Our prince alone would have the public voice; And all his neighbours' realms would deserts make.

He without fear a dangerous war pursues,
Which without rashness he began before:
As honour made him first the danger choose,
So still he makes it good on virtue's score.
The doubled charge his subjects' love supplies,
Who, in that bounty, to themselves are kind :
So glad Egyptians see their Nilus rise,
And in his plenty their abundance find.

With equal power he does two chiefs create,*
Two such as each seem'd worthiest when
Each able to sustain a nation's fate, [alone;
Since both had found a greater in their own.
Both great in courage, conduct, and in fame,
Yet neither envious of the other's praise;
Their duty, faith, and int'rest too the same,
Like mighty partners equally they raise.
The prince long time had courted fortune's love,
But once possess'd did absolutely reign:
Thus with their Amazons the heroes strove,
And conquer'd first those beauties they would
gain.

The duke beheld, like Scipio, with disdain,
That Carthage, which he ruin'd, rise once
And shook aloft the fasces of the main, [more;
To fright those slaves with what they felt before.
Together to the wat'ry camp they haste,
Whom matrons passing to their children show:
Infant's first vows for them to heaven are cast,
And future peoplef bless them as they go.

With them no riotous pomp, nor Asian train,
T' infect a navy with their gawdy fears;
To make slow fights, and victories but vain :
But war, severely, like itself, appears.
Diffusive of themselves, where'er they pass,
They make that warnth in others they expect;
Their valour works like bodies on a glass,
And does its image on their men project.

Our fleet divides, § and straight the Dutch appear,

In number, and a fam'd commander bold:

The narrow seas can scarce their navy bear,
Or crowded vessels can their soldiers hold.
The Duke, less numerous, but in courage

more,

On wings of all the winds to combat flies:
His murdering guns a loud defiance roar,
And bloody crosses on his flag-staffs rise.

Both furl their sails, and strip them for the fight,
Their folded sheets dismiss the useless air :
Th' Elean plains could boast no nobler sight,
When struggling champions did their bodies
bare.

Born each by other in a distant line,

The sea-built forts in dreadful order move:
So vast the noise, as if not fleets did join,
But lands unfix'd,¶ and floating nations strove.
Now pass'd on either side they nimbly tack;
Both strive to intercept and guide the wind:
And, in its eye, more closely they come back,
To finish all the deaths they left behind.

On high-rais'd decks the haughty Belgians ride,
Beneath whose shade our humble frigates go:
Such port the elephant bears, and so defied
By the rhinoceros her unequal foe.

And as the built, so different is the fight;
Their mounting shot is on our sails design'd:
Deep in their hulls our deadly bullets light,
And through the yielding planks a passage find.
Our dreaded admiral from far they threat,
Whose batter'd rigging their whole war re-

ceives :

All bare like some old oak which tempests beat,
He stands, and sees below his scatter'd leaves.

Heroes of old, when wounded, shelter sought;
But he, who meets all danger with disdain,
E'en in their face his ship to anchor brought,
And steeple-high stood propt upon the main.
At this excess of courage, all amaz'd,
The foremost of his foes a while withdraw
With such respect in enter'd Rome they gaz'd,
Who on high chairs the god-like fathers saw.
And now, as where Patroclus' body lay,
Here Trojan chiefs advanc'd, and there the

Greek;

Ours o'er the Duke their pious wings display, And theirs the noblest spoils of Britain seek.

Meantime his busy mariners he hastes,
His shatter'd sails with rigging to restore;
And willing pines ascend his broken masts,
Whose lofty heads rise higher than before.

Straight to the Dutch he turns his dreadful prow,

More fierce th' important quarrel to decide: Like swans, in long array his vessels show, Whose crests advancing do the waves divide.

They charge, recharge, and all along the sea They drive, and squander the huge Belgian fleet.

Berkley alone, who nearest danger lay,
Did a like fate with a lost Creusa meet.

The night comes on, we eager to pursue
The combat still, and they asham'd to leave:
Till the last streaks of dying day withdrew,
And doubtful moonlight did our rage deceive.
In th' English fleet each ship resounds with joy,
And loud applause of their great leader's fame:
In fiery dreams the Dutch they still destroy,
And, slumb'ring smile at the imagin'd flame.
Not so the Holland fleet, who, tired and done,
Stretch'd on their decks like weary oxen lie:
Faint sweats all down their mighty members

run;

Vast bulks, which little souls but ill supply.†
In dreams they fearful precipices tread;
Or shipwreck'd, labour to some distant shore;
Or in dark churches walk among the dead:
They wake with horror, and dare sleep no more.

The morn they look on with unwilling eyes,
Till from their maintop joyful news they hear
Of ships, which by their mould bring new sup-
plies,

And in their colours Belgian lions bear.

