Works

The Summer of the same Year¹ Lambert² the famous Scene-painter was ill—I sent the following Lines in a feigned hand to his & my Friend Herbert Lawrence³ who never knew they were mine

Is Lambert sick Apollo said,
Haste Lawrence haste to Lambert’s aid!
For tho’ his grateful Shepherd pays
The Life he gave—with deathless Praise,
Tho’ in each Sun his Virtue glows
While in each Stream his Bounty flows;
Tho’ his unruffled Mind is seen
In his Calm Fishponds pale serene:
One luckless Stroke may ruin all,
The Scene may Change and Lambert fall.

Footnotes

1. Written immediately after 1758 verses to A Lady on April Fool Day.↩︎
2. George Lambert (1700-1765), English landscape painter.↩︎
3. A surgeon and apothecary.↩︎