But oh! if from your Praise I feel A Joy that has no Parallel! What must I suffer when I cannot pay Your Goodness, your own generous way? And make my stubborn Muse your Just Commands obey. My Muse that would endeavour fain to glide With the fair prosperous Gale, and the full driving Tide, But Loyalty Commands with Pious Force, That stops me in the thriving Course, The Brieze that wafts the Crowding Nations o’re, Leaves me unpity’d far behind On the Forsaken Barren Shore, To Sigh with Echo, and the Murmuring Wind; While all the Inviting Prospect I survey, With Melancholy Eyes I view the Plains, Where all I see is Ravishing and Gay, And all I hear is Mirth in loudest Strains; Thus while the Chosen Seed possess the Promis’d Land, I like the Excluded Prophet stand, The Fruitful Happy Soil can only see, But am forbid by Fates Decree To share the Triumph of the joyful Victory. (5) ‘Tis to your Pen, Great Sir, the Nation owes For all the Good this Mighty Change has wrought; ‘Twas that the wondrous Method did dispose, E’re the vast Work was to Perfection brought. Oh Strange effect of a Seraphick Quill! That can by unperceptable degrees Change every Notion, every Principle To any Form, its Great Dictator please: The Sword a Feeble Pow’r, compar’d to That, And to the Nobler Pen subordinate; And of less use in _Bravest_ turns of State: While that to Blood and Slaughter has recourse, This Conquers Hearts with soft prevailing Force: So when the wiser _Greeks_ o’recame their Foes, It was not by the Barbarous Force of Blows. When a long Ten Years Fatal War had fail’d, With luckier Wisdom they at last assail’d, Wisdom and Counsel which alone prevail’d. Not all their Numbers the Fam’d Town could win, ‘Twas Nobler Stratagem that let the Conquerour in. (6) Tho’ I the Wond’rous Change deplore, That makes me Useless and Forlorn, Yet I the great Design adore, Tho’ Ruin’d in the Universal Turn. Nor can my Indigence and Lost Repose, Those Meagre Furies that surround me close, Convert my Sense and Reason more To this Unpresidented Enterprise, Than that a Man so Great, so Learn’d, so Wise, The Brave Achievement Owns and nobly Justifies. ‘Tis you, Great Sir, alone, by Heaven preserv’d, Whose Conduct has so well the Nation serv’d, ‘Tis you that to Posperity shall give This Ages Wonders, and its History. And Great NASSAU shall in your Annals live To all Futurity. Your Pen shall more Immortalize his Name, That even his Own Renown’d and Celebrated Fame. FINIS. NOTES. NOTES ON THE TEXT. LA MONSTRE (1686).