SONGS, ODES, AND A MASQUE. THE FAIR STRANGER, A SONG.* HAPPY and free, securely blest, Till you descending on our plains, 5 Your smiles have more of conquering charms 10 Their troops we can expel with ease, Who vanquish only when we please. But in your eyes, oh! there's the spell, You make us captives by your stay, 15 Yet kill us if you go away. This song is a compliment to the Duchess of Portsmouth, on her first coming to England. D. ON THE YOUNG STATESMEN. CLARENDON had law and sense, Clifford was fierce and brave; Bennet's grave look was a pretence, And Danby's matchless impudence Help'd to support the knave. But Sunderland, Godolphin, Lory, These will appear such chits in story, "Twill turn all politics to jests, To be repeated like John Dory, When fiddlers sing at feasts. Protect us, mighty Providence, What would these madmen have? 5 10 6 But Sunderland] This nobleman had certainly great and various abilities, with a complete versatility of genius, and a most insinuating address; but he was totally void of all principles, moral or religious, and a much more abandoned character than Shaftesbury, whom it is so common to calumniate. He certainly urged James II. to pursue arbitrary and illegal measures, that he intended should be his ruin, and betrayed him to the Prince of Orange. The Abbé de Longuerue relates, that Dr. Massey, of Christ Church, assured him, he once received an order from King James to expel twenty-four students of that college in Oxford, if they did not embrace popery. Massey, astonished at the order, was advised by a friend to go to London, and show it to the king; who assured him he had never given him such an order, and commended Massey for not having obeyed it; yet still this infatuated monarch continued to trust Sunderland. Dr. J.W. First, they would bribe us without pence, And without power enslave. Shall free born men, in humble awe, Who from consent and custom draw The same right to be rul'd by law, Which kings pretend to reign? The duke shall wield his conquering sword, The king shall pass his honest word, And then, come kiss my breech. So have I seen a king on chess (His rooks and knights withdrawn, His queen and bishops in distress) Shifting about, grow less and less, With here and there a pawn. 15 20 25 30 A SONG FOR ST. CECILIA'S DAY, 1687. I. FROM harmony, from heavenly harmony When nature underneath a heap And could not heave her head, The tuneful voice was heard from high, Arise, ye more than dead. Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry, And Music's power obey. From harmony, from heavenly harmony From harmony to harmony Through all the compass of the notes it ran, II. What passion cannot Music raise and quell? His listening brethren stood around, 5 10 15 Less than a God they thought there could not Within the hollow of that shell, That spoke so sweetly and so well. [dwell What passion cannot Music raise and quell? III. The trumpet's loud clangor Excites us to arms, And mortal alarms. The double double double beat Of the thundering drum Cries, hark! the foes come; Charge, Charge, 'tis too late to retreat. IV. The soft complaining flute The woes of hopeless lovers, Whose dirge is whisper'd by the warbling lute. V. Sharp violins proclaim Their jealous pangs, and desperation, Fury, frantic indignation, Depth of pains, and height of passion, VI. But oh! what art can teach, What human voice can reach, The sacred organ's praise? Notes that wing their heavenly ways VII. Orpheus could lead the savage race; But bright Cecilia rais'd the wonder higher : 37 Sharp violins] It is a judicious remark of Mr. Mason, that Dryden with propriety gives this epithet to the instrument; because, in the poet's time, they could not have arrived at that delicacy of tone, even in the hands of the best masters, which they now have in those of an inferior kind. See Essays on English Church Music, by the Rev. W. Mason, M.A. Precentor of York, 12mo. 1795, p. 218. T. |