What help from art's endeavours can we have?
Gibbons but gueffes, nor is fure to save:

But Maurus fweeps whole parishes, and peoples every grave;

And no more mercy to mankind will use,

Than when he robb'd and murder'd Maro's Mufe. Wouldst thou be foon dispatch'd, and perish whole, Truft Maurus with thy life, and Milbourn with thy foul.

By chace our long-liv'd fathers earn'd their food;
Toil ftrung the nerves, and purify'd the blood:
But we their fons, a pamper'd race of men,
Are dwindled down to threescore years and ten.
Better to hunt in fields, for health unbought,
Than fee the doctor for a naufeous draught.
The wife, for cure, on exercife depend;
God never made his work, for man to mend.

The tree of knowledge, once in Eden plac'd,
Was eafy found, but was forbid the taste :
O, had our grandfire walk'd without his wife,
He first had fought the better plant of life!
Now both are loft: yet, wandering in the dark,
Phyficians, for the tree, have found the bark:
They, labouring for relief of human kind,
With sharpen'd fight fome remedies may find;
Th' apothecary-train is wholly blind.
From files a random recipe they take,

And many deaths of one prefcription make.
Garth, generous as his Muse, prescribes and gives;
The shopman fells; and by deftruction lives:

Ungrateful tribe! who, like the viper's brood,
From medicine iffuing, fuck their mother's blood!
Let these obey; and let the learn'd prescribe;
That men may die, without a double bribe:
Let them, but under their fuperiors, kill;
When doctors first have fign'd the bloody bill:
He scapes the beft, who, nature to repair,
Draws phyfic 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 urg'd, unwilling to be great,
Your country calls from
you

your

lov'd retreat,

And fends to fenates, charg'd with common care,
Which none more fhuns; and none can better bear:
Where could they find another form'd fo fit,

To poife, with folid fense, a sprightly wit!
Were these both wanting, as they both abound,
Where could fo firm integrity be found?
Well born, and wealthy, wanting no support,
You fteer betwixt the country and the court:
Nor gratify whate'er the great defire,
Nor grudging give, what public needs require.
Part must be left, a fund when foes invade;
And part employ'd to roll the watery trade:
Ev'n Canaan's happy land, when worn with toil,
Requir'd a fabbath-year to mend the meagre foil.
Good fenators (and fuch as you) so give,

That kings may be fupply'd, the people thrive.
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

Munfter was bought, we boaft 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 ftores the nation's care,
New ships to build, and batter'd to repair.
Obferve the war, in every annual courfe;
What has been done, was done with British force::
Namur fubdued, is England's palm alone;

The reft befieg'd; but we constrain'd the town: :
We faw th' event that follow'd our fuccefs;
France, though pretending arms, purfued 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 Perfian king was put to flight,
The weary Macedons refus'd to fight:
Themselves their own mortality confefs'd;
And left the fon of Jove, to quarrel for the rest.
Ev'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 share, as umpires of the peace.

A patriot both the king and country ferves:
Prerogative, and privilege, preferves:

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 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 ftubbornnefs 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 caufe,
As not to lend the king against his laws.
And in a loathsome 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 shar'st their luftre, lend'ft them thine,
Vouchsafe this picture of thy foul to fee;

'Tis fo far good, as it refembles thee,

The

The beauties to th' original I owe;

Which when I miss, 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.
Praife-worthy actions are by thee embrac'd;
And 'tis my praife, to make thy praises laft.
For ev'n when death dissolves our human frame,
The foul returns to heaven from whence it came;
Earth keeps the body, verfe preferves the fame.

EPISTLE THE FOURTEENTH.

TO SIR GODFREY KNELLER, PRINCIPAL PAINTER TO HIS MAJESTY.

NCE I beheld the fairest of her kind,

ONCE

And ftill the sweet idea charms my mind:
True, fhe was dumb; for nature gaz'd fo long,
Pleas'd with her work, that she forgot her tongue;
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 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 fee.

L 4

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