The Unsatisfactory Painter.

Lest captious men suspect your story,             Speak modestly its history.             The traveller, who overleaps the bounds             Of probability, confounds;             But though men hear your deeds with phlegm,             You may with flattery cram them.             Hyperboles, though ne'er so great,             Will yet come short of self-conceit.             A painter drew his portraits truly,             And marked complexion and mien duly; -             Really a fellow knew the picture,             There was nor flattery nor delicture.             The eyes, and mouth, and faulty nose,             Were all showed up in grim repose;             He marked the dates of youth and age -             But so he lost his clientage:             The which determined to recover,             He turned in mind the matter over.             He bought a pair of busts - one, Venus,             The other was Apollo Phoebus;             Above his subject client placed them,             And for the faulty features traced them.             Chatted the while of Titian's tints,             Of Guido - Raphael - neither stints             To raise him to the empyral,             Whilst he is sketching his ideal.             He sketches, utters, "That will do:             Be pleased, my lord, to come and view."             "I thought my mouth a little wider."             "My lord, my lord, you me deride, ah!"             "Such was my nose when I was young."             "My lord, you have a witty tongue."             "Ah well, ah well! you artists flatter."             "That were, my lord, no easy matter."             "Ah well, ah well! you artists see best."             "My lord, I only (aside) earn my fee best."             So with a lady - he, between us,             Borrowed the face and form of Venus.             There was no fear of its rejection -             Her lover voted it perfection.             So on he went to fame and glory,             And raised his price - which ends the story; -             But not the moral, - which, though fainter,             Bids one to scorn an honest painter.