For lack of worth of every kind
To charm or to enlarge the mind. 
Now this, my Lord, as will appear,
Was nothing less than malice sheer,
To stab me, like assassins dark,
Because I did not hit a mark,
At which (as I have hope of fame)
I never once design’d to aim. 
For seeing that the life of man
Was scarcely longer than a span;
And, knowing that the Graphic Art
Ne’er mortal master’d but in part;
I wisely deem’d ’twere labour vain,
Should I attempt the whole to gain;
And therefore, with ambition high,
Aspir’d to reach what pleas’d the eye;
Which, truly, sir, must be confess’d,
A part that far excels the rest: 
For if, as all the world agree,
’Twixt Painting and fair Poesy
The diff’rence in the mode be found,
Of colour this, and that of sound,
’Tis plain, o’er every other grace,
That colour holds the highest place;
As being that distinctive part,
Which bounds it from another art. 
If therefore, with reproof severe
I’ve galled my pigmy Rival here,
’Twas only, as your Lordship knows,
Because his foolish envy chose
To rank his classic forms of mud
Above my wholesome flesh and blood.

Thus ended parle the Senior Shade. 
And now, as scorning to upbraid,
With curving, parabolick smile,
Contemptuous, eying him the while,
His Rival thus:  ’Twere vain, my Lord,
To wound a gnat by spear or sword[3];
If therefore I, of greater might,
Would meet this thing in equal fight,
’Twere fit that I in size should be
As mean, diminutive, as he;
Of course, disdaining to reply,
I pass the wretch unheeded by. 
But since your Lordship deigns to know
What I in my behalf may show,
With due submission, I proclaim,
That few on earth have borne a name
More envied or esteem’d than mine,
For grace, expression, and design,
For manners true of every clime,
And composition’s art sublime. 
In academick lore profound,
I boldly took that lofty ground,
Which, as it rais’d me near the sky,
Was thence for vulgar eyes too high;
Or, if beheld, to them appear’d
By clouds of gloomy darkness blear’d. 
Yet still that misty height I chose,
For well I knew the world had those,
Whose sight, by learning clear’d of rheum,
Could pierce with ease the thickest gloom. 
Thus, perch’d sublime, ’mid clouds I wrought,
Nor heeded what the vulgar thought. 
What, though with clamour coarse and rude
They jested on my colours crude;
Comparing with malicious grin,
My drapery to bronze and tin,
My flesh to brick and earthen ware,
And wire of various kinds my hair;
Or (if a landscape-bit they saw)
My trees to pitchforks crown’d with straw;
My clouds to pewter plates of thin edge,
And fields to dish of eggs and spinage;
Yet this, and many a grosser rub,
Like fam’d Diogenes in tub,