The Project Gutenberg eBook of An Apologie for the Royal Party (1659); and A Panegyric to Charles the Second (1661), by John Evelyn.

Transcriber’s note

The original has many inconsistent spellings. A few corrections have been made for obvious typographical errors; they have been noted individually, as have a few words that are unclear.

The word Tyranny (Tyrannie, Tyrannies) is sometimes spelled with only one ‘n’, the other being denoted by a diacritical mark. The spelling has been regularised to ‘nn’.

The original contains some handwritten corrections and additions (see the Introduction for details). They are represented like this.

There is no table of contents in the original text, which contains an Introduction, the Apologie and the Panegyric.

John Evelyn
An Apologie for the Royal Party (1659); and
A Panegyric to Charles the Second (1661)

Los Angeles
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
University of California
1951

GENERAL EDITORS
H. Richard Archer, Clark Memorial Library
Richard C. Boys, University of Michigan
Edward Niles Hooker, University of California, Los Angeles
John Loftis, University of California, Los Angeles

ADVISORY EDITORS
Emmett L. Avery, State College of Washington
Benjamin Boyce, Duke University
Louis I. Bredvold, University of Michigan
Cleanth Brooks, Yale University
James L. Clifford, Columbia University
Arthur Friedman, University of Chicago
Louis A. Landa, Princeton University
Samuel H. Monk, university Of Minnesota
Ernest Mossner, University of Texas
James Sutherland, Queen Mary College, London
H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., University of California, Los Angeles

INTRODUCTION

On October 24, 1659, a quarto pamphlet was published in London with the following title: “The Army’s Plea for Their present Practice: tendered to the consideration of all ingenuous and impartial men. Printed and published by special command. London, Printed by Henry Hills, Printer to the Army, dwelling in Aldersgate Street next door to the Peacock. 1659”. Three days afterwards, on October 27, John Evelyn had finished writing an answer, which was published a week later, on November 4, under the title: “An Apologie for the Royal Party ... With a Touch At the pretended Plea for the Army. Anno Dom. MDCLIX”. No author’s name, printer or place was given. Evelyn afterwards made the note in his Diary under the date November 7, 1659, that is, three days after the actual publication: “Was publish’d my bold Apologie for the King in His time of danger, when it was capital to speak or write in favour of him. It was twice printed, so universaly it took.”1 Evelyn was by conviction an ardent royalist, but by temperament he was peaceable, and the publication of this pamphlet was a courageous act on his part, involving considerable risks.

The Apologie for the Royal Party contains an eloquent and outspoken attack upon the parliamentary party, the depth of the author’s feelings making his style of writing more effective than it usually was.

Events were at this date nearing their climax, and Evelyn, soon after the publication of his pamphlet, made persistent attempts to induce Colonel Henry Morley, then Lieutenant of the Tower of London, to declare for the King. In the edition of Baker’s Chronicle of the Kings of England, edited by Edward Phillips, 1665, is given the following account of the negotiations (p. 736): “Mr. Evelyn gave him [Col. Morley] some visits to attemper his affection by degrees to a confidence in him, & then by consequence to ingage him in his designes; and to induce him the more powerfully thereunto, he put into his hands an excellent and unanswerable hardy treatise by him written and severall times reprinted, intituled An Apology for the Royall Party, which he backed with so good Argument and [Pg ii]dextrous Addresses in the prosecution of them, that, after some private discourse, the Colonel was so well inclin’d, as to recommend to him the procurement of his Majestie’s Grace for him, his Brother-in-law Mr. Fagg, and one or two more of his Relations”. Phillips added an account of a letter written by Evelyn to Colonel Morley, and gave him great credit for the influence which he exerted, though Evelyn endorsed a draft of the narrative with a statement saying there “was too much said concerning me”. Nevertheless part of the narrative was confirmed by Evelyn when he wrote on the title-page of the copy of the pamphlet here reproduced: “Delivered to Coll. Morley a few daies after his contest w^th Lambert in the palace yard by J. Evelyn”. The “contest” with General Lambert took place on October 12 or 13 when Morley, pistol in hand, refused to allow him at the head of his troops to pass through the Palace Yard.

Evelyn also wrote on the title-page of this copy of his pamphlet “three tymes printed”. In fact there were four printings, all described in the writer’s John Evelyn, a Study in Bibliophily & a Bibliography of his Writings, New York, The Grolier Club, 1937, the one here reproduced being the fourth and final form. Nevertheless all four issues are now extremely scarce, the first printing being known in three copies (one in the United States), the second in seven (two in the United States), the third in one, and the fourth in one. This apparently unique relic of Evelyn’s bold gesture on behalf of his King is in the writer’s possession and is still as issued, edges untrimmed and with its eight leaves stitched in a contemporary paper wrapper. It has been reprinted only in Evelyn’s Miscellaneous Writings, 1825, pp. 169-192.

When Charles II actually returned to England in 1660 Evelyn’s feelings were deeply stirred. He had played some part in the restoration of the monarchy, and, with his literary instinct, naturally felt impelled to be among those who wished to present the King with an address on the day of his Coronation. This took place on April 23, 1661, and on the following day [Pg iii]Evelyn recorded in his Diary: “I presented his Ma^tie with his Panegyric in the Private Chamber, which he was pleas’d to accept most graciously: I gave copies to the Lord Chancellor and most of the noblemen who came to me for it.”2 Evelyn’s Panegyric was thus distributed privately and no doubt in small number, so that it is today extremely uncommon, being known only in five copies, not more than one of which is in the United States of America. Evelyn possessed a copy in 1687 according to his library catalogue compiled in that year, and a copy (not necessarily the same one) is now among his books in the library of Christ Church, Oxford, but it seems to have been unknown in 1825 and was not included in the Miscellaneous Writings. William Upcott, the editor, in fact erroneously identified the Panegyric with the anonymous piece in folio: “A Poem upon his Majesties Coronation ... Being S^t Georges day ... London, Printed for Gabriel Bedel and Thomas Collins ... 1661”. This mistake was not put right until a copy of the true Panegyric with Evelyn’s name on the title-page was acquired for the British Museum in 1927 from the Britwell Court Library. The copy here reproduced is in the writer’s collection, and has a few corrections in Evelyn’s hand: (a) XXXIII. of April, on title-page corrected to XXIII; (b) p.6. l.18 Family altered to Firmament; (c) p.8. l.16 from bottom suffer altered to surfeit.

When the Panegyric was identified it was realised that it was not a poem, but an eloquent and extravagant composition in prose, in which Evelyn invested Charles II with every conceivable virtue and all wisdom. This was no doubt written with sincere enthusiasm, though Evelyn suffered a profound disillusionment in later years; and if he ever read his effusion again it must have caused him some distress. The Panegyric is now reprinted for the first time.

1 Evelyn’s Diary, ed. Wheatley, vol. II, p. 108.

2 Evelyn’s Diary, ed. Wheatley, vol. II, p. 130.

AN
A P O L O G Y
FOR THE
ROYAL PARTY:
Written in a
L E T T E R
To a Person of the Late
COUNCEL of STATE.

Delivered to Coll: Morley, a few daies after his contest w^th Lambert in the Palace Yard: by J. Evelyn:

[Ap 1]AN
A P O L O G I E
FOR THE
R O Y A L P A R T Y:
Written in a Letter to a Person of the late
COUNCEL of STATE,
By a Lover of Peace and of his Countrey:
With a Touch at the pretended Plea for the Army.

The many Civilities which you are still pleased to continue to me, and my very great desire to answer them in the worthiest testimonies of my zeal for your service, must make my best Apology for this manner of Addresse; if out of an extream affection for your noblest Interest, I seem transported a little upon your first reflections, and am made to despise the consequence of entertaining you with such Truths, as are of the greatest danger to my self; but of no less import to your happiness, and, which carry with them the most indelible Characters of my Friendship. For if as the Apostle affirms, For a good man, some would even dare to dy, why should my Charity be prejudged, if hoping to convert you from the errour of your way, I despair not of rendring you the Person for whose preservation there will be nothing too dear for me to expose?

I might with reason beleeve that the first election of the Party wherein you stood engaged, proceeded from inexperience and the mistake of your zeal; not to say from your compliance to the passions of others; because I both knew your education, and how obsequious you have alwayes shewed your self to those who had then the direction of you: But, when after the example of their conversion, upon discovery of the Impostures which perverted them; and the signal indignation of God, upon the several periods which your eyes have lately beheld, of the bloudiest Tyrannies, and most prodigious oppressors that ever any age of the world produc’d, I see you still persist in your course, and that you have turn’d about with every revolution which has hapned: when I consider, what contradictions you have swallowed, how deeply you have ingaged, how servilely you have flatter’d, and the base and mean submissions by which [Ap 2] you have dishonour’d your self, and stained your noble Family; not to mention the least refinement of your religion or morality (besides that you have still preserved a civility for me, who am ready to acknowledge it, and never merited other from you) I say, when I seriously reflect upon all this; I cannot but suspect the integrity of your procedure, deplore the sadness of your condition, and resolve to attempt the discovery of it to you; by all the instances, which an affection perfectly touch’t with a zeal for your eternall interest can produce. And who can tell, but it may please Almighty God, to affect you yet by a weak instrument, who have resisted so many powerfull indications of his displeasure at your proceedings, by the event of things?

For, since you are apt to recriminate, and after you have boasted of the prosperity or your cause, and the thriving of your Wickedness (an Argument farr better becoming a Mahumetan then a Christian) let us state the matter a little, and compare particulars together; let us go back to the source, and search the very principles; and then see, if ever any cause had like success indeed; and whether it be a just reproach to your Enemies, that the judgments of God have begun with them, whilst you know not yet, where they may determine.

