m-^^:'^^^ 
 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL AND CRITICAL 
 
 HISTORY OF THE FINE ARTS, 
 
 PAINTING, SCULPTURE, and ARCHITECTURE 
 
 WITH OCCASIONAL OBSERVATIONS CM 
 
 The Progrefs of Engraving, in it's feveral BrancheSj 
 
 DEDUCED FROM THE EARLIEST RECORDS, THROUGH EVERY COUNTRY 
 
 IN WHICH THOSE ARTS HAVE BEEN CHERISHED, TO THEIR 
 
 PRESENT ESTABLISHMENT IN GREAT-BRITAIN, 
 
 UNDER THE AUSPICES OF 
 HIS MAJESTY KING GEORGE III. 
 
 IN FOUR PARTS. 
 
 VOLUME I. 
 
 By the Rev. ROBERT ANTHONY BROMLEY, B.D. 
 
 RECTOR OF ST. MILDHED's IN THE POULTRY, AND MINISTER OF 
 FITZROY-CHAPEL, LONDON. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 Printed at the Ph jlanthrop ic-press, St. George's Fields, 
 
 For THE Author ; and fold by T. Cadell, in the Strand ; J. Robson ; and 
 
 Hookham & Co. in Bond-Street; and C. Dilly, in the Poultry. 
 
 M D C C X CI I I . 
 
[iii] 
 
 TO THE KING. 
 
 SIRE, 
 
 A HISTORY of the Fine Arts, making it's appearance in this 
 age, can look up to no other charafter on the earth, at whofe 
 feet it may throw itfelf fo properly and fo confidently for pro- 
 tection as before your Majesty. In all the other fovereignties, 
 and in all other countries, of the world, we only fee the relics of 
 that patronage, of thofe fchools, and of thofe arts, which were 
 once fo animated, and fo proudly brilliant. 
 
 Yet it is not merely by fuccelTion that your Majesty now 
 ftands at the head of thefe. Their fame was never higher in the 
 modern world than that which is now their claim in this coun- 
 try ; and that fame is wholly the growth of your own reign. 
 How old foever may have been the hiflory of thofe footfleps, by 
 which they have been marked in Great Britain, the hiftory of 
 their elegance and refined fpirit is comprized within the compafs 
 of that period, which has given the generous and amiable influ- 
 ence of YOUR Majesty's exemplary mind to fpread it's general 
 ornament over thefe kingdoms. It is a faft not to be queftioned, 
 that in no aera of the arts, ancient or modern, thev have been 
 
IV DEDICATION. 
 
 known to attain in any country, fo fpeedily as in this, thofe 
 great and effential powers by which they are now diftinguiflied 
 here. The emulations of genius will do wonders ; but no emu- 
 lation in the arts can rife to fo great fuccefs, without the conco- 
 mitant encouragement of patronage iffuing from the fupreme 
 influence in a country. 
 
 Yet that influence, Sire, may prove equivocal in the ultimate 
 value of thofe arts, if it does not fpring from a right foundation : 
 the patronage, by which they are rightly elevated, muft not 
 only be meafured by prudence, but muft be conduced on the 
 pureft principles, or the meridian of thofe arts will be a fliort 
 one, and inftead of aiding valuable knowledge, and perpetua- 
 ting public or private honor, they may become debafed to the 
 purpofes of legend, and falfehood, and perfonal adulation ; their 
 vigour may be fpent on thofe objefts which are not worthy to 
 be countenanced by wife and great minds. 
 
 How far fuch a genuine and principled patronage has gone 
 along with the fine arts through the world, will appear in the 
 progrefs of this work. The fliare v/hich your Majesty has in 
 it, the charafter due to that protection, with which your Ma- 
 jesty has taken up, and cheriflied, and reared, and eftabliftied 
 thofe arts, and all that is elegant, in your empire, will not then 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 ftand on any fuppofed adulation, but on the uncontrovertible 
 refult of fafts. 
 
 My utmoft gratitude is, neverthekfs, due to your Majesty 
 for that generous permiflion which you have given me to addrefs 
 to your royal proteftion thefe humble endeavours to do juftice 
 to the interefts of refined and elegant art. 
 
 That YOUR Majesty may long continue the blefling of a 
 people univerfally ready to acknowledge their fenfe andeftimation 
 of it ; and that you may long enjoy the pleafure of feeing thofe re- 
 fined improvements both in arts and fciences, which your reign 
 has opened upon your dominions, more and more extended, is 
 the fincere prayer of 
 
 Fitzroy-Chapel, 
 Jan. I, 1793. 
 
 YOUR MAJESTY'S 
 MOST DUTIFUL, 
 
 AND MOST FAITHFUL SUBJECT, 
 
 Robert Anthony Bromley. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 
 Research Library, The Getty Research Institute 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/philosophicalcri01brom 
 
[vii] 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 OF VOLUME THE FIRST. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 S PRINCIPLES, 
 AND MORE IMPORTANT CHARACTERS OF PAINTING. 
 
 The GREAT AND LEADING PRINCIPLES, WHICH FORM THE HIGHER 
 
 CHAP. I. 
 
 Painting, confidered as fimple defign, coeval with man, and the original 
 writing of Nature, _ _ . - i — 7, 
 
 CHAP. 11. 
 
 The advantages of painting, in an improved ftate, over all other modes 
 of writing, __-_.. 
 
 SECT. I. In the fcope of inftruflion, - 8 — 13. 
 
 SECT. II. In the force of inftruftion, 13 — 15. 
 
 SECT. III. In the dignity of inflruftion, 16 — 20. 
 
 SECT. IV. In the univerfality of inftruftion, 21 — 23. 
 
 CHAP. HI. 
 
 The difplay of moral fubjefts the pureft office of painting, as a mean of 
 inftruftion, _ - _ _ 24 — 32. 
 
 CHAP. IV. 
 
 The qualifications efTential in the conftitution of moral painting, 32 — 44. 
 
viii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. V. 
 
 niftinftion between hifloric and poetic painting, and the refpeftive pro- 
 vinces of each, _ _ » P^ge 45 — 55. 
 Hiftoric painting exemplified, - 56 — 63. 
 Poetic painting exempl ified, - 63 — 86. 
 
 CHAP. VI. 
 
 The cultivation of the fine arts a fource of refined polifh to man- 
 ners, _ _ - - 86 — 104. 
 
 CHAP. VII. 
 
 The patronage of fine arts a luftre to greatnefs, - 104 — io8. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 THE PROGRESS AND PATRONAGE OF THE FINE ARTS IN THE 
 
 ANCIENT WORLD. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 ASIA. 
 
 CHAP. I. 
 
 AfTyria, under Semiramis — the age in which fhe lived— evidences of 
 enamel — very probable that the fine arts might be underftood in the 
 age of Semiramis, on the ufual calculation that fhe lived foon after 
 the deluge — that probability reduced to certainty on the calculation 
 of a greater antiquity in the world, u^hich will admit the Scythian 
 conqueft of Afia, and the evidences of arts during that period, to 
 have intervened between the deluge and the age of Semiramis, 
 
 109—156. 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 Fewer traces of the fine arts in Mefopotamia, becaufe it was the fate of 
 
CONTENTS. i« 
 
 it's firft empires to be obliterated from all traces of record — fome 
 emblematic paintings in the temple of Belus — emulation fuppofed to 
 be greateft in fculpture — nothing improbable in any of their coloffal 
 works of that kind — their knowledge of fculptural proportion — no 
 inference from thence to their knowledge in fculptural expreffion — 
 their maturity in arts not to be confideredon the common principles of 
 progrefsin other countries — painting the leaft probable of all the fine 
 arts to have been carried to perfeftion in Afia, page 156 — 171. 
 
 CHAP III. 
 
 Phoenicia, although a part of the Aflyrian empire, to be viewed diftintlly 
 in fome refpefts as to the fine arts — the principles of Scythian theology 
 prevalent there — the fpirit of Phoenician arts firft direfted by thofe 
 
 principles — afterwards made fubfervient to the habits of commerce ■ 
 
 fculpture much cultivated as a commercial article — few traces of paint- 
 ing but what were in a lowtafte — improved and polifhed fentiment not 
 diftinguifhed in the Phoenician charafter — architefture much attended 
 to, and in great eftimation — no proofs of the fine arts worthy o f par- 
 ticular confideration in Carthage, although it was an emanation from 
 Tyre, - - . _ 172—185. 
 
 CHAP IV. 
 
 The fine arts not to be expefted, but in a very confined view, among the 
 Hebrews or Ifraelites — the influence of Scythian theology no where 
 more prevalent than with them, and for a long time — the arts that were 
 connefted with that theology retained much longer than for any other 
 purpofes — fome of the leading emblems of that theology retained by 
 God himfelf in his divine revelation — the retention of thofe emblems 
 no argument againft the divine wifdom, 185 198. 
 
 Vol. I. 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK II. 
 EGYPT. 
 
 CHAP. I. 
 
 All it's arts, and earlier knowledge, derived from Afia, and from Scy- 
 thian principles — thofe arts very ancient, but difficult to be traced 
 to their epochs, and fcarce in their remains, from various caufes — 
 the palace or maufoleum of Ofymandes — paintings in the monuments 
 of Upper Egypt — no reafon to expeft many progreffive improvements 
 in the arts of that country — the Ifraelites inftrufted there in the arts 
 they afterwards executed — the ardour of Sefoftris to improve Egypt 
 — all his embellifhments annihijated by progreffive calamities after 
 his reign — the lofs of freedom followed by a complete depreffion 
 ofthefpirit of art — that fpirit not to be revived by Alexander the 
 Great, fought in vain to be reanimated by the two firft Ptolemies, and 
 irrecoverably extinguifhed by the flavery to which the Egyptians 
 have ever fince been doomed, - - page 199 — 222. 
 
 CHAP. 11. 
 
 The fculptures of Egypt diftinQly confidered. 
 The firft advances of the Egyptians in that art — their predileflion for 
 coloffal figures — the general ftyle of their fculptures very defeflive 
 in deCgn and elegance — that ftyle very foon fpurned by the Greeks — 
 the coUeQion of Egyptian fculptures by the Romans no proof of their 
 tafte, _ _ _ _ 222 — 226. 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 
 The architeflure of Egypt devoted to the raifing of enormous maftes — 
 that tafte of building naturally prompted and kept up by the abund- 
 ance of ftone, marble, and granite in that country, and by the facility 
 with which thofe immenfe blocks were feperated and employed — 
 
COx\TENTS. xi 
 
 Ibmc of the mofl: convenient principles of building vinknown to the 
 Egyptians, and the caufe of great clumfinefs in the whole of tiieir de- 
 figns — the detail of parts no Icfs diforderly and uncouth- — tlie taber- 
 nacle fct up by the Ifraelites in the defert not to be confidered as an 
 expreflion of the Egyptian manner of building — the famous labyrinth 
 worthy enough of being vifited by flrangers for the imnienfity of it's 
 plan, without inducing any conclufion in favour of it's tafle — the 
 Egyptian flyle hardly ever followed by Greeks or Romans out of 
 Egypt — all ages nevcrthclefs indebted to the Egyptians for the culti- 
 vation of geometry, important to a radical (kill in architefture — to 
 be greatly lamented, that fo much labour and treafure were wafted in 
 fuch immenfe edifices to no purpofe, - - page 227 — 240. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 GREECE. 
 
 CHAP. I. 
 
 Preliminary obfervations on the general turn of mind, and fome nati- 
 onal policy, of the Greeks, which were fayonrable to perfeflion in 
 the arts — the means by which they obtained the firfl knowledge of thofe 
 arts from Afia and Egypt — the Greeks themfelves not improbably a 
 people of Afiaticdefcent — the Pelafgi from Caucafus fettled in Greece 
 — the principles of Scythian theology introduced by the Pelafgi, and 
 not loft in Greece under all the variations of their own fubfequent my- 
 thologies, and the multiplicity of deities that fprang from thence 
 
 thofe principles of Scythicifm the fource of the earlieft Grecian fculp- 
 ture, which was all emblematic, and fo continued to the age of Dseda- 
 lus — coins and other fculptures, and characters of writing too, capable 
 of being afcertained in Greece before the arrival of Cadmus — fculp- 
 ture puflied in thofe early ages by many circumftances not fo immedi- 
 ately felt by painting — the heroic ages, however, not favourable to areat 
 
xii CONTENTS. 
 
 advancements in tafte — Grecian fculpture refcued from the point at 
 which it flood in Afia and Egypt, when beauty was given to it, which 
 was firft learnt from Homer — the acquirement of that beauty in the 
 general forms of the Greeks the foundation of various fettled regulati- 
 ons, and of a regular policy — the prefervation of that beauty, and the 
 charafteriftic perfection of their fculptures, ftudied in thecorrednefsof 
 contour, which was not lofl even under their drapery — how far the 
 principles of beauty were reconciled with the ftudy of Nature — the 
 peculiar flyle of their drapery affiftant to the perfeftion of their figures 
 — the peculiar fublimity of their exprefTion derived from philofophy, 
 and tending to ftrengthen it's principles — that fublimity of expreffion 
 not confined to the countenance, but governing the whole attitude — 
 that fublimity of expreffion the beft model to the firft ftudies of artifts 
 — fome qualification neverthelefs neceflary to the painter in the ftudy 
 of antique fculptures, - - page 241 — 303. 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 
 The climate of Greece favourable to painting — whether Pliny be right 
 in the latenefs which he has given to it's firft eftays in that country — 
 the fteps by which it's firft progrefs was marked — the pi8;ure of Bul- 
 archus — the farther progrefs of the pencil, and of the arts in general, 
 obfcured by the adverfity of public circumftances for 272 years till 
 the retreat of Xerxes — that retreat the firft epoch of vigour to all the 
 Grecian arts — the progrefs of painting in the hands of all the more 
 celebrated mafters from that period to the death of Alexander the 
 Great — it's higheft fame clofed with that age, - - 304 — 331. 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 
 The prodigious progrefs of the Grecian arts from Pericles to Alexander 
 the Great — that progrefs effeQed by the peculiar fpirit of patronage 
 io thofe two charafters — the fure advantages t9 the fine arts from 
 
CONTENTS. xiii 
 
 every fuch patronage — no part of human talents fo dependent on pa- 
 tronage for fuccefs as thofe arts — the fupreme power in a country the 
 only effeftual fource of their nurture — the mechanical arts confidera- 
 bly deprefled, where they are neglefted by government — the princi- 
 ples and characters of Grecian patronage — the public fentiments of 
 the Greeks highly favourable to elegant artifts — thofe artifts them- 
 felves aftuated by the moft liberal and ingenuous principles — the necef- 
 . fity of fuch principles in the artifts of every country to give the fine 
 arts perfeflion and a lafting celebrity, - .-. page 331 — 342. 
 
 CHAP. IV. 
 
 The general character of Grecian archite£lure, as fuperior to that 
 which had ever been feen before — the Greeks original in that fuperior 
 charafter — original alfo in the conftitution of an order, although 
 they might be led to it by obfervations of what had been done elfe- 
 where — the antiquity of their firft order, the Doric — the procefs of the 
 orders on philofophic principles, according to which the Grecian mind 
 decided every thing — every poflible charafter proper for the variety of 
 architedural ftruClure provided for in thofe orders, whofe principles 
 no caprice of fubfequent ages has been able to move or vary — the 
 eftablifhment of a diftinft charatler, founded on a ftrift attention 
 to the nature of things, the fixed objeft of the Greeks in each of 
 their orders — the extent with which that diftinft charaQer was main- 
 tained by them in every part and portion of an edifice, fo as to form 
 a compleat whole, a very important and curious fpeculation — the 
 philofophy of engaging our moll rational fenfations aimed at and 
 accomplifhed in a moft ftriking manner by their architeflure — that- 
 objett greatly aflifted by their ftudies and their powers to produce 
 harmony — how that harmony was efFefled — the affinity which has been 
 fuppofed by many to fubfift between the meafures of architefture and 
 mufic — the great caution with which any arbitrary invafions of the 
 Grecian examples, and efpecially of the principles of their orders, 
 
.V,v CONTENTS. 
 
 Ihould be attempted — fome licenfes neverthelefs difcoverable among 
 the Greeks themfelves, but with no violation of principles — their 
 knowledge of perfpeftive — their attentive fludy of geometry — the 
 Cariatides, and Perfian fupporters — the ftrange extenfion of thefe by 
 moderns— ^he peculiar manner in which the Greeks difpofed their 
 private manfions — the means by which they were enabled to raife 
 fuch innumerable and ccftly edifices, - page 344 — 408. 
 
 CHAP. V. 
 
 The origin and general hiftory of the Grecian colonies in Italy and 
 Sicily, with reference to their culture — the principles of Scythian 
 theology carried with them from Greece, and prevalent in the fpirit 
 of their arts — the evidences of their paintings, in the beft periods, 
 not very diftinft ; although circumftances encourage the prefumption 
 that they mud have been eminent in that branch — their architeflure 
 mod confuramate, particularly in the Doric order, of which the nobleft 
 examples that are to be found in the world are yet remaining there. — 
 many of their larger works in fculpture carried off by conquerors, or 
 • devaftated by convulfions of Nature — their coins and medals the great 
 monuments of their celebrity — their admirable difcrction in the im- 
 prefTions feleQed for many of their coins, or in their manner of treat- 
 ing them, in order to fhew their origin, or charafter, or the local cir- 
 cumftances of their fituation — Tarentum and Syracufe the two great 
 repofitories of exquifite and fublime genius in coins — the queftion 
 difcuffed, whether that exquifite and fublime genius, exhibited in 
 either of thofe two ftates, or in Magna Graecia in general, is to be 
 fet down as an original fource of art, independent of Greece, 408 — 
 
 adjinem. 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL AND CRITICAL 
 
 HISTORY OF THE FINE ARTS, &c. 
 
 PART. I. 
 
 The great and leading principles, which form the higher and 
 more important characters of painting. 
 
 CHAP. I. 
 
 Paintingy confxdered as ftmple dejign, coeval zvith man, and the ariginal writing of 
 
 Nature. 
 
 1 HE hiftory of painting is almoft coeval with that of nmankind. 
 We would be underftood to fpeak of it as fimple defign, which 
 gives the proper foundation of the art. For doubtlefs the ufe 
 of colours was a fubfequent improvement, which has been 
 growing at all times. This hinders not, however, but that the 
 earliefl drawings, or thofe which foon fucceeded the earlieft, 
 might have the addition of thofe fimple colourings, which 
 common and early ufe might fuggeft to the untutored mind, 
 and of which the favages in every part of the world have 
 fumifhed to thofe who have firfl vifited them a variety of 
 fpecimens*. No contradi6lion can be given to the idea, that 
 
 * MjEurs des Sauvages, t. z p. 43, 44. Lettr. Edif. t. 17. p. 303,. 304, 
 Vol. I. B 
 
2 PAINTING. 
 
 the firft inhabitants of the earth knew the ufe of fimple colours 
 for common purpofes. Coals, charcoal, chalk, &c. would ferve 
 them very early. And it would not be long before they would 
 come to the knowledge of other colours, the ufes of which 
 they would naturally extend. Semiramis lived in very early days 
 after the flood, if we follow the ufual calculation of her age : 
 Diodorus Siculus fpeaks of paintings done by her order in colours; 
 and what he has handed down on that fubjeft the reader will 
 weigh with attention when he fhall hereafter meet it. 
 
 It has been a common idea that painting was not in ufe 
 before the Trojan war. If that be meant with refpeft to the 
 Greeks, and in the amplefl fenfe of the art as a combination 
 of colours, it may be true ; but it can only be meant with re- 
 fpett to them: in any other relation, the idea muft arife from 
 an extrt^me want of acquaintance with the arts of remote anti- 
 quity. And with refpeft to the Greeks, it appears from the 
 authority of Homer, that in the time of that war they w^ere 
 in the habit of painting other things*, if not the general repre- 
 fentation of obje6ls, with colours of various kinds. Nor is it 
 any proof to the contrary, that the word k'i;«vo?, mod frequently 
 employed by Homer, fpecifically expreffes an azure colour, 
 which is a compofition of mere white and black. 
 
 As the Greeks, therefore, in the drawings of their pencil 
 were in poffeflion of feveral colours, fo we muft fuppofe that 
 the early attempts, which Nature and neceflity didated to men, of 
 communicating their thoughts and recording circumftances by 
 
 * Iliad, lib. 2. v. 144. Lib. n. v. 628. 
 
PAINTING. 3 
 
 drawings of fenfible objefts, were not confined merely to lineal 
 figures, but embraced fuch further aid of the few fimple co- 
 lours which fcanty experience had put into their hands, as may 
 juftify us in referring the origin of painting to a primitive 
 period. 
 
 If, indeed, we were nicely to look into the origin of the art, 
 as an expreffion of defign, it would feem in fome refpeft to 
 lofe it's name ; for beyond all doubt it is innate in man. It is 
 Nature herfelf in her firfl rudiments ; and Nature herfelf muft 
 be forfworn, whenever this art is lofl;, or but retained with neg- 
 left. The talent of imitation is univerfal in man. It was ne- 
 cefTarily univerfal in the firfl: of the human race. Through 
 long fucceflions of time man knew not how to write. He had 
 no alternative but painting, by which he mufl; fpeak to the ab- 
 fent. And the firfl: ufe of his fenfes taught him readily what to 
 do. His own fliadow became the guide to his own image. 
 Pliny*, the great interpreter of Nature, aflerts that the firft 
 pifture was nothing elfe but the fliadow of a man drawn about 
 with lines. He gives, indeed, the example in a girl of Sicyon, 
 Corinthia by name. But Nature never waited till Corinthia's 
 time for the firfl: exemplification of the principle. When once 
 a man had thus obtained the image of himfelf, the next ftep of 
 thought led him not only to his own image without his own 
 fhadow, but by the eye alone to that of every other creature : 
 and one, or a few fleps more, would give him the peculiar 
 difl:in6lion of one fpecies from another, or of one individual from 
 another in the fame fpecies. From thofe fimple documents he 
 
 * Nat. Hift. lib. 35. c. 3. 
 
4 PAINTING. 
 
 would prefently take the range of univerfal Nature obvious to 
 his view. He would naturally paint fmoke rifing in the air, if 
 he meant to write of a fire. If an individual were killed, he 
 would reprefent one man lying on the ground, and another 
 Handing over him with an inftrument of death in his hand. If 
 a flranger arrived in his country by fea, he would draw as 
 well as he could the reprefentation of a man fitting in a fhip. 
 
 Unqueflionably thofe firfl elTays of the art were very rude. 
 The human mind, though wonderfully ingenious when it has 
 caught firfl; principles, is as wonderfully flow in it's way to the 
 fimplefl operations, where thofe firfl; principles are themfelves 
 to be obtained. Yet we cannot help thinking, that when 
 y^lian fays*, it was no uncommon thing in thofe earlier eflays 
 of painting to fubfcribe under the figures, " this is an ox ;" 
 " this is a horfe ;" " this is a tree ;" he has rather overcharged 
 the faft as a general one. Let it have been fpoken of mankind 
 when and where it might, we may judge very fairly of what the 
 general rudenefs of Nature was likely to produce in this way 
 from what we know of the natives of South America, than whom 
 there was no part of the earth in it's remoter periods more fhut 
 out from foreign intercourfe, and confequently lefs benefited 
 by communication with fl;rangers. Thefe, till they were dif- 
 covered by the Spaniards, were doubtlefs felf-taught : Nature 
 was their only inftruftor: and they are proved, even in Mexico, 
 to have been as rude in mofl; of the arts as almofl; any people 
 that ever had Nature only for their guide. In the art of which 
 we are fpeaking, fays a candid and able inquirert into their 
 
 * Var. Hid. lib. lo. c. lo. t Robertfon's Hift. of America, V. 3. p, 205, 
 
PAINTING. 
 
 hiftory, " their performances may be confidered as the earlieft 
 " and moft imperfeft eflfay of men in their progrefs towards the 
 " difcovery of the art of writing." Yet thefe people knew how 
 to paint with a better effeft than ^lian reprefents. The Mexi- 
 cans, when invaded by the Spaniards, fent intelHgence of the 
 event to Montezuma, their prince, by paintings, in which were 
 drawn the figures of every thing that attended their invaders*. 
 Thofe piftures were taken as the ordinary means of informa- 
 tion, and they needed no key or explanation to the Mexican 
 monarch. They were taken too on cotton cloth, on which it 
 would be fomewhat neceffary, for the retention of defign, not 
 only to draw, but to colour too. Thefe methods of original 
 writing were fo effeftual, that Cortes, having invaded the coun- 
 try, became afterwards indebted to their aid for the preferva- 
 tion of his life. A confpiracy was formed to deftroy him, of 
 which being apprifed by a piece of cloth defcribing the por- 
 traits of the confpirators and their plans, he was enabled to 
 efcape the danger with which he was threatened. To fuch an 
 extent had thofe uncivilized Mexicans advanced in that way 
 of writing, that a book of figures, being in faft a book of their 
 letters, was given as a prefent to Cortes by Montezumat. 
 
 To return to our purpofe. In thofe Mexican paintings we 
 have a mofl: fatisfaftory proof that the talent of pifture -writing 
 was original to mankind in a fl;ate of Nature, and neceffary 
 for their converfing with each other at a diftance. It was a 
 talent enjoyed alike by all. We find it not only where we 
 difcover the firft beginnings of the finer arts, but wherever we 
 
 * Robertfon's Hlft. of America, V. 2 .p. 266. Acofta, lib. 7. c. 24. Raynal Hift, 
 Ind. V. 2. p. 370. t Gomara'sHift. of the Indies. 
 
6 PAINTING. 
 
 obtain a hiftory. Ancient ftories are full of this talent as a 
 principle of writing. The claflical reader will recoUeft the 
 beautiful fable of Philomela, who had no other refource but 
 that Jilent voice, as Achilles Tatius elegantly calls it, conveyed 
 in a vefture which (he had woven for the purpofe of defcribing 
 on it what fhe had fuflfered, and by which fhe difcovered to the 
 eyes of Progne, as effectually as any words would have related 
 to his ear, the fituation in which fhe was then placed*. It was 
 the firfl talent of writing employed by the Egyptianst. The 
 Phoenicians feem originally to have known no other method;}^. 
 The old Ethiopians, whom Diodorus Siculus imagines to have 
 been the mofl ancient of all nations, wrote, he fays, in the 
 fame manner. The modern Chinefe charafters are evidently 
 derived from this primitive pra6lice \. And we may reafonably 
 infer that the fame practice originally prevailed among the 
 Greeks, becaufe in their language to paint and to write are 
 both expreffed by one and the fame word (yp«(J)£iv.) 
 
 Such an univerfal concurrence in the firfl flages of every 
 fociety, when the want of communication with others muft 
 have precluded the general means of imitation, fhews indifputa- 
 bly the force of Nature, and the attention with which fhe im- 
 preffed this talent on the human mind. But when we look for- 
 ward to the comprehenfive powers which it has reached in the 
 progrefs of time, and confider the fplendor with which it fhines 
 among the finer arts, the bounty of Nature in this fingle in- 
 flance fufpends for a while every other admiration of her 
 
 * Achilles Tatius, lib. 5. Ovid's Metam. lib. 6. 
 
 t Tacit. Annal. lib. 1 I.e. 14. EiFai fur les Hierogly. desEgyptiens, p. 28,48, 114.. 
 
 \ Ibid. p. 26. § Ibid. p. 35. 
 
PAINTING. 7 
 
 works. She has been liberal to man in the variety of neceffary 
 sifts : (he has adorned his mind with various portions of ex- 
 cellence : but when (he gave the talent, of which we are now 
 fpeaking, flie eftabliflied her claim to the never-ceahng grati- 
 tude of the human race, which, without the introdu6lion of fo 
 early and ftrong a tuition, might hardly have hoped to attain an 
 art that ufurps fuch a compafs of refinement, and calls for fuch 
 an infinity of fkill ; — from whofe principles indeed has flowed 
 whatever contributes to fill the name of the arts. 
 
 How the ruder traits of this natural art, if I may ufe the 
 expreflion, moved forward through the fucceflive gradations of 
 fubftituting a part for the whole of a figure, then of putting one 
 figure to fignify many ideas, next of the fymbolic or hierogly- 
 phic charafter, afterwards of the fyllabic by figns, till at laft 
 it reached the wonderful perfeftion of alphabetic writing, is 
 not to our prefent purpofe, which is content with fhewing that 
 it was the important voice of Nature fpeaking in an uniform 
 tone to the firft capacities of mankind. And as it was Nature 
 in it's origin, fo fhe has kindly watched over it's progrefs ever 
 fmce, till in it's cultivation it has become the very fummit of 
 art. If it's firft attempts have been degraded by the fubfequent 
 perfeftion of writing, it has triumphed in it's turn over it's rival, 
 and by the improvements which it has acquired from time 
 and from it's own infinite fource of excellence, it has far out- 
 flripped all writing in the magnitude of it's efFeft, in the fcope, 
 and force, and dignity, and univerfality of it's inftruftion. 
 Thefe points are worthy of confi deration. We will endeavour 
 to elucidate them. 
 
8 PAINTING. 
 
 CHAP. 11. 
 
 The advantages of painting, in an improved Jlate, over all other 
 
 modes of writing. 
 
 SECT. I. 
 
 In the fcope of inJlruElion. 
 
 The befl compofition of language can but difplay it's fubjeft 
 in progreflive detail. It is not given to words to bring within 
 the compafs of their illuflration more than one circumftance at 
 one time. There muft neceffarily be an order of narration; 
 and the mind muft wait to receive from that order whatever 
 events the narration fupplies, let it be ever fo impatient in it's 
 expeftations. Indeed the mind will be impatient, wherever the 
 detail is interefting : it will anticipate what the tardinefs of 
 language has not been able to bring forward i it will often con- 
 ceive more than it finds involved in the narrative ; and it al- 
 ways feels a contraft to the quicknefs and comprehenfion of 
 it's own ideas in the progreflivenefs which is inevitable to all 
 ideas cloathed in words. Thus it is, whenever the mind is fed 
 by the inftrumentality of language 
 
 But let the pencil give it's colouring to the fubjeft, and the 
 eye become the inlet to the inftruftion, and with one glance 
 of the eye the mind feizes the whole ; as with a fingle glance of 
 it's own thought it can often take the largeft range, and make 
 itfelf commenfurate to the moft copious matter. Nor is this 
 
PAINTING. 9 
 
 with any difadvantage to thofe parts of the flory, which language 
 would bring forward with it's bed colouring ; nor with any lofs 
 of thofe fecondary circumftances, to which the pen can give 
 their part in the general fcene, with all the variety and exa6lnefs 
 of exprelTion. For while in a well-ordered pifture, the mind 
 grafps the whole at once, it huddles together nothing : it dif- 
 criminates with perfeft facility the bolder and the fainter fitu- 
 ations : and it feels in an inftant all thofe proportions of fenfi- 
 bility which arife from the refpe£live fituation, and which in the 
 hands of the ablefl; penman, would employ the labour of pages 
 to illullrate. A pifture, fays Philoflratus*, pourtrays in one 
 forcible view what is already done, what is doing, and what is 
 yet to be done ; not (lightly paffing over each, but finifhing 
 what belongs to every circumftance, as if that alone were the 
 main objeft. 
 
 Let us take an example for our purpofe. The death of 
 Heftor, and particularly in that moment when his body was 
 brought back into Troy, w^ll give us one in every way cir- 
 cumftanced to do juftice to our fentiment. On the fide of 
 writing, it has every advantage that writing can have — the mod 
 mafterly difplay of the mofl: original and lofty poet, who was 
 equal not only to the firft attraftions that could be given to real 
 incident, but to the liveliefl and yet the correftefl: fallies of 
 imagination — who knew human nature confummately well, 
 knew where and how to give the finefl touches to it's feelings, 
 and was perfeftly pofleffed of that great touchftone of true 
 erudition, the art of coming by the fliorteft and choicefl ex- 
 
 * Iconum, lib. i. in Bofporo. 
 Vol. I. C 
 
lO PAINTING. 
 
 prelFions to the mofl forcible ideas ; with a language too in his 
 hands, which by it's peculiar combinations was mofl happily 
 calculated to facilitate this point. 
 
 Befides this, if ever there was a fubjeft that could call forth 
 the abilities of a Homer, that could make him colleft himfelf, 
 and pour forth all the animation of his mind to meet with all 
 imaginable rapidity the ardent expeftations of his readers, it 
 was that great event, fo fraught with every thing that could 
 ftrike a feeling mind, or fugged impatience to a curious one, 
 becaufe fo difaftrous to all that hero's family, fo fatal to the 
 city whofe gallant defender he had been, fo final to every hope, 
 and fo ruinous in it's whole complexion, that beyond it no- 
 thing farther was left for that exalted writer to extend his poem. 
 
 He has done as much as the pen in the hand of Genius could 
 do to croud that grand event into the fmallefl compafs. Scarcely 
 three common pages are employed, in which almoft every line, 
 and often words themfelves, are a fentence. He has bellowed 
 lefs upon embellilhment than ever poet or writer bellowed on 
 the like occafion ; for, in faft, every incident and expreflion 
 that Nature and fituation diftated, were themfelves the very 
 quinteffence of embellilhment. He has evidently haflened to 
 the principal group, in which was centered all the force and dig- 
 nity and pathos of the fcene ; at the fame time that in touching 
 more lightly the introduftory and furrounding images, language 
 could not give to each a more pointed feleftion of expreffion. 
 
 Yet what reader does not feel even the language and the 
 difpatch of Homer in this inflance, too flow for the anxiety 
 
PAINTING. 11 
 
 with which his mind fwells to anticipate all that is untold ? We 
 no fooner fee with Caffandra from the tower the aged father 
 returning with his dear fon's remains, but we are eager to be- 
 hold, before words can tell us, the affli6led throng that burfts in 
 cries from the Trojan gates, to take their laft view of their loft 
 proteftor ; but, moft of all, to hear the heart-rending diftrefs of 
 the widowed Andromache, with her defolate infant, and the 
 maternal lamentations of the aged Hecuba. We are repaid in- 
 deed for waiting the progrefs of the narrative in the mingled 
 tears of the generous, grateful, Helen, which give us more per- 
 haps than the imagination could have ftretched itfelf to meet, 
 but which form the fineft clofe to the charafter of the beloved 
 hero, over whom it is natural indeed that a fond mother and a 
 diftrafted wife fhould hang in bitter lamentations : but when 
 Helen weeps for the lofs of that amiable friend, whofe mild and 
 kind deportment towards her, under circumftances which had 
 fliaken the temper of almoft every one in Priam's houfe, was 
 invariable to the laft ; this gives a finifli to the fcene, and en- 
 dears to every reader the univerfally-lamented man, who now 
 becomes not more the darling of his family, and of his country, 
 than the darling of humanity. 
 
 But might not all this fcope of detail be embraced by the 
 pencil with the fame effeft, nay, with a more abundant one ? 
 forafmuch as the whole is caught at once upon the canvas, and 
 abides upon the fenfes ; whereas in the poem it rifes only in fuc- 
 ceflion, wherein every fucceding gratification treads out in fome 
 degree the impreftion of that which is gone by. Caftandra on 
 the top of Pergamus, announcing the arrival of the body, and 
 calling to the Trojans — the Trojan throng aflembled below — 
 
12 PAINTING. 
 
 are circumftances which doubtlefs fpeak witli more variety and 
 glow of expreffion on the canvas than any language can give 
 them. The weeping matrons and the infant around the body 
 are beheld with no lefs ftriking effeft. If there is any thing in 
 which the poet may feem to have the advantage over the 
 painter, it is perhaps in that great effort of pathetic, beyond 
 which fobs mud choak all farther utterance of the heart-broken 
 Andromache — " O ! tliat thou hadft, in thy laft moments, 
 " grafped my hand in thine, and faid fomething which I might 
 " have remembered day and night, amidft my tears, for ever!" 
 But why may not Andromache, hanging with ftreaming eyes 
 over her loll hufband — his hand clafped in her's — her every fea- 
 ture marking affeftion mingled with agony — the hopelefs wifh 
 jufl flarting from her lips — fpeak the fame fentirr^ent with the 
 fame eloquence ? Even the {filler grief of friendfhip in the 
 Grecian Helen is capable of being exprefled by the pencil, and 
 perhaps with a ftronger contrafl to the more interefting and 
 vehement diftrefs of the two Trojan matrons than the poet has 
 given her ; while her's and Hecuba's certainly contribute to form 
 the grand climax of grief, which has it's completion in Andro- 
 mache. 
 
 An anecdote of the two Carachi (hall clofe my obfervations 
 here, and it will fpeak their purpofe more flrongly than reafon- 
 ing. One day, as they were in company, AugulUn took occa- 
 fion to harangue on the excellencies of ancient fculpture, and 
 in the courfe of his obfervations he was very earneft in praife 
 of the Laocoon. Perceiving his brother Hannibal turned 
 towards the wall, as if he paid no attention to the fubjeft, he 
 flopped a moment to rebuke him for his apparent indifference, 
 
PAINTING. 13 
 
 and then went on. Prefently it was obferved that Hannibal had 
 been drawing on the wall, with a piece of coal, the whole group 
 of figures, on which his brother had fo long expatiated. Not 
 only the reft of the company, but Auguftin himfelf, was fo 
 ftruck with the drawing, that he proceeded no further, de- 
 claring it was in vain to fay more, after what was before their 
 eyes. Whereupon Hannibal, having finilhed his defign, turned 
 to the company, with this bon mot, " Poets paint with words, 
 " and painters fpeak with the pencil*. 
 
 SECT. II. 
 
 In the force of \nJlru£lion, 
 
 If the painter can give a larger fcope to his fubjeft at one view, 
 he muft entertain and inftruft the mind with more force, than 
 the writer. For where more caufes are combined and concen- 
 tered together, the ftronger and more copious will be the effeft. 
 Where the mind is affailed at once by the whole intereft of any 
 important fubjeft, it will certainly be captivated with the great- 
 eft power. The fire which gathers in an inftant from many 
 quarters will be more intenfe than that which lingers in it's 
 progrefs. What is it that moft forcibly excites genuine admi- 
 ration in any cafe ? It is a great aflemblage of admirable ob- 
 jefts uniting in a whole, not the beft pofition of any fingle ob- 
 je6l or incident, nor of many given in detached views. It is true, 
 the pen can enter into all the minutiae of language, and make 
 it's way by a thoufand little avenues to many of our feelings : 
 but it is from the ftronger and more marked affeftions, not from 
 
 * Bellori in vita Hannib. Carachi, p. 31. Felib. des Peintres, V. 3. p. 266, 7. 
 
14 PAINTING. 
 
 the niceft feleftion or colouring of words, that inflruftion rifes, 
 and the mind is imprefled with a moral. And there is no doubt 
 but every paffion that actuates the human breaft is fully as much 
 in the power of the pencil, as of the pen, to delineate. Why 
 are we more aflfe6led by a fpeech delivered immediately from the 
 lips of any great public fpeaker, than we (hould be by the fame 
 fpeech committed to writing, or than we are affefted by thofe 
 very orations of Tully or Demoflhenes, which, we know, cap- 
 tivated whole affemblies, and carried them away as by a tor- 
 rent? It is, becaufe the fcene itfelf is before us : we behold the 
 image and the animation of the fpeaker, and the images and 
 animation of the furrounding audience : from thence we catch 
 the fire ourfelves, and become involuntarily affefted. If it is 
 not the fame in faft, when thefe are fpread upon the canvas, 
 yet it is the fame in principle. And, in the opinion of Quin- 
 tilian, it is the fame, in faft, upon the canvas, at leaft as to all 
 the effefts of oratory : " Piftura, tacens opus, et habitus femper 
 " ejufdem, fic intimos penetret affeftus, ut ipfam vim dicendi 
 " nonnunquam fuperare videatur*." The images do not '.in- 
 deed fpeak here, but they are alive to the fight, and they have 
 an eloquence peculiar to themfelves. Like thofe celeftial bo- 
 dies, which the great Defigner of the univerfe has fpread to 
 our view upon the canopy of heaven, " there is (in the beau- 
 " tiful exprefiion of holy writ) neither fpeech nor language in 
 " them, neverthelefs their voices are heard," as much to the 
 purpofe, and as audibly to the intelligent, as if they poflefied 
 the moll articulate utterance. In the fpeaking and the filent 
 figure the medium is the fame ; the eye informs the mind in 
 
 * Inft. Orat. ii. 3, 
 
PAINTING. 15 
 
 both — the eye, whofe fenfe conveys a far ftronger imprefTion 
 than that of the ear, as thofe will acknowledge who have had 
 the misfortune to lofe the former, or any one who is fituated in 
 a public auditory with the opportunity only of enjoying the 
 latter. In the fpeaking figure the advantage indeed is pre- 
 eminent, as it can gratify the fenfibility of the ear, as well as 
 that of the eye ; whereas the beft writing in the world can ap- 
 peal in that way to neither. 
 
 Turn to the A6ls of the Apoflles, and you find Paul preach- 
 ing at Athens. Make allowance that you read his fpeech only 
 in the abftraft. You read in it the ftrong and fober reafoning of 
 an enlightened mind, arguing to the profefTors of reafon, and 
 from their own mifapplied principles overfetting idolatry, and 
 confounding it's fupporters in the philofophic fchools. But go 
 to the Vatican, and there behold that great apoflle, as the 
 pencil of Raphael has given him, (landing up in the Areopagus, 
 firm, bold, and impaffioned, furrounded with his epicurean and 
 ftoic opponents, in whom is marked all that variety of feelings 
 which would chara6lerize an affembly, of which " fome ftill 
 " doubted," and others a little fhaken in their prejudices prof- 
 fered " to hear him again :" then fay, in which of thofe repre- 
 fentations the apoftle's fpirit appears moft " ftirred within him," 
 and by which of them the fpirit of your own mind is moft 
 completely affeded. 
 
l6 P>\INT1NG. 
 
 SECT. III. 
 
 In the dignity of injiritilion. 
 
 Nor is there lefs dignity, than force and fcope, in the in- 
 ftruftion which the pencil can give. Writing muft cede the 
 pahn to it in this inftance. What is it that gives dignity to 
 language, and makes the fublime of expreflTion completely full ? 
 Moft certainly, it is aftion ; that aftion, which lifts every fcene 
 to it's beft moment, becaufe it is the full and real exhibition of 
 Nature, to which the artificial exhibition of her by words only 
 holds a fecondary place. To obtain this aftion, it is not ne- 
 ceffary that words fhould be employed : for we all know, that 
 if a man be pcrfedlly filent, and in a ftriking attitude calcu- 
 lated to exprefs any ftrong emotion of the foul, he fhall give to 
 thofe who behold him all the feeling that words could convey, 
 and often infinitely more*. The dumb give proofs of this, and 
 the deaf receive proofs of it, every day. Every pantomime 
 fpeaks this truth : and the pantomimes of the ancients fpoke it 
 more ftrongly : " I underfland you, your hands fpeak," ex- 
 claimed a philofopher of old to one of thofe mute aftors. The 
 entertainment, which of itfelf might be trifling enough, gains 
 an importance from the earneftnefs of aftion, by which it is not 
 beneath the attention of philofophy to be arrefted. 
 
 If this is true of the filent figure, it is equally true of it, 
 whether exhibited on the canvas, or flanding on the ground. 
 The criterion is, if the paflion be preferved, and given in it's 
 own energy ; and if fo, the effeft is obtained, Nature is digni- 
 
 * Quint. Inft. Orat. ii. 3. 
 
PAINTING. 
 
 17 
 
 fied in the exhibition, and the inftruftion is given as potent as 
 it can come from Nature. Thus far the canvas claims, in 
 common with real life, that aftion which lifts every fcene, and 
 unaided by which the fineft writing in the world lofes many gra- 
 dations of dignity. 
 
 But that aftion, powerful as it is to elevate, is only one 
 among many circumftances which conftitute the variety of 
 powers to be claimed by the pencil exclufively for it's own, as 
 the fources of dignity to it's fcenes, which no writing whatever 
 can emulate. The moft fuperficial obferver of paintings mufl 
 have marked the advantages they derive from the difpofition of 
 the whole — the keeping of all the parts — the harmonious effcfts 
 of colouring — the powers of light and fhade — fituation, attitude, 
 and drefs — the power of contrail — and, not leaft of all, the 
 power of combining, for the grandeur of effeft, any circum- 
 ftances which are connefted with the fubjeft, or which are not 
 unnatural, although they do not make a part of the fame mo- 
 ment, nor are conne6led in ftriftnefs with the fame incident. 
 
 In the laft of thefe powers the dignity of fubjeft finds a very 
 important intereft ; and it is employed with reafon, becaufe it 
 is no more than a licence to fet forth the fubjeft in the beft 
 poflible view. No circumftance can fhew more ftrongly than 
 this the advantage which the pencil enjoys over the pen. For 
 hardly ever did a fcene or incident arife, in which Nature or ac-' 
 cident was kind enough to fhape every circumftance fo happily 
 as to give a perfect difplay to the whole. But the painter 
 breaks through thofe difadvantages and fetters. His narrative 
 muft be finiftied, and his fcene muft be dignified. Heliodorus 
 
 Vol. I. D 
 
l8 PAINTING. 
 
 in the hiftory*, having wickedly pillaged the temple of Jeru- 
 falem, is driven out of it by two young men miraculoufly fent 
 from God, who fcourge him feverely, (landing on either fide of 
 him. But when Raphael tells the ftory by his pencil, he gives 
 greater decorum and a nobler elevation to the fcene, reprefenting 
 the two figures as fufpended in the air, in a fwift motion towards 
 Heliodorus, but without wings, and therefore not decidedly 
 marked as angels, which might not have been warranted. 
 Again : when the fame great mafler defcribed the fire at Rome, 
 which approached the Vatican, and is faid (among the feries of 
 popifh miracles) to have been extinguifhed by Leo IV. on his 
 making the fign of the crofs ; however devoted to the legend, the 
 painter thought fit to confult the greater dignity and anima- 
 tion of the piece, and perhaps, as he thought, of the miracle 
 too, by defcribing a high wind agitating the flames, and invol- 
 ving all things in hurry and confufion. 
 
 Thefe are powers, with which the canvas can fwell and ex- 
 alt it's fubjefts beyond any capacities of writing. They are 
 powers, by which may be exprefled a multitude of ideas not 
 poflible to be communicated by any other means that are not 
 fupernatural. And they are powers, in which there is no me- 
 dium. They either fpeak with dignity, or they have no effeft. 
 They either exalt the reprefentation, or they become themfelves 
 degraded. Every painting, to fpeak of it correftly, is either 
 divine or poor. We are charmed by it, or we bear not to 
 look on it. It is like mufic, which fills and lifts every paflion 
 it touches, or it is empty, and tires the ear. And in either of 
 thefe fifter-arts we fo much expeft this perfe6lion, that if we do 
 
 * 2 Maccab. cap. 3. 
 
PAINTING. 1^ 
 
 not meet it, we endure nothing fliort of it ; becaufe whatever 
 is fhort of it, is not the art. 
 
 On the other hand, in writing, although pofTeffing much merit, 
 mediocrity is common, and all proportions of mediocrity. And 
 this we bear in any of it's proportions, without being difgufted. 
 Provided the compofition repays our inquiry by it's matter, 
 although it be drefled in no graces of diftion, we can read it, 
 and repeat the reading of it, with confiderable fatisfaftion. 
 The reafon is, we do not neceffarily look there for a dignity of 
 ftyle. We do not confider that as indifpenfible either to our 
 inftruftion or our pleafure. But will any man bear to bring 
 his eyes repeatedly on a painting, whofe inftruftion is humbly 
 and coarfely delivered ? 
 
 When therefore the powers of the pencil are exerted with 
 that force of which they are capable, we may fafely appeal to 
 every man's feelings, whether the canvas or the hiftoric page 
 has left upon his mind loftier and more exalted ideas of the 
 fame fubjeft. We will mention one as loftily conceived, and 
 as fublimely exprefled, in thofe writings wherein it is found, 
 as any that can be felefted, becaufe it flows not from human 
 thought, it is pure matter of divine revelation : I mean the gen- 
 eral refurreftion, or the laft judgement. Let us not fuppofe 
 that the pencil is inferior to the reach of this exalted fubjeft. 
 It has already come from the hands of fome great mafters in 
 prodigious grandeur. But we have no hefitation to affirm that 
 it has never been embraced by the pencil in the bell manner of 
 which it is capable, in that purenefs of enlightened impreffion 
 with which we fhould expeft to fee it filled, after what has been 
 
20 PAINTING. 
 
 revealed. This may feem a bold affertion, when two fuch 
 mafters as Michael Angelo and Rubens look this affertion in the 
 face. But the work of the former may more fitly be called the 
 pagan, or at leaft the popifh, laft judgement, than the gofpel 
 one : in point of thought, it is certainly faulty in many parts ; 
 although in point of dejign and execution through all it's parts, 
 and as a great whole, it is the ftandard of art. The work of the 
 latter, although wonderful in thought, and indeed every thing as 
 far as it goes, yet is but partial in it's extent. It is therefore 
 referved flill for the pencil to fhew what can be done com- 
 pletely on that great fubjeft, which is fo peculiarly calculated 
 for the affemblage of all it's powers. Thofe powers, we truft, 
 will one day give that divine profpeft to be contemplated by 
 the human mind in all the fulnefs of it's own pure grandeur. 
 Does the weight of fcriptural impreffion peculiarly forbid this ? 
 Try it by what has been done. Try it by the cartons of Ra- 
 phael. Let any man read any of thofe fubjefts in the facred 
 book, and then take a view of the carton. Let him turn over 
 the divine page ever fo often, and as often return to the carton: 
 he will affuredly carry back from the pifture not only nobler 
 and more enlarged conceptions of the greatefl part of thofe fub- 
 jefts than the facred writer has left upon him, but nobler and 
 more enlarged conceptions newly encreafing at every view. 
 Thefe effefts are not produced, becaufe the facred writers were 
 defeftive, but becaufe they were writers, and becaufe words can 
 never convey fuch ideas as may be brought to flow from fuch a 
 pencil as Raphael's. 
 
PAINTING 21 
 
 SECT. IV. 
 
 In the univerJalUy of injlruiiion. 
 
 If the pen could equal the pencil in the fcope, and force, and 
 dignity of it's reprefentations, ftill it can only communicate a 
 partial inftruftion. It can only fpeak to thofe who have been 
 taught it's language, and even to thofe it is often involved in 
 obfcurity and doubt. But were it ever to clear, fince the ideas 
 it conveys depend not for their prefervation on any aftual forms 
 or images brought home to the mind, but merely on founds or 
 arbitrary marks, it mufl be tranfient in it's efifefts. The pencil, 
 on the contrary, in it's improved ftate, employs an univerfal 
 language, intelligible to all in every country, and in every period 
 of time — a language, which fpeaks to multitudes at once, and to 
 fucccflive generations ; and when once imprefled on the mind, 
 retains an abidance there, which time can rarely efface — a lan- 
 guage, which needs no tedious ftudy to acquire, but conveys it's 
 ideas as it were by infpiration. For Nature has given to the 
 whole human race a common fenfibility of the ordinary paflions 
 which move within them, the aftions by which thofe paflions 
 (hew themfelves, and the general femblances of things ; fo that 
 every man, whether enlightened or not, can with much facility 
 difcern when any of thofe paflions or femblances are marked. 
 Carry to any part of the world the " lafcivious women of Lewis 
 Carachi," and although many perfons may not be able to explain 
 the fl;or)', which depends on a different kind of knowledge, you 
 fliall prefently be told that they were come to tempt that pious 
 man in the garden. Let the Spartan boy, who fo induflrioufly 
 hugs the fox which is eating into him, be feen where it may, it 
 fliall be declared to be the reprefentation of extroardinary pati- 
 
22 PAINTING. 
 
 ence in fome youth, or of feme rigid determination in him, 
 when he perfifls to conceal the animal at the rifque of his life. 
 What man in any fituation or ftage of fociety, who had ever 
 feen or heard of a battle, would fail to pronounce our " Wolfe" 
 to be the pifture of fome great commander who died in the 
 moment of vi6lory ? 
 
 There are fubje6ls immediately growing out of this univerfality 
 of pi6lure-language, in which words can give no afiTiftance ; fub- 
 jefts, which form fome of the firfl delights to the rational mind, 
 and often no inconfiderable inftruftion. Of this fort are all the 
 great fcenes of Nature, the fcenes of animal and vegetative life, 
 the beauties of perfpeftive and of local fituation, the improve- 
 ments of manufaftures and other arts, the treafures of produc- 
 tions which draw the laborious naturalift through inhofpitable 
 feas and climates. Here the language of painting reigns not 
 only the fupreme, but the fole, arbitrefs ; and makes itfelf un- 
 derftood alike by every individual through the earth. 
 
 Carry your view a little further, and you prefently find the 
 language of the world as much indebted to the pencil for it's 
 fuller elucidation of their own narratives, as ever the pencil 
 could be indebted to them. Apelles proved this to his great 
 advantage, when he had been thrown by a temped into Egypt, 
 and was drawn by a falfe meflage delivered by fome ftranger to 
 go and fup with the king, who was known to have conceived by 
 fome means an invincible hatred againft him in Alexander's 
 court : what would have become of him under the indignation 
 of the monarch, who thought himfelf purpofely infulted, if the 
 art of the painter had not helped him more than his language 
 could do, by drawing on the wall with coal the pifture of the 
 
PAINTING. ft^ 
 
 man who had betrayed him into that meafure*? When the 
 hiftorian relates any of the great aftions of old, or in any wife 
 touches the fubjeft of antique, how {hall he make us rightly 
 underftand him, where he fpeaks of arms and habiliments, of 
 ornaments and fymbols ? Here all muft be unintelligible, till the 
 pencil affords it's defcription. So thought the heroes returning 
 from the Trojan war, or fo thought the poets for them, when 
 by fome fuch defcription they made familiar to Penelope the 
 city of Troy, and all the operations of the fiege+: and fo 
 thought ^neas, when by fome fuch defcription he illuftrated 
 the fame fubjefts to CalypfoJ. Vegetius ^ therefore infills, that 
 painters, or thofe who could defign, fhould make a part of every 
 legion in an army. 
 
