"Tu vero, Arctoae gentis praedo improbe, tanti
Fons et origo mali, Nassovi, ingrate virorum,
Immeritum quid me, nunc Caesaris arma secutum,
Prosequeris toties, et iniquo Marte fatiges?
Nonne ego, cum lasso per Belgia stagna caballo
Agmina liligeri fugeres victricia Galli,
Ipse mei impositum dorso salientis equi te
Hostibus eripui, salvumque in castra reduxi?
Haecne mihi meriti persolvis praemia tanti?
Proh scelus! O Soceri rapti nequissime sceptri!"
The translation, which is certainly, as Napier calls it, both imperfect
and free, is to this effect:
"When the fierce Gaul through Belgian stanks you fled,
Fainting, alone, and destitute of aid,
While the proud victor urged your doubtful fate,
And your tired courser sunk beneath your weight;
Did I not mount you on my vigorous steed,
And save your person by his fatal speed?
For life and freedom then by me restored
I'm thus rewarded by my Belgick Lord.
Ungrateful Prince!"
[6] The stories of Claverhouse's conduct at Seneff, and of the quarrel
at Loo, are told in the "Life of Lieut.-General Hugh Mackay," by John
Mackay of Rockfields, and in the "Memoirs of the Lord Viscount Dundee,"
published in 1714, and professing to be written by an officer of the
army. This little book is remarkable chiefly as being the first recorded
attempt at a biography of Dundee. The writer was possibly not an
officer, nor personally acquainted with Dundee. But he had certainly
contrived to learn a good deal about him and his affairs; and as later
research has either corroborated or, at least, made probable, much of
his information, it seems to me quite as fair to use it for Dundee, as
to use the unsupported testimony of the Covenanters against him.
According to his biographer, Mackay himself was Claverhouse's successful
rival. According to the earlier writer, the man was David Colyear,
afterwards Lord Portmore, and husband of Catherine Sedley, Lady
Dorchester, James's favourite and ugliest mistress.
CHAPTER II.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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