Atlas under Olympus an heroick poém / by William Austin of Grays-Inn, Esq.

The Epistle Dedicatory.

ROYAL SIR,

HAving humbly invoked your Majesties most gracious inspirationa 1.1 Nam{que} aliud quid sit quod jam implorare queamus,b 1.2 who are as well thec 1.3 Apollo of our Musoeum, as thed 1.4 Jupiter of our State) to this expressive ad∣miring your Restorers vast worth, I am obliged I presume (how small soever the tribute of Loy∣alty be) with submissive boldness to tender it to you, whose influence it is by which my poor Muse subsists. In your happy Restauration, your Subjects love is not so much our wonder, as your Majesties Divine Virtue, who change the hellish hue of such Negroes in wickedness as we, and perswade us, after so long an habit of Rebellion, to our duty of Obedience. When that Plague had spread it self over the body of the whole Kingdom, was possessed of its very heart and vitals, we admire that an Arm, one single member of it, should be left untouch'd, and that speedily to administer an effectual Re∣medy

to an inveterate Disease of twenty years continuance: but we are confounded to think that the Remedy should be a Prescript of your bounteous Royal hand, since your Worship and Honour lay rejected here, like thea 1.5 ruined Temple of Aesculapius in Carthage, who have ex∣perienced your Subjects Insolence even to that height, asb 1.6 (O nostri infamia secli!) to be ba∣nished from them, like thec 1.7 Physicians of old from the fanatick Romans, and (pro ne••andum scelus! O monstra hominum ex scelere & immani∣tate concreta! to proscribe the remembrance of your Majesty as far as was possible from our ve∣ry thoughts) whose return to repossess what the Usurpers matchless malice kept from You, they (horrendum dictu! a word of horror to think and write as well as speak) maded 1.8 Treason to men∣tion. Our Victor George without force of Arms conquers all our Dragons; but with the charm

of Your Authority. They yeeld to Him in Obedience to You. He as thee 1.9 Lacedemonian Apollo, is strengthened with four hands to fight victoriously for us: but two of these hands are those belong to your Most Sacred Person. His Voice, as Alectryons, scares away the Bats and Screech-Owls of our Night; yet no otherwise, but as he proclaims Your Coming, the approach of our Sun. Who can see a Loyal Orator plead for the Subjects Hearts to their true Lawful So∣veraign, and not see withall their hearts (quite tired with the expensive, ridiculous, cursed and bloody Changes of a tedious Civil War, and tormented with the Remorse of their own most heinousf 1.10 Impiety, the sole cause of it) were their Soveraigns wholy before he speaks a word? And who can see lost hearts restored to their Royal owner by the kindness and virtue of such an Orator, and not have so much gratitude as to give him his suffrage? None certainly can more d••s 〈◊〉〈◊〉 our applausi••e breath, than he that

opens our dumb mouths to speak. The least we can render Him, who raiseth us out of the dust with three Kingdoms out of their ruines, is our Publick Acknowledgement of so matchless an Obligation. And none so fit to hear the report of his merit (were theg 1.11 Laus, as Seneca saith it should be umbra virtutis, could with equal proportion be the shadow of it, and an∣swer its vast dimentions) as your Sacred Majesty, whose high goodness is the subject upon which his Virtue depends.

(† 1.12 Haec animum possint audita movere,

* 1.13 Et mihi tu faveas) May my presumption in what I dedicate here, I humbly beg, be made pardonable upon this account,

h 1.14 (Et tibi Rex ••vo detur fort••ssime, nost••o, Semper honorata sceptra tene••e manu. i 1.15 Ut servus maneat tibi fidus Comprecor ad vitae tempora summa tuae.)

Your Majesties long happy Reign be ever bene∣fited by this great Worthy's service. k 1.16 —Laudata{que} Virtus Cr••scat.* 1.17

Your Majesties most loyal and obedie••t Subject, Will. Austin.

Notes

• a 1.1

  Virg. Aeneid. l. 10.
• b 1.2

  Tu satis ad dandas quaevis in carmina vires. Luc. l. 1.
• c 1.3

  Sic tibi nec docti desunt nec principis artes: Mista sed est animo, cum Jove Musat••o. Ibid.
• d 1.4

  Dii tibi sunt, Cae••ar juvenis: tua numina placa. Hac certe non est notior ara tibi, Ov. de Pont. l. 4. El. 8.
• a 1.5

  Carthage being taken, the wife of Asdrubal burned the Temple of Aesculapius, that stood in the mids•• 〈◊〉〈◊〉 the City, on the top of the Castle Byrsa.
• b 1.6

  Ovid Met. lib. 8. fab. 1.
• c 1.7

  The Romans, out of a conceit that Physick was de∣structive to the body, banished the Physicians many years together. v. Pensieri di Alessandro Tassoni. Lib. 7. Quesito 7.
• d 1.8

  Vid. Civil Wars of Great Britain and Ireland, An. 1659. p. 375. l. ult.
• e 1.9

  Apresso i Lacedemoni fu una statua di Apollo con quattro orechie e con altre tante mani. Why the Lacedemonians made a Statue of Apollo with four hands, and four ears. See Imagini dei Dei, Apollo con quattro ochi.
• f 1.10

  —Haec prima malorum Causa fuit. Virg. Aen. l. 7. Hoc caput, O Cives, haec belli summa nefandi. l. 12.
• g 1.11

  Seneca Epist. 79.
• † 1.12

  Ovid de Pont. Lib. 1. Eleg. 3.
• * 1.13

  Ovid de Pont. Lib. 1. Eleg. 1.
• h 1.14

  Ovid de Pont. l. 1. Eleg. 9.
• i 1.15

  Ovid de Pont. Lib. 2. Eleg. 5.
• k 1.16

  Ovid de Pont. Lib. 4. Eleg. 2.
• * 1.17

  Et mecum populi vota pr••cantur idem. L. 2. El. 5.