A POETICAL ESSAY Devoted to the Glorious Memory Of Our Late QUEEN, Occasioned by a Number of POEMS, AND SERMONS, Upon Her Death.  
Virtutem incolumem odimus,  
Sublatam ex oculis quaerimus invidi.  Hor. 
LONDON, Printed in the Year MDCXCV.   

A POETICAL ESSAY Devoted to the Glorious Memory OF Our Late QUEEN; Occasioned by a Number of POEMS, and SERMONS, upon her Death.  

POets, and Priests, alike aspire to Fame,  
In paying Tribute to MARIA's Name:  
But with this Difference suited to each Trade,  
The Poets lay her in a pastoral Shade,  
While th' others make her heavens High Throne invade.  
Yet we this pious Fraud might Priests forgive,  
Did they conceal the Arts by which they live:  
Since they would have't her chief Design did lie  
To raise their Faction, called the Church, more high;  
To cramp the Blessings of her glorious Reign,  
And to a few the Sovereign Good restrain;  
No wonder that they her a Goddess make,  
And for Divine her great Example take.  
But as she lived, above their Forms, she died,  
And seized that Seal of Grace they'd have denied:  
Though Nature could not, Faith the Bread 
† Alluding to the Dispute about her receiving the Sacrament, when she was not able to swallow.  received,  
While at the Folly of the Priests she grieved:  
I go, she said, to the Just Judge above,  
Who my sincere Intentions will approve.  
Blessed Words! instructive to all times to come,  
Worthy to be inscribed upon her Tomb!  
An Abstract of those Virtues of her Life,  
Which fitted her to be our Caesar's Wife.  
Nor was such Sense mere Lightning before Death,  
(A Beam from Heaven ushring her parting Breath)  
For long before, her elevated Mind  
Was from the Ferment of Church-Dregs refined.  
Churchmen would have the Rights of King's Divine,  
Not to be severed till themselves resign:  
But She Religion much more sacred held,  
And that her Father against that rebelled.  
To this bright Cause her Hero She resigned,  
Pleased when with Rebels, so miscalled, he joined:  
Nor did She think their Civil Rights below  
The Benefit, which Heroes Mankind owe.  
Her Holy Dreams did the Success prevent,  
Anticipating Fate's benign Intent.  
A Canopy of State Angels had spread,  
And with a several Crown adorned each Head;  
To Man and Wife did equal Right proclaim,  
A Right which from the Choice of Heaven, and Nations, came.  
Nor was this all the Vision did contain,  
It showed the Glories of her shortened Reign;  
How praised, and how admired, She kept the Throne  
Making no Crime of Ancestors her own.  
Then She the Action at the Boyn descried,  
How Caesar, and his Fortune, stemmed the Tide:  
How, like the God of War, he Terror spread,  
While to sure Victory his Troops he led.  
To future Fights She followed on the View,  
And amidst thousands his Distinction knew.  
Fear hardly ever touched her tender Breast,  
Whatever Dangers on her Warrior pressed;  
She saw his Angel brightening all around,  
Healing, if not diverting, every Wound;  
Discerned the numerous Trophies yet in store,  
Till humbled France of him shall Peace implore.  
Thence, to her raptured intellectual Eye,  
A more delightful Scene did open lie:  
The many Years She numbered by her Smiles,  
Peace, and her Hero, are to bless the Isles,  
Which the calm Influence through the World disperse;  
England being Centre to the Universe.  
Tho She foresaw how ill Men were prepared,  
T' enjoy th' Advantages they might have shared;  
And that She must be hastened from our Eyes,  
Before we should her Virtues duly prize;  
Pretended Friends would her Usurpress call,  
Or let a Veil o'er her best Actions fall;  
The Prospect of the Good that will ensue,  
The many Suns with Blessings to renew;  
While He, who next to Heaven possessed her Heart,  
Like that, to all Mankind shall Good impart;  
Made her not feel the Thorns about her Crown,  
Nor could her Enemies extort a Frown.  
Can She have Nature forced to be severe,  
They would have been converted by their Fear.  
Yet She in this followed Her Saviour,  
Who showing more his Goodness than his Power,  
Was disesteemed by the Rebellious Jews,  
Who did their King, ordained by God, refuse.  
