Angliæ speculum: or Englands looking-glasse.: Devided into two pats [sic], / by C.VV. Mercer.
About this Item
- Title
- Angliæ speculum: or Englands looking-glasse.: Devided into two pats [sic], / by C.VV. Mercer.
- Author
- Mercer, William, 1605?-1676?
- Publication
- London :: Printed by Tho: Paine,
- MDCXLVI. [1646]
- Rights/Permissions
-
To the extent possible under law, the Text Creation Partnership has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above, according to the terms of the CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). This waiver does not extend to any page images or other supplementary files associated with this work, which may be protected by copyright or other license restrictions. Please go to http://www.textcreationpartnership.org/ for more information.
- Subject terms
- Great Britain -- History
- Link to this Item
-
http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A89059.0001.001
- Cite this Item
-
"Angliæ speculum: or Englands looking-glasse.: Devided into two pats [sic], / by C.VV. Mercer." In the digital collection Early English Books Online 2. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A89059.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed June 15, 2024.
Pages
Page [unnumbered]
Wherein he would, with his triumphing band,
(As he did term them) all his foes withstand;
Did sound his Trumps, and caused beat the drum,
Whose noise did seem to say O! dare ye come?
To thee, I say, who then with courage great,
Did Eccho back those voyces with delight,
And said, O come, let us defend our faith,
We shall prevail, astonish not at death:
To thee, I say, so pregnant, I approach,
And all thy actions, worthily avouch,
To thee, I owe, and really will pay,
Even what I am, what I can do, or say,
Thy far fetched vertues are above my wing,
I cannot soar to such a sacred thing,
Yet to my power, I must present as much
As is, and hopes, thou wilt accept of such,
I was a witnes, of the weaker kind,
To thy undaunted and magnifique mind:
And had the honour for to have command,
By thy Commission, Signed with thy hand:
Was one who first, was entered in the time
When souldiers sins were reckoned for a crime,
And ever since, continued still, for one,
Till thou laid down thy high Commission:
O! at the first, when no man would ingage,
Nor go to act upon that Tragick stage:
Nor undertake to meddle with the thing
So thought, for to reflect upon the King:
But thou, whose faith and courage did exceed
The subtle number, saw the present need:
For to oppose those errors then begun,
And did apply thee to it, did not shun
Page [unnumbered]
The sentence which thy soveraigne did expresse,
Knowing thou meant his lawes not to transgresse:
But when all others of the higher sort,
For such a charge, confest they all came short:
Or if they knew that they could manage it,
There was some secret, which they thought not fit:
Therefore forbore, but standers by did see,
They all determin'd, thou wert onely he
Who could, and must, or if thou wouldst not do it,
All must be quiet, no man will go to it.
Some did desire it in their hearts, but that
Was all the thing in secret aimed at,
They fain would rise to have commanded all,
But durst not run the hazard of a fall:
Here was the fault, they had some private aim:
Therefore I cease, and say no more of them.
But Noble Essex thou wert all in all,
And must be chosen Englands Generall:
Thou hadst no thought of Soveraignity,
Nor searcht in things conceived privately:
But undertook it for the Kingdoms good,
And for thy Princes priviledges stood:
No private aims importun'd thee, but still
The publicks profit was thy practice, till
Thou hadst trod down the number most of those,
Who did presume to be imployd as foes:
O! how thy spirit did appear abroad,
As onely thou establisht were by God,
And how thy courage in the eyes of all,
Did make the armies cry aloud, and call,
Go on, go on, brave Essex is our guide:
Behold, his presence makes us to confide:
Page [unnumbered]
Thou didst appear, like Phaebus in his sphaere,
Thy Armies as the starres into the aire,
The boundlesse Ocean of thy noble veines,
Gave influence to many thousand straines:
Nor didst thou so diminish yet thy store,
The more thou furnishd, still thy stock was more:
And as it prov'd, the spirits even of those
Appeard much sharper then the present foes
We now pursue; but policies in war
May oft prevail, and give advantage far:
Their former courage makes me more and more
Think, that they are not what they were before:
But now I must impart one passage yet,
I cannot choose, but must remember it:
Like as the Sun sends out his beams of light,
But all of them returns to him at night:
So likewise those who had their power of thee,
When thou forbore, no more abroad would be:
Who having done thy part abroad, thought sit
For to afford thy presence, and to sit
In that assembly of the highest strain,
From whence thou cam'st, and where thou art again.
To thee I come, imploring thou wilt be
My noble Patron, for to shelter me,
Which if thou wilt, ther's none I will avouch,
That for thy Names sake, dare presume to touch
Those enterprises, humbly I present
Vnto my Lord, without a Complement.
W. M.