Our watchful general had discern'd from far This mighty succour, which made glad the foe:

• Berkley alone, &c.] Among other remarkable passages in this engagement, the undaunted resolution of vice-admiral Berkley was particularly admired. He had many men killed on board him, and though no longer able to make resistance, yet would obstinately continue the fight, refusing quarter to the last. Being at length shot in the throat with a musket-ball, he retired to his cabin, where, stretching himself on a great table, he expired; and in that posture did the enemy, who afterwards took the ship, find the body covered with blood. D.

+ Vast bulks which little souls but ill supply] So Milton, in the spirited speech which he gives to Samson as an answer to the cowardly language of the giant Harapha, Sam. Agon. ver. 1237:

Go, baffled coward! lest I run upon thee,
Though in these chains, bulk without spirit vast,
And with one buffet lay thy structure low, &c. T.
1 Second day's battle. Orig. ed.

He said, nor needed more to say: with haste
To their known stations cheerfully they go;
And all at once, disdaining to be last,
Solicit every gale to meet the foe.

Nor did th' encourag'd Belgians long delay,
But bold in others, not themselves, they stood:
So thick, our navy scarce could steer their way,
But seem'd to wander in a moving wood.

Our little fleet was now engag'd so far,
That like the sword-fish in the whale they
The combat only seem'd a civil war, [fought:
Till through their bowels we our passage
wrought.

ever had valour, no not ours, before
Done aught like this upon the land or main,
Where not to be o'ercome was to do more
Than all the conquests former kings did gain.

The mighty ghosts of our great Harries rose,
And armed Edwards look'd with anxious eyes,
To see this fleet among unequal foes,
By which fate promis'd them their Charles
should rise.

Meantime the Belgians tack upon our rear, And raking chase-guns through our sterns they send :

Close by, their fire-ships, like jackals, appear,
Who on their lions for the prey attend.

Silent in smoke of cannon they come on:
Such vapours once did fiery Cacus hide :
In these the height of pleas'd revenge is shown,
Who burn contented by another's side.

Sometimes from fighting squadrons of each fleet,
Deceiv'd themselves, or to preserve some friend,

Two grappling Etnas on the ocean meet, And English fires with Belgian flames contend.

Now, at each tack, our little fleet grows less; And, like maim'd fowl, swim lagging on the main;

Their greater loss their numbers scarce confess, While they lose cheaper than the English gain. Have you not seen, when, whistled from the fist, Some falcon stoops at what her eye design'd, And, with her eagerness the quarry miss'd, Straight flies at check, and clips it down the wind?

The dastard crow that to the wood made wing,
And sees the groves no shelter can afford,
With her loud caws her craven kind does bring,
Who, safe in numbers, cuff the noble bird.
Among the Dutch thus Albemarle did fare:
He could not conquer, and disdain'd to fly;
Past hope of safety, 't was his latest care,
Like falling Cæsar, decently to die.

Yet pity did his manly spirit move,
To see those perish who so well had fought;
And generously with his despair he strove,
Resolv'd to live till he their safety wrought.

Let other muses write his prosperous fate,
Of conquer'd nations tell, and kings restor❜d:
But mine shall sing of his eclips'd estate,
Which like the sun's, more wonders does af-
ford.

He drew his mighty frigates all before,
On which the foe his fruitless force employs:
His weak ones deep into his rear he bore
Remote from guns, as sick men from the noise.

His fiery cannon did their passage guide,
And following smoke obscur'd them from the
foe:

Thus Israel, safe from the Egyptian's pride,
By flaming pillars, and by clouds, did go.

Elsewhere the Belgian force we did defeat,
But here our courages did theirs subdue;
So Xenophon once led that fam'd retreat,
Which first the Asian empire overthrew.

The foe approach'd, and one for his bold sin Was sunk; as he that touch'd the ark was slain :

The wild waves master'd him and suck'd him in,
And smiling eddies dimpled on the main.

This seen,
the rest at awful distance stood;
As if they had been there as servants set

To stay, or to go on, as he thought good,
And not pursue but wait on his retreat.
So Libyan huntsmen, on some sandy plain,
From shady coverts rous'd, the lion chase:
The kingly beast roars out with loud disdain,
And slowly moves,* unknowing to give place.
But if some one approach to dare his force,
He swings his tail, and swiftly turns him round;
With one paw seizes on his trembling horse,

And with the other tears him to the ground.

Amidst these toils succeeds the balmy night;
Now hissing waters the quench'd guns restore;
And weary waves, withdrawing from the fight,
Lie lull'd and panting on the silent shore.

