A Panegyric on the Coronation of Charles II. 31 An Address to Lord Chancellor Hyde
To her royal highness the Dutchefs, on the me_ morable Victory gained by the Duke over the Hollanders, June 3, 1665, and on her Journey into the North
Annus Mirabilis : The Year of Wonders,
UST noble Haftings immaturely die,
The honour of his ancient family,
Beauty and learning thus together meet,
To bring a winding for a wedding-sheet?
Muft virtue prove death's harbinger? must she,
With him expiring, feel mortality?
Is death, fin's wages, grace's now? shall art
Make us more learned, only to depart?
If merit be disease; if virtue death;
To be good, not to be; who'd then bequeath
Himself to discipline? who'd not esteem
Labour a crime? study self-murther deem?
Our noble youth now have pretence to be
Dunces fecurely, ignorant healthfully.
Rare linguist whose worth speaks itself, whose praise,
Tho not his own, all tongues befides do raise :
Than whom great Alexander may feem lefs ;
Who conquer❜d men, but not their languages.
In his mouth nations fpake; his tongue might be
Interpreter to Greece, France, Italy.
His native foil was the four parts o'th'earth;
All Europe was too narrow for his birth.
A young apostle; and with rev'rence may
I fpeak it infpir'd with gift of tongues, as they.
Nature gave him a child, what men in vain
Oft strive, by art though further'd, to obtain.
His body was an orb, his fublime foul
Did move on virtue's, and on learning's pole :
Whose reg'lar motions better to our view,
Than Archimedes' sphere, the heavens did shew.
Graces and virtues, languages and arts,
Beauty and learning, fill'd up all the parts.
Heav'n's gifts, which do like falling ftars appear
Scatter'd in others; all, as in their sphere,
Were fix'd, conglobate in his foul; and thence
Shone thro his body, with fweet influence;
Letting their glories fo on each limb fall,
The whole frame render'd was celeftial.
Come, learned Ptolemy, and tryal make,
If thou this hero's altitude can't take :
But that tranfcends thy fkill; thrice happy all,
Could we but prove thus aftronomical.
Liv'd Tycho now, ftruck with this ray which shone
More bright i'th' morn', than others beam at noon,
He'd take his astrolabe, and feek out here
What new star 'twas did gild our hemifphere.
Replenish'd then with fuch rare gifts as these,
Where was room left for fuch a foul disease?
The nation's fin hath drawn that veil, which fhrouds
Our day-fpring in fo fad benighting clouds,
Heaven would no longer truft its pledge; but thus
Recall'd it; rapt its Ganymede from us.
Was there no milder way but the fmall-pox,
The very filthinefs of Pandora's box?
So many spots, like næves on Venus' foil,
One jewel fet off with fo many a foil;
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