 If we confult what we read, we fhould be apt to come into 
 the opinion, that words at no time inform us perfeftly, without 
 reference to the painter's art. We fly of neceffity to his univer- 
 fal affiflance. No man ever reads a fcene, or incident, or cha- 
 rafter, but he converts the words into an image, and fancies the 
 fcene, or incident, or charafter to exift before him in fuch fhape 
 as the writing has led him to conceive. The more animated the 
 writing is, the more the mind haftens to fhape the image that 
 rifes out of it : the flronger and more perfpicuous that image 
 is to the eye of the mind, the more perfeft and accomplifhed is 
 the writing, and the more are we affefted by the reading. If 
 writing fails to raife fuch an image within us, it is then poor and 
 indifferent, or we are lifllefs towards it. Shall we hefitate then 
 to pronounce, that of all the languages in the world that of the 
 pencil is mofl copious and univerfal ? 
 
 • Plin. lib. 35. c. 10. -t Ovid's Eplft. Heroid. 
 
 J Ovid de Arte, &c. lib. 2. § De re Militari, lib. 2. c. 2. 
 
24 MORAL PAINTING. 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 
 The difplay of moral fubje6ls the purejl office of painting, as a 
 
 ■ mean ofinflruElion. 
 
 The review we have given of painting, as taught and endowed 
 by Nature, is not merely a theoretical defcant on it's excellence, 
 irrelevant to any ufes that may be derived from it. We fee it 
 to be an eminent gift of Nature for the purpofe of inftruftion. 
 Whatever purpofe, therefore, it may ferve befides, if it does 
 not inftruft, it is certainly lowered in it's exercife ; and the age 
 or country, whofe tafte fhall be found to predominate in a de- 
 parture from that fuperior purpofe, is unqueflionably debafed 
 in it's tafte, proportionably to the ftages of that departure. 
 
 Purfuing that great feature of the art, we cannot refift the 
 conclufion, that moral painting, under which term we include 
 all that is hiftorical or poetical, all that conveys a leftbn, is it's 
 nobleft difplay. Is there any other branch of it's exercife, to 
 which an equal meafure of abilities is called ? Is there any other, 
 therefore, that conveys a higher idea of it's deftination? The 
 moral painter muft be ftrong in the refources of invention or 
 genius — in tafte, which corrects and chaftens thefe — in judge- 
 ment, which adapts their ideas to the immediate fpirit and ob- 
 je6l of the fcene — in an intimate acquaintance with Nature, 
 which enables him to embellifti, if not to follow, what is written 
 —in an accurate knowledge of the human frame, it's outward 
 organization, and it's inward affeftions — in the knowledge of 
 fymmetry, perfpeftive, and even general architefture. Thefe, in 
 
MORAL PAINTING. 
 
 addition to an excellence in compofition and decorum, are in- 
 difpenfible to fill the mind, and guide the hand, of the man who 
 paints to inftruft. In other words, he muft participate to a 
 certain degree the gifts of the hiftorian, the poet, the philofo- 
 pher, the anatomift, the geometrician, the naturalift, and the 
 architeft. Like the bee, he muft extraft the juices from various 
 flowers, before he can form that excellent compound of his art, 
 which gives to the mind, as honey does to the tongue, a delici- 
 oufnefs of tafte not to be gathered from a lefs excurfive range, 
 nor to be compaffed by any other fliill. 
 
 What a lofty idea does this give us of an art, which grafps fo 
 wide a compafs of talents, and calls for a portion of whatever re- 
 fines and enlarges the human mind ? And how much below the 
 natural level, which this art is calculated to maintain, do they 
 reduce it, who make it fubfervient to fubjefts in which hardly 
 any one of thofe liberal gifts is interefted, and from which there- 
 fore no liberal inftruftion can flow ? Little minds, which can 
 neither meet the comprehenfion of an enlarged fubjeft, nor hope 
 to rife to the difplay of it, will affeft to depreciate and to damp 
 by every little infinuation this pre-eminent exercife of the art : 
 direaiy to traduce it as a fuperior exercife, would be idle, 
 becaufe it would be abfurd : they will affeR to maintain it's 
 higher claims, while they endeavour to crufh it ; they will la- 
 ment it as at a ftand in the country, let it's progrefs be what it 
 may ; they will defcry numerous imperfedions in every perform- 
 ance of that kind, let it's merit be ever fo great; thus they will 
 have a poifon ready to be fpit upon every thing which opens to 
 the mediocrity of artifts, or to the habits of a country, a cele- 
 brity of pretenfion which either fhould be emulated by all, or 
 
 ftiould be venerated by thofe who are necelTitated to move in a 
 Vol. I. E 
 
26 MORAL PAINTING. 
 
 fubordinate fphere. Yet fo it is, the empyric will calumniate 
 the phyfician's more accompliflied fcience ; and the man, who 
 has learnt to manage but a fkifFon the fliallow ftream, will treat 
 as nothing the fkilful navigator who can brave the feas. 
 
 It is not, however, from it's pride of capacity, but from it's 
 utility, that we would eftimate the mod worthy application of this 
 art. We repeat it to be it's glory, that it is a mean of inftruft- 
 ing the world. Every fcience, of which our minds are pof- 
 fefled, either looks to that end, or it is a fcience falfely fo called. 
 Nay, every fcience, if it obtains not a pure and honourable 
 dirc6lion, will find one that debafes and corrupts. And this 
 has ever been the cafe with the art of painting. Wherever 
 there has been wanting a tafte for the higher application of it's 
 moral purpofes, that age or country has been diftinguiflied by 
 it's more trivial produ6lions. It is the fame thing with learning 
 in general. When the more folid and improving writings of en- 
 lightened men ceafe to occupy the attention of a people, the 
 place of thefe is filled with thofe light and frothy produftions 
 which diffipate or inflame the mind. It is therefore important 
 for every enlightened fociety to keep up this moft excellent art 
 in it's genuine deflination. Every great writer in every age of 
 the world, whether a lover of the fine arts or not, has ever 
 inculcated this leffon, when painting has been the fubjeft. 
 Ariftotle, whofe learning was too fcholaftic to fuffer him to be 
 an enthufiaft in the arts, was fo fenfible of this importance that 
 he gives it in charge, among other political inftruftions, to the 
 governors of youth, " that they be allowed to fee no other pic- 
 " tures than fuch as have this moral and inftru£live tendency,*" 
 
 * Arift. Polit. lib. 8. c. 5. 
 
MORAL PAINTING. 27 
 
 A mod able and elegant writer, to whom the prefent age is in- 
 debted for much refinement in all the fine arts as well as for the 
 extenfion of it's learning, we mean the prefent Bifhop of Wor- 
 cefter, has bellowed fonie pages in his notes on Horace's Epiftle 
 to Auguflus, with a view of urging the importance of cultivating 
 the moral and inflruftive deflination of the pencil. The author 
 on whom he comments has given the true charafter which dig- 
 nifies painting, in the following line, 
 
 Supendit pi^la vultum mentemque tabella, v. 97. 
 
 It is when not only the eye, but the foul, hangs on the repre- 
 fentation, that painting rifes to it's proper ftation, and produces 
 it's nobleft effefts. The eye may be pleafed with various other 
 efforts of the art, which are worthy of pleafing, but the foul can 
 never be fed by any thing which does not reach out to it an in- 
 terefting aflfeftion. And fince every affeftion may be reached 
 by the powers of the pencil, and the whole of the affeftions af- 
 ford a mod ample field for the contemplation of genius, it is 
 a misfortune when thefe in fome of their branches do not engage 
 the firft attention of every mailer ; and in proportion as they 
 are neglefted, where there is no want of abilities to reach them, 
 the world has to lament the lofs of thofe advantages, which it 
 might reafonably expeft from the natural fubferviency of fo ex- 
 cellent an art to the interefls of moral culture. This conclufion 
 is the very fame which was fo anxioufly prefled by Socrates 
 above two thoufand years ago in that celebrated converfation 
 with Parrhafius recorded in the Memorabilia of Xenophon*. 
 
 If therefore we value ourfelves on the liberal arts, let us main- 
 tain them in that fl;rength and dire£lion wherein they befl deferve 
 
 * Lib. 3. 
 
28 MORAL PAINTING. 
 
 the name of liberal. If we prize the means of imprefTrng on the 
 prefent and future generations thofe profitable leffons by which 
 a people may become virtuous and enlightened, let us flreng- 
 then thofe means by every poflible encouragement. If it be the 
 purpofe of fchools to inftruft, and to feleft the inftruftion 
 which is moft valuable, let every influence be exerted that the 
 fchools of art among ourfelves may not lofe this bell and primary 
 feature of their inftitution, but that the emulation of inftruftion 
 may rife over every other emulation of the pencil, leading us 
 to the contemplation of charafters and manners, drawing out 
 the affeftions of humanity, discriminating the interefting fcenes 
 of life, and airifl;ing all the variety of improving views in their 
 efficacy on the human heart. 
 
 It is thus that the ancients were ambitious to exercife the 
 pencil. And among all the older and greater maft;ers of the 
 modern fchools the fame ambition has been pre-eminent ; the 
 views of moral inflruftion, in fome or other of it's branches, 
 have generally guided every hand that held the pencil in the 
 higheft fame. We can hardly make a queftion that thofe views 
 would carry the preference of every great mafter in every coun- 
 try and in every age, if there were not fomething peculiar to 
 the age and the country, which turns the pencil another way. 
 Every man of refleftion and fentiment mufl feel a pleafure re- 
 fulting from every reprefentation which yields a fentiment ; he 
 mufl be more highly gratified with the review of a noble moral 
 growing from his own creation, than by any creation he may 
 give to things incapable of exciting a refined fenfation, or of 
 flattering the confcioufnefs of a fuperior talent. Every man, 
 whofe ambition prompts him to take up the pencil, muft feel 
 
MORAL PAINTING. 
 
 29 
 
 the influence of the fame ambition urging him to make it's 
 highefl; attainments his own. 
 
 At the fame time, other caufes befides thofe which are local 
 or temporary will often thwart and divert this natural ambition. 
 And although it be right that it Hiould be cheriflied in all, nei- 
 ther will the meafure or the turn of abilities fuffer it to fucceed 
 in all, nor is the general culture of the pencil prejudiced, in 
 faft, if many, who from thofe caufes do not fucceed in that way, 
 fucceed in another. The bent of abilities is various, and with- 
 out that variety of bent the various provinces of painting could 
 no more be filled with eifeft than the various provinces of 
 human life, if all were fitted to move in the fame line of cha- 
 rafter. The lower departments of fociety are found to be ac- 
 compliflied beft by thofe, whofe meafure or turn of abilities 
 would not figure equally in the higher. And fo it is precifely 
 in the departments of painting. All cannot reach a hiftory, or 
 an epic compofition : but thofe, who cannot, may fliine in the 
 difplay of the fcenes of Nature much more than they who are 
 unrivaled in the other : and thofe, again, whofe views or land- 
 fcapes would gain no admirers, fhall carry the world after them 
 in a portrait. Amidft all this it often happens that the peculi- 
 arity of talent, by which Nature has marked individuals, is en- 
 gaged in a difficult ftruggle with the general ambition, of which 
 we have fpoken, to embrace the highefl; ranks of the art. And 
 nothing can fliew more ft:rongly the natural pre-eminence of 
 that higher charafter in painting, on which we have defcanted, 
 than this general fenfe of it, and emulation to reach it, which 
 have left fome capital mafters reftlefs and difcontented even un- 
 der the confcioufnefs of diftinguifhed fl;rength, and the acqui- 
 fition of difl;inguiflied fame, in another line of the art. Salva- 
 
30 MORAL PAINTING. 
 
 tor Rofa, whofe landfcapes were his own, original, unborrowed, 
 and fublime in their way, felt no joy in that charafter of paint- 
 ing, or at lead in it's being confidered as the peculiar ftrength 
 of his pencil ; he wiflied to be looked upon as an hiftoric, or, 
 however, as a poetic painter, and as fuch he conceived himfelf 
 fuperior to all*. Van Dyke, difcontented with the fame which 
 left him unrivaled in his portraits, would fain have given them 
 up for the painting of hiftory, in which he certainly never ap- 
 peared with equal advantage, if he had been encouraged by the 
 court of France. And after him Sir Peter Lely, aftuated by the 
 fame refllefs emulation, but without any reafon to fupport it, 
 would have done the fame thing, if he had found that encou- 
 ragement in England. 
 
 If the natural ambition of talents to gain the firfl ftations of 
 fame be that continual fpur to the mind of art, without which 
 every fchool of art in the world muft languilh. Nature ftill keeps 
 all right by that llandard to which the ability of every man is 
 brought, and which every man comes at length to know for the 
 true meafure of his ftrength, and the decifion of his charafter. 
 Thus every portion in this excellent art receives it's proper cul- 
 ture, every circumftance which contributes to it's perfeftion 
 gains all that \r, due to it. For it muft be obferved, that no 
 clafs of painting, how diftant foever from the higheft charafter 
 of the art, if it be not impure in it's principle, ought to be ac- 
 counted lo\v^ or infignificant in it's fcience. Every portion of it 
 is an ingredient in it's original conftitution as a writing, a feature 
 in the general aftemblage of it's chara61er, and a conftituent 
 part in the preparation of that inftru6iion, in which the art is 
 
 * Supplcm. to De Piles, p. i6. 
 
MORAL PAJMTING. ^i 
 
 feen mod perfeft. The artifl, vho embraces an hiftoric or poetic 
 reprefentation, will rarely find a fcene which does not call for 
 the talents that are diftinguiflaed in all or moft of the particular 
 claffes of painting. The local fituatian will demand either ru- 
 ral -vie^v's, or marine objefts, or architeftural order, perhaps all 
 three : animal Nature makes a part of aknoft every fcene : and 
 r\'en portraiture is found on many occaiions to have it's impor- 
 tance in thefe fublimer exhibitions. Without that talent how 
 would Panaenus have perpetuated to pofterity, in the battle of 
 Marathon, the perfonal figures of thofe Graecian generals who 
 were fo defervedly dear to their country for the valour with 
 which they had ferved it in that conflift ? We mean not, in 
 this, to plead for the liberty of introducing living portraits into 
 paft hiftoric fubjefts. For the inftance we have adduced was 
 not a paft, but a prefent, fubjeft, rifing in the fame period with 
 the pi6lure. 
 
 It is true, the general fenfe of the world has never confidered 
 thofe particular clafles of the art as occupying it's fuperior pre- 
 tenfions ; and for a plain reafon, becaufe even landfcape, which 
 is the moft refpetlable of them, is rarely the vifion or ftudy of 
 the mind in any portion, and the others are entirely the imita- 
 tion of Nature, requiring only the eye and the hand to execute 
 them, but nothing more of the mind than confifts in a few 
 graces of difpofition. Yet independent of the degrees in which 
 they are fubfervient to fublimer compofitions, they poflefs an 
 eftimation of their own which is not to be overlooked. In all 
 the various fcenery of rural nature, condufted through all the 
 gradations of it's views, and cloathed with all it's appendages in 
 the animal and vegetable world, we are led to admire the won- 
 derful operations of the great Creator, and the various ftages of 
 
32 MORAL PAINTING. 
 
 beauty which Nature has yielded to the influence and progrefs 
 of fociety : the eye is not fo much pleafed with the profpeft, as 
 the mind is fixed in a ferenity of enjoyment, and in a reverence 
 of the wifdom in which the whole is formed. And are there not 
 fatisfaftions of a moft rational kind dependent on the talent 
 which perpetuates the portraits of thofe who have diflinguiflied 
 themfelves in their country or their family, or who have left 
 their names precious by their friendlhips ? 
 
 We are not therefore to difcard the fubordinate branches of 
 the art, while we eftablilh that which conftitutes it's fublimity. 
 
 CHAP. IV. 
 
 The qualifications ejfential in the conflitution of moral painting. 
 
 The fublimity of moral inftruftion, which we have confidered 
 as the glory of the pencil, is to be purfued through it's qualifica- 
 tions. 
 
 In the firft place, it is eflential that it be dire6led to the in- 
 culcating of truth — unadulterated by legend, which impofes 
 falfe principles on the mind, and unmixed with any partial 
 fyftem for the fupport of power. In this view it is painful to 
 think what infinite labours of the pencil, whofe execution have 
 delighted the world, and will continue to delight it as long as 
 they (hall lafi, have been wafted and loft ; if we may call that 
 labour loft, which affe6iing to inftruft gives every thing but 
 
MORAL PAINTING. 33 
 
 folid and approved inflruftion. The moft divine pencil that 
 ever was guided by the hand of man will give us no inconfider- 
 able regret under this refleftion. It was fome misfortune to 
 Raphael, although to the art it was a feafonable happinefs, that 
 he was born in the age which brought him forth : but the art 
 itfelf has to lament that he was bred in that religion, which led 
 him to facrifice confiderably to a fyflem of fuperllition. The 
 patronages of Julius and Leo were noble patronages ; they 
 were men of noble minds : and for once we will rejoice in the 
 Vatican, that they filled it's chair, and ftimulated a Raphael to 
 fill it's chambers. But they were the heads of a church ; and 
 Raphael's harmony in faith left to his fenfe or his complaifance 
 lefs room for ftruggles. We fpeak not merely of a papal tinc- 
 ture marking many of his religious fubjefts. Some of his moft 
 confiderable pieces were exprefs compliments to the papal 
 power, or exprefs records of papal miracles. We need not to 
 fpecify particulars ; all who know his works will rightly apply 
 thefe obfervations. In the cartons indeed, which are now at 
 Windfor, and which are the lateft and beft of his works, he has 
 more happily preferved the purity of mind, and purity of in- 
 ftru6lion, which fhould ever flow from the pencil. Thofe fub- 
 jefts are taken from fcripture ; and if we except that which is 
 called the keys, and which unhappily ftands very forward in the 
 exception, and indeed hardly left him the power of fl^unning it, 
 they involve nothing of human tradition or human fyflem. If 
 there be juftice in this criticifm on Raphael, whofe judgement 
 was as great as the ftrength of fuperftition will ever leave to 
 moft men, we cannot fuppofe that there has not been full as 
 much room for the fame criticifm on others. The faft is, that 
 the firft pencils of Italy have all had their fliare in it. The 
 religion of their country is confpicuous, wherever the fubjeft 
 Vol. I. F 
 
34 MORAL PAINTING. 
 
 of their paintings is religious. This has ufurped the moft con- 
 hderable portion of their time and their labours. Hence the 
 long catalogue of Romifli faints, which meet us in every place, 
 and to which we obje6l only becaufe they are embraced as 
 faints, and with reference to circumftances or events which tra- 
 dition or legend has reprefented as important to their faintfhip. 
 Hence too all the peculiarities of the Romifh communion, fuch 
 as the facraments, &c. which have either been made the fpecific 
 fubjefts of paintings, or have been occafionally introduced 
 where the fubjefts would permit, and indeed where the fubjefts 
 fhould never have permitted them. Even in the transfiguration 
 Raphael could not refrain from placing two monks on the 
 mountain. 
 
 It is indeed to be lamented that an art, whofe difplay is fo 
 powerful, and whofe inflruftion therefore comes fo home to our 
 feelings, fhould be clogged with any peculiarities of fentiment, 
 which may retard it's beneficial impreflTion on any portion of 
 mankind. But it never can be otherwife, where the mind 
 fuftains a bias of fuperftitious faith fo flrong and fo peculiar as 
 that of which we are fpeaking. No fyftem of religious belief 
 clings fo fafl to the mind, and pofTefTes it fo completely, as 
 that of the Romifh church, where it obtains at all. A man 
 muft be wedded to it entirely, or he muft defpife it. There is 
 no medium in it's influence. His full conviftion muft; go with 
 it, or he is not of that communion. We mean not to be fevere 
 on any portion of mankind, let their religious faith be as dif- 
 ferent from our own as it may. All that we would imprefs by 
 thefe obfervations is, that no peculiarities of religious faith 
 whatever, no private fyftem of doftrines, ought to have place in 
 the inftruclion of the pencil. If the fubjeti be religious, let it 
 
MORAL PAINTING. 3/^ 
 
 be the plain and broad truths contained in the pages of revelation, 
 not the tenets of a particular communion. Thefe are fpots upon 
 the canvas, which not all the embellifhments of the art can efface 
 or hide. In no circumftance is the art fo much committed to 
 negleft, and it's fuccefs to peril, as by the admiffion of lenti- 
 ments which are not of an univerfal ftandard. We can bear 
 with the thought that is low and puerile : we are not abfolutely 
 offended by that which is lingular and unmeaning : but when 
 we are met by that which would impofe on our underftandings, 
 and beguile us with falfe principles, we look no further ; we fee 
 no beauties in the moft mafterly execution. In Michael Ange- 
 lo's pifture of God's creating the fun and moon — the work of a 
 man who was the original of vaftnefs in defign — we only fmile 
 to fee a little angel frightened at the moon, and flying for fhel- 
 ter to the Creator. In the fame mailer's Lajl judgement we feel 
 no abfolute difpleafure to fee the bleffed virgin clinging clofe to 
 her fon for fuccour ; becaufe we prefently refleft that flie might 
 as well be fmgled out for that thought, if the painter was deter- 
 mined to indulge it, as any other perfon ; although as he has 
 not combined one fingle faint in her feeling, we muft leave to 
 his own religious ideas, or to his fancy, to account for the 
 thought as it (lands. But when in the fame lafl-mentioned pic- 
 ture, in a fubjeft of the moft awful nature rifing immediately 
 out of divine re\elation, we fee the profane, fabulous, falfe fluff 
 of Charon and his boat introduced — much more, when in the 
 carton of the keys an apoftle, who had denied his mafler, is 
 felefted for a priority of confidence and for precedence not 
 only over all the reft but over a beloved difciple, and in his 
 prefence too, with the additional circumftance that this beloved 
 difciple appears palpably mortified at the preference given to 
 the other, and eager to convince his mafter of his own equality 
 
36 MORAL PAINTING. 
 
 of affeftion, not without fome previous remonflrance too which 
 we are led to fuppofe had taken place — further yet, when in 
 Raphael's theology, wrongly called by fome the difpute on the 
 facrament (although not an idea of difpute about it had then 
 entered his head, and if it had, neither would he have been fo 
 weak, nor would others have fuffered him, to wound his com- 
 munion by recording fuch difpute) we fee the bleffed virgin fpe- 
 cifically marked for the mediator, as much as Chrifl; is for the 
 regent of all things, while no regard feems to be paid to the 
 Almighty Father by angels, faints, or men ; and when we fee 
 the real prefence in the eucharift announced by the hoft in the 
 golden olfenforio on the altar ; were all the perfe6lions that 
 have diftinguifhed all the pencils upon earth united in fuch 
 a pifture, our admiration is choaked, and the only effeft it 
 leaves upon our minds is a regret that fo much capacity of exe- 
 cution fhould be overthrown by fo much want of judgement. 
 
 In the next place, the dignity of moral inflruftion is degraded, 
 whenever the pencil is employed on frivolous, whimfical, and 
 unmeaning fubjefts. On this head, it is to be feared, there will 
 ever be too much caufe for complaint, becaufe there will ever 
 be perfons incapable of folidity, although very capable of execu- 
 ting this art with power. Strength of underflanding, and ability 
 in art or fcience, are very different things ; they are derived from 
 different fources ; and they are perfeftly independent of each 
 other. The one can no more be inftrumental to the communi- 
 cation of the other, than either can communicate temper or 
 difpofition. The fineft art in the world may therefore be com- 
 bined with the lighteft and mofl fuperficial mind. Books are 
 written of a light and fantaftic nature by thofe who cannot 
 write otherwife, and yet will write fomething. And fo it is with 
 
MORAL PAINTING. 37 
 
 painting : the mind of the artift can but give fuch fubjefts as 
 are confentaneous to it's turn. The night-mare, little red 
 riding hood, the Jliepherd's dream, or any dream that is not 
 marked in authentic hiflory as combined with the important 
 difpenfations of Providence, and many other pieces of a vifion- 
 ary and fanciful nature, are fpeculations of as exalted a ftretch 
 in the contemplation of fuch a mind as the fineft leflbns that 
 ever were drawn from religion, or morals, or ufeful hiflory. 
 And yet the painter, who fhould employ his time on fuch fub- 
 jefts, would certainly amufe the intelligent no more than the 
 man who fhould make thofe fubjefts the topics of a ferious 
 difcourfe. But what good has the world, or what honour has 
 the art, at any time derived from fuch light and fantaftic fpe- 
 culations ? If it be right to follow Nature, there is nothing of 
 her here, all that is prefented to us is a reverie of the brain. 
 If it be allowable to cultivate fancy ; yet the fancy, which has 
 little or nothing of Nature in it's compofition, becomes ridicu- 
 lous. A man may carry the flights of imagination, even within 
 the walks of the chafteft art or fcience, till they become mere 
 waking dreams, as wild as the conceits of a madman. The 
 author of obfervations on Frefnoy de arte graphica* very pro- 
 perly calls thefe perfons " Libertines of painting" : as there are 
 libertines of religion, who have no other law but the vehemence 
 
 • 
 
 of their own inclinations ; fo thefe have no other model, he fays, 
 but a rodomontado-genius, which fhews us a wild or favage na- 
 ture that is not of our acquaintance, but of a new creation. 
 
 If not in fubjefts altogether, yet in manner, one of the firft exam- 
 ples of this kind, if not the very firfl, appeared about the latter 
 
38 MORAL PAINTING. 
 
 end of the fixteenth century in a Neapolitan, who is commonly 
 known by the name of Giofeppe d'Arpino, but whofe real 
 name was Jofeph Pin — the fame man, whofe contefts with Car- 
 ravagio for the fuccefs of their refpefctive novelties in manner 
 threw the arts and almofl Italy itfelf into convulfions. Of 
 Arpino only we fhall fpeak at prefent. He was not without 
 fome gifts. He had a florid invention, a ready hand, and con- 
 liderable fpirit. Yet having no fure foundation either in the 
 fludy of Nature or in the rules of art, and building only on thofe 
 fantaftical ideas which he had formed in his own head, he run 
 into all the extravagancies which neceffarily attend thofe who 
 have no better guide than their own capricious fancy*. To the 
 wildnefs of manner introduced by this painter, and to the influ- 
 ence it obtained, Felibien attributes in a confiderable degree 
 that negleft and decay of tafte which took place in the Roman 
 fchool after the death of Raphael. For fo unaccountably does a 
 bad tafte, if it is but a new one, find numbers in the world to 
 befriend and proteft it, that this artift was a favourite of Gre- 
 gory XIII. and his immediate fucceflbr, and was fo well received 
 in France by Lewis XIII. that he was made by that monarch a 
 knight of the order of St. Michael. 
 
 When we are fpeaking of caprice and extravagance, muft we 
 not include under thofe terms the grotefque and ludicrous, or 
 can we admit thefe as contributing to inftruftion ? In the broad- 
 efl; view of ridicule as a fpecies of argument, the apology made 
 for it by the poet will not be allowed to give it a place in the 
 views of inftruftion. What if it be true, that 
 
 ridiculum acri 
 
 Fortius ac melius magnas plerumque fecat res. 
 
 HoR. Sat. b. 1. fat. 10. v. 15. 
 
 * Graham's anc. and mod. Painters. Felib. 3 vol. p. 259. Monier, p. i6i. 191. 
 
MORAL PAINTING. 39 
 
 the purpofes of inflruftion are the laft at which it aims. It is 
 much more concerned for the eftablifhment of it's own triumph 
 than for the eftablifhment of what is true and right, againft 
 which it is as often direfted as to give them ftrength. Nor 
 will the beft pretence it afiTumes be always found, notwithfland- 
 ing the pains which have been taken by Mr. Hume to maintain 
 it, that nothing ought to be embraced which is capable of ridi- 
 cule. 
 
 In the works of the pencil far lefs concerned are it's objects 
 or it's influence with the views of inftruftion than where it is 
 met as an argument of literary wit. In the former the bur- 
 lefque and ludicrous affeft no compromife with regular ideas, 
 they are palpable departures from Nature, and abfolute diflor- 
 tions of it, as fuch they can neither inflruft nor much amufe a 
 refledling mind. Shall it be faid that the defign, of which 
 Richardfon fpeaks as coming from the Carachi's fchool, of a 
 male and female fatyr fitting together in a fantafl^ic mood, 
 although it was very probably meant as a piece of wit on the 
 {lory of Corydon and Phillis, fhall pafs for an emblem of the 
 folace which arifes from mutual love, or that it fliall teach us 
 in any refpeft upon that fubjeft ? Shall the figures of Vefalius, 
 in which he has humoroufly, but fomewhat beyond common 
 feeling, given us to fee the fliin and flefli drawn off by degrees, 
 and the figures in all the variety of contortions finking into 
 death with extreme pain ; fiiall thefe be received as leflbns of 
 anatomical fcience ? Yet we do not condemn them under the 
 circumfl:ances and the views which gave them birth. They were 
 all the mere fports of an idle hour ; nothing lefs than infl^ruc- 
 tion was intended to be conveyed. And let fuch jeux d'efprits 
 keep their proper place, it is not our intention to reprefs 
 
40 MORAL PAINTING. 
 
 thofe eflForts of art. There are fubjefts, which will never ceafe 
 to pour themfelves on minds replete with livelinefs and pleaf- 
 antry ; fubjefts, whether imaginary or real, whether tried or 
 untried by the pencil, in which genius may wifh to make a new 
 effort, though in the lightefl flyle. Thefe are the mere recrea- 
 tions of genius. Thus the philofopher writes an ode or a fon- 
 net. And the fublimerc rules of art would no more endeavour 
 to reftrain thefe, than the profoundefl: mind would think it fit to 
 be debarred from difporting itfelf occafionally with the lighted 
 entertainment. In art, as in every other part of wifdom, dulce 
 eji dejipere in loco. So Annibal Carach thought and afted ; 
 and we flaould rejoice to pofTefs the volume of defigns in that 
 way, which was left by him, and came afterwards into the 
 hands of the Prince of Neroli*. Thofe defigns were meant 
 only as amufements, they neither affefted infl:ruftion, nor were 
 mixed with any fort of ferioufnefs. But Michael Angelo went 
 much further, and further than can be juftified, in that vein of 
 fpirit. With all his greatnefs he was as capable of being licen- 
 tious in that refpeft as any artift upon earth ; and the blame 
 only is, that he indulged his humour where he fhould have 
 reprefled it. We will not fpeak of the goatifh face, which he 
 has been cenfured by fome for having given to the great law- 
 giver and prophet of the Jews in the figure of Mofes fitting, be- 
 caufe we think that criticifm is rather carried too far ; poflibly 
 the features may be a little more heightened than he would have 
 given them, if he had been cautious to avoid the fufpicion of ca- 
 ricature, but certainly they are the flrong and fpeaking charac- 
 ter of the Jew, let their approximation to any part of the ani- 
 mal-fpecies be what it may ; and it would be no eafy matter for 
 
 * Felib. 3. vol. p. 278, 9. 
 
MORAL PAINTING. 4I 
 
 the moft difcerning mind to give that chara6ler in all the dignity 
 of fituation and perfonal pretenfions, which were due to Mofes, 
 without calling forth thofe features, or by calling them forth in 
 much lefs flrength than Michael Angelo has done. Had the 
 curious Lavatre been living when that figure was wrought, the 
 artift would have left, and might fafely have left, to all the prin- 
 ciples affumed in Lavatre 's theory the diffeftion of thofe features, 
 fatisfied with the choice he had made, and with the juflice he 
 had done to his art, but not accountable for any relationfliip of 
 qualities or ideas by which either ingenuity or the nature of things 
 might poffibiy conneft the character before him with any other 
 parts of creation. It is not therefore in that inftance that we 
 fhall cenfure that artift. In his " Laft judgement" he is more 
 reafon ably open to that cenfure ; there the ludicrous is certainly 
 fometimes improper and too ftrong to be perfe611y approved in 
 that folemn compofition. The truth is, that the epic is loft 
 when the farce is fuffered to be mixed in it, and that equally 
 in the page and on the canvas. The Homer in poetry has fome- 
 times flept here, as well as the Homer in painting. In his cha- 
 ra6ler of Vulcan and Therfites, in his ftory of Mars and Venus, 
 in the behaviour of Irus, and in fome other paffages, he has 
 evidently lapfed into the burlefque, and has fo far prejudiced the 
 epic by departing from the gravity eflential to it's, magnificence *. 
 We cannot but lament that the vaft difplays of fuch exalted 
 genius in either of thofe kindred arts fhould be blotted by fo 
 negligent an inattention to the firft leffon of compofition, quid 
 deceat, quid non. 
 
 • Speilator, No. 279. 
 Vol. I. G 
 
42 MORAL PAINTING. 
 
 It may perhaps be faid that thefe obfervations, if ftriftly pur- 
 fued and carried to their full length, would cramp too much the 
 force and fcope of genius in the art. Let us therefore weigh 
 that matter. For genius is a rare gift, which fhould not be 
 ftifled. 
 
 Genius is a creative imagination, which can not only embellifli 
 fcenes or incidents by the bed difpofition of concomitant cir- 
 cumftances, but give exiftence to new ones. It is a gift, by 
 which are poured into the mind with great copioufnefs the rareft 
 treafures of thought and idea. Confequently it is derived from 
 Nature, whofe ftores are as inexhauftible as they are infinitely vari- 
 ed ; it is not acquired by labour, which can but give by it's own 
 fcantier meafure, and to which in it's beft progrefs Nature has 
 faid, " hitherto fhalt thou go, and no further." Genius is to the 
 human mind what the Nile is to Egypt, the prolific fource of 
 all that has ever embellifhcd and enriched it in every way. By 
 that overflowing flream that country became every thing, the 
 feat of all that was finiflied not only in natural but in intelleftual 
 life, while it's independence enabled it to maintain thofe ad- 
 vantages. To manage it, art was called forth at firft : and when 
 managed, every art and elegance followed what was become fo 
 enriched. In the fame manner, the mind, fed by genius, makes 
 all the gifts of Nature her own, and improves upon them all. It 
 is every thing of which humanity is capable ; it is ready in every 
 fubjeft to which it adverts ; and while it is itfelf enriched, it 
 never ceafes to difpenfe that richnefs to every thing that 
 comes within it's reach. Art is it's firfl offspring, and every art 
 and elegance prefently accumulates it's ftore. But then as the 
 Nile, along with every elegance, left alfo it's veftiges in much 
 
MORAL PAINTING. 43 
 
 redundancy of matter that was to be cleared before elegance was 
 obtained ; fo genius has it's redundancy : it overflows not only in 
 the finer and finiflied fentiments, but in much that requires to be 
 dreffed : prolific in it's fource, it is impregnated with every 
 variety of matter, which a competent flcill only can feparate, 
 and muft feparate, to give it the beft application. 
 
 A further qualification of mind is therefore introduced here, 
 indifpenfible to the moft valuable ufe of genius. And that is 
 rightly called Tafle. Genius may fubfift in all it's vigour, with- 
 out any portion of tafle. But the latter cannot be poileflTed in any 
 eminent degree, without fome (hare, fome imprelTion, of the 
 former ; becaufe it is the province of tafte to drefs, refine, and 
 cultivate the other, which it can never do, without feeling the 
 fpirit of the other in fome degree. And if it did not feel that 
 fpirit, it would be a gift bellowed in vain, without the capacity 
 that is to call it into exercife. But then that capacity of genius 
 w^hich calls it forth will not neceffarily find the talent, which is 
 to be fuperadded to itfelf, no more than Nature and art infepara- 
 bly go together. And this is the very difference between the two. 
 Genius is wholly beflowed by Nature : tafle, with fomething of 
 Nature, is principally acquired. The one is an untutored ebul- 
 htion of the imagination ; the other is a reftified judgement. 
 The one is chiefly found in the mind, or in the country, where 
 Nature is feen mofl predominant ; the other, where fhe is chaf- 
 tened and refined by the improvements of fociety and art. It has 
 therefore been obferved that genius flouriflies mofl in thofe cli- 
 mates, where the tyranny of Nature has given the conftitution of 
 government, and all the great fcenes and events which naturally 
 fpring from thence, and where a hotter fun throws her forth in 
 all her gigantic wildnefs, magnificence, and variety, which are 
 
44 MORAL PAINTING. 
 
 calculated to give an enthufiafm to the mind; while tafte is moft 
 eminently diftinguifhed under thofe lefs luxuriant appearances, 
 and that more temperate, regular, and civilized fyftem of things, 
 which naturally leads the mind to an habitual feleftion of what 
 is moft beautiful, the happieft, and the beft. 
 
 It is this feleftion which conftitutes tafte. It picks and culls 
 the flowers of Nature. It weeds her excrefcencies, it prunes her 
 luxuriance. It dreftes the harveft which genius has fown, andfepa- 
 rates the folid from the light. It is the effeft of reafon refined 
 and matured by time, by a freedom of thinking, and an improve- 
 ment in knowledge, which uniting to enlarge the mind enable it 
 to difcern more perfectly the various relations of things, and to 
 combine with happier art thofe mixed fenfations which give the 
 higheft entertainment to men of elegant minds. 
 
 Thus tafte becomes needful to be ingrafted upon genius, if 
 we would have the fruit of the latter mellowed into perfeftion. 
 And this is a leflbn abfolutely needful for the painter to learn. 
 Tafte is a talent abfolutely needful for him to acquire. By this 
 he will be taught, that whatever terminates in whim, caprice, and 
 humour, can never give general pleafure ; becaufe thofe difpo- 
 fitions are fingular and perfonal in their nature, they arife from 
 no common principles or feelings, of which others, at leaft the 
 generality, can be fuppofed to participate — whatever is outree 
 and extravagant can never be beautiful — whatever is caricature 
 can never exalt a fubjeft — whatever is empty or poor of fenti- 
 ment can neither inftruft any perfons, nor pleafe the majority, 
 who will at leaft be fuppofed to have fome relifti for what is 
 excellent — whatever defeats the honourable and ufeful inftruftion 
 
HISTORIC PAINTING. 45 
 
 of a painting, robs it of that which all men look, or fhould 
 look, to obtain from it. 
 
 CHAP. V. 
 
 DiJlin£lion between hijioric and poetic painting, and the 
 reJpeElive provinces of each. 
 
 In the difcuflion of moral painting, an important diflinftion, for 
 the furer force of it's inftru6tion, is to be made between the re- 
 fpetlive provinces of hiftoric and poetic painting — a diftinftion 
 which has never yet been properly enforced, or attended to as it 
 ought. We have all along confidered the pencil as a noble fpecies 
 of writing: and if we keep that idea in our minds, the juft 
 bounds and proprieties of the art, in every branch of it, will be 
 readily and correftly afcertained. 
 
 "What is the firft eflential of hiftoric writing ? Moft certainly, 
 perfpicuity. If poffible, this is more indifpenfible on the hiftoric 
 canvas, than it is in the hiftoric page, becaufe in the former our 
 eyes alone muft be our guide to the whole, and our guide at 
 once ; if thefe are not corre6lly poffefled, the pifture has no 
 other comment, nor can furnifti any circumlocution to clear up 
 the obfcurity ; it is not by words, but by the precifion of images, 
 that we are inftrufted here. The hiftoric painter muft therefore 
 lay down to himfelf this firft duty, to keep near to the 
 
 TRUTH OF THE HISTORY HE REPRESENTS. 
 
^6 HISTORIC PAINTING. 
 
 This however is no flavifh tie ; it admits of fome latitude, 
 reafonably reftrained. It is not neceflary that he confine himfelf 
 to the precife order in which the event took place, the precife 
 fituation of circumflances, or the precife j/J'om/^ of time. Inthefe 
 feveral refpefts he may cxercife a difcretionary feleftion for the 
 purpofe of giving the beft effeft to the ftory ; he may even 
 indulge invention fo far as to introduce other circumftances 
 which might well be fuppofed to have happened, although they 
 did not, but which fhall all in their meafure contribute to give 
 a more precife elucidation to the piece. 
 
 Within this fcope the flights of his invention mufl be circum- 
 fcribed here. For however painting may have been compared to 
 poetry, it is dangerous to run the parallel too flriftly with refpeft 
 to the hiftoric reprefentations of the pencil. Would the flights of 
 poetry give greater perfpicuity to the truth of hiftory ? Or 
 would the hifl:orian be pronounced more chafte and jufl; for the 
 intermixture of his poetic talents ? By no means. Equally im- 
 proper therefore would be the indulgence of thefe by the hiftoric 
 painter, beyond the degree in which they have a natural and 
 known connection with the fubjeft, and give it a manifeft aflif- 
 tance. All arbitrary circumftances, vifionary allufions, and ex- 
 trinfic adoptions, all intermixture of fable where the painting 
 has afllimed a known matter of faft, all perfonifications of ina- 
 nimate nature, are illicit in his hands, becaufe as thefe do not 
 aflimilate with the hiftory, they tend to embarrafs and confound ; 
 they draw off the mind from the fimplicity of the narration to 
 heterogeneous ideas which beget improbability. He ftiall not 
 therefore be at liberty, in the view of gratifying what may ap- 
 pear to him higher embellifhment, to fhew his charafters under 
 any appearances which are not known to befit them, becaufe it 
 
HISTORIC PAINTING. 47 
 
 is abfurd that he fhould be at Hberty to difguife his llory. He 
 fhall not drefs them in any habits but ihofe of the age and the 
 country in which they lived, becaufe that would be to throw 
 them into the moft complete difguife. He (hall be very much 
 chaflened in his ufe of allegory, which is indeed inexpreffibly 
 fine and precious and moft; eloquent, where it is pure and chafte, 
 that is, where it appears natural and artlefs, having a real exif- 
 tence in the place, and participating too (if poflible) in the 
 event, reprefented ; but it is abfolutely faulty and condemnable, 
 where it is the mere creature of the brain, or of fabulous 
 fyflem. He fhall not tranfport us by anachronifmal fiftions be- 
 yond the period in which the fcene is laid ; he fhall not bring 
 together upon the fame fpot thofe who are known to have lived 
 ages afunder; becaufe that would be to deftroy all the effeft at 
 once, by telling us we were impofed upon and deceived. 
 
 All thefe deduftions, which in fa6l are fo many principles, 
 will be found to arife from this fimple ground, that his flory 
 muft; be brought to the eye of the informed mind as plainly as if 
 it were related to his ear ; and even to the uninformed, whofe 
 eye it will perhaps more frequently meet in the great mafs of 
 mankind, it muft carry fo much perfpicuity that he may readily 
 catch the objeft aimed at, the main faft reprefented, or the 
 great fentiment inculcated, with fome reference perhaps to the 
 age or country from which it fprung, although he may want 
 afliftance to difcover it's detail. 
 
 Let not the hift^oric painter imagine that his art is prejudiced 
 by thefe limits. There is fcope fufficient here for the man of 
 genius to place the fimpleft events in a moft; interefting view, and 
 to make thofe fads which are bare of themfelves mofl fentimen- 
 
48 HISTORIC PAINTING. 
 
 tally exprcffive. It is the duUnefs of genius that fufFers any 
 event, which has any natural importance in it, to become dull 
 in his hands. The enriched underftanding will clothe with 
 richnefs every fubjeft that is not deftitute of matter : it will 
 fwell into importance thofe circumftances which to ordinary 
 minds would pafs for light ones ; and it will elevate into gran- 
 deur thofe which have any capacity for elevation. In writing, 
 all men are fenfible that there is a dignity of language, which 
 the fcholar knows how to employ, and by which he fliall lift 
 the humbled themes into mod lofty conceptions ; and this with- 
 out one trope, without one figure, without one image that has 
 not it's reality combined with the fubjeft. What we contend 
 for is, then, that the powers of the hifloric pencil in the hands 
 of the fcholar, and condufted by the enlightened and enriched 
 mind, are equal to thofe of the pen in the feletlion of expreffion, 
 and in the communication of it's own life, and richnefs, and 
 elevation to the materials which are prefented to it's choice. If 
 this narrows the operations, and increafes the difficulties, of the 
 hiftoric painter, it has thefe effefts only to thofe who were never 
 gifted to fhine in this branch of the art, which never was and 
 never will be accomplilhed by the produftion of a vigorous and 
 attrafting and regular inflru£lion but by the man of a ftrong and 
 brilliant mind ; wherever it has been affefted by emulation 
 without thefe gifts, it has never been able to rife beyond the 
 inefficacy of inertia Jtrenua. 
 
 Yet it is this inertia Jirenua, it is this unfupported emulation 
 to produce an hiftoric painting, which has abufed the purity of 
 it's province, and baftardized too many of it's produftions. 
 Sometimes artifts, who had gifts to excel in it, have been as 
 faulty as others in not knowing, or not attending to, the dif- 
 
HISTORIC PAINTING. 49 
 
 crimination between hiftoric and poetic fubjefts. As if mat- 
 ters of fa6l were uniformly heavy and incapable of elegance, 
 they have conceived it neceflary to fly to extraneous fources for 
 aid, which their own independent fancies have fupplied, and 
 not the fubjeft before them. They have thought themfelves at 
 Uberty, for the greater plenitude of the fcene, and (as they 
 hoped) of the effeft, to coUeft from Nature at large whatever 
 might be adduced in alliance with their fubjeft, and oftentimes 
 from fable at large, however deftitute of fuch alliance it might 
 be. They have imagined it dependent on their own pleafure to 
 avail themfelves of the peculiarities of any one country, with 
 which they were moft fmitten, to deck the fcenes that belonged 
 to another. If the fubje6l were of valour, or of any high virtue, 
 fiftion mufl be called forth to complete the renown, which in 
 their opinions would be left too naked in the beft a6lion or natural 
 fituation ; a vi6lory or a fame mufl: crown the hero with a wreath, 
 or fome divine chara6ler mufl: conduft him dead into glory: and 
 although he be a hero who never fet foot in Greece or Rome, it 
 has been thought impofllble that he can be accepted for a hero, 
 unlefs in the garb of an Alexander or a Scipio. If the hiftory 
 were grief, and of courfe a public grief as mofl: fit for the hiftoric 
 pencil, the very elements muft grieve too, all Nature muft come 
 forth in her fuit of mourning, and fhe muft iflue from her vifion- 
 ary regions one of thofe divinities or fabulous talifmen of the 
 paflions, which fliall complete the charafteriftic of woe, not to 
 be fpoken fufficiently by the accumulated aflFliftion of a whole 
 multitude immediately concerned in the event. If any part of 
 Nature was to be defcribed, the heathen mythology was reforted 
 to for the emblem, as more forcible and fine than Nature herfelf 
 could fupply : a river-god fpouting forth a torrent, a Ceres co- 
 vered with ears of corn, or a Bacchus with grapes, have been 
 Vol. I. H 
 
50 HISTORIC PAINTING. 
 
 taken in preference to a river, a harveft, or a vineyard, where 
 thofe have been the fcenes of real events. Thus the purity of 
 the hifloric hne has been violated, and artifts have produced a 
 mungrel-compofition reducible to no certain fpecies, an herma- 
 phrodite-attempt, half hiftory and half poetry, confequently 
 neither : they have become the very perfons, whofe unfkilful- 
 nefs is fo pointedly condemned by Horace for deftroying the 
 grand and fundamental principle of unity in the piece. He fays 
 truly, 
 
 piiEloribus atqtic poetis 
 Q^iid libet audendi femper fuit sequa poteftas ; 
 
 but then he adds, for the prevention of fo illicit a licence as that 
 we have now arraigned, both to painters and poets, and in all 
 the clafles of their refpeclive compofitions, 
 
 Sidquidvis, fimplex duntaxat et unum. 
 
 Thefe tranfgrefhons of fimplicity and unity in hifloric paint- 
 ing, thefe dafhes of the poetic and the fabulous in a compofi- 
 tion of real events, have in a good meafure been owing to the 
 unguarded ftudy of the ancient bafs-reliefs. Thofe who have 
 ftudied them fiiould have confidered that a very confider- 
 able part of the knowledge which the ancients enjoyed was 
 involved in fiftion, and confequently that the works of their art 
 muft deal confiderably in fiftitious allegory, which perhaps they 
 were the more tempted to embrace and cultivate, as it might 
 flatter their learning as well as their fuperflition. But fince their 
 days, and by means of more known truth, learning has little to 
 be flattered in thefe things, and fuperflition has flill lefs than 
 learning. To men, however, who were endeavouring to produce 
 efiablifht d inRrutlion from eflabliflied hiflory, it fhould have 
 occurred, that as the nature and the views of their art were varied 
 
HISTORIC PAINTING. 5I 
 
 from thofe of the ancients, fo (hould their ufe of the ancient tafte 
 have been conduced, at leaft, with more caution. Yet the im- 
 preffion derived from thofe fludies has hardly ever been (haken 
 off. It has fixed itfelf on thofe who have only contemplated the 
 fine arts as an elegant knowledge, no lefs than on thofe who have 
 made them a profelfional practice. The Abbe Winckelman af- 
 fords a ftrong confirmation of this affertion. He was a fenfible 
 man, and deeply informed in the fine arts, yet his fuperftitious 
 veneration of the Greeks never fuffered his judgement to paufe 
 on the qualifications which fhould be put to the influence of their 
 examples. Hence he urges upon the great artift the ufe of alle- 
 gory without compromife : he confiders it as the grandefl dif- 
 play of tranfcendent abilities : he wants a fyfl;em of fymbology, 
 by which all abftrafted ideas might be couched under fenfible 
 images : and thefe things he urges as the higheft atchievement 
 of the hiftoric painter *. It may deferve to be confidered, whe- 
 ther he has not been much too extravagant in his notions of al- 
 legory, even where the painting may be more properly poetic ; 
 although the difference between that and the hiftoric province 
 does not appear to have entered his thoughts. 
 
 With refpeft to artifts themfelves, the imprefiions of which we 
 have fpoken, derived from thofe ftudies, have pervaded the beft 
 abilities through every sera of the pencil. Raphael was by no 
 means exempt from them. His painting of Attila is a proof 
 how far a mind, which beyond doubt was moft competent 
 to every exaft meafure of the art, could be brought in the 
 reprefentation of an hiftoric faft to the indulgence of a playful 
 fancy, by combining fo much palpable fiftion as the defcent of 
 
 * See his Refleftions on the Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks, fee. 7. 
 
52 HISTORIC PAINTING. 
 
 two apoftles in the air. If you fay that in this circumftance he 
 keeps near to the truth of the hiftory, (taking the legend for 
 fuch) only varying the two horfemen in the hiftory for the two 
 apoftles in the pifture ; yet we cannot allow the hiftoric painter 
 to take the fame liberties that a man does who writes a legend : 
 although that man, and many fuch, may impofe upon the world, 
 books will ftill be reforted to for hiftorical information ; but here 
 both the utility and the exiftence of a fine art, in this branch of 
 it, is at ftake ; if the pencil be permitted to mix palpable fiftions 
 with it's hiftoric relations, there is an end of it's hiftoric ufe ; 
 mankind will never look on it in this way, becaufe they will 
 always look with embarraflment, and confequently with dilguft. 
 What we have faid of the Attila of Raphael, we are happy to ob- 
 lerve, is not equally to be applied to his Heliodorus, although fo 
 much a-kin both in the fubjeft and in it's manner ; becaufe there 
 the variation afTumed in the fituation of the two young men is 
 attended with no more fiftion than the reft of the ftor)', which 
 evidently leans on the aftumption of a divine interpofition ; thofe 
 young men defcend not from the air as apoftles ; nor yet as angels, 
 for they have no wings ; nor as any fpecifically marked charac- 
 ters ; and confequently they induce no glaring impoftibility. We 
 fhould alfo rightlv obferve, in balance to any individual miftakes 
 which Raphael may have committed in this way, that he may 
 claim an apology which lies not in the power of every artift, who 
 has fo offended, to claim. He was employed in the fervice of a 
 church which depends much on fiftion. And how could he refift, 
 if he had been difpofed, the injunftions laid upon him by the 
 head of that church, whofe fervice was certainly gratified moft 
 completely with the indulgence of fiftion by his moft ferious 
 pencil ? 
 
HISTORIC PAINTING. ■ ^3 
 
 If Raphael was thus thrown off his guard in that branch of the 
 art which he might call his own, where fhall we find others 
 impeccable in it ? Certainly, if any man after him could be 
 expefted faultlefs, it was Nicholas Pouflin. And he of all men 
 living was leafl to be excufed for any tranfgreflions of that fort, 
 becaufe he painted for no popes, or he was little conftrained to 
 facrifice to the prejudices of his employers ; he was moreover a 
 man of mod brilliant parts, and of moft juft and elegant concep- 
 tions. He knew very well, whenever wantonnefs was not fuperior 
 to his judgement, how to maintain the pure, elegant, clalTical 
 delineation of hiflory. He was not only perfpicuous and ftrong 
 in his ideas, but they were dilHnguifhed with an elegance and a 
 tafte which made them produftive of a more copious and refined 
 inftruftion. In a word, his (lories were delivered as the gentle- 
 man and the fcholar would deliver them. And he was moft 
 exa6l, in general, and correft in all the effentials of cojlume, in 
 the fimplicity and unity of defign. If the fcene was Greece, it 
 was Graecian all ; if Rome, nothing but what was Roman 
 appeared : if Egypt, the eye was thwarted by no objefcl that was 
 not Egyptian. Yet he wanted not the imagery of poetry. No 
 artift, fince the days of Michael Angelo, gave more proofs of 
 poetic fpirit. But he fo chaftened that fpirit in his hiftoric com- 
 pofitions, whenever he was cautious to be correft, he fo combined 
 and interwove it with his matter, that it feemed to be more the 
 natural iffue of incident than of abftrafted genius ; it feemed to be 
 rather the proper life and vigour of the fcene than the refource of 
 a bold and independent imagination. Muft it not therefore be 
 matter of inexpreflTible regret, that Pouflin, the chafteft and moft 
 claflical of hiftoric painters in the main, fliould be included in the 
 number of thofe who have been inconfiftent in the hiftoric line, 
 and have in fome degree contributed to derange it ? That he 
 
54 HISTORIC PAINTING. 
 
 has occafionally fallen into thofe miftakes, his Pyrrhus, his Scipio, 
 his Coriolanus, and a few others, when tried by the principles we 
 have laid down, will give proofs which cannot efcape difcerning 
 minds, and will illuftrate in their refpeftive degrees, without a 
 particular comment, the obfervations we have made. 
 
 What we have lad faid relates to the miftakes of the art. But 
 the obfervations which have gone before, as principles for the due 
 prefervation of it's hiftoric purpofe, will be feen in a more explicit 
 view, if we exemplify them as they are warranted both in hiftoric 
 writing and in hiftoric painting. 
 