The moon shone clear on the becalmed flood,
Where while her beams like glittering silver
Upon the deck our careful general stood, [play,
And deeply mus'd on the succeeding day.§
That happy sun, said he, will rise again,
Who twice victorious did our navy see:
And I alone must view him rise in vain,
Without one ray of all his star for me.
Yet like an English general will I die,
And all the ocean make my spacious grave:
Women and cowards on the land may lie,
The sea's a tomb that's proper for the brave.||
Restless he pass'd the remnants of the night,
Till the fresh air proclaim'd the morning nigh:
And burning ships, the martyrs of the fight,
With paler fires beheld the eastern sky.

And slowly moves] The simile is Virgil's :
Vestigia retro

Improperata refert,' &c.

Orig. ed.

↑ He swings his tail] The metre of this line, perhaps, introduced swings instead of the more emphatic word stringes, applied to a lion enraged by Chapman, in his Cæs. and Pompey, 1607:

And then his sides he swinges with his sterne.' And by Sylvester, Du Bart. p. 205, 4to, ed. 'Then often swinging with his sinewie traine,' &c. Milton, in a line of admirable effect, has applied the word to the old dragon, who,

'Wroth to see his kingdom fail, Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail.' Ode Nativ. st. 18. Waller also describes the 'tail's impetuous swinge' of the whale, Batt. Summ. Isl. c. iii. T. Weary waves] From Statius Sylv. 'Nec trucibus fluviis idem sonus: occidit horror Equoris, antennis maria acclinata quiescunt.' Orig. ed. Succeeding day] The 3d of June, famous for two former victories. Orig. ed.

Yet like an English general will I die, And all the ocean make my spacious grave: Women and cowards on the land may lie, The sea's a tomb that's proper for the brave.] This speech contains nearly the same words that the Duke of Albemarle spoke in a council the eve ning before the battle, in which he fought with amazing intrepidity, and all that determined resig nation here implied. D.

With full-spread sails his eager navy steers,
And every ship in swift proportion grows.
The anxious prince had heard the cannon long,
And from that length of time dire omens drew
Of English overmatch'd, and Dutch too strong,
Who never fought three days but to pursue.

Then, as an eagle, who with pious care
Was beating widely on the wing for prey,
To her now silent eyry does repair,
And finds her callow infants forc'd away.

Stung with her love, she stoops upon the plain,
The broken air loud whistling as she flies:
She stops and listens, and shoots forth again,
And guides her pinions by her young ones' cries.

With such kind passion hastes the prince to fight,

And spreads his flying canvass to the sound; Him, whom no danger, were he there, could fright,

Now, absent, every little noise can wound.

As in a drought the thirsty creatures cry,
And gape upon the gather'd clouds for rain;
And first the martlet meets it in the sky,

And with wet wings joys all the feather'd train.

With such glad hearts did our despairing men
Salute the appearance of the prince's fleet;
And each ambitiously would claim the ken,
That with first eyes did distant safety meet.
The Dutch, who came like greedy hinds before,
To reap the harvest their ripe ears did yield;
Now look like those, when rolling thunders roar,
And sheets of lightning blast the standing field.

Full in the Prince's passage, hills of sand
And dangerous flats in secret ambush lay,
Where the false tides skim o'er the cover'd land,
And seamen with dissembled depths betray.

The wily Dutch, who, like fallen angels, fear'd
This new Messiah's coming, there did wait,
Third day. Orig. ed.

And round the verge their braving vessels steer'd,

To tempt his courage with so fair a bait.
But he, unmov'd, contemns their idle threat,
Secure of fame whene'er he please to fight:
His cold experience tempers all his heat,
And inbred worth does boasting valour slight.
Heroic virtue did his actions guide,

And he the substance not th' appearance chose:
To rescue one such friend he took more pride,
Than to destroy whole thousands of such foes.
But when approach'd, in strict embraces bound,
Rupert and Albemarle together grow;
Which he to none but to that friend would owe.
He joys to have his friend in safety found,

The cheerful soldiers, with new stores supplied,
Now long to execute their spleenful will;
And, in revenge for those three days they tried,
Wish one, like Joshua's, when the sun stood
still.

