Thus write the painters of this isle ; She said, and to his hand restor'd The dullest genius cannot fail To find the moral of my tale; That the distinguish'd part of men, With compass, pencil, sword, or pen, Should in life's visit leave their name In characters which may proclaim That they with ardour strove to raise At once their arts and country's praise ; And in their working, took great care That all was full, and round, and fair. Protogenes and A pelles. When poets wrote and painters drew, As nature pointed out the view; Ere Gothic forms were known in Greece, To spoil the well-proportion'd piece; And in our verse ere monkish rhymes Had jangled their fantastic chimes ; Ere on the flowery lands of Rhodes, Those knights had fixed their dull abodes, Who knew not much to paint or write, Nor car'd to pray, nor dar'd to fight : Protogenes, historians note, Liv'd there, a burgess, scot and lot ; And, as old Pliny's writings show, Apelles did the same at Co. Agreed these points of time and place, Proceed we in the present case. Piqu’d by Protogenes's fame, From Co to Rhodes Apelles came, To see a rival and a friend, Prepar’d to censure, or commend ; Here to absolve, and there object, As art with candour might direct. He sails, he lands, he comes, he rings; His servants follow with the things : Appears the governante of th' house, For such in Greece were much in use: If young or handsome, yea or no, Concerns not me or thee to know. Does Squire Protogenes live here ? Yes, sir, says she, with gracious air And curtsy low, but just call'd out By lords peculiarly devout, Who came on purpose, sir, to borrow Our Venus for the feast to-morrow, To grace the church ; 'tis Venus' day : I hope, sir, you intend to stay, To see our Venus ? 'tis the piece The most renown'd throughout all Greece; So like th' original, they say: But I have no great skill that way. But, sir, at six ('tis now past three), Dromo must make my master's tea : At six, sir, if you please to come, You'll find my master, sir, at home. Tea, says a critic big with laughter, Was found some twenty ages after; Authors, before they write, should read. 'Tis very true; but we'll proceed. And, sir, at present would you please Again at six Apelles came, [Richard's Theory of the Mind.] (From Alma.') I say, whatever you maintain Of Almal in the heart or brain, The plainest man alive may tell ye, Her seat of empire is the belly. From hence she sends out those supplies, Which make us either stout or wise : Your stomach makes the fabric roll Just as the bias rules the bowl. The great Achilles might employ The strength design'd to ruin Troy; He dined on lion's marrow, spread On toasts of ammunition bread; But, by his mother sent away Amongst the Thracian girls to play, Effeminate he sat and quietStrange product of a cheese-cake diet ! Observe the various operations Of food and drink in several nations. Was ever Tartar fierce or cruel Upon the strength of water-gruel ? But who shall stand his rage or force If first he rides, then eats his horse ? Sallads, and eggs, and lighter fare, Tune the Italian spark's guitar; And, if I take Dan Congreve right, Pudding and beef make Britons fight. Tokay and coffee cause this work Between the German and the Turk; And both, as they provisions want, Chicane, avoid, retire, and faint. As, in a watch's fine machine, Though many artful springs are seen ; The added movements, which declare How full the moon, how old the year, Derive their secondary power From that which simply points the hour; For though these gimcracks were away (Quare? would not swear, but Quare would say), However more reduced and plain, The watch would still a watch remain : But if the horal orbit ceases, The whole stands still, or breaks to pieces, 1 The mind 2 Probably a noted watchmaker of the day. Grief chilld his breast, and check'd his rising thought; Addison had brought out his opera of Rosamora, which was not successful on the stage. The story 1 Probably an undertaker. of fair Rosamond would seem well adapted for Is now no longer what it was, Pensive and sad, his drooping muse betrays The Roman genius in its last decays. The youthful poet's praise of his great master is confined to his translations, works which a modern By fine devices in his head; eulogist would scarcely select as the peculiar glory But 'tis the stomach's solid stroke of Dryden. Addison also contributed an Essay on That tells his being what's o'clock. Virgil's Georgics, prefixed to Dryden's translation. If you take off this rhetoric trigger, His remarks are brief, but finely and clearly written. He talks no more in trope and figure; At the same time, he translated the fourth Georgic, Or clog his mathematic wheel, and it was published in Dryden's Miscellany, issued His buildings fall, his ship stands still ; in 1693, with a warm commendation from the aged Or, lastly, break his politic weight, poet on the most ingenious Mr Addison of Oxford.' His voice no longer rules the state : Next year he ventured on a bolder flight-An AcYet, if these finer whims are gone, count of the Greatest English Poets, addressed to Your clock, though plain, will still go on : Mr H. S. (supposed to be the famous Dr Sacheverell), But, spoil the organ of digestion, April 3, 1694. This Account is a poem of about 150 And you entirely change the question ; lines, containing sketches of Chaucer, Spenser, Alma's affairs no power can mend; Cowley, Milton, Waller, &c. We subjoin the lines The jest, alas ! is at an end; on the author of the Faery Queen, though, if we are Soon ceases all the worldly bustle, to believe Spence, Addison had not then read the And you consign the corpse to Russel.1 poet he ventured to criticise : Old Spenser next, warm’d with poetic rage, In ancient tales amus'd a barbarous age; The long-spun allegories fulsome grow, heavenly figures' of Raphael, the river Tiber, and streams .immortalised in song,' and all the golden groves and flowery meadows of Italy, seem, as Pope has remarked, 'to have raised his fancy, and brightened his expressions. There was also, as Goldsmith observed, a strain of political thinking in the Letter, that was then new to our poetry. son of an English dean, was born at Milston, Wilt- He returned to England in 1702. The death of shire, in 1672. He distinguished himself at Oxford King William deprived him of his pension, and apby his Latin poetry, and appeared first in English peared to crush his hopes and expectations; but verse by an address to Dryden, written in his being afterwards engaged to celebrate in verse the twenty-second year. It opens thus battle of Blenheim, Addison so gratified the lord treasurer, Godolphin, by his 'gazette in rhyme,' that How long, great poet! shall thy sacred lays he was appointed a commissioner of appeals. He Provoke our wonder, and transcend our praise ! was next made under secretary of state, and went Can neither injuries of time or age to Ireland as secretary to the Marquis of Wharton, Damp thy poetic heat, and quench thy rage ! lord-lieutenant. The queen also made him keeper Not so thy "Ovid in his exile wrote; of the records of Ireland. Previous to this (in 1707), Grief chill'd his breast, and check'd his rising thought; Addison had brought out his opera of Rosamond, which was not successful on the stage. The story 1 Probably an undertaker. of fair Rosamond would seem well adapted for I Addwar |