But what if fashion tempted Pope astray?

The witch has spells, and Jervas knew a day,

When mode-struck belles and beaux were proud to come,
And buy of him a thousand years of bloom.
Even then I deem it but a venal crime;
Perish alone that selfish sordid rhyme,
Which flatters lawless sway, or tinsel pride;
Let black oblivion plunge it in her tide.
From fate like this my truth-supported lays,
Even if aspiring to thy pencil's praise,

Would flow secure; but humbler aims are mine;
Know, when to thee I consecrate the line,

'Tis but to thank thy genius for the ray,

Which pours on Fresnoy's rules a fuller day;

Those candid strictures, those reflections new,

Refined by taste, yet still as nature true,

Which, blended here with his instructive strains,
Shall bid thy art inherit new domains;

Give her in Albion as in Greece to rule,

And guide (what thou hast formed) a British school.
And O, if aught thy poet can pretend

Beyond his favourite wish to call thee friend,
Be it that here his tuneful toil has drest
The muse of Fresnoy in a modern vest;
And, with what skill his fancy could bestow,
Taught the close folds to take an easier flow;
Be it, that here thy partial smile approved,
The pains he lavished on the art he loved.

[PREFACE OF THE TRANSLATOR, WITH]

A

PARALLEL

OF

POETRY AND PAINTING.

IT may be reasonably expected that I should say something on my own behalf, in respect to my present undertaking. First, then, the reader may be pleased to know, that it was not of my own choice that I undertook this work. Many of our most skilful painters, and other artists, were pleased to recommend this author to me, as one who perfectly understood the rules of painting; who gave the best and most concise instructions for performance, and the surest to inform the judgment of all who loved this noble art: that they who before were rather fond of it, than knowingly admired it, might defend their inclination by their reason; that they might understand those excellencies which they blindly valued, so as not to be farther imposed on by bad pieces, and to know when nature was well imitated by the most able masters. It is true, indeed, and they acknowledge it, that beside the rules which are given in this treatise, or

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T

which can be given in any other, to make a perfect judgment of good pictures, and to value them more or less, when compared with one another, there is farther required a long conversation with the best pieces, which are not very frequent either in France or England; yet some we have, not only from the hands of Holbein, Rubens, and Vandyck (one of them admirable for history-painting, and the other two for portraits), but of many Flemish masters, and those not inconsiderable, though for design not equal to the Italians. And of these latter also, we are not unfurnished with some pieces of Raphaell, Titian, Correggio, Michael Angelo, and others.

But to return to my own undertaking of this translation. I freely own that I thought myself incapable of performing it, either to their satisfaction, or my own credit. Not but that I understood the original Latin, and the French author, perhaps as well as most Englishmen; but I was not sufficiently versed in the terms of art; and therefore thought that many of those persons who put this honourable task on me, were more able to perform it themselves,-as undoubtedly they were. But they, assuring me of their assistance in correcting my faults where I spoke improperly, I was encouraged to attempt it, that I might not be wanting in what I could, to satisfy the desires of so many gentlemen, who were willing to give the world this useful work. They have effectually performed their promise to me, and I have been as careful, on my side, to take their advice in all things; so that the reader may assure himself of a tolerable translation, not elegant, for I proposed not that to myself, but familiar, clear, and instructive in any of which parts if I have failed, the fault lies wholly at my door. In this one particular only, I must beg the reader's pardon. The prose

translation of this poem is not free from poetical expressions, and I dare not promise that some of them are not fustian, or at least highly metaphorical; but this being a fault in the first digestion (that is, the original Latin), was not to be remedied in the second, viz. the translation. And I may confidently say, that whoever had attempted it must have fallen into the same inconvenience, or a much greater, that of a false version.

When I undertook this work, I was already engaged in the translation of Virgil,* from whom I have borrowed only two months; and am now returning to that which I ought to understand better. In the meantime I beg the reader's pardon, for entertaining him so long with myself: it is an usual part of ill manners in all authors, and almost in all mankind, to trouble others with their business; and I was so sensible of it beforehand, that I had not now committed it, unless some concernments of the reader's had been interwoven with my own. But I know not, while I am atoning for one error, if I am not falling into another; for I have been importuned to say something farther of this art; and to make some observations on it, in relation to the likeness and agreement which it has with poetry, its sister. But before I proceed, it will not be amiss, if I copy from Bellori (a most ingenious author yet living) some part of his idea of a painter,+ which

* Our author began his translation of Virgil in the preceding year, 1694.-MALONE.

† In May 1664, Gio. Pietro Bellori read a discourse in the Academy of St. Luke at Rome (Carlo Maratti being then president) entitled-L'Idea del Pittore, dello Scultore, e dell' Architetto, scelta dalle bellezze naturali superiore alla Natura. This discourse, from which the following extract is taken, was afterwards prefixed to Le Vite de Pittore, etc. by the same author, printed at Rome in 4to, 1672.-MALONE.

cannot be unpleasing, at least to such who are conversant in the philosophy of Plato; and, to avoid tediousness, I will not translate the whole discourse, but take and leave as I find occasion.

"God Almighty, in the fabric of the universe, first contemplated himself, and reflected on his own excellencies; from which he drew and constituted those first forms which are called ideas; so that every species which was afterwards expressed, was produced from that first idea, forming that wonderful contexture of all created beings. But the celestial bodies above the moon being incorruptible, and not subject to change, remained for ever fair, and in perpetual order. On the contrary, all things which are sublunary are subject to change, to deformity, and to decay. And though nature always intends a consummate beauty in her productions, yet through the inequality of the matter, the forms are altered; and in particular, human beauty suffers alteration for the worse, as we see to our mortification, in the deformities and disproportions which are in us. For which reason, the artful painter and the sculptor, imitating the Divine Maker, form to themselves, as well as they are able, a model of the superior beauties; and reflecting on them, endeavour to correct and amend the common nature, and to represent it as it was at first created, without fault, either in colour, or in lineament.

"This idea, which we may call the goddess of painting and of sculpture, descends upon the marble and the cloth, and becomes the original of those arts; and being measured by the compass of the intellect, is itself the measure of the performing hand; and being animated by the imagination, infuses life into the image. The idea of the painter and the sculptor is undoubtedly that