 Firft, in hiftoric writing. When Livy puts into the mouths of 
 his generals and other great chara61ers thofe fpeeches, which may 
 be confidered as fo many ftate-pi6lures of the times, and on which 
 the important events of the empii-e hung, do we think, or is it 
 material to know, that he has written juft as they fpoke, or even 
 the very matter which they fpoke ? Turn to other hiftorians who 
 have detailed the fame events, and you ftiall find the fame cha- 
 rafters in the fame moments delivering themfelves in a different 
 manner, but producing ftill the fame effefts. In fa6l, the truth 
 of hiftory is equally preferved by thefe writers in either way. 
 The fame point iseftabliftied, the fame event is difplayed, though 
 under a difference of afpeft. The order of things, a reference 
 to circumftances, the moments of a6iion, and perhaps the general 
 view of the whole, are varied as each writer conceived the vari- 
 ation might contribute to place the fcene in a better light. They 
 have taken liberties in thefe refpefts, but thofe liberties are 
 within the bounds of the hiftory, or of thofe circumftances 
 which, from the furrounding view of things, might well be 
 fuppofed concurrent with the hiftory. They have indulged 
 
HISTORIC PAINTING. 55 
 
 their invention : but that invention was merely a different drefs 
 of the fame incidents, or the introduftion of other incidents juft 
 as naturah If thefe are poetic excurfions, they are excurfions 
 within the compafs of fafts ; for they combine nothing which the 
 fpirit of the hiftory has not combined ^they go for help to no part 
 of nature, or of life, or of imagination, but that which is imme- 
 diately affociated with the detail they reprefent. This extent of 
 feleftion and invention not only is confident with the purity, 
 but abfolutely conflitutes the elegance, of hifloric writing. It 
 is the fair and chafte drefs of fa6^s, by which the mind is mofl; 
 amply informed, and the feelings moft jullly approached : it 
 gives the broad foundation not only for the fecuring of a moll 
 inftruftive imprelfion, but for the carrying of that impreflTion to 
 as high a climax as the event will bear. Without thefe helps no 
 climax of inftru6tion can ever be wrought, no imprelllons of a 
 higher, more polifhed, and more affefting kind can ever be 
 attained. But then thofe who are mofl pure and impreflive in this 
 fpecies of writing do not take us into fairy ground for the accom- 
 plifhing of thefe objefts ; they do not tranfport us into regions of 
 fancy for the inculcating of a leffon, which they wifli fhould be 
 permanent in fociety, and which never can rife with a well- 
 founded effeft but from the juft, and folid, and confiftent repre- 
 fentation of interefting events. 
 
 Let us now look for an exemplification of the fame principles 
 in genuine hifloric painting. And, abating for the exceptions 
 we have already made, and for a few others which under another 
 head will hereafter be noticed, the hiftoric paintings of Nicholas 
 PoufTm are in general every thing we can defire on the queftion 
 before us. 
 
§6 HISTORIC PAINTING. 
 
 But to obtain a juft and clofe exemplification of the bound- 
 aries of hiftoric painting, it will be neceffary to feleft a compo- 
 fition recording an event which is minutely known to us, and 
 which therefore has happened within our memories. Happily, 
 there is one, though only one, which comes within this pre- 
 dicament, and which we embrace with greater fatisfaftion, 
 becaufe it is a compofition of the Britifh fchool fince the time 
 when we may regularly fpeak of a fchool in Britain, and a com- 
 pofition of that mafl:er who has introduced Britain to a tafte in 
 the hiftoric line, which was very new to the acquaintance of her 
 own artifts. In every part of it's compofition it is a moft happy 
 illuftration of the genuine hiftoric fpirit, and of the art of working 
 from a fingle event not only a lively and impreftive inftruftion, 
 but that dignity of fentiment which fwells in it's progrefs, and 
 with it's own gradations enlarges the compafs of our feelings : 
 and although in thefe refpefts it is by no means an unique of it's 
 author, yet as an exhibition which enables us from our own 
 precife acquaintance with the fa6l to know exaftly how far he 
 has indulged himfelf in his management of the fubjeft, it becomes 
 an unique to us. The painting, to which we allude, is " The 
 death of Wolfe." 
 
 The firft glance of the eye is met and fatisfied by the 
 greateft perfpicuity. We know it to be the out-fcene of a battle, 
 in which the Britifh nation marked by the drefs of her army is 
 concerned, and in the event of which, though viftorious, as 
 appears by the diftant exultation of one of her officers with the 
 enemy's ftandard in his hands, the Britifli general falls in the 
 moment of viftory : a mortal wound forbids him to furvive. No 
 fooner does the eye fix on the collateral circumftances, but we 
 know that the fcene of aftion was foreign from Britain, for the 
 
HISTORIC PAINTING. 
 
 57 
 
 {hips have conveyed thofe Britifh foldiers to the place; and that 
 this fcene mufl: be North America, for the favage warrior {hews 
 us that the country was his. In allegory, can any thing fpeak more 
 correftly than thefe ? What language or refource of the art could 
 have told us fo much as thofe {liips have done, or told it fo well ? 
 And is not that favage-warrior every way as juft as the crocodile 
 on the Nile ? Without him no imagination would have found 
 it eafy to acquaint us by any other fymbol what was the country, 
 at leafl; by no fymbol that could fpeak with fo much precifion, 
 and fo much in tone with the fubjeft, as that which has been 
 chofen. The female part of our fpecies has perhaps been taken 
 to mark the inhabitants of a country as often as the male : but 
 women can have nothing to do here ; all is war ; the allegory 
 therefore, if taken from our fpecies, mu{l be man, and that man 
 mu{{: be a warrior. 
 
 Equally ju{l, but equally new to the hi{loric pencil, is the 
 charafter of drefs in which thofe viftorious men are exhibited. 
 The pencil had never drawn a hero or a foldier in any country 
 but in thofe habits, which the heroic ages and nations of antiquity 
 had made in a manner peculiar to the field of battle. Had the 
 painter here been feduced by a kind of eftabli{hed venera- 
 tion, which in this cafe would have been mo{l abfurd, we might 
 have looked for ever without fuccefs for a Briti{h army. This 
 obfervation expreflfes in few words the good fenfe and the necef- 
 fity of what is called cojiumi. 
 
 We come to the interior of the bufinefs, in medias res. The 
 general appears carried afide from the heat of the battle, and 
 attended, but in vain, by the anxious {kill of the furgeon to the 
 army. Near him is a group of Briti{h officers, to whom the event 
 
 Vol. I. I 
 
58 HISTORIC PAINTING. 
 
 of viftory has given a moment's time to furvey their dying 
 general, and alfo to aflift another officer who fickens under a 
 wound, but apparently not mortal, then juft received. Think 
 not for a moment that this is a duplicate of impreffion, which 
 takes from the great effeft that is to arife from the dying hero's 
 fituation : you (hall by and by be convinced of the contrary. 
 The news of victory is announced by it's acknowledged fignal ; 
 a Britifh officer at a diftance waves triumphantly in the air the 
 enemy's ftandard which he has taken, and which fhews us that 
 the enemy are French. 
 
 In every one of thefe circumftances there is a freedom, and a 
 mod legitimate, judicious, and mafterly, though abundant, free- 
 dom of variation from the real circumftances of the cafe. As 
 they ftand before us, they are fo natural that no one would hardly 
 cxpeft them to be otherwife than they appear ; and they come 
 fo near to the truth of the hiftory, that they are almoft true, and 
 yet not one of them is true in fa6l. But what was it to the 
 painter, or what is it to the feafted eye, or the feafted mind now, 
 if the great general who planned and executed that glorious 
 enterprife, which was crowned with viftory, fell by a random- 
 Ihot prefently after he had fcaled thofe wonderful, and till then 
 inacceffible heights, on which his army formed before him to 
 battle juft as they afcended ? What if he died apart from the 
 cattle, and in no refpeft attended as he is defcribed, hearing only 
 as he died that the viftory was gained ? What if no fuch group 
 of Britilh officers difcerned him dying, or gathered around the 
 fickening Monckton ? What if no foldier was aftually perceived 
 to have feized the ftandard of the enemy ? What if no favage 
 warrior was either prefent in that afflifting fcene, or prefent in 
 that battle, or carried a bow in that immediate fervice ? No 
 
HISTORIC PAINTING. 59 
 
 matter how far all or any of thofe incidents were true in facl. 
 They are as fair in the fuppofition of the painter as if they had 
 aftually exifted, and infinitely finer and more effeftually impref- 
 five as he has thrown them together. Had he taken fafts merely 
 as they flood, in vain would he have tried to reach any one paf- 
 fion of the heart. But mark what a climax of moft interefting 
 concern now rifes from the whole, gathering new feelings in it's 
 gradations to confummate glory in the hero, and confummate ad- 
 miration with diftrefs combined in the beholder. 
 
 That common foldier behind the dying general no fooner 
 meets the eye than the heart catches the concern which has fo 
 thoroughly appalled with horror a man not trained by ftation to 
 the finefl feelings, but enured by habit to fcenes of death : his 
 conft^ernation is that which ordinary men feel and fpeak of, his 
 head is chilled, and his hair is ereft. — The favage-warrior in 
 front gives a new tone to the feelings, a tone to which the human 
 race is every where a ftranger, except among his tribes. It 
 is not confternation on the view of death, it is not diftrefs for the 
 lofs of a great leader ; thefe he knows nothing of, for he is a fa- 
 vage, and a favage-warrior. Thofe who fuftain that charafter 
 in his country are known to feel an unique of compofure, of 
 fettled fatisfaftion, when a brother-warrior dies as he ought, 
 although that warrior were the next in kindred and affeftion to 
 themfelves: they will evenftimulate unnecefTary pains and tortures 
 to make the exit illuftrious and heroic. He therefore fits contem- 
 plative over the event ; he fits, as if he watched the awful clofe, 
 that it be great ; he fits, as one abforbed in the view of a warrior 
 greater than himfelf. Looking back on this chara6ler in an alle- 
 gorical light, is he not the perfeftion of allegory ? he participates 
 in the fcene^ he helps it, he gives a new lift to the fentiments 
 
60 ' HISTORIC PAINTING. 
 
 that pofTefs us. — That lift is more exalted ftill, and acquires a 
 polifh, as the eye pafles to the wounded Monckton. What was 
 before the hardy admiration of uncultivated Nature becomes now 
 the fympatheiic feeling of liberal manners, made more generous 
 by it's prevalence over the fufferings of the individual himfelf. 
 The fenfe he feels of pain or of danger is transferred, by 
 the expreflive language of his countenance, from himfelf to 
 the hero who is expiring before him. He himfelf becomes our 
 guide to the greater fenfibility which mufl centre in the man, by 
 whom the laurels were prepared for every other brow, but never 
 more to be vifible on his own. — Thus reflefted and turned back 
 again on the great centre of all, with fentiments thus progrelTively 
 matured and heightened, we become fixed on the illuftrious hero 
 of the fcene. We are not difappointed ; we are not brought to a 
 view which has been invaded or impaired by what we have feen 
 and felt before ; no paflion has been rouzed to weaken the final 
 impreffion which awaits us, no pafiion has been rouzed in vain. 
 We behold him a hero in death ; not by (Iruggling againft it, or 
 fhewing any contumacy of mind, but by that placid ferenity 
 which great minds only can pofiefs, and which mufl be infe- 
 parable from him whofe fenfe of duty and of fervice to his 
 country had found themfelves in that inftant fo glorioufly 
 accomplifhed ; althougli that ferenity be inevitably fomewhat 
 infringed by that fenfe of pain, and that only, which muft be 
 infeparable from the human frame finking into immediate dif- 
 folution. 
 
 Thus has the judicious artift told this ftory on the canvas. 
 We have no hefitation to pronounce it one of the mod genuine 
 models of hiftoric painting in the world. If there be any 
 thing that may be called the intermixture of mere poetic, it is 
 
HISTORIC PAINTING. 6l 
 
 only in the erefted hair of the foldier behind. And yet furely 
 the ideas, which proverbial fpeech has appropriated for the ex- 
 emplification of certain paflions, may be gravely adopted without 
 being confidered as the flights of mere poetic imagination. But 
 if they are fo properly confidered, yet is the inftance before us 
 combined in nature with fome degree of faft. Animals, almoft 
 of every kind, will (hew it when furprized by ftrong affright- 
 raent. And every man, on fuch occafions, feels fomething that 
 approaches to fome portion of the fame effeft. To heighten 
 what Nature has given as a feeling, and on the occafion that is 
 peculiar to it, is certainly within the province of the hiftoric, as 
 well as of the poetic, painter. We will only add, that among 
 the ancients, who mod faithfully reprefented the genuine feelings 
 of Nature, the erection of the hair is always mentioned by the 
 gravefl writers as the mofl expreUive mark of dread and terror. 
 
 In thefe obfervations we fpeak to what may probably be the 
 firfl ideas of obfervers. at leaftof many. But we are fenfible that 
 the effe6l here fpoken of was by no means the whole idea of the 
 artift. The cap of that grenadier has fallen from his head, and 
 lies befide him on the ground. The wind has evidently blown it 
 off^ and from the fame caufe his hair may be diflurbed. But 
 what a happy circumftance to the artift was that little guft of 
 wind ? how elegant, how compleat the idea ? It gives us to fee 
 the foldier 's care and anxiety ; he has neither time nor thought to 
 mind the diforder of his own drefs ; his whole attention is to the 
 general ; totiis in hoc ejl. If by fuch an incident as this the cap 
 had not been carried from his head, all thefe touches of expreffion 
 mull have been loft : it would have been next to impoftible for 
 the artift to have given much charafter to this man, at leaft he 
 could not have given to him the charadler in which he now ftands. 
 
62 HISTORIC PAINTING. 
 
 One remark more before we leave this pifture. We have ob- 
 ferved on a former occafion, that the introduflion of portraits in 
 hifloric fubjefts is a very condemnable hcence : but we obferved 
 at the fame time that this muft be underftood, where living cha- 
 ra6lers are made a part of fubjefts long fince pafled. In fuch a 
 cafe it is unworthy the dignity of the hiftoric pencil, becaufe it is 
 done with a view either to flatter or to ridicule ; and it is a com- 
 plete check upon the effeft, inafmuch as we find fomething 
 which we know at once not to be true. But in the difplay of 
 events which have been tranfafted within our own days, far dif- 
 ferent is the introduftion of the moft exaft portraits of thofe who 
 have borne confpicuous parts in thofe events. Nay, we may 
 be allowed, without prejudice to any of the principles by which 
 that liberty is warranted in events fo conftituted, to employ it in 
 thofe which have been fomewhat previous to the exifting gene- 
 ration, efpecially if they have arifen in our own country. For 
 the fame principles are common to both thofe cafes, in which 
 the paintings that are deflitute of thofe perfonal likenefles are 
 certainly deficient in what may be pronounced fatisfaftory, if 
 not ufeful, information ; we fliould no more be content with 
 fiftitious countenances there, than we fliould endure the real 
 countenances that are known to us in fcenes of ancient date ; 
 and this for the plaineft reafon, becaufe we expeft the hiftoric 
 painter to give us all the poflible information he can. The pic- 
 ture on which we have commented is complete in this agreeable 
 effential. It is a true delineation to pofterity of thofe very per- 
 fons by whom that very important enterprize was atchieved, fo 
 far as their return to their native country, or other poflibilities, 
 could obtain the delineation ; ages to come may contemplate the 
 features of thofe who fo glorioufly fignalized themfelves on the 
 plains of Abram, and immortalized their names in the annals of 
 
POETIC PAINTT^fG. 63 
 
 Britain. And is it not a pleafing advantage of the hiftoric pencil, 
 that while it records events on which ages may feed with delight 
 and improvement, it can keep alive to the acquaintance of thofe 
 ages thofe illuflrious charafters, whom to know familiarly by 
 the features of their countenance pofterity muft no lefs emulate 
 than to know them by their deeds ? 
 
 Poetic painting. 
 
 We come now to the other part of the diftinftion which 
 awaits our prefent enquiry, and (hall confider what belongs to 
 poetic painting. In feme refpefts it participates of the fame 
 effentials with the other branch of the art which we have already 
 difcuffed. The foundation of it muft be laid in perfpicuity. If 
 the fubjeft be Heftor, it muft not be miftaken for ^neas : if 
 Rinaldo, it ftiall not be poftlble to fuppofe it Don Quixotte. 
 Thofe incidents therefore, which lead more pointedly to the 
 aftion reprefented, muft be attended to and marked with their own 
 features, becaufe they are the moft immediate key to the defign, 
 although in abundant parts of the management of thefe, and 
 perhaps in every thing beyond thefe, the painter may be left 
 very much to himfelf To give an example of our meaning. 
 Suppofe the fubjeft to be the concluding fcene of the ^neid — 
 Turnus and ^neas in combat. What fhall prevent thefe from 
 paffing for Heftor and Achilles, confidering the general fimilar- 
 ity of circumftances, if we do not behold the adjoining city of 
 the Latins befieged, fcaled, defolated, and in flames — perhaps the 
 aged queen pendent from her own cord from a beam, if the idea 
 be not thought too gothic — but moft certainly that ftriking 
 and moft expreflive allegory of bad news and diftrefs, the mef- 
 
^4 POETIC PAINTING. 
 
 fenger with the arrow flicking in his face in full fpeed to Turnus, 
 to urge him to the decifive and inevitable combat ; although in 
 the management of thefe the painter fliall be left to all the variety 
 which his own genius may fuggeft. Again : if Dido be defcribed 
 in all the diftraftion of flighted love, when from the top of her 
 tower fhe views the departing fleet of ^neas under fail, let us 
 be certain that it is not Ariadne diftrafted for the lofs of herThe- 
 feus. The painter therefore muft at all events give us the pile 
 prepared in the open court, and crowned with funeral greens and 
 garlands, the Trojan arms, the robes, the pifture, and more efpe- 
 cially the fword, thrown together thereon ; although his own 
 judgement fliall be the guide to the difpofition of the whole. 
 
 Another eflential, common to the poetic as well as the hifloric 
 painter, is the obfervance of cojlume. This is important for 
 the prefervation of perfpicuity, as well as of good fenfe in gene- 
 ral. Without this there would be no bounds to fancy, which 
 would be apt to ftudy the entertainment of the eyes without 
 regard to the underfl;anding. We fliould be carried at once into 
 various parts of Nature and of life, and thrown into an aflem- 
 blage of ideas which would make it difficult to fix on any precife 
 one. But under this regulation the ftrongefl; pufhes of the mind, 
 like a fhip by her anchor, are pulled up and kept from launching 
 beyond a prudential compafs. All would be wreck, if it were left 
 to go it's full length. Whatever therefore be the fcene, the poetic 
 artift, whofe field is Nature and art, muft find his graces within 
 that part of Nature and art which is conne6led with the fcene 
 before him ; and thofe graces will always be not only confiftent, 
 but fufficient for his purpofe. He fliall not therefore reprefent 
 Alexander in a hat and wig, nor any other character in a coat of 
 armour who never wore one. If architefture fill up his ground, 
 
POETIC PAINTING. 6^ 
 
 it fhall be the archite6lure of the country and the age : the 
 orders of Greece fhall not be feen in Egypt, nor fhall the huge 
 and mafTy piles of the latter be introduced into the land of tafle. 
 If Arcadia be the fcene, although the objefts thrown into it 
 may excite pity and condolence, it fhall be all Arcadian, all 
 ferenity, all frefhnefs, fragrancy, and life. 
 
 To thefe effentials mufl be added a third, and not lefs impor- 
 tant than either of the former ; and that is, there mufl be no 
 inconfiftency, no contradi6lion of circumflances, no unnatural 
 blendings. In every fpecies of poetic compofition, in the dra- 
 matic and the epic as well as in that of the canvas, this is a 
 primary and indifpenfible principle. What Horace obferves of 
 the former is equally true of the latter, in which the violation 
 of this principle is found, quodcunque ojiendis mihi Jic, incre- 
 dulus odi^. It is in facl the " Cyprefs in the fea-piece," what- 
 ever it's fpecific inconfiftency may be, 
 
 Raphael was a great poet on the canvas, although he made 
 the hifloric profefTion of the art peculiarly his own. If Michael 
 Angelo was the Homer of painting, as indeed he was, Raphael 
 was the Virgil. And this parallel holds true not only in the 
 graces he enjoyed, but in his being indebted for much of that 
 enjoyment to the defigns of Michael Angelo. His " School of 
 Athens" is flriftly a poetic compofition, and we are forry to dif- 
 cover in it the " Cyprefs in the fea." An affemblage of charac- 
 ters who are known by all never to have had exiftence together, 
 and that affemblage brought into one and the fame group, on 
 one and the fame fpot, mofl certainly can never be juflified by 
 poetic, any more than by hifloric, licence. For although fiftion 
 
 * Hor. Ars Poet. v. i88. 
 K 
 
66 POETIC PAINTING. 
 
 be the life and foul of poetry, it muft not militate againfl com- 
 mon fenfe, nor combine impoflibilities. And perhaps it is the 
 trueft idea of poetic fiftion, that it is more concerned in creating 
 the difpofitions and relations of things, which are known to have 
 exiflence and a natural combination with the fubjeft, than in 
 giving exiftence to things which come not within one or the 
 other of thofe predicaments. 
 
 Yet this muft be underftood with fome modification. It is not 
 meant to be afferted, that entities and non-entities, the living 
 and the long fince dead, cannot be brought into the fame paint- 
 ing, although it be poetic. If heaven be combined with a fcene 
 on earth, they may take their place refpeftively in each fituation, 
 without any difturbance of propriety, becaufe not only they do 
 not make a part of the fame mafs, but they form a diftinft fcene 
 by themfelves : and if the fcene be entirely heaven, it is the na- 
 ture of that fcene that they fliould mix together in the fame groups, 
 whatever may be the diftance of their ages, or the diftinclion of 
 their countries. If Raphael was fomewhat overfeen in his 
 " School of Athens," where he has brought together the living 
 and the dead in the fame earthly fpot, he has neverthelefs been 
 more happy and fuccefsful in another poetic compofition, his 
 School of Theology, or, as it is commonly called " The Difpute 
 on the Sacrament," which afforded him the very fituations in 
 which the living and the dead might be introduced with confift- 
 ency and correftnefs. We there fee both on the fame canvas, 
 but they are not brought together in the fame group, nor in fa6l 
 in the fame fpecific fcene. If apoftles, prophets, and patriarchs are 
 brought before the eye in the fame canvas, and are made partici- 
 pators of the fame fubjeft with divines and dodors of the church, 
 yet they are not on the earth at the fame time, they are judicioufly 
 
POETIC PAINTING. 67 
 
 feated in the air, and fo they participate without any contradic- 
 tion, and without any offence. It is no more inconfiftent witli 
 good fenfe, or with enlightened doftrine, to fuppofe thofe depart- 
 ed charafters hovering in the air over the interefts of theology 
 and the Chriftian church, than it is for Chriftian divines to teach 
 that there are fpirits above, and that thofe fpirits watch over 
 mankind, and minifter to their falvation. But it is an exalted 
 ftroke of poetry thus to reprefent the fublimity of theological 
 truths, by carrying their reach from earth to heaven ; and it was 
 a mafter-piece of art to combine in the fame fubjeft things natu- 
 rally diffociable, without appearing to combine them, without 
 anyaftual commixture, and with the prefervation of a real inde- 
 pendent ground. Thus has Raphael taught his followers a leflbn, 
 how the poetic genius may furmount what appears impolfible, 
 and how it may change the nature of things fo far as to embrace 
 with entire fatisfaftion that which was improbable. 
 
 The leffon he gave in that work has not been lofl upon 
 all that came after him. In a feries of piftures, produced 
 within thefe few years in our own country by a Britifh 
 artift, we fee the impreffions of that leffon finely illuflrated, not 
 only fo far as it was carried by Raphael, but to the full extent of 
 the principle ; we fee too all the great properties which enter 
 into the difcriminated provinces of hifloric and poetic painting 
 moft corredly and forcibly maintained. We are more happy 
 to fele6l this work as an exemplification of the principles we 
 have laid down, becaufe, as a defign, it is another triumph of the 
 Britifh fchool in a moff arduous line of the art, which does ho- 
 nour to it's prefent profeffor of painting *, from whofe hands it 
 came : the work we mean is " The Progrefs of Science and 
 " the general Cultivation of Society." We have felefted this 
 
 * Mr. Barry. 
 
68 POETIC PAINTING. 
 
 feries of piftures more efpecially as an illuflration of poetic paint- 
 ing ; although the parts which claim to be confidered as hifloric 
 are not lefs able and correft than thofe which are poetic ; but we 
 confider the greater portion of thefe pi61ures to be of the poetic 
 clafs, notwithftanding the artift himfelf has denominated three 
 of them only to be of that clafs, and the other three to be 
 hiftoric. If he meant the firfl pi6lure, that of Orpheus, to be 
 confidered as hiftoric, which feems rather probable from the 
 greater reftraint which he has obferved in managing the circum- 
 ftances of that fubjeft, yet the fubjeft itfelf, and more efpecially 
 as he has explained his ufe of it, muft certainly be fet down as 
 poetic. We can only fpeak of the third and fifth pi6lures as 
 hifloric. Of thofe piftures, and particularly of the third the 
 grander of the two, we (hall take the prefent moment to fay at 
 once, that the hiftoric province is moft accurately maintained ; 
 there is the greateft perfpicuity throughout ; great exaftnefs and 
 confiftency in the incidents and fituations ; the allegories are 
 beautifully imagined to mark the country in which the fcene 
 lay, and the images ingenioufly chofen to mark decidedly the 
 fcene itfelf; not a fingle anachronifm or unnatural blending is to 
 be found, all the characters introduced are of the fame age, and 
 they are not without an evident, or a reafonably fuppofed, in- 
 tereft in the refpeftive fcenes. One hefitation only hangs upon 
 our mind in this general fuffrage we give to their merit : we are 
 not quite fatibfied with the headof Chatham put upon the ftioulders 
 of Pericles. If this be a blot on hiftoric purity, we cannot refrain 
 to obferve that the profeftbr's art was faved from fome greater 
 blots mere by chance than by deliberate judgement, if we are to 
 take his own words for it*. He has reafon to be thankful that 
 he did not purfue his wifti of introducing general Paoli among 
 * See Barry's Account of thefe Pidurcs, p. 78. 90. 
 
POETIC PAINTING. 69 
 
 the Grecian viftors in the third pifture, and that in the fifth he 
 had not room for thofe many illuftrious charafters in England, 
 to whom he would have given a place at the diftribution of 
 the prizes. The firft would have been a fad miftake : and the 
 lafl; thought, if indulged, would have funk all the dignity of the 
 hiftoric, by making it a mere handmaid to portraits, whofe num- 
 bers would not have been more objeftionable than their infipi- 
 dity, as he himfelf gives us to underftand that they would not 
 have had any vifible intereft in the fcene. 
 
 All the other pi6lures in that feries are poetic, and valuable 
 exemplifications of the poetic province. The point of art in 
 that province, on which we were engaged on Raphael's " Difpute 
 on the Sacrament," and which primarily introduced the mention 
 of that feries of pictures, is there managed in the fecond of that 
 feries with the fame fuccefsful addrefs of which Raphael gave 
 the precedent ; deities above participate in the fcene which is 
 tranfafted to their fatisfaftion below. But in the fixth and lafl 
 of that feries, which may claim to itfelf no lefs originality than 
 grandeur and difficulty in it's compofition, the extent to which 
 that point of art may be carried by the confiflency of it's princi- 
 ple is feen moft; glorioufly exemplified, and moft critically juft. 
 In the regions of Elyfium the Divine Prefence gives a natural 
 fublimity to the fcene which is filled by men and angels : and 
 we cannot avoid to obferve, that the method taken by this- artift 
 of leading the eye and the mind to the idea of God by hiseffe6ls 
 rather than by any perfonal form, is far more lofty, and produc- 
 tive of a more awful veneration, than any other mode which has 
 been purfued by art: we are perfuaded that the Greeks would 
 have done the fame thing, if they had obtained a true notion of 
 him, if all iheir notions of the Divinity had not been corporeal. 
 
7© POETIC PAINTING. 
 
 In thofe regions, angels mixed among men, and men of all ages 
 mixed among one another, and difcriminated only by the differ- 
 ent groups which are formed by different fludies and fervices to 
 mankind, are the fcenes naturally to be expeffed. We fee with 
 fatisfaftion Defcartes affociated with Archimedes, Sir Ifaac New- 
 ton with Copernicus, Columbus and his chart of the weflern 
 world with an angel uncovering a folar fyftem that had not been 
 known before : Sir Thomas More fits naturally with Epami- 
 nondas, Socrates, Cato, and Brutus both the elder and the 
 younger, as one of the great fextumvirate : John Lock pro- 
 perly makes part of a philofophic group with Zeno, Ariftotle, 
 and Plato ; and all thefe naturally look up to a legiflative group, 
 in which the great Alfred and William Penn are placed fide by 
 fide, the latter of whom juflly offers his code of laws to the in- 
 fpeftion of Lycurgus, Solon, Numa, and Zeleucus : great and 
 good princes, who have heroically faved their country, and 
 bleffed it by the wifdom and equity of their rule, are worthily 
 affociated together here, how diflant foever they were from each 
 other in their ages or their countries : and among the patrons of 
 genius and the fine arts through the earth we behold with pleafure 
 Lord Arundel of England and Lorenzo de Medicis affembled in 
 the fame group with Alexander the Great. 
 
 But it is not in that particular point of art alone that we 
 would call the attention of the reader to thofe poetic paintings. 
 While every circumfiance which conflitutes that province of the 
 art is juflly maintained, and with fuperior beauties in fome of 
 it's parts, particularly in the allegories, in the images felefted 
 and fuited to each lubjeft, and in the tranfition by which every 
 fubjeft neatly conveys itfelf to the next, there is a merit in the 
 aggregate of the work which is worthy of contemplation. The 
 
POETIC PAINTING. 7I 
 
 great moral, which gave birth to the whole, and in which the 
 whole is wound up, is no puny thought, that " happinefs pub- 
 " lie and private, prefent and future, depends on the cultivation 
 " of the human faculties for the benefit of fociety." To illuf- 
 trate this leffon by a courfe of energetic exemplifications calls 
 for no contrafted compafs of knowledge, at leaft in the general 
 progrefs of literature and fcience. The difpofition neceffary to 
 the beft effeft of fubjefts fo enlarged in their fcope, and fo preg- 
 nant with bufinefs, as thofe which mufl; conftitute that courfe of 
 exemplification, is no lefs exquifite as an effort of art than the 
 feledlion of the fubje6}s themfelves is profound as an effoit of 
 judgement. There is of neceflity therefore great profundity in 
 the whole plan ; yet we do not find it confulted to fuch an ex- 
 tent as to defeat perfpicuity, although the artift himfelf has 
 declared * in favour of the former, and fomewhat contemptu- 
 oufly of the latter, which, happily for us, is not warranted by his 
 own works : he has afferted that a fubjeft in painting fhould 
 never be fo plain that it can be read at once. In that fenti- 
 ment we do not concur with him, becaufe we do not find it in 
 any of the conftituent principles of painting, either as hiftorical, 
 or poetical, or as a writing, and we do not conceive that a paint- 
 ing fhould always become an allegory. Perhaps he meant that 
 fentiment as a kind of preliminary paffport to the depth which 
 he conceived to await our fludy in that work, and which may 
 bear that fentiment as well as any other work, becaufe it is a 
 work of fcience, and fcience is never quite perfpicuous to thofe 
 who firfl approach it. Neverthelefs we are contented to take 
 the effeft which he has prepared for us, leaving the comment 
 with which he would introduce it. In the confideration of that 
 effeft we enter into no circumflances of the art beyond the de- 
 fign and the difpofition, the lafl of which is pregnant with excel- 
 Ibid, p. 24. 
 
72 POETIC PAINTING. 
 
 lencies in the various incidents and groups both relatively to 
 each other and immediately to their own fpecific purpofes. We 
 cannot forbear to mention what ftrikes us as beautiful inftances 
 of this in the fixth and laft picture of the feries — the difpofition 
 of the angels on the range of rocks which feparate Elyfium from 
 the infernal regions, and the different offices of thofe angels 
 bufied on the fates of men — the elevated fituation given to the 
 felicities of thofe who have cultivated peace and moderation upon 
 earth — and the ftill more elevated ftation, near the centre, afford- 
 ed to the infpired bards of the world, who look up to the glory 
 that emanates above them, eager as it were to catch from it's 
 rays the fire with which their lips and their lyres were once 
 hallowed. 
 
 In the (ketch which is given of the place of punifhment the 
 artifl has fhewn, in the aflemblage of his objects and in his manner 
 of treating them, that he has not fludied Rubens in vain. Ex- 
 prefTion fpeaks enough, and with an honourable variation on 
 the fpirit of that mafler, in the two hands which we are jufl 
 permitted to fee amidft the clouds of fmoke that envelope the 
 the dark and deep gulph ; they are grapling at a group of infa- 
 mous chara6lers bound together by ferpents, and they pull down 
 by the hair two women who are a part of it. It is next to im- 
 poffible not to fpeak in the very language of Rubens, when once 
 his principle has been imbibed. Yet we give credit to our own 
 artift for the thought which has introduced an ambitious and 
 worldly pope with a fiery globe on his fhoulders, making his 
 vice to become, in the full fpirit of Rubens, his everlafling 
 punifhment, while he ffill keeps up one part, and the only facred 
 one, of his chara6ler, by preaching in the flames like another 
 Phlegyas, 
 
POETIC PAINTING. 73 
 
 If the principles we have laid down in poetic painting have 
 been happily maintained in that modern work, on which we have 
 dwelt with pleafure, it is not always among others of the older 
 mailers, befides Raphael, that we find them preferved with equal 
 chaftity and care. We have already had occalion to obferve, 
 that Nicholas Pouffin was a great poetic genius, and a chafte 
 painter in general ; and yet he has not always guarded, as much 
 as he ought, againft inconfiflency and contradiftion. Two of 
 his poetic performances are particularly cenfurable on this 
 ground. The violence of his fancy has there led him to combine 
 things which are not only contrails, but unnatural contrails, fub- 
 verfive of each other. We allude to " the man flying from the 
 ferpent," and to " the death of Phocion." Are we to call thefe 
 landfcapes, or hiflory-pieces ? If the former, the eye is indeed 
 delighted in each of them with a moll gay and riant fcene of 
 Nature, but in each of them the fcene below cruflies in a mo- 
 ment every fenfe of riling pleafure by the mournfulnefs and 
 dread which it awakens within us. If the latter, the leflbns they 
 would read are inllantly loll by the gaiety with which we are 
 attrafted on the firfl lifting of the eyes. If we call them poetic 
 pieces, which we ought to do rather than either of the others, 
 yet the greater latitude of that clafs does not warrant the com- 
 bination of fcenes fo contrary to each other. We mull not 
 however meafure by the fame reflettion the Arcadia of the fame 
 artifl, becaufe Arcadia has a local fcenery appropriated to it by 
 a fort of univerfal confent ; that fcenery was fuppofed never to 
 be altered ; it can therefore never be difguifed, and every attempt 
 to defcribe Arcadia by any other fcene would be out of charac- 
 ter. It is that peculiar country, which is faid to have been inha- 
 bited by the happiell race of mortals, by men employed only on 
 temperate pleafures, and who knew no other difquietudes than 
 
 Vol. I. L 
 
74 POETIC PAINTING. 
 
 thofe which befel the imaginary fhepherds in romance, whofe 
 condition has always been envied. That country therefore can 
 never be painted otherwife than gay, ahhough the eye be dire6ted 
 to a melancholy objefl within it ; juft as Elyfium muft be Ely- 
 fium ftill, the happieft and mofl verdant fcene that can be pre- 
 fented to the fight, although it be replete with groups of ghaftly 
 departed (hades. 
 
 Such then are the qualifications, within which the poetic painter 
 has the whole range of Nature, and the whole fcope of imagina- 
 tion, to drefs his fcenes and give them force and attraction. The 
 faft is, that the province of poetry in all it's branches is framed 
 to give pleafure, while the end of hiftory is to inform and inflru6l. 
 The very mention of thefe two different objefts in each is fuffi- 
 cient to account for the more abundant latitude to thofe invent- 
 ive powers, which are to accomplifh the end of any poetic 
 reprefentation. LordBacondefines poetry at large to be "hifto- 
 " rise imitatio ad placitum ;" that is, it is to be fo far like hiftory as 
 to elucidate the ftory, the obje6t, or principle which it means to 
 imprefs, but conduced by a more enlarged freedom of invention 
 than hiftorical fidelity dare affert, and that for the purpofe of 
 giving pleafure. In another place, but with allufion to the fame 
 diftinftion, that great writer obferves *, that " poetry in general 
 " has the privilege of fhaping and adapting the reprefentations 
 " of things to the gratification and fatisfaftion of the mind, 
 " while hiftory endeavours to bring our minds to be fatisfied 
 " with fa6ls as they are." With this diftinftion admitted, we 
 would not think of going to the extent of Caftelvetro's aftertion t, 
 that poetry has no bufinefs to inftru6l. For how wretched muft; 
 be the poetic aim, which impreftes no fentiment, nor raifes the 
 
 * De Augment. Sclent, lib. 2. c. 13. + Comment, on Ariftot. Poetics, p. 29. 
 
POETIC PAINTING. 75 
 
 mind to any improving refleftion ? On the canvas, or in the book, 
 which with all the polTible ftrokes of poetic ability is fo frothy 
 as to teach us nothing, we fhould certainly not bear to look long. 
 We expeft to learn fomething, efpecially in every work that 
 makes pretenfion to importance. But then pleafure is certainly 
 the vehicle of what we learn here : we depend on being amufed, 
 and gratified in our fancy, at any rate : we look for all the ima- 
 gery of embelli{hment,by which a brilliant and correal invention 
 amplifies it's fcenes, and exalts our conceptions. The only re- 
 ftraint is, that the invention be correct as well as brilliant, and 
 that the pleafure it raifes be not infringed by the introdu6lion of 
 any thing unnatural, foreign, and difcordant. 
 
 The field of pleafure is a large one ; and the means of admi- 
 niftering it are fufficiently large, even when they are fo reflrained. 
 The poetic licence in the hands of the artift is fufficiently ex- 
 tenfive. Whatever is natural and of a piece is at his abfolute 
 command. The vifionary has no exclufion. The emblematic 
 fhall take the place of the real exiftence, which it is meant to 
 figure. Embellifhment is natural drefs, and all Nature is it's 
 fource. What a fund for the ftrong poetic genius ? In the pro- 
 du6lion of the fublime and beautiful, what an infinite copiouf- 
 nefs of materials is before him ? 
 
 There is a fublime of hiftory ; and the hiftorical difplav, which 
 does not reach a portion of the fublime, is hardly worth our regard. 
 But the fublime in the hands of the poetic artift is of a differ- 
 ent caft ; it's means, it's fcope, it's execution, it's whole compofi- 
 tion is different. Look at " the laft judgement" of Michael An- 
 gelo: look at it as the whole of that awful event thrown together, 
 not as a perfeft and unexceptionable whole in point of feleded 
 
l6 r POETIC PAINTING. 
 
 thoughts and incidents, but as a whole that is managed by poetic 
 abiUties. What fublimity has it received from the pencil of that 
 mafter ? Not Homer himfelf could have lifted the fcene to more 
 lofty conceptions. It is every thing that an univerfal convulfion 
 of nature, an univerfal miracle of Omnipotence on created mat- 
 ter, can exhibit moft ftupendoufly fublime at the found of the 
 laft awful trumpet. Earth and heaven contribute their portions 
 to fill up this tremendous fcene, and prefent it with confternating 
 grandeur to the beholding eye. 
 
 It is true that, in the view of confulting the advantages of art, 
 the whole of that fubjefl as embraced by Michael Angelo was 
 attended with fome embarraffments, becaufe one half of it was 
 terror, and the other half was joy. And this circumftance feems to 
 have difcouraged Rubens from purfuingthe fame whole, if private 
 tradition be right, and if we may infer fo much from the many por- 
 tions of {Indies on that whole, which are flill to be found, and were 
 abandoned of courfe, as they were never brought to any aftual 
 defign. After various efforts it is plain that he determined on a di- 
 vifion of the fubjeft, taking the terrific part by itfelf in " the fall 
 of the damned," which he completed, and referving the happier 
 fcene for the " refurreflion of the bleffed," of which he left a fketch 
 that unhappily was never carried into full execution. " The fall 
 of the damned" had many ftudies before it obtained his final 
 decifion in that painting which is now at Duffeldorff, where the 
 {ketch we have ju{l mentioned is alfo to be found. It is that 
 particular work, diftingui{laed from any others by his hand that 
 may be denominated " the fall of the damned," which we {hall 
 feleft here as another in{lance of the grand and fublime in poetic 
 painting ; not lefs grand and fublime, although it be only a part 
 
POETIC PAINTING. 77 
 
 of the lafl: judgement, than the whole together appears, as wrought 
 up by his great predecefTor. 
 
 Perhaps " the fall of the damned" admits of being lifted by more 
 various difcrimination to a lofty and affefting moral than any 
 other part of that extended fubjeft. Even glory and happinefs, 
 however they may be diverfified beyond our conceptions by the 
 fupreme Source of all effefts, and in another world which we 
 know not, are in their prefent imprelTions on us, with all their 
 attraftions, fo much the fame attraction, afiPefting one and the 
 fame fenfe of fruition, that perhaps they do not rouze the fame 
 breadth of feelings, nor produce the fame ftimulating leffons, that 
 are excited by the profpe6l of variegated mifery. All muft feel 
 them indeed, and be captivated by them, but in a very different 
 way from that in which we are affefted by their reverfe. For 
 they captivate only in theory, and are capable only of being 
 theoretically conceived, without affording the power of any fpe- 
 cific illuftration. But there is nothing more furely known to us 
 than pain and fuffering, to whofe mod aggravated ftages every 
 fenfe and experience can lead us by the cleareft preconceptions. 
 
 This is the point which has enabled Rubens, with far lefs affift- 
 ance than Michael Angelo derived from the confpiring effefts of 
 convulfed Nature around, to reach our feelings by as high a fubli- 
 mity as can well be fuppofed to be accomplilhed by human 
 genius on the fubjeft he has chofen. In a general view of the 
 laft judgement the damned may be hurled into a deep and 
 dark abyfs, without any other circumftance than their being fo 
 hurled, and the thought fhall neither be poor, nor common, nor 
 uninterefting, becaufe there will be fome effeft in the contrafted 
 
78 POETIC PAINTING* 
 
 fate of the bleffed to make this part of the fcene diftrefsful, there 
 will be dignity enough in the fupreme feat of judgement to fill 
 it with an awful importance, and there will be terror enough in 
 the whole affemblage of events to make it dreadful. But when 
 Rubens came to defcribe the fate of the fame objefts in a fcene 
 contracted merely to what immediately concerned them, that 
 fcene would certainly have been poor, and common, and unin- 
 terefling, if it had not been fuftained by fome important moral, 
 which fhould arrefl and fix the mind in awful contemplation of 
 the events that paffed, fhould make every incident big with 
 inftruftion, and by a forcible impreflion fhould difplay the divine 
 equity in thofe meafures of it's judgement and retribution. 
 
 And what moral can be brought more home to thofe pur- 
 pofes, what better ufecanbe drawn from thofe meafures of divine 
 judgement, than that on which Rubens has kept his eye through 
 the whole of that compofition, and which he has conveyed in 
 every incident ? — that " every man's vice fhall become his punifh- 
 ment." Is there a principle more likely to be jufl ? Is there a 
 fentiment more likely to cure or reflrain the habits of vice ? Is 
 there a fentiment, whofe detail to the eye and the mind, but efpe- 
 cially to the eye, can be exhibited with a more forcible and more 
 copious impreffion? To be tormented by devils we fuppofe 
 to be at leaft one punifhment in hell. When this idea is caught 
 by the poet, whofe fpirit depids by fenfible images, he naturally 
 extends himfelf to all the views that can be drawn from it by the 
 perfonification of thofe abftraft turpitudes, which would engage 
 the difcuffion of the philofopher or the Chriftian. And this is 
 what Rubens has done. We mufl not blame him for the various, 
 and fometimes flrange, forms in which his devils appear, nor for 
 the flrange manner in which they are bufied on the purpofes of 
 
'POETIC PAINTING. jg 
 
 torment, for he did not mean to preach to us as a drift 
 divine, but in his own way as a poet ; and yet it will not be eafy 
 for divines to overthrow the principles of his poetry, that devils 
 can aflume any fhape that fuits their purpofe. Bring the pifture 
 to the eye of any vicious charafter who fhall fee it's parallel there, 
 and let it be fuppofed that the images given to the devils, and 
 their aftions, are all poetic invention ; what will be the confe- 
 quence, if there be any impreflion at all ? Mod certainly the 
 moral will take hold, although the drefs be fet at nought. The 
 confcioufnefs that in fome way or other the principle of convert- 
 ing vice into punifhment will be made good, will not be avoided 
 by the capricioufnefs, if fo we (hould call it, with which the poe- 
 tic painter has imagined the fcene : this imagination will only i^ 
 excite another in ourfelves, that if his be all fiftion, that which "ff 
 will be real cannot be lefs pungent and horrible to every fenfe. 
 When the proflitute fees that delicate hair, on which fhe has 
 beftowed fo much time and pains, become the cord by which (he 
 is dragged and bound to torture ; and that delicate perfon, to 
 which fhe has given every attraftion, become loathfome and 
 difgulling to devils themfelves — when the pampered glutton fees 
 that he has been feeding his appetites only to provide a nicer 
 feaft for devils to gnaw at continually — when the fodomite 
 perceives that his brutal and unnatural luft fhall cling to him 
 longer than he may like, and fhall be kept up whether he will 
 or no by the violence of devils in the fhape which is faid to 
 be next to man, when men themfelves can no longer be the 
 inffruments of feeding it — when the liar fees thofe malicious 
 fiends torturing his tongue in all the variety of pra6lifed agonies 
 — let all thefe, and all the refl who are there depided, laugh as 
 they pleafe at the humour, as they may call it, of the painter, 
 that humour fhall lead them to another thought which will be 
 
80 POETIC PAINTING. 
 
 ferious, and that is, that in the end they are to be company for 
 devils, and to fufFer all, whatever it be, that the company of 
 devils can make them feel. In this thought, whatever becomes 
 of the red, Rubens is correftly and unanfwerably moral. In 
 this thought he preaches as a divine, and not as a poet. And 
 is the compofition then a moral one, or not ? If the thought, 
 that we are to be company with devils, cannot wean and deter 
 us from thofe vices which will make their company our doom, 
 nothing elfe can. Affuredly this fingle thought, if properly 
 contemplated, for which however we are indebted to a higher 
 authority than that of Rubens, would go infinitely further in 
 morals than the philofopher's beauty of virtue, and would ren- 
 der unneceffary all the difputes of Chriftians about the fpecific 
 nature and degrees of future punifhments. For is there a man, 
 whether inured at all to refined feelings, or in no refpeft raifed 
 beyond coarfer ones, that is not ftaggered by the idea of being 
 configned to the company of devils ? We think it horrid 
 enough to be doomed upon earth to the company which ill 
 befits us ; but how much more horrid muft it be to be company 
 for devils in eternity ? 
 
 "We have been led to preach upon the fubjeft, whether the 
 poetic painter be admitted to have preached upon it or not. 
 We wifh to do juflice to that excellent work, whofe principles 
 are folid, however they may be coloured by the fpirit of poetry 
 with afpe6ls that are fanciful, and whofe views are honourable 
 and moral, as much as if they had been delivered with every 
 poflible gravity in every incident. They are vindicable pre- 
 cifely on the fame ground which vindicates all that concerns 
 the fame fubjcft in the " Paradife loft" of our own immortal 
 Milton. When Rubens took up this fubjeft poetically, he was 
 
POETIC PAINTING. Si 
 
 he was compelled to ftrike out a field of his own, he was con- 
 ftrained to draw from his own imagination. And the origi- 
 nality, which broke forth from his mind, is not more brilliant 
 to be beheld, than the effefts of that originality on other great 
 minds befides his own are curious to be followed. It has been 
 faid, and fometimes truly, that great wits will jump together 
 into the fame fentiments on the fame theme. But it is im- 
 pofTible for us to folve in that way the flriking fimilarity which 
 appears in the great features given to the circumftances of the 
 damned both by Milton and by Rubens. Many things too clear 
 to be overlooked confpire to prove, that the fire and judge- 
 ment of the former in all his views of hell were affifled and fed 
 by this work of the latter. Milton was coming forward into the 
 world as a young man in the latter days of Rubens. It is a known 
 fa6l in his life, that he vifited Rome, and alfo the low countries. 
 And as the elegance of his mind carried him, in the former place, 
 through the Vatican, with the clofefl attention to every thing it 
 prefented, fo there is no quefiion but he was equally attentive, 
 in the latter, to every celebrated work of ingenuity, and efpe- 
 cially to thofe of a mailer whofe fame was fo recent, and fo 
 univerfally eftabliflied, as that of Rubens. With thefe circum- 
 fl;ances adduced, his poem itfelf will decide the point. We 
 there fee both the principles and the general images, which 
 difl;inguifh this painting of Rubens, embraced by Milton, and 
 particularly in the fecond book, whenever hell is defcribed. 
 
 ** Thither by harpy-footed furies hail'd 
 " The damned are brought." 
 
 Sin perfonified thus fpeaks for herfelf, what the pifture fpeaks 
 for all the damned : 
 
 " Thefe monfters, that with ceafelefs cry furround me, 
 
 " Gnaw my bowels, their repaft ; and then 
 
 Vol. I. M 
 
82 POETIC PAINTING. 
 
 " Afrefh with confcious terrors vex me round, 
 ♦' That reft or intermiffion none I find." 
 
 Again : 
 
 " Here in perpetual agony and pain, 
 
 " With terrors and with clamours compafs'd round 
 
 •' Of mine own brood, that on my bowels feed." 
 
 Of death it is faid, 
 
 «« there he (hall be fed and fill'd 
 
 " Immeafurably, all things fliall be his prey." 
 
 " and pleas'd he was to hear 
 
 ♦' His famine fhould be fill'd, and bleft his maw 
 " Deftin'd to that good hour." 
 
 It will prefently be feen how exa6lly alike the defcription of the 
 great abyfs is given in the poem and in the pifture. So far, 
 therefore, the mode in which Rubens has conduced his fubjeft 
 appears to have met the approbation, and even to have enriched 
 the mind, of that great poet. 
 
 It was not in the power of Rubens to condu6l that fubjefl in any 
 other than a poetic manner. Had he tried to treat it hiftorically, 
 a few moments would have (hewn the attempt to be impoffible, 
 becaufe the traits afforded in fcripture are too few, and too figu- 
 rative and indiflinft, to be made the groundwork of any repre- 
 fentation Avhich looks fo clofely to points as the hiftoric. The 
 truth is, thofe traits of fcripture are themfelves more nearly 
 allied to the poetic, than to any other clafs of expreffion. And 
 we conceive that with fome poetic licence they are not inaptly 
 realized in every flroke of Rubens's pencil here. " The worm 
 " dieth not," if the confcioufnefs of vice, and the fufferings ifTu- 
 ing from it's fource, be a worm, whofe gnawings never leave a 
 refpite to the mind and the body : and "the fire is not quenched," 
 if the fufferings felt be a fire within, which keeps up a fever there. 
 
POETIC PAINTING. 8;^' 
 
 parching the bones, and confumlng without ever deftroying ; as 
 Milton fays, 
 
 " Fed with ever-burning fulphur unconfum'd." 
 
 Yet Rubens was not inattentive to the popular notion, con- 
 ftruing thofe images in a real fenfe. The vafl and fathomlefs 
 abyfs, which at laft receives the damned, to complete the tortures 
 which in their fall have been inflitled by devils in all fltapes 
 hovering in mid-way, is filled with other fiends innumerable, 
 which feem impatient for the prey that is defcending, and to 
 grudge as it were both the morfels and the tortures that are 
 fnatched by their fellow-fiends who drag them down : it is filled 
 with fire, whofe fulphureous body emits not the flames which 
 would exhaufl it's ftrength, or fpread the gleams of light around, 
 but which leave darknefs equally prevalent and more hideous ; 
 with ferpents, and fcorpions, and all enVenomed creatures, and 
 monfters frightful to behold; it is an affemblage of every thing 
 that is mod foul, and hateful, and ferocious in nature or in idea, 
 even beyond what language has been able to mark in the reptile 
 and bafer parts of creation as deftruftive in their fpecies. But 
 let Milton's defcription be taken ; and let the reader judge whe- 
 ther the eye of that poet had not conveyed to his mind from this 
 pifture the ideas which accord fo clofely with what has been 
 painted. 
 
 " A dungeon horrible on all fides round 
 
 " As one great furnace flam'd, yet from thofe flames 
 
 " No light, but rather darknefs vifible, 
 
 " Serv'd only to difcover fights of woe, 
 
 " Regions of forrow, doleful fhades, where peace 
 
 " And reft can never dwell, hope never comes 
 
 " That comes to all, but torture without end 
 
 " Still urges, and a fiery deluge fed 
 
84 POETIC PAINTING. 
 
 " With ever-burning fulphur unconfum'd. 
 ** Such place eternal juftice had prepar'd 
 " For the rebellious." 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 Again, more clofely : 
 
 " A univerfe of death, which God by curfe 
 
 " Created evil, for evil only good, 
 
 " Where all life dies, death lives, and nature breeds 
 
 " Perverfe all monfters, all prodigious things, 
 
 '* Abominable, unutterable, and worfe 
 
 " Than fables yet have feign'd, or fear conceiv'd, 
 
 •' Gorgons and hydras and chimeras dire." 
 
 BOOK 11. 
 
 Further yet: 
 
 " Into this wild abyfs, 
 
 " The womb of nature, and perhaps her grave, 
 " Of neither fea, nor fhore, nor air, nor fire, 
 " But all thefe in their pregnant caufes mixt 
 '« Confus'dly." "■ 
 
 IBID. 
 
 And, laftly, in one comprehenfive expreflion by the prince of 
 devils, 
 
 ** Havoc and fpoil and ruin are my gain." 
 
 Such is the " fall of the damned" by Rubens, and fuch is the 
 high fpirit of poetic talent through the whole, not only exhibiting 
 by a fplendid proof the genuine principles of poetic painting, 
 but in it's invention and in the whole train of it's images taking 
 a path, for the exemplification of principles authoritatively un- 
 derllood, which had never been trodden before. To higher and 
 more fublime difplays of that talent on the canvafs, for the 
 produ6tion of it's great objefts, the pleafure, furprize, and ele- 
 vation of the imagination, and a moral impreffion on tlie un- 
 derRanding, it is impoffible to go. 
 
