Prometheus, were he here, would cast away
  His Adam, and refuse a soul to clay;
  And either would thy noble work inspire,
  Or think it warm enough, without his fire.

    But vulgar hands may vulgar likeness raise;
  This is the least attendant on thy praise: 
  From hence the rudiments of art began;
  A coal, or chalk, first imitated man: 
  Perhaps the shadow, taken on a wall, 30
  Gave outlines to the rude original;
  Ere canvas yet was strain’d, before the grace
  Of blended colours found their use and place,
  Or cypress tablets first received a face.

    By slow degrees the godlike art advanced;
  As man grew polish’d, picture was enhanced: 
  Greece added posture, shade, and perspective;
  And then the mimic piece began to live. 
  Yet perspective was lame, no distance true,
  But all came forward in one common view:  40
  No point of light was known, no bounds of art;
  When light was there, it knew not to depart,
  But glaring on remoter objects play’d;
  Not languish’d, and insensibly decay’d.

    Rome raised not art, but barely kept alive,
  And with old Greece unequally did strive: 
  Till Goths, and Vandals, a rude northern race,
  Did all the matchless monuments deface. 
  Then all the Muses in one ruin be,
  And rhyme began to enervate poetry. 50
  Thus, in a stupid military state,
  The pen and pencil find an equal fate. 
  Flat faces, such as would disgrace a screen,
  Such as in Bantam’s embassy were seen,
  Unraised, unrounded, were the rude delight
  Of brutal nations only born to fight.

    Long time, the sister arts, in iron sleep,
  A heavy sabbath did supinely keep: 
  At length, in Raphael’s age, at once they rise,
  Stretch all their limbs, and open all their eyes. 60

    Thence rose the Roman, and the Lombard line: 
  One colour’d best, and one did best design. 
  Raphael’s, like Homer’s, was the nobler part,
  But Titian’s painting look’d like Virgil’s art.

    Thy genius gives thee both; where true design,
  Postures unforced, and lively colours join. 
  Likeness is ever there; but still the best,
  Like proper thoughts in lofty language dress’d: 
  Where light, to shades descending, plays, not strives,
  Dies by degrees, and by degrees revives. 70
  Of various parts a perfect whole is wrought: 
  Thy pictures think, and we divine their thought.

    Shakspeare, thy gift, I place before my sight;
  With awe, I ask his blessing ere I write;
  With reverence look on his majestic face;
  Proud to be less, but of his godlike race. 
  His soul inspires me, while thy praise I write,
  And I, like Teucer, under Ajax fight: