Note 80 — TO THE MOST HONOURABLE JOHN, LORD MARQUIS OF NORMANBY, EARL OF MULGRAVE,[28] &c. AND KNIGHT OF THE MOST NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTER. (continued 2)
Reading edition
This comparison our author has detailed in his preface to Fresnoy's "Art of Painting."
"I am now come, though with the omission of many likenesses, to the third part of Painting, which is called cromatic, or colouring. Expression, and all that belongs to words, is that in a poem which colouring is in a picture. The colours well chosen in their proper places, together with the lights and shadows which belong to them, lighten the design, and make it pleasing to the eye. The words, the expressions, the tropes and figures, the versification, and all the other elegancies of sound, as cadences, turns of words upon the thought, and many other things which are all parts of expression, perform exactly the same office, both in dramatic and epic poetry. Our author calls colouring—lena sororis; in plain English, the bawd of her sister, the design or drawing: she clothes, she dresses her up, she paints her, she makes her appear more lovely than naturally she is, she procures for the design, and makes lovers for her; for the design of itself is only so many naked lines. Thus in poetry, the expression is that which charms the reader, and beautifies the design, which is only the outlines of the fables."