Thus check’d the Judge the champion vain
Of Classic Form; and thus in strain,
By anger half and pity mov’d,
The ghostly Colourist reprov’d. 
And what didst Thou aspire to gain,
Who dar’d’st the will of Jove arraign,
That bounded thus within a span
The little life of little man;
With shallow art deriving thence
Excuses for thy indolence? 
’Tis cant and hypocritic stuff! 
The life of man is long enough: 
For did he but the half improve
He would not quarrel thus with Jove.

But most I marvel (if it be
That aught may wond’rous seem to me)
That Jove’s high Gift, your noble Art,
Bestow’d to raise Man’s grov’ling heart,
Refining with ethereal ray
Each gross and selfish thought away,
Should pander turn of paltry pelf,
Imprisoning each within himself;
Or like a gorgeous serpent, be
Your splendid source of misery,
And, crushing with his burnish’d folds,
Still narrower make your narrow souls.

But words can ne’er reform produce,
In Ignorance and Pride obtuse. 
Then know, ye rain and foolish Pair! 
Your doom is fix’d a yoke to bear
Like beasts on Earth; and, thus in tether,
Five Centuries to paint together. 
If, thus by mutual labours join’d,
Your jarring souls should be combin’d,
The faults of each the other mending,
The powers of both harmonious blending;
Great Jove, perhaps, in gracious vein,
May send your souls on Earth again;
Yet there One only Painter be;
For thus the eternal Fates decree: 
One Leg alone shall never run,
Nor two Half-Painters make but One.

Eccentricity.

    Projecere animas.  VIRG.

Alas, my friend! what hope have I of fame,
Who am, as Nature made me, still the same? 
And thou, poor suitor to a bankrupt muse,
How mad thy toil, how arrogant thy views! 
What though endued with Genius’ power to move
The magick chords of sympathy and love,
The painter’s eye, the poet’s fervid heart,
The tongue of eloquence, the vital art
Of bold Prometheus, kindling at command
With breathing life the labours of his hand;
Yet shall the World thy daring high pretence
With scorn deride, for thou—­hast common sense.

But dost thou, reckless of stern honour’s laws,
Intemperate hunger for the World’s applause? 
Bid Nature hence; her fresh embow’ring woods,
Her lawns and fields, and rocks, and rushing floods,
And limpid lakes, and health-exhaling soil,
Elastick gales, and all the glorious toil
Of Heaven’s own hand, with courtly shame discard,
And Fame shall triumph in her city bard. 
Then, pent secure in some commodious lane,
Where stagnant Darkness holds her morbid reign. 
Perchance snug-roosted o’er some brazier’s den,
Or stall of nymphs, by courtesy not men,
Whose gentle trade to skin the living eel,
The while they curse it that it dares to feel[7];
Whilst ribbald jokes and repartees proclaim
Their happy triumph o’er the sense of shame: 
Thy city Muse invoke, that imp of mind
By smoke engendered on an eastern wind;
Then, half-awake, thy patent-thinking pen
The paper give, and blot the souls of men.