WHEN Dryden, worn with sickness, bow'd with years,

Was doom'd (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 oppress'd, 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 employ'd his studious hour;
But niggard there of that melodious power,
His pen in haste the hireling task to close,
Transform'd the studied strain to careless prose,
Which, fondly lending faith to French pretence,
Mistook its meaning, orbscured 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 sublime.

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 dis

cla:in

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, indignan 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 form'd) a British
school.

And oh, 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 that 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 lavish'd on the art he lovea.

A. MASON.

1

It 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 them 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 Raphael, 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 at tempt it, that I might not be wanting in what I could, to satisfy the desires of so many gentle men, 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 must beg the reader's pardon. The prose translation of this poem is not free from poetical expressions, and I dare not promise that some of them are not fustian, or at least highly metaphorical; but this being a fault in the first digestion, (that is, the original Latin,) was not to be remedied in the second, viz. the translation. And I may confidently say, that whoever had attempted it must have fallen into the same inconvenience, or a much greater, that of a false version.

When I undertook this work, I was already engaged in the translation of Virgil,* from whom I have borrowed only two months; and am now returning to that which I ought to understand better. In the mean time, I beg the reader's pardon for entertaining him so long with myself: it is a usual part of ill manners in all authors, and almost in all mankind, to trouble others with their business; and I was so sensible of it beforehand, that I had not now committed it, unless some concernments of the reader's had been interwoven with my own. But I know not, while I am atoning for one error, if I am not falling into another; for I have been importuned to say something farther of this art; and to make some observations on it, in relation to the likeness and agreement which it has with poetry, its sister. But before I proceed, it will not be amiss, if I copy from Bellori, (a most ingenious author yet

Our author began his translation of Virgil in the preceding year, 1694.—Malone.

living,) some part of his idea of a painter,* which cannot be unpleasing, at least to such who are conversant in the philosophy of Plato; and, to avoid tediousness, I will not translate the whole discourse, but take and leave as I find occasion.

"God Almighty, in the fabric of the universe, first contemplated himself, and reflected on his own excellencies; from which he drew and constituted those first forms which are called ideas; so that every species which was afterwards expressed, was produced from that first idea, forming that wonderful contexture of all created beings.

But the celestial bodies above the moon being incorruptible, and not subject to change, remained for ever fair and in perpetual order. On the contrary, all things which are sublunary, are subject to change, to deformity, and to decay. And though nature always intends a consummate beauty in her productions, yet through the inequality of the matter, the forms are altered; and in particular, human beauty suffers alteration for the worse, as we see to our mortification, in the deformities and disproportions which are in us. For which reason, the artful painter and the sculptor, imitating the Divine Maker, form to themselves, as well as they are able, a model of the superior beauties; and reflecting on them, endeavour to correct and amend the common nature, and to represent it as it was at first created, without fault, either in colour or in linea

ment.

"This idea, which we may call the goddess of painting and of sculpture, descends upon the marble and the cloth, and becomes the original of those arts; and being measured by the compass of the intellect, is itself the measure of the performing hand; and being animated by the imagination, infuses life into the image. The idea of the painter and the sculptor is undoubt edly that perfect and excellent example of the mind, by imitation of which imagined form all things are represented which fall under human sight; such is the definition which is made by Cicero in his book of the "Orator" to Brutus:

As therefore in forms and figures there is somewhat which is excellent and perfect, to which imagined species all things are referred by imitation, which are the objects of sight, in like manner we behold the species of eloquence in our minds, the effigies or actual image of

In May, 1664, Gio. Pietro Bellori read a discourse in the Academy of St. Luke at Rome, (Carlo Maratti being then president,) entitled-L'Idea del Pittore, dello Scultore, e dell' Architetto, scelta dalle bellezze naturali superiore alla, Natura. This discourse, from which the following extract is taken, was afterwards prefixed to Le Vite de Pittore, &c. by the same author, printed at Rome in 4to. 1672.- Malone.

which we seek in the organs of our hearing. This is likewise confirmed by Proclus in the dialogue of Plato, called "Timæus." If, says he, you take a man as he is made by nature, and compare him with another, who is the effect of art, the work of nature will always appear the less beautiful, because art is more accurate than nature.' But Zeuxis, who, from the choice which he made of five virgins, drew that wonderful picture of Helena, which Cicero in his "Orator" before mentioned, sets before us as the most perfect example of beauty, at the same time admonishes a painter, to contemplate the ideas of the most natural forms, and to make a judicious choice of several bodies, all of them the most elegant which he can find; by which we may plainly understand, that he thought it impossible to find in any one body all those perfections which he sought for the accomplishment of a Helena, because nature in any individual person makes nothing that is perfect in all its parts. For this reason, Maximus Tyrius also says, that the image which is taken by a painter from several bodies, produces a beauty which it is impossible to find in any single natural body, approaching to the perfection of the fairest statues. Thus nature on this account is so much inferior to art, that those artists who propose to themselves only the imitation and likeness of such or such a particular person, without election of those ideas before mentioned, have often been reproached for that omission. Demetrius was taxed for being too natural; Dionysius was also blamed for drawing men like us, and was commonly called ȧvIpwróɣpalos, that is, a painter of men. In our times, Michael Angelo da Caravaggio was esteemed too natural. He drew persons as they were; and Bamboccio, and most of the Dutch painters, have drawn the worst likeness. Lysippus of old upbraided the common sort of sculptors, for making men such as they were found in nature; and boasted of himself, that he made them as they ought to be: which is a precept of Aristotle, given as well to poets as to painters. Phidias raised an admiration, even to astonishment, in those who beheld his statues, with the forms which he gave to his gods and heroes, by imitating the idea, rather than nature. And Cicero, speaking of him, affirms, that figuring Jupiter and Pallas, he did not contemplate any object from whence he took the likeness, but considered in his own mind a great and admirable form of beauty; and according to that image in his soul, he directed the operation of his hand. Seneca also seems to wonder, that Phidias, having never beheld either Jove, or Pallas, yet could conceive their divine images in his mind.

