Poems By Anthony Pasquin [i.e. John Williams]. Second Edition |
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AN EPIGRAMMATIC APOLOGY FOR Sir JOSHUA REYNOLDS. |
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AN EPIGRAMMATIC APOLOGY FOR Sir JOSHUA REYNOLDS.
Men aver that the tints of his pencil all fly,Be it drapery, flower, or feature;
The charge I own true, but that charge proves his art,
Dont Nature create her best works to depart?
And 'tis excellence, surely, you will not deny,
Where an artist can imitate Nature!
In the year 1768 Sir Joshua Reynolds painted a three quarter picture of the Earl of Drogheda: the peer was at that time very handsome, and the likeness presumed to be very great. Soon after the Earl visited the Continent, where he staid for several years, and acquired a bilious habit, which materially altered his complexion. His private concerns calling him to Ireland, he was not a little surprised to find, on his arrival at Moore Abbey, in the county of Kildare, that his portrait had sympathised with his body, and assumed a yellow hue, solely by the operations of time.
But, notwithstanding all his faults with respect to the fallible quality of his colours, I would not wish to be understood as thinking otherwise than very highly of Sir. Joshua's abilities: he has been accused of plagiarism, in borrowing from antient masters, especially by the late Mr. Hone, but there was more malignity than truth in the assertion. Not only candour but criticism must deny the force of the charge.—When a single posture is imitated from an historic picture and applied to a portrait in a different dress, and with new attributes, it is not plagiarism but quotation; and a quotation from a great author, with a novel application of the sense, has always been allowed to be an instance of parts and taste, and may possibly have more merit than the original. When the sons of Jacob imposed on their father by a false coat of Joseph, saying, “Know now whether this be thy son's coat or not;” they only asked a deceitful question, but that interrogation became wit, when Richard the first, on the pope reclaiming a bishop, whom the king had taken prisoner in battle, sent him the prelate's coat of mail, and, in the words of scripture, asked his holiness, Whether that was the coat of his son or not.—I admire Sir Joshua's satire and humour in reducing Holbien's swaggering and colossal haughtiness of Henry the eighth to the boyish jollity of Master Crewe. One prophecy I will venture to make: though Sir Joshua is not a plagiary himself he will beget a thousand: the grace and exuberance of his fancy will operate as the future grammar of portrait painters, and be considered as the best efforts of the English school.
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