native country. You were then an honour to it, when it was a reproach to itself; and when the fortunate Usurper sent his arms to Flanders,' many of the adverse party were vanquished by your fame, ere they tried your valour. The report of it drew over to your ensigns whole troops and companies of converted rebels; and made them forsake successful wickedness, to follow an oppressed and exiled virtue. Your reputation waged war with the enemies of your royal family, even within their trenches; and the more obstinate or more guilty of them were forced to be spies over those whom they commanded, lest the name of YORK should disband that army in whose fate it was to defeat the Spaniards, and force Dunkirk to surrender. Yet those victorious forces of the rebels were not able to sustain your arms; where you charged in person you were a conqueror. It is true, they afterwards recovered courage, and wrested that victory from others which they had lost to you; and it was a greater action for them to rally than it was to overcome. Thus, by the presence of your Royal Highness, the English on both sides remained victorious; and that army which was broken by your valour, became a terrour to those for whom they conquered. Then it was, that at the cost of other nations you informed and cultivated that valour which was to defend 7 In 1657. your native country, and to vindicate its honour from the insolence of our encroaching neighbours. When the Hollanders, not contented to withdraw themselves from the obedience which they owed their lawful sovereign, affronted those by whose charity they were first protected; and, being swelled up to a pre-eminence of trade, by a supine négligence on our side, and a sordid parsimony on their own, dared to dispute the sovereignty of the seas, the eyes of three nations were then cast on you; and by the joint suffrage of King and people, you were chosen to revenge their common injuries; to which though you had an undoubted title by your birth, you had yet a greater by your Neither did the success deceive our hopes and expectations; the most glorious victory which was gained by our navy in that war, was in that first engagement ; wherein, even by the confession of our enemies, who ever palliate their own losses, and diminish our advantages, your absolute triumph was acknowledged: you conquered at the Hague as entirely as at London; and the return of a shattered fleet, without an admiral, left not the most impudent among them the least pretence for a false bonfire, or a dissembled day of publick thanksgiving. All our atchievements against them afterwards, though we sometimes conquered, and were never overcome, were but a copy of that victory; and they still courage. 9 June 3, 1665. See p. 34. fell short of their original: somewhat of fortune was ever wanting, to fill up the title of so absolute, a defeat; or perhaps the guardian angel of our nation was not enough concerned, when you were absent, and would not employ his utmost vigour for a less important stake than the life and honour of a Royal Admiral. And if since that memorable day you have had leisure to enjoy in peace the fruits of so glorious a reputation, it was occasion only has been wanting to your courage; for that can never be wanting to occasion. The same ardour still incites you to heroick actions; and the same concernment for all the interests of your King and brother continue to give you restless nights, and a generous emulation for your own glory. You are still meditating on new labours for yourself, and new triumphs for the nation; and when our former enemies again provoke us, you will again solicit fate to provide you another navy to overcome, and another admiral to be slain. You will then lead forth a nation eager to revenge their past injuries, and, like the Romans, inexorable to peace till they have fully vanquished. Let our enemies make their boast of a surprise,* as the Samnites did of a successful stratagem; but the Furce Caudine will never be forgiven till they are revenged. I have * The author probably alludes to the naval engagement with the Dutch, near Solebay, May 18th, 1672, in which Lord Sandwich was killed. always observed in your Royal Highness an extreme concernment for the honour of your country; it is a passion common to you with a brother, the most excellent of Kings; and in your two persons are eminent the characters which Homer has given us of heroick virtue, the commanding part in Agamemnon, and the executive in Achilles. And I doubt not, from both your actions, but to have abundant matter to fill the annals of a glorious reign; and to perform the part of a just historian to my Royal Master, without intermixing with it any thing of the poet. In the mean time, while your Royal Highness is preparing fresh employments for our pens, I have been examining my own forces, and making trial of myself how I shall be able to transmit you to posterity. I have formed a hero, I confess, not absolutely perfect, but of an excessive and overboiling courage; but Homer and Tasso are my precedents. Both the Greek and the Italian poet had well considered, that a tame hero who never transgresses the bounds of moral virtue, would shine but dimly in an epick poem; the strictness of those rules might well give precepts to the reader, but would administer little of occasion to the writer; but a character of an eccentrick virtue is the more exact image of human life, because he is not wholly exempted from its frailties: such a person is Almanzor, whom I present, with all humility, to the patronage of your Royal Highness. I designed in him a roughness of character, impa tient of injuries, and a confidence of himself almost approaching to an arrogance. But these errours are incident only to great spirits; they are moles and dimples, which hinder not a face from being beautiful, though that beauty be not regular; they are of the number of those amiable imperfections which we see in mistresses, and which we pass over without a strict examination, when they are accompanied with greater graces. And such in Almanzor are a frank and noble openness of nature; an easiness to forgive his conquered enemies, and to protect them in distress; and above all, an inviolable faith in his affection. This, Sir, I have briefly shadowed to your Royal Highness, that you may not be ashamed of that hero whose protection you undertake. Neither would I dedicate him to so illustrious a name, if I were conscious to myself that he did or said any thing which was wholly unworthy of it. However, since it is not just that your Royal Highness should defend or own what possibly may be my errour, I bring before you this accused Almanzor in the nature of a suspected criminal. By the suffrage of the most and best he already is acquitted; and by the sentence of some, condemned; but as I have no reason to stand to the award of my enemies, so neither dare I trust the partiality of my friends. I make my last appeal to your Royal Highness, as to a sovereign tribunal. Heroes should only be judged by heroes, because they only are capable of measuring great and heroick actions by the rule |