two fwarms. And as in his Æneis he compares the labours of his Trojans to thofe of bees and pifmires, here he compares the labours of the bees to those of the Cyclops. In fhort, the last Georgic was a good prelude to the Æneis; and very well fhewed what the Poet could do in the description of what was really great, by his defcribing the mock-grandeur of an infect with fo good a grace. There is more pleasantness in the little platform of a garden, which he gives us about the middle of this Book, than in all the fpacious walks and water-works of Rapin. The fpeech of Proteus at the end can never be enough admired, and was indeed very fit to conclude fo divine a work.

After this particular account of the beauties in the Georgics, I fhould in the next place endeavour to point out its imperfections, if it has any. But though I think there are some few parts in it that are not so beautiful as the reft, I shall not presume to name them; as rather fufpecting my own judgment, than I can believe a fault to be in that Poem, which lay fo long under Virgil's correction, and had his laft hand put to it. The first Georgic was probably burlesqued in the author's lifetime; for we ftill find in the fcholiafts a verse that ridicules part of a line tranflated from Hefiod, "Nudus “ara, fere nudus"-And we may easily guess at the judgment of this extraordinary critic, whoever he was, from his cenfuring this particular precept.

216

We

AN ESSAY ON VIRGIL's GEORGICS.

may

be fure Virgil would not have translated it from Hefiod, had he not discovered some beauty in it; and indeed the beauty of it is what I have before observed to be frequently met with in Virgil, the delivering the precept fo indirectly, and fingling out the particular circumstance of sowing and plowing naked, to suggest to us that these employments are proper only in the hot season of the year.

I shall not here compare the ftyle of the Georgics with that of Lucretius, which the reader may fee already done in the preface to the fecond volume of Miscellany Poems; but shall conclude this Poem to be the most complete, elaborate, and finished piece of all antiquity. The Æneis indeed is of a nobler kind, but the Georgic is more perfect in its kind. The Æneis has a greater variety of beauties in it, but those of the Georgic are more exquifite. In fhort, the Georgic has all the perfection that can be expected in a poem written by the greatest Poet in the flower of his age, when his invention was ready, his imagination warm, his judgment fettled, and all his faculties in their full vigour and maturity.

*The Collection publifhed by Mr. Dryden.

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

TO SIR GODFREY KNELLER,

K

ON HIS PICTURE OF THE KING.

NELLER,

with filence and surprize

We fee Britannia's monarch rise,
A godlike form, by thee display'd
In all the force of light and fhade;
And, aw'd by thy delufive hand,
As in the prefence chamber ftand.
The magic of thy art calls forth
His fecret foul and hidden worth,
His probity and mildness shows,
His care of friends, and fcorn of foes:
In every ftroke, in every line,
Does fome 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 furvey Their fovereign, through his wide command,

Paffing in progrefs o'er the land!

Each heart fhall bend, and every voice
In loud applauding fhouts 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 ftampt on British coins fhall live,
To richest ores the value give,
Or, wrought within the curious mold,
Shape and adorn the running gold.
To bear this form, the genial fun
Has daily fince 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, haft vy'd
With nature in a generous strife,
And touch'd the canvas into life.

Thy pencil has, by monarchs fought,
From reign to reign in ermine wrought,
And, in the robes of state array'd,

The kings of half an age display'd.

Here fwarthy Charles appears, and there His brother with dejected air: Triumphant Naffau 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 difgrac'd:

may fam'd Brunfwick be the laft, (Though heaven should with my wish agree, And long preferve thy art in thee) The last, the happiest British king,

Whom thou shalt paint, or I fhall fing!

Wife Phidias thus, his skill to prove,
Through many a god advanc'd to Jove,
And taught the polisht rocks to fhine
With airs and lineaments divine;
Till Greece, amaz'd, and half-afraid,
Th' affembled deities furvey'd.

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

And mighty Mars, for war renown'd,
In adamantine armour frown'd;
By him the childless goddess rofe,
Minerva, ftudious to compofe

Her twisted threads; the web she ftrung,
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 fhort-liv'd darling fon to mourn.
The laft was he, whose thunder flew
The Titan-race, a rebel crew,
That from a hundred hills ally'd
In impious leagues their king defy'd.
This wonder of the fculptor'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?