direct his martial spirit, and teach him the way to the best victories, which are those that are least bloody, and which, though achieved by the hand, are managed by the head. Science distinguishes a man of honour from one of those athletick brutes whom undeservedly we call heroes. Cursed be the poet, who first honoured with that name a mere Ajax, a man-killing idiot. The Ulysses of Ovid upbraids his ignorance, that he understood not the shield for which he pleaded: there was engraven on it plans of cities, and maps of countries, which Ajax could not comprehend, but looked on them as stupidly as his fellow-beast, the lion. But on the other side, your Grace has given yourself the education of his rival; you have studied every spot of ground in Flanders, which for these ten years past has been the scene of battles and of sieges. No wonder if you performed your part with such applause, on a theatre which you understood so well. If I designed this for a poetical encomium, it were easy to enlarge on so copious a subject; but confining myself to the severity of truth, and to what is becoming me to say, I must not only pass over many instances of your military skill, but also those of your assiduous diligence in the war, and of your personal bravery, attended with an ardent thirst of honour; a long train of generosity; profuseness of doing good; a soul unsatisfied with all it has done, and an unextinguished desire of doing more. But all this is matter for your own historians; I am, as Virgil says, spatiis exclusus iniquis. Yet not to be wholly silent of all your charities, I must stay a little on one action, which preferred the relief of others to the consideration of yourself. When, in the battle of Landen,' your heat of courage (a fault only pardonable to your youth,) had transported you so far before your friends, that they were unable to follow, much less to succour you; when you were not only dangerously, but in all appearance, mortally wounded; when in that desperate condition you were made prisoner, and carried to Namur, at that time in possession of the French; then it was, my Lord, that you took a considerable part of what was remitted to you of your own revenues, and as a memorable instance of your heroick charity, put it into the hands of Count Guiscard, who was Governor of the place, to be distributed among your fellow-prisoners. The French commander, charmed with the greatness of your soul, accordingly consigned it to the use for which it was intended by the donor; by, which means the lives of so many miserable men were saved, and a comfortable provision made for their subsistence, who had otherwise perished, had not you been the companion of their misfortune; or rather sent by Providence, like another Joseph, to keep out famine from invading those, whom, in humility, you called your brethren. How happy was it for those poor creatures, that your Grace 1 A town in Brabant, where King William was beaten by Mareschal Luxembourg, July 29, 1693. was made their fellow-sufferer? And how glorious for you, that you chose to want, rather than not relieve the wants of others? The heathen poet, in commending the charity of Dido to the Trojans, spoke like a Christian : Non ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco. All men, even those of a different interest, and contrary principles, must praise this action as the most eminent for piety, not only in this degenerate age, but almost in any of the former; when men were made de meliore luto; when examples of charity were frequent, and when there were in being, Teucri pulcherrima proles, Magnanimi heroes, nati melioribus annis. No envy can detract from this: it will shine in history, and like swans, grow whiter the longer it endures; and the name of ORMOND will be more celebrated in his captivity, than in his greatest triumphs. But all actions of your Grace are of a piece, as waters keep the tenour of their fountains: your compassion is general, and has the same effect as well on enemies as friends. It is so much in your nature to do good, that your life is but one continued act of placing benefits on many; as the sun is always carrying his light to some part or other of the world. And were it not that your reason guides you where to give, I might almost say that you could not help bestowing more than is consisting with the fortune of a private man, or with the will of any but an Alexander. What wonder is it then, that being born for a blessing to mankind, your supposed death in that engagement was so generally lamented through the nation? The concernment for it was as universal as the loss; and though the gratitude might be counterfeit in some, yet the tears of all were real where every man deplored his private part in that calamity, and even those who had not tasted of your favours, yet built so much on the fame of your beneficence, that they bemoaned the loss of their expectations. This brought the untimely death of your great father into fresh remembrance, as if the same decree had passed on two short successive generations of the virtuous; and I repeated to myself the same verses which I had formerly applied to him: Ostendunt terris hunc tantum fata, neque ultra Esse sinent. But to the joy not only of all good men, but mankind in general, the unhappy omen took not place. You are still living, to enjoy the blessings and applause of all the good you have performed, the prayers of multitudes whom you have obliged, for your long prosperity, and that your power of doing generous and charitable actions may be as extended as your will; which is by none more zealously desired than by Your GRACE'S Most humble, Most obliged, and Most obedient servant, PREFACE TO THE FAB LES.1 Ir is with a poet, as with a man who designs to build, and is very exact, as he supposes, in casting up the cost beforehand; but, generally speaking, he is mistaken in his account, and reckons short in the expence he first intended. He alters his mind as the work proceeds, and will have this or that convenience more, of which he had not thought when he began. So has it happened to me; I have built a house, where I intended but a lodge; yet with better success than a certain nobleman, who, beginning with a dogkennel, never lived to finish the palace he had contrived. From translating the First of Homer's ILIADS, (which I intended as an Essay to the whole work,) 3 The volume of Poems which our author entitled FABLES, ANCIENT and Modern, &c. was first published in folio, in January 1699-1700. This preface therefore, and the preceding Dedication, were his last compositions in prose. He died on the 1st of the following May. |