With Mr DRYDEN's Trauflation of FRESNOY'S Art of Painting.
HIS Verse be thine, my friend, nor thou refuse
This, from no venal or ungrateful Muse,
Whether thy hand strike out some free defign,
Where Life awakes, and dawns at ev'ry line;
Or blend in beauteous tints the colour'd mass,
And from the canvas call the mimic face:
Read these inftructive leaves, in which conspire
Frefnoy's clofe Art, and Dryden's native Fire:
And reading wish, like theirs, our fate and fame,
So mix'd our studies, and fo join'd our name;
Like them to fhine thro' long fucceeding age,
So just thy fkill, fo regular my rage.
. Smit with the love of Sifter-Arts we came, And met congenial, mingling flame with flame;
Epift. to Mr Jervas.] This Epistle, and the two following were written fome years before the reft, and originally printed in 1717.
Like friendly colours found them both unite,
And each from each contract new ftrength and light.
How oft in pleafing tasks we wear the day,
While fummer-funs roll unperceiv'd away?
How oft' our flowly-growing works impart,
While Images reflect from art to art?
How oft review; each finding like a friend
Something to blame, and fomething to commend!
What flatt'ring fcenes our wand'ring fancy
wrought,
Rome's pompous glories rifing to our thought!
Together o'er the Alps methinks we fly,
Fir'd with Ideas of fair Italy.
With thee, on Raphael's Monument I mourn,
Or wait inspiring Dreams at Maro's Urn:
With thee repose, where Tully once was laid,
Or feek fome Ruin's formidable fhade:
While fancy brings the vanish'd piles to view,
And builds imaginary Rome a-new,
Here thy well-ftudy'd marbles fix our eye;
A fading Frefco here demands a figh:
Each heav'nly piece unwearied we compare,
Match Raphael's grace with thy lov'd Guido's air,
Caracci's ftrength, Correggio's foster line,
Paulo's free ftroke, and Titian's warmth divine.
How finish'd with illustrious toil appears
This fmall, well-polifh'd Gem, the work of years? U u
Frefnoy employed above twenty years in finishing his Poem.
Yet still how faint by precept is exprest
The living image in the painter's breast?
Thence endless ftreams of fair Ideas flow,
Strike in the sketch, or in the picture glow;
Thence beauty, waking all her forms, supplies
An Angel's fweetnefs, or Bridgewater's eyes.
Mufe! at that Name thy facred forrows shed,
Thofe tears eternal, that embalm the dead:
Call round her Tomb each object of defire,
Each purer frame inform'd with purer fire:
Bid her be all that chears or foftens life,
The tender fifter, daughter, friend, and wife:
Bid her be all that makes mankind adore;
Then view this Marble, and be vain no more!
Yet ftill her charms in breathing paint engage; 55
Her modeft cheek fhall warm a future age.
Beauty, frail flow'r that ev'ry feafon fears,
Blooms in thy colours for a thousand years.
Thus Churchill's race fhall other hearts furprize,
And other Beauties envy Worfley's eyes;
Each pleasing Blount fhall endless fimiles bestow,
And foft Belinda's blush for ever glow.
Oh lafting as thofe Colours may they fhine,
Free as thy ftroke, yet faultlefs as thy line;
New graces yearly like thy works display,
Soft without weakness, without glaring gay;
Led by fome rule, that guides, but not constrains;
And finish'd more thro' happiness than pains.
The kindred Arts fhall in their praise confpire,
One dip the pencil, and one ftring 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 foul;
With Zeuxis' Helen thy Bridgewater vie,
And these be fung 'till Granvill's Myra dye:
Alas! how little from the grave we claim !
Thou but preferv'ft a Face, and I a Name.
With the WORKS of VOITURE.
N these gay thoughts the Loves and Graces shine,
thee gay writer lives in ev'ry line;
His eafy Art may happy Nature feem,
Trifles themselves are elegant in him.
Sure to charm all was his peculiar fate,
Who without flatt'ry pleas'd the fair and great:
Still with esteem no lefs convers'd than read;
With wit well-natur'd, and with books well-bred :
His heart, his mistress, and his friend did share,
His time, the Mufe, the witty and the fair.
Thus wifely careless, innocently gay,
Chearful he play'd the trifle, Life, away;
'Till fate fcarce felt his gentle breath fuppreft,
As fmiling Infants fport themselves to reft.
Ev'n rival Wits did Voiture's death deplore,
And the gay mourn'd who never mourn'd before;
The trueft hearts for Voiture heav'd with fighs,
Voiture was wept by all the brightest Eyes:
The Smiles and Loves had dy'd in Voiture's death,
But that for ever in his lines they breathe.
Let the ftrict life of graver mortals be
A long, exact, and ferious Comedy;
In ev'ry scene fome Moral let it teach,
And, if it can, at once both please and preach.
Let mine, an innocent gay farce appear,
And more diverting still than regular,
Have Humour, Wit, a native Ease and Grace,
Though not too strictly bound to Time and Place:
Critics in Wit, or Life, are hard to please,
Few write to thofe, and none can live to thefe.
Too much your Sex is by their forins confin'd,
Severe to all, but moft to Womankind;
Custom, grown blind with Age, muft be your guide;
Your pleasure is a vice, but not your pride;
By Nature yielding, ftubborn but for fame;
Made Slaves by honour, and made Fools by fhame. Marriage may all thofe petty Tyrants chafe,
But fets up one, a greater in their place;
Well might you wish for change by thofe accurft,
But the laft Tyrant ever proves the worst.
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