First then, be pleased to look North-wards upon your Brethren the Scots, who (being first instigated by that crafty Cardinal Richlieu to disturb the groth of the incomparable Church of England, and so consequently the tranquility of a Nation, whose expedition at the Isle of Ree, gave terrour to the French) made Reformation their pretence, to gratifie their own avarice, introduce themselves, and a more then Babylonish Tyranny, imposing upon the Church and state, beyond all impudence or example. I say, look upon what they have gotten, by deceiving their Brethren, selling their King, betraying his Son, and by all their perfidie; but a slavery more then Egyptian, and an infamy as unparallel’d, as their treason and ingratitude.

Look neerer home on those whom they had ingaged amongst us here, & tell me if there be a Person of them left, that can shew me his prize, unless it be that of his Sacriledg, which he, or his Nephews must certainly vomite up again: What is become of this ignorant and furious zeal, this pretence of an universall perfection in the Religious and the Secular, after all that Blood and Treasure, Rapine and Injustice, which has been exhausted, and perpetrated by these Sons of Thunder? Where is the King, whom they swear to make so glorious, but meant it in his Martyrdome? Where is the Classis, and the Assembly, the Lay-elder; all that geare of Scottish discipline, and the fine new Trinkets of Reformation? Were not all these taken out of their hand, while now they were in the height of their pride and triumph? And their dull Generall made to serve the execution of their Sovereign, and then to be turn’d off himself, as a property no more of use to their designes? Their riches and their strength in which they trusted, and the Parliament which they even idoliz’d, in sum, the prey they had [Ap 3] contended for at the expence of so much sin and damnation, seizd upon by those very instruments, which they had rais’d to serve their insatiable avarice, and prodigious disloyalty. For so it pleased God to chastise their implacable persecution of an excellent Prince, with a slavery under such a Tyrant, as not being contented to butcher even some upon the Scaffold, sold divers of them for slaves, and others he exild into cruell banishment, without pretence of Law, or the least commiseration; that those who before had no mercy on others, might find none themselves; till upon some hope of their repentance, and future moderation, it pleased God to put his hook into the nostrills of that proud Leviathan, and send him to his place, after he had thus mortified the fury of the Presbyterians. For unlesse God himself should utter his voice from Heaven, yea, and that a mighty voice, can there any thing in the world be more evident, then his indignation at those wretches and barefac’t Impostors, who, one after another, usurped upon us, taking them off at the very point of aspiring, and præcipitating the glory and ambition of these men, before those that were, but now, their adorers, and that had prostituted their consciences to serve their lusts? To call him the Moses, the Man of God, the Joshua, the Saviour of Israel; and after all this, to treat the Thing his son with addresses no lesse then blasphemous, whose Father (as themselves confess to be the most infamous Hypocrite and profligate Atheist of all the Usurpers that ever any age produc’d) had made them his Vassalls, and would have intaild them so to his posterity for ever?

But behold the scean is again changed, not by the Royall party, the Common Enemy, or a forreign power; but by the despicable Rumpe of a Parliament, which that Mountebanke had formerly serv’d himself of, and had rais’d him to that pitch, and investiture: But see withall, how soon these triflers and puppets of policy are blown away, with all their pack of modells and childish Chimæras, nothing remaining of them but their Coffine, guarded by the Souldiers at Westminster; but which is yet lesse empty then the heads of those Polititians, which so lately seemed to fill it.

For the rest, I despise to blot paper with a recitall of those wretched Interludes, Farces and Fantasms, which appear’d in the severall intervalls; because they were nothing but the effects of an extream gyddiness, and unparallel’d levity. Yet these are those various despensations and providences in your journey to that holy land of purchases and profits, to which you have from time to time appeal’d for the justification of your proceedings, whilst they were, indeed, no other then the manifest judgments of God upon your rebellion and your ambition: I say nothing of your hypocriticall fasts, and pretended humiliations, previous to the succeeding plots, and supposititious Revelations, that the godly might fall into the hands of your Captains, because they were bugbears, and became ridiculous even to the common people.

And now Sr. if you please, let us begin to set down the product and survey [Ap 4] the successe of your party and after all these faces and vertigo’s tell me ingenuously, if the single chastisment which is fallen upon one afflicted man, and his loyall subjects, distressed by the common event of war, want of treasure, the seizure of his Fleet, forcing him from his City, and all the disadvantages that a perfidious people could imagine; but in fine the crowning him with a glorious Martyrdome for the Church of God and the liberty of his people (for which his blood doth yet cry aloud for vengeance) be comparable to the confusion which you (that have been the conquerours) have suffered, and the slavery which you are like to leave to the posterities which will be born but to curse you, and to groan under the pressures which you bequeath to your own flesh & blood? For to what a condition you have already reduced this once flourishing kingdom, since all has been your own, let the intolerable oppressions, taxes, Excises, sequestrations confiscations, plunders, customes, decimations, not to mention the plate, even to very thimbles and the bodkins (for even to these did your avarice descend) and other booties, speak. All this dissipated and squandred away, to gratifie a few covetous and ambitious wretches, whose appetites are as deep as hell, and as insatiable as the grave; as if (as the Wise-man speaks) our time here were but a market for gain.

Look then into the Churches, and manners of the people, even amongst your own Saints, and tell me, if since Simon Magus was upon the earth, there were ever heard of so many Schismes, and Heresies, of Jewes and Socinians, Quakers, Fifth-monarchy-men, Arians, Anabaptists, Independents, and a thousand severall forts of Blasphemies and professed Atheists, all of them spawned under your government; and then tell me what a Reformation of Religion you have effected?

Was there ever in the whole Earth (not to mention Christendom alone) a perjury so prodigious, and yet so avowed as that by which you have taken away the estate of my L. Craven, at which the very Infidels would blush, a Turke or Sythian stand amaz’d?

Under the Sun was it never heard, that a man should be condemned for transgressing no law, but that which was made after the fact, and abrogated after execution; that the Posterities to come might not be witnesses of your horrid injustice: Yet thus you proceeded against my L. Stafford. How many are those gallant persons whom after articles of war, you have butchered in cold-blood, violating your promises against the Lawes of all Nations, civill or barbarous; and yet thus you dealt in the case of my L. Capel, Sr. J. Stawel and others.

Is not the whole nation become sullen and proud, ignorant and suspicious, incharitable, curst, and in fine, the most depraved and perfidious under heaven? And whence does all this proceed, but from the effects of your own examples, and the impunity of evill doers?

I need not tell you how long Justice has been sold by the Committees, and the Chair-men, the Sequestrators and Simoniacall Tryers, not to mention [Ap 5] the late Courtiers, and a swarm of Publicans who have eaten up the People as if they would eat bread.

Will you come now to the particular mis-fortunes, and the evident hand of God upon you for these actions (for he has not altogether left us without some expresse witnesses of his displeasure at your doings,) Behold then your Essex and your Warwick, your Ferfaix, and your Waller, (whom once your Books stiled the Lord of Hosts) Cashiered, Imprisoned, Suspected and Disgraced after all their Services. Hotham, and his Son came to the block; Stapleton had the buriall of an Asse, and was thrown into a Town Ditch; Brookes and Hamden signally slain in the very act of Rebellion and Sacriledge; your atheisticall Dorislaw, Ascam and the Sodomiticall Ariba, whom though they escaped the hand of Justice, yet Vengeance would not suffer to live: What became of Rainsborough? Ireton perished of the Plague, and Hoyle hanged himself; Staplie ’tis said, died mad, and Cromwell in a fit of raging; and if there were any others worthy the taking notice of, I should give you a list of their names and of their destinies; but it was not known whence they came which succeeded them; nor had they left any memory behind them, but for their signal wickednesses, as he that set on fire the Ephesian Temple to be recorded a Villain to posterity. Whereas those noble souls whom your inhumanity, (not your vertue) betrayed, gave proof of their extraction, Innocency, Religion and Constancy under all their Tryals and Tormentors; and those that dyed by the sword, fell in the bed of honour, and did worthily for their Country; their Loyalty and their Religion will be renowned in the History of Ages, and pretious to their memory, when your names will rot with your Carkasses, and your remembrance be as dung upon the face of the Earth. For there is already no place of Europe where your infamy is not spread; whilst your persecuted brethren rejoyce in their sufferings, can abound, and can want, blush not at their actions, nor are ashamed at their addresses; because they have suffered for that which their Faith and their Birth, their Lawes and their Liberties have celebrated with the most glorious Inscriptions, and Everlasting Elogies.

And if fresher instances of all these particulars be required, cast your eye a little upon the Armies pretended Plea, which came lately a birding to beat the way before them, charm the ears of the Vulgar, and captivate the people; That after all its pseudo-politicks and irreligious principles, is at last constrained to acknowledg your open and prodigious violations, strange and illegal Actions, (as in termes it confesses) of taking up Armes, Raising and Forming Armies against the King, fighting against his Person, Imprisoning, Impeaching, Arraigning, Trying and Executing Him: Banishing his Children, abolishing Bishops, Deans and Chapters; taking away Kingly Government, and the House of Lords, breaking the Crowns, selling the Jewells, Plate, Goods, Houses and Lands [Ap 6] belonging unto the Kings of this Nation, erecting extraordinary High Courts of Justice, and therein Impeaching, Arraigning, condemning, and Executing many pretended notorious Enemies, to the publick Peace; when the Lawes in being, and the Ordinary Courts of Justice could not reach them: By strange and unknown practises in this Nation, and not at all Justifiable by any known Lawes and Statutes, But by certain diabolical principles of late distilled into some person of the Army, and which he would entitle to the whole, who (abating some of their Commanders, that have sucked the sweet of this Doctrine) had them never so much as entred into their thoughts, nor could they be so depraved, though they were Masters only of the Light of Nature to direct them. For Common sence will tell them, that whoever are our lawful Superiours, and invested with the supreame Authority, either by their own vertue, or the peoples due Election, have then a just right to challenge submission to their precepts, and that we acquiesce in their determinations; since there is in nature no other expedient to preserve us from everlasting confusion: But it is the height of all impertinency to conceive, that those which are a part of themselves, and can in so great a Body, have no other interests, should (without the manifest hand of God were in it to infatuate all your proceedings) fall into such exorbitant contradiction to their own good, as a child of four years old would not be guilty of; and as this Pamphleter wildly suggests in pp. 6. 11. 27, &c. did they steer their course by the known laws of the Land, and as obedient Subjects should do, who without the King and his Peers, are but the Carkass of a Parliament, as destitute of the Soul which should inform and give it being. And if so small a handful of men as appeared in the Palace-Yard, without consent of a quarter of the English Army, much lesse the tenthousand’th part of the Free-people that are not clad in red, shall disturb and alter your Government when it thinks fit to set aside a few imperious Officers, who plainly seek themselves, and derive their Commissions from superiours to whom they swear obedience; how can you ever hope, or live to see any government established in these miserably abused Nations? Behold then with how weak a party you are vanquish’d, even by those very instruments you had so long flatter’d with the title of the Free-people; imputing all the direful effects of your depraved principles to their desires, when as I dare report my self to the ingenuity of the very Souldiers themselves, if they, who have effected all these changes by your wretched instigations, and blind pretences, imagine themselves the People of this Nation, but are a very small portion of them, compared to the whole, and who are maintained by them to recover, and protect the Civill Government, according to the Good old Lawes of the Land; not such as they themselves shall invent from Day to Day, or as the interests of some few persons may engage them.

