CREQUI

I can serve your turn, As one that speaks from others not from her, And thus it is reported at his parting, THus Monsieur Du Byron you have beheld, Our Court proportioned to our little kingdom. In every entertainment; yet our mind, To do you all the rites of your repair, Is as unbounded as the ample air. What idle pains have you bestowed to see A poor old woman? who in nothing lives More, then in true affections, born your king; And in the perfect knowledge she hath learned, Of his good knights, and servants of your sort. We thank him that he keeps the memory Of us and all our kindness; but must say, That it is only kept; and not laid out To such affectionate profit as we wish; Being so much set on fire with his deserts, That they consume us; not to be restored By your presentment of him; but his person; And we had thought, that he whose virtues fly So beyond wonder, and the reach of thought, Should check at eight hours sail, and his high spirit That stoops to fear, less then the Poles of heaven; Should doubt and under billow of the Sea, And (being a Sea) be sparing of his streams; And I must blame all you that may advise him; That (having helped him through all martial dangers) You let him stick, at the kind rites of peace, Considering all the forces I have sent, To set his martial seas up in firm walls, On both his sides for him to pass at pleasure; Did plainly open him a guarded way And led in Nature to this friendly shore, But here is nothing worth his personal sighed, Here are no walled Cities; for that Crystal Sheds with his light, his hardness, and his height About our thankful person, and our Realm; Whose only aid, we ever yet desired; And now I see, the help we sent to him, Which should have swum to him in our own blood, Had it been needful; (our affections Being more given to his good, then he himself) Ends in the actual right it did his state, And ours is sleighted; all our worth is made, The common-stock, and bank; from whence are served All men's occasions; yet (thanks to heaven) Their gratitudes are drawn dry; not our bounties. And you shall tell your King, that he neglects Old friends for new; and sets his soothed Ease Above his honour; Marshals policy In rank before his justice; and his profit Before his royalty: his humanity gone, To make me no repayment of mine own. In this sort. Your highness sweet speech hath no sharper end, Then he would wish his life; if he neglected, The least grace you have named; but to his wish, Much pour is wanting: the green roots of war, Not yet so close cut up, but he may dash Against their relics to his utter ruin, Without more near eyes, fixed upon his feet, Then those that look out of his countries soil, And this may well excuse his personal presence, Which yet he oft hath longed to set by yours: That he might imitate the Majesty, Which so long peace hath practised, and made full, In your admired appearance; to illustrate And rectify his habit in rude war. And his will to be here, must needs be great, Since heaven hath thron'de so true a royalty here, That he thinks no king absolutely crowned, Whose temples have not stood beneath this sky, And whose height is not hardened with these stars, Whose influences for this altitude, Distilled, and wrought in with this temperate air, And this division of the Element Have with your reign, brought: forth more worthy spirits, For counsel, valour, height of wit, and art, Then any other region of the earth: Or were brought forth to all your ancestors, And as a cunning Orator, reserves His fairest similes, best-adorning figures, Chief matter, and most moving arguments For his conclusion; and does then supply His ground-streams laid before, glides over them, Makes his full depth seen through; and so takes up, His audience in Aplawses passed the clouds. So in your government, conclusive nature, (Willing to end her Excellence in earth When your foot shall be set upon the stars) Shows all her Sovereign Beauty's, Ornaments, Virtues, and Raptures; overtakes her works In former Empires, makes them but your foils, Swells to her full Sea, and again does drown The world, in admiration of your crown. She took it yet, but as a partly of Courtship, And said, he was the subtle Orator, To whom he did too gloriously resemble, Nature in her, and in her government, He said, he was no Orator, but a Soldier, More then this air, in which you breath hath made me, My studious love, of your rare government, And simple truth, which is most eloquent, Your Empire is so amply absolute, That even your Theaters show more comely rule, True noblesse, royalty, and happiness Then others courts: you make all state before Utterly obsolete; all to come, twice