Thames, the most lov'd of all the Ocean's fons
By his old fire, to his embraces runs ;
Hafting to pay his tribute to the fea,
Like mortal life to meet eternity.

Though with those streams he no resemblance hold,
Whose foam is amber, and their gravel gold;
His genuine and lefs guilty wealth t' explore,
Search not his bottom, but furvey his shore;
O'er which he kindly spreads his spacious wing,
And hatches plenty for th' enfuing spring.
Nor then destroys it with too fond a stay,
Like mothers which their infants overlay.
Nor with a fudden and impetuous wave,'
Like profuse kings, refumes the wealth he gave.
No unexpected inundations spoil

The mower's hopes, nor mock the plowman's toil :
But god-like his unweary'd bounty flows;
First loves to do, then loves the good he does."
Nor are his bleffings to his banks confin'd,
But free, and common, as the sea or wind;
When he, to boast or to disperse his stores
Full of the tributes of his grateful shores,
Vifits the world, and in his flying towers

Brings home to us, and makes both Indies ours;
Finds wealth where 'tis, bestows it where it wants,
Cities in defarts, woods in cities plants.

So that to us no thing, no place is strange,
While his fair bofom is the world's exchange.
O could I flow like thee, and make thy ftream
My great example, as it is my theme!

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.
"Hic verfus & cætera ludicra pono."

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,
So where the Mufes and their train refort,
Parnaffus ftands; if I can be to thee
A poet, thou Parnaffus art to me.
Nor wonder, if (advantag'd in my flight,
By taking wing from thy aufpicious height)
Through untrac'd ways and airy paths I fly,
More boundless in my fancy than my eye:
My eye, which swift as thought contracts the space
That lies between, and first falutes the place
Crown'd with that facred pile, so vast, so high,

That, whether 'tis a part of earth or sky,