But if the essential end of Rulers be the Common peace, and their Lawes obliging as they become relative: Restore us then to those under which we [Ap 7] lived with so much sweetness and tranquility, as no age in the World, no Government under Heaven could ever pretend the like. And if the People (as you declare) are to be the Judges of it, summon them together in a Free Parliament, according to its legal Constitution; or make a universal Balott, and then let it appear, if Collonel Lambert and half a dozen Officers, with all their seduced Partizans, make so much as a single Cypher to the Summe Total. And this shall be enough to answer those devious Principles set down in the porch of that specious Edifice; which being erected upon the Sand, will (like the rest that has been daubed with untempered mortar) sink also at the next high wind that blowes upon it. But I am glad it is at last avowed, upon what pretexts that late pretended Parliament have pleaded on the behalf of themselves and party, their discharge from all the former Protestations, Engagements, solemn Vowes, Covenants, with hands (as you say) lift up to the most high God, as also their Oaths and Allegiance, &c. because I shall not in this discourse be charged with slandering of them, and that the whole World may detest the Actions of such perfidious Infidels, with whom nothing sacred has remain’d inviolable.

But there is yet a piece of Artifice behind, of no less consequence then the former, and that is, a seeking to perswade the present Army, that They were the men, who first engaged thus solemnly to destroy the Government under which they were born, and reduce it to this miserable condition: whereas it is well known by such as converse daily with them, that there is hardly one of ten amongst them, who was then in Armes; and that it was the Zelots under Essex, and the succeeding Generals, who were the persons whose perfidiousness he makes so much use of, and that the present Army consists of a far more ingenuous spirit, and might in one moment vindicate this aspersion, make their conditions with all advantage, and these Nations the most happy People upon the Earth, as it cannot be despaired but they will one day do, when by the goodness of Almighty God, they shall perfectly discern through the mist which you have cast upon their eyes, lest they should discover the Imposture of these Egyptian Sorcerers.

And now, Sir, if after all this injustice, and impiety on your parts, you have prosecuted that with the extreamest madness, which you esteemed criminal in your enemies, viz. To arrogate the supream power in a single person; condemn men without Law; execute, and proscribe them with as little: Imprest for your Service, violate your Parliaments, dispense with your solemn Oaths; in summe, to mingle Earth and Heaven by your arbitrary proceedings: All which, not only your printed books, this pretended plea; but your Actions have abundantly declared; have you not justified the Royal party, and pronounced them the only honest men which have appeared upon the stage, in Characters as plain, that he which runs may read, whilst yet you [Ap 8] persecute them to the death? Therefore, thou art inexcusable, O Man, that perpetratest these things; For wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thy self, seeing thou that judgest doest the same things. But thinkest thou this O Man, that thus judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the vengeance of God? I tell ye nay, but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.

Truly, Sir, when I compare these things together, and compare them I do very often, consider the purchases which you have made, and the damnation you have certainly adventured; the despite you have done to the name of Christ, the Laws of Common humanity which you have violated, the malice and the folly of your proceedings; in fine, the confusion which you have brought upon the Church, the State, and your selves; I adore the just and righteous judgment of God; and (howsoever you may possibly emerge, and recover the present rout) had rather be a sufferer among those whom you have thus afflicted, and thus censure, then to enjoy the pleasures of your sins for that season you are likely to possess them: For if an Angel from Heaven should tell me you had done your duties, I would no more believe him, then if he should preach another Gospel, then that which has been delivered to us; because you have blasphemed that holy profession, and done violence to that Gracious Spirit, by whose sacred dictates you are taught to live in obedience to your Superiours, and in Charity to one another; covering yet all this Hydra of Impostures with a mask Of Piety and Reformation, whilst you breath nothing but oppression, and lye in wait to deceive. But O God! how long shall the Adversary do this dishonour, how long shall the Enemy blaspheme thy name, for ever? They gather them together against the soul of the Righteous, and condemn the innocent blood. Lo these are the ungodly, these prosper in the World, and these have riches in possession: And I said, then have I cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency. Yea, and I had almost said as they; but lo, then I should have condemned the generation of thy Children. Then thought I to understand this, but it was too hard for me, untill I went into the Sanctuary of God; then understood I the end of these Men. Namely, how thou dost set them in slippery places, castest them down and destroyest them.

We have seen it, indeed Sir, we have seen it, and we cannot but acknowledge it the very finger of God, mirabile in oculis nostris; and is that, truly, which even constrains me out of Charity to your Soul, as well as out of a deep sense of your Honour, and the Friendship which I otherwise bear you, to beseech you to re-enter into your self, to abandon those false Principles, to withdraw your self from these Seducers, to repent of what you have done, and save your self from this untoward Generation: There is yet a door of Repentance open, do not provoke the Majesty of the great [Ap 9] God any longer, which yet tenders a Reconciliation to you. Remember what was once said over the perishing Jerusalem. How often would I have gathered you together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her winge, and ye would not? Behold, your House is left unto you desolate.—For do not think it impossible, that we should become the most abandon’d, and barbarous of all the nations under heaven. You know who has said it: He turneth a fruitfull land into a Wildernesse, for the iniquity of them that inhabit therein. And truly, he that shall seriously consider the sad Catastrophe of the Eastern Empire, so flourishing in piety, policy, knowledg, literature, and all the excellencies of a happy and blessed people; would almost think it impossible, that in so few years, and a midst so glorious a light of learning and Religion, so suddain, and palpable a darknesse, so strange and horrid a barbarity should over-spread them, as now we behold in all that goodly tract of the Turkish dominions: And what was the cause of all this, but the giddinesse of a wanton people, the Schisms and the Heresies in the church, and the prosperous successes of a rebellious Impostor, whose steps we have pursued in so many pregnant instances; giving countenance to those unheard of impieties, and delusions, as if God be not infinitely merciful, must needs involve us under the same disasters? For, whilst there is no order in the Church, no body of Religion agreed upon, no government established, and that every man is abandoned to his own deceitfull heart: whilst learning is decried, and honesty discountenanc’d, rapine defended, and vertue finds no advocate; what can we in reason expect, but the most direfull expressions of the wrath of God, a universall desolation, when by the industry of Sathan and his crafty Emissaries, some desperate enthusiasme, compounded (like that of Mohomet,) of Arian, Socinian, Jew, Anabaptist, and the impurer Gnostick, something I say made up of all these heresies, shall diffuse it self over the Nation, in a universall contagion, and nothing lesse appear then the Christian which we have ingratefully renounced?

For this plague is already beginning amongst us, and there is none to take the Censer, and to stand between the living and the dead, that we be not consumed as in a moment; for there is wrath gone out from the Lord. Let us then depart from the tents of these wicked men (who have brought all this upon us) and touch nothing of theirs, lest we be consumed in all their sins.

But you will say, the King is not to be trusted: judg not of others by your selves; did ever any man observe the least inclination of revenge in his breast? has he not betides the innate propensity of his own nature to gentlenesse, the strict injunctions of a dying father and a Martyr, to forgive even greater offenders then you are? Yes, I dare pronounce it with confidence, and avouch it whith all assurance, that there is not an individuall amongst you, whose crimes are the most crimson, whom he will not be most ready to pardon, and graciously receive upon their repentance; nor any thing that can be desired of him, to which he would not cheerfully [Ap 10] accommode, for the stopping of that torrent of blood, and extream confusion, which has hitherto run, and is yet imminent over us. Do but reason a little with your self, and confider sadly, whether a young Prince, mortified by so many afflictions, disciplin’d by much experience, and instructed by the miscarriages of others, be not the most excellently qualified to govern and reduce a people, who have so succeslesly tried so many governments, of old, impious and crafty Foxes, that have exercised upon us the most intollerable Tyrannies that were ever heard of?

But you object further, that he has lived amongst Papists, is vitiously inclin’d, and has wicked men about him: What can be said more unjustly, what more malitious? And can you have the foreheads to tell us he has lived amongst Papists to his prejudice, who have proscrib’d him from Protestants, persecuted him from place to place, as a Patridg on the Mountains? You may remember who once went to Achich the King of Gath and changed his behaviour before them, and fain’d himself mad in their hands; had many great infirmities, and was yet a man after Gods own heart; Whilst the Catholick King was your Allie, you had nothing to do with Papists, it was then no crime: God is not mocked, away with this respect of persons: But where is it you would have him to be? The Hollander dares not afford him harbour, lest you refuse them yours: The French may not give him bread for fear of offending you; and unless he should go to the Indies, or the Turk (where yet your malice would undoubtedly reach him) where can he be safe from your revenge? But suppose him in a Papist Countrey, constrained thereto by your incharity to his Soul as well as body; would he have condescended to half so much, as you have offered for a toleration of Papists, he needed not now have made use of this Apology, or wanted the assistance of the most puissant Princes of Christendome to restore him, of whom he has refused such conditions as in prudence he might have yielded to, and the people would have gladly received; whilst those who know with what persons you have transacted, what truck you have made with the Jesuites, what secret Papists there are amongst you, may easily divine why they have been no forwarder to assist him, and how far distant he is from the least wavering in his Faith. But since you have now declared that you will tollerate all Religions, without exception; do not think it a sin in him, to gratifie those that shall most oblige him.

