Let these obey, and let the learned prescribe,
That men may die without a double bribe;
Let them, but under their superiors, kill,
When doctors first have signed the bloody bill;
He 'scapes the best, who, nature to repair,
Draws physic from the fields, in draughts of
vital air.

You hoard not health for your own private

use,

But on the public spend the rich produce.
When, often urged, unwilling to be great,

115

Your country calls you from your loved retreat, 120 And sends to senates, charged with common care, Which none more shuns, and none can better

bear:

Where could they find another formed so fit,

To poise, with solid sense, a sprightly wit?

130

Were these both wanting, as they both abound, 125
Where could so firm integrity be found?
Well born, and wealthy, wanting no support,
You steer betwixt the country and the court;
Nor gratify whate'er the great desire,
Nor grudging give, what public needs require.
Part must be left, a fund when foes invade,
And part employed to roll the watery trade:
Even Canaan's happy land, when worn with toil,
Required a sabbath-year to mend the meagre soil.
Good senators (and such are you) so give,
That kings may be supplied, the people thrive:
And he, when want requires, is truly wise,
Who slights not foreign aids, nor overbuys,
But on our native strength, in time of need,
relies.

135

Munster was bought, we boast not the success; 140 Who fights for gain, for greater makes his peace.

* [Edd. wrongly "as."-ED.]

Our foes, compelled by need, have peace
embraced:*

The
peace both parties want, is like to last;
Which if secure, securely we may trade;
Or, not secure, should never have been made.
Safe in ourselves, while on ourselves we stand,
The sea is ours, and that defends the land.
Be, then, the naval stores the nation's care,
New ships to build, and battered to repair.
Observe the war, in every annual course;
What has been done, was done with British
force:

Namur subdued, is England's palm alone;
The rest besieged, but we constrained the town: +

* A very bloody war had been recently concluded by the Peace of Ryswick, in 1697. But the country party in Parliament entertained violent suspicions that King William, whose Continental connections they dreaded, intended a speedy renewal of the contest with France. Hence they were jealous of every attempt to maintain any military force; so that, in 1699, William saw himself compelled not only to disband the standing army, but to dismiss his faithful and favourite Dutch guards. The subsequent lines point obliquely at these measures, which were now matter of public discussion. Dryden's cousin joined in them with of the Whigs, who were attached to what was called the country party. As for the poet, his Jacobitical principles assented to everything that could embarrass King William. But, for the reasons which he has assigned in his letter to Lord Montague, our author leaves his opinion concerning the disbanding of the army to be inferred from his panegyric on the navy, and his declamation against the renewal of the

many

war.

+ Our poet had originally accompanied his praises of the British soldiers with some aspersions on the cowardice of the Dutch, their allies. These he omitted at his cousin's desire, who deemed them disrespectful to King William. In short, he complains he had corrected his verses so far, that he feared he had purged the spirit out of them; as Busby used to whip a boy so long till he made him a confirmed blockhead.

145

150

We saw the event that followed our success;
France, though pretending arms, pursued the

peace,

Obliged, by one sole treaty, to restore

155

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, 160
The weary Macedons refused to fight;
Themselves their own mortality confessed,
And left the son of Jove to quarrel for the rest.
Even victors are by victories undone ;
Thus Hannibal, with foreign laurels won,
To Carthage was recalled, too late to keep his own.
While sore of battle, while our wounds are green,
Why should we tempt the doubtful die again?
In wars renewed, uncertain of success;
Sure of a share, as umpires of the peace.

A patriot both the king and country serves;
Prerogative and privilege preserves:
Of each our laws the certain limit show;
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 blessed abode;
Like those that watered once the Paradise of
God.

165

170

175

Some overpoise of sway, by turns, they share; 180 In peace the people, and the prince in war; Consuls of moderate power in calms were made; When the Gauls came, one sole dictator swayed.

Patriots, in peace, assert the people's right, With noble stubbornness resisting might; No lawless mandates from the court receive, Nor lend by force, but in a body give.

185

Such was your generous grandsire; free to grant
In parliaments, that weighed their prince's want:
But so tenacious of the common cause,
As not to lend the king against his laws;
And, in a loathsome dungeon doomed to lie,

In bonds retained his birthright liberty,

190

And shamed oppression, till it set him free.*
O true descendant of a patriot line,

195

Who, while thou shar'st their lustre, lend'st them thine,

Vouchsafe this picture of thy soul to see;

'Tis so far good, as it resembles thee; The beauties to the original I owe,

Which when I miss, my own defects I show

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.t
Praiseworthy actions are by thee embraced,
And 'tis my praise to make thy praises last.
For even when death dissolves our human frame,
The soul returns to heaven from whence it came;
Earth keeps the body, verse preserves the fame.

*Sir Robert Bevile, maternal grandfather to John Driden of Chesterton, seems to have been imprisoned for resisting some of Charles 1.'s illegal attempts to raise supplies without the authority of Parliament. Perhaps our author now viewed his opposition to the royal will as more excusable than he would have thought it in the reigns of Charles II. or of James II. It is thought that the hard usage which Sir Robert Bevile met on this score decided our poet's uncle, his son-in-law, in his violent attachment to Cromwell. [According to Holt White, quoted from мs. by Christie, it was not Sir R. Bevile, but Sir Erasmus Dryden.-ED.]

†The reader will perhaps doubt whether Mr. Dryden's account of his cousin Chesterton's accomplishments as a justice of peace, fox-hunter, and knight of the shire, even including his prudent abstinence from matrimony, were quite sufficient to justify this classification.

VOL. XI.

F

200

205

EPISTLE THE SIXTEENTH.

ΤΟ

SIR GODFREY KNELLER,

PRINCIPAL PAINTER TO

HIS MAJESTY.

THE well-known Sir Godfrey Kneller was a native of Lubeck, but settled in London about 1674. He was a man of genius; but, according to Walpole, he lessened his reputation by making it subservient to his fortune. No painter was more distinguished by the great, for ten sovereigns sat to him. What may tend longer to preserve his reputation, no painter ever received more incense from the praise of poets. Dryden, Pope, Addison, Prior, Tickell, Steele, all wrote verses to him in the tone of extravagant eulogy. Those addressed to Kneller by Addison, in which the series of the heathen deities is, with unexampled happiness, made to correspond with that of the British monarchs painted by the artist, are not only the best production of that elegant poet, but of their kind the most felicitous ever written. Sir Godfrey Kneller died 27th November 1723.

Dryden seems to have addressed the following Epistle to Sir Godfrey Kneller as an acknowledgment for the copy of the Chandos portrait of Shakespeare, mentioned in the verses. It would appear that, upon other occasions, Sir Godfrey repaid the tributes of the poets by the productions of his pencil.

There is great luxuriance and richness of idea and imagery in the Epistle. [As it appeared in the Miscellany of 1694, it is of course earlier than the Epistle to Driden.-ED.]