POETIC PAINTING. 85 
 
 Here, therefore, we (hall clofe the inquiry which we have 
 undertaken into the poetic and hiftoric provinces of the pencil ; 
 hoping, that when Nature and principles have eflablifhed fo 
 clear and fo important a diftinftion as that which appears be- 
 tween thofe two great branches of painting, however that dif- 
 tinftion may have been confounded by others, it will be more 
 attentively and fecurely preferved in a Britifh fchool. It is our 
 duty to improve by the miftakes of others : and it fliould be our 
 pride, that when fcience of every kind ftands on fuch enlighten- 
 ed ground in our country, cleared from the errors of thofe who 
 have gone before us, the finer arts which feem to have fled to 
 us for prefervation fliould be maintained on the chafteft and pu- 
 reft principles. Perhaps this may be all the new excellence that 
 is referved for a Britilh Ichool, after thofe other excellencies to 
 which the pencil has been carried in other ages and countries : 
 but this purity of principle will be original in us, if it be com- 
 pletely and uniformly maintained ; and in that maintenance of it 
 we fliall render a fervice to the arts, which will leave the Britiflr 
 Ichool by no means the leaft refpediable and exemplary of thofe 
 which have exifted in the world. 
 
 CHAP. VI. 
 
 The cultivation of the fine arts a fouree of refined polifii to the 
 
 manners. 
 
 vV E have confidered the art of painting in it's fuperior and 
 more enlarged charafter, as a mean of conveying and perpe- 
 tuating folid and beneficial infl;ru6lion. The obfervations we 
 
86 THE POLISH OF FINE ARTS. 
 
 have made have been felefted much lefs to confult the theory 
 of this admirable art than to do juftice to that praftical difplay 
 of it, which our own country has at length been fo happy as 
 to fee carried in the prefent sera to an excellence which forms 
 a new age in the hiftory of the pencil. It were little to fay this, 
 if that particular excellence had not been followed by that 
 general excellence in the fine arts, which fets them and the pa- 
 tronage by which they have been reared in Britain upon a foot- 
 ing, that entitles both to a fame in many refpecls equal to what 
 either has obtained in any age of the world. What we have 
 hitherto faid, in order to illuftrate the fuperior interefts of this 
 art, and the principles on which thofe interefts ftand, will find 
 it's relation, as we proceed, to the future fubjecls which await 
 our difcuflion, particularly in the laft part of this work, and will 
 enable us the better to do juftice to thofe fubjefts. In the mean 
 time, before we clofe the part on which we are engaged, we con- 
 ceive that it will be no improper introduftion to all that follows, 
 if we reflect on that amiable and refined polifh and improve- 
 ment, which the cultivation of the fine arts never fails to intro- 
 duce into the minds and manners of any people. 
 
 A people that have no arts can have no manners fit to be 
 fpoken of. As they know not the proper value of each other, 
 for each other they have but little efteem and ftill lefs civilit)-. 
 As they have not the temptations of ingenuity to fill their time, 
 their time is confequently difpofed in the ruder and more fuUen 
 habits of indolent, if not of favage, life. The neceffaries of 
 fubfiftcnce occupy their whole care ; and not knowing how to 
 provide and preferve thefe in the greateft perfe£lion, they are 
 bereft even of the loweft evidence of improved life in the 
 choice, and variety, and mpre exquifite preparation of food. 
 
THE POLISH OF FINE ARTS. 87 
 
 So much depends on arts in general ; but much more on the 
 finer arts. The human mind has been well compared to a piece of 
 marble in the quarry, replete with veins which are invifible, and 
 whofe beauties cannot be conceived until it is drefTed, but which 
 come forth in multifarious ornament by the hand of the polifher. 
 Learning and knowledge in general is that hand which gives 
 the polilh to the mind, and elegant art bellows it not lefs emi- 
 nently than any other branch of knowledge. By that the pow- 
 ers of the mind receive cxpanfion, and are led to new fcenes 
 of perception, and new fubjefts of enjoyment. For all our fa- 
 culties are given by providence for good and beneficial ends, 
 and the extenfion of the rational powers muft, in their natural 
 confequence, be followed by rational enjoyment. In the arts of 
 elegance this is true, if not exclufively, yet more eminently than 
 in other parts of knowledge ; becaufe all other knowledge may 
 in it's confequences introduce direft vices, whereas it is hard to 
 conceive how any thing but direft cultivation can be the iflue of 
 the more elegant arts. The pleafure of ingenuity is the grand 
 decoy, by which Nature leads us to improve ourfelves and others, 
 and of which (he has given fome fenfibility in every breafl. We 
 are lifted by this pleafure from one ftage of it to another, and fo 
 from one perception of honourable improvement to a greater. 
 If the fource of this pleafure be lefs copious in ourfelves, we are 
 attracted by the defire of it towards thofe who are able to difpenfe 
 it : and this foundation of fecial improvement being laid, every 
 other generous affedion foon follows, and a general melioration 
 of our whole manners. We gain by degrees nobler and more 
 comprehenfive views of human nature, and of it's capacities to 
 honour us, and make us happy. The purpofes of human life 
 rife up in a fuperior ftyle before us, and we are emulous to 
 meet them. 
 
88 POLISH OF FINE ARTS. 
 
 As the finer feelings take place, the rougher parts of our 
 make wear off, and we wifli to know them no more. There 
 is an infinuation in tafte which is beyond conception. Ever)' 
 portion of it makes way for a greater, and every fenfibility of 
 it will dwell with nothing that is groffer. It gives a tinfture to 
 the mind, which affimilates every thing to itfelf It is like the 
 varnifh we lay over paintings, which preferves all the tints of 
 nature in their refinement, unblended and unfullied by coarfer 
 particles. Art in general has it's foundation fo entirely in the 
 melioration of fociety, and the politer arts efpecially enter fo 
 far into the finer feelings of our nature, and intereft our beft 
 aifeftions fo confiderably in the compafs they take, that when 
 we have been in the habit of tafting their improvements, it is 
 impoflible we fhould be lefs than civilized in the general tenor 
 of our manners, and almoft abfurd to fuppofe that we could 
 relilh what was lefs than civilized. As individuals, or as a pub- 
 lic, the face of order, decorum, elegance, fociability, and liber- 
 ality of deportment mufl; fhew itfelf fi:rongly in our general turn, 
 and charafterize a people fo trained and elevated by art. 
 
 Luxury, we grant, will follow, and ever has followed, where 
 the arts have gained an efliablifhment. But it is not every 
 luxurv that is evil : there is a luxury of tafte, which is per- 
 feftly legitimate, and highly to be emulated. The luxury we 
 mean is not that enervating and wafting luxury, whofe fole ob- 
 je6t is profufion and wanton indulgence, whofe immediate con- 
 fequence is vice, and whofe ultimate ifliie is the ruin of a 
 people. This luxury may have owed it's birth to the art of 
 commerce, but it has more frequently flowed from wealth 
 fuddenly acquired by foreign conqueft, in which commerce has 
 had the leaft concern, although it may often have furniftied 
 
THE POLISH OF FINE ARTS. 89 
 
 the firft pretence. Far different from that is the luxury which 
 liberal art fupplies — the luxury of living to intellectual enjoy- 
 ment ; of contemplating Nature in her beft attraftions ; of gra- 
 tifying the mind with univerfal excellence ; of feeding the fenfes 
 with the beauties of order, fymmetry, and every grace ; of raifing 
 the affeftions by thofe imitative fcenes, which give the pureft 
 leffons, or by thofe harmonious chords which lend the fineft: 
 touches to the foul ; of converting with the greateft eafe all the 
 bounties of Nature to the beft and moft permanent enjoyment ; 
 of confulting, if you will, the perfeftion of many animal fatif- 
 faftions, but of cultivating even in thefe the perfeftion of the 
 rational powers. If, after all, the age of arts has been marked 
 for the age of fenfual luxury in any country, the latter has 
 followed the former as the lares grow up with the wheat; the 
 richnefs and melioration of the foil cannot give the one, without 
 provoking the other. But then the other, which is but as it 
 were an excrefcence of high humour, peeps out only in indivi- 
 dual fpots, and in particuliar fituations. Affuredly the general 
 face of the whole fhews order, decency, and health. 
 
 From thofe countries, which have been the feat of the arts 
 in any confiderable degree, our prefent argument will derive 
 it's faireft illuftration. Afia, without queftion, was civilized 
 much earlier than any other part of the world. Why ? Becaufe 
 (he obtained all the arts before any other people. Soon after 
 the deluge fhe became poffeffed of many of thofe arts, which 
 have ever fmce been the portion of poliflied nations. The 
 fame may be faid of Egypt, which was not much behind, Afia 
 in the advantages of civilization. If the arts, of which thofe 
 countries were in pofleffion, were not altogether the arts of 
 tafte and elegance, or if that tafte and elegance was not 
 
 Vol. I. N 
 
go THE POLISH OF FINE ARTS. 
 
 known by them in it's highefl degrees, yet the flate of their 
 arts was fuch as enabled them to become preceptors to 
 the Greeks, who afterwards carried tafte and elegance to the 
 highefl pitch, and who derived from one or other of thofe 
 countries all the arts which made them fo illuflrious. The flate 
 of their arts alfo was fuch as became fufhcient to humanize 
 them, and make them very polifhed nations. No hiflory in- 
 deed is fo dark and imperfeft as that of both thofe countries 
 in their earlier periods. But from what remains of facred and 
 profane authority we may aver, that if in thofe countries there 
 was found much pomp, magnificence, and voluptuous luxury, 
 the primitive and reigning habits of eaflern nations, there was 
 alfo great courteoufnefs of manners, liberality of fentiment, de- 
 cency and delicacy of demeanor, hofpitality, and reciprocal 
 friendfhip ; all thofe habits in general, which fweeten and 
 cement fociety. In latter ages, the lofs of liberty and inde- 
 pendance has been the lot of the one, and of a great part of 
 the other, which has fallen a prey to the avarice and ambition of 
 other empires. With thofe revolutions the arts took flight in 
 both countries : and where, fince thofe periods, have been the 
 traces of refinement m their manners ? It is hardly poffible to 
 conceive a people more degraded than either. Yet China, 
 which maintained her flation and her power from the grafp 
 of foreign hands, affumes to herfelf flill, as fhe has ever done, 
 the charafter of polite as peculiarly her own. With what juf- 
 tice fhe goes fo far is another matter. But the faft is, fhe very 
 foon got poffefTion of many arts, and flie has never lofl, but im- 
 proved, thofe which fhe acquired. 
 
 Greece will enable us to put the prefent argument in a more 
 forcible view. She was jufl as ancient as any other country. 
 
THE POLISH OF FINE ARTS. 9I 
 
 and (he was far more heroic. For many centuries her hiftory 
 is diftinguirtied by the exprefs name of the " heroic ages." Yet 
 who has ever fpoken of the arts or the manners of Greece du- 
 ring thofe ages ? Of arts fhe had but one, the " military", if it 
 could deferve the idea conveyed by that modern phrafe ; we 
 {hould better call it, " fighting" in the field : and of manners, 
 except in the worfl: fenfe, (he had none. * All was roughnefs 
 and barbarity ; bravery at beft. She had neither morals nor 
 principles. Plutarch faysf, "thofe times produced men of flrong 
 " and indefatigable powers of body, but they applied thofe pow- 
 " ers to nothing jufl; or ufeful : on the contrary, their genius, 
 " their difpofitions, their pleafures tended only to infolence, to 
 " violence, and to rapine. As for modefiy, juflice, equity and 
 " humanity, thefe were qualities difregarded by thofe who had 
 " it in their power to add to their pofleflions ; they were praifed 
 " only by thofe who were afraid of being injured ; and they 
 " were praftifed only by thofe who abftained from injuring 
 " others out of the fame principle of fear." The law of the 
 ftrongeft was almofl; the only one which the people then ac- 
 knowledged. They had not in their language a word to exprefs 
 virtue originally. Examine all the difcourfes of Homer's prin- 
 ces and heroes, and you will not find one fentiment which 
 argues a virtuous principle, you will be fhocked continually by 
 their groflhefs and indecency, and there is not an aftion of 
 which they fpeak with the highefl efleem, which does not bear 
 the impreffion of a favage barbarity. The fenfe of virtue 
 given to ^nfiT^, whofe original import was confined to valour, 
 
 * Thucyd. lib. i. p. 2, 3. Strabo, lib. 3. p. 238. Paufan. lib. 2. c. 29. p. 179. 
 Feith. lib. 14. c. 7. p. 452. 
 
 + In vita Thefei. 
 
g2 THE POLISH OF FINE ARTS. 
 
 bravery, and perfonal courage, was much later in time, when, 
 by the mcHoration of their manners, virtuous moral and focial 
 principles began to kindle in the breads of the people. And 
 when was that time ? It will be found, when the arts of tafte 
 and elegance had begun to obtain a footing in the country. 
 
 When we fpeak of Greece, we would be underftood more 
 efpecially to fpeak of Athens. The only ftate that could divide 
 fignificance with Athens, was Lacedeemon ; which from the firft 
 to the lafl was * lb flrait and confined, fo hardy and fevere, fo 
 martial and warlike in all her policy, fo devoted to the difcipline 
 of the body, fo fyftematically negleftful of all cultivation of the 
 mind, and fo obligated to the exclufion of art in every fpecies 
 beyond what refpefted the plaineft domeftic cafes, that fhe 
 can make no part of an enquiry into the celebrity of Grecian 
 arts and manners. But then in Athens we muft not look for 
 manners even in the time of Solon, becaufe in his time the arts 
 had barely begun to open their bud. We cannot look for a 
 refinement of manners in his days, who ftruck his (tick upon the 
 ground, telling Thefpis in anger +, '"' that if he went on with 
 " his mock-ftories on the ftage, they would foon make their way 
 " into contrafts, and all private concerns," We muft go near 
 two centuries further till the time of Pericles, or perhaps till the 
 reign of Alexander the great, before we fee the Grecian man- 
 ners in their hidieft refinement, becaufe till then the arts of 
 Greece had not reached their full meridian. 
 
 In the view of thofe times the mind that is infpired with a love 
 
 * Xenoph de repub. Laced, p. 395. Pint, vita Lycurgi. Arift. de Repub. lib, 
 8. C.4. 
 
 t Plut. in vita Solonis. 
 
THE POLISH OF FINK ARTS. 
 
 93 
 
 of the fine arts expands itfelf in flights of rapture, 'while it con- 
 templates that aftonifhing burfl of genius and tafte united, with 
 which the matured talents of Grecian artifts then came forth, 
 gathering to themfelves, their age, and their country that immor- 
 tality of which no time fhall rob them ; and enriching the world 
 with treafures, which as far as they remain entitle us to pro- 
 nounce on thofe which have been loft, as well as upon them- 
 felves, that they are the everlafting ftandards of perfeft art : 
 while they have carried the inventive powers of the human mind 
 to a fplendour, on which the lateft pofterity fhall gaze with 
 never-ceafing admiration. In thofe times alfo it is, that we fee 
 what the arts can accomplifli in the melioration and refinement 
 of human manners. *We behold all the elegance, both in life 
 and in addrefs, that could be expefted from the moft enlightened 
 minds — an eafe and a freedom, which reached to every individual 
 — a politenefs on all occafions, which was kept up by the very 
 dregs of the people — a circumfpeftion and decorum in moft 
 circumftances where decency was concerned, which, if violated 
 in fome cafes, was fatal to any charafter — a mildnefs and hu- 
 manity, which was perfectly charafteriftic, even to their flaves, 
 even to their beafts — a fenfe of honour, which carried them to 
 as great deeds as the fenfe of difcipline ever produced in the 
 Spartans — a pleafantnefs of demeanor, which ran through all the 
 habits of life, and yet never forgot the improvement of the mind, 
 and the embellifhment of fociety, in the very midft of their 
 feafts — a zeal for commercial intercourfe, becaufe it extended 
 their acquaintance with men and things, and civilized them, 
 rather than becaufe it enriched them — an attention to the 
 bleftings of education, becaufe it perpetuated the bleftings they 
 
 * See Monf. Goguet's Orig. of Laws, &c. 8vo. vol. iii. b. vi. art. 2. 
 
04 THE POLISH OF FINE ARTS. 
 
 enjoyed : — if they were luxurious in their living, they fliould 
 rather be called dainty and delicate, than voluptuous and excef- 
 five ; for they were temperate and fober to the greateft degree : 
 — if there were debaucheries among them, fuch things are every 
 where, and perhaps they can by no regulations be prevented in 
 populous cities ; they were hidden, however, with care by the 
 men, and by all the modefty which the women could fhew in 
 their drefs. Such a fyftem of civilized manners was never found 
 among them before the times of which we are fpeaking ; and 
 fince the country has been loft, with all the arts that embellifhed 
 it, fuch manners have never more been feen within it. 
 
 In this abftraft, which the learned reader knows to be con- 
 firmed by their own writers of their hiftory, and which every 
 reader, who is not converfant with thofe original authorities, 
 may find coUefted with great juftice and ability by the very 
 laborious Monfieur de Goguet in his " Origin of laws, arts, and 
 " fciences," we have not meant to fet forth the Greeks in any 
 of their fituations as a people perfeft in manners. We have 
 no thoughts of finding among them an Utopian fociety, any 
 more than an Utopian country. Many and great faults may 
 therefore be found in their manners by thofe who have ftudied 
 them clofely, and fome faults which may feem to overthrow 
 their claim to fome of the commendations which we have given 
 them. But let thofe inftances be properly weighed, whenever 
 they are adduced. For example : let the perfonal afperities have 
 been ever fo common, which were thrown upon one another by 
 the Greek orators in their harangues, and particularly by ^f- 
 chines and Demofthenes : thefe muft be laid to the liberties of 
 profeffion, or to the warmth of public debate in fupport of a 
 client or of a national obje6l ; they can never be taken to decide 
 
THE POLISH OF FINE ARTS. 
 
 95 
 
 on the general politenefs of a people ; for die fame men, who 
 may conceive themfelves fheltered in the ufe of thofe freedoms 
 under thofe particular circumftances, would be very backward 
 to carry them in their general addrefs as citizens at large, even 
 under the toleration which the fpirit of republican equality 
 might be fuppofed to afford to thofe freedoms. Let the obfce- 
 nities of the old comedy, efpecially under Ariflophanes, have 
 been ever fo well received in the Athenian theatre : it has ever 
 been open to remark, that thofe fallies will be relifhed, when 
 every other indecency will be Ihunned, and they will be per- 
 mitted to pafs in public alfemblies, perhaps on the idea that 
 " defendit numerus," when no mouth would dare to utter them 
 in more private fituations : they are not fufficient, however, to 
 overthrow the general charafter of decorum, and regard to de- 
 cency, in the Greeks, and efpecially in the Athenians, when it 
 is recollefted that irrecoverable dilhonour even to banifliment 
 and death, in proportion to the fituations of life or office, attend- 
 ed the man who was feen to be drunk ; that women were never 
 fuffered to be prefent at the public games in which the combat- 
 ants were naked ; and that the letters from a wife to her huf- 
 band, when that hufband * was carrying on an inveterate war 
 againft them, and a courier was feized with the difpatches, were 
 returned by the fenate unopened, to mark the refpeft which they 
 bore to decency in fo delicate a correfpondence. Let us grant 
 and deteft the barbarity, with which that people put to death 
 the heralds of Darius, fent to them under the faith of nations : 
 the barbarity with which they put to death ten of their own 
 generals, becaufe purfuing their viftory at fea they did not flop 
 to pick up the floating bodies of their foldiers ; and the no lefs 
 infamous barbarity, as well as injuftice, with which they took 
 
 * Philip of Macedon. 
 
g6 THE POLISH OF FINE ARTS. 
 
 away the life of Socrates : ftill they were in chara6ler a mild 
 and humane people, notwithftanding thefe cafual violations of 
 that charafter, which were the effefts of faftion, the ebullitions 
 of intoxicated fury, to which they were carried by popular in- 
 fluence, and to which they were always open in the nature of 
 their public proceedings. 
 
 There are alfo fome corruptions to be found in their manners, 
 which may be thought, if not to have actually flowed from the 
 foftening influence of elegant arts, yet at leaft to (land as an ar- 
 gument of the equivocal advantages derived from thofe arts upon 
 the general manners. But let it be remembered that the fine 
 arts, with all the powers of general melioration that can be given 
 to them, are not urged as capable of extinguifliing the human 
 paflions, and of flopping thofe vicious pores which the tide of 
 Nature will ever open in the human charafter : they are not 
 urged as the means of producing thefe effefts even on thofe pro- 
 feflbrs of their refinements, who might be confidered as mofl; 
 fcnfible of their impreflions, and mofl proximate to their reach ; 
 and much lefs are they urged as the means of producing fuch 
 effects on others, who may have little or no fenfibility of their 
 refinements. Let it therefore be true, that Greece fwarmed 
 with courtefans : neither were their numbers encreafed, becaufe 
 the Greeks were paffionately fond of the fine arts, nor would 
 their numbers probably have been leflened by any melioration 
 drawn immediately from thofe arts ; but the one happened be- 
 caufe the Greeks were men, and the other might have taken 
 place, had they been fuperior to men, or at leaft a nation of 
 perfeftly moral chara6lers. Let it even be true, that Greece 
 was more corrupt in the fenfual paflions when the fine arts were 
 at the liigheft than at any other period : the nature of thmgs 
 
THE POLISH OF FINE ARTS. QJ 
 
 muft decide, caufes and efFefts muft fpeak, whether the fludy of 
 what is philofophically pure, and elegant, and fublime, can be 
 the fource of national fenfuality ; or whether we fhould not look 
 for that fource to other luxuries which were the caufes rather 
 than the effefts of the fine arts themfelves ; for we are affured 
 that in Greece thofe arts owed their elevation to that profperity 
 which at the fame time generated every luxury. We fhall not 
 therefore calumniate thofe arts, becaufe Phryne, the miflrefs of 
 Praxiteles and of many others, had the effrontery to undertake 
 the rebuilding of Thebes, provided it were publicly infcribed that 
 (he had rebuilt it ; nor becaufe Zeuxis dreffed in purple and 
 gold made a fool of himfelf, and infulted all good fenfe, at the 
 Olympic games ; nor becaufe Parrhafius dill more infolently 
 ftrutted about with a croM-n of gold upon his head : we fhall not 
 calumniate the fine arts for thefe or any other pampered extrava- 
 gances that fpeak a debafed mind, although they were current at 
 the time, or near it, when Socrates and Phocion were doomed 
 to drink the hemlock. Perfonal vanities, and perfonal exceffes, 
 will prevail in fpite of every meliorating influence ; and there 
 will be diffolutenefs in fociety, when every liberal art has done 
 it's befl to diffeminate what improvements it can. But it is not 
 to the fupprefTion of fuch excefles that the remedy is adequate 
 and natural, which thofe arts can fupply ; neither can they feed 
 in any refpeft thofe vices : they foften the mind, but not to corrupt 
 it ; they foften to produce decorum. They will certainly pro- 
 duce that decorum, but fubjeft to fome exceptions, wherever 
 their fpirit has been fpread ; it has been fhewn that they did pro- 
 duce it in the general face of fociety among the Greeks, notwith- 
 flanding the prevalence of private debaucheries, or any indivi- 
 dual inftances of more public infolence ; the polifh, which they 
 
 gave to the manners, was therefore confiderable, although they 
 Vol. I. O 
 
gS THE POLISH OF FINE ARTS. 
 
 did not accomplifh thofe cures which He beyond the province 
 of any polifh to reach. 
 
 Thus then (lands the fa6l in Greece. And the evidence, which 
 our own country can adduce in fupport of the fame argument, 
 is not lefs ftrong. Fa6ls at home fway all mankind with the beft 
 fatisfaftion. And we will not go far back for vouchers. The 
 reign of King William III. is but juft beyond all memory. That 
 of Queen Anne is hardly yet loft to the remembrance of all. 
 There are feveral, who can recolleft the times under George I. 
 And we all know what was the face of things under George II. 
 In any of thofe periods no man will fay but that the fine arts, if 
 any thing like them was enjoyed here, were at a low ebb indeed. 
 The faft is, the country was then pofrefled of nothing that de- 
 ferved the name of fuperior art. In architefture more was done 
 than in any other way. In a branch or two of painting the 
 age beheld fome poor and infipid attempts, with now and then 
 a ftart of better genius, which could only be confidered as 
 remnant evidences of talents, which fomewhere and fometime or 
 other had been found with more power upon the earth. In 
 learning and general philofophy the country was replete, as it 
 had long been, with many illuftrious names. But learning and 
 general philofophy, or, in other words, the theories of books, 
 never of themfelves accomplilhed the true polilh of a people. 
 Of this the politer arts have ever poflefTed the main fource. 
 
 And what were the manners of the country under the circum- 
 ftances of thofe ages ? They were as narrow and confined as 
 the poor femblances of art which they were enabled to exhibit. 
 The beft information ftiews to us a people, in whom if there 
 was any paflion more predominant, it was that which held them 
 
TIIEPOLISHOFFINEARTS, ()() 
 
 devoted to their own country, and to every thing that arofe from 
 it. In facl, they had no devotion to any thing elfe. They had 
 a commerce encreafing with the times, but which they purfued 
 with the moft contemptuous opinion of thofe, with whom they 
 carried it on. The eaft, the weft, the north, and the fouth, 
 with which they had intercourfe, were confidered as countries 
 below the condition of Britain ; and their inhabitants as a people 
 whom Britons made happy by their trade ; forgetting in a great 
 degree, unlefs in the mere calculation of gain, the benefits that 
 were returned to them, and forgetting ftill more to look for 
 thofe further intelletlual difcoveries, of which commerce is the 
 happieft handmaid. They lived every man at home, unlefs 
 when private or public affairs called them to the metropolis, or 
 clfewhere ; which habit if any have confidered as better for the 
 country at large, affuredly it cannot be in the idea of refining the 
 manners, which on fuch a fyftem of living can never be effefted 
 in any country, although it were replete with nobles, no more 
 than in one that is filled with peafants. Such, however, was the 
 plan then : they mixed in their various claffes with their neigh- 
 bours around : they heard, and they knew, and they looked for, 
 nothing but what was within their reach : they fat contented 
 under their own vine, and their own fig-tree ; yet not without 
 mellowing their minds, in one refpeft, pretty generally and freely 
 with the juices expreffed from the fruits that were ripened for 
 them by Ceres, if not by Bacchus. Some travelled abroad, 
 from the neceflity which was confidered, and fo far very happily, 
 as a relic of fafhion peculiar to high ftations : yet the reft of the 
 country were not much prejudiced in favour of fuch a plan: 
 foreign travel was the fubjeft of much cenfure from many pens ; 
 and on one account perhaps the philofopher would fay with fome 
 reafon, becaufe the end of it was generally loft to our countrymen 
 
100 THE POLISH OF FINE ARTS. 
 
 — the Englifh fought, and afTociated with, the EngHfh even 
 abroad ; and having gone there from vanity, they returned with 
 emptinefs of mind. If foreigners came hither, they were received 
 with fome fhynefs and referve, and were gazed at by the multi- 
 tude with filly impertinence : in the prefence of ftrangers a mau- 
 vaife honte would overfpread the Englifh countenance, which 
 was bold as a lion within it's own houfe, or in it's own fociety. 
 They gazed with equal confufion of thought, if accident brought 
 before them any thing beyond the common works of ingenuity : 
 indeed they felt not themfelves lifted by any peculiar defires 
 towards thofe pleafures, becaufe thofe defires had never been 
 ftrongly awakened : the model of a fhip was the greateft admi- 
 ration even of thofe who faw ftiips fwimming every day in their 
 harbours, or near their coafts ; and thoufands in the country had 
 never feen one in all their lives. To fum up our view of thofe 
 times : if you call the people fober, you miftake them : if you 
 call them wife, it was more in theories, and perhaps fomewhat in 
 their own conceit : if you call them liberal, it was in a local 
 view: if you call them expenfive, it was in the duller gratifica- 
 tions : if you call them curious and inquifitive, it was in the 
 drier fpeculations : if you call them elegant and enlarged in 
 any (hape, it is the groffeft flattery, with the leaft foundation of 
 truth. 
 
 Do we mean then to flatter the prefent times by a perfeft 
 contraft to the national charafter in thofe paft periods ? We 
 wifli it were completely in our power to give that contraft 
 with truth. Neverthelefs we are afl'ured that we can go with 
 truth a confiderable way towards it. With refpeft to one part 
 of that contraft, as it concerns the prefent growth of the fine 
 arts among us, we ftiall not anticipate here what will come more 
 
THE POLISH OF FINE ARTS. 101 
 
 properly in another place, when the period of time fliall call us 
 to do juftice to thofe artifts, who have carried their refpeflive 
 arts to their prefent height in this country, and to that illuflrious 
 patronage which has taught the country to be elegant, and to 
 nourifh the works of ingenious elegance. It is enough for us to 
 fay here in general, that the arts have taken a moft deep and 
 comprehenfive root, and in the fpace of the laft thirty years 
 have thriven, under the foftering hand that reared them, to a 
 ftrength and vigour which is abfolutely unexampled, within an 
 equal period of time, in any age of the world. They have difle- 
 minated their refining influence through every branch of our 
 manufaftures, which no longer come forth from the workman in 
 a plain and humble ftyle, as if fubflance alone were calculated 
 without form, and ufe without ornament: every thing now car- 
 ries a defign, and exprefles that defign in perfe6l elegance, while 
 it confults equal, if not greater, ufe, and a much lefs expence. 
 The folid and the brittle, the richer and the lighter, what iffues 
 from the loom, and what is wrought from the furnace, fliews that 
 the mind of taft:e has planned it, and that the hand of tafle has 
 finifhed it. Commerce has difcovered thefe improvements, and 
 has borrowed from them new wings and a new expanfion. 
 Hence Britain is become a new emporium to the whole earth, 
 the emporium of tafte and elegance. The fcene is now changed ; 
 we no longer fly to other parts of the world for the elegancies 
 of art, all parts of the world fetch them from us. A northern 
 power*, whofeems impatient to tread in our fl:eps, and to jump 
 into refinement from barbarifm itfelf, counts it eflential to her 
 plan to obtain every year packages confiding only of fingle arti- 
 cles in every fort of our manufaftures, down to the minuteft 
 
 • Ruflia. 
 
102 THE POLISH OF FINE ARTS. 
 
 trifle, as patterns by which (he forms the tafte of her people, and 
 employs their imitation. 
 
 Shall we fail then, when we take up the other part of the 
 contraft, and fay, that the refinement, which has given a new 
 aftion to the lowed occupations of the country, has aftually ex- 
 tended itfelf to our minds and manners ? that the fuperior 
 principles, by which the hand of art is direfted, have participa- 
 ted in the melioration which has been vifible in the ordinary 
 produftions of that hand ? and that the polifh we have re- 
 ceived has not centered merely in the gratification of the eye or 
 the fancy, but in the general condu6l of life ? We may fafely 
 make the appeal : common obfervation is able enough to judge 
 of it. And we will not labour the contraft, to the prejudice of 
 times fo recently paffed, farther than to aflc any man who 
 has lived fifty years, if there is not now more opennefs, can- 
 dour, and liberality of fentiment among all clafles of people than 
 he has once remembered in Great Britain ? if referve and preju- 
 dice have not infenfibly worn off in habits of thinking, in modes 
 of afling, and towards thofe that breathe not our own air ? Is 
 not fociety now formed on a broader bafis ; and is not every man, 
 who has any portion of education, more a citizen of the world 
 at large ? Is there not more agreeablenefs in our addrefs, more 
 urbanity in our converfation, more polifti in the general ftyle of 
 life ? Are we not more awake to the embellilhments of educa- 
 tion, and more attentive through life to what is connefted with 
 the more elegant apprehenfions of the mind, let it come from 
 what quarter it may ? Nor let it be faid, in balance of thefe 
 encomiums on the prefent time, that thefe refinements in our 
 general manners have greatly refined away our virtue, and left 
 us more fenfual and corrupt. What if more adulteries have 
 
THE POLISH OF FINE ARTS. IO3 
 
 taken place In higher ranks, and more wretches have been exe- 
 cuted in the lower ? Injudicious miftakes in the bringing of 
 females forward to fociety, the fortuitous intervention of unhappy 
 circumftances afterwards, and perhaps the blood that is now and 
 then found to run in certain veins, will always lay a foundation 
 for the firft, which will be more or lefs frequent as times or acci- 
 dents affeft ; and a thoufand external circumftances in a country, 
 independent of it's private or public manners, may furnifh the 
 caufes of multiplying the latter. Be thefe as they may, be the 
 prefent period as diftipated or corrupt in a variety of ways as 
 any one chufes to paint it, yet this muft be granted, that it is at 
 leaft more orderly, more attentive to decorum, more delicate in 
 it's procedure, and more decent in all things than any period 
 before it. 
 
 If the arts in general have this power to humanize and polifh 
 the mind, no fmall fhare of that polifti muft be the claim of the 
 pencil, which occupies the firft powers of art by which the mind 
 is imprefled. We have already touched on the capacities which 
 are needful to the fuperior ufe of the pencil ; and we ftiall only 
 add, that it is an epitome of all thofe intelleftual acquifitions 
 which give the beft finifti to the mind, and muft employ them 
 all, as occafion calls, or it never can fucceed. It is the inftrument 
 of truth and virtue, exercifed with the happieft effe6l : it puts 
 what is odious in the moft forbidding ftiape, and it gives to what 
 is virtuous it's moft winning attraftions. If it be in Nature, or 
 in any leftbns, to fix the affeftions on their beft objefts, this muft 
 fix them. If the manners of a people muft derive embellifhment 
 from the habits of a meritorious tafte, this may claim the firft 
 influence, which, in it's progrefs to refine the mind and improve 
 the heart, catches the eye's external fenfe with a delight, which 
 
104 THE PATRONAGE OF FINE ARTS. 
 
 obtains it's full fufFrage to work every other efFe£l upon the 
 mind, the heart, and the manners. 
 
 The patronage of fine arts a lujlre to great nefs. 
 
 I H E addrefs, which the fine arts have to make, in confe- 
 quence of their general polifh, to thofe who have the power of 
 raifing and fuftaining them, is very natural and juft. Can any 
 efforts of human fkill be more worthy to employ the patronage 
 of thofe who are concerned, from the higher fituations which 
 they fill, to fee their fociety. as much embellifhed as poffible ; 
 and more efpecially of thofe, to whom it is a firft wifdom to give 
 every brilliancy to their own fupreme power over a country ? 
 Sovereignty is a mofl delicate poffefTion, the prefervation of 
 which in it's genuine fpirit has no medium : it fades upon 
 the eye, and it abfolutely perilhes in the memory, if it be not 
 maintained in that confummate luftre, which is congenial with 
 it's nature and it's purpofe. And that luftre is not altogether 
 the amplitude of power, but the amplitude of fhining talents 
 around it. It is itfelf a planet to this nether world, and it 
 muft have it's fatellites in the arts, which, while they borrow 
 their fplendor from it's luftre, do ftiil refleft back upon it a por- 
 tion of the fplendor they had borrowed. Other acquirements, 
 other talents will not form this luftre ; becaufe, however they 
 may grace their poffeffors, and do honour to the prince that 
 fofters them, they fpread but a partial glare around him, not 
 the glare that is reflefted from the general face of a whole peo- 
 ple, to whom they can communicate no general caft or influence. 
 What a beauteous and noble afpe6l does it give us of fovereign 
 power, when we fee the rays of it's influence benignly fhed, like 
 
THE PATRONAGE OF FINE ARTS. IO5 
 
 thofe of the fun, to warm, fertilize, and adorn the face of the 
 earth ; when we behold it cherifhing induftry and every honour- 
 able emulation, giving ardour to genius, bringing forward into 
 juft eftimation the works of univerfal excellence ; and thus 
 fpreading over a people the bleffrngs of a rich and fruitful cul- 
 tivation ? Then indeed it is a portion of that power which is 
 " ordained above *", and is exercifed above in univerfal good- 
 nefs : then, in the elegant language of eaftern allegory, it 
 * comes down as the rain, and diftils as the dew, as the fmall rain 
 " on the tender herb, and as the fhowers upon the grafs t". The 
 prince who thus watches over the growth of his people, and rears 
 them up to that high and polifhed charafter in the arts, which 
 moft exalts them among the nations, rears up at the fame 
 time to himfelf a monument more honourable and more lafting 
 than any other with which fovereignty would immortalize it's 
 pofleflbrs. Let others feed upon the power which allures only 
 the more exceptionable paflTions, and in it's exercife too often 
 confounds the beft principles with the worft : let them felicitate 
 themfelves on the glare of majefty, which to weak minds paffes 
 for glory : or, let them reckon the illuftrioufnefs of their charac- 
 ter from the extent of their dominions, and the infinity of their 
 people. The power which is not converted, by the princely 
 alchymy we have mentioned, into the fterling pre-eminence of a 
 people, is but a milder tyranny ; if it does not crufh, at leafl it 
 does not fuffer them to rife. The glare, which is reflefted from, 
 a throne, independent of the people's elevation in charafter, is at 
 beft the glare of a meteor, foon fpent, and fcorching but not ge- 
 nial while it lafts. And what is it to bear the fceptre over fub- 
 jefts as numerous as the fand on the fea-ftiore ? All promifcu-. 
 
 • Rom, cap. xiii. r. i. + Deut. c. xxxii. v. 2. 
 
 Vot. I. P 
 
106 THE PATRONAGE OF FINE ARTS. 
 
 ous, undiftinguiflied, multitudes are mob : and the empire, which 
 is not polifhed in arts, and refined in manners, is the empire of 
 a mob. 
 
 Not Co the people who are cheriflied to every liberal improve- 
 ment, nor fuch the fortune of the prince who ftudies fo to cherifli 
 them. Revered he muft be in a great degree, nay, he will be 
 beloved not a little, although prejudice or reafon may look 
 ever fo unfavourably on other parts of his charafter. The lift 
 which he thus gives to his country will enfure to the virtuous 
 monarch the full afFeftion of his own age, and the full admira- 
 tion of ages to come ; and it will refcue the exceptionable cha- 
 rafter from many cenfures. It is the charity in princely life, 
 which covers a multitude of fins. Who that fees in Alexan- 
 der the Great the illuftrious patron of liberal arts, does not 
 forget the deftruftive pafTions that fwayed him, and lofe fight of 
 his wide-wafting fword ? Adrian was little better than a monfter 
 in heart and principle : yet certainly the apellation is foftened 
 on every man's tongue, who reflefts on the elegant improve- 
 ments to which the Romans were carried in his days, and by the 
 fpirit of his patronage. When we fpeak of the houfe of Medici, 
 the name founds fweetly to every ear ; admiration, delight, and 
 almoft homage follow that love of letters and of the arts in 
 that family, which gave fo brilliant a refurreftion to both, after 
 a long extinftion : and although we know that the reverfe of 
 letters, and of the arts, and of virtues difgraced fome of the lafl; 
 branches of that houfe, who funk in wretchednefs of mind by the 
 fame proportion in which their forefathers had rifen to glory, 
 yet cannot that extinguifli the reverence which in all enlighten- 
 ed minds will never ceafe to meet the name of Medici. 
 
 When we look to the perfonal fituation of princes, what is 
 
THE PATRONAGE OF FINE ARTS. IO7 
 
 there fo proper to engage their private attention, and to fill the 
 leifure of their time, as the arts of elegance ? The lot of prin- 
 ces is peculiar. They cannot, if they would, participate in thofe 
 purfuits, or thofe fatisfaftions, which are the general portion of 
 their fubjefts. The cares of government are great on every 
 head that wears a diadem, and is united with a heart that feels 
 and regards it's truft. And whether or no their own particular 
 fituation, as fovereigns, augments or diminifhes thofe cares in 
 their own perfons, ftill they mufl feel as men the necelTity of 
 relaxation, and as high a fenfibility as any men of the plea- 
 fures by which the paffage through life may be fweetened. But 
 then it is not every pleafure that will befit their ftation. It mufl; 
 be an elegant pleafure, it mufl be a pleafure that has it's feat 
 in the mind. Their chara61ers will fland the higher ftill, both 
 for the tafte of their minds and the reftitude of their hearts, if 
 it be a pleafure which incorporates with their truft ; if it be a 
 pleafure, which becomes a new fource of celebrity to their peo- 
 ple ; making the very hours of inaftion, which are wafte or 
 pregnant with mifchief to all other fituations, replete in their 
 hands with no lefs bleflings than the hours of their council. In 
 the elegant arts they find this refource, and their people find 
 thefe bleflings. What gives confummation to the human mind, 
 if it rifes into a pleafure, muft be a pleafure that fills with 
 competent dignity the moft exalted of human fituations : what 
 gives confummation to the human mind, if it rifes into a natural 
 tafte, muft be glory to any people. 
 
 How far the great ones of the earth have been happy enough 
 by a judicious direftion of their tafte to lay this foundation 
 of fame to themfelves ; in other words, what has been the 
 progrefs of the fine arts, particularly in the fuperior purpofe 
 
108 THE PATRONAGE OF FINE ARTS. 
 
 of perpetuating valuable inftruftion to the world, from their 
 firft records to their prefent eftablifhment in our own coun- 
 try ; and what has been the fpirit of thofe patronages by which 
 they have been fupported from time to time, it will be our 
 bufmefs to illuftrate in the fequel of this work. 
 
C 109 ] 
 
 PART II. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 ASIA. 
 
 CHAP. I. 
 
 AJfyria, under Semiraviis — the age in which Jhe lived — evidences 
 of enamel — very probable that the fine arts might be under- 
 Jlood in the age of Semiramis, on the ufual calculation that 
 file lived foon after the deluge — that probability reduced to 
 certainty on the calculation of a greater antiquity in the 
 world, which will admit the Scythian conquefi of Afia, and 
 the evidences of arts during that period, to have intervened 
 between the deluge and the age of Semiramis. 
 
 A H E firfl: ftages of the arts will naturally be looked for in that 
 eaftern quarter of the world, which was firft peopled and im- 
 proved. But we muft prefcribe confiderable bounds to our 
 expeftations, when we look fo far back. Independant of all 
 other circumftances affefting the prefervation of records fo 
 early, rude muft have been the early traits of defign, although 
 fuggefted by Nature, and ruder ftill all early attempts at pain- 
 ting, which has uniformily proved itfelf to arrive lateft to per- 
 feftion of all the arts of defign. Whether in the operation of 
 ideas it were a previous effort to draw a figure, or to mould one 
 
110 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 of the plaftic earth, is quite immaterial. Certainly the former 
 comprehends all the principles of knowledge which belong to 
 the latter, and many more. And it is from every age that the 
 pencil has been gaining fome of thofe numerous powers of 
 execution, which give completion to it's works. In it's firft 
 attempts therefore, or at lead in thofe which are left to be con- 
 fidered by us as fome of the firft, we muft not difpute about 
 perfeftions. And yet, we doubt not, the enjoyment afforded 
 by thofe attempts, whatever they were, was equal on all fides 
 to what has ever been felt by the moft polifhed nation furvey- 
 ing the moft finifhed works ; for thofe attempts were competent 
 to meet the tafte, which was then prepared to receive them. 
 
 We are now alluding to AfTyria, in a very early age, under 
 Semiramis, the head of that empire, and indeed the miftrefs of 
 all Afia, if we except India, by the authority of Diodorus 
 Siculus*. She reigned forty- two years after the death of her 
 hufband Ninus, and, as we colleft from Diodorus and Juftin, 
 fhe died about 2050 years before the Chriftian aera — an early 
 period, to exemplify the arts of defign, and to furnifh exempli- 
 fications fo remarkable as thofe which we fhall prefently men- 
 tion. 
 
 But let us be fure that we do not tread on fairy ground ; at 
 leaft, let us endeavour to clear our way from difficulties which 
 may poflTibly prefent themfelves to fome minds with refpeft to 
 the period before us. 
 
 The queftion is, on what principles of calculation we are to 
 
 * Hanov. Edit. p. 107 
 
ASIATIC ARTS, 111 
 
 proceed for the adjuftment of that period, in which Semiramis 
 and her hufband Ninus lived. It is true that hardly any invefti- 
 gations are more perplexed and illufory than thofe which de- 
 pend on facred chronology, or which feek their refult from the 
 reconciling of profane with facred authority. And that per- 
 plexity from both thofe fources prefents itfelf very ftrongly in 
 fome views of the prefent queflion. For if we follow Ufher and 
 the chronology of the Hebrew text, which dates the creation of 
 the world to have been 4004 years before the birth of Jefus 
 Chrift, the period of Ninus, taking him for the fon of Nimrod, 
 and the great-great-grandfon of Noah, would fall fomewhere 
 above 2200 years before the Chriflian aera, and about A. M. 1800. 
 On the other hand, if we confult profane hiftory*, we hear of 
 the conquefl of Afia by the Scythians under one known by the 
 name of Brouma 1500 years before the AfTyrian conquefl of it by 
 Ninus and Semiramis : we find the princes of the eaft tributary 
 to the Scythians for that length of time : and as we invefiigate 
 collateral evidences +, we find the names and the precife periods 
 of princes, particularly in Perfia, whofe reigns go fo much far- 
 ther back than Ninus, that they give room for the introduction 
 of the Scythian power, befides ftrengthening the credibility of 
 it in other ways : — Caiumarrath, under whom the firft Perfian 
 fovereignty rofe up, reigned 3321 years before Jefus Chrifi, and 
 1200 years before Ninus ; and 112 years after him the accef- 
 fion ofGiamfchid is found in the year 3209 before our sera : but 
 here the whole age of the world, as fixed by the Hebrew chro- 
 nology, is almofl abforbed at once by either of thofe fafts, and 
 
 * Ibid. lib. 2. Juftin, lib. 2. c. 3. 
 
 + Mirkhond. D'Herbelot. Bailly hilt, de I'Aftron. anc. p. 354, 355. Dancar- 
 ville's refearches, &c. vol. 3. p. 113 — 116. who has greatly confirmed thofeprofanc 
 authorities, and the relative periods of Caiumarrath and of Ninus. 
 
112 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 at leaft we are carried by them vaftly beyond the deluge, al- 
 though they leave the period of Ninus much the fame in it's 
 diftance from the birth of Chrift ; for with the admifiTion of 
 thofe fa£ls, and calculating from them, Ninus mufl have reigned 
 2121 years before the Chriftian sera. In order therefore to give 
 thofe fafts the force they claim from their authorities, we muft 
 take another courfe of facred chronology. The common copies 
 of the feptuagint-verlion make the creation of the world to be 
 5270 years before the Chriftian aera. By that calculation we 
 {hall find ourfelves nearer to a reconciliation with thofe profane 
 authorities, and to a capacity of admitting the events they ftate, 
 without lofing the fame refult as to the particular period of 
 Ninus : for if we deduft 3321, the period of Caiumarrath, from 
 5270 the age of creation, it will leave A. M. 1949 for the pe- 
 riod of the Scythian conqueft, 300 years after the common 
 reckoning of the deluge. Again : if taking our data from the 
 deluge in A. M. 1649, ^^ ^*^^ 1500 years for the length of 
 time from the Scythian to the Affyrian conqueft, not only the 
 period of Ninus falls exaftly 2121 years before, Chrift, but with 
 that addition to the other two numbers, the whole age of the 
 world to the Chriftian aera becomes precifely 5270 years, agree- 
 able to the feptuagint chronology. 
 
 The authors of the Ancient Univerfal Hiftory are difpofed to 
 throw the period of Ninus to a very late date indeed, fo late as 
 747 years before Jefus Chrift, making Ninus the Nabonaflar of 
 facred hiftory. They follow chiefly the Samaritan calculation, 
 which gives 4305 years to the age of the world before the Chrif- 
 tian aera. But in that idea they feem not to have been aware 
 of the evidences refpefting Caiumarrath and Giamfchid, no 
 more than they have regarded the relations of Diodorus and 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 113 
 
 Juftin ; for if we dedu6l 3321, the period of Caiumarrath, from 
 4305 the age of creation before Chrift, it would bring the Scy- 
 thian conquefl; within the firfl thoufand years of the world, and 
 greatly prior to the deluge on any fuppofed reckoning. 
 
 There is no necelTity therefore to difplace that antiquity, 
 which makes Ninus the fon of Nimrod, and fixes the Affyrian 
 conquefts made by him and his queen Semiramis, who accom- 
 pliflied as great a portion of them as he himfelf did, to the period 
 of about 2100 years before the Chriftian aera. If thofe Perfian 
 fafts may be depended on, the proof is completely made out to 
 that age of Ninus : and that he prefently followed Nimrod, we 
 are almoft warranted to conclude from the language of fcripture, 
 which fpeaks exprefsly of Babylon as rifing in that very period, 
 and moreover calls our notice to the Aflyrian power as then 
 forming, when it fays* that " his kingdom was then begin- 
 " ning," and farther that "out of that land went forth Afhur and 
 " builded Nineveh ;" which cannot be conflrued as expreffive 
 of an event that happened 1500 years afterwards. And if it be 
 faid, that the fcripture has made no other mention of the 
 Affyrian power till thofe 1500 years were elapfed at the age of 
 Nabonaffar ; the anfwer is eafy, that the fcripture does not 
 meddle with the detail of any nation, but fo far as it becomes, 
 by the conduft of it's rulers, involved with the hiftory of the 
 Jews ; and Aflyria firft became fo involved at tlie acceffion of 
 Nabonaffar. 
 
 If, in the refult of this inveftigation, the length of time be- 
 tween Ninus and the deluge, or however between him and the 
 creation, be greatly increafed, it produces no contradiftion in the 
 
 * Genefis, c. 10. v, 10, 11. 
 Vol. I. Q_ 
 
114 ASIATIC ARTS, 
 
 profane authorities which have told us both of the Scythian and 
 AfTyrian conquefts ; for Diodorus and Juftin had evidently no 
 apprehenfions arifing from any interfering fyflems of chrono- 
 logy, and the other authorities have ftrengthened the fame events 
 with a full knowledge of thofe fyftems in their minds. If, in 
 the fame refult, the antiquity of Ninus and Semiramis, as com- 
 pared with the preceding age of the world, be confiderably lefs 
 than it would have appeared under the Hebrew chronology of 
 Ufher, and confequently that the antiquity of thofe evidences 
 which may concern the fine arts is reduced in the fame propor- 
 tion ; we mufl; recolle6l that it only changes hands for that pro- 
 portion of time, and that the fine arts may find under the Scy- 
 thians the fame progrefs which was given to them by the Hebrew 
 chronology under the Affyrians ; it is no little antiquity, how- 
 ever, to thofe arts that they were purfued 2100 years before the 
 Chriftian aera ; and it is enough for us to get pofleflion of truth, 
 if we can. 
 
 A French writer, and a very ufeful one, the Abbe Millot in 
 his Abridgment of Ancient Hiftory does not indeed encourage 
 the univerfal hiftorians in the length to which they have gone by 
 poftponing the age of Ninus ; yet he feems to offer it as a quef- 
 tion, whether thofe immenfe and magnificent works, particularly 
 in building, which are related by Ctefias and Diodorus Siculust& 
 have been done in the age in which they have placed Ninus and 
 Semiramis, can reafonably be afcribed to an age fo early. 
 " Thefe," fays he, " are to be received in a great meafure as fic- 
 " tions." And why ? " Becaufe," he fays, " the buildings of 
 " Babylon and Nineveh, with other works of magnificence, were 
 " flupendous beyond example, and the fcite of thofe cities v/as 
 " beyond example extenfive." 
 
ASIATIC ARTS, t\^ 
 
 As to the extenfivenefs fo their compafs, and efpecially of Ni- 
 neveh, the larger of the two cities, if Diodorus and Ctefias have 
 impofed a fi6tion, the fcripture has impofed one too ; for they 
 both agree in the fame circumflances, only in different words. 
 Diodorus fays,* " the city was 480 ftadia or furlongs in circuit :" 
 the fcripture fays,+ " it was three days journey :" evidently 
 meaning for a man to go round it. Now 480 furlongs make 
 fomewhat more than fixty miles, and fixty miles were three days 
 journey, twenty miles a day being the common computation for 
 a foot traveller. ^ It is remarkable that the number of furlongs 
 fpecified by Diodorus rather exceed the three days journey men- 
 tioned in fcripture ; and the comment of Jerom on the pafTage in 
 Jonah is therefore rather curious for it's exaftnefs : he fays, " vix 
 " trium dierum civitas poflet itinere circumiri." Taking 150 
 ftadia for twenty miles, as Herodotus and Bochart exprefsly do, 
 there were juft thirty ftadia over the ufual computation of three 
 days journey. 
 
 As to the ftupendoufnefs of their public buildings, and parti- 
 cularly of their walls, when we recolleft that the famous wall of 
 China was 1500 miles in length, 45 feet high, and 18 feet thick, 
 it will appear lefs improbable that one or both of thofe Mefopo- 
 tamian cities might have walls an hundred feet high, fufficiently 
 thick for fix chariots to go abreaft, and that they might have 1500 
 towers whofe height was 200 feet. And as to other circumflan- 
 ces of magnificence, any man who has been in the Eaft in 
 the prefent age might filence the fcruples of an European mind 
 on the fubjeft of that fplendor, which has not even now left the 
 
 • Lib. ii. p. 65. t Jonah, c, iii. v. 3. 
 
 J Bocharti Phaleg. lib. iv. c. ao. col. 252. Herodot. lib. v. cap. 53. 
 
Il6 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 much-exhaufled princes of Afia, nor the proud manfions of their 
 refidence, and which muft have been infinitely more within the 
 power of fuch potent monarchs as thofe of AfTyria to be exhi- 
 bited and maintained. 
 
 No reafonable exception therefore, we conceive, can be taken 
 to the authority under which we fpeak of Semiramis, and to the 
 antiquity in which we have placed her. She was the firfl: amazon 
 of the world in arms* ; at the fame time fhe gave attention and 
 encouragement to thofe arts, which by fubfequent improvements 
 have come to be diftinguifhed by the name of the fineft. How- 
 ever (he might have been led by the difcoveries of thofe who had 
 gone before her, fhe feems in fome inflances, which at leafl; appear 
 firfl in her hands, to have attained difcoveries which were the 
 labour of after-ages in other countries to acquire. But let the 
 reader judge of thefe for himfelf, when we have flated the 
 fafts. 
 
