Epistles.
135
That Cosmo chose thy glowing form to place
Amidst her masters of the Lombard race?
See on her Titian's and her Guido's urns
Her falling arts forlorn Hesperia mourns, 20
While Britain wins each garland from her brow,
Her wit and freedom first, her painting now.
Let the faint copier on old Tiber's shore,
Nor mean the task, each breathing bust explore,
Line after line with painful patience trace, 25
This Roman grandeur that Athenian grace;
Vain care of parts: if, impotent of soul,
Th' industrious workman fails to warm the whole,
Each theft betrays the marble whence it came,
And a cold statue stiffens in the frame. 30
Thee Nature taught, nor Art her aid deny'd,
The kindest mistress and the surest guide,
To catch a likeness at one piercing sight,
And place the fairest in the fairest light.
Ere yet thy pencil tries her nicer toils, 35
Or on thy palette lie the blended oils,
Thy careless chalk has half achiev'd thy art,
And her just image makes Cleora start.
A mind that grasps the whole is rarely found;
Half-learn'd, half-painters, and half-wits, abound. 40
Few like thy genius at proportion aim,
All great, all graceful, and throughout the same.
Such be thy life. O since the glorious rage
That fir'd thy youth flames unsubdu'd by age,
Amidst her masters of the Lombard race?
See on her Titian's and her Guido's urns
Her falling arts forlorn Hesperia mourns, 20
While Britain wins each garland from her brow,
Her wit and freedom first, her painting now.
Let the faint copier on old Tiber's shore,
Nor mean the task, each breathing bust explore,
Line after line with painful patience trace, 25
This Roman grandeur that Athenian grace;
Vain care of parts: if, impotent of soul,
Th' industrious workman fails to warm the whole,
Each theft betrays the marble whence it came,
And a cold statue stiffens in the frame. 30
Thee Nature taught, nor Art her aid deny'd,
The kindest mistress and the surest guide,
To catch a likeness at one piercing sight,
And place the fairest in the fairest light.
Ere yet thy pencil tries her nicer toils, 35
Or on thy palette lie the blended oils,
Thy careless chalk has half achiev'd thy art,
And her just image makes Cleora start.
A mind that grasps the whole is rarely found;
Half-learn'd, half-painters, and half-wits, abound. 40
Few like thy genius at proportion aim,
All great, all graceful, and throughout the same.
Such be thy life. O since the glorious rage
That fir'd thy youth flames unsubdu'd by age,
