Ver.1. Once I beheld] Sir Godfrey Kneller was born at Lubeck in 1648. Discovering early a predominant genius for painting, his father sent him to Amsterdam, where he studied under Bol, and had some instructions from Rembrandt. But Kneller was no servile imitator or disciple. Even in Italy, whither he went in 1672, he followed no particular master, not even at Venice, where he long resided. In 1676 he came to England, and was soon patronised by Charles II. and James. Ten sovereigns at different times sat to him: Charles II., James II., and his queen, William and Mary, George I., Louis XIV., and Charles VI. He stuck to portrait painting as the most lucrative, though Dryden in this very epistle inveighs so much against it. Of all his works he valued most the converted Chinese in Windsor Castle. But Mr. Walpole thinks his portrait of Gibbon superior to it. This epistle is full of just taste and knowledge of painting, particularly what he says of Light, Shade, Perspective, and Grace. It is certainly superior to Pope's address 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 so elegant as that of Addison, who with matchless art and dexterity applied the characters of those heathen gods whom Phidias had carved, to the English princes that Kneller had painted; making Pan, Saturn, Mars, Minerva, Thetis, and Jupiter, stand for Charles II, James II., William III., queen Mary, Anne, and George I. Sir Godfrey was a man of much original wit and humour, but tinctured with a mixture of profaneness and ribaldry. Dr. J. WARTON.

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 sounds, deceived to that degree,
We think 'tis somewhat more than just to see.
Shadows are but privations of the light;
Yet, when we walk, they shoot before the sight;
With us approach, retire, arise, and fall;
Nothing themselves, and yet expressing all.
Such are thy pieces, imitating life

So near, they almost conquer in the strife;
And from their animated canvas came,
Demanding souls, and loosen'd from the frame.
Prometheus, were he here, would cast away
His Adam, and refuse a soul to clay;
And either would thy noble work inspire,
Or think it warm enough, without his fire.
But vulgar hands may vulgar likeness raise;
This is the least attendant on thy praise:
From hence the rudiments of art began;
A coal, or chalk, first imitated man :
Perhaps the shadow, taken on a wall,
Gave outlines to the rude original:
Ere canvas yet was strain'd, before the grace
Of blended colours found their use and place,
Or cypress tablets first received a face.

By slow degrees the godlike art advanced;
As man grew polish'd, picture was inhanced:
Greece added posture, shade, and perspective;
And then the mimic piece began to live.
Yet perspective was lame, no distance 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 languish'd, and insensibly decay'd.

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Rome raised not art, but barely kept alive, 45 And with old Greece unequally did strive: Till Goths, and Vandals, a rude northern race, Did all the matchless monuments deface. Then all the Muses in one ruin lie, And rhyme began to enervate poetry. Thus, in a stupid military state, The pen and pencil find an equal fate. Flat faces, such as would disgrace a screen, Such as in Bantam's embassy were seen, Unraised, unrounded, were the rude delight Of brutal nations, only born to fight. Long time the sister Arts, in iron sleep, A heavy sabbath did supinely keep: At length, in Raphael's age, at once they rise, Stretch all their limbs, and open all their eyes. Thence rose the Roman, and the Lombard line: One colour'd best, and one did best design. Raphael's, like Homer's, was the nobler part, But Titian's painting look'd like Virgil's art.

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Thy genius gives thee both; where true design, Postures unforced, and lively colours join.

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Ver, 50.] It is remarkable that he mentions rhyme as one instance of barbarism. Dr. J. WARTON.

Ver. 57. Long time] The art of painting expired in the year 580. It revived under Cimabue in 1240, but it was And. Mantegna, who was born in 1431, and whose cartoons are at Hampton Court, who was the first that revived a true taste for the antique. Dr. J. WARTON.

Likeness is ever there; ut still the best,
Like proper thoughts in lofty language dress'd:
Where light, to shades descending, 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.
Shakspeare, thy gift, I place before my sight;
With awe, I ask his blessing ere I write;
With reverence look on his majestic face;
Proud to be less, but of his godlike race.