 Having caufed a bridge to be thrown "over the Euphrates, 
 which ran through Babylon, in the narrowefl part of the river, 
 where it was about five furlongs over, and having erefted at 
 each end of the bridge a mofl flately caflle, one fronting the 
 eaft, and the other the wefl, which cafUes were refpeftively en- 
 clofed by three different walls of confiderable height, and bujltof 
 + " burnt bricks," each of them forming a circle at fome diftance 
 from the other, and diminifhing the fweep of their refpeftive 
 circuits as they approached to the centre in which the caflle 
 flood ; fhe then proceeded to decorate thofe walls ; and firfl of 
 the caflle which fronted the wefl, the larger and more fplendid 
 
 * Diod. Sic. lib, ii. p. 94. t f^ nrifg xXivfla. Diod. Sic. lib. ii. p. 97. 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. II7 
 
 of the two.* We fhall give the account by an exa61 tranflation 
 ofDiodorus. " On the middle wall of the three were rep re- 
 " fented in colours, in imitation of life, all kinds of animals ; 
 " and this painting was done on the bricks when they were 
 " yet green and unburnt," t " On the inmoft wall next the 
 " caftle, as well as on the towers which rofe from thence to a great 
 " height, were not only painted in colours animals of all kinds, 
 " refembling life; but there was a hunting-piece of confiderable 
 " length, grouped with a great variety of animals, which were 
 " taken in the fize of four cubits at leaft ; and among thefe Se- 
 " miramis was feen on horfeback throwing her dart at a panther; 
 " and near her was her hufband Ninus, flrikingto the earth with 
 " his fpear a lion which feemed to be clofe upon him." ;|; It is 
 not exprefsly faid, that thefe laft paintings were done on the 
 bricks before they were burnt: the reader muft be left to judge 
 of that for himfelf 
 
 On the outward wall of the other caflle, which feems to 
 have been folely or principally decorated, that wall being equal 
 only to the inmoft wall of the firft caftle, " inftead of the repre- 
 " fentation of animals, there were brazen ^ figures of Ninus, 
 " and Semiramis, and the chief officers of ftate, and of Jupiter 
 " himfelf whom the Babylonians call Belus : and alfo armies * 
 " drawn up in array, and various hunting-pieces, affording a va- 
 " riety of pleafure to the beholders." || That the whol.e of thefe 
 pieces on the wall of this caftle are to be confidered as reprefen- 
 tations in bronze, feems to be fully intended by the language, 
 which fets out with the mention of brazen figures, and appears 
 
 * Ibid. t BV '■ai^.uTg hi ToTg Thvktg. Diod. :|: Diod. ibid. 
 
 § ;^Ax«5 imovceg. Diod. ibid. U Diod. ibid. 
 
Il8 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 to fpeak of a diflferent fpecies of work from the paintings on the 
 walls of the oppofite caftle, when it fays, injlead of the repre- 
 fentation of animals, for the fubjefts on the feveral walls are 
 not altogether different. The original word indeed, <p/XoTe%vja, 
 which we have rendered reprefentation, decides nothing on the 
 point, becaufe it relates indifcriminately to any exercife of inge- 
 nious art. 
 
 Let the execution of thofe feveral works have been mixed with 
 whatever portions of rudenefs it might, they are altogether in 
 their age a mofl extraordinary piece of hiftory to the contem- 
 plation of the fine arts. And we wifli to paufe on them a mo- 
 ment longer. 
 
 There can be no great peril in the giving of an opinion here. 
 It is pofitively faid, with refpe6l to one of the walls at leaft, that 
 the colours were laid on the bricks before they were burnt. 
 Here then is enamel at once. And if the paintings on the other 
 walls of the firft caftle were not done in the fame way, which we 
 ftiould regularly fuppofe that they were, then they were done in 
 frefco. 
 
 We are not much furprifed to difcover fo early an attempt at 
 enamel, when we know from other unqueftionable authorities 
 that the Aflyrians were expert in the knowledge, and long prac- 
 tifed in the habit, of burning bricks to a remarkable hardnefs. 
 It was but an eafy ftep of thought to conceive, that the colours 
 which they might lay on thofe earthy fubftances would be fixed 
 by fire. All their moft magnificent ereftions were built of bricks 
 remarkably burnt. When Nimrod firft propofed the building 
 ol Babel on that very fpot, or however in that plain of Shinar 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. 1 19 
 
 in which Babylon flood, the fcripture reprefents his people fay- 
 one to another, " let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly," 
 or, as it is exprefled in the margin of the bible, " let us burn them 
 " to a burning."* It has fo happened that fome fragments or 
 ruins of thofe ancient pieces of workmanfhip have remained to 
 be feen in later ages, and they have confirmed that reprefenta- 
 tion of fcripture, and alfo the relation of Diodorus, fo far as 
 concerns this point. In the year 1574, Rauwolf a German travel- 
 ler, + endeavouring to find the veftiges of ancient Babylon, fays 
 that he found, among other antiquities of great beauty, but in 
 great defolation, " the old bridge which was laid over the Eu- 
 " phrates, and of which fome pieces of arches ftill remained, built 
 " of burnt brick, and fo ftrong that they were admirable." 
 Whether this was, in faft, the old bridge built by Semiramis, or, 
 as a modern writer+ would fuppofe, a later bridge built at Se- 
 leucia which fucceeded to Babylon, is very immaterial to our 
 prefent objeft : we (hall only obferve, that if Rauwolf knew the 
 Euphrates when he faw it, and if Strabo § knew what he wrote 
 when he tells us that Seleucia was built on the Tigris, and was 
 300 ftadia or above forty miles diftant from Babylon, thofe ruins 
 feem very probably to have been part of the old bridge at Ba- 
 bylon, more efpecially as we do not recolleft any mention in 
 hiftory of any other bridge that was built over the Euphrates. 
 But to return. 
 
 It may be afked, how thofe arts, af which we have fpoken 
 above, came to be underftood in the age of Semiramis, that is, 
 fiiU 2000 years before the Chriftian aera ? In the anfwer to this 
 
 • Genefis,. eap. 11. + See Ray's Edit, of thofe Travels,. part ii. cap. 7. 
 
 J_ Salmon's Miad. Hift. vol. i. § Lib. xvi. p. 738. Edit. Paris. 
 
120 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 queflion we muft proceed by two different ways, in order to fa- 
 tisfy all, and to give the cafe it's full juflice. Firfl, it muft be 
 viewed on the calculation of the Hebrew chronology, fuppofing 
 only 2000 years to have elapfed from the creation to the age of 
 Nimrod, and confequently to Ninus confidered and taken as his 
 fon. In the next place, it will demand to be viewed on the fup- 
 pofition of a greater antiquity in the world, and with the admif- 
 fion of the Scythian conqueft, and of the means which may 
 appear to have been furnifhed by the periods of that empire to 
 the fubfequent age of Ninus and Semiramis, near 1500 years later 
 from the deluge. 
 
 We will, firft, fuppofe them to have lived within three or four 
 hundred years after the deluge, and fiiall enquire from fcripture 
 or other authorities what means appear to have been afforded 
 them, within that fpace of time, by which they could attain a 
 knowledge of thofe arts that have been given to them. 
 
 Very few are the traits of any circumftances preceding the 
 flood to be found in fcripture : but thofe which are found may 
 perhaps help us to fome ufeful conjefture in the prefent cafe ; 
 and it will be our bufinefs to fhew their utility, by fhewing the 
 probability of their not being loft to the firft generations in the 
 new world. 
 
 Among the firft line of defcendants from Adam by Cain we 
 find ingenious men, who very early ftruck out ufeful difcoveries, 
 and laid the foundation of arts : thofe of building, and agri- 
 culture, and mufic, and the founding of metals are particularly 
 mentioned. And we cannot doubt that thefe had others in their 
 train, and of the more refined fort too, when they fo readily 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. 121 
 
 found their way to one of the fineft of all, that of mufic. If we 
 go to the line of Seth, we find indeed nothing of this kind faid 
 of his defcendants in fcripture : but it appears from Jofephus, if 
 his authority may be leaned on, that there were not wanting ar- 
 tifts among them, and men who were zealous for the prefervation 
 of their arts. For, he fays, the fons of Seth, being affured of the 
 deluge that would happen, were careful to erecl two pillars, the 
 one of brick, the other of ftone, on which they left engraven the 
 principles of aftronomy, that the fcience of it might not be loll : 
 and thofe pillars, with the documents they contained, were {land- 
 ing a long time after Noah. 
 
 There is fomething here into which it is worth our while to 
 look, and on which a reafonable conjefture may be exercifed 
 without impertinence, efpecially when it may tend to fome illu- 
 ftration of the queftion before us. That they made choice of a 
 column for the records which they wifhed to preferve, was wife ; 
 becaufe it was neceflary that thofe records fhould be elevated at 
 a confiderable height above the natural furface of the ground, 
 that they might not be buried in the great maf^; of fediment which 
 mufl attend fuch an innundation : and, befides, no other con- 
 ftruftion of walls could have refilled with equal ftrength the 
 prelTure of the waters, and lefs ftill if they had been fufficiently 
 elevated for the purpofe above-mentioned. But why were there 
 two pillars? or, why was the one of brick? That one of them 
 was of Rone, was mod natural ; becaufe it will not be queftioned 
 that ftone was fully as much calculated for duration as brick. 
 And that which was of ftone either was fufficient to contain the 
 elements of aftronomy, if thofe alone were in their contempla- 
 tion to be preferved, or if it were not fufficient, and they meant 
 only to record that fcience to pofterity, they would have cho- 
 
 VoL. L R 
 
122 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 fen another alfo of (lone. . We cannot help thinking it injurious 
 to their zeal to fuppofe that they meant to refcue from the deluge 
 the fcience of aftronomy alone. So generous a care for poflerity 
 would certainly lead them to take the fame means of handing 
 down every other fcience or art, which could by that means be 
 conveyed to the notice of future generations. And the oppor- 
 tunity was a fair one. The pillars might be formed to fliew their 
 notions of architefture. Their fculpture, whatever they had of 
 it, would leave it's fpecimens on proper parts of the ftone. And 
 their engraving would fpeak for itfelf. 
 
 Was the pillar of brick then intended merely as a duplicate 
 to the pillar of ftone ? Certainly not, for the reafon fuggefted 
 above, that if the latter fliould perifli, they could not expeft the 
 former to ftand. Why then, we afk again, was one of thofe pil- 
 lars formed of bricks ? May it not be reafonably fuppofed that 
 it was for the recording of fome art, which could not well be 
 committed to ftone, and did not depend on engraving? We are 
 aware that they engraved on bricks, as well as on ftone, in early 
 ages after the deluge : the Babylonians wrote on bricks their 
 firft aftronomical obfervations.* But we know of no inftances 
 of that fort, unlefs this pillar be taken for one, before the flood. 
 And it ftiould feem rather extraordinary that when the fons of 
 Seth had adopted an ere61ion of ftone, they fliould at the fame 
 time have recourfe to another whofe furface was more broken by 
 joints, and therefore lefs convenient for engraving, if fuch was 
 merely their ufe of it. Is it too vifionary to fuppofe, that this 
 pillar of brick might be employed to preferve, through the medi- 
 um of burning, their progrefs in painting ; and through the me- 
 dium of painting, their progrefs in thofe mechanical difcoveries 
 
 * Pliny, lib. vii, p. 413. 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. 123 
 
 which painting is the beft means of defcribing ? Whatever 
 knowledge was preferved on this pillar of bricks, and was not 
 fixed by the graving-tool, muft have been fixed by fire in the raw 
 material. This idea is, however, merely conje6lure. If Paul Lo- 
 mazzo had good authority for what he has faid, it is no longer 
 conje6ture as to what the fons of Seth knew of painting : for 
 he afferts that they had found out the way of reprefenting both 
 images and portraitures by that art.* And fo much can hardly 
 be doubted, when we confider the importance of that art to an 
 early correfpondence at a diflance. Their zeal therefore to pre- 
 ferve what they had fo attained, amidft their other endeavours to 
 preferve what was valuable in fcience, will appear the more natural. 
 
 Noah then had immediate communication with thefe men, all 
 of whom were his near relations, and fome of them were his 
 immediate progenitors. The time which had elapfed from the 
 days of Adam, on the fhorteft calculation more than 1650 years, 
 had afforded a confiderable fpace for the acquirement of arts, 
 and for fome progrefs in them too. Noah himfelf mufl: have 
 been a geometrician, or he would not fo readily have apprehend- 
 ed and executed the orders which were given him in the forma- 
 tion of the ark : and geometrv is one of thofe arts that depend 
 on defign. An hundred years pafled from the time in which 
 thofe orders were given him to his entrance into the ark. Shall 
 it be fuppofed that during that time he was inattentive to every 
 thing but what was to accompany him in it ? that he was lefs 
 zealous for the prefervation of thofe parts of knowledge in him- 
 felf or in fome of his family, which were to ferve him and them 
 and their pofterity, after they fhould come forth from their con- 
 finement, in a new and vacant world, than the fons of Seth were, 
 * Idea del tempo della pittura, p. 22. 
 
124 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 who muft at lead be apprehenfive, if not certain, that they fliould 
 never furvive the deluge ? There is every reafon therefore to 
 conclude, that Noah and his family delivered to the age imme- 
 diately following that event whatever was known of importance 
 to thofe that immediately preceded it. 
 
 But if that were notftriftly fo, Noah lived 350 years after that 
 event ; which length of time, on the Hebrew calculation, brings 
 us to the reign of Semiramis. With thofe elements of the arts 
 of defign, whatever was their extent, derived from preceding ages, 
 in the hands of the defcendants of Noah, might they not have 
 come in 350 years to that progrefs which was exhibited in the 
 days of Semiramis ? Without thofe elements, are they to be 
 fuppofed lefs capable than the defcendants of Cain, whofe origi- 
 nal difcoveries without any other elements than Nature, and ac- 
 complifhed in one generation, as it fhould feem, are exprefsly 
 attefted in fcripture ? But to judge of this from fimilar effefts 
 in later days, which the farther progrefs of our inquiry will bring 
 more pointedly to our view ; confider what was done in Greece 
 within a period not greater than has now been mentioned, from 
 the firft olympiad to the days of Apelles. It was not twice that 
 length of time from the hour that Greece obtained the firft traits 
 of defign to her perfection in it, indeed from the hour that Cad- 
 mus made his appearance in the countr)\ Confider what was 
 done in Italy after days of darknefs hardly lefs deftruftive than a 
 deluge, within the fame fpace of time or lefs, from the appear- 
 ance of Cimabue to the death of Raphael. The Mexicans and 
 Peruvians Ihew us how quickly a people may arrive at confider- 
 able improvements. Their refpeftive monarchies had not fubfift- 
 ed above 350 years, when the Spaniards appeared among them : 
 and they wee found regular in their policy, they had good laws, 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. 125 
 
 they were acquainted with many arts and fciences, and the courts 
 of their emperors were extremely magnificent. The fubjefts of 
 Semiramis may therefore naturally be left entitled to that pro- 
 grefs of art which they appear to have made, on the fuppofition 
 that the Affyrian monarchy rofe up very foon after the deluge, 
 without the intervention of any other great power in Afia, which 
 might become the conveyance of additional means to their know- 
 ledge and improvements. 
 
 But we muft now view them with the advantages afforded 
 by a greater length of time, and by the progrefs in arts which 
 had been made by thofe who were mailers of Afia, or of any 
 great parts of it, before the Aflyrian empire. 
 
 In the way to this difcuflion it may not be amifs to get rid of 
 a queftion, which may perhaps be put by fome, upon the general 
 afpeft of the argument into which we are entering ; and that is, 
 why we did not fet out at once with thofe evidences of the arts 
 which are afforded by others before the Affyrians, and give 
 thofe others their fituation in the order of time, rather than bring 
 them forward in a fide-view, and as collateral proofs to fettle the 
 antiquity of others. To which we anfwer, that we did not chufe 
 to cancel fo abruptly a fyflem of chronology like the Hebrew, 
 which has fo long been refpefted by many in the learned world, 
 and which is become a kind of companion to our tranflation of 
 the Bible in every hand. We were the more averfe to proceed in 
 that manner, becaufe, whatever may be the ifTue in any man's 
 mind refpefting the antiquity of the world, the courfe which we 
 have taken in our argument is ftill unaffefted by that iffue ; we 
 have employed no reafoning in vain ; the connection between 
 the knowledge of the anti-diluvian world and thofe who next 
 
126 ASIATIC 'ARTS. 
 
 followed the flood will be jufl the fame, and the means by 
 which an advancement in the arts might be attained at any rate 
 in the compafs of three or four hundred years after the deluge 
 will be juft as probable, whether Ninus and the Affyrians or any 
 other people were thofe who prefently followed Noah or his 
 fons. And it is precifely the fame thing to us, whether we firft 
 difcover thofe arts in the hands of the defcendants of Japhet, or 
 in thofe of the defcendants of Ham or Shem. 
 
 It is alfo neceffary to acknowledge the lights which have been 
 thrown on this particular difcuffion by a late work entitled, 
 ** Recherches fur I'Origine, I'Efprit, et les Progres des Arts de la 
 " Grece." Of that work the author M. D'Ancarville has devoted 
 a confiderable part to the elucidation of the Scythian conqueft 
 in Afia as a faft, the very early period in which it took place, 
 and it's immediate infl.uences on that part of the world, in the in- 
 troduftion- of arts, a peculiar inflitution of religion, and a gene- 
 ral civilization conformable to thofe principles. It is impolfible 
 for any man, without his profundity of refearch, founded on great 
 antiquarian learning, to have extricated this fubjeft from the 
 abyfs of antiquity in which it had lain : and we, who feel it our 
 duty to attend to fo important a circumflance in the origin O'f 
 the fine arts, cannot but be happy that we have confuked that 
 work, which we apprehend has yet reached but very few hands. 
 We confefs that the great ftrength of his views, added to the few 
 pofitive authorities left in ancient hiftory which declare the Scy- 
 thian conqueft and it's duration, refts in the very extenfive 
 analogies by which he has illuminated the main faft : thofe 
 analogies are indeed of the ftrongeft kind, and demand to be 
 embraced as confirmations of thofe pofitive authorities, let the 
 coniequence militate as it may with any habits of reckoning th€ 
 
ASIATIC ARTS, I27 
 
 age of the world. It were to be wifhed that he had laid out his 
 matter in more order, that he had comprefled it as he might have 
 done in lefs compafs, and that he had {tripped it of thofe infinite 
 repetitions which only ferve to load, obfcure, and weaken it. 
 The purpofes, for which that hiftorical event becomes interefl- 
 ing to our enquiry, will be fatisfied without going, though ever 
 fo briefly, into all the matter which that author has marked out 
 for his readers. There are alfo collateral matters refpefting a 
 progrefs in the arts of Alia, in ages far more ancient than the Af- 
 fyrian power, which, whether they grew out of the Scythian con- 
 quefl, or were at all referable to it, or not, or whether or no that 
 were in fa6l the very early power in Afia which it is reprefented 
 to be, will go a great way towards fatisfying the purpofes for 
 which the fine arts are interefted in this difcuffion. 
 
 Brouma, at the head of the Scythian nation, is faid to have 
 given that great extenfion to the Scythian dominion in Afia. His 
 defcent is afferted to have been from Japhet through the loins of 
 Magog, Japhet's fon, whofe name is given in fcripture to mark 
 the Scythians, and whofe charafter accords with that fiercenefs 
 which lias always been fufl;ained by that people. In what parti- 
 cular degree of fuccelfion Brouma ftood from Magog, does not 
 appear, nor is it very material to our immediate purpofe. The 
 period in which he reigned, afllfled by other circumftances found- 
 ed on aftronomical obfervations, appears to have been fome- ' 
 what more than 3600 years before the Chriflian aera. * 
 
 The footfteps of Brouma, and the influences of his principles 
 appear in all the parts of that immenfe continent. In India 
 
 * ID'Ancarville, vol i. p. 103 — no. 
 
128 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 thofe footfteps and influences have never been erafed to this hour ; 
 they have given an everlafting creed to that country. That he 
 was the firft civilizer and the firfl^ legiflator of India ; that he gave 
 it's people the firft knowledge of arts, and fciences, and agricul- 
 ture ; that he wrote the four books of the Vedams, of which the 
 two principal Shafters are commentaries, and which conftitute in 
 a manner their bible ; is indelibly imprinted on their moft facred 
 records, is avowed by the Bramins who call themfelves his de- 
 fcendants as well as fucceffors, and is reported by all the moft 
 refpeftable hiftories of that country written by thofe moderns 
 who have gained their intelligence on the fpot.* Many are 
 the circumftances, in which the memory of Brouma as a Scy- 
 thian ruler is retained by the Indians in the expreflion of their 
 arts : + and innumerable are the circumftances, in which their 
 veneration for his memory is ftill maintained, notwithftanding 
 the prevalence of fubfequent religious faftions which have fet 
 up in different ftages of time the names of Chiven and Vichenou, 
 but which could never obliterate that of Brouma, from whofe 
 principles in facl they have fprung, and whofe principles they re- 
 cord in their own peculiarities. + The diffufion of thofe princi- 
 ples through all the nations of the eaft without exception, through 
 Egypt too, and afterwards through Greece, is manifeft in the 
 wonderful fimilarity which prevailed in the primitive theology of 
 them all, and which ftiews them indifputably to have drawn 
 from one common fource. That fource is found in all the fea- 
 tures of Scvthia, which the moft ancient ' authorities have re- 
 
 * Voyage aux Indes Orient, torn, i, p. 155. 214. Voyage in Arable, torn. 2, 
 p. 14. Dow's Hift. Holwell. D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. loi — 125. vol. 3 p. 67 — 72. 
 t Ibid. vol. I. p. 6, 7, III, 112. vol. 3. p. 93. 
 + Ibid. vol. 1. p. 112. vol. 3. p. 73, 74. Voy. aux Indes Orient, torn, i, p. 286. 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 129 
 
 corded, or which the fucceffions of time have ftill left in the fame 
 traft of country*. It was fo eftablifhed as an original fpring of 
 rehgion, that it obtained the name of Scythicifm, and was ranked 
 the firft of all religions which affefted any fyftem of principles ; 
 it came next after Barbarifm itfelf, which had no principles ; 
 it preceded long the religion of the Hellenes, fince called 
 Greeks ; and longer ftill the religion of the Jewsf. 
 
 If there be any difficulty in the evidences which have thus 
 placed Brouma in India as a legiflator and father, and in Afia in 
 general as a conqueror, it arifes from the miftakes by which in 
 after-times his name became often loft in that of Bacchus. The 
 compilers of the ancient hiftory of India, who were Greeks, 
 have told us that the ancient Brachmans in their facred writings 
 fpoke of Bacchus as the conqueror and legiflator of that coun- 
 try J ; and Roman authors following that language have fome- 
 times taken the fame ideas ^. It muft appear altogether unac- 
 countable how thofe ancient priefts of India, who were in fa6l 
 the neareft fucceflbrs of that great legiflator, whatever was his 
 name, in religious offices, and the depofitories of the Vedams, 
 fhould fpeak of him by any other name than that by which he 
 was known ; and if it could be fliewn that they fpoke of him by 
 any term unequivocally defcriptive of Bacchus alone, the point 
 muft be given up, and the whole argument which arifes from it. 
 But the fa6l is, that thofe facred books of the brachmans are no 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol. 3. p. 171, 2. et ubique. 
 
 t St. Epiph. adv. Hseres. lib i. D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 42. 
 
 X Diod. Sic. Biblioth. lib. ii- Strabo Geog. lib. xiv. D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 37,, 
 
 38, 95, 97, I02, 103, 108. 
 
 § Plin. Nat. Hift. lib. vi. c. 31. 
 
 Vol. I. S 
 
igO ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 longer exifting : whether any of them may be in that confecrated 
 vault at Benares, where the Vedams are faid to have been depo- 
 fited, and whether thofe Vedams themfelves are now exifting, muft 
 remain undetermined, unlefs we could penetrate that facred re- 
 cefs*. That there muft, however, have been fome miftake in 
 thofe reports of the Greeks is unqueftionable, becaufe the Brach- 
 mans could not fpeak of a charafter whom the world did not 
 fee for near 2000 years after Brouma. But how then could fo 
 ftrange a miftake be made ? Very eafily, whether thofe Greek 
 compilers had ever drawn any vouchers from books of the 
 Brachmans, or had been guided by any thing which they or 
 others had heard or feen in India. It muft be obferved that the 
 name of Brouma became the diftinftion of that Scythian charac- 
 ter, of whom we have been fpeaking, after his apotheofis and dei- 
 fication by the Indians ; how he was called before, we know not, 
 unlefs it was as M. D'Ancarville fays +, by the name of Ruder, 
 which was ftill an expreftion by which they conceived the Su- 
 preme Being J. Brouma came from Nyfus, a town in the high- 
 eft part of Scythia, and he built in Afia a town by the fame 
 name, the boundary of his conquefts there to the eaft, Nyfus 
 of the Oxydrachi. Thofe Greek hiftorians drawing their docu- 
 ments from the eaft, or any others going there, found that great 
 conqueror and legiflator defcribed and fpoken of by the name 
 o^Dionyfius, "the god of Nyfus," as often as by that of Brouma ^ : 
 for we muft recoUeft that he had been deified. It was natural 
 for the Greeks, and quite in their charafter, to feize upon any 
 circumftances which might be brought to flatter the antiquity or 
 the heroifm of their own country ; and as the name of Dionyfius 
 
 *Voy. aux Indes Orient, torn, i, p. 214. D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 95, no. vol. 3. 
 p. 95, 96. 
 
 4 Vol. I. p. 116. X Ibid. vol. I. p. 106. § Ibid. vol. i. p. 116. 
 
ASIATIC ARTS, I31 
 
 \v7is one among a multitude of titles which they gave to their 
 Bacchus, whom they fo called as " the god of Nyfus," in allu- 
 fion to one of the tops of Parnaffus which was facred to him *, 
 as Cirrha the other top was facred to Apollo, fo they haftily con- 
 cluded that all the great deeds and honours afcribed in India to 
 Dionyfius were intended for the deified hero of Greece. They 
 misht be the more induced to make that conclufion from other 
 circumftances. The rites kept up by the Indians in the celebration 
 of their feafl to the powerful principle of all things ; the emblem 
 of the ox, under which that powerful principle was revered ; and 
 the Indian dances then exhibited, called devedajfi, which feem to 
 have come into that country with the wildnefs of the Scythian fe- 
 males +, were fo exactly fimilar to the rites, the emblem, and the 
 orgies employed in the Grecian feafls of Bacchus, which the Greeks 
 had derived in faft from the Scythian fource in the eafl without 
 knowing it or it's original purpofe, that they could not conceive 
 how it was poflible for fo ftriking a fimilarity of circumftances to 
 have any other objeft than that to which they weredirefted among 
 themfelvesj. It is neverthelefs remarkable that one of the names 
 given by the Greeks to their Bacchus was Bpaf^ocand Bpojx;o?^; and 
 fo the Romans fometimes called him Bromius\\ the feafls which 
 were confecrated to him were called 5?'W77ia/m**, foprvi rwv BpK|xwv; 
 and the commencement of the new year was called ErumaW. 
 How came this ? Lexicographers may imagine that the Greeks, 
 and the Romans after them, derived Bp«|xo? or Bpo/^/o?, and 
 Bromius, uxo ts Bpf/xf/v, d fremendo, from the roaring noife 
 
 * Juven. 7, 64. Lucan's Phars. lib. v. 
 + Oneficrat. ap. Calep. in Baftr. % D'Ancarv. vol, r. p. 40, 41, 68 — 84, 
 
 98, 100. § Proclus in comment, Hefiod, x^p; fpya /« vi/xfpftC' D'Ancarv. vol. 
 
 I. p. 126, 7. II Luc. Phars. lib. v. Ovid. Metam. 4. 11. ♦*Coelius 
 
 Rodiginus. Conftant. in Geoponic. tt Ovid. Faft. lib. i. v. 163. 
 
132 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 kept up in the rites of Bacchus. But may not a more natural 
 and eafy reafon be given, becaufe they found in the eaft the 
 deified charafter, which appeared to them to be their Bac- 
 chus, called Brouma as well as Dionyfms ? and they naturally 
 proceeded to give the fame name to the commencement of the 
 new year, becaufe they found him reprefented by the Indians 
 holding a chaplet, to fhew that he prefided over the year *. 
 
 With Brouma then came forward not only the firft princi- 
 ples of religion, and inftitutions of worfhip, which the Afiatics 
 obtained, and which aftually took the fame caft all over Afia, 
 but alfo the firfl knowledge of arts. Some of the finer arts 
 became immediately neceffary to their religion. It is perhaps 
 an effort naturally fpringing at firft from ruder knowledge 
 to grafp the emblematic figure, as the moft expreflive mode of 
 fixing both principles and pratlice in the fubjefts of reverence. 
 The firft ages, however, betook themfelves at once to this 
 method of addrefiing every public inftruftion to the eye ; they 
 were fond of allegory as the moft fenfible, and perhaps to 
 them the only prafticable, illuftration of abftraft fentiments ; 
 thus we may fay, without meaning any direft eulogy on allego- 
 ry, that they were poets at fetting out, for they took up that 
 which poetry has never left, and without which poetry muft 
 probably leave the world. But by means of the emblematic 
 figure they gave eftabliftiment to every point of inftru^lion. 
 And fculpture no lefs than painting afiifted the accompliihment 
 of this. If it's aids, with which they made it their firft endea- 
 vours to become acquainted, were moft welcome to them, 
 thofe aids have entailed obligations no lefs welcome to all 
 fubfequent generations for the duration with which they can 
 
 * D'Aiicaiv. vol. I. p. 128, 9. 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. ig^ 
 
 perpetuate, if they be fuffered fo to do, the records of the earhefl 
 times, and for the aflurance with which they can deliver to us, 
 by the fame means through which they taught the firft ages, all 
 the principles which were cultivated by thofe firft ages them- 
 felves. To that duration of fculptural monuments, happily 
 preferved to this hour in two or three parts of the earth, we 
 owe it that we can now fpeak both of the ftate of fculpture as 
 an art, and if the myftical theories hidden under it as an alle- 
 gory, in very early times which can be afcertained with con- 
 fiderable correftnefs. 
 
 The cavern, or, as it is called in the country, the pagoda in 
 the ifland of Elephanta near Bombay, if we could be alTured of 
 it's date, would probably anfwer our prefent views by the moft 
 decided proofs. In that cavern we have a full example, and pro- 
 bably one of the moft ancient, unlefs Scythia had led the way 
 by older ones*, of the choice which was made by the firft of 
 mankind, after any inftitutions of religion had been formed, to 
 excavate the bofom of the earth for the places of their worfhip, 
 rather than conftrucl them in open view. In that choice they 
 were gratified by the emblematic ftudy throughout ; for while the 
 fides were filled with figures often hewn out of the rock, and 
 announcing to their minds the various powers of the fupreme 
 Being, the generator of all things, the vaulted roof ga\e the 
 
 * It is faid that in Scythia there was fuch a cave dedicated to her who was called 
 the mother of the Scythians, and whom we alfo find to be called the wife of Ja- 
 phet. D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 213, 214, 234. in the note ; vol. 3. p. 36, 154. There 
 are the like caverns or pagodas in Canara, Ambola, lUoura, and Salcette ; whether 
 all of thefe were older than that of Elephanta, may be uncertain. 
 
134 
 
 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 figure of the world, and the figure of that chaotic egg from 
 which they fuppofed the world to have been produced*. 
 
 M. D'Ancarvillet is inclined to think that the fculptural 
 monuments in the pagoda of Elephanta are not to be fet down 
 as much older than the time in which the Affyrian monarchy 
 may be fixed, that is, about 2100 years before our a;ra. And 
 his principal reafon for that opinion is this, that a fword or large 
 dagger is in one of the hands of a principal figure which has fix 
 arms, and is alfo obfervable in many other figures in bafs-relief ; 
 and therefore he conceives that they mufi; have been executed 
 later than the age of the Indian Chiven, who came to be deified 
 and worfiiipped in fome ages after Brouma, and who is alfo call- 
 ed Hercules J, becaufe Hercules was armed with a club and a 
 lion's flcin, which flaews that fwords were not then in ufe : and 
 yet he thinks that they muft have been executed before the attri- 
 butes afcribed to Brouma had been tranflated to Chiven, becaufe 
 that principal figure, he is perfuaded, was not intended for Chi- 
 ven but for Brouma. 
 
 In that opinion two thingsf are taken for granted ; that Hercu- 
 les was Chiven, and that infl;ruments of iron were not in ufe in the 
 time of the former, becaufe he took a club for his armour. 
 
 With refpeft to the firfl: point, it is certainly to be fufpefted 
 that all the mention of Hercules which may have crept into In- 
 dia, and gathered to itfelf the name of Chiven, is juft as fabu- 
 lous, and as much the relic of Grecian vanity, as the application 
 of the name of Bacchus to the charafter of Brouma. We are 
 
 * Ibid. vol. 3. p. 154, 155. t Ibid. vol. i. p. 122, 3. X ^bid. vol. i. p. 105. 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. ig^ 
 
 not told by this author what was the age of Chiven, unlefs we 
 are left to find it in that of Hercules : and in that reference Chi- 
 ven would be found later in time than Vichenou the third legifla- 
 tor of India, inftead of being the fecond, and next after Brou- 
 ma ; for the deified Hercules, (unlefs you mean him* who was 
 the common anceftor of all the Scythians, which cannot be in- 
 tended, becaufe he was long before the Scythian conqueft itfelf,) 
 mufl; on every fyftem of chronology have been poflerior to the 
 Affyrian conqueft. 
 
 With refpeft to the latter point, there is nothing in the hiftory 
 of metallurgy fo undecided as the firft ufe of iron after the flood. 
 We are certain that it was found out before that epoch +. Fair 
 reafoning would lead us to conclude, that it would ftand one of 
 the beft chances, among the arts of every kind, to be preferved 
 in the family of Noah, and to be communicated by them to their 
 immediate defcendants. If we were to attend to the claims of 
 various people on the antiquity of this knowledge, we fhould 
 hear the Egyptians];, the Phoenicians ^, the Cretans, the inhabi- 
 tants of Mount Ida j|, the Cyclops**, the Chalibes++, and the 
 Noropes|;J, carrying their feveral pretenfions to the remoteft 
 periods of time. It is fufficient, however, to remark, that in fome 
 of the ancient monuments of Perfia, and particularly in the ruins 
 of Perfepolis, whofe age can be afcertained beyond 3000 years 
 before our aera, within 400 years after the reign of Brouma, and 
 nearly 11 go years before Ninus, a dagger is feen in the hands of 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 208, 256 — 264. t Genefis, chap. iv. v. 22. 
 
 % Chron. Pafcal, p. 45. C. Cedrenus, fo. 19. D. § Sanchon. apud Eufeb. 
 
 p- 35. C. 11 Diod. lib. 17. p. 726. Strabo, lib. 10. p. 726. 
 
 ** Pliny,, lib. 7. fee. 57. +t Ammian. Marcel. 1. 22. c. 8, 
 
 +J Strom. 1. I. p. 365. 
 
136 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 the Mithriatic and other figures*. It is therefore afTuming too 
 much to fay, that the ufe of a fword or dagger can decide for or 
 againfl any particular period of antiquity : nor lefs affuming ftill 
 is the conckifion, that fuch weapons were not known in the age 
 of Hercules, let him have lived when he might, becaufe that 
 hero did not employ them. If another obfervation which that 
 author has made be right, and it feems extremely intelligent, we 
 mud fee the works of that pagoda to have been formed in an 
 earlier age. He fays that the ufe of the tamara-leaf on the mo- 
 numents of India came from Scythia, and was peculiarly appli- 
 ed to the figures of Brouma, or the genii attending him, to 
 fhew that he was of Scythian origin ; and that the ufe of that 
 leaf on fculptural monuments ceafed, when the worfliip of 
 Brouma gave place to that of others +. This remark is fully 
 juftified in the pagoda of Elephanta. Confequently thofe mo- 
 numents mufl; have been executed before the influence of Chiven 
 was known in India. They mufl have been executed in the 
 zenith, as one may fay, of Brouma's memory, and before any 
 competitions arofe to invade his worfhip. The execution of 
 them, for the mod part coloffal, and cut out of the rock, and 
 filling a fpace of 120 feet long by almofl as many broad J, mufl 
 have taken up a great length of time, and have been interrupted 
 by none of thofe divifions which arofe from the pretenfions of 
 another legiflator, and which aftually fubverted thofe of Brou- 
 ma^. The works of that pagoda cannot be explained but upon 
 the principles of that very ancient theology which was introdu- 
 ced bv Brouma Ij, and which became afterwards by the venera- 
 tion of the people abforbed in himfelf. To fecure that theology, 
 
 * D'Anc. vol. 3. p. 158. t D'Anc. vol. i. p. 5, in, 112, 132. Vol. 3. p. 93. 
 I Ibid. vol. I. p. 78. note. § Ibid. vol. 3. p. 53, 73, 74. 
 
 II Ibid. vol. I. p. 95. 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. I37 
 
 and the immortality of Brouma, feems to have furnifhed a leading 
 objeft to all thofe monuments ; and therefore, although we can- 
 not precifely afcertain their age, it feems reafonable to conclude 
 that tliey \\ere done when the intereft of Brouma was flrongly 
 eftablifhed in the country, but by no means at fo late a period as 
 towards the approach of Ninus, when not only the Scythian 
 power was vanifhing, but the worfliip of Brouma had long been 
 extin6l. There feems to be in thofe monuments a great fimila- 
 rity of execution in fome inftances, and in others a great inferi- 
 ority of defign, to the fculptures which are now very well known 
 in the ruins of Perfepolis : neither of thofe circumflances fliould 
 incline us to think that the monuments of Elephanta were later 
 in time than thofe of Perfia, for all artifts with equal ftimulations 
 improve by time : the fubterraneous cavern (hould not appear a 
 later idea than the proud edifice for a houfe of idols in countries 
 fo near together, where the fame principles of theology are em- 
 braced, the fame fervour is alive in thofe that embrace them, 
 and equal wealth is at hand to give them perpetuity. Why then 
 may not the pagoda of Elephanta be equal in antiquity to the 
 monuments of Perfepolis ? 
 
 But if the fculptures in that pagoda (hould not be fufhciently 
 ancient for our purpofe, others in the pagoda of Canara are allow- 
 ed to be old enough. The bafs-reliefs, being cut in the rock itfelf, 
 are an affurance that they are the fame figures which were origi- 
 nally formed there. And they exhibit not the Indian, but the 
 old Scythian, character and features which are ftill difcernable in 
 the Tartars, the defcendants of the Scythians — a great robufl- 
 nefs of frame, and flrength of mufcles ; the face large and full ; 
 the nofe flatted ; the lips very thick ; the whole countenance dull 
 
 and heavy ; the whole character fuch as is now a ftranger to 
 Vol. I. T 
 
138 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 India. Hence it has been conceived that thofe monuments 
 were wrought by the Scythians themfelves, who took their own 
 national charafter before it became fo blended with India as to 
 have left it's original traits lefs fimple and diftinft. A hardy 
 people they were, and very ingenious too they muft have been, 
 to go through fuch an immenfe w'ork, which is fuppofed to have 
 employed all the efforts that a whole nation could exert in the 
 fculptural art for fome ages*. 
 
 It was not in India that the Scythians obtained thofe arts ; 
 
 for the Indians were quite barbarous and without civil fociety, 
 
 they lived difperfed in fields, when the Scythians came among 
 
 them ; thefe laft mufl therefore have been pofTeffed of ingenious 
 
 arts in their own country, before ever they fet their feet in 
 
 India. The antiquity, to which we now refer, goes fo very clofe 
 
 towards the flood, that it will hardly be expeftedthat we fhould 
 
 be able to produce many proofs of what appears fo reafonable 
 
 to be fuppofed ; but one will (land for many, and for that one 
 
 we are indebted to the antiquarian fpirit of Herodotus. He 
 
 tells usf that when Scythes, who was the third fon of the 
 
 Scythian Hercules, and from whom the nation afterwards 
 
 obtained the name of Scythians, received from his father the 
 
 bow which was to become his portion, and which fell to him 
 
 as the only one of his brothers that could draw it, he received 
 
 at the fame time " a belt, the clafp of which was ornamented 
 
 " with a vafe of gold ;" and further, that " all the Scythians 
 
 " invariably retained that vafe upon the clafps of their belts 
 
 " from that p>eriod to the very hour in which he wrote that 
 
 " account." They retained it through all their branches as 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol. 3. p. 50, 51. 
 \ Lib. iv. cap. 10. p. 2:8. D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 199, 260 — 280. 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. 1^9 
 
 a mark of their common origin, and as it were the efcutcheon 
 of their nation. This little hiftorical anecdote is pregnant with 
 deep information. The execution of that vafe, doubtlefs as a 
 bafs-relief, prefuppofes and carries with it a knowledge of other 
 arts, without which it could not be fatisfied : a knowledge of 
 modelling and of cafling, which are involved with fome knowledge 
 of defign, were indifpenfible. If they could execute that vafe, 
 they doubtlefs executed by the fame art, and probably in fome 
 other branches of art, other articles of ingenious ornament or 
 ufe for perfonal or domeftic fervice. We fhould not do them 
 juftice, if we thought that they looked no further than to the 
 ornament afforded by that vafe ; they muft have had a fymbolic 
 intent in the feleftion of it, although we may not clearly fee 
 that intent, nor can be fully allured of the precife form of the 
 vafe itfelf ; it may have given the fecret origin to all the vafes of 
 the earth ; and there is no reafon to be alledged, why it might not 
 be as much a fymbol of religion with the Scythians as the patera 
 was held to be among the Greeks and Romans. Thefe pieces 
 of workmanfhip they were able to execute in gold ; and it is plain 
 that they were arrived at the ability to do them before the time 
 of that Hercules, the common father of the Scythian nation, to 
 whofe period we know not how to advance, and much lefs to 
 go beyond it by any affured chronology, but from whom mufi: 
 have prefently defcended the Brouma of India, if he were not 
 either that Scythes, or that Hercules himfelf. And perhaps one 
 of thefe fuppofitions would be the fhorteft to reconcile all, with 
 the admiffion of fome lofs of names in fo remote antiquity, 
 and fome anachronifms both of names and events. 
 
 Mod certainly there is no trace of art more old than that 
 which we have now mentioned from Herodotus, nor has there 
 
140 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 probably been a people befides the Scythians, who could have 
 furnifhed us with any traditions of art more early fince the 
 flood. The tradition now before us derives collateral confirma- 
 tion from the reports of modern travellers, who have difcovered 
 in thofe mountainous parts of ancient Scythia various inftru- 
 ments of metal, and evident marks of gold mines which have 
 been worked with great labour in ages extremely remote*. In 
 the coinage of Scythia, it is upon record, according to Hygi- 
 nus+, that filver money owed it's invention to a king of the 
 country named Indus, long before the Scythians pafled into 
 India. 
 
 If the view we have taken of thofe very ancient works of art, 
 which appear to have originated from Scythian genius or Scy- 
 thian power in Scythia itfelf or in India, flill leaves us uncertain in 
 their refpeftive epochs, the ruins of Perfepolis will carry us out 
 of every difficulty of that kind, and will give us antiquity enough 
 on which our argument may rely : at the fame time they will 
 not carry us from the original opening of this difcuffion, inafmuch 
 as they demonflrate no lefs completely than the monuments of 
 India the influences of the Scythian theology, while other evi- 
 dences prove theinfluences of the Scythian dominion in the tri- 
 butes paid to it by the fovereigns of Perfia J. 
 
 By an agronomical epoch we are aflured that the dedication 
 of Eftekhar, called by the Greeks Perfepolis, took place under 
 the Sovereign Giamfchid at the commencement of the year 3209 
 before the Chrifl:ian sera §. The reader will recolleft that this 
 
 • Pallas's Voyage, torn. 2. p. 399, et feq. + Fab. 274. D'Ancarv. vol. 
 
 I. p. 23, 43, 151. X D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 36, 43. § Hift. of anc. 
 
 Aftronomy, p. 130. Bailly, p. 354. fee. 2. D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 124. Vol. 3. 
 p. 115, 137. 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. 1^1 
 
 was only 400 years after the period affigned to Brouma's entrance 
 into India. Befides the fculptural monuments at Perfepolis, the 
 buildings of which are now feen in ruins, but thofe monuments 
 themfelves are moftly preferred in their original ftate, there are 
 a few others no lefs ancient at Nakfki-Ruflan, about two or three 
 leagues from Perfepolis ; others, again, of equal antiquity are cut 
 in the body of a mountain called But-cane, about fixteen leagues 
 from Perfepolis; and there is another remarkable piece offculp- 
 ture nearChiras, in the fame ftyle with the bafs-ieliefs at Perfe- 
 polis. Thefe conftitute the undoubted monuments of the anci- 
 ent Perfians, which may be carried back with aflurance to the age 
 of Giamfchid, if fome of thofe which we have laft mentioned 
 may not have feen every hour that has pafled from the reign of 
 Caiumarrath. In thofe periods fo very remote there appear the 
 fuUeft proofs, independent of thofe grander ones which are ex- 
 hibited in the places we have juft mentioned, of a confiderable 
 progrefs made in other parts of fculpture and engraving. Two 
 pieces of golden money newly coined, and bearing the imprelTion 
 of the head oi^ Aries, and on the reverfe his figure repofing on 
 the ground, were offered to Giamfchid on the firft new-year's 
 day of his reign, as a cuftomary congratulation which has been 
 always kept up *. Mirkhond, inftru6led by the ancient hiftory 
 of the Perfians, records it of Giamfchid, that he had feals en- 
 graved for the purpofe of an impreflion on writings f. The fym- 
 bols of worfhip in his time were taken on a medal, which may be 
 feen in D'Ancarville's Recherches '^. Thefe abilities in coins, 
 and feals, and medals, will furely carry along with them the ge- 
 neral powers of executing figures in fculptural relief, and may 
 
 * Recueil des Peuples et Villes, torn. 3. pi. 122. No. i. D'Anc. vol. 3. p. 115. 
 + Biblioth. Orient, p. 368. Giamfchid. D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 125. vol. 3. p. 116. 
 i Ibid. vol. 3. p. 1-2. pi. 21. No. I. 
 
142 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 fatisfaftorily account for the workmanfhip of all thofe monu- 
 ments which are to be feen at Perfepolis and it's environs. With- 
 out queflion there was fufficient ability in Perfia to execute them 
 in the age of Giamfchid *. 
 
 We {hall leave to thofe, whofe ftudies of myftic antiquity may 
 carry them to the inveftigation of thofe fculptural monuments 
 both in Perfia and India, the abundant lights which they will 
 certainly obtain in that emblematical theology, which for fuch a 
 length of ages became rooted in almofl all the nations of the 
 earth. The principal ufe we have to make of thofe monuments 
 is, their antiquity and their execution as works of art. The firft 
 of thefe has been ftated : we (hall now offer a fhort refleftion on 
 the latter. 
 
 We muft not look for defign. The emblematic figure, loaded 
 with fymbols, disfigured by drefs, divided often between vari- 
 ous fpecies, and often multiplied in parts for theological theories, 
 fometimcs monftrous and unnatural by it's fize or it's conjunftions, 
 was fubverfive of all power of defign, if that power had been 
 pofTefied. It was equally fubverfive of all expreffion of charac- 
 ter, if that had been aimed at, or if it could have been reached. 
 And yet in fome inftances, where the fymbolic figure was not fo 
 crouded, or where the emblematic principles were thrown into 
 furrounding figures, we find a degree of capacity in attitude that 
 is by no means contemptible in itfelf, but rather furprifing in 
 ages fo extremely remote. It may appear more furprifing, but 
 it is undeniable, that they were not infenfible of forefiiortening, 
 and that fome of their attempts in that way befpeak much truth. 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol. 3. p. 116, 137. 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. I43 
 
 Thefe obfervations are confirmed by fome inftances in the pago- 
 da of Eiephanta, but by a much more flriking example in the 
 two figures bending in worfhip at the foot of the ox in the tem- 
 ple of Meaco in Japan*. The figure of that ox butting againfl 
 the egg is worthy of obfervation ; and in general the animal- 
 creation, with allowance for occaiional emblematic disfigure- 
 ments in parts, is exhibited with fuch an approach to juftice 
 not only in the whole figure, but in the exprelTion of the coun- 
 tenance, that with all the opportunities of hitting that truth 
 by the living figures before them, we cannot but fometimes 
 wonder at what they have done. They feem on the whole to '■^' 
 
 have been more able in the animal-figures than in the human, 
 as it is natural to fuppofe that they would be. We take it for 
 granted that the drawings we have received from thofe fculp- 
 tures are juft -, they evidently do not flatter. And in the ruins 
 of Perfepolis, more abundantly perhaps than in any other fitu- 
 ation, will be found fufficient confirmations of all the remarks 
 which we have now made. 
 
 One obfervation more we mufl add, which is excited by one of 
 the bafs-reliefs cut in the rocks of Nakflu-ruflan. The defign is 
 now very common, and the reader may fee it froi^ the bed au- 
 thority in D'Ancarville, vol. i. and 3. pi. 15. It exhibits Mihir 
 or the Divine Spirit, in the form of a winged child, feated on a 
 
 * See ibid. vol. I. p. 65. plate 8. we have not mentioned this Japanefe work 
 before, not having fufficient data to afcertain it's epoch : but as the people of Japan 
 defcended from the Scythians, and participated in a particular manner of the 
 theology communicated by Brouma, and as the figure here referred to is the 
 fimple and primitive emblem of the fupreme Being in the exercife of creation, 
 which flood at the head of the Scythian religion, there can be no doubt of it's 
 deferving a place in very early antiquity. It fhould be obferved further, that this 
 figure of the ox is in gold. 
 
144 
 
 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 rainbow, and worQiipped by a Perfian kneeling on the top of a 
 high flight of fteps : around the altars below are ranges of hu- 
 man figures, the produftions of Mihir ; their arms are interla- 
 ced, to fhew their common bond and common origin ; and they 
 (land one over the head of another, to mark their fucceiTive gene- 
 rations *. There are various other objefts or forms, which con- 
 tribute with thofe we have juft mentioned to make that piece of 
 fculpture the mofl extraordinary for it's myftic inftruftion of all 
 that are left by the ancient Perfians, and the moll worthy to be 
 contemplated by minds enlightened by divine revelation. But 
 our bufmefs is with it's art. And the attitude given to all the 
 figures in their refpeftive funftions is really no mean execution. 
 It may admit of a queftion, whether that fculpture was not done 
 before the reign of Giamfchid, and fo early as that of Caiumar- 
 rath. Something fimilar to it in the arrangement of the figures 
 interlaced is difcoverable on a pilafter in the ruins of Perfepolis. 
 
 The flate of thinking, at which thofe ancients were arrived 
 in the ufe of the arts, is a very important circumftance. To us 
 perhaps they may appear ftupid, that in India they gave to fome 
 of their figures three heads, and to fome four ; or four arms, and 
 fometimes fix ; that in Perfia they joined a human head to the 
 body of an ox, or coupled portions of different animals toge- 
 ther ; that not only in thofe places, but in many others, they 
 gave to the objeft of their worfliip two fexes, often conjoined 
 under one frame, and fometimes forming two figures for that ob- 
 jefl ; and that in Japan they made a great point of direfting 
 the whole flrength of an ox againft an egg. If we fuppofe, as 
 fome have done, that by thefe methods they meant to exprefs 
 
 * Ibid. vol. I- p. 190. Vol. 3. p. 118. 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. I45 
 
 extraordinary ftrength, extraordinary wifdom, or extraordinary 
 fecundity ; that they meant to defcribe an uncommon charafter; 
 or that thofe were the mere expreffions of whim ; the fuppofition 
 is {hallow enough. We mufl find their meaning in much deeper 
 emblematic combinations. And for thefe, as they would lead us 
 too far from our purpofe, we fliall refer the reader to the firfl 
 and third volumes of D'Ancarville's work, where they will 
 be found minutely and fatisfaftorily explained. It mufl be 
 obferved, that allegory has generally moved in all ages pretty 
 much in the fame way ; although it's flock of ideas be almoft in- 
 finite, the manner in which they have been employed has fel- 
 dom obtained much variety. We mean not in this to defend the 
 merit of thofe eaftern emblems on which we have touched : mofl 
 certainly they will be accounted poor by thofe ages which have 
 carried thofe fludies to greater refinement, and more efpecially 
 becaufe they were generally fubverfive of all elegance in de- 
 fign. But we do not feek refinement in times fo remote : and 
 yet in thofe eaftern works there are numerous emblems, which 
 have been embraced by the lovers of allegory ever fince, and 
 may be pronounced to have furnifhed the firft hints, and given 
 the foundation, to all that profundity of fyftem. 
 
 Before we quit the monuments of Perfia, let us fee what obfer- 
 vations it's architefture in thofe remote ages has left us to make. 
 Thofe ages were long, very long, before any ideas of regular 
 order in architefture had taken poffeffion of the human mind. 
 We ftiall confequently find the Perfians afting on thofe notions 
 for the obtaining of ftrength, and duration, and conveniency in 
 buildings, which common fenfe with fome further affiftances from 
 ftudious individuals muft fupply. It muft be remembered that the 
 buildings, which are now feen in ruins at Perfepolis, were not in- 
 
 VOL. I. U 
 
146 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 tended to be inhabited, but were formed for a temple. The idea that 
 they were conflrufted for a palace is contradifted in every way. 
 * They were built entirely of marble in the moft mafly blocks, 
 and it is evident that they never had a covering. But in both thofe 
 circumftances they differ entirely from the palace of which 
 Quintus Curtius+ has fpoken, and which he fays was built of 
 cedar, fo that it took fire throughout in an inftant. There has not 
 been found, however, in thofe ruins by the moft attentive ob- 
 ferver a fingle flone calcined by fire, nor do we know any 
 inftances of buildings deftroyed by fire which were entirely 
 conftru6led of marble. The ruins which now appear muft 
 have exifted either as buildings or as ruins when Quintus Cur- 
 tius wrote his book 400 years after the deftru6lion of Perfepolis; 
 and he fays, that the people dwelling in the neighbourhood 
 could not point out the fpot on which either the town of 
 Perfepolis or it's palace ftood: thofe ruins therefore were 
 known to them to be no part either of the palace or of the 
 town, or they could not have been at a lofs to point out the one 
 or the other; we muft conclude them to have been at fome 
 little diftance from both, moft likely in a folitary fituation, which 
 was generally chofen by the ancient world for the exercife of 
 religion. To thefe obfervations let it be added, that out of the 
 great multitude of fculptures, amounting to 1300 in thofe ruins, 
 as they have been counted by Le Brun, there is not one which 
 has not an evident relation to religion and to the ceremonies of 
 a worftiip far older than the time of Cyrus. 
 
