By the wild fury of some tempest cast,

The fate of ships, and shipwrecked men, to taste.
As careless dames, whom wine and sleep betray
To frantic dreams, their infants overlay :*
So there, sometimes, the raging ocean fails,
And her own brood exposes; when the whales
Against sharp rocks, like reeling vessels quashed,
Though huge as mountains, are in pieces dashed;
Along the shore their dreadful limbs lie scattered,
Like hills with earthquakes shaken, torn, and shattered.
Hearts sure of brass they had, who tempted first
Rude seas that spare not what themselves have nursed.
The welcome news through all the nation spread,
To sudden joy and hope converts their dread;
What lately was their public terror, they
Behold with glad eyes as a certain prey;
Dispose already of the untaken spoil,
And, as the purchase of their future toil,
These share the bones, and they divide the oil.
So was the huntsman by the bear oppressed,
Whose hide he sold before he caught the beast!

They man their boats, and all their young men arm
With whatsoever may the monsters harm;
Pikes, halberts, spits, and darts that wound so far,
The tools of peace, and instruments of war.
Now was the time for vigorous lads to show
What love, or honour, could incite them to;
A goodly theatre! where rocks are round
With reverend age, and lovely lasses, crowned.
Such was the lake which held this dreadful pair,
Within the bounds of noble Warwick's share;t

*The new-born babe by nurses overlaid.

DRYDEN.-Palamon and Arcite.

Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick, was the proprietor of a portion of the Bermudas which bore his name. He was the elder brother of Lord Holland, and succeeded Algernon Percy, Earl of Northumberland, as Lord High Admiral, an office for which his chief qualification seems to have been a jovial disposition that won the hearts of the sailors. was a great patron of the puritan preachers, but did not on that ac

He

Warwick's bold Earl! than which no title bears
A greater sound among our British peers;
And worthy he the memory to renew,
The fate and honour to that title due,

Whose brave adventures have transferred his name, And through the new world spread his growing fame. But how they fought, and what their valour gained, Shall in another Canto be contained.

THE

CANTO III.

The bloody fight, successless toil,
And how the fishes sacked the isle.

HE boat which on the first assault did go,
Struck with a harping-iron the younger foe;
Who, when he felt his side so rudely gored,
Loud as the sea that nourished him he roared.
As a broad bream, to please some curious taste,
While yet alive, in boiling water cast,
Vexed with unwonted heat he flings about
The scorching brass, and hurls the liquor out;
So with the barbed javelin stung, he raves,
And scourges with his tail the suffering waves.
Like Spenser's Talus with his iron flail,*
He threatens ruin with his ponderous tail;
Dissolving at one stroke the battered boat,
And down the men fall drenched in the moat;
With every fierce encounter they are forced
To quit their boats, and fare like men unhorsed.

count in the least restrain the licentiousness of his life. He became the head of that party, nevertheless, and, says Clarendon, got the style of a godly man.' He stood high in the confidence and regard of Crom

well, to whose daughter he married his heir.

* His name was Talus, made of iron mould,

Immovable, resistless, without end,

Who in his hand an iron flail did hold,

With which he thrashed out falsehood, and did truth unfold.

Fairy Queen.

The bigger whale like some huge carrack lay, Which wanteth sea-room with her foes to play; Slowly she swims; and when, provoked she would Advance her tail, her head salutes the mud; The shallow water doth her force infringe, And renders vain her tail's impetuous swinge; The shining steel her tender sides receive, And there, like bees, they all their weapons leave. This sees the cub, and does himself oppose Betwixt his cumbered mother and her foes; With desperate courage he receives her wounds, And men and boats his active tail confounds. Their forces joined, the seas with billows fill, And make a tempest, though the winds be still. Now would the men with half their hopèd prey Be well content, and wish this cub away; Their wish they have: he (to direct his dam Unto the gap through which they thither came) Before her swims, and quits the hostile lake, A prisoner there but for his mother's sake. She, by the rocks compelled to stay behind, Is by the vastness of her bulk confined. They shout for joy! and now on her alone Their fury falls, and all their darts are thrown. Their lances spent, one bolder than the rest, With his broad sword provoked the sluggish beast; Her oily side devours both blade and haft, And there his steel the bold Bermudan left. Courage the rest from his example take, And now they change the colour of the lake; Blood flows in rivers from her wounded side, As if they would prevent the tardy tide, And raise the flood to that propitious height, As might convey her from this fatal strait. She swims in blood, and blood does spouting throw To heaven, that Heaven men's cruelties might know. Their fixed javelins in her side she wears,

And on her back a grove of pikes appears;

You would have thought, had you the monster seen
Thus dressed, she had another island been.

