Here thy well studied marbles fix our eye;
A fading Fresco here demands a sigh;
Each heavenly piece unwearied we compare,
Match Raphael's grace, with thy loved Guido's air,
Caracci's strength, Correggio's softer line,
Paulo's free stroke, and Titian's warmth divine.
How finished with illustrious toil appears,
This small well polished gem, the work of years! *
Yet still how faint by precept is exprest,
The living image in the painter's breast?
Thence endless streams of fair ideas flow,
Strike in the sketch, or in the picture glow;
Thence beauty, waking all her forms, supplies
An angel's sweetness, or Bridgewater's eyes.
Muse! at that name thy sacred sorrows shed,
Those tears eternal that embalm the dead;
Call round her tomb each object of desire,
Each purer frame informed with purer fire;
Bid her be all that chears or softens life,
The tender sister, daughter, friend, and wife!
Bid her be all that makes mankind adore;
Then view this marble, and be vain no more!
Yet still her charms in breathing paint engage;
Her modest cheek shall warm a future age.
Beauty, frail flower, that every season fears,
Blooms in thy colours for a thousand years.
Thus Churchil's race shall other hearts surprise,
And other beauties envy Wortley's eyes;
Each pleasing Blount shall endless smiles bestow,
And soft Belinda's blush for ever glow.
Oh! lasting as those colours may they shine,
Free as thy stroke, yet faultless as thy line!
New graces yearly, like thy works, display;
Soft without weakness, without glaring gay;
Led by some rule, that guides, but not constrains;
And finished more through happiness than pains!
The kindred arts shall in their praise conspire,
One dip the pencil, and one string the lyre.
Yet should the Graces all thy figures place,
And breath an air divine on every face;
Yet should the Muses bid my numbers roll,
Strong as their charms, and gentle as their soul;
With Zeuxis' Helen thy Bridgewater vie,
And these be sung till Granville's Myra die;
Alas! how little from the grave we claim?
Thou but preservest a Form, and I a Name.
Fresnoy employed above twenty years in finishing this poem.
WHEN Dryden, worn with sickness, bowed with years,
Was doomed (my friend, let pity warm thy tears,)
The galling pang of penury to feel,
For ill-placed loyalty, and courtly zeal;
To see that laurel which his brows o'erspread,
Transplanted droop on Shadwell's barren head,
The bard oppressed, yet not subdued by fate,
For very bread descended to translate;
And he, whose fancy, copious as his phrase,
Could light at will expression's brightest blaze,
On Fresnoy's lay employed his studious hour;
But niggard there of that melodious power,
His pen in haste the hireling task to close,
Transformed the studied strain to careless prose,
Which, fondly lending faith to French pretence,
Mistook its meaning, or obscured its sense.
Yet still he pleased, for Dryden still must please,
Whether with artless elegance and ease
He glides in prose, or from its tinkling chime,
By varied pauses, purifies his rhyme,
And mounts on Maro's plumes, and soars his heights subline.
This artless elegance, this native fire,
Provoked his tuneful heir to strike the lyre,
Who, proud his numbers with that prose to join,
Wove an illustrious wreath for friendship's shrine.
How oft, on that fair shrine when poets bind
The flowers of song, does partial passion blind
Their judgment's eye! How oft does truth disclaim
The deed, and scorn to call it genuine fame!
How did she here, when Jervas was the theme,
Waft through the ivory gate the poet's dream!
How view, indignant, error's base alloy
The sterling lustre of his praise destroy,
Which now, if praise like his my muse could coin,
Current through ages, she would stamp for thine!
Let friendship, as she caused, excuse the deed;
With thee, and such as thee, she must succeed.
But what if fashion tempted Pope astray?
The witch has spells, and Jervas knew a day,
When mode-struck belles and beaux were proud to come,
And buy of him a thousand years of bloom.
Even then I deem it but a venal crime;
Perish alone that selfish sordid rhyme,
Which flatters lawless sway, or tinsel pride;
Let black oblivion plunge it in her tide.
From fate like this my truth-supported lays,
Even if aspiring to thy pencil's praise,
Would flow secure; but humbler aims are mine;
Know, when to thee I consecrate the line,
'Tis but to thank thy genius for the ray,
Which pours on Fresnoy's rules a fuller day;
Those candid strictures, those reflections new,
Refined by taste, yet still as nature true,
Which, blended here with his instructive strains,
Shall bid thy art inherit new domains;
Give her in Albion as in Greece to rule,
And guide (what thou hast formed) a British school.
And O, if aught thy poet can pretend
Beyond his favourite wish to call thee friend,
Be it that here his tuneful toil has drest
The muse of Fresnov in a modern vest;
And, with what skill his fancy could bestow,
Taught the close folds to take an easier flow;
Be it, that here thy partial smile approved,
The pains he lavished on the art he loved.
Ir may be reasonably expected that I should say something on my own behalf, in respect to my present undertaking. First, then, the reader may be pleased to know, that it was not of my own choice that I undertook this work. Many of our most skilful painters, and other artists, were pleased to recommend this author to me, as one who perfectly understood the rules of painting; who gave the best and most concise instructions for performance, and the surest to inform the judgment of all who loved this noble art: that they who before, were rather fond of it, than knowingly admired it, might defend their inclination by their reason; that they might understand those excellencies which they blindly valued, so as not to be farther imposed on by bad pieces, and to know when nature was well imitated by the most able masters. It is true indeed, and they acknowledge it, that beside the rules
which are given in this treatise, or which can be given in any other, to make a perfect judgment of good pictures, and to value then more or less, when compared with one another, there is farther required a long conversation with the best pieces, which are not very frequent either in France or England; yet some we have, not only from the hands of Holbein, Rubens, and Vandyck, (one of them admirable for history-painting, and the other two for portraits,) but of many Flemish masters, and those not inconsiderable, though for design not equal to the Italians. And of these latter also, we are not unfurnished with some pieces of Raphaell, Titian, Correggio, Michael Angelo, and others.
But to return to my own undertaking of this translation. I freely own that I thought myself incapable of performing it, either to their satisfaction, or my own credit. Not but that I understood the original Latin, and the French author, perhaps as well as most Englishmen ; but I was not sufficiently versed in the terms of art; and therefore thought that many of those persons who put this honourable task on me, were more able to perform it themselves,-as undoubtedly they were. But they, assuring me of their assistance in correcting my faults where I spoke improperly, I was encouraged to attempt it, that I might not be wanting in what I could, to satisfy the desires of so many gentlemen, who were willing to give the world this useful work. They have effectually performed their promise to me, and I have been as careful, on my side, to take their advice in all things; so that the reader may assure himself of a tolerable translation, not elegant, for I proposed not that to myself, but familiar, clear, and instructive in any of which parts if I have failed, the fault lies wholly at my door. In this one particular only, I
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