 If thofe buildings then were intended for a temple, they muft 
 have been conftrufted before the time of Zoroafter, whofe epoch 
 is fixed by aftronomical obfervation in the book of the Magus 
 
 * Ibid. vol. 3. p. 124, 126, 135. t Lib. 5. p. 98. 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. I47 
 
 Giamafb, which was tranflated into Arabic A. D. 1220, to have 
 been 2450 years before the Chriftian aera*, and 759 years after 
 the acceffion of Giamfchid. Subfequent to the ellablilhment 
 of Magifm by that great reformer thofe edifices could not have 
 been raifed, nor could any part of their fculptural works have 
 been performed, becaufe he aboliflied the ufe of temples, altars, 
 figures and emblems of the divinity, except fire and the fun^ 
 not one of which were afterwards fuffered to be executed anew 
 in Perfiat. To the feverity of his reform upon Scythicifm per- 
 haps thofe ftruftures owe the greateft part of their devaftation ; 
 fome attempts to deface their monuments appear to have been 
 vifiblej : altho' neither he nor his Magi are charged with having 
 deftroyed all the ancient religious figures of the country ; but 
 in all probability thofe of which we are now fpeaking are in- 
 debted to their own immenfe ftrength of conflruftion in marble, 
 defying equally fire and the hammer, that their ruins have not 
 been more complete. 
 
 Thefe ruins have been confidered as the palace that was 
 built by Cambyfes or his fucceflbr. But for that idea there 
 cannot be the leaft foundation, unlefs thefe ruins fhall be 
 found to manifeft the ftyle and tafle that has ever been known in 
 E«n'pt. For the prohibition of all religious ftruftures and fculp- 
 tures by Zoroafter became an abfolute extermination of artifls at 
 leaft, and of architefts too in fome degree, from Perfia; info- 
 much that when the palace at Perfepolis was going to be built, 
 both architects and artifts were brought from Egypt to finifti it, 
 with many ornaments of which Cambyfes had fpoiled the city 
 
 ♦ Biblioth. Orient, p. 367. Hift. anc. Aftron. p. 349. + Herod, lib. i. 
 
 c. 131- P- 56. Strabo, lib. 15. p. 732. D'Ancarv. vol. 3. p. 116. 
 
 % Ibid. vol. 3. p. 130, 135. 
 
148 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 of Thebes*. Were thefe ruins then the works of Egyptian 
 hands ? Is the ftyle and diftribution of their ftrufture, are 
 their ornaments, fuch as have ever appeared in Egypt ? The 
 direft reverfe is the fa6t. And this will bring us at once to the 
 point, what their architefture was. 
 
 It was as foreign in all it's component parts from the Egyp- 
 tian, as both it's parts and the whole were foreign from any 
 thing that ever appeared in the fubfequent ages of Greece or 
 Rome. In huge and clumfy ftrength alone it approached to 
 the Egyptian ; but that was the rudenefs of fuch early ages, 
 which knew not how to give ftrength without clumfinefs. And 
 in all probability Egypt derived from thofe ages in Perfia it's 
 huge and mafly notions of building, although the variation of 
 ideas and habits in the two countries kept their architefture in 
 other refpefts afunder. +In that Perfian edifice we find all the 
 columns infulated and independant, contrary to the univerfal 
 praftice of the Egyptians. It was evidently conftrufted without 
 roof or covering, it was every where open, it was full of win- 
 dows, and in faft it was a window throughout : in all thefe cir- 
 cumftances nothing was ever feen like it in Egypt. All it's 
 fculptures are in ftrong relief, whereas the Egyptian manner 
 fcooped them in a hollow : there nothing is more common than 
 to find an obelifk or a pyramidal form ftanding alone ; not one 
 of which is feen here. A kind of entablement, or rather a 
 crowning, rifes over fome of the openings, which may appear 
 fimilar in fome of it's members to what are feen in Egyptian 
 architefture ; but that may reafonably be confidered as a com- 
 mon thought, which neither might borrow from the other. In 
 
 * Diod. Sec. Biblioth. lib. i. p. 55. t D'Ancarv. vol. 3. p. 129. r.ote. 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. 149 
 
 the forms and pofition of many of the figures the fame differ- 
 ence in the tafte, of the two countries is no lefs ftrongly marked. 
 In thofe Perfian ruins all the figures fland upon their feet; 
 whereas in Egypt they lie down like the fphinx : at Perfepolis 
 one of the figures in that motley clafs is feen with wings, which 
 were never given by the Egyptians to their figures of that kind. 
 
 Such are the circumllances which decide thofe Perfian monu- 
 ments to have been the produftions of an age, in which Perfia 
 muft help herfelf to the accomplifhment of them, and in which 
 {he was direfted by ideas of religion clearly appropriated to the 
 turn of her own country, and diftinft from thofe of every other 
 nation, but fo far as they flowed from the common fource of 
 Scythicifm itfelf On the principles of that fyftem we muft 
 account for the flriking fingularity of thofe infulated columns 
 and univerfal openings on all fides, which diftinguifh the forma- 
 tion of that Perfian ftrufture from every other that has been 
 known in the world. The whole of it plainly derives it's con- 
 ftruftion from modes and habits of religious fervice that were 
 peculiar to Perfia. The provifion made in it, as it were, for an 
 univerfal villa, leads us to fuppofe that it was calculated for 
 (bme grand religious procefl^ion : and the (heets of bafs-reliefs 
 difplayed on the walls of the great ftair-cafe leading to the tem- 
 ple explains that procelfion to be the grand ceremony of ufher- 
 ing in the new year, which lafled for fix days, and was inftituted 
 by Giamfchid*. 
 
 Analyfing the particular parts of thofe ruins, we fee that altho' 
 the days were early in which that flruclure was raifed, they had 
 
 * See the plate of thofe bafs-reliefs, Chardin's Voy. vol. 2. pi. 58. D'Ancarv. 
 vol. 3. p. 138, 146. 
 
150 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 gained the ideas both of columns and pilafters. The latter were 
 fingular enough : they were fufficiently broad to contain whole 
 fheets- of bafs-reliefs in independant emblematical fubjefts : they 
 have obtained the name of pilafters*, and they have a crowning 
 to their termination above, as the fides of the walls in general 
 have ; but they are, in faft, a facing given to the end of the walls, 
 which being extremely thick have of courfe drawn into greater 
 breadth thofe facings or pilafters. "Whether they had obtained 
 the idea of a pilafter as a half- column, and in any way that came 
 towards proportions, thofe ruins do not inform us, nor (hould we 
 apprehend that they had obtained fo much. 
 
 Their columns were no lefs fingular in fome refpefts, although 
 they are not to be charged equally on the fcore of proportion, 
 for indeed they do not appear to want that general proportion 
 which leaves the eye pretty well fatisfied. In that extent the 
 attainment of proportion in fimple ftru6lures is, in fa6l, no more 
 than what may be reached by the early efforts of the human 
 mind with a moderate degree of confideration, and without ex- 
 amples or fyftematic principles ; to carry that proportion to all 
 the nicety of perfe6lion, which makes every part among many to 
 bear it's fpecific relation with harmonious exaftnefv to the whole, 
 muft be the refult of mature ftudy referved for fueceftive genera- 
 tions. It is, however, beyond doubt a merit in thofe, by whom 
 thefe early works were raifed, that they were capable of fetting 
 out (if indeed there were no confiderable examples of architec- 
 ture before them, and we know of none) with fuch portions of 
 fcience, and of grafping ideas which all the ages that might fol- 
 low them fiiould ftudy and improve, but never abandon. The 
 
 * Ibid. vol. 3. p. i;8, 149. 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. I5I 
 
 columns which are now feen in thofe ruins are much lefs to be 
 reproached in the fimplicity, or in the untutored eccentricity of 
 their make, than thofe which were found 3700 years afterwards 
 in the licentious affeftation of the eaftern empire at Conftantino- 
 ple. In thofe Perfian columns we meet with every component 
 part which has been eftablifhed for fuch a flrufture, although 
 in no regularity which to improved ideas can conftitute the (em- 
 blance of an order. Every column has it's bafe and it's capital, 
 as well as it's fhaft. The bafes feem to be all of one kind, the 
 refult of a fimple idea to give the column a firmer bed ; yet it is 
 not a (hapelefs block, nor a fingle block without members ; 
 thofe members which form the upper and the lower circles are 
 alfo kept diftincl by a higher block betvvrcen, which is very 
 humbly fcored as it were for ornament ; and fome of thofe mem- 
 bers have ever been known by the name of a Torus. The 
 fhafts appear fometimes fcored, if not a little fluted. But the 
 capitals are moft remarkable of all, and indicate an epoch greatly 
 prior to every other known diftribution of a capital, an epoch 
 in which thefe muft have been the original fcheme of artlefs na- 
 ture, either in thofe Perfians or in fome others not long before 
 them. Thofe capitals fwell out in a kind of furbelow, or what 
 fome would call a turban-cap, rifing in two or three fucceffions, 
 and diftinguifhed at certain diftances by a fort of fillet tied clofe 
 round ; they terminate in an uncouth manner amounting to no 
 given fhape, nor eafily defcribable, fometimes round, fometimes 
 fquare, fometimes neither the one nor the other, and fometimes ta 
 pering. It is Hill more remarkable, that on many of thofe columns 
 a huge animal repofes, with whofe figure of courfe it terminates ; 
 and nothing can decide more clearly than this circumfiance as 
 well as the irregular termination of the capitals in general, that 
 thofe columns were never intended to bear a covering, and con- 
 
152 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 fequently that they never conftituted the part of a palace, but 
 of an open temple. 
 
 Thofe architefts had evidently a notion of an entablature, or 
 at leaft of a cornice, which went not only over all the openings 
 of doors or windows, but along the fummit of the fides of the 
 building*. In all their altars, and in every other conftruftion, 
 they finifhed their walls with a cornice at top +. It appears to 
 be diflributed in three parts : the lower member we fhould call 
 an architrave, and that feems to have been cut out in the form of 
 eggs, as an ornament : the middle one is evidently a frize, cut in 
 rows of fimple indents ; and the uppermoft member is a corona 
 or coping, which does not feem to projeft in front, but ftarts 
 out at the angles with a degree of tafte, and the frize being 
 drawn by an eafy curve at the angles to receive that projeftion 
 of the corona, a very agreeable effeft is produced. There ap- 
 pears too very plainly an intention to reprefent a kind of mould- 
 ing round all the doors and windows. But we muft not fail 
 to remark, that there is not feen one arch throughout the whole 
 edifice. All the openings are either cut out of a flone, where 
 their fize would admit that to be done, or they are covered with 
 a large flat ftone at the top. If any thing looks like Egyptian 
 "workmanfliip, it is this ; and yet this mull be allowed to be the 
 only refource of all thofe who knew not the fcheme of an arch. 
 
 We have only to obferve further, that in the infcriptions which 
 are found in all the parts of thofe Perfian ruins, Jthe remains of 
 gilding have been plainly perceived on many of the letters, which 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol. 3. p. 126, 127. pi. 7. + Ibid. vol. 3. pi. 19. 
 
 :|: Chardin's Voyage. D'Ancarv. vol. 3. p. 147. 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 •53 
 
 wherever they were cut in black marble necefTarily required 
 fome means of that fort to make them more plainly legible. 
 This circumftance, coupled with the age which we have given to 
 thofe ruins, fhews very clearly that the arts had made a veiy con- 
 fiderable progrefs in that lime. And if this circumftance fliould 
 be confidered by any perfons as too much for the arts to have 
 then reached, and confequently fhould be thought to turn the 
 evidence another way, it mud be remarked that the charafters 
 employed in thofe infcriptions have hardly any refemblance what- 
 ever to thofe which appear on the medals that were ftruck under 
 the fucceflbrs of Cyrus. The buildings therefore on which thofe 
 infcriptions appear can have no relation to an age fo late as Cy- 
 rus, and much lefs to the ages below him. We can hardly make a 
 doubt that the language of thofe ancient infcriptions was that in 
 which the books of the firfl: Zoroafler were written, whofe books 
 might well be loft, when the language itfelf was forgotten ; and 
 therefore it is no wonder that thofe infcriptions have been abfolute- 
 ly unintelligible to all the ages that have fince pafTed. Nothing 
 of their language appears in the writings attributed to the fecond 
 Zoroafler. If therefore the faft be, as M. Nieburh has obferved*, 
 that there are three different forts of alphabets in thofe infcriptions 
 at Perfepolis, they only fhew that the buildings on which thofe 
 varying infcriptions are found were not all erefted at the fame 
 time, but they do not prove that they were not all erefted before 
 the aera of tlie fecond Zoroafler ; on the contrary, there having 
 been nothing like thofe alphabets known fmce that xra, all thofe 
 changes of chara6ler, and the buildings on which they are found, 
 mufl have taken place during the 759 years which followed Gi- 
 amfchid and preceded that Zoroafler. 
 
 * Nleburh's Voyage, vol. 2. p. 130. 
 Vol. I. X 
 
»54 
 
 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 In this dlfcLiffion, which we have difpatched with all the bre- 
 vity we could ule, we fee what advancements in the arts were 
 brought down to the age of Ninus and Semiramis, although they 
 lived fo early as 2100 years before our asra, and how little reafon 
 we can have to wonder that the proofs of thofe arts, which are 
 attributed to them by the writers of antiquity, fhould have been 
 eafily accomplifhed in their age. As to the means by which the 
 original foundation of the arts was laid in thofe primitive cha- 
 rafters, under whom the Scythian nation was formed, they 
 were juft as eafily within the reach of him, who was diftinguifh- 
 ed by the name of Brouma, as we have fuppofed them in the 
 firfl flate of our argument to be within the reach of Ninus. If 
 the reader will carry his recoUeftion back to what has been 
 urged on that head in the former part of this chapter, he will find 
 the reafoning applicable in every flep to Brouma, confidered as 
 neareft to the firft fources of information, if fo it fhall appear to 
 him, on all the documents we have produced, that the Scythian 
 leader mull; be confidered as the neareft. 
 
 Let him have lived in what part of remote antiquity he might, if 
 we allow the uniform and uncontroverted tradition of the Indians 
 to be true, that he wrote the Vedams, he had clearly fome 
 confiderable improvements to communicate, for he had the 
 precious knowledge of letters, without which thofe books could 
 not have been written and delivered to others. As the firft 
 difpenfer of letters to their country, the Indians have uniformly 
 recorded him*; perhaps in fables, when they aflert and believe 
 that he came into India attended by the Mufes+ ; and that he 
 married the goddefs of fciences, called by them Sarajfouadi, 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol. i, p. 125, 126. t Diod. Sic. Biblioth. lib. 4. p. 249, 55. 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. 1^5 
 
 and by the Greeks Mnemofme^ , in reference to the power and 
 advantages of remembrance afforded by writing ; but certainly 
 in the mod ferious manner, when they exhibited his figure in a 
 coloffal fculpture yet remaining, wherein they have placed him 
 in the aft of writing on a kind of olive-leaf, of which Indian 
 books are made, with a bamboo-cane +. 
 
 That Brouma, confidered as the author of the Vedams, did 
 aftually derive from the defcendants of Japhet, or from fome 
 fuch early fource aficr the flood, the intelligence contained in 
 thofe writings, is demonftrable by one plain circumftance which 
 they afford. The firft book of the Vedams is fo fimilar in it's 
 matter to the book of Genefis, with the prefervation of names 
 but little and rarely varied, and with only fome few differences 
 of circumflances, as, for inflance, that two were generally pro- 
 duced at a birth in the firfl ages, that if there be any thing to be 
 depended on in the evidences of India with refpe6l to the anti- 
 quity of thofe Vedams, there can be no doubt the author of them 
 received his information from the defcendants of Japhet, For 
 they are underllood to have been written above 2000 years be- 
 fore the Pentateuch of Mofes, which is calculated to have been 
 publiflied about the year 1491 before the Chriftian aera;]; ; and 
 Mofes received his information from the poflerity of Shcm. 
 We have fpoken of that eaftern Bible with greater confidence, 
 relying on what we have read, more than on the authorities of 
 others Ij, which may neverthelefs be depended on in that refpeft: 
 for we have feen a tranllation of a great many chapters which 
 
 * Ibid. lib. 5. p. 384-5. Sonnerat's Voyage, vol. i. p. 155. t See the 
 
 plate of it in Sonneiat's Voyages, vol. i. pi. 33. D'Ajicarv. vol. 3. pi. 3. and vol. 
 I- p. 109. + D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. no. Vol. 3. p. 95. 
 
 li Ibid. vol. 3. p. 9+, 95. 
 
1^6 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 are faid to form that firfl book of the Vedams, and which were 
 taken from thofe compilations that are treafured up in the ar- 
 chives of India as facred, and containing the principal matters 
 of the Vedams themfelves. The tranflation was made by a di- 
 ligent and fludious young man, who tranfmitted them hither, 
 and they are now to be feen in the hands of his father, my friend. 
 The fame fource of information may be confuked with equal eafe 
 by thofe who fhall be in India, with the fame advantages of lan- 
 guage, and the fame difpofition to penetrate into all the fources 
 of oriental knowledge. 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 
 Fezoer traces of the fine arts in Mefopotamia, becaufe it was the 
 fate of it's firfl empires to be obliterated from all traces of 
 record — fame emblematic paintings in the temple of Bclus — 
 emulation fuppofed to be greatefi in fculpture — nothing im- 
 probable in any of their coloffal works of that kind — their 
 knowledge of fculptural proportion — no inference from thence 
 to their knotoledge of fculptural expreffien — their maturity in 
 arts not to be confidered on the common principles of progrefs 
 in other countries — painting the leaf probable of all the fine 
 arts to have been carried to perfedion in Afia. 
 
 W H E T H E R Mefopotamia was the cradle of arts, and the 
 cradle of imperial power, or not, we have feen that fhe had fuf- 
 ficient means, on every calculation of time, to carry her as far 
 in the arts as they have been carried in Afia. But the fa6l is, 
 that our view of them is rendered extremely confined and abrupt 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. 157 
 
 by the fingular fate which attended all the oldeft emph'es formed 
 in that part of the eaft. Long as their refpeftive duration might 
 have been, they are but to us the view of a moment : we no 
 fooner look into them, but we lofe fight of them for ever. Thofe 
 of Scythia, of Babylon, and AfTyria, if the two lafl were more 
 than one empire, have been fo completely extinguiflied, that out 
 of all the hiftories which mufl have been employed by their do- 
 minion and magnificence, a few fragments only are left, by which 
 we know that they ever exifted. We muft not wonder indeed at 
 this, when two fuch cities as thofe which were the heads of the 
 Afiyrian empire were made the obje6ls of divine difpleafure, ter- 
 minating in a defolation beyond all example, for the tyrannic 
 ftrides with which their princes rode over God's creation, and 
 efpecially over his cholen pollerity of Abraham, In this view 
 the pride of Nabonaffar, who is faid to have deftroyed all the hif- 
 tories of Affyria, that he might be confidered as it's firfi; monarch, 
 was but an inftrument of the divine purpofe, and the forerun- 
 ner of it's difpleafure. Nabonaflar indeed gained his objeft with 
 pofterity, fo far as the authors of the Univerfal Hiflory have gain- 
 ed profelytes to their opinion on the age of the Affyrian empire. 
 
 But if all thofe records, and all the memoirs of Afia, had re- 
 mained, they would probably have afforded lefs to gratify the 
 lovers of the pencil than any other lovers of art. We are not to 
 conclude from hence, that painting wanted encouragement and 
 cultivation in Affyria. An ambitious princefs like Semiramis, 
 who was defirous of marking her age to pofterity, would natu- 
 rally call forth every art in her country to immortalize her name. 
 And fo we muft conclude when we review the traces which are 
 left to us of the paintings in the temple of Belus, which is faid to 
 have been founded by her, Thofe paintings may perhaps ap- 
 
158 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 pear whimfical at firfl view, and efpecially in a temple ; but they 
 will (hew at leaft the pecuHar turn or tafte of that age, and they 
 will certainly ftrengthen the authorities which have handed them 
 down to our knowledge *. In that temple then, we are told, 
 that the pencil had difplayed fubjecls in which the confufion of 
 fexes and fpccies was flrongly pourtrayed; not only the fexes of 
 the human race, which being blended in one figure formed what 
 is called androgynes or hermaphrodites ; but the two fpecies of 
 human and brutal creation, which being confounded together 
 formed what has fince been called centaurs. The folution of 
 thofe fubjefts is in fome degree hinted by the authority which 
 has mentioned them, and it appears to have been handed down 
 from the prlefls of Chaldaea. It will be thought very natural by 
 thofe who wait to confider the age, the country, and the princi- 
 ples of theology which then prevailed: but it requires to be fome- 
 what more explicitly opened ; after which we fhall not be incli- 
 ned to think thofe fubjefts very extravagant in an Affyrian 
 temple. 
 
 We muft recolleft that although Ninus had fhaken off the tri- 
 butes+ which had long been paid to the Scythians by the princes 
 of Afia, yet the principles of Scythian theology were the ruling 
 principles of the eaft, and by no means leafl; predominant in Chal- 
 daea, from which the fcripture tells us that Abraham, living in 
 this very age of Semiramis;J;, was call out, becaufe he laboured 
 to reform the idolatries of the country, which were the mytho- 
 logies engrafted on the original principles of Scythicifm, and 
 
 * See Diod. Sic. lib. 2. p. 123. t Juflin, lib. 2. Cec. 3. D'Ancarv. 
 
 vol. I. p. 25, 28, 37. X D'Ancarv. vol. 1. p. 44. Semiramis was co. 
 
 temporary with Terab, Abraham's father. 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. 1^^^ 
 
 terminating in infinite deifications. The AfTyrians then were 
 deeply implicated in the emblematic theology, of courfe. And 
 the paintings before us were a flrong proof of it. They were 
 intended to difplay a part of the great fubje61 of Cofmogony, 
 which had then obtained the creed of the country. That creed 
 was tliis ; that in the fii-fl hurry of creation fexes and natures 
 contrariant to each other became ftrangely jumbled together, 
 producing a race of indetenninate creatures, until the agents 
 of generation, dire6led by the fupreme Being the fource of aH 
 things, recovered from that heterogenous race a new creation 
 of proper beings in regular harmony and order. In the for- 
 mation of fuch a creed we fliall not wonder to find mythology 
 fettling itfelf on Pan and all his company. Pan, the all, had 
 been rev^ered as the lupreme generator of all things in every 
 country in which Scythian feet had trodden, or to which Scy- 
 thian principles had reached. He came prefently to be charac- 
 terized under the name, and nearly in the form, of Silenus*; and 
 then the whole body of fatyrs became his agents — his agents for 
 the produ6lion of that harmonious regeneration, of which they 
 were fuitable and willing agents from the lafcivioufnefs of their 
 nature. With this clue we fhall reach at once the meaning of all 
 thofe ancient paintings, fculptures, or engravings, in which fatyrs 
 are furrounding Pan, very often with the emblem of love over 
 their heads, fometimes purfuing thofe hermaphrodites to enjoy 
 them, and in various other fituations and afTemblages, which have 
 all flowed from the eaftern cofmogony that made the fubjeft of 
 thofe paintings in the temple of Belus. And that they were in- 
 troduced particularly into that temple, we fhall not wonder when 
 we refleft, that by attributing to Belus the divinity of Pan, all the 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 387. 
 
l6o ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 Other parts of the fubjeft did but accumulate the reverence 
 which they meant to direft to him. It then became Belus, from 
 whom ifTued that wonderful harmony and regularity and fairnefs 
 of generation in a new race upon the earth, which had got rid 
 of the old deformities ; and the Affyrians conceived that they 
 were juftified in the language which has been tranfmitted down 
 to us as avowed by them, that the world in it's harmonious 
 creation, and Affyria more efpecially as a part of it, flowed 
 from the pureft blood of Belus *. 
 
 We muft be content to view thofe paintings as emblematic 
 defigns. In what manner they were executed as works of art, it 
 is impoflible to fay, nor indeed how broad the fubjeft of that 
 cofmogony was taken. At any rate there was enterprize in 
 them ; they befpoke no creeping mind ; they aimed at the high- 
 eft charafter of the art^ it's difplay of what was confidered as 
 religious hiftory. If they were not done without rudenefs, they 
 feem neverthelefs to have been executed durably, efpecially if 
 they were remaining in the age of Berofus, from whofe writings 
 Diodorus Siculus derived his authority, and in whofe time 300 
 years before Diodorus we do not fee any reafon why they might 
 not have remained. Undoubtedly they were done in frefco. 
 
 Thofe paintings will force upon us the conclufion that the 
 pencil was in very confiderable exercife under Semiramis. And 
 yet the Affyrians feem on the whole to have been more ftudious 
 of fculpture than of painting. There is more in fculpture to 
 meet the ideas of a people, who look to what is vafl, and enter- 
 prizing, and ftriking, than in the ftiller produ6lions of the pen- 
 
 * Banier, vol. I. p. 140. See D'Ancarv. vol. I. p. 384 — 406. 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. l5l 
 
 cil. And perhaps a theology, which had become extremely 
 multiplied in it's principles and objects, might find itfelf more 
 completely gratified, and it's purpofes of devotion more effec- 
 tually anfwered, at lead in fimpler reprefentations, by the pow- 
 ers of the former than by thofe of the latter. We fliould not 
 wonder, therefore, that fculpture was mofl ardently purfued, 
 or that it obtained a preference over painting ; nor Ihall we be 
 at a lofs to account for every thing, however extraordinary, 
 which meets us in the fculptural monuments of fuch an age and 
 fuch a princefs. The immenfity of the fiatue given to Belus in 
 his temple will appear to be natural. We read of ftatues in 
 maffy gold forty feet high, weighing a thoufand Babylonian ta- 
 lents, and reprefenting their deities in both fexes on thrones of 
 pure filver, with all that is mofl; formidable and ferocious in ani- 
 mal nature lying tame at their feet, and wrought alfo in gold*. 
 However thofe inftances may fliake our ideas at firft, we fee them 
 on cooler refleftion to be very probable, as the fl^udied means of 
 overwhelming the idolatrous mind, and making it abfolutely cap- 
 tive. The procefs of fculpture too had encouragements of it's 
 own, which the pencil could not always be fure of enjoying. It 
 was not eafily interrupted by any circumftances or habits of war: 
 it could be carried on, although the thunder of armies poured it's 
 fury on the gates within which the artifl; was at work ; nor did it 
 need that perfeft repofe and tranquility which muft: invite the 
 genius, and fteady the hand, that condufts the pencil. 
 
 Does it feem incredible that they were able to work thofe maf- 
 fes of gold ? Let it be underftood that they are afferted to 
 have been wrought by the hammerf, o-cpupviAcr^, vialleo du^ce ; 
 
 * Diod. Sic. lib. 2. p. 98. Edit. Rhodom. + Diod. Sic. ibid. 
 
 Vol. I. y 
 
l62 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 although we are not warranted by this or any other circumflance 
 to think that the Afiatics did not then underftand the fufion of 
 metals in general ; nor (hall we think fo when we are told by Va- 
 lerius Maximus that there was a coloflal brazen ftatue of Semna- 
 mis, and by others that there were feveral brazen gates around 
 Babylon, and by the fcriptures that the art of metallurgy was in 
 great praftice both in Afia and Egypt in the time of Abraham*. 
 But in thofe coloffal ftatues of gold the hammer was the inftru- 
 ment, without encreafmg the difhculty, nay, leflTening it confider- 
 ably. For there is exprefs authority, that in early ages gold was 
 found in fome parts of the eaft fo pure that it needed only to be 
 wafhed, and without any other preparation it became malleable 
 and duftile. Diodorusi calls that gold aTvpog xpus-o?, apyrum 
 aurum, " gold that needed not the fire." StraboJ and Pliny ^ 
 fpeak of the fame gold. Modern hiftory informs us of other 
 countries in which that gold is found, and may be worked with 
 the fame facility ||, 
 
 Does the largenefs then of thofe flatues render their reality lefs 
 credible ? We mufl recolleft that in the ideas of thofe early 
 ages, both in Afia and in Egypt, the perfeftion of every work as 
 well in architefture as in fculpture was conceived to depend on 
 the hugenefs of it's fize. When in after-ages, which had been 
 furnifhed with the means of better tafle, Nero caufed his ftatue of 
 brafs to be made by Zenodorus i lo feet high**, fliall it be thought 
 incredible that an enterprizing princefs, who had gold and filver 
 at her command, the ahnofl vulgar ores of the country, and fup- 
 
 * Gen. c. 13. V. 2. c. 23. v. 15. c- 24. v. 22, 53. t Diotl. Sic. lib. 2. p. 
 
 133. + Lib. 3. p. 216. lib. 4. p. 290, 319. § Lib. 33. fee. 20, 21. 
 
 II Alonzo Barba, vol. i. p. 99. Voyage de Frezier, p. 76, loi, 102. Acad, 
 des Sciences, 1718. M. p. 87. ** Plin. lib. 34. c. 7. Rom. Antiq. du 
 
 Nardini. 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. 163 
 
 plied and worked with the greateft faciUty, fhould accomplifh a 
 ftatue of 40 feet in height ? 
 
 But there were other examples of ftatuary in that age, which, 
 as we read them fpoken of by Diodorus Siculus*, mufl appear 
 more extraordinary flill than any which have been mentioned. 
 We now refer to the monuments which are faid to have been 
 cut by her order in the rock of Baghiftan, a mountain of Me- 
 dia ; that mountain is reported to have been wrought by fculp- 
 tural labour into the fliape of the flatue of Semiramis furrounded 
 by the ftatues of an hundred other perfons offering her prefents. 
 If we take that account as it ftands, we may obferve in fupport 
 of it, that mount Baghiftan was not the laft mountain, if it was 
 the firft, which as we are told, the hand of man has brought 
 into the form of a human or brutal figure. Travellers tell us 
 that there are three mountains in China, which have afforded the 
 like fubjefts for illuftrious fculpturei. And it is well known that 
 Dinocratus would have done the fame thing on the mountain 
 Athos, to immortalize the figure of Alexander the Great, if that 
 hero would have fuffered him. 
 
 Perhaps with fome variation of circumftances we may find 
 other authorities in modern times fpeaking with more minute- 
 nefs of the fame works which were intended by Diodorus. M. 
 D'Ancarville thinks that the fculptures found in fome grottos of 
 a mountain now called " Bifutoun-koh" in ancient Media ;;J;, whofe 
 fituation feems to agree with that of which Diodorus has fpoken, 
 are the monuments intended by that author. Of thefe fculptures 
 
 * Lib. 2. p. 126, 127. t Alias Sin. p. 69. China illuftrat. lib. 4. c. 4. 
 
 X See Mem. de I'Acad. des Infcrip. torn. 27. p. 166. D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 123. 
 
l6i ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 Ifidore of Charax has made mention : we are affured that they ex- 
 ifted in the time of Cyrus, and they are fpoken of in the accounts 
 of Alexander's expeditions. As we find thefe fculptures defcrib- 
 ed by thofe who have viewed them, there appears indeed fome dif- 
 ference between the fcene they offer and that which we fliould 
 conceive from the Ihort account of Diodorus ; and yet it is pof- 
 fible that he might mean thefe, and that he was not fo fortunate 
 as to obtain a precife information concerning them. They are 
 neverthelefs very worthy of attention, more efpecially as by the 
 manner of their workmanfhip, refembhng very ftrongly the ftyle 
 of thofe ancient monuments which we have noticed in India, 
 they evidently carry themfelves back to an antiquity, which can- 
 not be lefs remote than the age of Semiramis. The defcription 
 given of thofe fculptures is this. In the rock of that mountain 
 is cut a vault thirty feet high, as many in length, and half as 
 many in breadth. At the further end of the vault a cornice that 
 is formed there fupports three figures in relief: that in the mid- 
 dle, having a turban on his head, is taken for a king ; one of 
 the others, being a female figure, feems to be his queen ; and the 
 third figure appears to be an officer in their train. Beneath the 
 cornice is a man on horfeback, bearing a weapon on his fhoul- 
 der, two of his horfe's legs are detached from the rock, and the 
 other two adhere to it ; this figure is coloffal, while all the others 
 in that vault are in bafs-relief On entering into it you fee alfo 
 in relief two fames, and a kind of crown or garland. The whole 
 of the rock in that vault or grotto is fmooth and polifhed. At 
 the diflance of fome fleps from it there are two other vaults or 
 grottos, in which are many infcriptions in charafters long ago 
 lofl to the knowledge of all Afia. In one of thefe lafl grottos 
 there arc figures reprefented in a bath. 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. 165 
 
 It is a misfortune that of the very few who have vifited thofe 
 recefles there has not been one who had the power of defigning 
 thofe fubjefts, or who fufficiently confidered the gratification, and 
 perhaps the ufe, that would be afforded to the ftudious in antiqui- 
 ty by the difperfion of fuch drawings as would lead us to a know- 
 ledge of the capacity with which thofe fculptures were done. 
 
 Till that opportunity is afforded, and the conclufion can be 
 made with certainty that thofe monuments belonged to the age 
 of Semiramis or near it, we muft refrain from fpeaking too clofely 
 of the capacities of Affyrian artifls. If thofe capacities were in 
 any degree equal to the fubjefts they attempted, that empire and 
 thofe who governed it muff have flood on high ground indeed 
 for the fuccefs with which they had nouriflied ingenuity. But 
 we are inclined to believe that the arts of Afia flood for ages 
 upon ages pretty much upon a par, whatever might be the fpecific 
 meafure of capacity which they had reached at their height. Of 
 this we fliall prefently fay more. There is one obfervation, how- 
 ever, which we conceive may be offered without miflake on their 
 general knowledge in fculptural proportion. We have no de- 
 cided authorities to give them the credit of that knowledge in the 
 age of Semiramis, but we imagine the argument to be fuch that 
 in the iffue it cannot be denied them. 
 
 In the latter days of Nebuchadnezzar it appears unqueflion- 
 able that the Babylonians were accurate in the knowledge of fculp- 
 tural proportion. That monarch fet up a golden image, fixty 
 cubits high, and fix cubits broad* — the exaft proportion which 
 geometrical fymmetry has ever purfued in the reprefentation 
 
 * Daniel, cap. 3. v. i. 
 
l66 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 of the human frame. It is enough to fay that it is the fame propor- 
 tion which is obferved in the Laocoon, whofe height is thirty 
 parts, and it's diameter three. The principle eftabhfhed in both is 
 to multiply the diameter by ten, and the produce gives the height. 
 How then came the artifts of Nebuchadnezzar by that know- 
 ledge ? The conftruftion of the ark by Noah proves it to have 
 exifted as the fettled principle of geometrical fcience familiar to 
 the earlieft ages of the world. That ark was 300 cubits in length, 
 30 in depth or thicknefs, and 50 in breadth. We do not mean 
 to fay with Paul Lomazzo*, that it was meant to be fquared ac- 
 cording to the fymmetry of the human body ; for the difference of 
 it's pofition from that of a man {landing upright either introduces 
 a third meafure of breadth to be added, becaufe it was to contain 
 much, and would otherwife overfet, or it reverfes the relative fitu- 
 ations of breadth and depth in the human frame : if the diameter 
 be taken, on account of that difference, in the depth or thicknefs 
 inflead of the breadth, it will yield the fame proportion to the 
 length, which is properly it's height, as is found in the human 
 ftature ; and taking it's pofition as it is, the fame proportion is 
 maintained comparatively between the breadth and the depth or 
 thicknefs of the ark, which appears between the breadth and 
 thicknefs of the human body. Thefe proportions therefore were 
 among the earliefl acquirements of fcientific knowledge : Noah, 
 without the fuppofition of a divine command, might naturally 
 have derived them from the fons of Seth ; and we cannot fuppofe 
 a generation afterwards, that was not ftrangely deflitute of atten- 
 tion, to wliom they were not equally plain. The age of Semira- 
 mis had the advantage, if there was any in this circumftance, of 
 thofe that went before it, as it could work upon their knowledge j 
 
 * Idea del tempo della pitlura, lib. i. p. 95. 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. 167 
 
 and therefore we can make no queftion that the general truth of 
 proportions was purfued in the fculptures of that age. In all the 
 works, on which we have touched, in India, and Perfia, and Ja- 
 pan, we fee no caufe to reproach them with the want of this ge- 
 neral outline of proportion, whatever advantages they may want 
 befides. We have already obferved that in the columns of Perfe- 
 polis, which drew their proportions very much from the fame 
 principles, and alfo fliew us that the architefts of thofe early 
 ftruftures had ftudied thofe principles, the eye is well fatisfied 
 with the attention which has been paid to this part of fcience.. 
 And therefore when we are told, and probably with great truth, 
 that the firft fculptures in Afia, in Egypt, in Greece, and in every 
 part of the earth, were little better than fliapelefs blocks'^, we 
 know the proper diilinftion to be made ; that they might be lit- 
 tle better than fliapelefs in their aftion and fpirit, but the days 
 muft have been early indeed when they were found fliapelefs in 
 general proportion. That general proportion may be well 
 known, and truly kept ; and yet the attitude and expreffion, 
 which is the foul of the work, may be rudenefs itfelf. On this 
 lafl circumflance we muft be filent with refpeft to the age of Se- 
 miramis, having no clue to lead us but that which is put into our 
 hands by the Afiatic monuments now remaining, and which is no 
 fure one to guide us to the age of that princefs : judging howe- 
 ver from thofe monuments, we conceive ourfelves warranted to 
 fay, that the artifts of Afia, although very humble, were neither 
 infenflble of attitude and expreflTion, nor at all times unfuccefsful 
 in it. With thefe allowances given to them there is fufficient 
 ground, on the one hand, to reflrain that kind of opinion which 
 depreciates without referve all the works of thofe ancient ages, as 
 
 * Goguet's Orig. of Laws, &c. vol. i. p. 166. 
 
l68 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 abfolutely deflitute of pretenfions to art, and on the otlier hand 
 to account for eulogies which are found in ancient authors on 
 the merit of many of their produftions, although we may think 
 it reafonable not to go the whole length of thofe eulogies them- 
 felves. 
 
 In Afia more than in any other part of the world, and contrary 
 to what has been found every where elfe but in Egypt, becaufe 
 fhe moved very much alike to Afia in her nature and policy, any 
 one affemblage of the works of art, after the country came to be 
 in the habits and in the power of exercifing it, might be taken as 
 no unfair criterion of the merit of any other affemblage, in any 
 other period of time, in the fame branches. And this is the caufe 
 why we fo often find the works of fculpture in one part of Afia 
 pronounced by modern inquirers to be fimilar in their execution 
 to thofe which appear in another part. That fimilarity has fre- 
 quently been confidered as a ground of reference to the age which 
 might be due to fome of thofe works, according to their refpec- 
 tive fituations : but we may properly obferve, that on that ground 
 all judgement is fupplanted, for fimilarity would bring every 
 thing into one age ; miftakes muft therefore be made in the ap- 
 plication of that reference, although the fimilarity on which 
 it is grounded be right, for want of confidering how that fimila- 
 rity comes, and to what refledions it may fitly be carried. 
 
 The faft is, that the works of Afiatic art are not to be fcanned 
 on the common principles of progrefs in other countries, which 
 by length of time, and length of practice, advances regularly 
 to improvement and perfeftion. Such is not the principle 
 of Afia in any part of it's nature or acquirements. In 
 tills peculiar view it exhibits the moft: fingular contrail 
 
ASIATIC ARTSi 169 
 
 to every other people on the earth, except the Egyptians. The 
 Afiatics reached in the arts very foon ahnoft as much as they 
 ever reached. Tliey (hot up rapidly to the point of maturity, 
 which by fome circumflances or other attending them they were 
 deftined to attain, and there they flopped. If we could view 
 their finer arts from generation to generation, and could be af- 
 fured of following their feveral epochs, we are warranted by 
 what are ftill left of thofe arts in various parts of Afia, which 
 cannot be all of one age, and by what we equally learn from 
 their mechanical works, to conclude that the gradations of im- 
 provement would be found extremely few. The fame obferva- 
 tions befit them as men. They ever fhot forth, and they ftill 
 {hoot forth, quickly into mature life, where their natural and ra- 
 tional growth ends : they are men very foon, and foon capable of 
 all the powers of which they are ever capable. Will it fhew too 
 much of religious propenfity to fay, that fo the Almighty meant it 
 to be with them in all things ? Having renovated the world, 
 and the Afiatics as the firfl; fruits of that renovation, he threw 
 them prefently into manhood, that little time might be loft for 
 aftion. And all their generations fince have inherited and car- 
 ried forward the gift. In the fame manner he feems to have 
 thrown them as early into a kind of manhood in the ingeni- 
 ous arts, that little time might be loft by uncertain inveftigation 
 to thofe who foon began, and foon came to the extent of, their 
 capacities. The latter of thefe circumftances grew from the for- 
 mer by a law of Nature. But the Afiatics entailed it on them- 
 felves by the laws of their own policy, and by their own fyftem of 
 thinking and afting ; in confequence of which, all things have 
 ever remained in the fame ftate with that people, and they never 
 made any advantage of the duration of their empires to acquire 
 
 new lights, and to bring firft difcoveries to perfeftion. It was a 
 Vol. I. Z 
 
170 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 firft principle in the inftitutions of many of their governments, to 
 admit no novelty*; therefore they never travelled +, unlefs it 
 were thofe who were navigators by fituation and habit ; and 
 therefore it is very true that all which we find of their principles 
 in other countries were neither fetched nor derived by them 
 from thofe countries, but were fetched by thofe that travelled 
 from thofe countries to them J. In profelTions every man was 
 to follow that of his family. In thofe of the arts, the meanefl of 
 all profeflions in their eftimation, neither rewards nor fame were 
 to be looked for. So that emulation was at an end, and every 
 improvement from father to fon was hopelefs. 
 
 Yet they went on in the fame way without intermiflion. We 
 do not find that their purfuits in fculpture flackened in any gene- 
 rations, of which we have records. In thofe which followed Se- 
 miramis at the diflance of fome hundred years, fculptures were 
 common not only in temples but in private houfes. As far as 
 they partook of religion, they were ftill kept up by Scythicifm ; 
 and it was the idolatrous images of Scythicifm which Rachel near 
 400 years afterwards carried off from the houfe of her father 
 Laban, when fhe and Jacob departed from him ^. 
 
 Let things have flood in the country as they might with refpeft 
 to fculpture, we conceive that painting was the laft of the fine 
 arts which could have furniflied many proofs of advancement in 
 Afia. It has been faid that the pencil can never be handled 
 with power but under the enjoyment of liberty. Be that as it 
 may, it feems unquefiionable, that it can hever be handled with 
 
 * Plato de Leg. lib. 2. p. 789. ^ Plin. nat. Hift. lib. 6. p. 182. 
 
 X D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 136, 177. § Gen. cap. 31. v. 19. 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. l/^ 
 
 power in a climate, whofe exceflive and unremitting heat exhaufls 
 the finking inhabitant, relaxes every nerve, and leaves him lift- 
 lefs to every exertion, emulous only of the indulgence which oft- 
 returning deep adminifters only to roufe him for a moment, and 
 then to receive him back into it's quietude. If tranquility be fa- 
 vourable to the genius of the painter, it is not that foftenmg, 
 finking tranquility; it is the tranquility which fprings from a mmd 
 ftrong and braced, in the full enjoyment of it's powers, but in the 
 free enjoyment of them too, unruffled and unhurried. There 
 mull be life and fpirit, and a firmnefs in both, not only to elicite 
 the invention, and carry it up to degrees of enterprize, but to 
 fteady the hand, while it marks all it's purpofe with effeft. Thefe 
 powers can no more be had where the vertical beams of the fun 
 leave the tawny inhabitants with fome difficulty to refpire, than 
 where in horizontal fainter vifits, fhorn of his beams, he fees 
 mankind benumbed and torpid, not more inert in body than in 
 mind. We do not fay that in the former fituation the genius and 
 the hand will not fhew themfelves in fome performances worthy 
 to be admired : but there can be no progrefs of art, no extenfion 
 to it's enterprize, no continued aims at perfeftion, which were 
 never feen but in milder and more temperate fituations. 
 
J72 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 
 Phmiicia, although a part of the AJfyrian empire, to he viewed 
 diJlinEtly in fame refpe£ls as to the fine arts — the principles of 
 Scythian theology prevalent here — the fpirit of Phxnician arts 
 firfl directed, by thofe principles — afterwards made fubfervient 
 to the habits of commerce— fcuplture much cultivated as a 
 commercial article — few traces of painting but what were in a 
 low tajie — improved and polifiied fentiment not difiinguflied 
 in the Phcenician charaSler — architecture much attended to, 
 and in great efiimation — no proofs of the fine arts toorthy 
 of particular confideration in Carthage, although it was an 
 emanation from Tyre. 
 
 r HCENiciA, as a part of Syria, may be looked upon as a com- 
 ponent member of the Aflyrian empire. As fuch, it might be 
 confidered as bearing a part in thofe views which have been given 
 of Affyria. But the faft is, that it did not go along w^ith thofe 
 views altogether, for it had views of it's own, which put the fine 
 arts upon a different footing within it from that which we have 
 hitherto found them to obtain in Afia. The peculiarity of thofe 
 views, whether they were more or lefs beneficial to thofe arts, 
 may juftify us in giving them a diftinfl confideration, although 
 they fhould be found to add but little materially new in the 
 progrefs of thofe arts themfelves. 
 
 We do not mean to aflert that Phoenicia did not participate 
 with the reft of that continent in the diffufion of thofe Scythian 
 principles, which gave the firfl direftion to all the arts that were 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. 173 
 
 cultivated upon it. In that view it became a flrong evidence of 
 the extent to which that Scythian influence was carried on that 
 fide of the Afiatic continent. The borders of Phoenicia afforded 
 the fpot, on which the Scythian conquerors erefted a town as the 
 boundary of their progrefs to the weft, which town bore it's ma- 
 nifeft relation to them in the name of Scythopolis, and alfo in 
 that of Nyfus*, which became the general name of every boun- 
 dary of their progrefs, as it was the name of the place from 
 whence they originally came. In that Phoenician or Arabian 
 Nyfus was kept up the worlhip of the Scythian divinity with the 
 fame ceremonies which were obferved in the Nyfus of India f. 
 The ox was there introduced, the original Scythian emblem of the 
 generator of all things J ; which from thence became the principal 
 divinity of the Arabians, hardly ever to be erafed afterwards from 
 their minds ^, or to be difpoffelfed of it's fanftity as the objeft by 
 which they fwore||. The ferpent was no lefs revered in Phoeni- 
 cia, where it was beheld as the emblem of a good genius, and was 
 made the fubjeft of very ferious writings by Hermes, whom Por- 
 phyry calls a Phoenician**. That ferpent appeared on their 
 coins twifted round the egg of creation, and fometimes twifted 
 round an olive-tree, as it was reprefented in Japan+f ; at other 
 times the ferpent was exhibited with the flower or leaf of the tama- 
 ra, the Scythian emblem of divinifation, placed over his headj+. 
 They had in common with the Affyrians, and with the Perfians 
 too, the figure of I'au, and from them the Egyptians took it, 
 as they alfo took their Kneph : the Phoenicians employed that 
 
 * Stephan. Byzant. D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 26, 28. t Ibid. p. 38,40. 
 
 X Ibid. p. 139. DIod. Sic. lib. I. p. 19. § D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 46, 72. 
 
 II Herod, lib. 2. c. 8. p. 162. ** Porphyr. ap. Eufeb. prsp. 
 
 Evang. lib. 3. D'Ancarv. vol. i p. 468, 476, and Pref. p. 13. tt Ibid. p. 
 
 470, 504- ++ Ibid. p. 469. 
 
174 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 figure of Tau on their medals in the form of a crofs, the union of 
 whofe parts at the top was intended to mark the alliance of the 
 fupreme generator with love, or the mihir, or the fpirit, as it 
 was employed for the fame purpofe by the Perfians on their mi- 
 thras*. In different fituations, although nearly connefted toge- 
 ther, the fame original principles will be feen to branch out into 
 different afpefts, and to produce various mythologies. And fo 
 it was with the cofmogony of the Phoenicians, whether that was 
 a variation peculiar to themfelves on the cofmogony which has 
 already been mentioned as entertained by the Affyrians, or whe- 
 ther they embraced both the one and the other, for they ■w^ere 
 nearly allied. The notion, however, which prevailed in Phoeni- 
 cia, as Sanchoniatho informs us, was this ; " that in the com- 
 " mencement of creation there were animals devoid of fenfe, 
 " from whom were afterwards produced intelligent animals call- 
 " ed Saphafemin , beings that could look up to heaven, who were 
 " formed in the manner that eggs were hatched +". But the 
 Phoenicians went ftill nearer to the cofmogony of the Affyrians, 
 for they luppofed " the firft created being"^, who were both male 
 " and female, in the bofom of the fea as well as on the earth, to 
 " be faff afleep till they were awakened into life and aftion by 
 " the noife of thunder+". 
 
 We fhall go no farther than this to fhew in Phoenicia the pre- 
 valence of thofe common principles of Scythicifm, which might 
 be of lefs confequence here to be remarked, after what we have 
 laid of Affyria, if they did not lay a foundation for further views 
 in thofe who fucceeded the Phoenicians. Thofe principles, howe- 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol. 3. p. 163, 164. t Sanchon. ap. Eufeb. praep. Evang. 
 
 D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 47o> 47i- + 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. I75 
 
 ver, firfl brought the arts from the hands of thefe people, and di- 
 redled their fpirit. That fpirit appeared very early on their coins 
 and medals, Befides thofe which have been mentioned as retain- 
 ing the root of thofe principles in the emblem of the ferpent un- 
 der various forms and combinations, it is remarkable that in the 
 adjoining Arabia, and therefore probably in Phoenicia too, the 
 primitive fimplicity of obelifcal monies, which grew from the firft 
 impreflTions of religious rites, was employed in very early ages, 
 long before they found their way into Greece, and has nevjer fmce 
 loft it's obolary charafter in that country, whatever may have 
 been the change of it's name, or the variation in the fhape of the 
 monies themfelves *. 
 
 From the firft principles of their theology the Phoenicians 
 would naturally extend their arts to the perpetuation of ob- 
 jefts more diftantly connefted with that theology, or more 
 immediately connefted with themfelves and their own fitua- 
 tion. Hence in the medals of Tyre they figured thofe ambrofial 
 ftones, which were found on the fea-coaft, and to which they paid 
 worftiip, as to an emblem of the divinity, long before the foun- 
 dation of original Tyre, although the new city of that name was 
 fabuloufly faid, by a fiftion engrafted on that worftiip, to have 
 been founded on thofe emblematic ftones : of thefe they made 
 fuch account, that models of them, executed by their artifts in the 
 moft precious materials, were depofited in the temple of Hercu- 
 les at Tyre+. In that bufinefs indeed they came round to the 
 mythology of the egg, which when divided into two parts be- 
 came the model of thofe ambrofial ftones on the Phoenician me- 
 dals. They had their deity of the fea, reprefented on other me- 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 21, 29. t Ibid. p. 502, 504. 
 
176 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 dais as a female figure, but in the armour, and drefs, and aftion 
 of a man ; which was plainly following the eaftern idea of the 
 two fexes in the divinity, only applied to their own peculiar cir- 
 cumftances as a maritime people; and that figure unqueftionably 
 gave occafion to the Minerva of the Greeks. This deity of the 
 fea was difl;inguiftied on their medals by the name of EuplceenCy 
 which meant a good navigation ; and fhe was defcribed either as 
 ftanding on the prow of a veflel, or as holding the figure of it in 
 her hand : and from thence came the Venus of the Greeks, and 
 the notion that fhe was born in the fea, as well as that (he prefi- 
 ded over maritime expeditions*. But that female deity drew 
 the arts of Phoenicia ftill further. -fShe was reprefented on the 
 medals of Sidon in the figure of one of thofe obelifcal ftones;J;, 
 to which worfhip was paid before men had devifed ftatues of the 
 divinity, and one of which was long preferved at Emefus in Sy- 
 ria. That ftone was placed on a car§, which feems to have given 
 the hint to theufe of thofe machines in religious ceremonies, and 
 to the reprefentation of deities feated upon them. Prefently they 
 advanced further. She obtained at Sidon, whofe proteftrefs fhe 
 was, the name of Aflarte, and it is to her divinity that the allufion 
 is made, when we read of the Syrian goddefsj). They drew her 
 in the coins of that town as a bufl, feated on a car, with the mo- 
 dius or bvJJiel on her head, as the fymbol of abundance ; from 
 whence it was undoubtedly carried to Diana of Ephefus : and 
 that Diana derived alfo from the Phoenician Aflarte the figure of 
 the crefcent put over her head, which had been given to the lat- 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol. 2. p. 417, 418, note. t Ibid. p. 420, 423. 
 
 X Herodian in Macrin. lib. 7. p. 436. D'Ancarv. vol. i . p. 45. Vol. 2. p. 420, 421. 
 
 § See a plate of it, D'Ancarv. vol. 2. No. 29. pi. i. 
 
 )| Selden dediis Syr. Syntagm. 2. c. 2. p. 181. 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. I77 
 
 ter in many medals of Sidon, in confequence of her being confi- 
 dered, as Lucian fays*, to be the moon, and not unnaturally 
 when fhe was allowed to prefide over the fea. But in that buft of 
 Aflarte an important epoch was opened. We fee the firft traces 
 of thofe operations, by which fculpture came to fubftitute that 
 term o( ahuman head in the place of thofe fhapelefs ftones ; while 
 it was not yet able in that buft to feparate the arms, and to dif- 
 tinguifh other parts of the figure, for which reafon it was left as a 
 buft, and was cut off below the cheftt. Thefe works of Sidon, 
 which was the mother of Tyre, muft have been very ancient ; 
 they muft have been anterior by many ages to the days of La- 
 ban, when idols in fculpture growing from Scythian theology 
 were common in every houfe throughout Syria, as well as in La- 
 ban's. Thofe idols received the human figure ; they were called 
 " Teraphim ;" and we can make no doubt that long before the 
 days of Laban that figure had become regular, and that it was 
 executed in all proportions, fmaller as well as greater, fince 
 Rachel could carry away fome of thofe idols from her father, 
 and hide them under her J ; and it would be longer before thofe 
 fmaller proportions would either come into common ufe, or be 
 regularly executed, than the larger. It was one of the fame idols, 
 but of a larger fize, which Michal fo long afterwards put into 
 David's bed, in order to deceive Saul ^. We fee from hence the 
 deep root which thofe principles of theology had taken in that 
 country, and the continual exercife which they furniftied to fculp- 
 tural fkill. 
 
 Thus were the arts of Phoenicia put in motion by the princi- 
 ples of theology which had been eftabliftied there. And thus the 
 
 * Lucian de Dea Syria. + See a plate of it, D'Ancarv. vol. 2. No. 29. 
 
 pla^e 2. X Genefis, c. 31. v. 19, 30. § 1 Sam. c. 19. v. 13. 
 
