His honest pencil touch'd with truth,
And mark'd the date of age and youth.

He loft his friends, his practice fail'd,
Truth should not always be reveal'd;
In dufty piles his pictures lay,

For no one fent the second pay.

Two buftos, fraught with ev'ry grace,
A Venus' and Apollo's face,

He plac'd in view; refolv'd to please,
Whoever fate, he drew from these,

From these corrected ev'ry feature,

And spirited each aukward creature.

All things were fet; 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

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.

Obferve the work. My lord reply'd,
'Till now I thought my mouth was wide,
Befides, my nose is somewhat long,
Dear fir, for me, 'tis far too young.

Oh, pardon me, the artist cry'd,

In this we painters must decide.

The piece ev'n common eyes must strike,
I warrant it extreamly like.

My lord examin'd it anew;

No looking-glass seem'd half so true.

A

A lady came, with borrow'd grace
He from his Venus form'd her face,
Her lover prais'd the painter's art;
So like the picture in his heart!
To ev'ry age fome charm he lent,
Ev'n Beauties were almost content.

Through all the town his art they prais'd,

His custom grew, his price was rais'd.
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.

FABLE

I.Wootton inv.

PFourdrinier scul

FABLE XIX.

The LYON and the CUB.

OW fond are men of rule and place,

HOW

Who court it from the mean and base!

These cannot bear an equal nigh,

But from fuperior merit fly;

They

They love the cellar's vulgar joke,

And lose their hours in ale and fmoak;
There o'er fome petty club prefide,

So poor, fo paultry is their pride!

Nay, ev'n with fools whole nights will fit,
In hopes to be fupream in wit.

If these can read, to these I write,
To fet their worth in trueft light.

A Lyon-cub, of fordid mind,

Avoided all the lyon kind

;

Fond of applause, he fought the feasts

Of vulgar and ignoble beasts,

With affes all his time he spent,

Their club's perpetual president.

He caught their manners, looks and airs:

An afs in ev'ry thing, but ears!

If