Confuls of moderate power in calms were made; When the Gauls came, one fole dictator

fway'd.

185

Patriots, in peace, affert the people's right; With noble stubbornefs refifting might: No lawless mandates from the court receive, Nor lend by force, but in a body give. Such was your generous grandfire: free to grant In parliaments, that weigh'd their prince's

want:

But fo tenacious of the common cause,

As not to lend the king against his laws.
And in a loathfome dungeon doom'd to lie,
In bonds retain'd his birthright liberty,
And fham'd oppreffion, till it fet him free.
O true defcendent of a patriot line,

190

}

195

Who, while thou fhar'ft their luftre, lend'ft them thine,

Vouchsafe this picture of thy foul to fee; "Tis fo far good, as it resembles thee: The beauties to the original I owe;

Which when I mifs, my own defects I show: Nor think the kindred mufes thy difgrace: 201 A poet is not born in every race.

Two of a house few ages can afford;

One to perform, another to record.
Praise-worthy actions are by thee embrac'd ; 205
And 'tis my praise, to make thy praises last.

For ev'n when death diffolves our human.

frame,

The foul returns to heaven from whence it

came;

Earth keeps the body, verfe preferves the fame.

EPISTLE THE FOURTEENTH.

ΤΟ

SIR GODFREY KNELLER,

PRINCIPAL PAINTER TO HIS MAJESTY.

ONCE I beheld the fairest of her kind,
And ftill the fweet idea charms my mind:

Ver. 1. Once I beheld] Sir Godfrey Kneller was born at Lubec in 1648. Difcovering early a predominant genius for painting, his father fent him to Amfterdam, where he studied under Bol, and had fome inftructions from Rembrandt. But Kneller was no fervile imitator or difciple. Even in Italy, whither he went in 1672, he followed no particular master, not even at Venice, where he long refided. In 1676 he came to England, and was foon patronized by Charles II. and James. Ten fovereigns at different times fat to him: Charles II. James II. and his queen, William and Mary, George I. Louis XIV. and Charles VI. He ftuck to portrait painting as the moft lucrative, though Dryden in this very epiftle inveighs fo much against it. Of all his works he valued most the converted Chinese in Windfor Caftle. But Mr. Walpole thinks his portrait of Gibbon fuperior to it. This epiftle is full of juft tafte and knowledge of painting, particularly what he fays of Light, Shade, Perspective, and Grace. It is certainly fuperior to Pope's addrefs to his friend Jervas, though Pope himfelf was a practitioner in the art. Not only Dryden, but Prior, Pope, Steele, Tickell, and Addison, all wrote high encomiums on Sir Godfrey; but not one fo elegant as that of Addifon, who with matchlefs art and dexterity applied the characters of thofe heathen gods whom Phidias had carved, to the English princes that Kneller had painted; making Pan, Saturn, Mas, Minerva, Thetis, and Jupiter, ftand

True, fhe was dumb; for Nature gaz'd fo long, Pleas'd with her work, that the forgot her tongue;

6

But, fmiling, faid, She ftill fhall gain the prize;
I only have transferr'd it to her eyes.
Such are thy pictures, Kneller: fuch thy fkill,
That nature seems obedient to thy will:
Comes out, and meets thy pencil in the
draught;

Lives there, and wants but words to speak her thought.

At least thy pictures look a voice; and we
Imagine founds, deceiv'd to that degree,
We think 'tis fomewhat more than just to see.

10

า

16

Shadows are but privations of the light; Yet, when we walk, they shoot before the fight; With us approach, retire, arife, and fall; Nothing themselves, and yet expreffing all. Such are thy pieces, imitating life

20

So near, they almoft conquer in the ftrife;
And from their animated canvafs came,
Demanding fouls, and loofen'd from the frame.
Prometheus, were he here, would caft
away

His Adam, and refuse a foul to clay;
And either would thy noble work inspire,
Or think it warm enough, without his fire.

25

for Charles II. James II. William III. queen Mary, Anne, and George I. Sir Godfrey was a man of much original wit and humour, but tinctured with a mixture of profanenefs and ribaldry. Dr. J. WARTON.

But vulgar hands may vulgar likeness raise ; This is the least attendant on thy praise: From hence the rudiments of art began; A coal, or chalk, first imitated man: Perhaps the fhadow, taken on a wall, Gave outlines to the rude original : Ere canvafs yet was ftrain'd, before the grace Of blended colors found their use and place, Or cypress tablets first receiv'd a face.

34

30

By flow degrees the godlike art advanc'd ; As man grew polifh'd, picture was inhanc'd: Greece added pofture, fhade, and perfpective; And then the mimic piece began to live.

Yet perspective was lame, no distance true,
But all came forward in one common view: 40
No point of light was known, no bounds of art;
When light was there, it knew not to depart,
But glaring on remoter objects play'd;
Not languish'd, and infenfibly decay'd.

Rome rais'd not art, but barely kept alive, 45
And with old Greece unequally did strive :
Till Goths, and Vandals, a rude northern race,
Did all the matchlefs monuments deface.
Then all the Mufes in one ruin lie,

And rhime began to enervate poetry.
Thus, in a stupid military state,
The pen and pencil find an equal fate.

50

Ver. 50.] It is remarkable that he mentions rhime as one inftance of barbarism.

Dr. J. WARton.