sod. And therefore does my royal Sovereign wish Your years may prove, as vital, as your virtues, That (standing on his Turrets this way turned, Ordering and fixing his affairs by yours) He may at last, on firm grounds, pass your Seas, And see that Maiden-sea of Majesty, In whose chaste arms, so many kingdoms lie. In this speech following, which I thus remember. If I hold any merit worth his presence, Or any partly of that, your Courtship gives me, My subjects have bestowed it; some in counsel, In Actium some, and in obedience all; For none knows, with such proof as you my Lord, How much a subject may renown his Prince, And how much Princes of their subjects hold; In all the services that ever subject Did for his Sovereign; he that best deserved Must (in comparison) except, Byron ; And to win this prize clear; without the maims Commonly given men by ambition, When all their parts lie open to his view, Shows continence, passed their other excellence, But for a subject to affect a kingdom, Is Like the Camel, that of Jove begged horns, And such mad-hungrie men, as well may eat, Hight coals of fire, to feed their natural heat; For, to aspire to competence with your king What subject is so grose, and Giantly? He having now a Daulphine born to him, Whose birth, ten days before, was dreadfully Vsherd with Earthquakes, in most parts of Europe, And that gives all men, cause enough to fear All thought of competition with him. Commend us good my Lord, and tell our Brother How much we joy, in that his royal issue, And in what prayers, we raise our heart to heaven, That in more terror to his foes, and wonder He may drink Earthquakes, and devour the thunder, So we admire your valour, and your virtues, And ever will contend, to win their honour. Then spoke she to Crequy, and Prince D' Auergne, And gave all gracious farewells; when Byron Was thus encountered by a Councillor Of great and eminent name, and matchless merit: I think (my Lord) your princely Dolphin bears Arion in his Cradle, through your kingdom, In the sweet Music joy strikes from his birth. He answered; and good right; the cause commands it. But (said the other) had we a fifth Henry, To claim his old right: and one man to friend, Whom you well know my Lord, that for his friendship Were promised the Vice-royalty of France, We would not doubt of conquest, in despite Of all those windy Earthquakes. He replied; Treason was never guide to English conquests, And therefore that doubt shall not fright our Daulphine ; Nor would I be the friend to such a foe, For all the royalties in Christendom. Fix there your foot (said he) I only give False fire, and would be loath to shoot you of: He that wins Empire with the lose of faith, Out-buies it; and will bank-route; you have laid A brave foundation, by the hand of victory: Put not the roof to fortune, foolish statuaries, That under little Saints suppose, great bases Make less, to sense, the Saints; and so where fortune, Advanceth vile minds, to states great and noble, She much more exposeth them to shame, Not able to make good, and fill their bases, With a conformed structure; I have found, (Thanks to the blesser of my search) that counsels, Held to the line of Justice; still produce, The surest states, and greatest, being sure, Without which fit assurance, in the greatest, As you may see a mighty promontory More dug and under-eaten, then may warrant, A safe supportance, to his hanging brows, All passengers avoid him, shun all ground That lies within his shadow, and bear still A flying eye upon him, so great men Corrupted in their ground, and building out. Too swelling fronts, for their foundations; When most they should be propped, are most forsaken, And men will rather thrust into the storms Of better grounded States, then take a shelter Beneath their ruinous, and fearful weight; Yet they, so oversee, their faulty bases, That they remain securer in conceit: And that security, does worse presage Their never destructions, then their eaten grounds; And therefore heaven it self is made to us A perfect Hieroglyphic to express, The Idleness of such security, And the graven labour, of a wise distrust, In both sorts of the all-enclying stars; Where all men note this difference in their shining, As plain as they distinguish either hand; The ixt stars manner, and the erring, stand. Gravely applied (said he) and Like the man, Whom all the world says, overrules the stars; Which are divine books to us; and are read By understanders only, the true objects, And chief companions of the truest men; And (though I needs it not) I thank your counsel, That never yet was idle, But spherelike, Still moves about, and is the continent To this blessed I'll.