Roaring she tears the air with such a noise,
As well resembled the conspiring voice
Of routed armies, when the field is won,
To reach the ears of her escapèd son.
He, though a league removed from the foe,
Hastes to her aid; the pious Trojan* so,
Neglecting for Creusa's life his own,
Repeats the danger of the burning town.
The men, amazèd, blush to see the seed
Of monsters human piety exceed.

Well proves this kindness, what the Grecian sung,
That love's bright mother from the ocean sprung.
Their courage droops, and, hopeless now, they wish
For composition with the unconquered fish;
So she their weapons would restore again,
Through rocks they'd hew her passage to the main.
But how instructed in each other's mind?

Or what commerce can men with monsters find?
Not daring to approach their wounded foe,
Whom her courageous son protected so,
They charge their muskets, and, with hot desire
Of fell revenge, renew the fight with fire;
Standing aloof, with lead they bruise the scales,
And tear the flesh of the incensèd whales.
But no success their fierce endeavours found,
Nor this way could they give one fatal wound.
Now to their fort they are about to send
For the loud engines which their isle defend;
But what those pieces framed to batter walls,
Would have effected on those mighty whales,
Great Neptune will not have us know, who sends
A tide so high that it relieves his friends.

And thus they parted with exchange of harms;
Much blood the monsters lost, and they their arms.

*Eneas.

TO THE QUEEN,

OCCASIONED UPON SIGHT OF HER MAJESTY'S PICTURE.*

WELL fare the hand! which to our humble sight

Presents that beauty, which the dazzling light

Of royal splendour hides from weaker eyes;
And all access, save by this art, denies.
Here only we have courage to behold
This beam of glory; here we dare unfold
In numbers thus the wonders we conceive;
The gracious image, seeming to give leave,
Propitious stands, vouchsafing to be seen;
And by our muse saluted Mighty Queen,
In whom the extremes of power and beauty move,
The Queen of Britain, and the Queen of Love!t

* In August, 1624, Lord Kensington (afterwards created Earl of Holland) was appointed ambassador to make proposals to Louis XIII. for the marriage of Prince Charles to Henrietta Maria, the youngest daughter of Henry IV. In the meanwhile, James I. died at Theobald's, on the 27th March, 1625, and Charles succeeded to the throne. The negotiations for the marriage having been completed, the ceremony was solemnized on a platform before the great door of the Cathedral of Paris, on the 1st May, the Duke of Chevereux acting as the King's proxy. The Queen landed on the 13th of the following month at Dover, where she was met by the King, who conducted her to Canterbury, from whence they proceeded on the following day to Hampton Court, their public entry into London being prevented by the plague then raging in the city. Mr. Fenton supposes that Waller addressed this poem to the Queen on her arrival in England; but Dr. Johnson, mistaking the piece to which Fenton's remark refers, thinks that the mention of the nation's obligations to her frequent pregnancy proves that it was written when her Majesty had brought many children.' These allusions occur in the piece that immediately follows, which was obviously written at a later period. It is impossible to determine with certainty the date of either of these poems.

†This panegyric on her Majesty's beauty is scarcely sustained by the description of her person given by Lord Kensington in one of his letters from Paris to the Prince of Wales. Sir,' writes Lord Kensington, if your intentions proceed this way (as by many reasons of state and wisdom there is cause now rather to press it than slacken it) you will find a lady of as much loveliness and sweetness to deserve your affection, as any creature under heaven can do. And, sir, by all her fashions since my being here, and by what I hear from the ladies, it is most visible to me, her infinite value and respect unto you. Sir, I say not this to betray your belief, but from a true observation and