 Vol. I. A a 
 
178 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 Phoenicians moved in common with others, to whom the fame 
 principles had arrived, although in fome refpefts they may be 
 faid perhaps to have moved on a more enlarged fcale. But that 
 which difcriminates their views from thofe of others in the exer- 
 cife of the arts, was the influence of their commercial fpirit, 
 which fucceeding next to the influence of their religious ideas, 
 took up thofe arts as means of commerce, and confined them 
 wholly to the ends of it. They were a commercial and fea- 
 faring people from their very fituation. Inhabiting the coafts of 
 Syria, with the ocean in their front, and mount Libanus on their 
 back for fliip-timber, they naturally embraced navigation for 
 their employment, and they were the firft navigators of antiquity. 
 Every thing that was rare or valuable in Afia, and in Egypt, and 
 in Greece, if that country had any thing valuable then, went 
 through their hands. So enured to the habits of trade, it was 
 impoflible for them to fliake off the influence of thole habits in 
 any circumftance by which they were affefted ; it was impofli- 
 ble for them to feel any other motives in the encouragement of 
 ingenious fls.ill equally ft^rong and dear to their minds with 
 the profpeft of gain. The fine arts were valuable in them- 
 felves, they were fought for their great ufefulnefs to the pre- 
 vailing theology, and they were precious to thofe who had any 
 notions of tafl^e. They were therefore a mofl; important branch 
 of commerce. Thofe, who had every market in their hands, 
 could not be inattentive to the value of that ingenuity which had 
 devolved in a manner upon themfelves, if not as it's only poflef- 
 fors, yet as the only people through whofe hands others could 
 obtain it at a diftance. Gold, and filver, and ivory, and pre- 
 cious metals were in the greatell abundance among them : thefe 
 became highly enriched in their value by the ingenuity and tafle 
 of the fculptor's hand. We mufl; not wonder, therefore, to fee 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. l«q 
 
 thofe powers of art mofl reduloufly cherifhed by the Phcenicians • 
 M'e muft not wonder to fee them, although they were traders ar- 
 tifts too, attentively engaged in thofe works of ingenious fliill. 
 Perhaps it was to exprefs how much thofe works were in voone 
 and to what extent the paffion for them was carried in that coun- 
 try, that poetical fable has reprefented a Pygmalion as abfolutely 
 in love with an ivory flatue which he had made *. 
 
 Whatever were his motives for a partiality to fculpture, thofe 
 of his countrymen were the hopes of commercial advantage. 
 And therefore it was fculpture which engaged their primary at- 
 tention. We have no evidences of their emulation in painting. 
 Sculpture was a marketable art. The precious materials, on which 
 it was employed, were every where intrinfic in their value, and 
 thofe of a humbler kind became precious by it's aid. It was 
 therefore an intrinfic article in itfelf, and it's value was more cer- 
 tain, bceaufe it was not eafily apt to perifh. If any other arts of 
 tafte were added to that, it was thofe which were employed on ge- 
 neral manufaflures, for the purpofe of commanding a market, and 
 of enfuring a price. But paintings had no flaple value : they could 
 not be carried from one man or one place to another through 
 the earth, with the affurance of obtaining a fpecific value for 
 the art by which they were compofed. In after-times indeed they 
 came to be made articles of traffic by other people, but that ufe of 
 them was not difcovered in Phoenicia, or circumftances were not 
 ripe for the practice ; and the Phoenicians were not adventurers 
 enough to trade, and much lefs to employ their labour at home, 
 in thofe articles which were precarious in their price. Painting 
 therefore made no figure among the other arts of that people ; it 
 
 * Ovid's Metam. lib. lo. v. 276, 
 
l8o ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 was rather left in negleft. If we are to take our account of it's 
 general employment from the words of Comes, who fpeaks ex- 
 prefsly of the cuftomary ufe to which the pencil was there devo- 
 ted, we fhall think it low enough : he fays, " non folum in nu- 
 " mifmatibus, fed in pifturis demefticis, ,et in navigiis jumento- 
 " rum imagines pingere confueverunt". 
 
 With this trait all their encouragement of the pencil, and all the 
 eminence it reached among them, is clofed to poflerity. What 
 muft we think of all their patronage of art, if the whole force of 
 their pencil centered in " beafls of burthen" ? But as they them- 
 felves were the carriers of the world, perhaps they thought that 
 what partook of their employment was moft worthy of being 
 diftinguilhed. 
 
 It was therefore the fpirit of commerce, more than the fpirit of 
 tafte, which gave any of the arts of elegance, except architec- 
 ture, a cultivation in Phoenicia, Thofe arts of elegance depend- 
 ed for their cultivation on the previous value annexed to their 
 ingenuity. Where that idea was out of fight, we find not a An- 
 gle produftion below the loweft and coarfefl: fubjefts. 
 
 Perhaps that feleftion of ideas fpoken of by Comes, and which 
 we may call the burthen of their tafte in domeftic piftures, was as 
 high as they could go. We muft not confider their charafter as 
 marked by poliflied and improved fentiment. When we have 
 made all proper allowances forfuperftition, the human mind was 
 probably never lower in ignorance than with them, when they were 
 out of their trade, or out of their particular profeflion. A fingle 
 faft will be fufficient to illuftrate this, efpecially when it is taken 
 not from their earlier, but their later, days. When Alexander 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. i8l 
 
 the Great was befieging Tyre, there flood in the city an immenfe 
 brazen flatue of Apollo*, which had once belonged to the city 
 of Gela in Sicily, till it was taken from thence by the Carthagi- 
 nians, and given as a prefent to their mother-city of Tyre. In 
 confequence of a dream by one of the citizens it was generally 
 imagined by the Tyrians, that Apollo was determined to leave 
 them, and go over to Alexander; to prevent which, they aftually 
 faftened his flatue to the altar of Hercules with a golden chain. 
 They were filly enough to believe that Hercules, the tutelar god 
 of their city, would prevent the other, when faflened in that 
 manner, from maJcing his efcapef. 
 
 In architeftuie, neverthelefs, they became diftinguifhed ; and 
 they were moving towards that diftinftion at all times. In every 
 country, where there is wealth, that branch of art has been fought, 
 for the befl reafon in the world, becaufe it is mofl: wanted. The 
 Phoenicians have been confidered as the firfl people who formed 
 and inflituted an order. The Tyrian order has been fpoken of 
 as prior to every other. We are not enabled to Ipeak of the 
 conflitution of that which has been fo called an order, unlefs we 
 may confider it as exhibited, a great many ages fubfequent to thefe 
 remoter times, in the pillars fet up by Phoenician architefts in 
 the porch of the temple at Jerufalem J. We confefs there is 
 no evidence fufificiently clear to demonllrate their poffeirion of a 
 regularly conflituted order before any others in the world. The 
 reader will recoiled that he has had before him the columns 
 which are now left in the ruins of Perfepolis, and which were ori- 
 ginally conflrufted there 3209 years before our sera. Thofe co- 
 
 » Dmd. Sic. lib. 13. p. 226. t Rollin's anc. Hift. vol. 6. p. 188, 189. 
 
 X 1 Kings, cap. 7. v. 15 — 22. 
 
l82 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 lumns came near in fome refpefts to the regularity of an order, 
 yet certainly they cannot be fpoken of as formed in any decided 
 fpirit of proportional conftruftion. Neverthelefs, in all proba- 
 bility they are the oldeft in the world : and it may have arifen 
 from the want of a right acquaintance with their age, and with 
 the nature of the ftrufture to which they appertained, and which 
 being miftaken would naturally lead to a miftake in their age, 
 that the architefture of Phoenicia has feemed to be the firft which 
 came forward in any regularity, and therefore has obtained the 
 charafter of an order. We fhould be apt to conclude that, fitu- 
 ated as the Phoenicians were to profit by the ingenuity to which 
 any part of Afia had advanced, and open as Egypt was to their 
 vifits, they could hardly avoid to aft upon fome of thofe exam- 
 ples around them, which had antiquity enough to lead their pur- 
 fuit ; although it may be true, and it is at leafl very probable, 
 that as their views of commerce fpirited up tJieir genius in fome 
 branches, and as their more enlarged acquaintance with the 
 world refcued them greatly from thofe confined ideas with 
 which the arts were generally profecuted in Afia, they would 
 improve upon the approaches to a regularity in architefture 
 which others had made before them. That they did advance 
 very greatly in the courfe of time, we have the fureft tefti- 
 mony in their employment under Solomon at Jerufalem. That 
 circumft^ance mufl induce the conclufion, that they had long ob- 
 tained a celebrity in architeftural profefiion, and in fculpture 
 too. The employment, to which they were there called, winds 
 up their charafter in both thofe branches of art. That charac- 
 ter will (land the higher, when it is recollefted that at that very 
 period the correfpondence between'* Judsea and Egypt was fo 
 amicable, that a marriage had juft taken place between Solomon 
 and the dausfhter of Pharoah. And does not that circumftance 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. 183 
 
 (hew, that the Phoenicians were confidered as more capable of a 
 progreflTive improvement in the arts than either the Egyptians or 
 the reft of the Afiatics ? It is true indeed that, as to Egypt, 
 thofe were the da)'s of that fad reverfe to the arts, which had 
 come on after Sefoftris, and which not all the five following cen- 
 turies had been able to terminate. Egypt therefore was going 
 down in the world : Affyria was gone down in that obfcurity 
 which covered the long interval from Ninias the fon of Semira- 
 mis to Phul the laft of it's kings but one ; and the eftabliniment 
 of magifm in Perfia forbad all thoughts of finding architefts and 
 artifts there. Yet both of them were found in Egypt fome ages 
 afterwards by Cambyfes, to execute the defigns of his palaces in 
 Perfia. 
 
 Let thofe circumftances have been as they might ; letneceffity 
 have been greater or lefs than choice in the call which was 
 made by Solomon on the architects and artifts of Phoenicia, their 
 talents were undoubtedly then of the firft rate. Defigns of fuch 
 extent and magnificence as thofe of the temple and the palaces at 
 Jerufalem, which were completed by Phoenician hands, or at leaft 
 under the direction of a Phoenician architeft, did never comport 
 with moderate capacities. That man, and any others of his 
 countrymen who afted with him, were certainly unlike the ge- 
 neration which rofe up afterwards when Alexander came before 
 Tyre. Had he or they been then living, they would not have 
 faftened Apollo to the altar of Hercules ; or it muft be true that 
 the moft enlarged conceptions may be combined with the grofteft 
 weaknefs. The immenfe fcale of that architefture at Jerufalem, 
 and it's innumerable ornaments ; the fplendid throne prepared 
 for Solomon, and formed of gold and ivory enriched with lions 
 and other figures engraved upon it ; the cherubims -, the veflels 
 
184 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 of gold ; the altar ; the pillars ; and the great fea of brafs fup- 
 ported by twelve brazen oxen, demonflrate thofe architefts and 
 artifts to have been capable of the moft lofty ideas, whatever 
 might have been the proportion of merit in the execution of 
 thofe works. They demonftrate alfo that the arts in their hands 
 were aged, and that it was not fo late as about 1000 years before 
 the Chriftian sera that thofe arts became firft fo advanced in Phoe- 
 nicia. What works of architeflure or fculpture had been exe- 
 cuted by thofe men, or by other Phoenicians, at home, the defola- 
 tion which awaited and overwhelmed Tyre has forbidden us to 
 know ; but there can be no doubt that the abilities, which could 
 do fo much at Jerufalem, had given confiderable proofs of them- 
 felves at Tyre. 
 
 Such then were the Phoenicians, from whom the Carthaginians 
 immediately ilfued. Thefe inherited from their original ftock 
 the fame predileftion for commerce ; but they did not inherit an 
 equal fpirit of enterprize in the arts. There is nothing therefore 
 in their hiftory but their clofe connexion with the Phoenicians, 
 which can attach the mention of them to our inquiry, efpecially 
 while we are engaged in Afia, and on the ages of remote anti- 
 quity. We fhall juft obferve that Carthage did indeed become 
 ftored with immenfe treafures of painting and fculpture : but 
 not one of thofe treafures was the work of their own hands, or 
 the produ6lion of their own emulation. They were all the fpoih 
 of their conquefts, augmenting the loffes and fufferings of Sicily, 
 and deflined to become again the fpoils of a foldiery, or to be 
 carried by Scipio to Rome, or to be reflored by that conqueror 
 to their firft owners*. But we are told that the temple of Apollo 
 
 * Cicero, lib. 4. in Verremj cap. 33. Appian de Bell. pun. p. 83,84. 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. 185 
 
 in Carthage was fingularly rich and fuperb, and that the fta- 
 tue of that god placed in that temple, when it was broken to 
 pieces by Scipio's foldiers, amounted to a thoufand talents of 
 gold*. It might be fo. Idolatry and fuperftion, or, if you will, 
 religion will lay under contribution even the calculations of mer- 
 cantile gain : no calculation is fo clofe or fordid, but it has fome 
 vanity or oflentation to be gratified. If that flatue of gold were 
 their own workmanlhip, there was nothing in the age or in their 
 fituation, any more than in that of the Phoenicians, to hinder their 
 capacity for fuch a work, or for the magnificent building that 
 contained it. And the buckler of Afdrubal, which was ordered 
 to be laid up in the capitol at Rome as a choice fpoil, not only 
 becaufe it was his buckler, but becaufe it was excellently engra- 
 ved, may as naturally be fuppofed to come from the trading Car- 
 thaginians, as any of the engravings on precious metals came 
 from the trading Phoenicians. 
 
 CHAP. IV. 
 
 The fine arts not to be expeBed, but in a very confined view, 
 among the Hebrexos or Ifraelites — the influence of Scythian 
 theology no where more prevalent than with them, and for a 
 long time — the arts that were conneded with that theology re- 
 tained much longer than far any other purpofes—fome of the 
 leading emblems of that theology retained by God himfelf in 
 his divine revelation — the retention of thofe emblems no argu- 
 ment againfi the divine wifdom. 
 
 JThe Phoenicians were fo called by the Greekst: originally they 
 were known by the name of Canaanites. As they were mer- 
 
 * Appian, lib. 14. -t- Calmet, vol, i. p. 272. Vol. 3. p.. 131. Marfli. p. 2C)o. 
 Vol. I. Bb 
 
l86 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 chants, at leaft fuch of them as lived near the fea-coaft, it has 
 caufed fome to be fo ingenious as to find the fenfe of merchant in 
 the definition of Canaanite * ; which is evidently converting a 
 remote confequence into an original caufe, and arguing a priori 
 indeed for the deftinations of life, as it fuppofes an invincible ne- 
 celFity on the mind of Canaan, the anceftor of thefe people, to 
 make his poflerity merchants. Part of their country became af- 
 terwards pofleffed by the Hebrews under the name of Paleftine. 
 We cannot therefore fpeak of that people in a more proper 
 place. Their concern in the fine arts was not indeed extenfive; 
 in it's objefts it was entirely confined to religion, and was pur- 
 pofely narrowed in it's exercife by the firft principles of Judaifm ; 
 in it's origin it was entirely derived from Egypt ; and in it's influ- 
 ence it went no farther than themfelves, becaufe it was a great 
 principle of their fyftem to have no communication with others. 
 All that is left therefore to be faid concerning them, if we adhere 
 to the immediate progrefs of the arts, is very confined. But 
 there is a conneft ion with thofe arts fomewhat more remote, and 
 arifing from the view of the firll habits, and indeed of the 
 continued prejudices of that people, which may not be thought 
 irrelevant to the purpofe of our inquiry. If this fliould be 
 confidered in any refpeft as a digreffion from that purpofe, it will 
 prefently lofe that name as it comes round to a moft impreflTne 
 confirmation of the exiftence and diffufion of that Scythicifm, 
 which gave the firft fpring and direction to all the more elegant 
 arts. That confirmation will be made good, when we have (hewn 
 how faft and how long the minds of the Hebrews or Ifraelites, 
 by whatever name they came progreftively to be called, were pof- 
 feffed by thofe principles of Scythian theology, and with what 
 
 • Braun. de Veftitu. facerd. Hebr. p. 251. 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. 187 
 
 policy (if we may ufe the phrafe) the Almighty conduced the 
 procefs of that revelation, by which he meant to wean them 
 from thofe principles. 
 
 We have feen already how common the idols growing out of 
 that theology were in Syria, when Jacob left Laban ; and they 
 were not lefs common at the fame time in Canaan, when Jacob 
 removed them all from his houfe*. When we come to take our 
 review of Egypt, we fhall find that the Hebrews, while they 
 were multiplying their numbers there, were inevitably encreaf- 
 ing the influence of mythological Scythicifm, which their long 
 fojourning there did but imprefs the deeper on every genera- 
 tion. When they left that country, they fhewcd very clearly the 
 religious tuition which they had received in common with every 
 other mortal that drew his breath in Egypt. They carried from 
 thence the moft profound veneration for the ox and the fer- 
 pent, the one the emblem of the fupreme generator of animal 
 Jife, the other the emblem of the great fource of intelligent Na- 
 ture ; thefe were the two common points of union in all the firft 
 religions of the earth ; to thefe it is hard to fay when they ceafed 
 to be attached ; and it is equally difficult to fay which of the the- 
 ological or mythological emblems of the Scythians they did not 
 embrace with a full belief that thev were embracing a folid prin- 
 ciple of religion t. Thefe were the idolatries to which they were 
 fo prone; "the fin of Ifrael," as they were called; from which 
 not all the prohibitions of God himfelf, the remonftrances of the 
 prophets, and the punifhments which they felt from time to time 
 were able for many ages completely to reftrain them. Hardly 
 had their feet refted in the wildernefs, after the flupendous proofs 
 
 * Genefis, cap. 35. v. 2. 
 
 t D'Ancarv. Pref. p. 12, 14. Vol. i. p. 48, 323, 468, note. 
 
l88 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 which the Almighty had given of his proteftion and deliverance 
 of them from the power of the Egyptians, when, feeling the re- 
 turns of idolatrous attachments in the fliort abfence of Mofes, 
 they called upon Aaron " to make them gods which fliould go 
 " before them ;" and Aaron himfelf, inftead of remonftrating and 
 refilling, aftonifhingly fell in with their prejudice*. The idea 
 fuggelled to Aaron of having an idol to go before them was com- 
 pletely Scythian ; for fo the Scythians afled in all their pro- 
 grefs through Afia, with this difference that their idol was a liv- 
 ing animal +, and that idol they brought with them into India un- 
 der the name of Bofwa, which name the fpecics of it retains there 
 ftill+;. When the wifh of the Hebrews was completed in the 
 golden calf, it fliewed more plainly the origin from whence their 
 thought had fprung, although they had gathered it in Egypt; 
 for that Bofwa of the Scythians was an ox. The ancient Cimbri, 
 tutored by the fame example, carried an ox of bronze before 
 them in all their expeditions^. The Ifraelites, having gained 
 their favourite god, came next to dance around that emble- 
 matic figure on a fpecial feftival appointed ; and every circum- 
 flance in that tranfaftion correfponded with the feflivals which 
 were held in adoration of the emblematic " Urotal," or ox, in 
 that very part of Arabia near mount Sinai, where this event 
 took place |1. So that they were ready to embrace the ido- 
 latrous practices of any people, although they had never feen 
 them before. That was not the only inftance. When they 
 were become a little more fettled, they fell into all the habits of 
 necromancy**, which were peculiar to Chalda^a, and which 
 were carried on by means of the emblematic python or ferpent ; 
 
 * Exod. c. 32. t D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 140, note. % Sonnerat's 
 
 Voy. vol. I. p. 184 pi. 59. D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 72. § Ib.d. p. 72. 
 
 225, note. \ Ibid. p. 46. ** Deut. c. 18. v. 11, 14. 1 Sam. c. 28. v. 7. 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. 189 
 
 yet thofe praftices were unknown in Egypt, from the reverence 
 which that people paid to the repofe of the dead* : and this fpe- 
 cies, if not of idolatry, yet of fuperftition, which had evidently 
 grown out of the ruling emblematic theology, continued very 
 flrong among the Ifraelites above nine hundred years after 
 the death of Mofes, when Jofiah abolifhed the pythons in 
 the tribe of Judah and in the territory of Jerufalemf. Al- 
 moll to the end of their commonwealth they were as ready, 
 as when Jeroboam fet up his golden calves in Bethel and 
 in Dan, to follow thofe idols, wherever they were prefented to 
 their eyes, and to defert for them the magnificent temple in Je- 
 rufalemf. They never could forbear to liften to the tongues 
 that faid, " behold, in thefe, thy gods O Ifrael, which brought 
 " thee up out of the land of Egypt." Their idolatrous pre- 
 judices went ftill further, and (hewed them to be ready for every 
 mythology which engrafted itfelf on thofe prejudices, fulfill- 
 ing the words of Mofes, by facrificing even "to new gods 
 " that came newly up, whom their fathers did not fear"§. But 
 thofe gods, how varioufly featured foever, feem indeed to have 
 had, in their minds, but one ultimate reference to a fupreme 
 Being, although they intercepted all his homage, and therefore 
 darkened his exiftence and his providence : and that fupreme 
 Being they confidered only as one, Jehovah; they never were 
 brought by the emblematic habits of Egypt and of Afia to view 
 him in both fexes, although a predileftion for an emblematic 
 religion was no where ftronger than in their minds ||. 
 
 It is evident that thofe habits of emblematic devotion were 
 not gratified without affiftance from the arts. And fo far as 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 468. t Ibid. % i Kings,c. 12. v. 28, 30. 
 
 § Dute. c. 32. V. 17. II D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 236, note. 
 
iQO ~ ASIAllC ARTS. 
 
 thofe gratifications were concerned we may be fure that the Ifrael- 
 ites never loft the means which thofe arts fupphed. But they felt 
 no impulfe to carry the cultivation of them farther. A ver)' con- 
 fined compafs of art, when once they were in the habit of it, 
 and efpecially when that art confifted chiefly in molten images, 
 was fufficient to fatisfy their old attachments ; and as they were 
 not in the way of being fpirited up by examples from the genius 
 of others, fo their own ingenuity became more languid to general 
 exertions. They were much more able in the arts when they 
 firft came out of Egypt, than they appear to have ever been 
 afterwards. They had juft left a country where every ingenuity 
 was alive before them, where there was a call for ingenuous 
 (kill from every hand, and Avhere the policy of government, how- 
 ever ftrift to them in other refpefts, impofed no difficulties on 
 their endeavours to become as able and ufeful as they could in 
 thofe ingenious works which were the pride of the Egyptians. We 
 therefore view them in the beft advantages of their arts, when they 
 were come into the wildernefs. Bezaleel and Aholiab then gave 
 a charafler to their nation, which not all the fucceflion of fubfe- 
 quent ages enabled them to equal or approach. It was not thofe 
 men alone, although they were fpecially felefted as leading 
 artifts, who were diftinguifhed as fuch among that people; 
 the language of fcripture plainly bids us to underftand that 
 there were a great many others, " who knew how to execute 
 " all manner of work", and who were accordingly fummoned 
 by Mofes to the fervice of the fan6luary*. Neither was it the 
 molten image alone, or the works of ftatuary, to which they 
 were then competent. The engraving of precious ftones, and the 
 fetting of thofe ftones in plates of gold, were marked performan- 
 ces in their hands +. They were then alfo in the habits of coin- 
 
 • Exod. c. 36. V. I, 2. t Ibid, c. 39. 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. IQl 
 
 age, for it was fettled by Mofes in ■what pieces of money every 
 individual fhould make a contribution to the fanftiiary* ; and 
 it is faid by good authority, that the merit of their coins was 
 then much more advanced than thofe which the Greeks firft 
 received from Erifthoniust; although the period of which we now 
 fpeak was near a century earlier than Erifthonius, and a period 
 very early in itfelf, for the Hebrews left Egypt 1597 years before 
 our jera, and the tabernacle was fet up by Mofes precifely two 
 years after J. There muft have been a prodigious decline in the 
 talents, or a very great alteration in the purfuits, of that people 
 in the courfe of the next 500 years by which time moft coun- 
 tries were improving faft in every knowledge, when Solomon 
 could not find among his own fubjefts proper workmen for the 
 building of the temple and his palaces, but was conftrained to 
 feek them from the neighbouring king of Tyre. The caufe, 
 neverthelefs, was clear. It was not the purpofe of the Almighty 
 to fee the Ifraelites improved in arts. To them the arts were 
 dangerous things, and had either produced or helped on the cor- 
 ruptions which had been fo mifchievous to their minds and to 
 their welfare. He meant them to be improved in that theology, 
 which fo far from requiring to be helped by the arts, exprefsly 
 forbad the image or reprefentation of any thing that was made 
 upon the earth, or that was feen in the creation. 
 
 It is true, in the Mofaic difpenfation the Almighty did not com- 
 miffion that lawgiver and minifler of his purpofe to wipe away 
 the influence of all emblematic ideas from the minds of his peo- 
 ple. Nine hundred years before that difpenfation was given, 
 the fecond Zoroafter had attempted, but with much imperfec* 
 
 * Exod. c. 30. V. 13. t D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 49, 50. % Ibid. 
 
192 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 lion, to efFeftuate in Perfia a melioration of that very theology, 
 from whofe corruptions Mofes was called forth to lay the founda- 
 tion of weaning the world. Yet that Perfian lawgiver, whofe 
 firft feature looked with feverity on every image or emblematic 
 figure of the fupreme Being, and even on every temple prepared 
 for his worfhip, left the Perfians to behold his attributes in the 
 contemplation of light and fire. The revelation to the Jews with 
 more fuccefs, but with the delays of ages, effeftuated it's reform 
 on the very fame theology. It ftarted pretty nearly from the fame 
 point in which the main principles of Zoroafter centered, when 
 it faid, " thou fhalt not make to thee any graven image, nor any 
 " likenefs of any thing that is in heaven, or in earth, or in the 
 " waters ; thou fhalt not bow down thyfelf to them *." Yet it left 
 it's countenance to fome of thofe very emblems which had been 
 conftantly interpofed between the human mind and the fupreme 
 fource of all things by every people that had participated of that 
 theology, from the Scythians to the Jews. This is a curious fpe- 
 culation : and what other avenues foever it may open to reflec- 
 tion, one argument becomes decided by it, that fuch a primitive 
 theology as that which we have flated, and which the hiftory of 
 the world will only fuffer us to find as an emanation from the 
 Scythians, emanating themfelves from Japhet, was generally pre- 
 valent through the earth : and that however corrupt it might 
 have been rendered by the mythologies of nations, or however 
 unfortunate it might have been in it's firft aflbciation with em- 
 blems, it was founded in much ftrength of principle, and perhaps 
 in a vindicable ufe of thofe emblems in their firft fimplicity, and 
 to firft ages, could they have been fecured from all the corrupt 
 confequences that flowed from them. 
 
 * Dcut. c. 5. V. 8, 9. 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. I93 
 
 When God direfied the tabernacle to be made, two cherubims 
 of beaten gold were ordered to be placed on the mercy-feat over 
 the ark, with their faces turned towards each other, and their 
 wings extended ib as to cover the whole mercy-feat*. If the au- 
 thority of Mr. Stevensi may decide the interpretation of their 
 name, it means majler and multiplier ; and fo they became a 
 fign, which met the firft and leading idea of all others by which 
 men had been accuftomed from the remoteft ages to conceive the 
 fupreme Being as the generating poxoer which multiplies all the 
 beings of the earth. But farther : if the figure of cherubim were 
 a conftant and uniform figure, and if thofe cherubims which Eze- 
 chiel faw in a vifion near the river Chobar J may be confidered as 
 defcriptive of the two cherubims over the ark, then the latter 
 had a face of the ox. It has been already mentioned that the 
 ox, which was revered in Arabia was called Adonai. And accord- 
 ingly Aaron, announcing the feaft to the golden calf, fpeaks 
 thus, Chag Ladonai Machar^; that is, " feftum Adonai eras ;" 
 "to-morrow is a feaft to Adonai," in our tranflation of the Bible 
 it is faid, "to the Lordjj", adopting the thing fignified inftead of 
 the type, and therefore ftrengthening the intended relation be- 
 tween them. Now "Adonai," according to the fame authori- 
 ty of Stevens**, means " the bafe of the Lord" ; fo that the 
 ox Adonai of Arabia was a fymbol of the throne of God. And 
 how ftrongly was this idea met by the difpofition of thofe cheru- 
 bims, in whofe faces the countenance of the ox was difcerned, 
 and in whofe extended wings a kind of platform was effefted 
 over the whole mercy-feat? efpecially when the Ifraelites knew 
 
 * Exod. c. 25. V. 18, 20. t Iiiterp. vocal. Hebr. Chald. Bibl. 
 
 X Ezech. c. I V. 7, 10. § Seld. de diis Syr. Syntag. i. c. 14. 
 
 \ Exod. c. 32. V. 5. ** Ubi fupra. 
 
 Vol. I. C c 
 
194 
 
 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 tliat on thofe wings the divine majefly meant to be feated, when- 
 ever it pleafed God to come down to his people, according to 
 thofe exprefs declarations, " and there I will meet with thee, and 
 " 1 will commune with thee from above the mercy-feat, from be- 
 " tween the two cherubims, of all things which I will give thee 
 " in commandment to the children of Ifrael*". 
 
 The emblem of the ferpent was marked yet more decidedly by 
 the exprefs direftion of the Almighty. That animal had ever 
 been confidered as emblematic of the fupreme generating power 
 of intelligent life. And was that idea difcouraged, fo far as it 
 went to be a fign or fymbol of life, when God faid to Mofes, 
 " make thee a brazen ferpent, and fet it upon a pole, and it (hall 
 " come to pafs that every one who is bitten, when he looketh 
 " upon it, (hall live? +". If that emblem was continued in the 
 Jewiih difpenfation as an innocent fign of prefent life, was the 
 reference to it lefs diftinguifhed in the New Teftament, when 
 Jefus Chrift, placing himfelf in analogy to the exaltation of that 
 ferpent by Mofes, and therefore recognizing it's ufe, declared 
 " that thofe who (hould look up to him with faith Ihould obtain 
 •' the life which was eternal ? J". 
 
 In an enquiry which profeflTes to follow the fine arts, we 
 Ihall not fuller ourfelves to be led too far into collateral views, 
 although as collateral they have a manifeft relation to the prin- 
 cipal objeft. We (liall therefore only mention another inftance 
 to the fame purpofe with thofe which have been adduced. Fire 
 had ever been confidered as a primary emblem of the fupreme 
 
 ' Exocl.c. 25. V. 22. Numb. c. 7. V. 89. + Numb. c. 21. v. 8. 
 
 + John, c. 3. V. 14, 15. 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. I95 
 
 fource of all things ; an emblem, which was mod ftudioufly che- 
 rifhed by thofe who had received and retained the moft ancient 
 ideas of the Scythian theology, and which even they who were 
 moft diftant from thofe original ideas never failed to cherifh. In 
 many countries it gave a facrednefs and an inviolable afylum to 
 the building in which it was lighted up for religious ufes*. When 
 Zoroafter endeavoured to reform the corruptions of that theolo- 
 gy, he left this ancient emblem undifturbed. It was farther con- 
 fidered as a fymbol of that great Being which always was exiftant ; 
 and therefore the habit became embraced very early, and at all 
 times by thofe who adhered moft clofely to the primitive princi- 
 ples of that theology, to keep up that fire perpetual on fome 
 particular altars, or in fome particular temples. A proof of this 
 is given by Paufanias+ among the Arcadians, who are faid to 
 have maintained the ancient Scythian theology more ftriftly than 
 any others of the Greeks;]; ; that people kept up a fire perpetu- 
 ally burning before the ftatue of Pan, in the interior part of a 
 temple confecrated to him. It was not in the fame fpirit of reli- 
 gious ufe, but it was neverthelefs in a continuation of the fame 
 religious emblem, that the Ifraelites were commanded to keep 
 up on the altar of burnt-offering a fire which ftiould be always 
 burning, and ftiould never go out^. They were forbidden to fa- 
 crifice by fire as the nations around them had done||; yet it 
 was unqueftionably retained as an emblem or fymbol of purifi- 
 cation, when all the fpoils of the enemy, and all that was unclean, 
 were made to pafs through it**. 
 
 The continuation of thofe ancient emblems of theology in a 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol. i.p. 190, note. t Lib. 7. p. 677. 
 
 I D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 363, note. § Levit. c. 6. v. 9, I2, 13. 
 
 J Levit. c. 18. V. 21. Deut. c. 18. V. 10. ** Numb. c. 31. v. 23. 
 
196 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 degree of impreffion, but not in that imprelTion which they had 
 once obtained, induces no argument to impeach the divine wif- 
 dom. It mufl be underflood that thofe emblems, when they 
 were firll employed in the patriarchal theology, and were firfl 
 difleminated by the Scythians to other countries, were innocent 
 in their purpofe ; they were intended as figns to lift the mind in 
 various ways to the contemplation of the fupreme original princi- 
 ple of all things, but not as images to reprefent his attributes or 
 his afts, and much lefs to intercept and abforb his worfhip*. It 
 was in the procefs of time that mankind, fuffering themfelves to 
 lofe fight of this diftin6lion, began to fubftitute thofe attributes 
 and afts, fo figured in thofe images, in the place of that adorable 
 principle which had produced the one, and to which the other 
 appertainedt. When therefore the Almighty recognized thofe 
 emblems, it was done to fliew the world how grofsly the primi- 
 tive fenfe and ufe of them had been perverted, to ftrip them of 
 the idolatrous fenfe to which fuperftition had brought them, and 
 to teach mankind that while the fign may be innocent, which 
 ferves merely to point the thoughts to a divine principle, they 
 {hould be cautious to keep it innocent, not to confound that 
 fign with the objetl which is fignified by it, nor to let the mind 
 entertain the conception of his divine likenefs in any of his 
 works, who will neither be refembled by any thing, nor be 
 worfliipped through any imaginary refemblance. This inftruc- 
 tion he could more forcibly convey by the notice which he 
 thought fit to take of thofe emblems than if he had never noticed 
 them at all. At the fame time there was manifeftly in that no- 
 tice of them a degree of indulgence to thofe partialities which 
 had become rooted by length of ages, while they were properly 
 
 ♦ 
 
 D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 189, note. + Ibid. p. 49, note. 
 
ASIATIC ARTS. I97 
 
 chaftifed. But that indulgence was not greater than the wifdom 
 which moved with fo much tendernefs to bring his people round 
 to the melioration of their principles which he had in view. Had 
 he exprefsly crufhed every rifing thought in their minds, which 
 fhould lift itfelf to religious views by the means of thofe emble- 
 matic ideas to which they had been accuftomed, he mufl have 
 wrought a miracle on their minds at once, without which moft 
 probably they would never have been brought to better princi- 
 ples of religion. Proceeding as he did, inftead of conflifting 
 with their prejudices, and arming them againd his reform, he gent- 
 ly led thofe prejudices to his own purpofes ; he fufFered his peo- 
 ple to borrow, if they pleafed, thofe helps to the mind, which had 
 been fanftioned by the pureft of their patriarchal forefathers, fo 
 long as the mind was kept clear from any idolatrous corruption ; 
 and fo he led them, in faft, to conceive that in the embracing of 
 his revelation no violence was done to their modes of thinking, 
 they were not thrown into any new channel, or at leall they 
 were not thrown completely out of an old one. 
 
 It is not needful to argue, nor will it follow as a confequence, 
 that thofe helps to the mind may be equally proper to be encou- 
 raged in the religious progrefs of all people, in all ages, and un- 
 der all degrees of revealed knowledge. It is fufficient for the 
 prefent queftion, that the Ifraelites were accuftomed fo to move 
 in their views of religion, and that divine wifdom faw it fit to 
 confult thofe habits in the extent which has been (hewn. But 
 another confequence, univerfal in it's application, will follow 
 from thofe divine meafures ; that in all important reforms there 
 is great wifdom in confulting reafonably the prejudices which 
 have long fubfifted, in moving by degrees rather than by abrupt 
 and unqualified feverity to the eftablifhment of the very beft in- 
 
198 ASIATIC ARTS. 
 
 flitution, and in making the mofl prudent compromife not with 
 the principles which are wrong, but with thofe which may be 
 hazardous in their exercife, rather than multiply difficulties to 
 the fuccefs of thofe which are right and precious. 
 
 We {hall now return to our principal enquiry, which has been 
 fomewhat interrupted by thefe circumftances of the Jews. But 
 they were fo combined in their fource with that which became a 
 main-fpring to the arts, that we could not do them juftice by a 
 more contra6led difcuffion. If they do not immediately concern 
 the progrefs of thofe arts, yet they give ftrength to all the rela- 
 tive circumftances in which thofe arts are interefted. 
 
C 199 3 
 
 BOOK II. 
 EGYPT. 
 
 CHAP. I. 
 
 All it's arts, and earlier knowledge, derived from AJia, and from 
 Scythian principles — thofe arts very ancient, but difficult to be 
 traced to their epochs, and fcarce in their remains, from vari- 
 ous caufes — the palace or maufoleum of Oyfmandes — paintings 
 in the monuments cf Upper Egypt — no reafon to exped^ many 
 progreffive improvements in the arts of that country — the If- 
 raelites injlructed there in the arts they afterwards executed — 
 the ardour of Sefoflris to improve Egypt — all his embellifi- 
 ments annihilated by progreffive calamities after his reign — 
 the lofs of freedom followed by a complete deprefjion of the 
 fpirit of art — that fpirit not to be revived by Alexander the 
 Great, fought in vain to be reanimated by the two firfi Ptole- 
 mies, and irrecoverably extinguifhed by the flcuvery to which 
 the Egyptians have ever fince been doomed. 
 
 1 H E Egyptians obtained their knowledge of the fine arts from 
 Afia. The fables of their own chronicles*, and the language of 
 fome writers influenced by thofe fables, may have reprefented that 
 people, and have caufed them to be often confidered, as fettled, 
 or at lead as civilized, earlier than any othersf, and confequently 
 
 * Auguft. de Civit. dei, lib. 18. c. 40. 
 + Goguet's Orig. of Laws, vol. i. p. 65. 
 
200 EGYPTIAN ARTS. 
 
 as not likely to derive from Afia their firfl advances in know- 
 ledge. And we will not fay that they were not fettled as foon as 
 any others, if they are confidered as brought into Egypt by Ham 
 the fon of Noah ; although Juflin, fpeaking of their antiquity, 
 and meaning undoubtedly their fettlement as much as their civi- 
 lization, fays, that they were never fo ancient as the Afiatic Scy- 
 thians; " yEgyptiis antiquiores femper Scythae vifi*". Neither 
 fhall we wait to enquire into the firft evidences of their know- 
 ledge, which mufl have been pretty much on a level with the 
 firft knowledge of every other people, until they became by fome 
 means more improved. We fhall only obferve that the fame tra- 
 dition, which gives them their defcent from Ham, brings them 
 with him as a colony from the plains of Shinar+ ; and that the 
 firft of their legiflators, who has ever been fpoken of as giving 
 them written laws, was MnevesJ, with whom their monarchy 
 properly began ; but he was not earlier than Ninus on any chro- 
 nological reckoning ; and that period, we fliall recolle6l, was 
 1500 years after the Indians had received their Vedams from 
 Brouraa. 
 
 It may alfo be conceived that the Egyptians were not likely to 
 derive their earlier knowledge from Afia, when it was one of 
 their firft maxims, never to leave their own country ^, and one 
 of their firft political inftitutions, to exclude all ftrangers from 
 itjl; and that leaft of all were they likely to derive any know- 
 
 * Juftin,lib. 2. c. i. + Goguet, vol. i. p. 48. 
 
 J Diod. Sic. lib. i.p. 19, 105. Mneves pretended to receive his laws from Mer- 
 cury ; and from thence the Egyptians regarded Mercury as the inventor of hiero- 
 glyphic writing. Plato, p. 374. E. p. 1240. A. They had laws before from Vulcan, 
 Helius, and Ofiris, but not written. Diod. Sic. lib. i. p. 17, 18. 
 
 § Clem. Alexand. Strom, lib. i. p. 354. 
 
 \\ Died. Sic. lib. 1. p. 78. Strabo, lib. 17. p. 1174. 
 
EGYPTIAN ARTS, 201 
 
 ledge from India, when the Indians went out of their own coun- 
 try no more than they. But thefe circumftances will throw- 
 no great difficulty on the fa61, that they derived their earlier 
 knowledge from Afia, and even from India. For as all popular 
 maxims and political inftitutions are apt to be invaded, fo 
 were thefe. It is an eflabliflied record of hiltory, that in very 
 ancient times individuals went from Egypt into Greece, and 
 formed colonies there* ; and that in times more ancient flill one 
 of the ports in Egypt was open to the veffels of Phoenicians 
 alonet. In thofe veffels undoubtedly all thofe were fhipped 
 that migrated from Egypt ; and by the fame means an avenue was 
 always open to a communication with Afia, and India itfelf, al- 
 though the Indians were more rigid in their maxim of flaying 
 at home, and feeking no fettlements clfewhere, tlian the Egyp- 
 tians. 
 
 But we muft come yet clofer to the faft. The Scythians, 
 whofe greater antiquity in civilization, if not in fettlement, we 
 have already feen attefled by Juflin, had made a defcent upon 
 Egypt, before ever they fet their feet in India. Diodorus Sicu- 
 lus fays, that they penetrated as far as to the Nile J : but Juflin 
 fays, '•■ ab ^Egypto paludes prohibuere §" ; fo that they muft have 
 been in the country, and have done it fome fervice. Both agree 
 that they afterwards turned their arms againft the nations of Afia, 
 and fubdued them. Whatever impreflions of another kind that 
 vifit might leave upon the Egyptians, there can be no doubt but 
 that people derived from thence, or from the general diffufion 
 of Scythian principles, that caft of fentiment which fixed their 
 
 * Goguet, vol. I. p. 64, 65. + Herod. lib. i. n, i. lib. 2. n, 179, 
 
 + Diod. Sic. Biblioth. lib. 2. § Juftin, lib, 2, cap. 3. 
 
 Vol. I. D d 
 
202 EGYPTIAN ARTS. 
 
 religion, and gave the firfl birth and direftion to their arts. This 
 is plain from the flrength in which thofe principles were ever found 
 eflablifhed there from the earlieft times. We mean not to fay 
 that thofe principles abforbed all previous ideas in the Egyptian 
 mind, as they did in the Indian ; for the Egyptians were a great 
 people from the firfl, and it was enough that even in their ruder 
 fituation they admitted other ideas to be engrafted on their own. 
 Superflition, wherever it is fed, is an eafy avenue to fuch effe6ls ; 
 and from thofe effefts the Egyptians certainly received the pre- 
 dileftion, which has never fince left them, for emblematic know- 
 ledge. The main principles therefore of Scythicifm became 
 their own, and were mixed with the bent of their own primitive 
 notions, under names which their own language gave, or which 
 their previous reverence for charafters had made habitual *. 
 
 If we were even to diftrufl the idea of a Scythian influence on 
 the minds of the Egyptians, we cannot fee how an influence 
 amounting to the fame thing, and produftive of the fame noti- 
 ons, may not be fuppofed confift;ently to have followed from their 
 own leader Ham or his immediate defcendants. For the princi- 
 ples of religion, which Brouma derived from the defcendants of 
 Japhet, are afferted to have been pure and Ample, direfting 
 the mind to one only, fupreme, and eternal God+j to whom 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 308, note, 
 t D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 107. The modern hiftorians of India, taking their docu- 
 ments from the facred books of that country, are fufficient to afTure us of this fad. 
 Holwell, fpeaking of Brouma, whom he happens to call " Brahmah", fays that 
 " he preached the exiftence of one only eternal God," (Holwell's Hift. p. 72.) Dow 
 gives a more explicit account, recording part of a difcourfe which Brouma, called by 
 him " Brimha" is faid to have held with his fon Narud, as it is found in one of the fa- 
 cred books of the Bramins, from which that author has literally tranflated it. In that 
 
EGYPTIAN ARTS. 
 
 203 
 
 however the mind raifed itfelf by emblems : it was the corrup- 
 tions of mythologies, and the mifchiefs which perhaps are natu- 
 rally engendered by an emblematic religion, that broke in upon 
 the purity and fimplicity of thofe firft principles. The fame 
 principles therefore, confidered as authentic in their origin, would 
 naturally find their way to all the fons of Noah as well as to 
 one of them ; and under the fame idea of their being aflifted by 
 emblems, they would certainly be cultivated by all in the fame 
 manner. If this fuflains at all events the probable influence of 
 principles, fimilar to thofe of the Scythians, in Egypt as well 
 as in the reft of the world on it's firft fettlement after the flood, 
 it cannot be urged to contradift exprefs authorities which have 
 bidden us to look to Scythian movements in particular fitu- 
 ations, for the produftion of that influence, lo congenial with 
 what is known to have been the ancient principles and habits 
 entertained in Scythia. 
 
 By thefe means it came that the Egyptians, as well as the 
 Indians and Perfians, had both the fexes in their divinity under 
 the names of Ofiris and Ifis*: thofe two fexes were often con- 
 joined in one figure of that divinity, as the Indians had conjoin- 
 ed them in their Brouma, and the Perfians in their Mithras. 
 Ifis, the female part of that divinity, was confidered as the moon, 
 correfponding with the feminine emblem of the Indian's noftur- 
 nal fun ; her lighted Tyrfus, the fymbol of day, was reverfed as a 
 fymbol of night and darknefs, in the fame way as it was feen re- 
 verfed befide the no6lurnal fun in Afiat. She was alfo confidered 
 
 paflage Brimha is fpeaking of the fupreme Being, and fays, " being immaterial, he 
 " is above all conception ; being invifible, he can have no form ; but from what we 
 " behold in his works, we may conclude that he is eternal, omnipotent, knowing 
 " all things, and prefent every where." 
 * Plut. in Ifid. et Ofirid. D'Ancarv. vol. 3. p. 165. + Ibid. vol. 3. p. 167. 
 
204 EGYPTIAN ARTS. 
 
 as the mother of the world, and from thence there was put 
 over her head that myfterious veil, to wliich the infcription in 
 the temple of Sais alluded*, fimilar to the veil which in Afiatic 
 figures was generally thrown over a part of the male figure, a 
 veil which they meant to fay no mortal (hould raife. If the Ve- 
 nus Anaitis, which exprefled the female fex of the Perfian Mi- 
 thras, had wings, thefe were alfo given to the Egyptian Ifis, and 
 to the Circopithecus which was one of her emblems. A difk with 
 a circle in the middle was made the fymbol of Ofiris, as it had 
 been given to the Perfian Mithras. And in the worftiip of the 
 former the fame ceremonies were obferved, which diftinguifhed 
 the celebration of the death and refurreftion of the latter in Per- 
 fia+. The Egyptian divinity was reprefented on the leaves of 
 the tamaraj, or of the lotus a fpecies of the tamara, which was 
 the great emblem of divine charafter originally brought from 
 Scythia, and afterwards employed by the Indians, to whofe dei- 
 fied Brouma it was peculiarly devoted §. Pan was the deity firft 
 worfliipped in Egypt, as the principle of all things || ; and Pan 
 was found originally in Scythia, and by degrees in every part of 
 theeaft**. That principle was varioufly perfonified by others, 
 and as varioufly by the Egyptians. When it was revered in the 
 ox of the Scythians, and of all the Afiatics after them, that ox 
 was alfo embraced and worfhipped as a god in Heliopolis ; and, 
 what is \er)' remarkable, they gave it in that city the name of their 
 great legidator Mneves++ ; at other times it was diftinguiflied by 
 the name of Apis, which was but a variation on the Scythian 
 Pappus, or father JJ. When the Egyptians perfonified the fame 
 
 * Plut. ibid. t D'Ancarv. vol. 3. p. 164. X Ibid. vol. i. p. 6. 
 
 § Ibid, and p. 111,133. Vol. 3. p. 93. jj Herod, lib. 2. p. 145. 
 
 ** D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 309. -ft Strabo, lib. 17. p. 805. 
 
 XX D'Ancarv. vol. I. p. 310. Vol. 3. p. 97. 
 
EGYPTIAN ARTS. 2O5 
 
 primitive principle by the goat, and under the two fexes of that 
 animal, they only made choice of a different fymbol of fecun- 
 dity from that which had been employed by the Afiatics in the 
 image of fire*. It is remarkable however, and cannot be paf- 
 fed by when we are fpeaking of that goat, to what a pitch of ex- 
 travagance, incredible if it were not unqueflionably attefled, the 
 veneration paid both to the male and female of that animal had 
 arrived, as a confequence of the worfhip of Pan, when in the 
 town of Mendes particularly females aftually proftituted them- 
 felves to the one fex, and men to the other. Herodotus afferts 
 this to have been done there in his own time, and to his own 
 knowledge +. Strabo confirms the faftj. And a pafTage in 
 Plutarch affures us that it was done in his time, which was in the 
 reigns of Trajan and Adrian §. They had the ferpent of the Afi- 
 atics, the fymbol of life, with which their Ifis and Ofiris, and their 
 Pan, was furrounded, and with the figures of which the diadems 
 of their princes, and the bonnets of their priefts, were adorn- 
 ed ||. And they had the egg, which makes a part of the cofiiio- 
 gony not only of the Japanefe but of all the nations of Afia**; 
 with this difference, that the creature contained in that egg was 
 fuppofed to be matured and produced by the breath of a ferpent, 
 inftead of the breath of an ox++. Their fphinxes, and all their 
 combined figures of animal-creation, took their origin from the 
 fable of the mother of the Scythians, who in her intercourfe with 
 Jove brought forth an offspring that was half female and half a kr- 
 pent J|;. Their pyramids and their obelifks arofe^§ from the idea 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 304, 309, 310, 320. Vol. 3. p. 40. 
 
 + Herod, lib. 2. fee. 46. p. 108. J Strabo, Geog. lib. 17. p. 802, 812. 
 
 § Plut. in Gryll. p. 989. A. See D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 320, 321, note. 
 
 II Ibid, vol- I. p. 4.76. Vol. 2. p. 96, 104. ** Ibid. vol. i. p. 115. 
 
 ■tt D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 115. %X ^t)'^- P- 55- §§ Ibid. vol. 2. p. 90, 91. 
 
206 EGYPTIAN ARTS. 
 
 of flame, or of the rays of light, the original emblems of the fu- 
 preme principle of all things, which were firft introduced by the 
 Scythians, were eflablifhed throughout the eaft, and were left in 
 all their force by the corre6lions of magifm itfelf, when it ftrove 
 to level every other emblem of divinity. 
 
 It is in vain to think of aflembling, and it is not our bufmefs 
 to aflemble, all the proofs of thofe imprelTions which the Egyp- 
 tians derived from Scythian principles eftablifhed over all the 
 continent of Afia. The reader, who wifhes to purfue that en- 
 quiry, will find thofe proofs difcuffed at large in the original 
 work of M.D'Ancarville. Having jufl: noticed, as briefly as we 
 could, in order to ftrengthen the Scythian influence over all the 
 eafl: as a faft, and in order to fliew the true origin of things in 
 Egypt, we fliall now fall more immediately into our purpofe, 
 when we obferve that thofe principles, fo obtained by the Egyp- 
 tians from Afia, gave the firfl; incentive and the firfl; caft to all 
 their arts. 
 
 A religion, which takes into it's plan the afliflance of emblema- 
 tic reprefentation, cannot fubfifl; without painting and fculpture. 
 Words can never fill the idea which the figure brings home to the 
 fenfes. And therefore we might fafely conclude that both thofe 
 branches of the fine arts immediately followed an emblematic 
 theology, to which they were fo neceflary, if we had not abun- 
 dant proofs of the faft. In all the points of that theology, which 
 have been noticed above, that faft fpeaks for itfelf, and warrants 
 it's own inference to every other circumftance in the fame theo- 
 logy. In Egypt, as it appeared in every other country which 
 drew from the fame fource of knowledge, the fpirit of the arts 
 mufl: move in conformity with the views of the people, and 
 
EGYPTIAN ARTS. 2O7 
 
 would manifeft itfelf in every clafs of ingenuity ^vhich was def- 
 tined to be connefted with thofe views. That fpirit would af- 
 terwards become enlarged, as it felt it's own views and it's own 
 powers expanded, to the reach of objefts originating from gene- 
 ral genius ; although the firft views, to which it was excited, 
 would never perhaps be loft, when they came into contaft with 
 others ; they would remain, as they have done through all the na- 
 tions of the eaft, more efpecially in the branches of fculpture, 
 the happy monuments to guide us with affurance to the origin 
 of thofe principles and habits which gave the earlier features 
 to the country. 
 
 In this view the arts of Egypt will mount to a high antiquity, 
 although we were to conclude that the Egyptians were without 
 the art of writing until the reign of Mneves, whofe age has alrea- 
 dy been remarked, or, as a paffage in Pliny would lead us to be- 
 lieve, 400 years later. For that author fays*, " Antoclides un- 
 " dertook to prove by monuments that letters were firft invented 
 " in Egypt by one Memnon fifteen years before the reign of 
 " Phoroneus in Greece, which goes back to the year 1788 be- 
 " fore the Chriftian asra." To this laft idea we (hould make a 
 great difficulty of fubfcribing, becaufe we can hardly be perfuaded 
 that the Egyptians were without the ufe of fome letters fo long as 
 to the time of Mneves, although it might be true, and it feems to 
 be authentic, that till then their laws had not been committed to 
 writing. They muft have been very unfortunate to be deftitute 
 of letters fo long, when fome very early intercourfe had pafled 
 between them and the Scythians, who firft gave writing to the 
 Indians, as the Vedams have always been allowed to teftify ; and 
 
 • Lib. 7. p. 230. 
 
208 EGYPTIAN ARTS. 
 
 when, before the time of their Mneves at leafl, the Syriac cha- 
 rafter was common in Aflyria, where it was infcribed on fome 
 monuments of Semiramis*, and either that or fome other cha- 
 rafter well known to that princefs, or eafily interpreted by others, 
 was then employed in India by it's monarch, who wrote to her 
 the letters of reproach which are mentioned in hiftoryf . But 
 let that matter have flood as it might, it will not follow that the 
 arts of painting and fculpture were not older in Egypt than let- 
 ters ; the former might certainly have made a progrefs, how im- 
 perfeft foever the people were in the advantages of writing. For, 
 in faft, thofe arts were themfelves the firfl writing in the world, 
 and the language of nature. 
 
