So ftrange a concourse ne'er was feen before, But when the peopled ark the whole creation bore.

VII.

The scene then chang'd, with bold erected look
Our martial king the fight with reverence strook :
For, not content t' express his outward part,
Her hand call'd out the image of his heart:
His warlike mind, his foul devoid of fear,
His high-defigning thoughts were figur'd there,
As when, by magic, ghosts are made appear.

Our phoenix queen was pourtray'd too so bright,
Beauty alone could beauty take fo right:
Her drefs, her shape, her matchlefs grace,
Were all obferv'd, as well as heavenly face.
With fuch a peerless majesty fhe ftands,

}

As in that day fhe took the crown from facred hands: Before a train of heroines was feen,

In beauty foremost, as in rank, the queen.

Thus nothing to her genius was deny'd,
But like a ball of fire the further thrown,
Still with a greater blaze the fhone,

And her bright foul broke out on every fide.
What next she had defign'd, heaven only knows :
To fuch immoderate growth her conqueft role,
That Fate alone its progrefs could oppose.

VIII.

Now all those charms, that blooming grace,.
The well-proportion'd shape, and beauteous face,.
Shall never more be seen by mortal eyes;
In earth the much-lamented virgin lies.

Not wit, nor piety, could fate prevent ;
Nor was the cruel deftiny content
To finish all the murder at a blow,

To fweep at once her life and beauty too;
But, like a harden'd felon, took a pride

To work more mischievously flow,

And plunder'd first, and then destroy'd.

O double facrilege on things divine,
To rob the relick, and deface the shrine !
But thus Orinda dy'd :

Heaven, by the same disease, did both translate; As equal were their fouls, fo equal was their fate.

IX.

Meantime her warlike brother on the feas His waving streamers to the winds displays, And vows for his return, with vain devotion, pays. Ah, generous youth, that wish forbear,

The winds too foon will waft thee here!
Slack all thy fails, and fear to come,

Alas, thou know'ft not, thou art wreck'd at home!
No more fhalt thou behold thy fister's face,
Thou haft already had her laft embrace.
But look aloft, and if thou ken'st from far
Among the Pleiads a new-kindled ftar,
If any fparkles than the rest more bright ;
"Tis the that fhines in that propitious light.

X.

When in mid-air the golden trump shall found,
To raise the nations under ground;

When in the valley of Jehoshaphat,

The judging God fhall close the book of fate;
And there the laft affizes keep,

For those who wake, and those who sleep:
When rattling bones together fly,

From the four corners of the sky;

When finews o'er the skeletons are spread,
Those cloth'd with flesh, and life infpires the dead;
The facred poets first shall hear the found,

And foremost from the tomb shall bound,
For they are cover'd with the lightest ground;
And straight, with in-born vigour, on the wing,
Like mounting larks, to the new morning fing.
There thou, fweet Saint, before the quire shall
As harbinger of heaven, the way to show,
The way which thou fo well haft learnt below.

III.

go,

Upon the Death of the EARL of DUNDEE. Tranflated from the Latin of Dr. PITCAIRN.

Hlaft and beft of Scots! who didst maintain

Thy country's freedom from a foreign reign;
New people fill the land, now thou art gone,
New gods the temples, and new kings the throne.
Scotland and thou did each in other live;
Nor would't thou her, nor could the thee furvive.
Farewell, who dying didft fupport the state,
And couldst not fall but with thy country's fate.

ELEO

IV.

ELEONORA: A PANEGYRICAL POEM, Dedicated to the Memory of

The late COUNTESS of ABINGDON.

To the Right Honble the Earl of ABINGDON, &C.

MY LORD,

THE commands with which you honoured me

fome months ago are now performed: they had been fooner; but betwixt ill health, fome bufinefs, and many troubles, I was forced to defer them till this time. Ovid, going to his banishment, and writing from on fhipboard to his friends, excufed the faults of his poetry by his misfortunes; and told them, that good verfes never flow but from a ferene and compofed fpirit. Wit, which is a kind of Mercury, with wings faftened to his head and heels, can fly but flowly in a damp air. I therefore chofe rather to obey you late than ill; if at leaft I am capable of writing any thing, at any time, which is worthy your perufal and your patronage. I cannot fay that I have escaped from a fhipwreck; but have only gained a rock by hard fwimming; where I may pant a while and gather breath : for the doctors give me a fad affurance, that my disease never took its leave of any man, but with a purpose to return. However, my lord, I have laid hold on the

interval,

interval, and managed the small stock, which age has left me, to the best advantage, in performing this inconfiderable service to my lady's memory. We, who are priests of Apollo, have not the inspiration when we pleafe; but must wait till the God comes rushing on us, and invades us with a fury which we are not able to refift: which gives us double ftrength while the fit continues, and leaves us languishing and spent at its departure. Let me not seem to boast, my lord; for I have really felt it on this occafion, and prophesied beyond my natural power. Let me add, and hope to be believed, that the excellency of the subject contributed much to the happiness of the execution; and that the weight of thirty years was taken off me while I was writing. I fwam with the tide, and the water under me was buoyant. The reader will eafily obferve, that I' was tranfported by the multitude and variety of my fimilitudes; which are generally the product of a luxuriant fancy, and the wantonnefs of wit. Had I called in my judgment to my affiftance, I had certainly retrenched many of them. But I defend them not; let them pafs for beautiful faults amongst the better fort of critics for the whole poem, though written in that which they call Heroic verfe, is of the Pindaric nature, as well in the thought as the expreffion; and, as fuch, requires the fame grains of allowance for it. It was intended, as your lordship fees in the title, not for an elegy, but a panegyric: a kind of apotheofis, indeed, if a Heathen word may be applied to a Chriftian use. And on all occafions of praife, if we take the Ancients

:

for