Poems (1810) :: :: University of Virginia Library

To Whitton's shades, and Hounslow's airy plain,
Thou, Kneller, tak'st thy summer flights in vain,
In vain thy wish gives all thy rural hours
To the fair villa, and well-order'd bowers;
To court thy pencil early at thy gates,
Ambition knocks, and fleeting Beauty waits;
The boastful Muse, of others' fame so sure,
Implores thy aid to make her own secure;
The great, the fair, and, if aught nobler be,
Aught more belov'd, the Arts solicit thee.

How canst thou hope to fly the world, in vain
From Europe sever'd by the circling main;
Sought by the kings of every distant land,
And every hero worthy of thy hand?
Hast thou forgot that mighty Bourbon fear'd
He still was mortal, till thy draught appear'd?
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;
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,
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.
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,
Or on thy palette lie the blendid 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;
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 unsubdued by age!
Though wealth, nor fame, now touch thy sated mind,
Still tinge the canvas, bounteous to mankind;
Since after thee may rise an impious line,
Coarse manglers of the human face divine,
Paint on, till Fate dissolve thy mortal part,
And live and die the monarch of thy art.