister of the facetious Thomas Killigrew. She was one of the maids of honour to the Duchess of York, and died of smallpox, in 1685, in the 25th year of her age. A poetess and a painter-writing occasional verses, and indulging her taste in every department of art, from the portraits of the royal family to landscapes and fruit pieces-she appears to have been an accomplished member of a remarkable family. A book called Country Conversations, published in 1694, says that a friend of the author's fell in love with the memory❜ of Anne Killigrew from merely seeing some of her pictures and poems.]

THO

I

HOU youngest virgin-daughter of the skies,
Made in the last promotion of the blessed;
Those palms, new plucked from Paradise,
preading branches more sublimely rise,
ch with immortal green above the rest:

Whether, adopted to some neighbouring star,
Thou rollest above us, in thy wandering race,
Or, in procession fixed and regular,
Movest with the heaven's majestic pace;
Or, called to more superior bliss,

Thou treadest with seraphims the vast abyss:
Whatever happy region is thy place,
Cease thy celestial song a little space;
Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine,
Since Heaven's eternal year is thine.
Hear, then, a mortal Muse thy praise rehearse,
In no ignoble verse;

But such as thy own voice did practise here,
When thy first fruits of Poesy were given,
To make thyself a welcome inmate there;
While yet a young probationer,

And candidate of heaven.

2

If by traduction came thy mind,
Our wonder is the less, to find

A soul so charming from a stock so good;
Thy father was transfused into thy blood:
So wert thou born into a tuneful strain,
An early, rich, and inexhausted vein.
But if thy pre-existing soul

Was formed at first, with myriads more,
It did through all the mighty poets roll,
Who Greek or Latin laurels wore,

And was that Sappho last, which once it was before.
If so, then cease thy flight, O, heaven-born mind!
Thou hast no dross to purge from thy rich ore:
Nor can thy soul a fairer mansion find,

Than was the beauteous frame she left behind: Return, to fill or mend the choir of thy celestial kind.

3

May we presume to say, that, at thy birth,

New joy was sprung in heaven as well as here on earth?

For sure the milder planets did combine
On thy auspicious horoscope to shine,
And even the most malicious were in trine.
Thy brother-angels at thy birth

Strung each his lyre, and tuned it high,
That all the people of the sky

Might know a poetess was born on earth;
And then, if ever, mortal ears

Had heard the music of the spheres.
And if no clustering swarm of bees

On thy sweet mouth distilled their golden dew,
'Twas that such vulgar miracles
Heaven had not leisure to renew:

For all thy blest fraternity of love

Solemnized there thy birth, and kept thy holiday above.

4

O gracious God! how far have we
Profaned thy heavenly gift of Poesy!
Made prostitute and profligate the Muse,
Debased to each obscene and impious use,
Whose harmony was first ordained above,
For tongues of angels, and for hymns of love!
Oh wretched we! why were we hurried down
This lubrique and adulterate age,

(Nay, added fat pollutions of our own,)

To increase the streaming ordures of the stage?
What can we say to excuse our second fall?
Let this thy vestal, Heaven, atone for all:
Her Arethusian stream remains unsoiled,
Unmixed with foreign filth, and undefiled;

Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child.*

5

Art she had none, yet wanted none,
For Nature did that want supply:

*In wit a man, simplicity a child.'-POPE.

So rich in treasures of her own,

She might our boasted stores defy:
Such noble vigour did her verse adorn,

That it seemed borrowed, where 'twas only born.
Her morals, too, were in her bosom bred,

By great examples daily fed,

What in the best of books, her father's life, she read.

And to be read herself she need not fear;

Each test, and every light, her Muse will bear,
Though Epictetus with his lamp were there.
Even love (for love sometimes her Muse expressed),
Was but a lambent flame which played about her breast;
Light as the vapours of a morning dream,
So cold herself, whilst she such warmth expressed,
'Twas Cupid bathing in Diana's stream.

6

Born to the spacious empire of the Nine,
One would have thought she should have been content
To manage well that mighty government;

But what can young ambitious souls confine?
To the next realm she stretched her sway,
For Painture near adjoining lay,

A plenteous province, and alluring prey. A Chamber of Dependencies was framed, (As conquerors will never want pretence,

When armed, to justify the offence),

And the whole fief, in right of poetry, she claimed. The country open lay without defence;

For poets frequent inroads there had made,

And perfectly could represent

The shape, the face, with every lineament,

And all the large domains which the Dumb Sister swayed; All bowed beneath her government,

Received in triumph wheresoe'er she went.

Her pencil drew whate'er her soul designed,

[mind.

And oft the happy draught surpassed the image in her