Some joyous ardour may infuse
In fibres, that severely smart,
From potent envy’s poison’d dart;
Thro’ Wright’s warm breast bid tides of vigour roll,
Guard him from meek depression’s chill controul,
And rouse him to exert each sinew of his Soul.”
The first nine verses allude to Wright’s picture of the Siege of Gibraltar.
The last three refer to his having been rejected as an R.A.
This “Ode” is referred to by Wright in the following interesting letter to his friend Hayley; and from what we learn of Wright’s character from those who knew him, it is very certain that he would not have accepted as a “very ingenious and very friendly ode” a poem which contained such severe animadversions upon the treatment he had been subjected to by the Royal Academy, unless he had thought them justified by the facts:—