EPISTLE ΤΟ SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. WHEN Dryden, worn with sickness, bow'd with years, Was doom'd (my friend, let pity warm thy tears) The galling pang of penury to feel, For ill-plac'd loyalty and courtly zeal, For To see that laurel which his brows o'erspread, Yet still he pleas'd, for Dryden still must please, Whether with artless elegance and ease He glides in prose, or from its tinkling chime, And mounts on Maro's plumes, and soars his heights sublime. This artless elegance, this native fire Provok'd his tuneful heir* to strike the lyre, Who proud his numbers with that prose to join, Wove an illustrious wreath for friendship's shrine. How oft, on that fair shrine when poets bind The flowers of song, does partial passion blind Their judgment's eye! How oft does truth disclaim The deed, and scorn to call it genuine fame! How did she here, when Jervas was the theme, Waft thro' the ivory gate the poet's dream! How view, indignant, error's base alloy The sterling lustre of his praise destroy. Which now, if praise like his my Muse could coin, Current through ages, she would stamp for thine! Let friendship, as she caus'd, excuse the deed; With thee, and such as thee, she must succeed. But what, if fashion tempted Pope astray? The witch has spells; and Jervas knew a day When mode-struck belles and beaux were proud to come And buy of him a thousand years of bloom.† * Mr. Pope, in his Epistle to Jervas, has these lines: Ev'n then I deem it but a venal crime: Perish alone that selfish sordid rhyme, Which flatters lawless sway, or tinsel pride; Let black Oblivion plunge it in her tide. From fate like this my truth-supported lays, Ev'n if aspiring to thy pencil's praise, Would flow secure: but humbler strains are mine; Give her in Albion as in Greece to rule, And guide (what thou hast form'd) a British School.. And, O, if aught thy Poet can pretend Beyond his favourite wish to call thee friend, Be it that here his tuneful toil has drest The Muse of Fresnoy in a modern vest; Oct. 10, 1782. W. MASON. |