And he, when want requires, is truly wife, Who flights not foreign aids, nor over-buys But on our native ftrength, in time of need, relies. Munfter was bought, we boaft not the fuccefs; Who fights for gain, for greater makes his peace.

139

Our foes, compell'd by need, have peace em

brac'd:

144

The peace both parties want, is like to last:
Which if fecure, fecurely we may trade;
Or, not fecure, should never have been made.
Safe in ourselves, while on ourselves we stand,
The fea is ours, and that defends the land.
Be, then, the naval ftores the nation's care,
New ships to build, and batter'd to repair.

Obferve the war, in every annual courfe; 150 What has been done, was done with British force:

Namur fubdu'd, is England's palm alone; The rest besieg'd; but we constrain'd the town: We faw the event that follow'd our fuccefs; France, though pretending arms, purfu'd the

peace;

155

Ver. 152. Namur fubdu'd, is England's palm &c.] In the year 1695, William III. carried Namur, after a fiege of one month. The garrifon retired to the citadel, which capitulated upon honourable terms in another month. The courage of our men in this fiege was much admired, as was the conduct of the king, DERRICK,

Oblig'd, by one fole treaty, to restore
What twenty years of war had won before.
Enough for Europe has our Albion fought:
Let us enjoy the peace our blood has bought.
When once the Perfian king was put to flight,
The weary Macedons refus'd to fight:
Themselves their own mortality confefs'd;
And left the son of Jove to quarrel for the rest.
Ev'n victors are by victories undone;
Thus Hannibal, with foreign laurels won, 165
To Carthage was recall'd, too late to keep his

own.

161

While fore of battle, while our wounds are green,
?
Why should we tempt the doubtful dye agen
In wars renew'd, uncertain of fuccefs;
Sure of a fhare, as umpires of the peace.

170

174

A patriot both the king and country ferves: Prerogative, and privilege, preferves: Of each our laws the certain limit fhow; One muft not ebb, nor t'other overflow: Betwixt the prince and parliament we stand; The barriers of the state on either hand: May neither overflow, for then they drown the land.

When both are full, they feed our blefs'd abode; Like thofe that water'd once the paradise of

God.

Some overpoife of fway, by turns, they share; peace the people, and the prince in war: 181

In

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

fway'd.

fole dictator

Patriots, in peace, affert the people's right; With noble stubbornefs refifting might:

185

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:

190

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 sham'd oppreffion, till it set him free.
O true defcendent of a patriot line,
Who, while thou shar'st their luftre, lend'st 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;

195

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

Two of a houfe 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 laft.

For ev'n when death diffolves our human.

frame,

The foul returns to heaven from whence it

came;

Earth keeps the body, verfe preserves the fame.

EPISTLE THE FOURTEENTH.

ΤΟ

SIR GODFREY KNELLER,

PRINCIPAL PAINTER TO HIS MAJESTY.

ONCE I beheld the fairest of her kind,
And still the sweet 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 ftudied under Bol, and had fome instructions from Rembrandt. But Kneller was no fervile imitator or difciple. Even in Italy, whither he went in 1672, he followed no particular mafter, 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 moft 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 himself 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, Mars, Minerva, Thetis, and Jupiter, ftand