Munfter was bought, we boast not the fuccefs;
Who fights for gain, for greater makes his peace.
Our foes, compell'd by need, have peace embrac'd:
The peace both parties want, is like to laft:
Which if fecure, fecurely we may trade;
Or, not fecure, fhould 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 stores the nation's care,
New fhips to build, and batter'd to repair.
Obferve the war, in every annual course;
What has been done, was done with British force:
Namur fubdued, is England's palm alone;
The reft befieg'd; but we conftrain'd the town:
We faw th' event that follow'd our fuccefs;
France, though pretending arms, pursued the peace;
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 Persian king was put to flight,
The weary Macedons refus'd to fight:
Themselves their own mortality confess'd;
And left the son of Jove, to quarrel for the rest.
Ey'n victors are by victories undone;
Thus Hannibal, with foreign laurels won,
To Carthage was recall'd, too late to keep his own.
While fore of battle, while our wounds are green,
Why should we tempt the doubtful dye again?
In wars renew'd, uncertain of fuccefs;
Sure of a fhare, as umpires of the peace.
A patriot both the king and country ferves :
Prerogative, and privilege, preferves:
Of each our laws the certain limit fhow;
One must 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 those that water'd once the paradise of God.
Some overpoife of fway, by turns, they fhare;
In peace the people, and the prince in war:
Confuls of moderate power in calms were made;
When the Gauls came, one fole dictator fway'd.
Patriots, in peace, affert the people's right;
With noble stubbornness 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 defcendant of a patriot line,
Who, while thou fhar'ft their luftre, lend'ft them thine, Vouchfafe this picture of thy foul to fee;
'Tis so far good, as it resembles thee.
The beauties to th' original I owe;
Which when I mifs, my own defects I fhow:
Nor think the kindred Muses thy disgrace :
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;
And 'tis my praife, 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.
To Sir GODFREY KNELLER, principal Painter to his Majesty.
NCE I beheld the fairest of her kind,
And still the fweet idea charms my mind:
True, she was dumb; for nature gaz'd fo long,
Pleas'd with her work, that she forgot her tongue;
But, smiling, said, She still shall gain the prize;
I only have transferr'd it to her eyes.
Such are thy pictures, Kneller: such thy skill,
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.
Shadows are but privations of the light;
Yet, when we walk, they shoot before the fight;
With us approach, retire, arise, and fall;
Nothing themselves, and yet expreffing all.
Such are thy pieces, imitating life
So near, they almost conquer in the strife;
And from their animated canvass came,
Demanding fouls, and loofen'd from the frame.
Prometheus, were he here, would caft away
His Adam, and refufe a foul to clay;
And either would thy noble work inspire,
Or think it warm enough without his fire.
But vulgar hands may vulgar likeness raife;
This is the leaft attendant on thy praise ::
From hence the rudiments of art began ;
A coal, or chalk, firft imitated man :
Perhaps the fhadow, taken on a wall,
Gave outlines to the rude original;
Ere canyafs yet was ftrain'd, before the grace
Of blended colours found their use and place,
Or cypress tablets first receiv'd a face.
By flow degrees the godlike art advanc'd;
As man grew polish'd, picture was inhanc'd:
Greece added pofture, fhade, and perfpective;
And then the mimic piece began to live.
Yet perfpective was lame, no diftance true,
But all came forward in one common view:
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 languifh'd, and infenfibly decay'd.
Rome rais'd not art, but barely kept alive,
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 rhyme began t' enervate poetry.
Thus, in a stupid military state,
The pen and pencil find an equal fate.
Flat faces, fuch as would difgrace a skreen,
Such as in Bantam's embaffy were feen,
Unrais'd, unrounded, were the rude delight
Of brutal nations, only born to fight.
Long time the fifter arts, in iron fleep,
A heavy fabbath did supinely keep:
At length, in Raphael's age, at once they rife,
Stretch all their limbs, and
all their eyes.
Thence rofe the Roman, and the Lombard line:
One colour'd best, and one did beft defign.
Raphael's, like Homer's, was the nobler part,
But Titian's painting look'd like Virgil's art.
Thy genius gives thee both; where true design,
Poftures unforc'd, and lively colours join.
Likeness is ever there; but ftill the best,
Like proper thoughts in lofty language drest:
Where light, to fhades defcending, plays, not strives,
Dies by degrees, and by degrees revives.
Of various parts a perfect whole is wrought:
Thy pictures think, and we divine their thought.
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