For his vertues and Morality, I provoak the most refined Family in this Nation to produce me a Relation of more piety and moderation; shew me a Fraternity more spotlesse in their honour, and freer from the exorbitances of youth, then these three Brothers, so conspicuous to all the world for their Temperance, Magnanimity, Constancy, and Understanding; a friendship and humility unparallel’d, and rarely to be found amongst the severest persons, scarcely in a private family. It is the malice of a very black Soul, and a virulent Renegado (of whom to be commended were the utmost infamy) that has interpreted some compliances, to which persons [Ap 11] in distress are sometimes engaged, with those whom they converse withall, to his Majesties disadvantage: whilst these filthy dreamers defile the flesh themselves, and thinking it no sin to despise dominion, speak evill of dignities, and of the things which they know not. But woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Kain, and run greedily after the errour of Balaam, for reward, having mens persons in admiration because of advantage.

For the rest, I suppose the same was said of Holy David, when in his extream calamity, he was constrain’d to fly from Saul. For every one that was in distresse, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him, and he became Captain over them. And to this retinue, has your malice and persecution reduced this excellent Prince; but he that preserv’d him in the Wood, and delivered David out of all his troubles, shall likewise in his appointed time, deliver him also out of these distresses.

I have now answered all your calumnies, and have but a word to add, that I may yet incline you to accept of your best interest, and prevent that dreadfull ruine which your obstinacy does threaten. Is it not as perspicuous as the Sun, that it lies in your power to reform his Counsell, introduce your selves, make what composition you can desire, have all the security that mortall men can imagine, and the greatest Princes of Europe to engage in the performance? This were becoming worthy men, and honourable indeed; this ingenuous self-denyall: And it is no disgrace to reforme a mistake, but to persist in it lyes the shame. The whole Nation require it of you, and the lawes of God command it, you cannot, you must not deferr it. For what can you pretend that will not then drop into your bosomes? The humble man will have repose, the aspiring and ambitious, honours: The Merchant will be secure, Trades immediately recover, Aliances will be confirm’d, the Lawes reflourish, tender Consciences consider’d, present purchasers satisfied; the Souldier payed, maintained and provided for; and what’s above all this, Christianity and Charity will revive again amongst us, Mercy and Truth will meet together; righteousness and peace shall kiss each other.

But let us now consider on the other side, the confusion, which must of necessity light upon us if we persist in our rebellion and obstinacy; We are already impoverisht, and consum’d with war and the miseries that attend it; you have wasted our treasure, and destroyed the Woods, spoyled the Trade, and shaken our properties; a universall animosity is in the very bowells of the Nation; the Parent against the Children, and the Children against the Parents, betraying one another to the death; in summe, if that have any truth which our B. Saviour has himself pronounced, That a Kingdome divided cannot stand, it is impossible we should subsist in the condition we are reduc’d to. Consider we again, how ridiculous our late proceedings have made us to our neighbours round about us. Their Ministers laugh at our extream giddinesse, and we seem to mock at their addresses: [Ap 12] for no sooner do their Credentialls arrive, but behold the scean is changed, and the Government is fled, he that now acted King, left a fool in his place, and they stand amazed at out Buffoonery and madnesse.

What then may we imagine will be the product of all these disadvantages, when the Nations that deride and hate us, shall be united for our destruction; and that the harvest is ripe for the sickle of their fury? shall we not certainly be a prey to an inevitable ruine, having thus weakned our selves by a brutish civill war, and cut off those glorious Heros, the wise and the valiant, whose courage in such a calamity we shall in vain imploar, that would bravely have sacrificed themselves for our delivery? Let us remember how often we have served a forraign people, and that there is nothing so confident, but a provoked God can overthrow.

For my part, I tremble, but to consider what may be the issue of these things, when our iniquities are full, and that God shall make inquisition for the bloud that has been spilt; unlesse we suddainly meet him by an unfained repentance, and turn from all the abominations by which we have provoaked him; And then, it is to be hoped, that he who would have compounded with the Father of the faithfull, had there been but ten Righteous men in Sodom; and that spared Nineveh that populous and great City; will yet have mercy on us, hearken to the prayers, and have regard to the teares, of so many Millions of people, who day and night do interceed with him: The Priests and Ministers of the Lord weeping between the porch and the Altar, and saying, Spare thy people O Lord, spare thy People, and give not thine Inheritance to reproach.

And now I have said what was upon my Spirit for your sake, when, for the satisfaction of such as (through its effect upon your soule) this Addresse of mine may possibly come to, I have religiously declared, that the Person who writ it, had no unworthy or sinister design of his owne to gratifie, much lesse any other party whatever; as being neither Courtier, Souldier, or Church-man, but a plain Country Gentleman, engag’d on neither side, who, has had leisure, (through the goodnesse of God) candidly, and without passion to examine the particulars which he has touched, and expects no other reward in the successe of it, then what Christ has promised in the Gospels: The Benediction of the peace maker; and which he already feels in the discharge of his Conscience being for his own particular, long since resolv’d with himself, to persist in his Religion, and his loyalty to the death; come what will; as wrongfully perswaded, that all the persecutions, losses, and other accidents which may arrive him for it here, are not worthy to be compared to that eternall weight of glory which is to be revealed hereafter; and to the inexpressible consolation, which it will afford on his Death-bed, when all these guilded pleasures will disappear, this noise, and empty pompe, when God shall set all out sins in order before us; and when, it is certain, that the humble, and the peaceable, the charitable and the meek shall not loose their reward, not change their hopes, for all the [Ap 13] Crownes and the Scepters, the Lawrells and the Trophies which ambitious and self seeking men contend for, with so much Tyrannie and injustice.

Let them therefore no longer deceive you, dear Sr. and as the guise of these vile men is, tell you they are the Godly-party, under which for the present they would pass, and courage themselves in their wickedness, stoping their ears, and shutting their eyes against all that has been taught and practised by the best of Christians, & holiest of Saints these sixteen hundred years: You shall know them by their fruites, do men gather Grapes of Thornes, or Figs of Thistles? But so, being miserably gall’d with the remembrance of their impieties, and the steps by which they have ascended to those fearfull precepices, they seek to allay the secret pangs of a gnawing worme, by adopting the most prodigious of their crimes into a Religion fitted for the purpose, and versatile as their giddy interest, till at last, encourag’d by the number of thriving Proselytes and successes, they grow feared and confident; swallowing all with ease, and passing from one heresie to another; whilst yet they are still pursued, and shalt never be at repose: For Conscience will at last awake, and then how frightful, how deplorable, yea, how inexpressably sad will that day be unto them! For these things have they done, and I held my tongue (saith God) and they thought wickedly, that I am such a one as themselves; but I will reprove them and set before them the things that they have done. O consider this ye that forget God, least he pluck you away, and there be none to deliver you!

And now Sir, you see the liberty which I have taken, and how farr I have adventured to testifie a friendship which I have ever professed for you: I have indeed been very bold; but it was greatly requisite; and you know that amongst all men there are none which more openly use the freedom of reprehension, then those who love most: Advices are not rejected by any, but such as determine to pursue their evill courses; and the language which I use, is not to offend, but to beseech you to return. I conjure you therefore to re-enter into your self, and not to suffer these mean and dishonourable respects, which are unworthy your nobler spirit, to prompt you to a course so deform’d, and altogether unworthy your education and Family. Behold your friends all deploaring your misfortunes, and your Enemies even pitie you; whilst to gratifie a few mean and desperate persons, you cancell your duty to your prince, and disband your Religion; dishonour your name, bring ruine and infamy on your posterity.

But when all this shall fail (as God forbid a title of it should) I have yet this hope remaining; that when you have been sufficiently fated with this wicked course, wandred from place to place, government to government, sect to sect, in so universal a deluge, and find no repose for the sole of your foot (as it is certain you never shal) you with at last with the peaceful Dove, return to the Arke from whence you fled, to your first principles, and to sober counsels; or with the repenting Prodigall in the Gospel, to your Father which is in heaven, and to the Father of your Countrey: For in so doing, you shall not only rejoyce your servant, and all good men, but the very Angels which are in heaven, and who are never said to rejoyce indeed, but at the Conversion of a sinner.

10. Yet a little while, and the ungodly shall be clean gone, thou shalt look after his place, and he shall be away.

36. I my self have seen the ungodly in great power, and flourishing like a green Bay-tree.

37. I went by, and lo he was gone; I sought him, but his place could no where be found.

38. Keep innocency, and take heed unto the thing that is right: For that shall bring a Man peace at the last.

I request the Reader to take notice, that where, mentioning the Presbyterian, I have let fall expressions, somewhat relishing of more then usuall asperity; I do by no means intend it to the prejudice of many of that Judgment, who were either men of peaceable spirits from the beginning; or that have of late given testimony of the sense of their errour, whilst they were abused by those specious pretences I have reproved; but I do regard them with as much charity and affection, as becomes a sincere Christian, and their Brother.

A
P A N E G Y R I C
TO
Charles the Second,
PRESENTED
TO HIS MAJESTIE
The XXXIII. of APRIL, being the Day
OF HIS
CORONATION.
MDCLXI.

LONDON,
Printed for John Crooke, and are to be sold at the Ship in St. Paul’s Church-Yard.

[Pa 3] A
PANEGYRIC
TO
CHARLES the II.
PRESENTED
TO HIS MAJESTY
On the Day of His Inauguration,
April 23. MDCLXI.

