THE ART OF PAINTING, OF CHARLES ALPHONSE DU FRESNOY; TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH VERSE BY WILLIAM MASON, M.A. WITH ANNOTATIONS BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. EPISTLE ΤΟ SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 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, For To see that laurel which his brows o'erspread, Yet still he pleas'd, 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 * 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 judgement'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! Mr. Pope, in his Epistle to Jervas, has these lines: |