SONNET V.

TO A VERY YOUNG PAINTER.

WHEN Genius first on Attic walls display'd
His imitative powers, four simple hues
Were all that great Appelles deign'd to use:*
With these combin'd he to each eye convey'd,
By magic force of colouring light and shade,

His miracles of Grace; while every Muse
Attun'd her lyre, impatient to diffuse
His fame in vivid verse, that scorns to fade:

These then, ingenuous Boy, alone prepare ;

From these all Nature's tints arrange with care; With these produce each shadow, light, and line,

And, while they all thy mix'd attention share, Chastely to paint, correctly to design,

Deem but one art, and let that art be thine.

NOTE.

* See Plinii Nat. Hist. Lib. XXXV. Cap. 15, the pigments h enumerates were black, white, yellow, and red, as appears from the following passage, "Quatuor coloribus solis immortalia

opera illa fecere; ex albis, Melino; ex silaceis, Attico; ex "rubris, Sinopide Pontica; ex nigris, Atramento:" APELLES, Echion, Melanthius, Nicomachus, Clarissimi Pictores; quum tabulæ eorum singulæ oppidorum venirent opibus.

The authority of my late excellent friend Sir JOSHUA REY

NOLDS fully supports the latter piece of advice, who in his second Discourse to the Pupils of the Royal Academy (see page 54,8vo. edition) says, "What therefore I wish to impress upon you is "this, that whenever an opportunity offers you may paint your "studies instead of drawing them. This will give you such a "facility in using colours, that they will arrange themselves "under the pencil, even without the attention of the hand that "conducts it. If one art excluded the other, this advice could "not, with any propriety, be given; but if painting comprises "both drawing and colouring, and if by a short struggle of re❝solute industry the same expedition is attainable in painting,

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as in drawing on paper, I cannot see what objection can justly "be made to the practice, or why that should be done in parts, "which may be done altogether."

Let me add from myself, that I suspect the use of a multiplicity of pigments, and the prohibition of the pencil (hereafter to be the artist's principal instrument) till the port-crayon has been first long and sedulously employed, have frequently been great impediments to the progress of young artists, especially of those who are endowed by nature with an inventive faculty.

SONNET VI.*

TO GEORGE BUSSY VILLIERS

EARL OF JERSEY, &c. &c.

AND GEORGE SIMON HARCOURT

YE

EARL HARCOURT, &c. &c.

E gen'rous pair, who held the Poet dear,

Whose blameless life my friendly pen pourtrays,

Accept, with that combin'd, his latest lays, While still young Fancy sports in diction clear; And may propitious Fate their merit bear

To times, when Taste shall weave the wreaths of praise

By modes disdain'd in these fantastic days; Such wreaths as classic heads were proud to wear.

But if no future ear applauds his strain,

If mine alike to Lethe's lake descends,

Yet, while aloof, on Mem'ry's buoyant main,
The gale of Fame your genuine worth extends,
Still shall our names this fair distinction gain,
That Villiers and that Harcourt call'd us friends.

York, Dec. 11, 1786.

NOTE.

* Prefixed to the Memoirs of William Whitehead, Esq. published 1788. Ed.

A

SONNET VII.*

FEBRUARY 23, 1795.

ANNIVERSARY.

PLAINTIVE Sonnet flow'd from MILTON's pen, When Time had stol'n his three and twentieth year :†

Say, shall not I then shed one tuneful tear, Robb'd by the thief of threescore years and ten? No! for the foes of all life-lengthen❜d men,

Trouble and toil, ‡ approach not yet too near;
Reason, meanwhile, and health, and memory dear
Hold unimpair'd their weak, yet wonted reign:

Still round my shelter'd lawn I pleas'd can stray;
Still trace my sylvan blessings to their spring:
BEING OF BEINGS! Yes, that silent lay,
Which musing Gratitude delights to sing,

Still to thy sapphire throne shall Faith convey,

And Hope, the Cherub of unwearied wing.

*First published 1797.

NOTES.

+ Alluding to the 7th Sonnet of MILTON, beginning,

"How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, &c.”
See Psalm xc. ver. 10.

р

SONNET VIII.*

FEBRUARY 23, 1796.

ANNIVERSAR Y.

In the long course of seventy years and one,
Oft have I known on this, my natal day,

Hoar frost, and sweeping snow prolong their sway, The wild winds whistle, and the forests groan;

But now spring's smile has veil'd stern winter's frown;
And now the birds on ev'ry budding spray
Chaunt orisons, as to the morn of May:
With them all fear of season's change is flown;
Like them I sing, yet not, like them beguil❜d,
Expect the vernal bloom of youth to know:

But, though such hope be from my breast exil❜d,

I feel warm Piety's superior glow,

And as my winter, like the year's, is mild,
Give praise to HIM, from whom all mercies flow.