“Some range the colours as they parted fly,
Clear-pointed to the philosophic eye;
The flaming red, that pains the dwelling gaze,
The stainless, lightsome yellow’s gilding rays;
The clouded orange, that betwixt them glows,
And to kind mixture tawny lustre owes;
All-chearing green, that gives the spring its dye;
The bright transparent blue, that robes the sky;
And indico, which shaded light displays,
And violet, which in the view decays.”

—Richard Savage, from The Wanderer, quoted by Marjorie Hope Nicolson in Newton Demands the Muse, 1946.