I have decreed with myself (O best and greatest of Kings!) to publish the just resentiments of a heart, perfectly touch’d with the Joy and Universal Acclamations of your People, for your this dayes Exaltation and glorious investiture. And truly, it was of custome us’d to good and gracious Princes, upon lesser occasions, to pronounce and celebrate their merits with Elogies and Panegyrics; but if ever they were due, it is to your Majesty this Day; because as your Virtues are superiour to all that pass’d before you; so is the Conjuncture, and the steps by which you are happily ascended to it, Miraculous, and alltogether stupendious: So that what the former Ages might produce to deprecate their fears, or flatter the Inclinations of a Tyrant, we offer spontaneously, and by Instinct, without Artifice to your Serene Majesty, our just and rightfull Soveraign. And if in these expressions of it, and the formes we use, it were possible to exceed, and so offend your Modesty; herein only (great Sir) do we not fear to disobey you; since it is not in your power to deny us our rejoycing, nor indeed in ours, to moderate. Permit us therefore (O best of Kings) to follow our genius, and to consecrate your Name, and this dayes exaltation to that posterity which you alone have preserved, and which had certainly seen its period, but for your happy Restauration; so that your Majesty does not so much accept a benefit from, as give it to your Subjects. For though the fulness of this Dayes joy, be like the seven years of plenty; yet, is that bread far more sweet, which is eaten with remembrance of the past Famine (too bitter, alas! to be forgotten on the suddain) especially, when it may serve to illustrate our present felicity, and conduce to your Majesties glory: For so the skillful Artist, studious of making a surprising peice, or representing some irradiated Deity, deepens the [Pa 4] shadowes sometimes with the darkest touches, and approaching to horrour it self, thereby to render his lights the more refulgent, and striking in the eyes of the Spectator.

Let us then call to mind (and yet for ever cursed be the memory of it) those dismal clouds, which lately orespread us, when we served the lusts of those immane Usurpers, greedy of power, that themselves might be under none; Cruel, that they might murther the Innocent without cause; Rich, with the publick poverty; strong, by putting the sword into the hands of furies, and prosperous by unheard of perfidie. Armies, Battails, Impeaching, Imprisonment, Arraining, Condemning, Proscribing, Plundring, Gibbets and Executions were the eloquent expressions of our miseries: There was no language then heard but of Perjury, Delusion, Hypocrisie, Heresie, Taxes, Excises, Sequestration, Decimation, and a thousand like barbarities: In summe, the solitudes were filled with noble Exiles, the Cities with rapacious Theives, the Temples with Sacrilegious Villains; They had the spoiles of Provinces, the robbing of Churches, the goods of the slain, the Stock of Pupils, the plunder of Loyal Subjects; no Testament, no State secure, and nothing escaped their cruelty and insatiable avarice. For if it be sweet in prosperity, to consider of the past adventures, if tempests commend the Haven; War, Peace; and our last sharp sickness, our present Health and Vigour; why should it not delight your Majesty to hear of the miseries we have suffered; since they re-inforce your own felicity, and the benefits which we receive by it? where then should I begin but with thy Calamities, O unfortunate England! who hadst only the priviledge of being miserable, when all the World were happy: But I will not go too for in repeating the sorrowes which are vanish’t, or uncover the buried memory of the evils past; least whilst we strive to represent the vices of others, we seem to contaminate your Sacred purple, or alloy our present rejoycing; since that only is sign of a perfect and consummate felicity, when even the very remembrance of evils past, is quite forgotten.

Miraculous Reverse! O marvel greater then Mans Counsel! who will believe that which his eyes do see? what before a twenty years confusion had destroy’d; behold a few moneths have restor’d: But the wonder does yet so much more astonish, that the grief was not so universal for having suffer’d under such a Tyranny, as for having been so long depriv’d of so excellent a Prince: No more then do we henceforth accuse our past miseries; All things are by your presence repair’d, and so reflourish; as if they even rejoyc’d they had once been destroy’d, Auctior tuis facta beneficiis. So as not only a Diadem binds your sacred Temples this day; but you have even crown’d all your Subjects too; so has your auspicious presence gilded all things; our Churches, Tribunals, Theaters, Palaces, lift up their heads again; the very fields do laugh and exalt. O happy, and blessed spring! not so glorious yet with the pride and enamel of his flowers, the golden corn, and the gemms of the pregnant Vine, as with those Lillies and Roses which bloom and flourish in your Chaplet this day, to which not only these, but even all the productions of nature seem to bend, and pay their homage.

And let it be a new year, a new Æra, to all the future Generations, as it is the beginning of this, and of that immense, Platonic Revolution; [Pa 5] for what could arrive more justly, more stupendious, were even the eight sphear it self now hurled about? For no sooner came our CHARLES on shore, but every Man was in the Haven where he would be; the storm Universally ceas’d, and every one ran forth to see our Palladium, tanquam cœlo delapsum: Virgins, Children, Women, trembling old Men, venerating the very ship that wafted our Jason and his Heroes, ravish’d with the sight, yet hardly believing for astonishment; the greatness of the miracle, oppressing our sences, and endangering our very faith.

I would prayse you Great Prince, but having begun; where shall I make an end? since there remains not a Topic through all that kind, but one might write Decads of it, without offending the truth, were it as secure of your modesty; since I am as well to consider what your ears can suffer, as what is owing to your Virtues: On what heads shall I extend then my discourse? your Birth, Country, Form, Education, Manners, Studies, Friends, Honours and Fortune run through all partitions of the Demonstrative: An Orator could have nothing more to wish for, nor your Majesty to render you more accomplish’d.

Shall I consider then your Majesty as you were a Son to that glorious Father before his Apotheosis? As you were your self a Confessor after it; As you are now thus day in your Zenith and exaltation; and as we Augure you will by Gods blessing prove to your Subjects hereafter: For even through all these does our prospect lead us; Nor may it be objected that what shall be spoken of your Majesty, can be applied to any other; since the Fortune and Events of the rest of Princes, have been so differing from yours; as seeming to have been conducted by Men alone, and second Causes; yours only by God, and as it were by Miracle.

I begin then with your early Piety to that Kingly Martyr whose Sacred dictates did institute your tender years, and whose sufferings were so much alleviated by your Majesties early proficiency in all that might presage a hopefull and glorious Successor: For so did you run through all his Vicissitudes, during that implacable war, which sought nothing more then to defeat you of all opportunities of a Princely education, as fearing your future Virtues; because they knew the stock from whence you sprung, was not to be destroy’d by wounding the body, so long as such a Branch remained.

Whilst he Reign’d and Govern’d, you learn’d only to obey; Living your own Princely Impress; ICH DIEN. as knowing it would best instruct you one day how to Command, and which we now see accomplish’d: These then are the effects, when Princes are the Sons of Nobles; since only such know best to support the weight, who use to bear betimes, and by degrees; not those who rashly pull it on their shoulders; because they take it with less violence, less ambition, less jealousie: None so secure a Prince, as he that is so born.

But no sooner did that blessed Martyr expire, then our redivive Phœnix [Pa 6] appear’d; rising from those Sacred Ashes Testator and Heir; Father and yet Son; Another, and yet the same; introsuming as it were his Spirit, as he breath’d it out, when singing his own Epicedium and Genethliack together, he seem’d prodigal of his own life to have it redouble’d in your felicity: Thus, Rex nunquam moritur. O admirable conduct of the Divine Providence, to immortalize the image of a just Monarch: Ipsa quidem, sed non eadem, quia & ipsa, nec ipsa est. Since that may as truly be apply’d to your Majesty, which was once to the wisest of Kings: Mortuus est Pater ejus, & quasi non mortuus, similem enim reliquit sibi post se.

But with how much prudence, is serenity attributed amongst the titles of Princes, and the beams of the sun to irradiate their Crowns; That the Scepter bears a Flower; since as that glorious planet produces, so does it also wither them; and there is nothing lasting, save their vertues, which are indeed their essential parts, and only immortal; For even yet did the clouds intercept our day with the continuance of so dismall a storm, as it obnubilated all those hopes of ours. It is an infinite adventure, if in a Princes Family Firmament

(once overcast) it ever grow fair weather again, but by a singular and extraordinary providence. I mention this to increase the wonder, and reinforce your felicity. Empires passe, Kingdomes are translated, and dominions cease: The Cecropides of old, the Arsacides, the Theban, Corinthian, Syracusian, and sundry more lasted nor to the fourth Age without strange and prodigious tragedies; but why go we so far back, when a few Centuries present us with so many fresh Revolutions? How many nests has the Roman Eagle changed? Bulgarian, Saracen, Latine; In the Comneni, Isaaci, Paleologi, &c. even till it dash’d it self in pieces against the Oetoman rock. What mutations have been in the house of Arragon? How many Riders has the Parthenopean horse unsaddl’d and flung? How many Sicily? What changes have been in Italy, What in France, and indeed through all Europe by Vandals, Saxons, Danes, Normans, by external invasion, internal Faction, Envy, Ambition, treachery and violence? The Consulate degenerated into Oligarchy, which occasion’d the Aventine sedition; Democraty into Ochlocraty under the Tribunes and wicked Gracchi; and Monarchy it self, (the very best of Governments) into Tyranny.

Indeed your sacred Majesty was cast out of your Kingdoms, but could never be thrown out of our hearts; There, you had a secure seat; and the Prince that is inthron’d there, is safe in all mutations; Keep there Sir, and you are inexpugnable, immoveable. And how should it otherwayes be? A Prince of your virtue could not miscarry, that being truly verified of Your Majesty, as well in your perfections, as your person, Certe, videtis quem elegit Dominus in Regem, quoniam non sit similis illi in omni populo. Nature design’d your Majesty a King, Fortune makes others; nor are you more your peoples by birth, and a glorious series of Progenitors, then by your merits: This appeared in all those digits of your darkest Eclipse; The defect was ours, not your Majesties. For the Sun is alwaies shining, though men alwaies see him not; and since the too great splendor, and prosperity did confound us, it pleased God to interpose those clouds, till we should be better able to behold you with more reverence and security; For then it was that you prepar’d your self for this weighty government, and gave us those presages of your Virtue, [Pa 7] by what you did, for your people, and what you suffered for them; signalizing your Courage, your Fortitude, Constancy, Piety, Prudence and Temperance upon all occasions. Your Travels and Adventures are as far beyond those of Ulysses, as you exceed him in Dominions; Si quis enim velit percensere Cæsaris res, totum profecto terrarum orbem enumeret: For he must go very far that would sum up your perfections: Your skill in the customes of Nations, the situations of Kingdomes, the Advantages of places, the temper of the Climates; so as the Ages to come shall tell with delight, where you fought valiantly, where you suffered gallantly, Quis sudores tuos hauserit campus, quæ refectiones tuas arbores, quæ somnum saxa prætexerint, quod denique tectum magnus hospes impleveris, and all those sacred Vestigia of yours: Thus what was once applyed to Trajan, becomes due to your Majesty, and I my self am witness both abroad, and at home, of what I pronounce, having now beheld you in both fortunes with love and admiration; But this is not halfe, and to stop at single perfections, were to give jealousie to the rest yet untouched, and should I but succinctly number them all, were not to weave a Panegyrick, but an Inventory.

