W

AN

D

By Mr. Coв Ba.

I.

E.

HAT can the British fenate give,

To make the name of ANNA live,

By future people to be fung,

The labour of each grateful tongue?
Can faithful registers, or rhyme,
In charming eloquence, or fprightly wit,
The wonders of her reign transmit

To th' unborn children of fucceeding time?

a Samuel Cobb, affiftant mafter of the grammar fchool of Christ's Hospital; where he was himself educated, and from whence he was elected to Trinity College, Cambridge, at which place he took the degree of master of arts. He died at London in 1713, and was interred in the cloyster of Christ's hospital. Dr. Watts efteemed this ode as the trueft, and beft pindaric he had ever read. It is reprinted in the Gentleman's Magazine 1753, with fome alterations by that author.

Can

Can painters' oil, or ftatuaries' art,
Eternity to her impart ?

No! titled ftatues are but empty things,
Infcrib'd to royal vanity,

The facrifice of flattery

To lawless Neros, or Bourbonian kings.
True virtue to her kindred ftars afpires,
Does all our pomp of ftone and verse surpass,
And mingling with ethereal fires,

No useless ornament requires

From speaking colours, or from breathing brass. II.

Greatest of princes! where the wand'ring fun
Does o'er earth's habitable regions roll,

From th' eastern barriers to the western goal,
And fees thy race of glory run

With fwiftness equal to his own :

Thee on the banks of Flandrian Scaldis fings The jocund fwain, releas'd from Gallic fear; The English voice unus'd to hear,

Thee the repeating banks, thee every valley rings. III.

The fword of heav'n how pious ANNA wields, And heav'nly vengeance on the guilty deals, Let the twice fugitive Bavarian tell;

Who, from his airy hope of better state,

By luft of sway irregularly great,

Like an apoftate angel fell:

Who, by imperial favour rais'd,
I' th' highest rank of glory blaz'd:
And had 'till now unrivall'd fhone,
More than a king, contented with his own ;
But Lucifer's bold fteps he trod,

Who durft affault the throne of God;
And for contented realms of blissful light,
Gain'd the fad privilege to be

The firft in folid mifery,

Monarch of hell, and woes, and everlasting night.
Corruption of the best is always worft;

And foul ambition, like an evil wind,
Blights the fair bloffoms of a noble mind;

And if a feraph fall, he's doubly curft.

IV.

Had guile, and pride, and envy grown
In the black groves of Styx alone,

Nor ever had on earth the baleful crop been fown j
The fwain, without amaze, had till'd

The Flandrian glebe, a guiltless field:
Nor had he wonder'd, when he found
The bones of heroes in the ground:
No crimson streams had lately fwell'd
The Dyle, the Danube, and the Scheld.

But evils are of neceffary growth,

To rouze the brave, and banish sloth;
And fome are born to win the stars,
By fweat and blood, and worthy fears.

Heroic virtue is by action feen,

And vices ferve to make it keen ;

And as gigantic tyrants rife;

NASSAUS and CHURCHILLS leave the skies,

The earth-born monsters to chastife.

V.

If, heav'nly Mufe, you burn with a defire
To praise the man whom all admire ;
Come from thy learn'd Castalian springs,
And stretch aloft thy Pegafean wings,
Strike the loud Pindaric ftrings,
Like the lark who foars and fings;

And as you fail the liquid fkies,

b

Caft on Menapian fields your weeping eyes:
For weep they furely must,

To fee the bloody annual facrifice;

To think how the neglected duft;
Which with contempt is bafely trod,

Was once the limbs of captains, brave and juft,
The mortal part of fome great demi-god;
Who for thrice fifty years of stubborn war,
With flaught'ring arms; the gun and iword,
Have dug the mighty fepulchre,

And fell as martyrs on record,

Öf tyranny aveng'd, and liberty reftor❜d.

The Menapii were the ancient inhabitants of Flanders.

VOL. I.

F

VI. See,

VI.

See, where at Audenard, with heaps of flain,
Th' heroic man, infpir'dly brave,
Mowing across, beftrews the plain,

And with new tenants crowds the wealthy grave.
His mind unfhaken at the frightful fcene,

His looks as cheerfully ferene,

The routed battle to pursue,

As once adorn'd the Paphian queen,
When to her Thracian paramour she flew,
The gath'ring troops he kens from far,
And with a bridegroom's paffion and delight,
Courting the war, and glowing for the fight,
The new Salmonius meets the Celtic thunderer.
Ah, curfed pride! infernal dream!

Which drove him to this wild extreme,
That duft a deity should seem;

Be thought, as through the wondering ftreets he rode,
A man immortal, or a god:

With rattling brafs, and trampling horse,
Should counterfeit th' inimitable force

Of divine thunder: horrid crime!
But vengeance is the child of time,
And will too furely be repaid
On his profane devoted head,
Who durft affront the powers above,
And their eternal flames difgrace,

Too fatal, brandish'd by the real Jove,

с

Or Pallas, who affumes, and fills his aweful place :

VICEM GERIT ILLA TONANTIS,

VII. The