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The Poems of Winthrop Mackworth Praed

With a Memoir by the Rev. Derwent Coleridge. Fourth Edition. In Two Volumes

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121

I like him hugely!—well I wis,
No despicable skill is his,
Whether his sportive canvass shows
Arabia's sands or Zembla's snows,
A lion, or a bed of lilies,
Fair Caroline, or fierce Achilles;
I love to see him taking down
A schoolfellow's unconscious frown,
Describing twist, grimace, contortion,
In most becoming disproportion,
While o'er his merry paper glide
Rivers of wit; and by his side
Caricatura takes her stand,
Inspires the thought and guides the hand;
I love to see his honoured books
Adorned with rivulets and brooks;
Troy frowning with her ancient towers,
Or Ida gay with fruits and flowers;
I love to see fantastic shapes,
Dragons and griffins, birds and apes,
And pigmy forms, and forms gigantic,
Forms natural, and forms romantic,
Of dwarfs and ogres, dames and knights,
Scrawled by the side of Homer's fights,
And portraits daubed on Maro's poems,
And profiles penned to Tully's Proems;
In short, I view with partial eyes
Whate'er my brother painter tries.

122

To each belongs his own utensil;
I sketch with pen, as he with pencil;
And each, with pencil or with pen,
Hits off a likeness now and then.
He drew me once—the spiteful creature!
'Twas voted—“like in every feature;”
It might have been so!—('twas lopsided,
And squinted worse than ever I did:)
However, from that hapless day
I owed the debt, which here I pay;
And now I'll give my friend a hint;—
Unless you want to shine in print,
Paint lords and ladies, nymphs and fairies,
And demigods, and dromedaries;
But never be an author's creditor,
Nor paint the picture of an Editor!