Like friendly colours found them both unite, While summer suns roll unperceiv'd away? How oft our slowly-growing works impart, How oft review; each finding like a friend, What flatt'ring scenes our wand'ring fancy wrought, Rome's pompous glories rising to our thought! Together o'er the Alps methinks we fly, Fir'd with ideas of fair Italy. With thee, on Raffaelle's monument I mourn, Match Raffaelle's grace with thy lov'd Guido's air, Paulo's free stroke, and Titian's warmth divine. How finish'd with illustrious toil appears This small, well-polish'd gem, the work of years! * Poem. Fresnoy employed above twenty years in finishing this Yet still how faint by precept is exprest Muse! at that name thy sacred sorrows shed, * In one of Dr. Warburton's editions of Pope, by which copy this has been corrected, the name is changed to Worsley. If that reading be not an error of the press, I suppose the poet altered the name after he had quarrelled with lady M. W. Montague, and being offended at her wit, thus revenged himself on her beauty. 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 finish'd 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 breathe an air divine on ev'ry 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 preserv'st a face, and I a name. A CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF PAINTERS, FROM THE REVIVAL OF THE ART TO THE BEGINNING OF THE LAST CENTURY. VOL. III. |