The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 269, August 18, 1827 by Various
page 4 of 50 (08%)
page 4 of 50 (08%)
|
"Farewell, great painter of mankind, Who reached the noblest point of art, Whose pictur'd morals charm the mind, And through the eye correct the heart! If genius fire thee, reader, stay; If nature move thee, drop a tear; If neither touch thee, turn away, For Hogarth's honour'd dust lies here." Near this is the tomb of Dr. Rose, many years distinguished as a critic in a respectable periodical publication. In the church, in the Earl of Burlington's vault, is interred the celebrated Kent, a painter, architect, and father of modern gardening. "In the first character," says Mr. Walpole, "he was below mediocrity; in the second, he was the restorer of the science; in the last, an original, and the inventor of an art that realizes painting and improves nature. Mahomet imagined an Elysium, but Kent created many." He frequently declared, it is said, that he caught his taste in gardening from reading the picturesque descriptions of Spencer. Mason, noticing his mediocrity as a painter, pays this fine tribute to his excellence in the decoration of rural scenery:-- ----"He felt The pencil's power--but fir'd by higher forms Of beauty than that pencil knew to paint, Work'd with the living hues that Nature lent, And realiz'd his landscapes. Generous be, Who gave to Painting what the wayward nymph |
|