} A Face untaught to feign; a judging Eye, Nor wifh to lose a Foe these Virtues raise 10 15 I SHALL add a dialogue by Mr. Pope, in verse, that is genuine : POPE. "Since my old friend is grown fo great, As to be Minister of State, I'm told, but 'tis not true I hope, That Craggs will be afham'd of Pope." CRAGGS. "Alas! if I am fuch a creature, To grow the worfe for growing greater; WARTON. EPISTLE ΤΟ MR. JER VAS, WITH MR. DRYDEN's TRANSLATION OF FRESNOY's THIS Verse be thine, my friend, nor thou refuse Whether thy hand ftrike out fome free defign, NOTES. 5 And Epifle to Mr. Jervas] This Epiftle and the two following were written fome years before the reft, and originally printed in 1717. POFE. Jervas owed much more of his reputation to this Epistle than to his skill as a painter. "He was defective," fays Mr. Walpole, "in drawing, colouring, and compofition; his pictures are a light, flimzy kind of fan-painting, as large as the life; his vanity was exceffive." The reafon why Lady Bridgewater's name is fo frequently repeated in this Epiftle, is, because Jervas affected to be violently in love with her. As fhe was fitting to him one day, he ran over the beauties of her face with rapture; but added, "I cannot help telling your Ladyfhip you have not an handsome ear.” "No! - Pray, Mr. Jervas, what is a handfome car?" He turned afide his cap, and fhewed his own! WARTON And reading wifh, like theirs, our fate and fame, 15 Smit with the love of Sifter-Arts we came, And met congenial, mingling flame with flame; Like friendly colours found them both unite, And each from each contract new ftrength and light. How oft' in pleafing tasks we wear the day, While fummer-funs roll unperceiv'd away? How oft our flowly-growing works impart, While Images reflect from art to art? 20 How oft review; each finding like a friend Something to blame, and fomething to commend? What flatt'ring fcenes our wand'ring fancy wrought, Rome's pompous glories rising to our thought! Together o'er the Alps methinks we fly, With thee, on Raphael's Monument I mourn, Fir'd with Ideas of fair Italy. Or wait infpiring Dreams at Maro's Urn: 25 NOTES. With VER. 13. Sifter-Arts] To the poets that practifed and underftood painting, the names of Dante, of Flatman, of Butler, of Dyer, may be added that of our author; a portrait of whofe painting is in the poffeffion of Lord Mansfield: a head of Betterton. WARTON. There is also another portrait by Pope, in the poffeffion of his Grace the Duke of Norfolk, at Arundel caftle. VER. 27. On Raphael's monument] Let me here add Sir Joshua Reynold's fine characters of Raphael and Michael Angelo: With thee repose, where Tully once was laid, Or feek fome Ruin's formidable shade: NOTES. 30 While If we put thofe great artifts in a light of comparison with each other, Raffaelle had more taste and fancy, Michael Angelo had more genius and imagination; the one excelled in beauty, the other in energy. Michael Angelo has more of the poetical inspiration, his ideas are vaft and fublime, his people are a fuperior order of beings; there is nothing about them, nothing in the air of their actions, or their attitudes, or the ftyle and caft of their very limbs or features, that puts one in mind of their belonging to our own fpecies. Raffaelle's imagination is not fo elevated; his figures are not fo much disjoined from our own diminutive race of beings, though his ideas are chafte, noble, and of great conformity to their subjects. Michael Angelo's works have a ftrong, peculiar, and marked character; they feem to proceed from his own mind entirely, and that mind fo rich and abundant, that he never needed, or feemed to disdain, to look abroad for foreign help Raffaelle's materials are generally borrowed, though the noble structure is his own. The excellency of this extraordinary man lay in the propriety, beauty, and majefty of his characters, his judicious contrivance of his compofition, correctness of drawing, purity of taste, and the skilful accommodation of other men's conceptions to his own purpose. Nobody excelled him in that judgment, with which he united, to his own obfervations on nature, the energy of Michael Angelo, and the beauty and fimplicity of the antique, To the question therefore, Which ought to hold the first rank, Raffaelle or Michael Angelo? it must be answered, that if it is given to him who poffeffed a greater combination of the higher qualities of the art than any other man, there is no doubt but Raffaelle is the firft. But if, according to Longinus, the fublime, being the highest excellence that human compofition can attain to, abundantly compenfates the abfence of every other beauty, and atones for all other deficiencies, then Michael Angelo demands the preference. "These two extraordinary men carried fome of the higher excellencies of the art to a higher degree of perfection than probably they ever arrived at before. They certainly have not been excelled, por equalled fince. Many of their fucceffors were induced to leave While Fancy brings the vanish'd piles to view, Here thy well-study'd marbles fix our eye; A fading Frefco here demands a figh; Each heav'nly piece unwearied we compare, 35 Match Raphael's grace with thy lov'd Guido's air, NOTES. Yet this great road as a beaten path, endeavouring to surprise and please by fomething uncommon or new. When this defire after novelty has proceeded from mere idlenefs or caprice, it is not worth the trouble of criticism; but when it has been in consequence of a bufy mind, of a peculiar complexion, it is always ftriking and interefting, never infipid. "Such is the great ftyle as it appears in those who poffeffed it at its height, in this, fearch after novelty, in conception or in treat ing the subject, has no place.” WARTON. VER. 30. Or feek] This last line is inferior to the three prece ding ones because it paffes from particular images to fomething general. WARTON. VER. 33. well-study'd marbles] Jervas was fent to Italy at the expence of Dr. Clarke, Member of Parliament for the University of Oxford, of All-Souls College. WARTON. VER. 37. Carracci's] "Give me a good outline, and bricks in the middle," faid Annibal Carracci. Agostino has left an elegant fonnet on painting. Sir Joshua Reynolds told me he did not think these artists exactly characterized by Pope. WARTON. VER. 39. How finish'd] Mr. Mafon has tranflated Frefnoy with elegance and fidelity; and Sir Joshua Reynolds added to the tranflation, learned, ufeful, fcientifical, and ingenious notes. "Guido," fays Sir Joshua Reynolds, (Discourses, p. 155.) "from want of choice in adapting his fubject to his ideas and powers, or in attempting to preferve beauty where it could not be preferved. |