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: 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 own. 161 While fore of battle, while our wounds are green, 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; 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, want: 190 But fo tenacious of the common cause, Vouchsafe this picture of thy foul to fee; The beauties to the original I owe; 195 Which when I mifs, my own defects I show: Two of a houfe few ages can afford; 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, 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 |