University of Virginia Library

A PANEGYRICK UPON The Right Honourable EDWARD Lord Marquess of WORCESTER,

His Inimitable, Water-Commanding Engine.

My Lord,

The Soul of Archymedes lives in You,
And I believe a transmigration now;
But in its Passage it is so refin'd,
Your nobler Blood makes it a greater mind.
To shoot at Heaven, your force moves so sublime
You need not, with the Gyants, Mountains climb.
Your very Art, to quantity, and height
Is alike boundless, and to force, and weight
Next to Omnipotent, whilst in this sense
Heaven justly seems to suffer violence.
Pray we for Rain? we are supply'd by you
Earths mighty Jove, sure you can Thunder too.
You are that grand Vicegerent of the Sun
That ravish Seas up to the Horizon.
Stupendious Art! who can, but fall before you?
We should be worse than Persians, not t'adore you,
But that we do, before we gave our eyes,
But now our hearts in grateful sacrifice.
For outward Empire Rome has got the start,
But Worc'ster is sole Emperor of Art;
The horned Queen has sure made him her Creature,
And shown him all the secrets hid in nature
Whence he begat, of a Cœlestial strain,
This Engine, the Minerva of his brain.
Who, when he pleases with this little Nyle
Pow'rs in a deluge on the thirsty soil.
Rhodes huge Coloss, 'tis true, vast Waves bestrid,
And Xerxes Bridge on the proud Ocean rid;
But this small Whale shall spout out Waves such store
As Ships may ride, where Men might wade before.
This hand-broad cloud makes Heav'ns whole surface dark
With showrs would threaten Noah to his Ark,
And in an instant makes it all so dry,
Send but a Dove out, and she bids God b'ye.
Strange Art! to make a River of dry ground,
And that too, thirsty, that, but now was drown'd.
Compelling from his Hydragogous Brains
Invention, deeper than the Mines he drains;
A work, I must confess to be confin'd
Within the limits only of his Mind.
But, what that mind is, that is too Divine
To be decypher'd by this Earth of mine.
Talk not of Herc'les labours; He commands
More with his head, than Bryareus with his hands
With the expence of Purse, and Brain, both great
He buyes off from Mans brow the curse of sweat;
His study travels to procure us rest,
And gives a Sabbath to the weary Beast;
In what more could he Mortals gratifie,
Ease to the hand, and pastime to the eye?
What I here say nothing at all reflects
Upon its esse, but its bare effects;
I therefore, here retrive my rasher pen,
Could I describe it, I could make it then?
Impossible alike; that hand of his
That gave it form, must shew you what it is;
Our eyes can only lead us to the shell
Whose Soul of action is invisible.
This Character I may, and must give of it
Excess of Pleasure, with excess of profit
The gazing World seven Wonders had of late
But now (my Lord) we thank you we have eight
Nor is this Wonder (though the last) the least:
Who then can say that miracles are ceas'd?
Thus, for Your Engine then, let those that grutch
Your Lordships Lawrel, make another such.