His soul inspires me, while thy praise I write,
And I, like Teucer, under Ajax fight:

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Bids thee, through me, be bold; with dauntless

In vain they snarl aloof; a noisy crowd,
Like women's anger, impotent and loud.
While they their barren industry deplore,
Pass on secure, and mind the goal before.
Old as she is, my Muse shall march behind,
Bear off the blast, and intercept the wind.
Our arts are sisters, though not twins in birth;
For hymns were sung in Eden's happy earth:
But oh, the painter Muse, though last in place,
Has seized the blessing first, like Jacob's race.
Apelles' art an Alexander found;

And Raphael did with Leo's gold abound;
But Homer was with barren laurel crown'd.
Thou hadst thy Charles a while, and so had I;
But pass we that unpleasing image by.
Rich in thyself, and of thyself divine;

All pilgrims come and offer at thy shrine.

A graceful truth thy pencil can command;

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The fair themselves go mended from thy hand.
Likeness appears in every lineament;
But likeness in thy work is eloquent.
Though nature there her true resemblance bears,
A nobler beauty in thy piece appears.
So warm thy work, so glows the generous frame,
Flesh looks less living in the lovely dame.
Thou paint'st as we describe, improving still,
When on wild nature we engraft our skill;
But not creating beauties at our will.

But poets are confined in narrower space,
To speak the language of their native place:
The painter widely stretches his command;
Thy pencil speaks the tongue of every land.

Ver. 94.

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with Leo's gold] Raphael flattered with his pencil. In his Attila, his Coronation of Charlemagne, the siege of Ostia, and King Pepin, he has represented St. Leo, Leo III., Stephen II., and Leo IV., with an exact likeness of Leo X. Dr. J. WARTON.

To make you theirs, where'er you please to live;
And not seven cities, but the world would strive.
Sure some propitious planet then did smile, 120
When first you were conducted to this isle :
Our genius brought you here, to enlarge our
fame;

For your good stars are every where the same.
Thy matchless hand, of every region free,
Adopts our climate, not our climate thee.

Great Rome and Venice early did impart
To thee the examples of their wondrous art.
Those masters then, but seen, not understood,
With generous emulation fired thy blood:
For what in nature's dawn the child admired,
The youth endeavour'd, and the man acquired.

If yet thou hast not reach'd their high degree,
"Tis only wanting to this age, not thee.
Thy genius, bounded by the times, like mine,
Drudges on petty draughts, nor dare design
A more exalted work, and more divine.

For what a song, or senseless opera

Is to the living labour of a play;

Or what a play to Virgil's work would be,
Such is a single piece to history.

But we, who life bestow, ourselves must live;

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To wish their vile resemblance may remain !
And stand recorded, at their own request,
To future days, a libel or a jest!

Else should we see your noble pencil trace
Our unities of action, time, and place:
A whole composed of parts, and those the best,
With every various character express'd:
Heroes at large, and at a nearer view;
Less, and at distance, an ignobler crew.
While all the figures in one action join,
As tending to complete the main design.
More cannot be by mortal art express'd;
But venerable age shall add the rest.
For Time shall with his ready pencil stand;
Retouch your figures with his ripening hand;
Mellow your colours, and imbrown the teint;
Add every grace, which time alone can grant;
To future ages shall your fame convey,
And give more beauties than he takes away.

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Whose palms, new pluck'd from paradise,
In spreading branches more sublimely rise,
Rich with immortal green above the rest:
Whether, adopted to some neighb'ring star,
Thou roll'st above us, in thy wandering race,
Or, in procession fix'd and regular,
Mov'st with the heaven's majestic pace;
Or, call'd to more superior bliss,
Thou tread'st, with seraphims, the vast abyss:
Whatever happy region is thy place,
Cease thy celestial song a little space;

Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine,
Since heaven's eternal year is thine.
Hear then a mortal Muse thy praise rehearse,
In no ignoble verse;

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expression can be changed for a better. It is also the most harmonious in its numbers of all that this great master of harmony has produced. Oldham's Satire on the Jesuits is written with vigour and energy. It is remarkable that Dryden calls Oldham his brother in satire, hinting that this was the characteristical turn of both their geniuses.

