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 Provok'd 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 thro' 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 caus'd, excuse the deed; With thee, and such as thee, she must succeed. NOTE. *Mr. Pope, in his Epistle to Jervas, has these lines: Read these instructive leaves, in which conspire But what, if Fashion tempted Pope astray? The witch has spells, and Jervas knew a day Ev'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. From fate like this my truth-supported lays, Would flow secure: but humbler aims are mine; Which pours on Fresnoy's rules a fuller day: Refin❜d by taste, yet still as nature true, Which, blended here with his instructive strains, Give her in Albion as in Greece to rule, And guide (what thou hast form'd) a British School. NOTE. * Alluding to another couplet in the same Epistle : Beauty, frail flower, that every season fears, 6 EPISTLE TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Be it that here his tuneful toil has drest W. MASON. October 10, 1782. PREFACE. THE HE poem of M. du Fresnoy, when considered 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 such 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, NOTE. * Du Frenoi (Charles) né à Paris 1611, peintre et poëte. Son poëme de la Peinture a réussi auprès de ceux qui peuvent lire d'autres vers Latins que ceux du siècle d'Auguste. Siècle de Louis XIV. Tom I. |