The organ labours in her praise.
Cecilia's name does all our numbers grace,
From ev'ry voice the tuneful accents fly,
In soaring trebles now it rises high,

And now it sinks, and dwells upon the base.
Cecilia's name through all the notes we sing,
The work of ev'ry skilful tongue,

The sound of ev'ry trembling string,
The sound and triumph of our song.

III.

For ever consecrate the day,

To music and Cecilia ;

Music, the greatest good that mortals know,

And all of heav'n we have below.

Music can noble hints impart,

Engender fury, kindle love;

With unsuspected eloquence can move,

And manage all the man with secret art.
When Orpheus strikes the trembling lyre,
The streams stand still, the stones admire;
The list'ning savages advance,

The wolf and lamb around him trip.
The bears in aukward measures leap,

And tigers mingle in the dance.

The moving woods attended, as he play'd,
And Rhodope was left without a shade.

IV.

Music religious heats inspires,

It wakes the soul, and lifts it high.
And wings it with sublime desires,

And fits it to bespeak the Deity.

Th' Almighty listens to a tuneful tongue,

And seems well pleas'd and courted with a song. Soft moving sounds and heav'nly airs

Give force to ev'ry word, and recommend our pray'rs. When time itself shall be no more,

And all things in confusion hurl'd,

Music shall then exert its pow'r,

And sound survive the ruins of the world:
Then saints and angels shall agree
In one eternal jubilee :

All heav'n shall echo with their hymns divine,
And God himself with pleasure see
The whole creation in a chorus join.

CHORUS.

Consecrate the place and day,

To music and Cecilia.

Let no rough winds approach, nor dare
Invade the hallow'd bounds,

Nor rudely shake the tuneful air,
Nor spoil the fleeting sounds.
Nor mournful sigh nor groan be heard,

But gladness dwell on every tongue;
Whilst all, with voice and strings prepar'd,
Keep up the loud harmonious song,
And imitate the blest above,

In joy, and harmony, and love.

TO SIR GODFREY KNELLER,

ON HIS PICTURE OF THE KING.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

[KNELLER, like Reynolds, lived much with the wits of his day, but unlike him, was constantly their butt. In his "Welcome from Greece to Pope," Gay says

"Kneller amid the triumph bears his part,

Who could (were mankind lost) a new create:
What can the extent of his vast soul confine?
A painter, critic, engineer divine!"

The allusion is to a trick of Pope's.

One day Pope said to him, “Sir Godfrey, I believe if God Almighty had had your assistance, the world would have been formed more perfect." “Fore God,” said Kneller, never doubting the poet's object, “I believe so.”

Of these lines Johnson says "The parallel of the Princes and gods, in his verses to Kneller, is often happy, but is too well known to be quoted." "No single ode of Cowley," says Macaulay, " contains so many happy analogies as are crowded into the lines to Sir Godfrey Kneller."

Dugald Stewart also, who has interspersed his philosphical writings with exquisite specimens of literary criticism, has borne testimony to the merit of this piece in the following characteristic passage-"As an additional confirmation of these observations we may remark, that the more an author is limited by his subject, the more we are pleased with his wit. And, therefore, the effect of wit does not arise solely from the unexpected relations which it presents to the mind, but arises, in part, from the surprise it excites at those intellectual habits which give it birth. It is evident that the more the author is circumscribed in the choice of his materials, the greater must be the command which he has acquired over those associating principles on which wit depends, and of consequence, according to the foregoing doctrine, the greater must be the surprise and the pleasure which his wit produces. In Addison's celebrated verses to Sir Godfrey Kneller, on his picture of George the First, in which he compares the painter to Phidias, and the subjects of his pencil to the Grecian deities, the range of the Poet's wit was necessarily confined within very narrow bounds, and what principally delights us in that performance is the surprising ease and felicity with which he runs the parallel between the English history and the Greek mythology. Of all the allusions which the following passage contains, there is not one, taken singly, of very extraor

dinary merit; and yet the effect of the whole is uncommonly great, from the singular power of combination, which so long and so difficult an exertion discovers." The passage cited is from "Wise Phidias,” to “King defied.” -Stewart's Works, vol. 1, pp. 222-3.-G.]

TO SIR GODFREY KNELLER.

KNELLER, with silence and surprise
We see Britannia's monarch rise,
A godlike form, by thee display'd
In all the force of light and shade;
And, aw'd by thy delusive hand,
As in the presence-chamber stand.

The magic of thy art calls forth
His secret soul and hidden worth,
His probity and mildness shows,
His care of friends and scorn of foes:
In every stroke, in every line,
Does some exalted virtue shine,
And Albion's happiness we trace
Through all the features of his face.
O may I live to hail the day,
When the glad nation shall survey

Their sovereign, through his wide command,

Passing in progress o'er the land!

Each heart shall bend, and every voice

In loud applauding shouts rejoice,
Whilst all his gracious aspect praise,
And crowds grow loyal as they gaze.

This image on the medal placed,
With its bright round of titles graced,
And stampt on British coins shall live,
To richest ores the value give,

Or, wrought within the curious mould,
Shape and adorn the running gold.
To bear this form, the genial sun
Has daily, since his course begun,
Rejoiced the metal to refine,

And ripen'd the Peruvian mine.

Thou, Kneller,a long with noble pride,
The foremost of thy art, hast vied
With nature, in a generous strife,
And touch'd the canvas into life.
Thy pencil has, by monarchs sought,
From reign to reign in ermine wrought,
And, in their robes of state array'd,
The kings of half an age display'd.

Here swarthy Charles appears, and there
His brother with dejected air:
Triumphant Nassau here we find,
And with him bright Maria join'd;
There Anna, great as when she sent
Her armies through the continent.

Ere yet her hero was disgrac'd:

may fam'd Brunswick be the last,
(Though heaven should with my wish agree,

And long preserve thy art in thee)

The last, the happiest British king,

Whom thou shalt paint, or I shall sing!

b

Wise Phidias, thus his skill to prove,

Through many a god advanc'd to Jove,

a Thou, Kneller. If this little poem had begun here, and ended with "their king defy'd," it had been equal, or superior, to any thing in any other poet, on the like occasion.

b There never was any thing happier, than this whole illustration, nor more exquisitely expressed.