No promise can oblige a prince so much Virtues unknown to these rough northern climes From milder heavens you bring, without their crimes, 90 Your calmness does no after-storms provide Nor seeming patience mortal anger hide. When empire first from families did spring, But you, that are a sovereign prince, allay 95 From those great cares when ease your soul unbends, Your pleasures are designed to noble ends; Your thoughts themselves in that blue empire please. 100 105 ΠΟ The King had issued a Declaration concerning ecclesiastical affairs in October 1660, which gave great satisfaction to the Presbyterians: in it he had signified his intention of submitting the Liturgy to revision by a synod composed equally of episcopalian and presbyterian divines and asking the advice of Convocation on matters of ceremony and discipline, and he had repeated the promise of his Declaration from Breda of “liberty to tender consciences, and that no man should be disquieted or called in question for differences of opinion in matters of religion, which do not disturb the peace of the kingdom." A bill introduced into the Convention Parliament shortly after for confirming this Declaration was rejected, some leading presbyterian members joining with the King's ministers in opposing it. The matter was thus left in the hands of the King, who proceeded to call a synod for revising the Liturgy. This synod had assembled about a month before the Coronation, and was now sitting at Savoy House. The result was unsatisfactory, and the Uniformity Act afterwards dashed the hopes of Nonconformists and the King's promises. Referring to the story told by Plutarch of Caesar's courage in a storm at sea, when, being on board in disguise, he made himself known to the pilot who had determined to put back, and bade him proceed with the words, "Go on, my man; have courage, and fear nothing you carry in your vessel Cæsar and Cæsar's fortune." But the comparison is a piece of hyperbolical flattery. Beyond your court flows in the admitted tide,* When tired at sea within this bay they creep. A Queen, from whose chaste womb, ordained by fate, It was your love before made discord cease; Your love is destined to your country's peace. 115 120 With gold or jewels to adorn your bride; This to a mighty King presents rich ore, 125 While that with incense does a God implore. Two kingdoms wait your doom; and, as you choose, Your subjects, while you weigh the nations' fate, + Suspend to both their doubtful love or hate: 135 With their own peace their children's happiness. Charles had arranged the ornamental water in St. James's Park, supplied from the Thames. Waller wrote a poem in this same year, “On St. James's Park as lately improved by His Majesty," and introduced the sea with similar magniloquence: "Instead of rivers rolling by the side Of Eden's garden, here flows in the tide; The sea, which always served his empire, now This has been printed by all editors nation's fate. Nations of the original text serves for either nation's or nations'. The reference seems to be to the fate of Spain and Portugal; and the probable meaning is that the independence of Portugal turned on the marriage of Charles with the Portuguese princess. Spain endeavoured to prevent this marriage, and to induce Charles to marry a princess of Parma. ΤΟ MY LORD CHANCELLOR. PRESENTED ON NEW YEAR'S DAY, 1662: MY LORD, WHILE flattering crowds officiously appear Thus once, when Troy was wrapt in fire and smoke, 5 ΙΟ 15 20 * There is no trace of poetry written by Clarendon when young; but he had cultivated general literature, and had many literary friends in his younger days. "Among his early literary friends were Ben Jonson; Selden, whose society he felt to have been inestimably valuable to him, and for whose talents and learning he retained a veneration unimpaired by subsequent difference of political opinion; Charles Cotton, a man of taste and letters, now remembered chiefly as the literary associate of Isaac Walton; May, the able and candid historian of the parliament; Carew, whose graceful poetry still holds its place in public estimation; his more celebrated contemporary, Edmund Waller; the accomplished and versatile Sir Kenelm Digby; Hales, distinguished by his classical acquirements; Chillingworth, the profound theologian and acute controversialist: these were the literary men whose society was cultivated by Hyde."-LISTER'S Life of Clarendon,i. 15. ↑ The Pope. At the destruction of Troy: "Excessere omnes, adytis ari que relictis, VIRG. n. ii 351. "The passive gods beheld the Greeks defile 473 of Dryden's Translation. At length the Muses stand restored again In open prospect nothing bounds our eye 25 30 35 And beyond that no farther heaven can find. So well your virtues do with his agree That, though your orbs of different greatness be, His to enclose, and yours to be enclosed : 40 45 Justice, that sits and frowns where public laws 50 And, like young David, finds her strength the more 55 And his mild father, who too late did find All mercy vain but what with power was joined, His fatal goodness left to fitter times, Not to increase but to absolve our crimes : 60 He wisely tied it to the Crown again : Yet, passing through your hands, it gathers more, 65 As streams through mines bear tincture of their ore. While empiric politicians use deceit, Hide what they give and cure but by a cheat, You boldly show that skill which they pretend And work by means as noble as your end: 70 Which should you veil, we might unwind the clue An emptiness, a vacuum. And as the Indies were not found before Our setting sun from his declining seat Even then took care to lay you softly by, And wrapt your fate among her precious things, Kept fresh to be unfolded with your King's. Shown all at once, you dazzled so our eyes As new-born Pallas did the gods surprise; 100 When, springing forth from Jove's new-closing wound, How strangely active are the arts of peace, 105 110 115 120 |