But amongst all your Vertues none was more eminent then your constancy to your religion, which no shocks of Fortune, no assaults of sophisters, events and successe of adversaries, or offers of specious Friends could shake; so great a thing it was that you did persevere, so much greater quod non timuisti ne perseverare non posses.

But whilst Armies on earth fought for the Usurper, the Hosts of Heaven fought in their courses for your Majesty; Spaine. dashing your greatest enemy upon that Rock, which afforded you shelter, till that Tyranny was over past: And how welcome to Us was that blessed day qui tyrannum abstulit pessimum, Principem dedit optimum! He liv’d by storming others, dyed in one himself, & post Nubila, Phœbus. Yet did not that quite dissolve our fears, till that other head of Hydra was cut off, that despicable Rump which succeeded, not by the sword, or any humane addresse, least we should sacrifice to our own Nets; but by the immediate hand of heaven, without noise, without Armes, or stratageme, the fame of your vertues, more then the sense of our own misery, universally turning the hearts even of your very Enemies; and then that Northern Star began the dawning of this day, till your nearer approach did guild our Horizon, brighter then the rayes of the Eastern sun, from whose spicy coast, like a true Phœnix you were to come; For so at the sight of that Royal Bird was the memory of Sesostris, of Amasis and Ptolemy ever fortunate, and so was yours to us;

the happy presages of our glorious Returne, stupendious indeed and almost indicible: For no sooner did your Argo hoise sail, that the Eagles themselves fled not swifter, then the report of your approach from ten thousand mouthes of brasse, echoing from ship to ship, and shore to shore, with their thundring voices, out done yet with the shouts and acclamations of your glad people, when our shaken Republique rushed at once into your princely Armes for safety and Asylum, not by the occult power of Destiny, or blind revolution, but the extraordinary hand [Pa 8] of Providence, whose pathes are in the great Waters, and whose footsteps are not known: O novum atque inauditum ad principatum iter, who that shall write Annals, or Verses can ever forget that day? not decrepit age, not the sick, not the tender Sex were kept back from resolving to behold that miraculous entry of yours; The very little children pointed to you, the striplings and young men exsulted, the Antient men stood amazed, and those who were under the empire of a cruel disease, leaped out of their beds, to have the sight of you, that were the safety of the People, returning with cure and refreshment: Others protested, they had even now lived long enough, and were ready to expire with joy, and the transports of their spirits; as satisfied that this Ball could not present them with an other object worthy their admiration; others wished now to live more then ever, that they might still enjoy their desired object; and women forgetting the pains of childbirth, brought forth with joy, because they gave Citizens to their Prince, and Souldiers now to their lawful Emperour.

Your Majesty must needs remember, nor is the sound yet out of your sacred ears, when the houses of this your August Metropolis were covered with the loud and cheerful spectators, because the earth was too narrow to contain them; the wayes and the trees were filled with the shouting of your people, LONG LIVE KING CHARLES THE II. tamque æqualiter ab omnibus ex adventu tuo lætitia percepta est, quam omnibus venisti. For when the wise Arbiter of things began to look down upon us, all things conspir’d to make us happy; our Deliverance by your Majesty as by another Moses, leading us out of that Ægyptian bondage; or by a nearer resemblance that of the Babylonish captivity, if not yet farr greater; since God did there only turne the heart of a Prince to let a nation go: Here, the hearts of a whole Nation, to invite a banish’d Prince to come, when no other visible power interpos’d. Let others boast then of their miracles; we can produce such, as no age, no people under heaven can shew; God moving the hearts of his most implacable Enemies in a moment as it were, and those who had been before inhumanely thirsty after your blood, now ready to sacrifice their own for your safety; Digna res memoratu! ibat sub ducibus vexillisque Regiis, hostis aliquando Regius, & signa contra quæ steterat sequebatur. But I suffer surfeit

with too much Plenty, and what eloquence is able to expresse the triumph of that your never to be forgotten Entry, unlesse it be the renewing of it this day? For then were we as those who dream, and can yet hardly be perswaded, that we are truly awake: Dies ille æternis seculis monumentisque mandandus, A day never to be forgotten in all our Generations, but to be consecrated to posterity, transmitted to future Ages, and inserted into Monuments more lasting then Brasse. Away then with these Woodden and temporary Arches, to be taken down by the People at pleasure; erect Marble ones, lasting as the Pyramids, and immovable as the mountains themselves, and when they fail, let the memory of it still remain engraven in our Hearts, Books, Records, novissimo haud peritura die.

And yet not this altogether, because we have received a Prince, but such a Prince, whose state and fortune in all this blessed change, we so much admire not, as his mind; For that is truly felicity, not to possesse [Pa 9] great things, but to be thought worthy of them: And indeed Great Sir, necessity constrains me, and the laws of Panegyric, to verifie it in your Praises, by running over at least those other Appellations, which both your vertue has given to your Majesty, and your Fortune acquir’d. For he is really no King who possesses not (like you) a Kingly mind, be his other advantages what they may: If the Republick belong then to Cæsar, Cæsar belongs much more to the Republick; and of this you have given proof.

For no sooner were we possess’d of your sacred Majestie, but you suddainly gave form to our confused Chaos: We presently saw when you had taken the reigns into your sacred hands, and began to sit at Sterne, our deviating and giddy course grow steady, and the fluctuating Republick at drift ready to put into a secure Port.

You began your Entry with an act of general Clemency, and to make good the advice of your Martyr’d Father, and the best Religion, forgave you bitterest Enemies; and not only barely forgiving, but by an excesse of charity, doing honour to some, ut nemo sibi victus te victore videatur. This was plainly Godlike: For so rare a thing we find it, that Princes think themselves oblig’d; or if they think it, that they love it; that your example will reproach all who went before you: As you promis’d, so you perform’d it, punctually, and with advantage. Nor indeed do you desire any thing should be permitted your Majesty, but what is indulg’d your Vassals, subjecting even your self to those Lawes by which you oblige your Subjects; For as it is a great felicity to be able to do what one will, so is it much more glorious, to will only what is just and honourable. All other Princes before your Majesty spake as much; you only have performed it; nor is there a Tittle of your engagements, which even your very enemies diffide of, much lesse your Friends suspect: They enjoy, and these hope; because those were to be conciliated by present effects, these are secure by past promises; and none that receives them of your Majesty reckons from the time they injoy it, but the period of your promise; because it proceeds (they know) from a Princely and candid mind; and if it seem long in acquiring, it is not (I perswade my self) because you are difficult, much less unmindful; but that the benefit may be more acceptable, and the sense of it more permanent; since too suddain felicity astonishes, and sometimes renders the Recipient ingrateful, whilst your favours are not fugitive but certain. It was only for Your Majestie to be compleatly happie, when you began to be so; and yet your subjects had as much as they could well support; since you have made it your only businesse to sublevate the needie, and give them as it were a new Fate, your piety not more appearing in pardoning your Enemies, and receiving the Penitent, then your justice in restoring the Oppressed: For how many are since your returne, return’d to their own Homes, to their Wives, Children, Offices, and Patrimonies? Addiditque Dominus omnia quæ fuerant Jobi duplicia; some of them with immense advantages; and of this the languishing Church of England is a most eminent instance; That she, which was first and most afflicted, should be first and chiefly refreshed.

You have taken away the affluence to the Committees, Sequestrators, Conventicles, and unjust Slaughter-houses, and converted their zeal to the Temples, the Courts, and the just Tribunals: Magnanimity [Pa 10] is return’d again to the Nobility, Modesty to the People, Obedience to Subjects, Charity to Neighbours, Pietie to Children, Fidelity to Servants, and Reverence to Religion; In summe, You are the Restorer of Your Countrie.

The lawes that were lately quiescent, and even trampled under foot, your Majesty has revived; and been yet so prudent in reforming, that even those which your Enemies made upon good deliberation, you permit to stand, shewing your self rather to have been displeased with the Authours, then the Things.

As to Discipline (after the sacrifice due for that innocent blood of your glorious Father) you are not only careful to reject vice your self; but are severe to discountenance it in others; and that yet so sweetly, as you seem rather to perswade then compell; and to cure without a corrosive.

