700 And not unthankful use the proffer'd grace : Yet while with close delight and inward pride With power invested, and with pleasure cheer'd; 710 And at my death to bless thy kindness shown While thus the constant pair alternate said, 720 Joyful above them and around them play'd Angels and sportive loves, a numerous crowd; Smiling they clapp'd their wings, and low they bow'd: They tumbled all their little quivers o'er, To choose propitious shafts, a precious store; To strike (however rarely) constant hearts, Now, Mars, she said, let Fame exalt her voice: 740 And when, as prudent Saturn shall complete 750 What wars I manage, and what wreaths I gain. And, when thy tumults and thy fights are past; And when thy laurels at my feet are cast; Faithful mayst thou, like British Henry, prove: And, Emma-like, let me return thy love. Renown'd for truth, let all thy sons appear; And constant beauty shall reward their care. Mars smil'd, and bow'd: the Cyprian deity 760 Turn'd to the glorious ruler of the sky; And thou, she smiling said, great god of days 770 VOL. 1. AN ODE, HUMBLY INSCRIBED TO THE QUEEN, ON THE GLO RIOUS SUCCESS OF HER MAJESTY'S ARMS, MDCCVI. WRITTEN IN IMITATION OF SPENSER'S STYLE. "Te non paventis funera Galliæ, Te cæde gaudentes Sicambri PREFACE. ZHEN I first thought of writing upon this occasion, I found the ideas so great and numerous, that I judged them more proper for the warmth of an Ode, than for any other sort of poetry: I therefore set Horace before me for a pattern, and particularly his famous ode, the fourth of the fourth book, "Qualem ministrum fulminis alitem," &c. which he wrote in praise of Drusus after his expedition into Germany, and of Augustus upon his happy choice of that general. And in the following poem, though I have endeavoured to imitate all the great strokes of that ode, I have taken the liberty to go off from it, and to add variously, 88 the subject and my own imagination carried me. As to the style, the choice I made of following the ode in Latin determined me in English to the stanza; and herein it was impossible not to have a mind to follow our great countryman Spenser ; which I have done (as well at least as I could) in the manner of my expression, and the turn of my number: having only added one verse to his stanza, which I thought made the number more harmonious; and avoided such of his words as I found too obsolete. I have, however, retained some few of them, to make the colouring look more like Spenser's. Behest, command; band, army; prowess, strength; I weet, I know; I ween, I think; whilom, heretofore; and two or three more of that kind, which I hope the ladies will pardon me, and not judge my Muse less handsome, though for once she appears in a farthingale. I have also, in Spenser's manner, used Cæsar for the emperor, Boya for Bavaria, Bavar for that prince, Ister for Danube, Iberia for Spain, &c. That noble part of the Ode which I just now mentioned, "Gens, quæ cremato fortis ab Ilio where Horace praises the Romans as being descended from Æneas, I have turned to the honour of the British nation, descended from Brute, likewise a Trojan. That this Brute, fourth or fifth from Eneas, settled in England, and built London, which he called Troja Nova, or Troynovante, is a story which I think) owes its original, if not to |