Thus reinforced, against the adverse fleet,*
Still doubling ours, brave Rupert leads the way:
With the first blushes of the morn they meet,
And bring night back upon the new-born day.
His presence soon blows up the kindling fight,
And his loud guns speak thick like angry men:
It seem'd as slaughter had been breath'd all
night,

And death new pointed his dull dart again.
The Dutch too well his mighty conduct knew,
And matchless courage, since the former fight:
Whose navy like a stiff-stretch'd cord did show,
Till he bore in and bent them into flight.
The wind he shares, while half their fleet offends
His open side, and high above him shows:
Upon the rest at pleasure he descends,
And doubly harm'd he double harms bestows.
Behind, the general mends his weary pace,
And sullenly to his revenge he sails:
So glides some trodden serpent on the grass,
And long behind his wounded volume trails.
The increasing sound is borne to either shore,
And for their stakes the throwing nations fear:
Their passions double with the cannons' roar,
And with warm wishes each man combats there.
Ply'd thick and close as when the fight begun,
Their huge unwieldy navy wastes away;
So sicken waning moons too near the sun,
And blunt their crescents on the edge of day.
And now reduc'd on equal terms to fight,
Their ships like wasted patrimonies show;
• Fourth day's battle. Orig. ed.

Where the thin scattering trees admit the light, And shun each other's shadows as they grow.

The warlike prince had sever'd from the rest
Two giant ships, the pride of all the main;
Which with his one so vigorously he press'd,
And flew so home, they could not rise again.

Already batter'd, by his lee they lay,
In vain upon the passing winds they call:
The passing winds through their torn canvass
play,

And flagging sails on heartless sailors fall.

Their open'd sides receive a gloomy light,
Dreadful as day let into shades below; [sight,
Without, grim death rides barefac'd in their
And urges entering billows as they flow.
When one dire shot, the last they could supply,
Close by the board the prince's mainmast bore;
All three now helpless by each other lie,
And this offends not, and those fear no more.

So have I seen some fearful hare maintain
A course, till tir'd before the dog she lay :
Who stretch'd behind her, pants upon the plain,
Past power to kill, as she to get away.

With his loll'd tongue he faintly licks his prey;
His warm breath blows her flix up as she lies;
She, trembling, creeps upon the ground away,
And looks back to him with beseeching eyes.

The prince unjustly does his stars accuse,
Which hinder'd him to push his fortune on;
For what they to his courage did refuse,
By mortal valour never must be done.

This lucky hour the wise Batavian takes,
And warns his tatter'd fleet to follow home:
Proud to have so got off with equal stakes,
Where 't was a triumph not to be o'ercome.*

The general's force, as kept alive by fight,
Now, not oppos'd, no longer can pursue :
Lasting till heaven had done his courage right;
When he had conquer'd he his weakness knew.

He casts a frown on the departing foe,
And sighs to see him quit the watery field:
His stern fix'd eyes no satisfaction show,
For all the glories which the fight did yield.
Though, as when fiends did miracles avow,
He stands confess'd e'en by the boastful Dutch;
He only does his conquest disavow,
And thinks too little what they found too much :

• A triumph not to be o'ercome] From Horace: quos opimus

Fallere et effugere est triumphus. Orig. ed.

Return'd, he with the fleet resolv'd to stay ;
No tender thoughts of home his heart divide;
Domestic joys and cares he puts away; [guide.
For realms are households which the great must
As those who unripe veins in mines explore,
On the rich bed again the warm turf lay,
Till time digests the yet imperfect ore,
And know it will be gold another day;

So looks our monarch on this early fight,
Th' essay and rudiments of great success:
Which all-maturing time must bring to light,
While he, like heaven, does each day's labour
bless.

Heaven ended not the first or second day
Yet each was perfect to the work design'd:
God and kings work, when they their work
A pasive aptness in all subjects find. [survey,
In burden'd vessels first,† with speedy care,
His plenteous stores do season'd timber send:
Thither the brawny carpenters repair,
And as the surgeons of maim'd ships attend.
With cord and canvass from rich Hamburgh sent,
His navies molted wings he imps‡ once more;
Tall Norway fir, their masts in battle spent,
And English oak, sprung leaks and planks, re-

store.

All hands employ'd, the royal work grows warm:
Like labouring bees on a long summer's day,
Some sound the trumpet for the rest to swarm,
And some on bells of tasted lilies play.

With glewy wax some new foundation lay
Of virgin combs, which from the roof are hung:
Some arm'd within doors upon duty stay,
Or tend the sick, or educate the young.
So here some pick out bullets from the sides,
Some drive old oakum through each seam and
Their left hand does the calking-iron guide, [rift:
The rattling mallet with the right they lift.
With boiling pitch another near at hand,
From friendly Sweden brought, the seams in-
stops:
[stand,
Which, well paid o'er, the salt sea waves with-
And shakes them from the rising beak in drops.
Some the gall'd ropes with dawby marling bind,
Or searcloth masts with strong tarpawling

coats:

His majesty repairs the fleet. Orig. ed.

1 Wings he imps] See Mr Warton's note on Milton's 15th Sonnet, to imp their serpent-wings:' where be observes that the expression occurs in poets much later than Milton. The latest, whom I have hitherto found using this old poetical expression, is Shadwell, by whom it is employed towards the end of his Isabella. T.