The Army is disbanded, and the Navy paid off without Tumult; because you are trusted without suspicion, and are more secure in the publick love and affection of your people then in men of Iron, the locks and Bars of Tyrants Palaces: And truely Sir, there is no protection to innocency, which is a fort inexpugnable: In vain therefore do Princes confide in any other; for Armes invite Armes, Terrour, suspition. To this only do you trust, and the few which you maintain about your person, is rather for state, then fear. Quid enim istis opus est, quum firmissimo sis muro Civici amoris obtectus? Here is then the firm Keeper of our Liberties indeed, whom the Armies love for His own sake, and whom no servile flattery adores; but a simple, and sincere devotion; and verily such a Prince as Your Majesty, deserves to have friends, Prompt, steady and faithful; such as You have, and which Virtue rather then Fortune procures. Of this I obtest the fidelity of Your own inviolable Party, distinguished formerly by the invidious name of Cavalier, though significant and glorious; but I provoke the World to produce me an example of parallel Loyaltie: What Prince under heaven, after so many losses, and all imaginable calamities, can boast of such a party? The Grecians forsook their Leaders upon every sleight disaster; the very Romans were not steady of old, but followed the fortune of the Common Victor. The German and the French will happily stick to their Prince in distresse, as far as the Plate, the Tapistry, or some such superfluous moveable may abide the pawn; But where shall we find a Subject that hath persisted like Your Majesties, to the losse of Libertie, Estate, and life it self, when yet all seem’d to be determin’d against them; so as even their enemies were at last vanquish’d with their constancy, and their very Tormentors wearied with their insuperable Patience; nor can they in all that tract of Time, hardly brag of having made one signal Proselyte in twenty Years that this difference continu’d; and that because the obedience of your Majesties Subjects, is engraffed into their Religion and Institution, as well as into the adoration of Your Virtues.

I would not therefore that Your Name should be painted upon Banners, or Carved in stone, sed Monumentis æternæ laudis; and Your Majesty did well foresee, and consult it, when you furnish’d a Subject for our Panegyrics, and our Histories, which should outlast those frail materials. The Statues of Cæsar, Brutus and Camillus were set up indeed because they chased their enemies from the Walls of a proud Citie; You [Pa 11] have done it from a whole Kingdom; not (as they) by blood and slaughter, but by your prudence and Counsels: Nor is it lightly to be passed over, that your Majesty was preserved in that Royal Oak, to whom a Civical Crown should so justly become due.

But I now arrive to the Lawes you have made, and the excellent things which your Majestie hath done since you came amongst Your people. Truely, there is hardly an hour to be reckoned wherein your Majesty has not done some signal benefit. I have already touch’d a few of them, as what concern’d the most, I would I could say the best; for you have oblig’d your very Enemies, You have bought them; since never was there, till now, so prodigious a summe paid, a summe hardly in Nature, to verifie a Word only; and which the zeal of Your good Subjects (had you taken the advantage of the fervour which I but now mentioned, at Your wonderful Reception) might easily have absolv’d You of; had You paid them in kind, and as they were wont to keep faith with your Majestie. I provoke the World again to furnish an instance of a like generositie, unlesse he climb up to heaven for it. How black then must that ingratitude needs appear, which should after all this, dare to rebell; Or, for the future once murmur at Your Government? Since it was no necessity that compell’d You, but an excesse of your good nature, and your charitie.

Your Majestie has abolished the Court of Wards; I cannot say we have freed ourselves in desiring it, if it were possible to hope for so indulgent a Father as Your Majestie is to Your Countrie, in those who shall succeed You.

The Compositions You have likewise eased us of, if that could be esteem’d a burthen, to serve so excellent a Prince, who receives nothing of his Subjects but what he returnes again in the Noblest and worthiest Hospitality, that any Potentate in earth can produce; Thus what the Rivers pay to the Ocean, it returns again in showers to replenish them. But Your Majestie would dissipate even the very shadows, which give us umbrage; and rather part with your own just right, then those few of your Subjects which it concern’d, should think themselves aggreiv’d, though by a mistake even of their duty.

His Majesties Declaration. But I should first have mention’d your settlement of the Church, and Your bringing back the Ark of God: Your Majesties wise composure of our Frailties, and tendernesse as well in the Religious as the Secular; whilst yet You continue fervent to maintain what is decent, and what is setled by Law. But what language is capable to expresse this Article? Let those who wait at the Altar, and to which you have restor’d the daily sacrifice, supply the defect of this period, and celebrate your piety.

Nor has yet Your zeal to the Church, lessen’d that which is due to the Common-wealth; witnesse your industry in erecting a Counsel of Trade, by which alone you have sufficiently verified that expression of your Majesties in your Declaration from Breda, That You would propose some useful things for the publick emolument of the Nation, which should render it opulent, splendid and flourishing; making good your pretence to the universall Soveraignty by Your Princely care, as well as by your birth and undoubted Title.

You have Restor’d, Adorn’d, and Repair’d our Courts of Judicature, [Pa 12] turning the Shambles where your Subjects were lately butcher’d, into a Tribunal, where they may now expect due Justice; and have furnish’d the Supreame seat there with a Chancelour of antient candor, rare experience; just, prudent, learned and faithfull; in summe, one, whose merits beget universal esteem, and is amongst the greatest indications of your Majesties skill in persons, as well as in their Talents and perfections to serve you. Thus you have gratified the long robe, so as now again,

For you are (we hear) publishing Sumptuary Lawes to represse the wantonness and excess of Apparel, as you have already testifi’d your abhorrency of Duelling, that infamous and dishonourable gallantry: In fine, you have establish’d so many excellent constitutions, that you seem to leave nothing for us to desire, or your Successor to add either in the Ethicall or Politicall.

O happy Greece for Eloquence, that hast celebrated the fortune of thy Heroes trifling Adventures! who shall set forth and immortalize the glory of our illustrious Prince, and advance Great CHARLES to the skies? You had Poets indeed that sung the fate of an unfortunate Lady, the theft of a simple fleece; what wouldst thou have done, had the glorious Actions of such a King been spread before thee, who has not robbed with Armies, depopulated Cities, or violated the Rights of Hospitality; but restor’d a broken Nation, repair’d a ruin’d Church, reform’d, and re-establish’d our ancient Laws; in summe, who has at once render’d us perfectly happy? What then have we to do with Augustus, or Titus, with Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus, Theodosius or even Constantine himself? There is not in any, there is not in all these Subjects more worthy of praise, and to which your Majesty; O best of Princes, ought at all to render.

We are told Periculosæ rem aleæ esse, de iis scribere quibus sis obstrictus; because it is so difficult to observe a mediocrity, where our affections are engaged: But your Majesty is as secure from flattery, as your Virtues are above its reach; and to write thus of ill Princes, were both a shame and a punishment: For this the Senate condemn’d the History of Cremutius to the flames; and Spartianus told Dioclesian boldly, how hard it would be to write their Commentaries, except it were to record their Impudence, Murthers, Injustice, and the (for most part) fatal periods of Tyrants; which if any esteem a glory, you envy not, whilst your Majesty is resolv’d to secure your own by your virtue and your Justice; so as no age to come shall possibly find an æmulator, or produce an equall.

But I shall never have done with your obligations of the publick; and the measure which is assign’d me, would be too narrow but to mention briefly those your private and interiour perfections which crown your Majesties Person, and dazle our eyes more then the bright purple which this day invests you. To give instance in some; you are an excellent Master to your Domesticks. Their Lives, Conversations and Merits as well as Names, and Faces, are known to your Majesty as the Companions of Cæsar were: Honour is safe under your Banner, and the Court so well regulated, that there is no need of Censors to inspect Mens Manners; vita principis pro censura est. He who knowes that every body eyes, speaks and writes of him, cannot in prudence, or think, or act things unworthy and abject: You Sir direct all your objects and motions so, as may recommend you to posterity; and even burn with desires of immortality, so as Histories may relate the Truth without fear or adulation.

How happy then those Servants of yours, whose fidelity and Industry is known to your Majesty, not from the interpretation and reports of others, but your own experience! So as you Reward as well with Judgment, as Bounty; and verily that is true Beneficence to place your Recompense as well equally as freely: Most other Virtues are competent to the rest of Men; Beneficence only to a Prince, as his most Essential property, and the noblest ingredient of his Elogy. Hence that great Saint, as well as Courtier and Prelate has directed, Si quis Principem laudare vellet, nihil illi adeo decorum adscriberet quam Magnificentiam; S. Chrysost. and Criticks observe, that where the wise King Solomon sayes, Multi colunt personam Principis, the Hebrew version reads it, personam Benefici, as importing both; and in that of his Who was greater then Solomon, Qui dominantur eorum Benefici vocantur, the Chaldy turnes, Principes vocantur, as if by a convertible figure, He could not be a Prince who were not Beneficent; nor he that is truly Beneficent, unworthy of that Title. I remember ’tis somewhere said of Saul that he Reign’d but two years; because he was so long it seems good to his people, and reigned in their hearts; For as the Sun himself should not be the Sun, if he did not shine; no more should a Prince be worthy of his dignity, if he unjustly Ecclips’d his influence, or abused his Magnificency. But as we said, this virtue is added to your Majesties also; who know so well to adjust its Definition by your constant practice, rendering it (as indeed it ought) productive of your will for glorious and honest ends only; But I now proceed with the rest.

There is such a Majesty in your Countenance, such Lenity in your Eyes, gravity in your speech, as that for your gracefull presence that may be truly affirm’d of you what was once appli’d to a great Prince resembling you, Jam firmitas, Jam proceritas corporis, jam honor Capitis & dignitas oris, ad hoc ætatis indeflexa maturitas, nonne longe lateque principem ostentant? since even all these assemble in your Majesties personage; Nor has fortune chang’d you after all your Travels and Adventures abroad; but brought you back to us not so much as tinged in the percolations through which you have been forc’d to run, like the Fountain [Pa 14] Arethusa through the River Alpheus without commixture of their waters. None having more constantly retained his vertue then your Majesty, nor guarded it with more caution.

And now in all this height of glory, you receive all Men with so much humility, that the difference of your change seems to be only this; that you are now beloved of more, and love more, treating every man, as if every man were your proper care, and as becomes the Father of so great a Family; Sometimes you are pleased to lay more aside the beams of Majesty, that you may descend to do mutual offices of Friendship; as considering that these Virtues were not concredited to you by God, for your self only, but for others also: In short, you are so perfect a Prince, that those who come after you, will fear to be compared to you, Experti quam sit onerosum succedere bono Principi; since to possess your Virtues, they must support your sufferings; nor can every head know how to sustain the weight of such a Crown as yours, where the thornes have so long perplext the Lillies and the Roses of it.

