How did she here, when Jervas was the theme, Current through ages, she would stamp for thine! Let friendship, as she caus'd, 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*. Ey'n 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. Alluding to another couplet in the same Epistle: From fate like this my truth-supported lays, Ev'n if aspiring to thy pencil's praise, Would flow secure: but humbler aims are mine; Give her in Albion as in Greece to rule, And guide (what thou hast form'd) 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 Fresnoy 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 approv❜d The pains he lavish'd on the art he lov❜d. W. MASON. OCT. 10, 1782. PREFACE. THE poem of M. du Fresnoy, when con sidered as a treatise on Painting, may unquestionably claim the merit of giving the leading principles of the art with more precision, conciseness, and accuracy, than any work of the kind that has either preceded or followed it; yet as it was published about the middle of the seventeenth century, many of the precepts it contains have been so frequently repeated by later writers, that they have lost the air of novelty, and will, consequently, now be held common; some of them too may, perhaps, not be so generally true as to claim the authority of absolute rules: Yet the reader of taste will always be pleased to see a Frenchman. holding out to his countrymen the study of nature, and the chaste models of antiquity, when (if we except Le Seur and Nicolo Poussin, who were Fresnoy's contemporaries) so few painters of that nation have regarded either of these archetypes. The modern artist also will be proud to emulate that simplicity of style, which this work has for more than a century recommended, and which, having only very lately got the better of fluttering drapery and theatrical attitude, is become one of the principal tests of picturesque excellence. But if the text may have lost somewhat of its original merit, the notes of M. du Piles, which have hitherto accompanied it, have lost much more. Indeed it may be doubted whether they ever had merit in any considerable degree. Certain it is that they contain such a parade of common-place quotation, with so small a degree of illustrative science, that I have thought proper to expel them from this edition, in order to make room for their betters. As to the poetical powers of my author, I do not suppose that these alone would ever have given him a place in the numerous libraries which he now holds; and I have, therefore, often wondered that M. de Voltaire, when he gave an account of the authors who appeared in the age of Louis XIV. should dismiss Fresnoy, with saying, in his decisive manner, that "his poem has succeeded with persons as could bear to read Latin verse," not of the Augustan age. This is the criticism of a mere Poet. Nobody, I should suppose, ever read Fresnoy to admire, or even criticise his versification, but either to be instructed by him as a Painter, or improved as a Virtuoso. such It was this latter motive only, I confess, that led me to attempt the following translation; which was begun in very early youth, with a double view of implanting in my own memory * Du Frenoi (Charles) né à Paris 1611, peintre & poete. Son poeme de la peinture a reussi aupres de ceux qui peuvent lire d'autres vers Latins que ceux du siecle d'Auguste. Siecle de Louis XIV. Tom. I. |