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racter of his style, which we do not pretend to set forth as of the most simple and sublime kind.

The difference of the manner of Rubens, from that of any other painter before him, is in nothing more distinguishable, than in his colouring, which is totally different from that of Titian, Correggio, or any of the great colourists. The effect of his pictures may be not improperly compared to clusters of flowers; all his colours appear as clear and as beautiful: at the same time he has avoided that tawdry effect which one would expect such gay colours to produce: in this respect resembling Barocci more than any other painter. What was said of an ancient painter, may be applied to those two artists, that their figures look as if they fed upon roses.

It would be a curious and a profitable study for a painter to examine the difference and the cause of that difference of effect in the works of Correggio and Rubens, both excellent in different ways. The preference probably would be given according to the different habits of the connoisseur: those who had received their first impressions from the works of Rubens would censure Correggio as heavy; and the admirers of Correggio would say Rubens wanted solidity of effect. There is lightness, airiness, and facility in Rubens, his advocates will urge, and comparatively a laborious heaviness in Correggio: whose admirers will complain of Rubens's manner being careless and unfinished, whilst the works of Correggio are wrought to the highest degree of delicacy and what may be advanced in favour of Correggio's breadth of light will by his censurers be called affected and pedantic. It must be observed that we are speaking solely of the manner, the effect of the picture; and we may conclude, according to the custom in pastoral

236 A JOURNEY TO FLANDERS AND HOLLAND.

poetry, by bestowing on each of these illustrious painters a garland, without attributing superiority to either.

To conclude: I will venture to repeat in favour of Rubens, what I have before said in regard to the Dutch school,- that those who cannot see the extraordinary merit of this great painter, either have a narrow conception of the variety of art, or are led away by the affectation of approving nothing but what comes from the Italian school.

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

TO

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,

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, or obscur'd its sense.

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.

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