Lumen de Lumine

The picture itself shows nothing of Nature except what lies beneath the veil. I wish you might see her without her bridal veil, but her face, like that of the Virgin at the Annunciation, awaits an angel’s brush. I cannot say this composition deserves your patronage; allow me, however, to make it my opportunity to give acknowledgment where I received the benefit. I do not address the banks of the Isis: you have no share there, unless your stones require my inscription. It is your dispersed body that I have known, and that alone I remember. Receive it, then, wherever you are in your sorrowful removals and visitations. It is neither Sadducee nor Pharisee, but the testimony of an Israelite, and

Your legitimate child, E. P. 1650.