THUS long my grief has kept me dumb:
Sure there's a lethargy in mighty woe,
Tears stand congeal'd, and cannot flow;

And the sad soul retires into her inmost room:
Tears, for a stroke foreseen, afford relief;

But, unprovided for a sudden blow,

Like Niobe we marble grow;

And petrify with grief.

Our British heaven was all serene,
No threatening cloud was nigh,

Not the least wrinkle to deform the sky;
We lived as unconcern'd and happily

As the first age in nature's golden scene;
Supine amidst our flowing store,

We slept securely, and we dreamt of more:
When suddenly the thunder-clap was heard,
It took us unprepared and out of guard,
Already lost before we fear'd.

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The amazing news of Charles at once were spread,

At once the general voice declared,

"Our gracious prince was dead.”

No sickness known before, no slow disease,

To soften grief by just degrees:

But like an hurricane on Indian seas,

The tempest rose;

An unexpected burst of woes:

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Ver. 1. Thus long my grief] The following just, though severe sentence, has been passed on this Threnodia, by one who was always willing, if possible, to extenuate the blemishes of our poet. "Its first and obvious defect is the irregularity of its metre, to which the ears of that age, however, were accustomed. What is worse, it has neither tenderness nor dignity; it is neither magnificent nor pathetic. He seems to look round him for images which he cannot find, and what he has he distorts by endeavouring to enlarge them. He is, he says, petrified with grief, but the marble relents, and trickles in a joke. There is throughout the composition a desire of splendour without wealth. In the conclusion, he seems too much pleased with the prospect of the new reign, to have lamented his old master with much sincerity."-Dr. Johnson. Dr. J. WARTON.

Ver. 22. No sickness known before,] Original edition. TODD.

With scarce a breathing space betwixt,
This now becalm'd, and perishing the next.
As if great Atlas from his height
Should sink beneath his heavenly weight,
And with a mighty flaw, the flaming wall
(As once it shall,)

Should gape immense, and rushing down, o'er

whelm this nether ball;

So swift and so surprising was our fear:

Out Atlas fell indeed; but Hercules was near.

II.

His pious brother, sure the best

Who ever bore that name,

Was newly risen from his rest,

And, with a fervent flame,

His usual morning vows had just address'd
For his dear sovereign's health;

And hoped to have them heard,

In long increase of years,

In honour, fame, and wealth:

Guiltless of greatness thus he always pray'd, Nor knew nor wish'd those vows he made On his own head should be repaid. Soon as the ill-omen'd rumour reach'd his ear,

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Such were our counter-tides at land, and so Presaging of the fatal blow,

In their prodigious ebb and flow.

The royal soul, that, like the labouring moon, By charms of art was hurried down,

Forced with regret to leave her native sphere, Came but awhile on liking here:

Soon weary of the painful strife,

And made but faint essays of life:
An evening light

Soon shut in night;

A strong distemper, and a weak relief,

Short intervals of joy, and long returns of grief.

The sons of art all medicines tried, And every noble remedy applied; With emulation each essay'd

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His utmost skill, nay more, they pray'd: Never was losing game with better conduct play'd.

Ver. 126. Friends to congratulate, &c.] Each to congratulate his friend, &c. Original edit. TODD.

*An eagre is a tide swelling above another tide, which I myself observed on the river Trent. Marg. Note, orig. edit. Ver. 160. all medicines] Orig. edit.: all med'cines. TODD.

Ver. 164. Never was losing game] Orig. edit.: Was never losing game, &c. TODD.

Ibid. Never was losing game1 A most vulgar ill-placed allusion Dr. J WARTON

The load 's too weighty: thou may'st choose Some parts of praise, and some refuse:

Write, that his annals may be thought more lavish than the muse.

In scanty truth thou hast confined

The virtues of a royal mind,

Forgiving, bounteous, humble, just, and kind:
His conversation, wit, and parts,

His knowledge in the noblest useful arts,
Were such, dead authors could not give;
But habitudes of those who live;
Who, lighting him, did greater lights receive:
He drain'd from all, and all they knew;
His apprehension quick, his judgment true:
That the most learn'd, with shame, confess
His knowledge more, his reading only less.

XII.

Amidst the peaceful triumphs of his reign, What wonder if the kindly beams he shed Revived the drooping arts again,

If Science raised her head,

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The rest is charged on late posterity.

