Let these obey, and let the learned prescribe, You hoard not health for your own private use, But on the public spend the rich produce. 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, 125 135 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 The Namur subdued, is England's palm alone; * 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; peace, Obliged, by one sole treaty, to restore 155 What twenty years of war had won before. A patriot both the king and country serves; When both are full, they feed our blessed abode; 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 bonds retained his birthright liberty, 190 And shamed oppression, till it set him free.* 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; *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.] |