And, while with clemency Augustus reign'd,
The monarch was ador'd; the city chain'd.
With justest honour be their merits dress'd;
But be their failings too confess'd:
Their virtue, like their Tyber's flood,
Rolling its course, design'd the country's good:
But oft the torrent's too impetuous speed
From the low earth tore some polluting weed;
And with the blood of Jove there always ran,
Some viler part, some tincture of the man.
Few virtues after these so far prevail, But that their vices more than turn the scale : Valour grown wild by pride, and power by rage, Did the true charms of majesty impair; Rome by degrees advancing more in age,
Show'd sad remains of what had once been fair; Till Heaven a better race of men supplies: And glory shoots new beams from western skies.
Turn then to Pharamond, and Charlemain,
And the long heroes of the Gallic strain;
Experienc'd chiefs, for hardy prowess known,
And bloody wreaths in venturous battles won.
From the first William, our great Norman king,
The bold Plantagenets, and Tudors bring;
Illustrious virtues, who by turns have rose
In foreign fields to check Britannia's foes;
With happy laws her empire to sustain,
And with full power assert her ambient main.
But sometimes too industrious to be great,
Nor patient to expect the turns of fate,
They open'd camps deform'd by civil fight,
And made proud conquest trample over right;
Disparted Britain mourn'd their doubtful sway,
And dreaded both, when neither would obey.
From Didier and imperial Adolph trace
The glorious offspring of the Nassau race,
Devoted lives to public liberty;
The chief still dying, or the country free.
Then see the kindred blood of Orange flow,
From warlike Cornet, through the loins of Beau;
Through Chalon next, and there with Nassau join,
From Rhone's fair banks transplanted to the Rhine.
Bring next the royal list of Stuarts forth,
Undaunted minds that rul'd the rugged North;
Till Heaven's decrees by ripening times are shown;
Till Scotland's kings ascend the English throne;
And the fair rivals live for ever one.
Janus, mighty deity,
Be kind: and, as thy searching eye
Does our modern story trace,
Finding some of Stuart's race
Unhappy, pass their annals by:
No harsh reflection let remembrance raise:
Forbear to mention what thou canst not praise:
But as thou dwell'st upon that heavenly name,*
To grief for ever sacred, as to fame,
Oh! read it to thyself; in silence weep;
And thy convulsive sorrows inward keep;
Lest Britain's grief should waken at the sound;
And blood gush fresh from her eternal wound.
Whither wouldst thou further look?
Read William's acts, and close the ample book:
Peruse the wonders of his dawning life:
How, like Alcides, he began ;
With infant patience calm'd seditious strife,
And quell'd the snakes which round his cradle ran.
Describe his youth, attentive to alarms,
By dangers form'd, and perfected in arms:
When conq'ring, mild; when conquer'd, not dis-
By wrongs not lessen'd, nor by triumphs rais'd: Superior to the blind events
Of little human accidents; And constant to his first decree,
To curb the proud, to set the injur'd free;
To bow the haughty neck, and raise the suppliant
His opening years to riper manhood bring;
And see the hero perfect in the king:
Imperious arms by manly reason sway'd,
And power supreme by free consent obey'd;
With how much haste his mercy meets his foes:
And how unbounded his forgiveness flows;
With what desire he makes his subjects bless'd,
His favours granted ere his throne address'd:
What trophies o'er our captiv'd hearts he rears,
By arts of peace more potent, than by wars:
How o'er himself, as o'er the world, he reigns,
His morals strengthening what his law ordains.
Through all his thread of life already spun,
Becoming grace and proper
action run:
The piece by Virtue's equal hand is wrought,
Mixt with no crime, and shaded with no fault;
No footsteps of the victor's rage
Left in the camp where William did engage:
No tincture of the monarch's pride
Upon the royal purple spied:
His fame, like gold, the more 'tis tried,
The more shall its intrinsic worth proclaim;
Shall pass the combat of the searching flame,
And triumph o'er the vanquish'd heat,
For ever coming out the same,
And losing nor its lustre nor its weight.
Janus, be to William just :
To faithful history his actions trust:
Command her, with peculiar care
To trace each toil, and comment every war:
His saving wonders bid her write
In characters distinctly bright;
That each revolving age may read
The Patriot's piety, the Hero's deed;
And still the sire inculcate to his son
Transmissive lessons of the king's renown;
That William's glory still may live;
When all that present art can give,
The pillar'd marble, and the tablet brass,
Mouldering, drop the victor's praise:
When the great monuments of his power
Shall now be visible no more;
When Sambre shall have chang'd her winding flood; And children ask, where Namur stood.
Namur, proud city, how her towers were arm'd!
How she contemn'd the approaching foe:
Till she by William's trumpets was alarm'd,
And shook, and sunk, and fell beneath his blow.
Jove and Pallas, mighty powers,
Guided the hero to the hostile towers.
Perseus seem'd less swift in war,
When, wing'd with speed, he flew through air. 180
Embattled nations strive in vain
The hero's glory to restrain:
Streams arm'd with rocks, and mountains red with fire
In vain against his force conspire
Behold him from the dreadful height appear!
And lo! Britannia's lions waving there.
Europe freed, and France repell'd,
The hero from the height beheld :
He spake the word, that war and rage
He bid the Maese and Rhine in safety flow;
And dictated a lasting peace
To the rejoicing world below:
To rescu'd states, and vindicated crowns,
His equal hand prescrib'd their ancient bounds;
Ordain'd whom every province should obey;
How far each monarch should extend his sway:
Taught 'em how clemency made power rever'd;
And that the prince belov'd was truly fear'd.
Firm by his side unspotted Honour stood,
Pleas'd to confess him not so great as good;
His head with brighter beams fair Virtue deck'd,
Than those which all his numerous crowns reflect:
Establish'd Freedom clapp'd her joyful wings;
Proclaim'd the first of men, and best of kings.
|