Consistency

Should painter attach to a fair human head     The thick, turgid neck of a stallion,     Or depict a spruce lass with the tail of a bass,     I am sure you would guy the rapscallion.     Believe me, dear Pisos, that just such a freak     Is the crude and preposterous poem     Which merely abounds in a torrent of sounds,     With no depth of reason below 'em.     'T is all very well to give license to art,--     The wisdom of license defend I;     But the line should be drawn at the fripperish spawn     Of a mere cacoethes scribendi.     It is too much the fashion to strain at effects,--     Yes, that's what's the matter with Hannah!     Our popular taste, by the tyros debased,     Paints each barnyard a grove of Diana!     Should a patron require you to paint a marine,     Would you work in some trees with their barks on?     When his strict orders are for a Japanese jar,     Would you give him a pitcher like Clarkson?     Now, this is my moral: Compose what you may,     And Fame will be ever far distant     Unless you combine with a simple design     A treatment in toto consistent.