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TO THE METROPOLIS OF GREAT BRITAIN,
The most Renowned and late Flourishing
CITY OF LONDON,

IN ITS REPRESENTATIVES

The Lord Mayor and Court of Alderman, the Sheriffs, and Council of it.

As

is perhaps I am the first who ever presented a work of this nature to the metropolis of any nation, so it is likewise consonant to justice, that he who was to give the first example of such a Dedication, should begin it with that City which has set a pattern to all others of true loyalty, invincible courage, and unshaken constancy. Other cities have been praised for the same virtues, but I am much deceived if any have so dearly purchased their reputation; their fame has been won them by cheaper trials than an expensive though necessary war, a consuming pestilence, and a more consuming fire. To submit yourselves with that humility to the judgments of Heaven, and, at the same time, to raise yourselves with that vigour above all human enemies; to be combated at once from above and from below, to be struck down and to triumph; I know not whether ever such trials have been ever parallelled in any nation; the resolution and successes of

them never can be. Never had Prince or people more mutual reason to love each other, if suffering for each other can endear affection. You have come together a pair of matchless lovers, through many difficulties; he through a long exile, various traverses of fortune, and the interposition of many rivals, who violently ravished and withheld you from him; and certainly you have had your share in sufferings. But Providence has cast upon you want of trade, that you might appear bountiful to your country's necessities; and the rest of your afflictions are not more the effects of God's displeasure (frequent examples of them having been in the reign of the most excellent princes) than occasions for the manifesting of your Christian and civil virtues. To you, therefore, this Year of Wonders is justly dedicated, because you have made it so. You, who are to stand a wonder to all years and ages, and who have built yourselves an immortal Monument on your own ruins; you are now a phoenix in her ashes, and, as far as humanity can approach, a great emblem of the suffering Deity: but Heaven never made so much piety and virtue to leave it miserable. I have heard, indeed, of some virtuous persons who have ended unfortunately, but never of any virtuous nation: Providence is engaged too deeply, when the cause becomes so general; and I cannot imagine it has resolved the ruin of that people at home, which it has blessed abroad with such successes. I am therefore to.

conclude that your sufferings are at an end; and that one part of my Poem has not been more an history of your destruction than the other prophecy of your restoration. The accomplishment of which happiness, as it is the wish of all true Englishmen, so is it by none more passionately desired than by

The greatest of your admirers,

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THE YEAR OF WONDERS, M.DC.LXVI.

1.

In thriving arts long time had Holland grown,
Crouching at home, and cruel when abroad:
Scarce leaving us the means to claim our own,
Our King they courted, and our merchants aw'd.

11.

Trade, which, like blood, should circularly flow,
Stopp'd in their channels, found its freedom lost:
Thither the wealth of all the world did go,
And seem'd but shipwreck'd on so base a coast.

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For them alone the heav'ns had kindly heat,
In eastern quarries rip'ning precious dew:
For them the Idumean balm did sweat,
And in her Ceylon spicy forests grew.

IV.

The sun but seem'd the lab'rer of the year;
Each waxing moon supply'd her watʼry store,
To swell those tides which from the line did bear
Their brimful vessels to the Belgian shore.

V.

Thus, mighty in her ships, stood Carthage long,
And swept the riches of the world from far;

10

Yet stcop'd to Rome, less wealthy, but more strong; And this may prove our second Punic war.

20

Dryden.]

Eij

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