ical
in the theory of the art, was unsuccessful in the practical parts. His
delight in poetical composition had retarded the progress of his pictorial
powers. Not having been taught the handling of his pencil, he worked with
difficulty; but MIGNARD succeeded in giving him a freer command and a more
skilful touch; while DU FRESNOY, who was the more literary man, enriched
the invention of MIGNARD by reading to him an Ode of Anacreon or Horace, a
passage from the Iliad or Odyssey, or the AEneid, or the Jerusalem
Delivered, which offered subjects for the artist's invention, who would
throw out five or six different sketches on the same subject; a habit
which so highly improved the inventive powers of MIGNARD, that he could
compose a fine picture with playful facility. Thus they lived-together,
mutually enlightening each other. MIGNARD supplied DU FRESNOY with all
that fortune had refused him; and, when he was no more, perpetuated his
fame, which he felt was a portion of his own celebrity, by publishing his
posthumous poem, _De Arts Graphica;_[A] a poem, which Mason has made
readable by his versification, and Reynolds even interesting by his
invaluable commentary.

[Footnote A: La Vie de Pierre Mignard, par L'Abbe de Monville, the work of
an amateur.]

In the poem COWLET composed, on the death of his friend HARVEY, this
stanza opens a pleasing scene of two young literary friends engaged in
their midnight studies:

Say, for you saw us, ye immortal lights!
How oft unwearied have we spent the nights,
Till the Ledaean stars, so famed for love,
Wonder'd at us from above.
We spent them not in toys, in lust, or wine;
But search of deep philosophy,
Wit, eloquence, and poetry;
Arts which I loved, for they, my friend, were thine.

Touched by a personal knowledge of this union of genius and affection,
even MALONE commemorates, with unusual warmth, the literary friendships of
Sir Joshua Reynolds; and with a felicity of fancy, not often indulged, has
raised an unforced parallel between the bland wisdom of Sir Joshua and the
"mitis sapientia Laeli." "What the illustrious Scipio was to Laelius was
the all-knowing and all-accomplished BURKE to REYNOLDS;" and what the
elegant Laelius was to his master Panaetius, whom he gratefully protected,
and to his companion the poet Lucilius, whom he patronised, was REYNOLDS
to JOHNSON, of whom he was the scholar and friend, and to GOLDSMITH, whom
he loved and aided[A].

[Fo