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Title: To T. Stothard, Esq
Author: Charles Lamb [
More Titles by Lamb]
_On His Illustrations of the Poems of Mr. Rogers_
(1833)
Consummate Artist, whose undying name
With classic Rogers shall go down to fame,
Be this thy crowning work! In my young days
How often have I with a child's fond gaze
Pored on the pictured wonders[1] thou hadst done:
Clarissa mournful, and prim Grandison!
All Fielding's, Smollett's heroes, rose to view;
I saw, and I believed the phantoms true.
But, above all, that most romantic tale[2]
Did o'er my raw credulity prevail,
Where Glums and Gawries wear mysterious things,
That serve at once for jackets and for wings.
Age, that enfeebles other men's designs,
But heightens thine, and thy free draught refines.
In several ways distinct you make us feel--
_Graceful_ as Raphael, as Watteau _genteel_.
Your lights and shades, as Titianesque, we praise;
And warmly wish you Titian's length of days.
[Footnote 1: Illustrations of the British Novelists.]
[Footnote 2: Peter Wilkins.]
[The end]
Charles Lamb's poem: To T. Stothard, Esq
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