That, still depending on his daily grace,
His every mercy for an alms may pass ;
With sparing hands will diet us to good;
Preventing surfeits of our pamper'd blood.
So feeds the mother-bird her craving young
With little morsels, and delays them long.

"True, this last blessing was a royal feast;
But where's the wedding-garment on the guest?
Our manners, as religion were a dream,
Are such as teach the nations to blaspheme.
In lusts we wallow, and with pride we swell,
And injuries with injuries repel;

Prompt to revenge, not daring to forgive,
Our lives unteach the doctrine we believe.
Thus Israel sinn'd, impenitently hard,

And vainly thought the present ark their guard 14;
But when the haughty Philistines appear,
They fled, abandon'd to their foes and fear;
Their God was absent, though his ark was there.
Ah! lest our crimes should snatch this pledge away,
And make our joys the blessings of a day!

For we have sinn'd him hence, and that he lives,
God to his promise, not our practice, gives;
Our crimes would soon weigh down the guilty scale,
But James, and Mary, and the Church prevail.
Nor Amalek can rout the chosen bands',
While Hur and Aaron hold up Moses' hands.
By living well let us secure his days,
Moderate in hopes, and humble in our ways.
No force the free-born spirit can constrain,
But charity and great examples gain.

14 1 Sam. iv. 10.

15 Exod. xvii. 8.

Forgiveness is our thanks for such a day; "Tis godlike, God in his own coin to pay.

But you, propitious Queen! translated here,
From your mild Heaven, to rule our rugged sphere,
Beyond the sunny walks and circling year;
You, who your native climate have bereft
Of all the virtues, and the vices left;
Whom piety and beauty make their boast,
Though beautiful is well in pious lost;
So lost as star-light is dissolved away,
And melts into the brightness of the day;
Or gold about the regal diadem,
Lost to improve the lustre of the gem;
What can we add to your triumphant day?
Let the great gift the beauteous giver pay:
For should our thanks awake the rising sun,
And lengthen as his latest shadows run,
That, though the longest day, would soon, too
soon be done.

Let angels' voices with their harps conspire,
But keep the' auspicious infant from the choir;
Late let him sing above, and let us know
No sweeter music than his cries below.

Nor can I wish to you, great Monarch! more
Than such an annual income to your store;
The day which gave this Unit did not shine
For a less omen than to fill the Trine.
After a Prince an Admiral beget;
The Royal Sovereign wants an anchor yet.
Our isle has younger titles still in store,
And when the' exhausted land can yield no more,
Your line can force them from a foreign shore.
The name of Great your martial mind will suit;
But Justice is your darling attribute:

Of all the Greeks 'twas but one hero's 16 due,
And in him Plutarch prophesied of you:
A prince's favours but on few can fall,
But justice is a virtue shared by all.

Some kings the name of Conquerors have assumed,

Some to be great, some to be gods presumed;
But boundless power and abitrary lust

Made tyrants still abhor the name of Just;
They shunn'd the praise this godlike virtue gives,
And fear'd a title that reproach'd their lives.

The power from which all kings derive their state,
Whom they pretend, at least, to imitate,
Is equal both to punish and reward;

For few would love their God unless they fear'd.
Resistless force and immortality
Make but a lame, imperfect deity:

Tempests have force unbounded to destroy,
And deathless being even the damn'd enjoy;
And yet Heaven's attributes, both last and first,
One without life, and one with life accurs'd:
But Justice is Heaven's self, so strictly he,
That could it fail, the Godhead could not be.
This virtue is your own; but life and state
Are one to Fortune subject, one to Fate:
Equal to all, you justly frown or smile;
Nor hopes nor fears your steady hand beguile;
Yourself our balance hold, the world's our isle.

16 Aristides. See his life in Plutarch.

THE MEDAL.

A SATIRE AGAINST SEDITION.

1681.

EPISTLE TO THE WHIGS:

FOR to whom can I dedicate this Poem with so much justice as to you? It is the representation of your own hero; it is the picture drawn at length, which you admire and prize so much in little '. None of your ornaments are wanting; neither the landscape of the Tower, nor the Rising Sun; nor the anno domini of your new sovereign's coronation. This must needs be a grateful undertaking to your whole party, especially to those who have not been so happy as to purchase the original. I hear the graver has made a good market of it: all his kings are bought up already; or the value of the remainder so enhanced, that many a poor Polander, who would be glad to worship the

1 On the Jury's refusing to find a bill against Lord Shaftesbury for high treason in Nov. 1681, a medal was struck to commemorate the event, which gave occasion to Dryden's satire.

2 Shaftesbury was said to entertain hopes that he should be elected King of Poland.

image, is not able to go to the cost of him, but must be content to see him here. I must confess I am no great artist; but sign-post painting will serve the turn to remember a friend by, especially when better is not to be had: yet, for your comfort, the lineaments are true; and though he sat not five times to me, as he did to B.3 yet I have consulted history; as the Italian painters do, when they would draw a Nero or a Caligula; though they have not seen the man, they can help their imagination by a statue of him, and find out the colouring from Suetonius and Tacitus. Truth is, you might have spared one side of your Medal: the head would be seen to more advantage if it were placed on a spike of the Tower, a little nearer to the sun, which would then break out to better purpose.

You tell us, in your Preface to the No-protestant Plot, that you shall be forced hereafter to leave off your modesty. I suppose you mean that little which is left you; for it was worn to rags when you put out this Medal. Never was there practised such a piece of notorious impudence in the face of an established government. I believe, when he is dead, you will wear him in thumbrings, as the Turks did Scanderbeg; as if there were virtue in his bones to preserve you against monarchy. Yet all this while you pretend not only zeal for the public good, but a due veneration for the person of the King. But all men, who can see an inch before them, may easily detect

3 George Bower, a medallic engraver.
A tract in three parts, printed in 1682.