Had either been what Samuel had foretold,  
The Manner of the most should Empire hold;  
Our Murm'rers had been hushed with those of old.  
The Malice of the Jews Triumphant was,  
When Christ to his Celestial Throne did pass:  
But Men, through Ages of their Misery,  
What 'tis to fight against God's Pleasure see:  
Our Kings, and Queens, of Saxon Blood he chose;  
The Danes, 
† Consult the old Historians which mention the Claim of the Danes; and the Right of William I.  and Normans, on that Title risen:  
In our departed Queen, and present King,  
The best of all that Race he did to Empire bring.  
Who would not this kind Gift of Heaven receive,  
Too late will at their Opposition grieve:  
They fancied, that our sovereign's Power decreased,  
As soon as the soft Partnership had ceased:  
Not knowing, that the Beams of Light diffused,  
To yield less Force than when contracted used:  
Who glory that their Interest now revives,  
May want an Intercession for their Lives;  
Of 
‖ A known Story in the News Letters; for the Truth of which, Verse needs no Voucher.  which for Omen they his End may take,  
Who breathed his last, as he his Boast did make:  
Death stopped his Curses, and his fatal Joy;  
God did for this no Instrument employ;  
Showing how that blind Party shall itself destroy.  
Some think that Miracles were out of date,  
Since the first Ages of the Christian State:  
They at the Martyr's Tombs, believe 'em wrought,  
In Confirmation of the Truths they taught:  
But when new Doctrines set up for Divine,  
For then Confusion may not Wonders shine?  
So long the World with Torism was o'errun,  
Conviction with so powerful Spells they eat;  
That their Magicians will with most prevail  
Till their fierce Serpent's swallowed with its fiery Tail.  
For all the Wonders of the blooming Rod,  
Men murmured soon at Moses and his God.  
Such we have here, Men of a slavish Mind,  
Like 
* Vid. Barclay's Icon Animorum.  Russian Wives, grieved at a Power that's kind:  
These the Egyptian Leeks and Garlick choose,  
Before the Manna, those Celestial Dews:  
Heaven to the Wicked would not Heaven be found,  
Till it their former Thoughts and Habits drowned:  
Hence, the old Instruments of lawless Might,  
Keep such a pother with a vanished Right.  
A Right t' enslave all but the Sacred Tribe,  
Who lived to curse the Rules they did prescribe:  
Till their Artillery on themselves was turned,  
They the apparent Mischief never learned.  
The Pulpits then joined with the People's Voice;  
And a deliverance was the General Choice:  
But when the bloodless Work of Heaven was wrought,  
The Battle being before by William's Angel fought;  
Who back to Acheron 
† Flectere si nequeant superos, Acheronta movebunt.  drove the Prince of th' Air,  
Leaving the conj'ring Jesuits to despair;  
Since which they can't their Belzebub excite,  
But some weak Ghost, impatient of the Light;  
That Light which over King and Queen did spread,  
And now unites upon the Hero's Head;  
The Jesuits, and their Fiends, appearing weak,  
Mad Churchmen to supply their Places seek.  
Now see we the last Efforts of that Rage,  
Which has turmoiled the World in every Age:  
But shall we ne'er have Peace till Priests have Power,  
Till to a 
‖ Solitudinem faciunt, & pacem vocant.  Desolation they devour?  
The Blessings which our Queen bequeathed these Isles,  
Surely, in time will free us from their Wiles:  
All private Interest shall to public yield,  
And William long a peaceful Sceptre wield:  
The Thoughts of mighty Toils and Triumphs past,  
And their Effects, which shall to Ages last;  
Will by Degrees the Power of Grief destroy,  
Fitting his Heart to bear new Heights of Joy.  
In the mean while the gen'ral Loss we mourn,  
A Loss through future Hopes more calmly born:  
Great Caesar wants her to divide his Care,  
Employ his Love, and in his victories share:  
The Nation her desires in Caesar's stead,  
While he must the confederate Army's head:  
The Frailty of her Sex her Pattern needs,  
(For far a living Rule the dead exceeds)  
Yet the Impression was so sweetly strong,  
It cannot but with most continue long.  
Nature and Grace a kind Contention had,  
Which should most charmingly reduce the Bad:  
To be particular a Wrong would be,  
Where every Grace presides, why name we two or three?  
