Thames, the most lov'd of all the Ocean's fons Though with those streams he no resemblance hold, The mower's hopes, nor mock the plowman's toil : Brings home to us, and makes both Indies ours; So that to us no thing, no place is strange, Though they ftill perfifted in that course, it would look as if they minded not the way to any better. : Whereupon I ftood corrected as long as I had the honour to wait upon him, and at his departure from Hampton-Court, he was pleased to command me to ftay privately at London, to fend to him and receive from him all his letters from and to all his correfpondents at home and abroad, and I was furnished with nine feveral cyphers in order to it which truft I performed with great fafety to the perfons with whom we correfponded; but about nine months after being difcovered by their knowledge of Mr. Cowley's hand, I happily escaped both for myfelf, and thofe that held correfpondence with me. That time was too hot and bufy for fuch idle fpeculations: but after I had the good fortune to wait upon your majefty in Holland and France, you were pleased sometimes to give me arguments to divert and put off the evil hours of our banishment, which now and then fell not fhort of your majesty's expectation. After, when your majefty, departing from St. Germains to Jerfey, was pleafed freely (without my asking) to confer upon me that place wherein I have now the honour to ferve you, I then gave over poctical lines, and made it my business to draw fuch others as might be more ferviceable to your majesty, and I hope more lafting. Since that time I never difobeyed my old master's commands till this fummer at the Wells, my retirement there tempting me to divert thofe melancholy thoughts, which the new apparitions of fo reign invafion and domeftic difcontent gave us : but thefe clouds being now happily blown over, and our fun clearly fhining out again, I have recovered the relapse, it being suspected that it would have proved the epidemical disease of age, which is apt to fall back into the follies of youth; yet Socrates, Aristotle, and Cato did the fame; and Scaliger faith, that fragment of Ariftotle was beyond any thing that Pindar or Homer ever wrote. I will not call this a dedication, for those epiftles are commonly greater abfurdities than any that come after; for what author can reafonably believe, that fixing the great name of fome eminent patron in the forehead of his book can charm away cenfure, and that the first leaf fhould be a curtain to draw over and hide all the deformities that ftand behind it? neither have I any need of fuch fhifts, for most of the parts of this body have already had your majefty's view, and having past the test of fo clear and sharp-fighted a judgment, which has as good a title to give law in matters of this nature as in any other, they who shall presume to diffent from your majefty, will do more wrong to their own judgment than their judgment can do to me and for those latter parts which have not yet received your majefty's favourable afpe&t, if they who have feen them do not flatter me (for I dare not truft my own judgment) they will make it appear, that it is not with me as with most of mankind, who never forfake their darling vices, till their vices forfake them; and that this diworce was not Frigiditatis caufa, but an act of choice, and not of neceffity. Therefore, fir, I fhall only call it an humble petition, that your majesty will please to pardon this new amour to my old mistress, and my difobedience to his commands, to whofe memory I look up with great reverence and devotion: and making a ferious reflection upon that wife advice, it carries much greater weight with it now, than when it was given; for when age and experience has fo ripened man's difcretion as to make it fit for use, either in private or public affairs, nothing blafts and corrupts the fruit of it fo much as the empty, airy reputation of being Nimis Poëta; and therefore I shall take my leave of the Mufes, as two of my predeceffors did, faying, "Splendidis longum valedico nugis. Your majesty's most faithful and loyal fubject, and moft 'dutiful and devoted fervant, JO. DENHAM. POEMS POE M S BY SIR JOHN DENHAM. SURE COOPER'S there are poets HILL. which did never dream Upon Parnaffus, nor did tafte the stream: Of Helicon; we therefore may fuppofe Those made not poets, but the poets thofe. And as courts make not kings, but kings the court, That, whether 'tis a part of earth or sky, |