Apollonius Tyanæus says the same in other words, that the fancy more instructs the painter, than the imitation; for the 'ast makes only the things which it sees, but the irst makes also the things which it never sees.

"Leon Battista Alberti tells us, that we ought not so much to love the likeness as the beauty, and to choose from the fairest bodies severally the fairest parts. Leonardo da Vinci instructs the painter to form this idea to hunself; and Raffaelle, the greatest of all modern masters, writes thus to Castiglione, concerning his Galatea: To paint a fair one, it is necessary for me to see many fair ones; but because there is so great a scarcity of lovely women, I am constrained to make use of one certain idea, which I have formed to myself in my own fancy.' Guido Rheni sending to Rome his St. Michael, which he had painted for the church of the Capuchins, at the same time wrote to Monsignor Massano, who was Maestro di Casa, (or Sieward of the House,) to Pope Urban the Eighth, in this manner: I wish I had the wings of an angel, to have ascended into Paradise, and there to have beheld the forms of those beautiful spirits, from which I might have copied my archangel. But not being able to mount so high, it was in vain for me to search his resemblance here below; so that I was forced to make an introspection into my own mind, and into that idea of beauty which I have formed in my own imagination. I have likewise created there the contrary idea of deformity and ugliness; but I leave the consideration of it, till I paint the devil; and in the mean time shun the very thought of it as much as possibly I can, and am even endeavouring to blot it wholly out of my remembrance.'

"There was not any lady in all antiquity, who was mistress of so much beauty as was to be found in the Venus of Gnidus, made by Praxiteles, or the Minerva of Athens, by Phidias; which was therefore called the beautiful form. Neither is there any man of the present age equal in the strength, proportion, and knitting of his limbs, to the Hercules of Farnese, made by Glycon or any woman, who can justly be compared with the Medicean Venus of Cleo menes. And upon this account, the noblest poets and the best orators, when they desire to celebrate any extraordinary beauty, are forced to have recourse to statues and pictures, and to draw their persons and faces into comparison. Ovid, endeavouring to express the beauty of Cyllarus, the fairest of the Centaurs, celebrates him as next in perfection to the most admirable

statues:

Gratus in ore vigor, cervix, humerique, manusque, Pectoraque artificum laudatis proxima signis.

A pleasing vigour his fair face express'd;
His neck, his hands, his shoulders, and his breast,
Did next in gracefulness and beauty, stand
To breathing figures of the sculptor's hand.

In another place he sets Apelles above Venus:

Si Venerem Cous nunquam pinxisset Apelles,
Mersa sub æquoreis illa lateret aquis.

Thus varied:

One birth to seas the Cyprian goddess owed,
A second birth the painter's art bestow d:
Less by the seas than by his power was given;
They made her live, but he advanced to Leaven.

"The idea of this beauty is inde various, according to the several forms which the painter or sculptor would describe; as one in strength, another in magnanimity: and sometimes it consists in cheerfulness, and sometimes in delicacy, and is always diversified by the sex and age.

"The beauty of Jove is one, and inat of Jura another; Hercules and Cupid are perfect beauties, though of different kinds; for beauty is only that which makes all things as they are in their proper and perfect nature, which the best painters always choose by contemplating the forms of each. We ought farther to consider, that a picture being the representation of a human action, the painter ought to retain in his mind the examples of all affections and passions, as a poel preserves the idea of an angry man, of one who is fearful, sad, or merry, and so of all the rest; for it is impossible to express that with the hand which never entered into the imagination. In this manner, as I have rudely and briefly shown you, painters and sculptors, choosing the most elegant natural beauties, perfectionate the idea, and advance their art even above nature itself in her individual productions; which is the utmost mastery of human performance. "From hence arises that astonishment, and almost adoration, which is paid by the knowing to those divine remainder of antiquity. From hence Phidias, Lysippus, and other noble sculptors, are still held in veneration; and Apelles, Zeuxis, Protogenes, and other admirable painters, though their worls are perished, are and will be eternally admired; who all of them drew after the ideas of perfection, which are the miracles of nature, this providence of the understanding, the exemplars of e mind, the light of the fancy; the sun, which from its rising, inspired the statue of Mernor and the fire which warmed into life the image of Prometheus. It is this which c the Graces and the Loves to take up thei abitations in the hardest marble, and to subsist in the emptiness of light and shadows. But since the idea of eloquence is as far infe rior to that of painting, as the force of words is