So lived our sires, ere doctors learn'd to kill,
And multiplied with theirs the weekly bill.
The first physicians by debauch were made;
Excess began, and sloth sustains the trade.
Pity the generous kind their cares bestow
To search forbidden truths; (a sin to know)
To which if human science could attain,
The doom of death, pronounced by God, were vain:
In vain the leech would interpose delay;
Fate fastens first, and vindicates the prey.
What help from Art's endeavours can we have?
Gibbons but guesses, nor is sure to save;
But Maurus sweeps whole parishes, and peoples
every grave,
And no more mercy to mankind will use,
Than when he robbed and murder'd Maro's muse. Would'st thou be soon dispatch'd, and perish
whole ? [thy soul. Trust Maurus with thy life, and Milbourn3 with By chase our long-lived fathers earn'd their food, Toil strung the nerves, and purified the blood; But we, their sons, a pamper'd race of men, Are dwindled down to threescore years and ten. Better to hunt in fields for health unbought, Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught. The wise, for cure, on exercise depend: God never made his work for man to mend. The tree of Knowledge, once in Eden placed, Was easy found, but was forbid the taste;
1 Dr. W. Gibbons succeeded Ratcliffe as physician to Queen Anne, and died March 25, 1728.
3 The Rev. Luke Milbourn wrote a criticism on Dryden's Virgil, &c. and died April 15, 1720.
O, had our grandsire walk'd without his wife,
He first had sought the better plant of Life!
Now both are lost; yet, wandering in the dark,
Physicians, for the tree, have found the bark:
They, labouring for relief of human kind,
With sharpen'd sight some remedies may find:
The' apothecary-train is wholly blind.
From files a random recipe they take,
And many deaths of one prescription make.
Garth, generous as his muse, prescribes and gives;
The shopman sells, and by destruction lives.
Ungrateful tribe! who, like the viper's brood,
From medicine issuing, suck their mother's blood!
Let these obey, and let the learn'd prescribe,
That men may die without a double bribe;
Let them, but under their superiors, kill,
When doctors first have sign'd the bloody bill:
He 'scapes the best who, nature to repair,
Draws physic from the fields in draughts of vital air.
You hoard not health for your own private use,
But on the public spend the rich produce.
When, often urged, unwilling to be great,
Your country calls you from your loved retreat,
And sends to senates, charged with common care,
Which none more shuns, and none can better bear,
Where could they find another form'd so fit
To poise, with solid sense, a sprightly wit?
Were these both wanting, as they both abound,
Where could so firm integrity be found?
Well-born, and wealthy, wanting no support,
You steer betwixt the country and the court;
Nor gratify whate'er the great desire,
Nor, grudging, give what public needs require.
Part must be left, a fund, when foes invade,
And part employ'd to roll the watry trade :
E'en Canaan's happy land, when worn with toil,
Required a sabbath-year to mend the meagre soil.
Good senators (and such as you) so give,
That kings may be supplied, the people thrive.
And he, when want requires, is truly wise,
Who slights not foreign aids, nor over-buys,
But on our native strength in time of need relies.
Munster was bought; we boast not the success ;
Who fights for gain, for greater makes his peace.
Our foes, compell'd by need, have peace em-
braced:
The peace both parties want is like to last;
Which if secure, securely we may trade;
Or, not secure, should never have been made.
Safe in ourselves, while on ourselves we stand,
The sea is ours, and that defends the land.
Be, then, the naval stores the nation's care,
New ships to build, and batter'd to repair.
Observe the war in every annual course;
What has been done was done with British force.
Namur subdued is England's palm alone;
The rest besieged, but we constrain'd the town.
We saw the' event that follow'd our success;
France, though pretending arms, pursued the
Obliged, by one sole treaty, to restore [peace;
What twenty years of war had won before.
Enough for Europe has our Albion fought;
Let us enjoy the peace our blood has bought.
When once the Persian king was put to flight,
The weary Macedons refused to fight;
Themselves their own mortality confess'd,
And left the son of Jove to quarrel for the rest.
E'en victors are by victories undone;
Thus Hannibal with foreign laurels won,
To Carthage was recall'd, too late to keep his own.
While sore of battle, while our wounds are green,
Why should we tempt the doubtful die again?
In wars renew'd, uncertain of success,
Sure of a share, as umpires of the peace.
A patriot both the king and country serves,
Prerogative and privilege preserves;
Of each our laws the certain limit show;
One must not ebb, nor the' other overflow:
Betwixt the prince and parliament we stand,
The barriers of the state on either hand;
May neither overflow, for then they drown the land.
When both are full, they feed our bless'd abode,
Like those that water'd once the paradise of God.
Some overpoise of sway, by turns, they share;
In peace, the people; and the prince, in war:
Consuls of moderate power in calms were made;
When the Gauls came, one sole Dictator sway'd.
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.
Such was your generous grandsire; free to grant,
In parliaments that weigh'd their prince's want;
But so tenacious of the common cause,
As not to lend the king against his laws;
And, in a loathsome dungeon doom'd to lie,
In bonds retain'd his birth-right liberty,
And shamed Oppression till it set him free.
O true descendant of a patriot line!
Who, while thou sharest 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;
A poet is not born in every race:
Two of a house few ages can afford,
One to perform, another to record.
Praise-worthy actions are by thee embraced,
And 'tis my praise to make thy praises last:
For even when death dissolves our human frame,
The soul returns to Heaven, from whence it came;
Earth keeps the body, Verse preserves the fame.
SIR GODFREY KNELLER,
PRINCIPAL PAINTER TO HIS MAJESTY.
ONCE I beheld the fairest of her kind,
And still the sweet idea charms my mind:
True, she was dumb; for Nature gazed so long,
Pleased with her work, that she forgot her tongue;
But, smiling, said, 'She still shall gain the prize;
I only have transferred 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 thére, and wants but words to speak her
At least thy pictures look a voice; and we
Imagine sounds; deceived to that degree,
We think 'tis somewhat more than just to see.
|