Carracci's strength, Correggio's softer line, Paulo's free stroke, and Titian's warmth divinę. How finish'd with illustrious toil appears This small, well-polish'd Gem, the* work of years! Yet still how faint by precept is exprest 41 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 45 An Angel's sweetness, or Bridgewater's eyes. Muse! at that Name thy sacred forrows shed, Those tears eternal, that embalm the dead : Call round her Tomb each object of desire, Each purer frame inform'd with purer 50 Yet still her charms in breathing paint engage; Her modest cheek shall warm a future age. 56 Beauty, frail flow'r that ev'ry season fears, Blooms in thy colours for a thousand years. Thus Churchill's race shall other hearts surprize, And other Beauties envy Worsley's eyes ; 60 NOT E s. * Fresooy employed above twenty Years in finishing his Poem. P. Each pleasing Blount Mall endless smiles bestow, And foft Belinda's blush for ever glow. Oh laiting as those Colours may they shine, Free as thy stroke, yet faultless as thy line; New graces yearly like thy works display, 65 Soft without weakness, without glaring gay; Led by some rule, that guides, but not constrains; And finish'd more thro' happiness than pains. The kindred Arts shall in their praise conspire, One dip the pencil, and one string the lyre. 70 Yet should the Graces all thy figures place, And breathe an air divine on ev'ry face; Yet thould the Muses bid my numbers roll Strong as their charms, and gentle as their soul; With Zeuxis' Helen thy Bridgewater vie, 75 And these be sung till Granville's Myra die: Alas! how little from the grave we claim! Thou but preserv'it a Face, and I a Name. E P I S T L E To Mrs. BLOUNT, With the WORKS of VOITURE. IN N these gay thoughts the Loves and Graces shine, And all the Writer lives in ev'ry line ; His easy Art may happy Nature seem, Trifles themselves are elegant in him. Sure to charm all was his peculiar fate, 5 Who without flatt’ry pleas'd the fair and great ; Still with esteem no less convers’d than read; With wit well-natur’d, and with books well-bred: His heart, his mistress, and his friend did share, His time, the Muse, the witty, and the fair. Thus wisely careless, innocently gay, Chearful he play'd the trifle, Life, away; 'Till fate scarce felt his gentle breath supprest, As smiling Infants sport themselves to rest. Ev'n rival Wits did Voiture's death deplore, 15 And the gay mourn'd who never mourn'd before; Vol. VI. E IO 20 farce appear, The truest hearts for Voiture heav'd with sighs, Let the strict life of graver mortals be 25 And more diverting still than regular, Have Humour, Wit, a native Ease and Grace, Tho' not too strictly bound to Time and Place: Critics in Wit, or Life, are hard to please, Few write to those, and none can live to these. 30 Too much your Sex is by their forms confin’d, Severe to all, but most to Womankind; Custom, grown blind with Age, must be your guide; Your pleasure is a vice, but not your pride; By Nature yielding, stubborn but for fame; 35 Made Slaves by honour, and made Fools by shame. Marriage may all those petty Tyrants chase, But sets up one, a greater in their place : Well might you wish for change by those accurst, ·But the last Tyrant ever proves the worst. 40 Still in constraint your suff'ring Sex remains, The Gods, to curse Pamela with her pray’rs, But, Madam, if the fates withstand, and you Are destin'd Hymen's willing Victim too; Trust not too much your now resistless charms, Those, Age or Sickness, foon or late, disarms: 60 Good-humour only teaches charms to laft, Still makes new conquests, and maintains the past; Love, rais'd on Beauty, will like that decay, Our hearts may bear its slender chain a day; |