Nor has yet Your zeal to the Church, lessen’d that which is due to the Common-wealth; witnesse your industry in erecting a Counsel of Trade, by which alone you have sufficiently verified that expression of your Majesties in your Declaration from Breda, That You would propose some useful things for the publick emolument of the Nation, which should render it opulent, splendid and flourishing; making good your pretence to the universall Soveraignty by Your Princely care, as well as by your birth and undoubted Title.
You have Restor’d, Adorn’d, and Repair’d our Courts of Judicature, turning the Shambles where your Subjects were lately butcher’d, into a Tribunal, where they may now expect due Justice; and have furnish’d the Supreame seat there with a Chancelour of antient candor, rare experience; just, prudent, learned and faithfull; in summe, one, whose merits beget universal esteem, and is amongst the greatest indications of your Majesties skill in persons, as well as in their Talents and perfections to serve you. Thus you have gratified the long robe, so as now again,
Te propter colimus leges, animosque ferarum
Exuimus——And there is hope we may again be civiliz’d.
For you are (we hear) publishing Sumptuary Lawes to represse the wantonness and excess of Apparel, as you have already testifi’d your abhorrency of Duelling, that infamous and dishonourable gallantry: In fine, you have establish’d so many excellent constitutions, that you seem to leave nothing for us to desire, or your Successor to add either in the Ethicall or Politicall.
——Similem quæ pertulit ætas
Consilio, vel Marte virum?——
O happy Greece for Eloquence, that hast celebrated the fortune of thy Heroes trifling Adventures! who shall set forth and immortalize the glory of our illustrious Prince, and advance Great CHARLES to the skies? You had Poets indeed that sung the fate of an unfortunate Lady, the theft of a simple fleece; what wouldst thou have done, had the glorious Actions of such a King been spread before thee, who has not robbed with Armies, depopulated Cities, or violated the Rights of Hospitality; but restor’d a broken Nation, repair’d a ruin’d Church, reform’d, and re-establish’d our ancient Laws; in summe, who has at once render’d us perfectly happy? What then have we to do with Augustus, or Titus, with Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus, Theodosius or even Constantine himself? There is not in any, there is not in all these Subjects more worthy of praise, and to which your Majesty; O best of Princes, ought at all to render.
We are told Periculosæ rem aleæ esse, de iis scribere quibus sis obstrictus; because it is so difficult to observe a mediocrity, where our affections are engaged: But your Majesty is as secure from flattery, as your Virtues are above its reach; and to write thus of ill Princes, were both a shame and a punishment: For this the Senate condemn’d the History of Cremutius to the flames; and Spartianus told Dioclesian boldly, how hard it would be to write their Commentaries, except it were to record their Impudence, Murthers, Injustice, and the (for most part) fatal periods of Tyrants; which if any esteem a glory, you envy not, whilst your Majesty is resolv’d to secure your own by your virtue and your Justice; so as no age to come shall possibly find an æmulator, or produce an equall.
——Fuerint aliis hæc forte decora,
Nulla potest Laus esse tibi quæ crimina purget.
But I shall never have done with your obligations of the publick; and the measure which is assign’d me, would be too narrow but to mention briefly those your private and interiour perfections which crown your Majesties Person, and dazle our eyes more then the bright purple which this day invests you. To give instance in some; you are an excellent Master to your Domesticks. Their Lives, Conversations and Merits as well as Names, and Faces, are known to your Majesty as the Companions of Cæsar were: Honour is safe under your Banner, and the Court so well regulated, that there is no need of Censors to inspect Mens Manners; vita principis pro censura est. He who knowes that every body eyes, speaks and writes of him, cannot in prudence, or think, or act things unworthy and abject: You Sir direct all your objects and motions so, as may recommend you to posterity; and even burn with desires of immortality, so as Histories may relate the Truth without fear or adulation.