ure 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:
Bids thee, through me, be bold; with dauntless breast
Contemn the bad, and emulate the best. 80
Like his, thy critics in the attempt are lost:
When most they rail, know then, they envy most.
In vain they snarl aloof; a noisy crowd,
Like women's anger, impotent and loud.
While they their barren industry deplore,
Pass on secure, and mind the goal befo