To the same goal did both our studies drive. Ver 7. Dr. J. WARTON.

Johnson, by an unaccountable perversity of judgment, and want of taste for true poetry, has pronounced to be undoubtedly the noblest Ode that our language ever has produced. The first stanza, he says, flows with a torrent of enthusiasm. To a cool and candid reader, it appears absolutely unintelligible. Examples of bad writing, of tumid expressions, violent metaphors, far sought conceits, hyperbolical adulation, unnatural amplifications, interspersed, as usual, with fine lines, might be collected from this applauded Ode, so very inferior in all respects to the divine Ode on St. Cecilia's Day. But such a paradoxical judgment cannot be wondered at in a critic, that despised the Lycidas of Milton, and the Bard of Gray. I have been censured, I am informed, for contradicting some of Johnson's critical opinions. As I knew him well, I ever respected his talents, and more so his integrity; but a love of paradox and contradiction, at the bottom of which was vanity, gave an unpleasant tincture to his manners, and made his conversation boisterous and offensive. I often used to tell the mild and sensible Sir Joshua Reynolds, that he and his friends had contributed to spoil Johnson, by constantly and cowardi assenting to all he advanced on any subject. Mr. Burke caly kept him in order, as did Mr. Beauclerc also, sometimes by his playful wit. It was a great pleasure for Beauclerc to lay traps for him to induce him to oppose and contradict one day what he had maintained on a former. Lest the censure presumed to be passed on this Ode should be thought too uncandid and severe, the reader is desired attentively to consider stanzas the third, sixth, seventh, ninth, and tenth. In a word, Dryden, by his inequality, much resembles another great genius, Casimir, of Poland; who, in the very midst of some poetical strokes in his Ode on the Deluge, mars all by his usual mixtures of Ovidian puerilities. After saying

vacuas spatiosa cete Ludunt per aulas, ac thalamos pigræ Pressere Phocæ;

comes this idle conceit,

et refixe

Ad pelagus rediere Gemmæ."-Lib. iv. Od.

Mason has too much commended an Ode of Casimir on the Eolian Harp. Dr. J. WARTON.

V.

Art she had none, yet wanted none;
For Nature did that want supply:

So rich in treasures of her own,

She might our boasted stores defy : Such noble vigour did her verse adorn,

That it seem'd borrow'd, where 'twas only born. Her morals too were in her bosom bred,

By great examples daily fed,

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What in the best of books, her father's life, she

read.

And to be read herself she need not fear;
Each test, and every light, her muse will bear,
Though Epictetus with his lamp were there.
E'en love (for love sometimes her muse express'd)
Was but a lambent flame which play'd about her
breast:

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Light as the vapours of a morning dream, So cold herself, whilst she such warmth express'd, 'Twas Cupid bathing in Diana's stream.

VI.

Born to the spacious empire of the Nine,

One would have thought, she should have been

content

To manage well that mighty government;
But what can young ambitious souls confine?
To the next realm she stretch'd her sway,
For Painture near adjoining lay,

A plenteous province, and alluring prey.
A Chamber of Dependencies was framed,
(As conquerors will never want pretence,

When arm'd, to justify the offence)

And the whole fief, in right of poetry, she claim'd
The country open lay without defence:
For poets frequent inroads there had made,
And perfectly could represent

The shape, the face, with every lineament,

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And all the large domains which the Dumb Sister sway'd.

All bow'd beneath her government, Received in triumph wheresoe'er she went. 105 Her pencil drew, whate'er her soul design'd, And oft the happy draught surpass'd the image

in her mind.