I might here mention Your Heroic and masculine Spirit in dangers, and yet Your foresight of them; Your tenderness to compassionate, Your Constancie in suffering, Your Modestie in Prosperitie, Equalitie in Adversitie, and that sweetness of access which attracts both love and veneration from all that converse with You; but these have already adorn’d your Character by that excellent Hand who did lately describe it. Col. Tuke.

You are frequent at Councels, Patient in hearing, pertinent in answering, judicious in Determining, and so skilfull in the several Languages, that You many times transact by Your self, what others do by Interpreters; affecting rather expedition in Your affairs, then insignificant State, which these acquired parts of Your Majesties do yet augment so much the more.

You are curious of brave and Laudable things; You love shipping, Buildings, Gardens (having exceeded Cyrus already in Your Plantations) Piscinas, Statues, Pictures, Intaglias, Music: You have already amass’d very many rare collections of all kinds, and there is nothing worthy and great which can escape Your research.

Nor must I here forget the honour You have done our Society at Greshham Colledge by Your curious enquiries about the Load-Stone, and other particulars which concern Philosophy; since it is not to be doubted but that so Magnanimous a Prince, will still proceed to encourage that Illustrious Assembly; and which will celebrate and eternize Your memory to the future Ages, beyond Your Majesties Predecessors, and indeed all the Monarchs on the Earth, when for You is reserv’d the being Founder of some thing that may improve practical and Experimental knowledg, beyond all that has been hitherto attempted, for the Augmentation of Science, and universal good of Man-kind, and which alone will consummate Your Fame and render it immortal.

What shall I superadd to all these? That You rise early, that You are alwaies employ’d, that You love Hunting, Riding, swimming, manly Robust and Princely Exercises, not so much for delight, as health and relaxation. Et vitæ pars nulla perit.

O best Idea of Princes, sit to me yet one moment, that I may add this last touch to Your fair Table; nor wonder that I should attempt so bold [Pa 15] an enterprise; since he that would take the height of Olympus, must stand below in the plain: Subjects can best describe their Princes Virtues; Princes best know their Subjects, and therefore most fit to rule them. And long may You live to rule us great Sir. We wish that all you do, or may do, be propitious to you, to us, to the public; or in a word, to your Majesty alone, in which both we and the public are mutually concern’d. Time was (and too long alas it was!) that what was fortunate to the Tyrant, was unhappy to your Subjects: now they are common to both and reciprocal; nor can we more be happy without you, then you without us; and truly all Princes have known, that they are seldom beloved of God, who are hated of their People; nor can they be long secure. Vox Populi, vox Dei est. But you have seen the Effects of our Prayers against an Usurper; hear now, O Heaven our Vowes for a just Prince. Not for peace, not for Riches, not Honours, or new conquests do we supplicate; but for all these in one, The Safety of CHARLES. You alone snatch’d him out of those cruel hands, now preserve him from them: Render him fortunate to us, to our Children, succeeding Generations give him a late Successor, and when You do it, let it be such a one as himself.

Let your Majestie now proceed in his Triumph, and hear the Acclamations of his people; what can they more expresse who are ready to pave the very streets with their bodies, in testimonie of their zeal? behold all about You, the Gratulating old Fathers, the exulting Youths, the glad mothers; And why should it not be so? Here’s no goods publicated, none restrain’d or mulcted of their Libertie, none diminish’d of dignitie, none molested, or exil’d; all are again return’d into their houses, Relations and Properties, and which is yet more then all, to their antient innocencie and mutual charitie.

If the Philosopher in the Ethicks enquiring whether the felicity of the sun, do any whit concern the happinesse of the defunct progenitor, after much reasoning have determin’d that the honour only which his son acquires by worthie and great actions, does certainly refresh his Ghost: What a day of Jubilee, is this then to Your blessed Father! Not the odor of those flowers did so recreate the dead Archemorus which the Nymphs were yearly wont to strow upon his watry Sepulcher, as this daies Inauguration of Yours, does even seem to revive the Ashes of that sacred Martyr.

Should some one from the clouds that had looked down on the sad face of things, when our Temples lay in dust, our Palaces in desolation, and the Altars demolished; when these Citie Gates were dashed to pieces, Gibbets and Executions erected in every Street, and all things turned into universal silence and solitude, behold now the change of this daies glorious scean; that we see the Churches in repair, the sacred Assemblies open’d, our Cities re-edified, the Markets full of People, our Palaces richly furnished, and the Streets proud with the burden of their Triumphal Arches, and the shouts of a rejoycing multitude: How would he wonder and stand amaz’d, at the Prodigie, and leap down from his lofty station, though already so near to heaven, to joyne with us in earth, participate of our felicitie, and ravish’d with the Ecstasie, cry out aloud now with Us.

Set open the Temple-Gates, let the Prisoners go free, the Altars [Pa 16] smoak perfumes, bring forth the Pretious things, strow the Waies with Flowers, let the Fountains run Wine, Crown the Gobblets, bring Chapplets of Palmes and Lawrells, the Bells ring, the Trumpets sound, the Cannon roar, O happy Descent, and strange Reverse! I have seen Englands Restorer, Great CHARLES the II. RETURN’D, REVENG’D, BELOV’D, CROWN’D, RE-ESTABLISH’D.

And O that it were now in my power to speak some great thing, worthy this great day; I should put all the flowers of Orators and Raptures of Poets into one lofty & high Expression, and yet not Reach what I would say to Your Majestie: For never since there was a Citie, or Kingdom, did a Day appear more glorious to England, never since it was a Nation, and in which there either was, or ought to be so universal a Jubilation: Not that Your Triumphal Charriots do drag the miserable Captives, but are accompanied by freed Citizens; perfidie is now vanquished, popular fury chayn’d, crueltie tam’d, luxury restrained, these lie under the spondells of Your Wheeles, where Empire, Faith, Love, and Justice Ride Triumphant, and nothing can be added to Your Majesties glory but its perpetuitie. But whence, alas! should I have this confidence, after so many Elogies and Panegyricks of great and Eloquent men, who consecrate the memorie of this daies happinesse; and (were the subject, like that of all other things) would have left me nothing more to add, unless he who was sometimes wont to employ his pen for Your Majestie being absent, should now be silent that you are present, and inflame me with a kind of new Enthusiasme: I find myself then compell’d out of a grateful sense of my dutie for the publick benefit, and if your Majestie forbid not, or withdraw your influence, who shall hinder, that even my slender voice should not strive to be heard, in such an universall consort, wherein everybody has a part, every one a share?

Permit me therefore (O best of Kings) to present, and lay these my vowes at your sacred feet, to exsult, and to Rejoyce with the Rest of your Loyal Subjects; not as I desire, but as I am able, and as I would do it to God, and as he best loves it,

H. Richard Archer	E. N. Hooker
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library	University of California, Los Angeles
R. C. Boys	John Loftis
University of Michigan	University of California, Los Angeles

The society exists to make available inexpensive reprints (usually facsimile reproductions) of rare seventeenth and eighteenth century works.

The editorial policy of the Society continues unchanged. As in the past, the editors welcome suggestions concerning publications.

All correspondence concerning subscriptions in the United States and Canada should be addressed to the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 2205 West Adams Blvd., Los Angeles 18, California. Correspondence concerning editorial matters may be addressed to any of the general editors. Membership fee continues $2.50 per year. British and European subscribers should address B. H. Blackwell, Broad Street, Oxford, England.

(At least six items, most of them from the following list, will be reprinted.)

Frances Reynolds (?): An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste, and of the Origin of Our Ideas of Beauty, &c. (1785). Introduction by James L. Clifford.

Thomas Baker: The Fine Lady’s Airs (1709). Introduction by John Harrington Smith.

Daniel Defoe: Vindication of the Press (1718). Introduction by Otho Clinton Williams.

John Evelyn: An Apologie for the Royal Party (1659); A Panegyric to Charles the Second (1661). Introduction by Geoffrey Keynes.

Sir William Petty: The Advice of W. P. to Mr. Samuel Hartlib for the Advancement of some particular Parts of Learning (1648).

Thomas Gray: An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard (1751). (Facsimile of first edition and of portions of Gray’s manuscripts of the poem).

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1. Richard Blackmore’s Essay upon Wit (1716), and Addison’s Freeholder No. 45 (1716).

3. Letter to A. H. Esq.; concerning the Stage (1698), and Richard Willis’ Occasional Paper No. IX (1698). (OUT OF PRINT)

4. Essay on Wit (1748), together with Characters by Flecknoe, and Joseph Warton’s Adventurer Nos. 127 and 133. (OUT OF PRINT)

5. Samuel Wesley’s Epistle to a Friend Concerning Poetry (1700) and Essay on Heroic Poetry (1693).

6. Representation of the Impiety and Immorality of the Stage (1704) and Some Thoughts Concerning the Stage (1704).

7. John Gay’s The Present State of Wit (1711); and a section on Wit from The English Theophrastus (1702).

10. Corbyn Morris’ Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, etc. (1744).

15. John Oldmixon’s Reflections on Dr. Swift’s Letter to Harley (1712); and Arthur Mainwaring’s The British Academy (1712).

17. Nicholas Rowe’s Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709).

18. Aaron Hill’s Preface to The Creation; and Thomas Brereton’s Preface to Esther.

22. Samuel Johnson’s The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750).

24. Pierre Nicole’s An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in Which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams, translated by J. V. Cunningham.

Transcriber’s notes:

‘but are a very small’: word unclear in original.
Original reads ‘perfidiousuess’; changed to ‘perfidiousness’.
Original reads ‘single person condemn’; changed to ‘single person; condemn’.
Original reads ‘extram’; changed to ‘extream’.
‘The Benediction of the peace maker’: word unclear in original.
‘to that eternall weight of glory’: word unclear in original.
Original reads ‘Hypocrsie’; changed to ‘Hypocrisie’.
Original reads ‘butt hat’; changed to ‘but that’.
Original reads ‘ito their houses’; changed to ‘into their houses’.
Original reads ‘innocenie’; changed to ‘innocencie’.
Original reads ‘I have seens’; changed to ‘I have seen’.
Original reads ‘univresall’; changed to ‘universall’.