Even all those graces, in your frame combin'd,
The common fate of mortal charms may find;
(Content our short-liv'd praises to engage,
The joy and wonder of a single age,)
Unless some poet, in a lasting song,
To late posterity their fame prolong,

Instruct our sons the radiant form to prize,

And see your beauty with their father's eyes.

ΤΟ

SIR GODFREY KNELLER,

ON HIS

PICTURE OF THE KING.

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 sov'reign, 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.

The image on the medal plac'd,
With its bright round of titles grac'd,
And, stamp'd 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,
Rejoic'd the metal to refine
And ripen'd the Peruvian mine.

Thou, Kneller, long with noble pride,
The foremost of thy art, hast vi'd
With nature in a generous strife,

And touch'd the canvass 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!

Wise Phidias, thus his skill to prove, Through many a god advanc'd to Jove, And taught the polish'd rocks to shine With airs and lineaments divine;

198

ON THE PICTURE, &c.

Till Greece, amaz'd, and half afraid,
Th' assembled deities survey'd.

Great Pan, who wont to chase the fair,
And lov'd the spreading oak, was there;
Old Saturn too, with up-cast eyes,
Beheld his abdicated skies;

And mighty Mars, for war renown'd,
In adamantine armour frown'd;

By him the childless goddess rose,
Minerva, studious to compose

Her twisted threads; the web she strung,
And o'er a loom of marble hung:

Thetis, the troubled ocean's

queen,

Match'd with a mortal, next was seen,
Reclining on a funeral urn,

Her short-liv'd darling son to mourn.
The last was he, whose thunder slew
The Titan race, a rebel crew,

That from a hundred hills alli'd
In impious leagues their king defi'd.
This wonder of the sculptor's hand
Produc'd, his art was at a stand:

For who would hope new fame to raise,
Or risk his well-establish'd praise,
That, his high genius to approve,

Had drawn a GEORGE, or carv'd a Jove.