EPISTLE VIII.

ΤΟ

MR. JERVAS,'

WITH DRYDEN'S TRANSLATION OF FRESNOY'S ART OF PAINTING."

THIS verse be thine, my friend, nor thou refuse
This, from no venal or ungrateful Muse.
Whether thy hand strike out some free design,
Where Life awakes, and dawns at every line;
Or blend in beauteous tints the coloured mass,
And from the canvas call the mimic face:
Read these instructive leaves, in which conspire
Fresnoy's close art, and Dryden's native Fire:
And reading wish, like theirs our fate and fame,
So mixed our studies, and so joined our name:

This Epistle and the two following were written some years before the rest, and originally printed in 1717.POPE. This Epistle was first printed in 1716. See Introductory Notes.

Charles Jervas (1675-1739), a pupil of Sir Godfrey Kneller, and after his death the most fashionable portrait painter of the day. Walpole says of him: "Between the badness of the age's taste, the dearth of good masters, and a fashionable reputation, Jervas sat at the top of his profession, and his own vanity thought no encomium disproportionate to his merit. Yet was he defective in drawing, colouring, composition, and even

10

in that most necessary, and perhaps most easy talent of a portrait painter, likeness. * * It is a well-known story of him that having succeeded happily in copying (he thought in surpassing) a picture of Titian, he looked first at the one and then at the other, and then with a parental complacency cried, 'Poor little Tit! how he would stare!'"

2 Charles Fresnoy (1613-1665), painter, and author of the celebrated poem, in Latin verse, The Art of Painting. It has also been translated by Mason, and published with the invaluable notes of Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Like them to shine through long succeeding age,
So just thy skill, so regular my rage.'

Smit with the love of Sister Arts we came,

Like friendly colours found them both unite,

And met congenial, mingling flame with flame;

15

And each from each contract new strength and light.

How oft in pleasing tasks we wear the day,

While summer suns roll unperceived away!"
How oft our slowly-growing works impart,
While images reflect from art to art;"
How oft review; each finding like a friend

Something to blame, and something to commend!

What flattering scenes our wandering fancy wrought,
Rome's pompous glories rising to our thought!
Together o'er the Alps methinks we fly,
Fired 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 seek some ruin's formidable shade:
While Fancy brings the vanished piles to view,
And builds imaginary Rome anew.'
Here thy well-studied marbles fix our eye:

A fading fresco here demands a sigh:

Each heavenly piece unwearied we compare,

Match Raphael's grace with thy loved Guido's air,
Carracci's strength, Correggio's softer line,

Paulo's free stroke, and Titian's warmth divine."

1 Rage, i.e. enthusiasm. So Cowley: Who brought green Poesy to a perfect age, And made that art which was a rage.

2 Sæpe dies sermone minor fuit; inque loquendum

Tarda per æstivos defuit hora dies. Ovid. Pont. x. 10, 37.-WAKEFIELD.

So, too, Callimachus, Elegy on Heracleitus:

ἐμνήσθην δ' ὅσσακις ἀμφοτέροι ἥλιον ἐν λέσχῃ κατεδύσαμεν.

How finished with illustrious toil appears

This small, well-polished gem, the work of years.'
Yet still how faint by precept is expressed
The living image in the painter's breast?
Thence endless streams of fair Ideas flow,
Strike in the sketch, or in the picture glow;
Thence Beauty, waking all her forms, supplies
An Angel's sweetness, or Bridgewater's eyes.*

Muse! at that Name thy sacred sorrows shed,
Those tears eternal, that embalm the dead:3
Call round her tomb each object of desire,
Each purer frame informed with purer fire;
Bid her be all that cheers or softens life,

The tender sister, daughter, friend and wife :
Bid her be all that makes mankind adore,
Then view this marble, and be vain no more!
Yet still her charms in breathing paint engage;
Her modest cheek shall warm a future age.
Beauty, frail flower that every season fears,
Blooms in thy colours for a thousand years.
Thus Churchill's race shall other hearts surprise,
And other Beauties envy Worsley's eyes;
Each pleasing Blount shall endless smiles bestow,
And soft Belinda's blush for ever glow."

1 Fresnoy employed above twenty years in finishing this poem.-POPE.

2 Elizabeth, Countess of Bridgewater, third daughter of the Duke of Marlborough. Jervas was, or imagined himself to be, vehemently in love with her. On one occasion, while gazing at her with admiration, he said: "I cannot help telling your Ladyship you have not a handsome ear."-"No? Pray, Mr. Jervas, what is a handsome ear?" Jervas then showed her his own. Lady Bridge water died of small-pox in 1714, aged 27.

3 Cowley in his Davideis has

Of men and ages past Seraiah read; Embalmed in long-lived history the dead. -WAKEFIELD.

4 The ladies intended were the four daughters of the Duke of Marlborough, Henrietta, Countess of Godolphin, afterwards Duchess of Marlborough; Anne, Countess of Sunderland; Elizabeth, Countess of Bridgewater; Mary, Duchess of Montagu; Frances, Lady Worsley, wife of Sir Robert Worsley, Bart., of Appuldercombe, in the Isle of Wight; and Arabella Fermor, heroine of the Rape of the Lock. WARTON. In the folio of 1717 and in the Epistle as

Oh lasting as those colours may they shine,
Free as thy stroke, yet faultless as thy line,
New graces yearly like thy works display,
Soft without weakness, without glaring gay;
Led by some rule that guides, but not constrains;
And finished more through happiness than pains.
The kindred Arts shall in their praise conspire,
One dip the pencil, and one string the lyre.
Yet should the Graces all thy figures place,
And breathe an air divine on every face;
Yet should the Muses bid my numbers roll
Strong as their charms, and gentle as their soul;
With Zeuxis' Helen thy Bridgewater vie,
And these be sung till Granville's Myra die :'
Alas! how little from the grave we claim,
Thou but preserv'st a Face, and I a Name.

printed with Fresnoy's Art of Painting,
published in 1716, "Wortley" stood
for "Worsley." Lady M. W. Montagu
was doubtless meant, but her name
was removed after her quarrel with
the poet.
Lady Worsley's eyes must
have been deserving of the praise
which Pope gives them. Swift says
to her in a letter dated 19 April,
1730: "How is our old friend
Mrs. Barton? (I forget her new
name). I saw her three years ago
at Court almost dwindled to an
echo, and hardly knew her; while
your eyes dazzled me as much as when
I first met them, which, considering

myself, is a greater compliment than you are aware of. I wish you may have grace to find it."

1 George Granville, afterwards Lord Lansdowne (1665-1735). Myra was the Countess of Newburgh of whom Granville was enamoured. Johnson says: "His verses to Mira, which are most frequently mentioned, have little in them of either art or nature, of the sentiments of a lover, or the language of a poet; there may be found now and then a happier effort; but they are commonly feeble and unaffecting, or forced and extravagant."

EPISTLE IX.

TO

MISS BLOUNT,

WITH THE WORKS OF VOITURE.