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THE CONCLUSION.

The editor of this book has laboured under some difficulties in this account; and one of the chief has been how to avoid too many particulars, the crowds of relations which he has been obliged to lay by to bring the story into a compass tolerable to the reader.

And though some of the letters inserted are written in a homely style, and expressed after the country fashion from whence they came, the author chose to make them speak their own language, rather than by dressing them in other words make the authors forget they were their own.

We received a letter, very particular, relating to the Bishop of Bath and Wells, and reflecting upon his lordship for some words he spoke, "That he had rather have his brains knocked out, than," &c., relating to his inferior clergy. The gentleman takes the disaster for a judgment of God on him; but as in his letter, the person owns himself the bishop's enemy, fills his letter with some reflections indecent, at least for us and at last, tho' he dates from Somerton, yet baulks setting his name to his letter: for these reasons, we could not satisfy to record the matter, and leave a charge on the name of that unfortunate gentleman, which, he being dead, could not answer, and we alive could not prove. And on these accounts hope the reverend gentleman who sent the letter will excuse us.

Also we have omitted, though our list of particulars promised such a thing, an account of some unthinking wretches, who passed over this judgment with banter, scoffing, and contempt. It is a subject ungrateful to recite, and full of horror to read; and we had much rather cover such actions with a general blank, in charity to the offenders, and in hopes of their amendment.

One unhappy accident I cannot omit, and which is brought us from good hands, and happened in a ship homeward bound from the West Indies. The ship was in the utmost danger of foundring; and when the master saw all, as he thought, lost, his masts gone, the ship leaky, and expecting her every moment to sink under him, filled with despair, he calls to him the surgeon of the ship, and by a fatal contract, as soon made as hastily executed, they resolved to prevent

It

the death they feared, by one more certain: and going into the cabin, they both shot themselves with their pistols. pleased God the ship recovered the distress, was driven safe into and the captain just lived to see the desperate course he took might have been spared; the surgeon died immediately.

There are several very remarkable cases come to our hands since the finishing this book, and several have been promised which are not come in; and the book having been so long promised, and so earnestly desired by several gentlemen that have already assisted that way, the undertakers could not prevail with themselves to delay it any longer.

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THE STORM.

AN ESSAY, BY DANIEL DEFOE.

I'm told, for we have news among the dead,
Heaven lately spoke, but few knew what it said;
The voice in loudest tempests spoke,

And storms, which nature's strong foundation shook,
I felt it hither, and I'd have you know

I heard the voice, and knew the language too.
Think it not strange I heard it here,

No place is so remote, but when he speaks they hear.
Besides, tho' I am dead in fame,

I never told you where I am.
Tho' I have lost poetic breath,
I'm not in perfect state of death:

From whence this Popish consequence I draw,
I'm in the limbus of the law.

Let me be where I will I heard the storm,
From every blast it echo'd thus, REFORM;
I felt the mighty shock, and saw the night,
When guilt look'd pale, and own'd the fright;
And every time the raging element
Shook London's lofty towers, at every rent
The falling timbers gave, they cry'd REPENT.
I saw, when all the stormy crew,

Newly commission'd from on high,
Newly instructed what to do,

In lowring cloudy troops drew nigh;
They hover'd o'er the guilty land,
As if they had been backward to obey;
As if they wonder'd at the sad command,
And pity'd those they should destroy.

But heaven, that long had gentler methods try'd
And saw those gentler methods all defy'd
Had now resolved to be obey'd.

The Queen, an emblem of the soft still voice,
Had told the nation how to make their choice;
Told them the only way to happiness.
Was by the blessed door of peace.
But the unhappy genius of the land,
Deaf to the blessing, as to the command,

Scorn the high caution, and contemn the news,
And all the blessed thoughts of peace refuse.
Since storms are then the nation's choice,
Be storms their portion, said the heavenly voice:
He said, and I could hear no more,

So soon th' obedient troops began to roar:
So soon the black'ning clouds drew near,
And fill'd with loudest storms the trembling air:
I thought I felt the world's foundation shake,

And look'd when all the wond'rous frame would break.
I trembl'd as the winds grew high,

And so did many a braver man than I;
For he whose valour scorns his sense,
Has chang'd his courage into impudence.
Man may to man his valour show,
And 'tis his virtue to do so;

But if he's of his Maker not afraid,
He's not courageous then, but mad.

Soon as I heard the horrid blast,
And understood how long 'twould last,
View'd all the fury of the element,
Consider'd well by whom 'twas sent,
And unto whom for punishment;
It brought my hero to my mind,

William the glorious, great, and good, and kind,
Short epithets to his just memory;

The first he was to all the world, the last to me.

The mighty genius to my thought appear'd,
Just in the same concern he us'd to show,

When private tempests used to blow,

Storms which the monarch more than death or battle fear'd,

THE STORM: AN ESSAY.

When party fury shook his throne,
And made their mighty malice known,
I've heard the sighing monarch say,
The public peace so near him lay,
It took the pleasure of his crown away,
It fill'd with cares his royal breast.

Often he has those cares prophetically express'd,
That when he should the reins let to,
Heaven would some token of its anger show
To let the thankless nation see
How they despis'd their own felicity.
This robb'd the hero of his rest,

Disturb'd the calm of his serener breast.

When to the queen the sceptre he resign'd
With a resolv'd and steady mind,
Tho' he rejoic'd to lay the trifle down,
He pity'd her to whom he left the crown:
Foreseeing long and vig'rous wars,
Foreseeing endless, private, party jars,
Would always interrupt her rest,
And fill with anxious care her royal breast.
For storms of court ambition rage as high
Almost as tempests in the sky.

Could I my hasty doom retrieve,
And once more in the land of poets live,

I'd now the men of flags and fortune greet,

And write an elegy upon the fleet.

First, those that on the shore were idly found,

415

Whom other fate protects, while better men were drown'd,
They may thank God for being knaves on shore,
But sure the Queen will never trust them more.
They who rid out the storm, and liv'd,

But saw not whence it was deriv❜d,
Senseless of danger, or the mighty hand,
That could to cease as well as blow command,
Let such unthinking creatures have a care,
For some worse end prepare.

Let them look out for some such day,

When what the sea would not, the gallows may.
Those that in former dangers shunn'd the fight,
But met their ends in this disastrous night,