Made prostitute and profligate the Muse, Debased to each obscene and impious use, Whose harmony was first ordain'd above

The bottom did the top appear;

For tongues of angels, and for hymns of love? Oh wretched we! why were we hurried down This lubrique and adulterate age,

Of deeper too and ampler floods,

Which, as in mirrors, show'd the woods; Of lofty trees, with sacred shades, And perspectives of pleasant glades, Where nymphs of brightest form appear, And shaggy satyrs standing near, Which them at once admire and fear. The ruins too of some majestic piece, Boasting the power of ancient Rome, or Greece, Whose statues, friezes, columns, broken lie, And, though defaced, the wonder of the eye; What nature, art, bold fiction, e'er durst frame, Her forming hand gave feature to the name. So strange a concourse ne'er was seen before, But when the peopled ark the whole creation

bore.

VII.

Slack all thy sails, and fear to come,

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Our phoenix queen was pourtray'd too so bright, Beauty alone could beauty take so right: Her dress, her shape, her matchless grace, Were all observed, as well as heavenly face. With such a peerless majesty she stands,

As in that day she took the crown from sacred hands:

Before a train of heroines was seen,

In beauty foremost, as in rank, the queen.
Thus nothing to her genius was denied,

But like a ball of fire the further thrown,
Still with a greater blaze she shone,

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And her bright soul broke out on every side.. 145 What next she had design'd, Heaven only knows: To such immoderate growth her conquest rose, That fate alone its progress could oppose.

No more shalt thou behold thy sister's face,
Thou hast already had her last embrace.
But look aloft, and if thou kenn'st from far
Among the Pleiads a new-kindled star,
If any sparkles than the rest more bright;
"Tis she that shines in that propitious light.

X.

When in mid-air the golden trump shall sound,
To raise the nations under ground:
When in the valley of Jehoshaphat,
The judging God shall close the book of fate;
And there the last assizes keep,

For those who wake, and those who sleep :
When rattling bones together fly,
From the four corners of the sky;

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When sinews o'er the skeletons are spread, Those clothed with flesh, and life inspires the dead;

The sacred poets first shall hear the sound,

And foremost from the tomb shall bound, For they are cover'd with the lightest ground; 190 And straight, with in-born vigour, on the wing, Like mounting larks, to the new morning sing. There thou, sweet saint, before the quire shall go, As harbinger of heaven, the way to show, The way which thou so well hast learn'd below. 195

Ver. 162. But thus Orinda died:] The matchless Orinda, Mrs. Katherine Philips, was author of a book of poems published in folio, and wrote several other things. She died also of the small-pox in 1664, being only thirty-two years of age. She was a woman of an indifferent appearance; but of great virtue, taste, and erudition, which endeared her to the first people of the age. The Duke of Ormond, the Earls of Orrery and Roscommon, Lady Corke, &c., Mr. Dryden, Mr. Cowley, &c. &c. were all her friends. DERRICK

UPON THE DEATH

OF

THE EARL OF DUNDEE.

Он last and best of Scots! who didst maintain
Thy country's freedom from a foreign reign;
New people fill the land now thou art gone,
New gods the temples, and new kings the
throne.

Scotland and thee did each in other live;
Nor would'st thou her, nor could she thee
survive.

Farewell, who dying didst support the state,
And could'st not fall but with thy country's fate.

Ver. 1. Oh last and best] The conduct and death of this truly valiant chieftain is described with much eloquence and animation in his account of the important battle at Killicrankie, by Sir John Dalrymple, in the first volume of his Memoirs. Dundee, being wounded by a musket-ball, rode off the field, desiring his mischance to be concealed, and fainting, dropped from his horse; as soon as he was recovered, he desired to be raised, looked to the field, and asked, "How things went?" Being told, "All well;" then said he, "I am well," and expired. Dr. J. WARTON.