The Works of Peter Pindar [i.e. John Wolcot] ... With a Copious Index. To which is prefixed Some Account of his Life. In Four Volumes |
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SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.
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 | The Works of Peter Pindar [i.e. John Wolcot] |  |
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.[_]
Is it not astonishing that the life of so great a man
as Sir Joshua Reynolds should not have been
written? A painter who possessed more of the
charming art than almost any single professor that
ever existed.
But Fame proclaimeth Mr. James Boswell to be
big with the biography of this celebrated artist, and
ready to sink into the straw!
Is it not astonishing that the life of so great a man as Sir Joshua Reynolds should not have been written? A painter who possessed more of the charming art than almost any single professor that ever existed.
But Fame proclaimeth Mr. James Boswell to be big with the biography of this celebrated artist, and ready to sink into the straw!
He drops his nether lip, and rolls his eyes;
And roars, O Bozzy, Bozzy, spare the dead!
Raise not thy biographic guillotine;
Decapitate no more with that machine,
Nor frighten Horror with a second head:
Cease, Anthropophagus, to murder sleep
There is a wonderful energy as well as sonorous sublimity in this polysyllabic expression of the ghost of our immortal moralist and lexicographer, not obvious to the minora sidera of literature. The word anthropophagus is a derivative from the Greek, signifying man-eater; and Mr. James Boswell having regaled most plentifully on the carcase of Dr. Johnson, and meaning to make as hearty a meal on the body of Sir Joshua Reynolds, furnisheth the perturbed spectre with an appellative of fortunate propriety.
Of no great man has Bozzy now to boast;
Of no rich table now can Bozzy brag:
Indeed, like faded beauties, he will say,
‘Envy must own I've had my shining day.’—
What wert thou?—an illuminated rag!
Deep sunk in mournful solitude art thou!
Amidst thy small tin-box, so drear and dark,
No courted genius casts a lucky spark!
Nothing to gild thy solitary tinder,
Save the rude flint and steel of Peter Pindar.
| The Works of Peter Pindar [i.e. John Wolcot] | |