THE ART OF PAINTING, OF CHARLES ALPHONSE DU FRESNOY; TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH VERSE BY WILLIAM MASON, M. A. WITH ANNOTATIONS BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. VOL. III. EPISTLE то SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. WHEN Dryden, worn with sickness, bow'd with years, Was doom'd (my friend, let pity warm thy tears,) For ill-placed loyalty, and courtly zeal, And he, whose fancy, copious as his phrase, His prose, Which, fondly lending faith to French pretence, Mistook its meaning, or obscur'd its sense. Yet still he pleas'd, for Dryden still must please, Whether with artless elegance and ease He glides in prose, or from its tinkling chime, By varied pauses, purifies his rhyme, And mounts on Maro's plumes, and soars his heights sublime. This artless elegance, this native fire Provok'd his tuneful heir* to strike the lyre, Who, proud his numbers with that prose to join, Wove an illustrious wreath for friendship's shrine. How oft, on that fair shrine when Poets bind The flowers of song, does partial passion blind Their judgment's eye! How oft does truth disclaim The deed, and scorn to call it genuine fame! * Mr. Pope, in his epiftle to Jervas, has these lines: Read these instructive leaves, in which conspire |