Yet if Indefinites may have Degrees,  
What the Ascendant had one plainly sees:  
It was the Love of God, and of his Cause,  
Free from vain Frights, and superstitious Awes:  
Th' Effect of which, the most conspicuous known,  
Was her Accession to the British Throne:  
This long was marked for a Grand 
* Vid. Lord Napier's Comment on the Revelations, marking the Year 1688 for a wonderful Revolution  Epocha;.,  
Hence date we Rome's and Tyranny's Decay:  
And late Posterity shall praise that Hour,  
When She redeemed us from her Father's Power.  
To Filial Duty none had more Regard,  
But yet the 
† Those Texts which condemn the too frequent Use of the word Corban by some of the Jews, who refused to relieve Parents, upon Pretence that Estates were given to more pious Uses; by no Means recommend the Support of Parents in their Luxury, or Lust of Power.  Corban called for the Reward:  
Her Bounty to a Nation prostrate cast,  
Was so much in God's Treas'ry wisely placed.  
When God was to promulge a general Law,  
And a Description of himself to draw,  
That fit Ideas Men of him might frame,  
Suited to the true Import of his Name;  
That of deliverer from old Bonds he took:  
A Rule on which Princes should often look.  
She followed thus the Pattern in the Mount,  
A Form not valued in the Church-Account.  
Ye will forgive me, ye deserving few!  
That I so often give the rest their Due.  
But since the hottest against James his Reign,  
Still linger after their accustomed Chain;  
I well may say, many now praise the Queen,  
Whose Virtues, while she lived, but moved their Spleen.  

* Bringing in a Comparison between the C—n, said to have refused to come near the Queen in her last Sickness; with a young Gentlewoman, who would have ventured her Life to abate the Queen's Distemper.  They think their Lips all Knowledge must contain;  
And this Imagination turns the Brain.  
In Nations which the Gospel-Light obey,  
Preaching is less a Duty than to pray;  
Where God, or Nature, Death's Alarm may sound,  
And spiritual Balm to give according to the Wound:  
Yet if the settled Form reach not the Grief,  
The Party dies without the due Relief.  
But tell it not in Gath, or Askalon,  
Lest from our Priests by Baal's the Prize be won;  
That He 
† A known Story, not made by the Writer.  should plead his Fears to quit the Queen,  
Who, but for Her, had a poor Curate been.  
What had his Life been worth, unless by Her?  
Before a Nation's Life he'll his prefer.  
Except a Priest, that Man, or Woman, name,  
Would not have sacrificed to endless Fame,  
By running to the Jaws of certain Death,  
Can they by that hope to prolong her Breath:  
Which hovering Angels waited to convey,  
From her infected House of moldring Clay,  
To the pure Regions of eternal Day:  
Those Regions, which She ever kept in sight,  
Where was her Converse, and 
* Vid. Seneca's Epistles, Verum gaudium est aliquid severum.  severe Delight:  
Like 
† Ib. Quemadmodum radii solis contingunt quidem terras; sed ibi sunt unde mittuntur.  Solar Rays, while She the Earth did cheer,  
She, with the Fountain of her Light, was there;  
And now is but drawn up into her Sphere.  
Nor is more Praise to 
‖ Who in the time of a great Earthquake freely shot the Gulf to procure a Stop to it; according to the Interpretation put upon some of the Sibylline Verses, which the Romans used to consult upon dangerous Emergencies.  Curtius' due than thee,  
Thou Virgin of immortal Memory!  
Who in thy Bloom of Youth, and Beauty's Pride,  
Proffer'dst to take th' Infection from her Side;  
Through all thy Pores to let the Venom in,  
Heaven to thyself, to us our Queen to win:  
A Queen, who, though short was her Empire here,  
A Queen 
‖‖ Vid. Hor. Carm. l. 4. Ode 9 

Consul non unius anni,  
Sed quoties bonus atque fidus  
Judex, bonestum praetulit utili, &  
Rejecit alto dona nocentium  
Vultu: & per obstantes catervas  
Explicuit sua victor arma.    shall be, for every circling Year;  
As long as Men a Monarchy shall choose,  
Or seek the Faults of Princes to excuse.   
FINIS.