Because the large abounding store

thee.

The present age can raise,

Posterity is charged the more,

Succession of a long descent

But all uncultivated lay

Out of the solar walk and heaven's high way; With rank Geneva weeds run o'er,

And cockle, at the best, amidst the corn it bore:

Which chastely in the channels ran,

And from our demi-gods began,

Equal almost to time in its extent,

Through hazards numberless and great,

Thou hast derived this mighty blessing down,
And fix'd the fairest gem that decks the imperial

Ver. 288. By the still voice] Orig. edit.: By the still sound, &c. TODD.

Ibid. Alluding to 1 Kings xix. 12: "And after the fire a still small voice." See also the marginal reading of Job iv. 16: "I heard a still voice, saying, Shall mortal man be more just than God?" TODD.

Ver. 319. Not senates, insolently loud,

Those echoes of a thoughtless crowd,]
So Cowper, in a nervous and animated strain-

"Thy senate is a scene of civil jar,
Chaos of contrarieties at war,
Where sharp and solid, phlegmatic and light,
Discordant atoms meet, contend, and fight;
Where Obstinacy takes its sturdy stand,
To disconcert what Policy has plann'd;
Where Policy is busied all night long
In setting right what Faction has set wrong."
Expos. 118. Vol. I.
JOHN WARTON.

Or paradise manured, and drest by hands divine.

Ver. 348. Revived the drooping arts] Charles was very instrumental in founding and promoting the Royal Society; but it has been said, it may be doubted whether the institutions of academies have contributed to the promotion of science and literature. Neither Copernicus nor Kepler were members of any academy; nor was Newton member of our Royal Society till he had made his most important discoveries. None of the great inventions have been owing to academies. But it may be added, that Alexander assisted Aristotle with a vast collection of animals; the caliph Almoran encouraged philosophy; and without the French academy, Maupertuis would not have undertaken his Philosophical Journey; nor Tournefort his Voyages, without the encouragement of Louis XIV. Dr. J. WARTON.

A warlike prince ascends the regal state,
A prince long exercised by fate:
Long may he keep, though he obtains it late.

They and their poets are not form'd in haste; Man was the first in God's design, and man was made the last.

False heroes, made by flattery so,

Heaven can strike out, like sparkles, at a blow;
But ere a prince is to perfection brought,
He costs Omnipotence a second thought.
With toil and sweat,

With hardening cold, and forming heat,
The Cyclops did their strokes repeat,
Before the impenetrable shield was wrought.
It looks as if the Maker would not own
The noble work for his,

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View then a monarch ripen'd for a throne.
Alcides thus his race began,

O'er infancy he swiftly ran;

The future god at first was more than man:
Dangers and toils, and Juno's hate,
Even o'er his cradle lay in wait;

And there he grappled first with fate:

In his young hands the hissing snakes he press'd, So early was the deity confess'd;

Thus by degrees he rose to Jove's imperial seat;

Thus difficulties prove a soul legitimately great.
Like his, our hero's infancy was tried:
Betimes the furies did their snakes provide;
And to his infant arms oppose

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And best deserving to be so,

When scarce he had escaped the fatal blow
Of faction and conspiracy,

Death did his promised hopes destroy:
He toil'd, he gain'd, but lived not to enjoy.
What mists of Providence are these
Through which we cannot see !

So saints, by supernatural power set free,
Are left at last in martyrdom to die;
Such is the end of oft repeated miracles.
Forgive me, Heaven, that impious thought;
"Twas grief for Charles, to madness wrought,
That question'd thy supreme decree !

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His father's rebels, and his brother's foes;
The more opprest, the higher still he rose;
Those were the preludes of his fate,
That form'd his manhood, to subdue
The hydra of a many-headed hissing crew.

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Thou didst his gracious reign prolong,

Even in thy saints' and angels' wrong,

His fellow-citizens of immortality:
For twelve long years of exile borne,
Twice twelve we number'd since his blest return:

Ver. 380. Like birds of paradise that lived on morning dew.] Tavernier, the excellent French traveller, says, that it is a vulgar error that the birds of paradise have no legs: the fact is, that they gorge and over-fill themselves by feeding on the nutmeg-trees, from which they fall down in a kind of intoxication, and the emmet eats off their legs. Louis XIII. had one of these birds, and a very beautiful one, that had two legs. JOHN WARTON.