The gaudy iris o’er the victor’s head! 
See Genius, deaf to Nature’s nobler call,
Waste all its strength upon the banner’d hall! 
E’en now, tho’ Gallia, in her blood-stain’d car,
Spreads over Europe all the woes of war,
Still with consummate craft she tries to prove
How much the peaceful charms engage her love: 
Treasures of art in lengthen’d gall’ries glow,
And[G] Europe’s plunder Europe’s plund’rers show! 
Yet of her living artists few can claim
Half the mix’d praise that waits on David’s fame. 
Thrice happy Britain! in thy favour’d isle
The sister Arts in health and beauty smile! 
Tho’ no Imperial Gall’ries grace thy shores,
Tho’ wealth the public bounty seldom pours,
Yet private taste rewards thy painter’s toil,
And bids his genius grace his native soil. 
Bless’d country! here thy artists can supply
Abundant charms to fix th’ admiring eye: 
In furtive splendour ne’er art thou array’d,
No plunder’d country mourns thy ruthless blade,
Sees its transported treasures torn away,
To grace a fierce ambitious Tyrant’s sway. 
Long in this isle, where Freedom finds repose,
Whilst, raving round her, loud the tempest blows,
Oh! long befriended, may the Arts excel,
And bless the sacred spot they love so well!

[Footnote A:  “Then painting grew, and from the shades,” &c.—­The shadows of plants, and indeed of every object in Nature, must, at a very early period, have furnished ideas of imitation.]

[Footnote B:  "Then, oh! thou,” &c.—­After the ravages of the northern barbarians, painting was revived in Italy, about the fourteenth century, by Cimabue, who was hence styled the Father of Painting.]

[Footnote C:  “For that Apelles,” &c.—­Painting attained so great a perfection amongst the Greeks, under Zeuxis, that Apelles found nothing wanting but grace, which in those times he bestowed upon the art, as Corregio did after Raphael.]

[Footnote D:  “Here Jove in,” &c.—­The Greeks excelled in the delineation of their deities, to whom they attributed all the human passions:  their Jupiter they elevated to the highest degree of majesty, their Venus to the utmost pitch of human beauty.]

[Footnote E:  “E’en such as graceful Sculpture,” &c.—­From Cimabue to Raphael, the painters were employed by the church; and they gave a character to the Prophets, Apostles, and our Saviour, which was never known to the ancient sculptors.  The power which the former possessed of uniting dignity to humility is without a parallel.]

[Footnote F:  “Behold, in fulsome allegory,” &c.—­As long as the French school adhered to the principles of the Italian school, it produced many great masters; however, the art certainly degenerated after Raphael, by being employed in adulatory allegory, in honour of Princes, as is to be seen in the works of Rubens and Le Brun at Paris, artists of great talents, which they were led to misapply, through the supreme vanity of Louis the Fourteenth.]