FABLE 18

The Painter Who Pleased Nobody and
Everybody

Lest men suspect your tale untrue,
Keep probability in view.
The traveller leaping o’er those bounds,
The credit of his book confounds.
Who with his tongue hath armies routed,
Makes ev’n his real courage doubted.
But flattery never seems absurd;
The flatter’d always take your word:
Impossibilities seem just,
They take the strongest praise on trust.
Hyperboles, though ne’er so great,
Will still come short of self-conceit.
So very like, a painter drew,
That every eye, the picture knew.
He hit complexion, feature, air,
So just, the life itself was there.
No flattery with his colours laid,
To bloom restored the faded maid;
He gave each muscle all its strength;
The mouth, the chin, the nose’s length;
His honest pencil touch’d with truth.
And mark’d the date of age and youth.
He lost his friends, his practice fail’d;
Truth should not always be reveal’d.
In dusty piles his pictures lay,
For no one sent the second pay.
Two bustos, fraught with every grace,
A Venus’ and Apollo’s face,
He placed in view; resolved to please,
Whoever sat, he drew from these,
From these corrected every feature,
And spirited each awkward creature.
All things were set, the hour was come,
His pallet ready o’er his thumb;
My Lord appear’d, and seated right,
In proper attitude and light,
The Painter look’d, he sketch’d the piece,
Then dipt his pencil, talk’d of Greece,
Of Titian’s tints, of Guido’s air;
“Those eyes, my Lord, the spirit there
Might well a Raphael’s hand require,
To give them all the native fire.
The features, fraught with sense and wit,
You’ll grant are very hard to hit;
But yet with patience you shall view
As much as paint and art can do.”
“Observe the work!” My Lord replied,
“Till now I thought my mouth was wide;
Besides, my nose is somewhat long:
Dear Sir, for me, ‘tis far too young.”
“Oh! pardon me,” (the artist cried)
“In this, we Painters must decide.
The piece, e’en common eyes must strike;
I warrant it extremely like.”
My Lord examined it anew;
No looking-glass seem’d half so true.
A lady came, with borrow’d grace
He, from his Venus, form’d her face.
Her lover praised the painter’s art;
So like the picture in his heart!
To every age, some charm he lent;
E’en beauties were almost content.
Through all the town his art they praised;
His custom grew, his price was raised.
Had he the real likeness shown,
Would any man the picture own?
But when thus happily he wrought,
Each found the likeness in his thought.