 When we would make our way to thofe arts in the remoter pe- 
 riods of Egypt, we find many difficulties which impede our fteps. 
 The fingular fabuloufnefs of it's hiftory, and the want of chrono- 
 logical certainty in all it's remoter progrefs, except what may 
 happen to be gathered from collateral circumftances, darken our 
 views extremely, and deprive us wholly of precifion. Nor have 
 we lefs to lament in the various devaftations which have added 
 fcarcity to darknefs in the proofs of the ancient arts of that coun- 
 try. The feveral invafionsof the fhepherds, who were animated 
 not merely by rapacity, but by defperate ignorance, to the over- 
 throw of great cities and of every thing that was cultivated and 
 elegant within them, put to flight all the firft arts of Egypt, and 
 all that had grown up from Scythian or Afiatic communications, 
 and drove them to feek fhelter wherever there was wealth or any 
 portions of cultivation undifturbed to receive them, Moft pro- 
 bably that (helter was given them on the other fide of the Red 
 
 * Diod. Sic. lib. 2. p. 127. t Ibid, p. 129. 
 
EGYPTIAN ARTS. 209 
 
 Sea, in Arabia, at Edom which was then the richeft city in the 
 world *, When the country had long recovered from thofe defo- 
 lations ; when flie had feen her artifls, with many others who 
 were natives of Afia, brought home by Sefoftris after his fucceff- 
 ful expedition into the eaft ; and when flie had been raifed in 
 the courfe of many ages more, by the growing tafte of her prin- 
 ces and by her own profperity, to the higheft figure of art and 
 magnificence which fhe ever reached ; then the leveling hand of 
 Cambyfes, not more inimical as an invader, than hoftile as one 
 of the magi in principle to all painting and fculpture, comple- 
 ted the overthrow of all that had been fo long and fo zealoufly 
 accumulated, as far as hands could defliroy. Few therefore are 
 the veftiges of Egyptian genius on which we can now look, and 
 they are not many which are left recorded in the volumes of hif- 
 torians. The paintings of Egypt will of courfe be expefted to 
 have left fewer traces of their progrefs. In that branch of art 
 our views of that country cannot be circumflantial. There are 
 not fufficient materials to warrant difcuflion. We are enabled 
 to be more diftin£l upon it's fculptures. 
 
 The palace or maufoleum of Ofymandes muft give us a ftriking 
 affurance of the progrefs which had been made in the arts at that 
 time ; whether he lived, as fome have thought +, the immediate 
 fucceflbr of the firft Bufiris, which was fomewhat later than the 
 period of Semiramis ; or, as others have conceived +, fubfequent 
 to Sefoftris, which would be 400 years later. Diodorus Siculus, 
 who defcribes that edifice, fays nothing of the age in which 
 Ofymandes lived ; every opinion therefore on that point muft 
 
 * Bruce's Trav. vol. i. p. 428 t See RoUin'sanc. Hift. 
 
 X Marfliam, p. 403. Gouguet,vol. 2. p. 141. 
 Vol. I. Ee 
 
210 EGYPTIAN ARTS. 
 
 be conjefture. We fhall only remark, that there is nothing in the 
 works of art in that edifice, which fliould appear too much for t 
 the earUefl age in which that monarch has been placed, when we 
 look back to what was done of thofe works in a period full as 
 early by Semiramis in Affyria. The genius of Egypt, which has 
 ever been held forth as a pattern for general enterprize among 
 the ancient people of the earth, mufl have been tardy indeed in 
 it's progrefs, if with equal means of information, which it appears 
 to have had, it could not accomplifh as much as Affyria did 
 in an equal procefs of time. 
 
 Olymandes appears to have been a prince of great elegance 
 and tafte in his day, Diodorus Siculus defcribes many fump- 
 tuous edifices erefted by him ; among thole edifices his palace 
 or maufoleum, whichfoever it was, has been eminently diflin- 
 guiflied for the paintings and fculptures with which it was adorn- 
 ed. When we look to the fubjefts of thofe works, we fhall have 
 reafon to think that no man in any age could difcover a fairer 
 and more enlightened judgement than he did in the employment 
 of the genius around him, which was not tamely devoted to dull 
 or contrafted objefts, nor lavilhed on fcenes of favage life, nor 
 wholly engroffed in allufions to himfelf, but fenfibly enlarged to 
 a variety of contemplation which might become a great fovereign; 
 and in each of thofe parts the fubjeft was charafteriftically 
 great. 
 
 * In one place was reprefented in a multitude of fculptures 
 his expedition againfl; the Baftrians, a people of Afia, whom he 
 had invaded with 400,000 foot, and 20,000 horfe. In another 
 
 * Diod. Sic. lib. i. p. 45. edit. Rhodom. 
 
EGYPTIAN ARTS. 211 
 
 part was difplayed the variety of fruits and productions, with 
 which Pan, the great fource of all things, had enriched the 
 fertile land over which Ofymandes reigned. A third group of 
 figures reprefented the monarch himfelf, as the high-priefl of 
 the country, offering to the gods the gold and filver which he 
 drew every year from the mines of Egypt. In another part of 
 the edifice was exhibited in an infinite number of figures an 
 affembly of judges, in the midft of a great audience attentive to 
 their decifions ; the prefident or chief of thofe judges, furround- 
 ed by many books, wore on his breaft a pifture of truth with 
 her eyes (hut — thofe emphatic emblems, beyond which no age 
 could go for the impreffion of that wifdom and impartiality 
 which ought to prevail in adminiftrative juftice. 
 
 Where fhall we go for maturer thoughts than thefe ? The 
 firft fubjeft was perfeftlv fair in the monarch who had exploits 
 to fhew, in which his country was interefted. The fecond 
 was elegant, and gratefully refpeftful to the country itfelf, as 
 a land of plenty and felicity. The third was pious, and a high 
 atteftation of the religious principles with which he felt and ex- 
 ercifed the fovereign truft repofed in him. And the laft fubject 
 was every thing that can exalt fovereignty itfelf, that can dignify 
 the human mind or human fociety, and that can enfure the love 
 of a people. In the whole of thofe works he meant with 
 great modefty to inform pofterity, that his country was the 
 feat of many comforts, that his reign had not been deftitute of 
 valour, and that both his reign and his life had been conducted 
 with piety to the gods, and with juftice to men. 
 
 We cannot avoid a remark on the probability which has been 
 held forth to us, that fome parts of that edifice, which was the 
 feat of thofe works, are ftill left to be beheld. The defcriptions, 
 
212 EGYPTIAN ARTS. 
 
 which modern travellers * have given of the ruins of one moil 
 fuperb edifice in Upper Egypt, correfpond fo ftrongly in the fuite 
 of it's apartments and in fome of their decorations with what 
 Diodorus Siculus has related of the palace or maufoleum of Ofy- 
 mandes, that one is apt to conclude it was one and the fame 
 ftru6lure which gave the fubjeft to the reports of both. 
 
 If in that edifice the works of fculpture fhould have predo- 
 minated over thofe of painting, which neverthelefs are highly 
 fpoken of; and if the paintings employed in the famous labyrinth, 
 efpecially when it was re-ornamented by Pfammeticus, have fha- 
 red the fame fate with thofe of Ofymandes, although they were 
 much later in time, fo that we can only fpeak of them in general 
 terms ; there are other paintings among the other monuments of 
 Upper Egypt, which modern travellers have feen, and of which 
 they have fpoken in terms that cannot but raife attention. Thole 
 paintings are defcribed as laid on the hardeft plain furfaces, whe- 
 ther of marble or flucco, in fuch peculiar ftrength of colours 
 that they feem, as it were, cut in the ground, and their tints have 
 continued to the prefent age fo immoveable and frefh, that one 
 would think, as the people of the country exprefs themfelves, 
 " the artift had not yet wafhed his hands fince he had painted 
 themt". 
 
 Till very lately we have had no opportunity of judging fpe- 
 
 • Lucas, vol. 3. p. 37. et feq. Granger's Voy. p. 43. et feq. Pocock's Eaft, 
 vol. I. p. 139, fol. edit. 
 
 i Relat. du Sayd, ap Thevenot, vol. a. pt. 3. p. 4. Sicard Mfs. du Levant, vol. 
 2. p. 209, 211, 221. Vol. 7. p. 37, 160, 163. Lucas's Voy. vol. i. p. 99, 126. 
 Vol. 3. p. 38, 39, 69. Granger, p. 35, 38, 46, 47, 61, 73. Rec. d'Obferv. Curi- 
 eufes, torn 3. p. 79, 81, 133, 134, 164, 166. 
 
EGYPTIAN ARTS. 2I3 
 
 cifically of the merit of thofe paintings, which have been report- 
 ed as remaining in Upper Egypt, from any drawings of them by 
 travellers. A gentleman, who has lately gone through that coun- 
 try, has now given us engravings of two of thofe paintings in one 
 of the fepulchres near Thebes*. They are the reprefentations of 
 two different muficians playing on two different harps. He fays 
 that thefe were found on pannels of ftucco, hard as a flone, and 
 fmooth as paper, in the entrance of one of the fepulchres, which 
 contains the prodigious farcophagus of Menes or Mneves, as fome 
 faid, or of Ofymandes, as it was faid by others: in the opinion of 
 that writer, formed as he fays on the defcription given by Diodorus 
 of the maufoleum of Ofymandes, it could not probably contain 
 the farcophagus of that monarch, and he thinks it equally impro- 
 bable that it held the bones of the other. Admitting that opinion 
 to be rightly formed, we may obferve by the way, that the tradi- 
 tion of the country which gives that fculpture to Mneves or Ofy- 
 mandes, and confequently fuppofes them not to be far afunder, 
 guides us very flrongly to a preference of that idea which makes 
 the latter of thofe monarchs far more ancient than Sefoflris, and 
 places him next in fucceffion to Bufiris, who was the immediate 
 fuccelfor of Mneves. Beyond this we have nothing to urge from 
 that tradition againfl the fentiments of one who has been upon 
 the fpot, and who declares that the fepulchre from which thofe 
 two paintings were taken by him does not anfwer to Diodorus's 
 defcription of the maufoleum of Ofymandes ; although it would 
 have clofed our minds with more fatisfaftion, if that writer had 
 told us whether he had found in that quarter any other remains 
 of buildings more fpacious than this fepulchre, or anfwering 
 more nearly to that defcription of Diodorus ; and more efpeci- 
 
 • See Bruce's Travels, vol. i.p. 126, 134- 
 
214 EGYPTIAN ARTS. 
 
 ally if he had informed us whether this fepulchre appeared, or 
 not, to be thofe remains which have been fo minutely dcfcribed 
 by Lucas, and Granger, and Pococke, who conceived that they 
 found in them the maufoleum of Ofymandes. 
 
 The paintings now in qucftion are fuppofed by that writer to 
 have been done in the time of Sefoftris, who did not rebuild but 
 re-ornamented Thebes and it's adjacente difices, after the deftruc- 
 tion brought upon them by the invafion of the fhepherds. In that 
 opinion we will let the antiquity of thofe paintings reft, while we 
 beftow a refleftion on their execution, which is more material to 
 our enquiry. Were we to take our judgement of that execution 
 merely through the medium of the engravings given to us, we 
 fliould be likely to flatter too much thofe ancient artifts of 
 Egypt, and to draw conclufions of their powers which would 
 probably need to be correfted by further information. For in 
 thofe plates, we fear, the engraver has been more attentive to his 
 own reputation than to the fatisfaftion of that curiofity which 
 looks to the quality of the original execution. We are more 
 contented, however, when the author of thofe travels informs us, 
 '■ that we may confider thofe paintings as having the fame de- 
 '•' gree of merit with the works of a good fign-painter in Europe 
 " at this day." 
 
 This account does not elevate the powers of the Egyptian 
 pencil ; and we do not know that thofe powers fliould be ex- 
 pefted in much elevation under any circumftances of that coun- 
 try. Therefore the precife merit of thofe paintings would be- 
 come an imperfect guide to any particular age for their produc- 
 tion ; although there are reafons why they may be taken as a 
 general ftandard of painting in Egypt. Could their examples be 
 
EGYPTIAN ARTS. 
 
 215 
 
 encreafed by many others, they would all moft probably coin- 
 cide with national circumflances to convince us, that there, as 
 well as in Affyria, and India, and the greateft part of Afia, the 
 arts in general went on in an equal flate, they ebbed and flowed 
 very little in merit, they foon reached their point, and beyond 
 that they feldom advanced far. The fame caufes, wherever they 
 prevail, will always produce the fame efifefts, or nearly the fame. 
 In Egypt, as well as in Afia, profeffions were hereditary* : inwe- 
 nuity of courfe became languid, or at lead it never rofe to hio-h 
 emulations, where the mind was doomed to it's line of purfuit ; 
 if the fon equalled the father, he had no reafons to exceed him, 
 ' and he never flrove to do it. It is remarkable that with the fimi- 
 larity of thinking and of tafte in Egypt and in Afia, the refpec- 
 tive fates of thofe countries have ftrongly correfponded ; the 
 commencement and the duration, at lead of the Alfyrian and 
 Egyptian empires, have born pretty nearly an equal date. 
 
 With thefe difadvantages and (hackles, whofe weight indeed 
 they never felt, there was great ardour now and then in their 
 princes, which kept up a body of arts among the people. The 
 children of Ifrael gave in the wildernefs the furefl teflimonies o£ 
 the progrefs which the Egyptians had made, particularly in all 
 the branches of fculpture, before the reign of Sefoftris. While 
 they were captives in Egypt, " they had learned all manner 
 " of workmanfhip of the engraver, and the cunning workman, 
 " in gold, in filver, in brafs, and in the cutting of flones, and 
 " in the carving of wood+." In confequence of thofe inflruc-; 
 tions they were enabled to form the golden calf; which fhews, by 
 
 * Plato in Tim. p. 1044. Ifocrat. in Bufirid. p. 328, 329. Diod. Sic. lib. i. 
 p. 86. Lib. 2. p. 142. t Exod. c. 35. 
 
2l6 EGYPTIAN ARTS. 
 
 the way, the train of Scythian theology running through Egypt, 
 and taking pofieffion of the Ifraelitifh mind. Two of their own 
 fculptors, Bezaleel and Aholiab, are particularly diftinguifhed in 
 the important commiflion of making the golden images of che- 
 rubims and all the ornaments for the tabernacle and the ark of 
 the covenant. The foundation of all that fkill was laid in the 
 inflmftions of Egypt. 
 
 The epoch of Sefoftris was a great epoch for the country, and 
 we doubt not as great an epoch in the hiftory of it's arts to thofe 
 who flood near it, and were enabled to fee it diftinftly. He was 
 born with all the qualities which can form a great monarch, and 
 the education he received from his unfortunate father, who found 
 his grave in the Red Sea when he purfued the Ifraelites acrofs 
 it, was proper to give every effedl to thofe qualities. He had 
 conceived a high notion of eftablifhing the charafter of his na- 
 tion in every magnificence which could befpeak an ingenious, 
 enlightened, and great people. And he exemplified his views 
 in every poflible way that was afforded him by the genius of his 
 own country, or by the mofl celebrated abilities of flrangers. 
 It is no wonder that almofl all the remains of fine art, which 
 have been found in Egypt, fhould at once be afcribed to that 
 prince by moderns, who were afTured of his extenfive munifi- 
 cence, his fumptuous works, and his zeal to carry every fpecies of 
 tafte to it's perfeftion, but who had never confidered thorough- 
 ly the great antiquity of the fine arts in the world, and confequent- 
 ly had not attained that conclufion which will follow from the 
 knowledge of that antiquity, that thofe who were older by many 
 ages than Sefoftris on the throne of Egypt were abfolutely young 
 in the hiftory of thofe arts. It was referved, however, for him, 
 whatever had been the real glory of others, to lift Egypt to very 
 
EGYPTIAN ARTS. 217 
 
 great celebrity, and to improvements which were new in many 
 rel'pefts to her experience. But, unhappily, it was not referved 
 for him to enfure more to pofterity, or for a longer time, than 
 other princes had done who had gone before him. A kind of 
 fataHty feems to have hung over Egypt, which no fooner faw 
 itfelf in an elevated period, high in reputation, and diftinguifhed 
 by it's elegance, than it was vifited by new deprelTions. We 
 read in general terms of paintings, fculptures, and magnificent 
 ftruftures executed under the patronage of Sefoftris ; but fuch 
 was the complexion of fubfequent events, that we know as little 
 of the fpirit and purpofe of the works, with which thofe flruc- 
 tures were ornamented, as we do of thofe ftruftures themfelves. 
 We muft therefore be contented to look at that fplendid reign 
 with a general admiration, fubjeft neverthelefs to the mortifying 
 refleftion that between us and the fcenes it had to offer a cruel 
 veil is drawn, which no induflry or management can put afide. 
 
 No fooner had that monarch difappeared from the earth than 
 the throne was filled with infignificance in his fon and fucceflbr, 
 which was encreafed in every fuccelTion for many generations. 
 In fuch a fituation of things it was impoffible for Egypt to 
 efcape the invafion of troubles, if it were only from the ambition 
 of others. An ^Ethiopian prince firfl held her in fubje6Hon, 
 returning to Anyfis the meafure which had before been dealt to 
 iE,thiopia by Sefoftris. And what could Egypt or the arts gain 
 from /Ethiopia ? We will flop for a moment, as it is conve- 
 nient, to fee what good could flow to either from that connec- 
 tion. We will not fpeak with contempt of the ancient Meroe, 
 her literature, her fcience, and her gymnofophifts. But Meroe 
 had nothing to fay in the fine arts, any more than the reft of 
 /Ethiopia. The laft traveller in that country, far more inti- 
 
 VoL.I. Ff 
 
2l8 EGYPTIAN ARTS. 
 
 mately acquainted with thofe parts of Africa than any of the 
 few that went before him, has told us enough of the wretched 
 and regular poverty of thofe arts in AbyfTinia at all periods, 
 and of the ideas with which they were there purfued even in 
 Chriflian aeras, where religion itfelf became the impulfe, and fcrip- 
 ture afforded the field*. Nothing emboffed, nor in relief, ever ap- 
 peared in their churches, becaufe it would be reckoned idolatry. 
 They would not admit a crofs even at the top of the ball of their 
 military ftandards, becaufe it cad a fliade. Yet their temples, 
 fuch as they were, had always abounded in religious piftures : 
 there had always been a fort of painting known among their 
 fcribes, a painting on parchment nailed upon the walls, hardly 
 lefs flovenly than paltry prints in a country ale-houfe, inferior to 
 the daubing of our worfl fign-painters. And what was their beft 
 tafte ? " St. Pontius Pilate and his wife :" " St. Balaam and his 
 " afs :" " Sampfon and his jaw-bone :" and, to name no more, 
 " Pharoah on a white horfe plunging in the Red Sea, with 
 " many guns and pijlols fwimming on the fur/ace of it around 
 " Am ;" this lafl fubjeft feemed to be the chef d'oeuvre of their 
 ingenuity, as it graced in miniature the front of theprieft's mitre 
 at Adowa. About the middle of the fifteenth century Nicholas 
 Branca Leon, a Venetian painter, went into that kingdom ; he 
 gave the Abyifmians fome fpecimens of his art in holy families ; 
 but placing the child, as he would mod naturally do, on the left 
 arm of his mother, it fo outraged their ideas of things, that an 
 infurreftion enfuedt. 
 
 We have gone a little out of our way to introduce this epifode, 
 not improperly conne6led with our narrative. Such was at all 
 
 * See Bruce's Trav. vol. 3. p. 315, 316. t Ibid. vol. 2. 
 
EGYPTIAN ARTS. 219 
 
 moments the extreme ignorance and obftinacy of the yEthiopi- 
 ans, whofe dominion of Egypt could only entail mifery upon it, 
 while they themfelves were incapable of being improved by that 
 conneftion. 
 
 The depreffion of the arts of Egypt was accelerated in the 
 next change of her fituation, when fhe was divided among twelve 
 principal lords in her own land ; and although the furvivor of 
 thefe for the firft time gave flrangers a fettlement in the country, 
 and many of thofe flrangers were Greeks, fome of whom might 
 probably be employed in the decorations then given to the laby- 
 rinth, yet Greece was but then young in the arts, if we are to 
 fpeak of them in fame, and the fun of Egypt was haftening to 
 fet. The purpofes of divine providence, pronounced by divine 
 prophecy, made other defolations neceffary for a length of years 
 under Nebuchodonozor the Second. And when the defolations 
 arifing from that caufe ceafed, a new turn was given to her mifery 
 by the invafion of the Perfian, who made the meafure of it full 
 both to her arts and to her freedom. From that time fhe has been 
 governed by foreigners, whom fhe has uniformly defpifed. And 
 although the next of thofe foreigners was the great Mace- 
 donian, who carried the arts to their highefl fummit in Greece; 
 vet that circumflance, with all the flimulus which might be fup- 
 pofed to arife from an acquaintance with Grecian artids, could 
 but have little effeft on the genius of the Egyptians, who never 
 could forget that they were flaves, and that their mafler Mas an 
 alien. 
 
 If that mafler could not re-kindle the arts among them, in vain 
 fhould we look for that effeft in the race of the Ptolemie;^ who 
 helped themfelves to this part of Alexander's dominions. Under 
 fome of the Ptolemies indeed the Egyptians faw themfelves once 
 
220 EGYPTIAN ARTS. 
 
 more an independent empire ; they faw themfelves again bril- 
 liant in inflitutions for the encreafe of knowledge ; they might 
 fancy themfelves once more at home, and in poneffion of cha- 
 ra6ler. Let juflice be done to the firft: and fecond Ptolemies, who 
 were lovers of arts and fciences, and univerfal literature, and M'ho 
 ftudied to approve themfelves in thofe refpefts as fincere fathers 
 of the country as if the blood of Egypt had flowed in the veins 
 of their anceftors for ever. The latter of thefe efpecially, who 
 was diftinguifhed by the addition of Philadelphus, Avas never ex- 
 ceeded by any in his love for the arts of elegance : Greece was 
 then at it's meridian in thofe arts ; and the immortal Aratus * 
 aflifted that fovereign of Egypt to re-embellifli that country 
 with the mod precious works that could be obtained from the 
 pencils of Greece. But Ptolemy was not an Egyptian, and his 
 people were. He might colleft indeed, and he might even flat- 
 ter himfelf that his patronage could tranfplant anew the fpirit of 
 the fine arts into the land over which he reigned, making thofe 
 who had been the preceptors of his own countrymen to become 
 their difciples in turn, and to learn greater excellencies than they 
 had ever been able to teach. But that day was paft ; the fpirit 
 of that people was broken ; and even if the prejudices of their 
 original principles and habits were at all loofened, there was no- 
 thing to which emulation could adhere ; the profperity they felt 
 under thofe princes was but a tranfitory gleam, which was fol- 
 lowed through twelve uninterrupted fucceflions by fcenes of 
 anarchy, rebellion, bloodflied, and ruin, that terminated in a new 
 change of fervitude to the Romans. 
 
 If thefe were, or affefted to be, too fond of the arts to make 
 
 * Plut. in vita Arali. 
 
EGYPTIAN ARTS. 221 
 
 deftruftion upon them, yet they ftripped Egypt of it's beR works 
 to enrich their own metropoHs. Since their days the Saracens, 
 the Mamalukes, and laft of all the Turks their prefent mafters, 
 have never fufFered the Egyptians to know the change from a 
 province to a kingdom. Some of thofe mailers committed de- 
 folations no lefs cruel to learning and genius than thofe which 
 had been committed by their Perfian predeceffors : and all of them 
 have been fo radically averfe to images and paintings, that in a 
 country which was once a great nurfery of ingenious arts, there 
 appears almoft a total dearth of every thing which could fliew 
 that the pencil more efpecially, whofe works are more eafily fuf- 
 ceptible of ruin, had ever found one who could handle it there. 
 In fuch a country is it not grievous to find the concatenation of 
 events fo adverfe, that in all the length of time through which we 
 have gone, comprifing from it's firfl fettlement to the commence- 
 ment of the Roman power in it 3000 years, there is not left to 
 us the name of a fingle Egyptian fculptor, nor the name of a 
 painter except Philocles, whom Pliny would vainly conceive to 
 have firft (hewn the art both to that country and to Greece *. 
 Names indeed may be loft, and nothing but curiofity fuffers 
 when they are no longer known. It is a more fenfible regret, 
 that when we have excepted a few paintings which may remain 
 in the monuments of Upper Egypt, we are not enabled to fpeak 
 precifely of another produftion of the pencil but the portrait of 
 Amafis alone +, which was beftowed by that monarch to the 
 inhabitants of Cyrene, and which was fo late in time that it 
 preceded but a few years the fubverfion of the empire. That 
 portrait fhews that the art was there ; and it is for us to confider 
 it, if we pleafe, as a laft relic of that ancient kingdom, depofited 
 in better fecurity from the ftorm which was gathering around it. 
 
 * Plin. lib. 35. t Herod, lib, 2. n. 182. 
 
222 EGYPTIAN ARTS. 
 
 What evidences of the pencil have fince exifted there, or may 
 ftill exift, mufl chiefly be fought at Cairo. And of thefe we are 
 enabled pretty well to judge from thofe piftures of faints on 
 {kins of parchment, in a (lyle very little fuperior to what has 
 already been mentioned as executed in Abyflinia, for which the 
 monarchs of that kingdom have recourfe to the artifts of Cairo, 
 when they would adorn a church in a better manner*. 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 
 The fcuJptures of Egypt diJlitiBly confidered. 
 
 The Jirjl advances of the Egyptians in that art — their predilec- 
 tion/or colojfal figures — the general fiyle of their fculptures 
 very defeEl.ive in defign and elegance — that fiyle very foon 
 fpurned by the Greeks — the colledion of Egyptian fculptures 
 by the Romans no proof of their tafie. 
 
 As the fculptures of Egypt are the mod confiderable of it's 
 remains, we are enabled to view them fomewhat more diftinftly. 
 The reader has already been apprifed, that we can hardly go too 
 far back in antiquity, to precede the exercife of fculpture in that 
 country. There is nothing wrong in the idea that the Egyptians 
 might engrave on wood and ftone, and cut them into figures, be- 
 fore they knew the art of working metals : for the example of 
 many favage nations makes that fuppofition extremely proba- 
 ble +. But their knowledge of metallurgy, which has always ap- 
 
 * Bnice's Trav. vol. 3. p. 315 
 
 + Acad, dcs Infcrip. torn. 19. p. 252. Rehit. de la Riviere des Amazones par 
 D'Aoigna, torn. 3. p. 104, 105. 
 
EGYPTIAN ARTS. 223 
 
 appeared mofl early among thofe who were moft attentive to 
 agriculture, and efpecially in the working of gold, filver, and 
 copper, was among their firfl difcoveries, and may be found 
 there in a few ages after the flood*. Their gold and filver was 
 employed in the mofl; ordinary ufesf, as it was done among 
 other nations with whom thofe metals abounded;];. By throw- 
 ing any of thofe metals into fufion, they knew how to make 
 them take the form of ftatues. Nothing can denote more affu- 
 redly the knowledge which the Egyptians had in the working 
 of metals than what is related in the fcripture of the formation of 
 the golden calf by the Ifraelites, and more efpecially of the de- 
 ftruftion of it by Mofes, in the defert §. The firfl; fuppofes great 
 {kill and intelligence ; but the lafl; involves an operation, which 
 to thofe who work in metals, and are verfed in chymiftry, is 
 known to be extremely difficult. That fecret, by which Mofes 
 made the golden calf, when burnt and reduced to powder, || pot- 
 able by the Ifraelites, and, as chymifts know, mofl; naufeous in 
 it's taft;e approaching to the magifl;ery of fulphur**, we mufl; 
 conclude that he had learned from the Egyptians, among 
 whom he was born and brought up, and in whofe wifdom and 
 fcience the fcripture tells us that he was deeply inftru6led ++. 
 
 With this knowledge of the means of fculpture in their hands, 
 what was the tafl;e or quality of defign in which the Egyptians 
 
 •Agatarchid. ap. Phot. c. ii. p. 1341. Diod. Sic. lib. 3. p. 184. Lib. 5. p. 19. 
 + Herodot. lib. 3. n. 23. Diod. Sic. lib. i . p. 19. 
 
 X Strabo, lib. 3. p. 224. Voy. de Cereal, torn. i. p. 250. Conq. du Perou, 
 torn. I. p. 76. § Exod. c. 32. v. 20. 
 
 H Stahll, vitul. aur. in opufc. chym. phyf. med. p. 585. 
 ** Senac. n. cours de Chym. torn. 2. p. 39, 40. 
 tt Afts, c. 7. V. 22. 
 
224 EGYPTIAN ARTS. 
 
 employed it ? Through the whole courfe of their hiftory, as far 
 as any proofs are left by which we can judge, that tafte was devo- 
 ted to the coloffal and gigantic figure. They feemed intent only 
 to (Irike the beholder with furprize and awe, or they conceived 
 that nothing was excellent which was not hugely majeftic. This 
 obfervation does not reft on the fphynx, from the dimenfions of 
 whofe head we can judge of the full fize of that enormous figure, 
 nor on any works particularly felefted ; all the ftatues erefted by 
 Sefoftris, and whatever remains of fculpture are dill to be feen 
 in Upper Egypt, are fo many monuments of that coloffal tafte*. 
 
 If that hugenefs of defign were brouglit into any meafures of 
 elegance, or if in any of their other fculptures taken on a more 
 moderate fcale there appeared any advances to a precifion and 
 corre61;nefs in tafte, then was the coloffus a beauty ftill, and thofe 
 other fculptures were patterns of emulation. But the faft is, 
 that all thefe were equally deftitute of the elegant and the agree- 
 able f. They difcovered neither genius, nor talents, nor juftnefs. 
 They were aukward as well as incorreft. In their affemblages 
 there appeared as little meaning as variety. The Egyptians in- 
 deed knew not how to defign fimple figures, nor to give them in 
 groups. In their common fculptures they took the method of 
 drawing them, which was moft eafy, and that was generally in pro- 
 file ; for bodies feen in full, or in a fourth inclined, require more 
 Ikilfulnefs in their reprefentation ; and yet, notwithftanding the 
 greater facility of the former choice, the heads, hands, and feet 
 had neither motion nor expreflion. They difguft by their heavi- 
 nefs, their monotony and iricorreftnefs. And the variation which 
 
 * Herodot. lib. 2. n. 107. Diod. Sic. lib. i. p. 67. 
 t Goguet's Orig. of Laws, &c. vol. 3. p. 75. 
 
EGYPTIAN' ARTS. 
 
 225 
 
 length of time might be fuppofed to produce was nothing. When 
 wefpeak of anyone period, we may be underflood tofpeak of all. 
 Plato fays that the ftatues made in his time by the Egyptians dif- 
 fered in no refpecl from thofe which had been made a thoufand 
 years before*. 
 
 Of the general (tyle of Egyptian fculpture we may 
 judge with no lefs fatisfa6lion from inferences afforded by the 
 Greeks than from pofitive authorities furnifhed by Egypt itfelf. 
 From the time of Cecrops to Daedalus, containing a period of 
 more than 300 years, the Greeks knowing no better followed the 
 Egyptian models +. When Daedalus came forward, the age was 
 fo ftruck with the improvements he introduced, that his ftatues 
 were faid to be animated, and to move of themfelves J. Thofe 
 expreffions were merely comparative. Their meaning was, that 
 his ftatues were more natural, and had lefs clumfmefs and inac- 
 tion, than the Egyptian. The faft is, he detached the legs and 
 arms from the body, and gave them an attitude §. But what 
 were his ftatues after all ? Plato, coming a long time afterwards, 
 faid that the fculptors of his age would be ridiculous, if they 
 made ftatues in the tafte of thofe which were executed by Dae- 
 dalus ||. Paufanias, who had feen many of them, confefles that 
 they were fhocking**. What then muft have been the ftatues 
 of Egypt ? 
 
 It is only left for us to obferve concerning the fculptures of 
 
 * Plato de Legib. lib. 2. p. 656. 
 
 + Strabo.lib. 17. p. 1159- Paufan. lib. 30. c. 19. p. 257. 
 
 + PlatoinMaenone, p.426. Arilh de Anima, lib. I. c. 3. De Repub. lib. i. c. 4. 
 § Diod. Sic. lib. 4. p. 319. Eufeb. Chron. lib. 2. p. 88. 
 
 Ij Plato in Hipp. maj. p. 1245. ** Paufan. lib. 2. c. 4. Lib. 3. c. 19. 
 
 Vol. I. G g 
 
226 EGYPTIAN ARTS. 
 
 that country, that after the mod laborious endeavours of the 
 Egyptians to render their memory immortal in this branch of the 
 arts, they failed of attaining a charadler to which any genius 
 could be annexed. The Greeks, who drew from thofe fources, 
 made little account of the fculptures that were Egyptian, from 
 the time when they came to have any knowledge in the arts*. 
 The Romans indeed in later periods collefted fculptures from 
 Egypt, even when they were full of Grecian works. But that 
 was no proof of their judgement, if it was not a proof that they 
 had none in thefe things. Thofe colleftions were indifcriminate, 
 and were purfued by pride, as the fpoils and monuments of con- 
 queft, rather than as the refearches of real tafte. 
 
 * Strabo, ubi fiip. Paufan. lib. 7. €■ 5. 
 
C 227 ] 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 
 The architeElure of Egypt devoted to the raifing of enormous 
 viajfes — that tajle of building naturally prompted and kept up 
 by the abundance of Jtone, marble, and granite in that country, 
 and by the facility zoith which thofe immenfe blocks were fcpa- 
 rated and employed— fame of the moji conveyiient principles of 
 building unknown to the Egyptians, and the caufe of great 
 clunifinefs in the whole of their defgns — the detail of parts no 
 lefs diforderly and uncouth — the tabernacle fct up by the If- 
 raelites in the defertnot to be confidered as an exprefjion of the 
 Egyptian manner of building — the famous labyrinth xcorthy 
 enough of being vifited by flrangers for the ivimenfity of it's 
 plan, without inducing any conclufion in favour of it's tafe 
 — the Egyptian fiyle hardly ever follotoed by Greeks or Romans 
 out of Egypt — all ages neverthelefs indebted to the Egyptians 
 for the cultivation of geometry, important to a radical fkill 
 in architeBure — how much it is to be lamented that fo much 
 Labour and treafure was xoafed in fuch immenfe edifices to no 
 purpofe. 
 
 Let us now turn our refleftions to the ftate of architecture in 
 Egypt. We fnall not trouble the reader with repetitions of that 
 unvaried devotion, with which the Egyptians were attached to 
 enormous mafles in their edifices as well as in their fculptures. 
 It is neverthelefs proper to obferve, that thofe enormous mafles 
 were neceflary to the purpofes of duration, which was the firft 
 objeft they fought to enfure in all their public works. They 
 aimed, if it were polfible, to render thofe works immortal, and 
 
822 EGYPTIAN ARTS. 
 
 to enable all their monuments to brave all the injuries of time. 
 The flrength and immenfity, which promifed fecurity to that 
 purpofe, gave alfo whatever in their ideas conftituted the grand 
 and the aftoniHiing. From thence it was, as well as from the 
 fcarcity of wood, which they had not even for fuel*, that hardly 
 any of that material was employed, or is now found, in their pub- 
 lic buildings. And thofe amazing blocks of flone, marble, and 
 granite which they piled upon one another, in the conRruftion 
 of thofe buildings, were fo abundantly fupplied by quarries which 
 lined, and ftill line, Egypt on the wed, as to render all confidera- 
 tions of cEConomy in the ufe of them unneceffary : thofe blocks 
 were feparated from their beds, without digging for them through 
 the earth as we do in Europe; they were removed to their place 
 of deflination with the greatefl .dexterity by water; and they 
 were lifted into their places either by rollers, or by other ma- 
 chines worked by the llrcngth of numbers, with greater facility 
 than will eafily be conceived by thofe who are accullomed to 
 more improved principles of mechanics +. 
 
 Thefe circumftances may explain the caufe of their being de- 
 voted to thofe enormous mafles in their buildings. Where thofe 
 malfes of materials could be had with fo much facility, they be- 
 came a bias on the public tafle, abforbing perhaps other nicer 
 confiderations. The fituation of a people, and the nature of the 
 materials within their reach, have always influenced the architec- 
 ture of the country. When the Gothic tafle arofe, as it will here- 
 after be fhewn, if it was not originally led, it was at leaft aflifled 
 very elfentialiy, by the general lupply of ftone in fmaller blocks 
 
 • Granger's Voy. p. 13, 152, 153. Lucas's third Voy. vol. 3. p, 211, 212, 286. 
 t Pliny, lib. 36. fee. 14. p. 735. Herodot. lib. 2. n. 125. 
 
EGYPTIAN ARTS. 
 
 229 
 
 throughout thofe parts of Europe in which that tafte prevailed, 
 and by the power of executing it's grandeft dengns with materi- 
 als of any dirnenfions whatever. It might be e?fy to fliew that in 
 the general fpirit of every other fpecies of tafte, or in fubordi- 
 nate modifications of it, the like caufe has uniformly produced 
 the like effeft. But of this enough is faid, when the principle is 
 mentioned. 
 
 Thofe enormous piles became more clumfy ftill, and more 
 aukward to the fight, as the Egyptians knew not fome of the 
 moft convenient principles of building. They were entirely 
 ignorant of the art of throwing an arch, or making a vault. 
 We do not find that they even knew how to cut arch-wife the 
 blocks of ftone which formed the heads of their doors. Thefe 
 were all terminated by a lintel ftraight and even ; or they were 
 cut out of one huge block*. It will eafily be conceived how 
 fhockingly rude and hideous all the openings of their edifices 
 muft appear, when thus managed ; how completely deftitute of 
 every thing that could lighten or break the dulnefs of uniformity 
 muft be the fare of every elevation. But that ignorance fubjeft- 
 ed the Egyptians to further proofs of clumfinefs. Every beam 
 was formed by large ftones refting at each end upon the walls ; 
 and the roofs were alfo conftrufted in that manner +. But as 
 thefe might have given way in any confiderable length, columns 
 became necelfary to fupport them J. Thus one immenfe mafs 
 laid the foundation for another ; and piles within piles became 
 needful. 
 
 * See Pococke's Trav. vol. i. Norden's Trav. vol. 2. 
 
 + Thevenot, vol. i. p. 41^. Lucas's third Voy. vol. 3. p. 38, 264, 265, 275. 
 Voy. to ihe Levant, vol. i. p. 42. 
 
 X Lucas, ubi fup. Granger, p. 38, 47, 68, 69, 73. 
 
230 EGYPTIAN ARTS. 
 
 If their buildings were thus flovenly and difagreeable in the 
 grofs, they were not lefs fo in detail. No rules of proportion, no 
 advantageous difpofition, no decided plan, nothing that looked 
 like defign, or meaning, or principle in the execution, were ever 
 prefented to view. All was dull and fpiritlefs. They knew no- 
 thing of the refources furniflied by the arts of elegance. They 
 were abfolutely ignorant of what belonged to the decoration of 
 an edifice. Columns they had, and capitals ; but in a moll poor 
 and wretched tafle, and whimfical enough. Thofe capitals were 
 often compoled of womens' heads, frequently four, dreffed very 
 fingularly, and put back to back : thofe heads were moreover 
 crowned with a cube a few feet long, which formed a cornice, 
 and fupportcd the cieling. Entablatures we find, but of great 
 clumfinefs. They affefted ornaments, but mofl ridiculous in 
 their execution, their defign, and difi;ribution. On this head in- 
 deed their ignorance was extravagant. They were utterly unin- 
 formed of what conftituted ornament, and of it's proper adjufl:- 
 ment. Truth was inceffantly tortured in it *. A tirefome and 
 unvaried monotony ran through it. It was fcattered everywhere 
 alike, and with profufion. They had no idea of a juft and fuit- 
 able union of fculpture and architefture. In the whole cecono- 
 my of their mod fuperb edifices a barbarous confufion was 
 vifiblc. 
 
 The tabernacle fet up by the Ifraelites in the defert has been 
 confidered as participating of the manner in which the Egyptian 
 temples were conftrufted +. We know not why that idea (hould 
 be entertained, when the plan of it, and all the feveral propor- 
 
 * LucaF, p. 33. et ubi fup. Pococke & Norden, ubi fup. 
 + Calmet, vol. 2. p. 391. 
 
EGYPTIAN ARTS. 23 1 
 
 tions of it's parts, were minutely directed by the Almighty him- 
 felf to Mofes *. If it's plan were Egyptian, flill it was not the 
 plan of the Ifraelites. nor the refult of their experience obtained 
 in Eg) pt ; but it rauft be faid, that God chofe to purfue the Egyp- 
 tian ftyle : and whv the divine wifdom fhould be fo limited in it's 
 exercife, it will not be eafv to illuflrate. Surely we may as rea- 
 dily admit the conihu6tion of the whole to flow from his original 
 directions, as the formation of the feveral inftruments and gar- 
 ments to be employed in his fervice, whicli we muft be fatisfied 
 had no relation to any thing that had ever been ufed in the 
 world for the offices of religion. If the general model of that 
 tabernacle, and all it's proportions, be confidered as a regular 
 and perfeft whole, for the ufes to which it was defigned, they 
 could not but be perfeft, when they were fuggefled by divine 
 wifdom ; but we do not fee what induction can arife from thence 
 to elevate the judgement and fcientific exaftnefs of the Egyptians, 
 unlefs it could be fliewn that thofe principles of proportion were 
 generally maintained in their flruftures. If the employment of 
 columns with bafes and chapiters in the tabernacle, and the en- 
 richments bellowed on thofe columns, fhould be confidered as 
 exemplifications of what was praftifed in Egypt ; we muft recol- 
 left that the Egyptians were not the firft to give thofe examples; 
 they were found in Perfia above 1700 years before the tabernacle 
 was built ; and, in truth, they were coeval with the firft ideas of 
 architefture, they were natural to every ftrufture which had parts 
 to be fup ported, and they became more enriched in proportion. 
 to the dignity of the ftru6ture. 
 
 The famous labyrinth has been fpoken of as a wonder in ar- 
 chitectural fliillf ; and in fome refpeds perhaps very reafonably,. 
 
 * Exod. c. 25. V. 9. Cap. 31. V. 3, 6. t RoUins'sanc. Hift. vol. i. p. 8.. 
 
232 
 
 EGYPTIAN ARTS. 
 
 without becoming an evidence of cultivated tafte. There was 
 enough in the immenfity and fingularity of it's plan to excite 
 admiration, and to attraft the vifits and the ftudy of the earlier 
 Greeks. Nothing like the ftupendous pile employed in that la- 
 byrinth, nothing like the wonderful difpofition of it's interior 
 parts, had been known to the world ; or if there had, it was na- 
 tural for men who were fond of architeclural fludies to enquire 
 what the human mind had been able to accomplifh in the for- 
 mation of fo peculiar a defign. * Fifteen hundred rooms 
 upon a floor, with as many under ground, interfperfed with ter- 
 races, and ranging around twelve halls (if thofe were not rather 
 twelve palaces, as they have been called f :) all thefe Co regu- 
 larly difpofed, and communicating with each other, as to form 
 a perfeft maze inextricable to ftrangers ; innumerable fculptures 
 filling every part ; and this immenfe pile, conftrufted wholly both 
 in it's walls and roofs with white marble, terminating above in a 
 pyramid forty fathoms high ; gave furely invitation enough to 
 the curiofity and ftudy of the world, without taking account of 
 the tafte that was difplayed in the elevation and hnifliing of the 
 whole. That tafte, and the genius which was competent to fuch 
 a plan, are diff'erent things. The laft depends chiefly on the 
 ftrength of native invention : the firft muft be raifed by the pro- 
 grefs to which the age has been trained. 
 
 From the conftruftion therefore of that labyrinth no proofs can 
 be drawn of an excellent architeftural tafte in the Egyptians. The 
 ftyleoftheir buildings never gave a precedent either to the Greeks 
 or the Romans out of Egypt, unlefs it were from mere whim, as 
 
 » Herodot.lib. 2. n. 148. Strabo, lib. 17. p. 1165. Plin. lib. 36. fee. i8. p. 739. 
 t Pomp. Mela, lib. i. c. 9 
 
EGYPTIAN ARTS. ' 23,'*} 
 
 emperor Adrian once thought fit to adopt it ; and unlefs it be 
 true, which we may very mtich doubt*, notwithftanding what 
 has been current in ancient tradition, that Daedalus, who cer- 
 tainly faw this Egyptian labyrinth, built another of confiderabic 
 magnitude in Crete, upon the fame model. The Greeks and 
 Romans indeed not only repaired many ancient edifices in Egypt, 
 but adorned that country with new and magnificent monuments: 
 in thofe works they blended an adherence to the Egyptian {tyle 
 with fome portions of better tafle that were introduced. And 
 from thence it is that travellers fpeak of having feen in fome of 
 the Egyptian remains Corinthian columns, and even columns of 
 the compofite order t, forming with the reft of the building a 
 mixture of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman architefture together. 
 But thofe things were only done in Egypt ; and if the Egyptian 
 ftyle was ever followed there in new works by thofe new mafters 
 of the country, it was evidently done in compliment to the peo 
 pie. There was nothing in that ftyle itfelf to induce a union with 
 any other ; it had no relation or refemblance to that which was 
 tranfmitted by Greece or Italy I. It had nothing to do with ^ny 
 principles of the orders. It's columns were like none of thofe 
 eftabliftied by later tafte. To charafterife rightly the works to 
 which it gave exiftence, they were enormous piles without much 
 ingenuity, the labour of infinite patience, and poor defign. 
 
 Neverthelefs, if it was not the fortune of the Egyptians to 
 lead fubfequent ages in an excellent tafte of architefture, they 
 
 • See the reafons for this doubt ably dated, Goguet's Orig. of Laws, vol. 2. p. 
 208, 211. t Granger's Trav. p. 38, 39, 58. 
 
 X Athen. lib. 5. c. 9. p. 206. Lucas's third Voy. vol. 3. p. 17, 39, 264. Sicard 
 Mem. du Levant, torn. 2. p. 209. 
 
 Vol. L H h 
 
2.34 
 
 EGYPTIAN ARTS. 
 
 gave all who came after them the important example of founding 
 that art on the fcience of geometry. Of that faience they have 
 ever been confidered in antiquity as the people who laid the firfl; 
 foundation *. Some moderns indeed, affe6ling a nicer criticifm, 
 have infinuated the contrary, grounding their oubts on this cir- 
 cumftance, that the difcovery of two very fimple geometrical 
 theories was firft made by Thales and Pythagoras in Greece +. 
 The proportion attributed to Thales was, that a triangle, which 
 has the diameter of a circle for it's bale, and whofe fides meet in 
 the circumference, is neceffarily reftangular. The other propo- 
 fition attributed to Pythagoras demonftrated that the fquare of 
 the hypothenufe is equal to the fquares of both the other fides. 
 Of thefe propofitions it has been haftily concluded by thofe 
 moderns that the Egyptians were ignorant, and confequently, 
 that they could have no great (kill in geometry. But that is beg- 
 ging the queftion. For the faft is, by the moft direft and refpec- 
 table teftimony of antiquity J, that both thofe Grecian philofo- 
 phers derived from the Egyptians, among whom both of them 
 lived many years in the molt intimate friendfhip with the priefts 
 of the country, all their fcientific knowledge, and particularly 
 that of geometry. So that, in truth, they did not originally dif- 
 cover, but only firfl publifhed in Greece, the theorems which we 
 have mentioned, and the credit of which feems without reafonable 
 difpute to be due to the Egyptians, 
 
 That people was moved to the cultivation of that fcience, not 
 
 * Jamblic de vila Pythag. c. 29. p. 134, 135. Porphyr. Pythag. p. 8, 9. Julian 
 ap Cyrill. lib. 5. 
 
 + Weidler's Hift. Aftron. p. 64. Anc. Univ. Hid. vol. i. p. 396, 397. 
 
 X Plato Plut. vol. 2. p. 875. E. Jamblic. fup. fcgm. 7, 8. Minut. Felix, p. iii^ 
 Clem. Alex. Strom, lib. 1. p. 354. Dlog. Laert. lib.i. fegm. 24, 27. 
 
KGYPTIAX ARTS. 035 
 
 merely becaufe it was a ftudy which fuited their fpeculative and 
 philofophical genius*, but becaufe neceffity compelled them 
 to underftand it. No nation was ever called to a more early or 
 more conftant attention than Egypt to the divifion and mensura- 
 tion of land, which gives the firft idea and the flrift dehnition of 
 geometry : they were called to that knowledge not fo much in 
 confequence of the changes occafioned by the inundations of the 
 Nilef , as by the necefTity of adjufling continually the tribute im- 
 pofed upon the lands J, which could not be equitably levied 
 without a menfuration of their feveral quantities. The two pri- 
 mary branches, therefore, of geometry, known by the name of 
 longimetry and planimetry, or the meafuring of ftraight lines and 
 of furfaces, unavoidably forced their way very early to the know- 
 ledge and cultivation of a people fo peculiarly circumftanced. 
 And the more profound branch of ftereometry, or the menfura- 
 tion of folids, could not be long hidden from thofe who were led 
 to fome of it's firft and fimpleft principles by the praftice of le- 
 veling, and who had need of it's bed improvements in the con- 
 ftruftion of thofe great works to which they were early devoted, 
 and which muft have called for the union of theory with prac- 
 tice. What could they have done in thofe prodigious opera- 
 tions, without the aid of a comprehenfive geometrical fcience ? 
 Without that aid how could they have tranfported from the 
 mountains, and reared upon their bafes, thofe numerous obelifks 
 and colofTal llatues which they erefted ? How could they have 
 provided for that duration, for which their works were proje6ted, 
 without a due calculation of the proportions given to every 
 part, and of the bearings for which every part was fitted ? It is 
 
 • Diod. Sic. lib. i. p. 91. t Strabo, lib. 17. p. 1136. Caffiodor. 
 
 var. lib. 3. epift. 52. :}; Herodot. lib. 2. n. 109. 
 
236 EGYPTIAN ARTS. 
 
 by the application of the theories of geometry to the different 
 queftions which concern motion and the equihbrium, in which 
 confift mechanics properly fo called : and mechanics they 
 certainly had very early in fome branches *, although it be pro- 
 bable that thefe were the laft parts of mathematics that were 
 brought into a regular fyflem. But what would have been thofe 
 mechanics in their hands, if left to random-guefs, or no better 
 afcertained than by the habits of pradlice, uncorrefted by the 
 lights and affurances of fixed- and permanent principles. 
 
 Thefe are confiderations everlaftingly important to architeftu- 
 ral profeffion, and they are left by the example of the Egyptians 
 as leffons infeparable from a radical purfuit of that profeffion. 
 "Whatever additions may have been fince ingrafted by the pro- 
 grefs of archite£lural tafte on thofe demonflrative fciences, not a 
 tittle of their importance has been fuperfeded or weakened ; 
 they mufl ever remain at the foundation of architefture, if it be 
 calculated for duration. We will not fay that the Greeks, with 
 lefs maffes of ftrength than were employed by the Egyptians, and 
 with far more tafte and elegance of defign, did not render their 
 edifices equally capable of duration : but that takes nothing from 
 the importance of geometrical fcience, which will hereafter be 
 found to have been as ftudioufly cultivated by the Greeks as by 
 any others ; it only fhews that they were more improved in the 
 knowledge of proportions, and that they knew how to relieve 
 their buildings from thofe dead maffes of folidity promifcuoufly 
 employed, with an equal prefervation of ftrength and of duration. 
 But that ftrength and duration was not accompliftied by their 
 tafte and elegance in defign, and they were too wife to look for 
 
 * See Goguet's Orig. of Laws, vol. i.p. 262. 
 
EGYPTIAN ARTS. 237 
 
 it from thence. How far regard has been paid to thefe confider- 
 ations and principles by modern architefts, this is not the proper 
 place to obferve. Our intention is, to mark thefe for the pre- 
 fent, as the primary culture of the Egyptians ; leaving to future 
 ftages of our inquiry the evidences or the neglefts of that cul- 
 ture, as they (hall be found to arife. 
 
 There is an obfervation, however, which the contemplation of 
 Egyptian works hardly ever fails to excite. A reflefting mind 
 naturally enquires, for what purpofes were thofe aftonifhing edi- 
 fices raifed ? If they had been palaces, if they had been temples ; 
 the pride of kings, or the pride of a people to do them honour 
 on a great and enlarged fcale, Ihould have found it's vindication 
 in the good fenfe of ages, as well as the piety whofe venerable 
 or fumptuous dedications to the Divinity have never failed to 
 carry the acquiefcence of every mind, enlightened or not. If 
 they had been only thofe obelifcal monuments*, which were 
 raifed to immortalize a fovereign, by (hewing the extent of his 
 power, and the nations brought under it ; we would not crufh 
 the ambition of which a whole people muft participate, nor pro- 
 nounce as an abufe that expenditure of public labour and public 
 treafure, which records what may be claimed by a nation as a 
 fame, perhaps juflifiably and honourably won. If they had 
 been thofe tombs of greatnefs, which might pafs for tombs, al- 
 though they had exceeded moderation, and had exhibited all 
 that fuperior art could employ to make us honour the royal allies 
 depofited there ; no tongue fhould fpeak but with applaufe of 
 the reverence, which ftrove to guard from common prophana- 
 tion, or to diftinguifh from common mortals, thofe remains which 
 
 * Herodot. lib. 2. p. iii. Diod. Sic. lib. i. p. 67, 69. 
 
238 EGYPTIAN ARTS. 
 
 once did conflitute to every civilized mind the firfl reverence 
 and the firft diftinftion upon earth. 
 
 But thofe edifices, which were moft diftinguifhable for their 
 extravagance, particularly the pyramids*, and alfo many of 
 thofe vafl ereftions in Upper Egyptf , and that of Ofymandes 
 beyond the reft, were tombs which outftripped the fcale, the la- 
 bour, and the expence of palaces, temples, and public monu- 
 ments. When in one of thofe pyramids we fee the unremitting 
 labours of no lefs than 100,000 men for thirty years J; and 
 when we learn by an infcription upon it, that the garlic, leeks, 
 and onions furnifhed to the workmen coft 220,oool. fterling : 
 when in fome of thofe maujolea near Thebes we are carried by 
 the defcriptions of travellers, ancient and modern §, through long 
 fucceffions of veftibules, periftyles, halls, and other apartments 
 immenfe in their height and fpace, aftoniftiing in their grandeur 
 and in the choice of marble or ftone, awful in the coloftal mag- 
 nitude of the figures within them, which often fupported the 
 roofs in the place of columns, and thofe roofs forming a terrace 
 of fuch extent that the Arabians are faid to have built a village 
 upon fome of them || : when we are informed that of thefe mag- 
 nificent maujolea there were no lefs than forty-feven in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Thebes : and when we find that the deftination of 
 all thefe works, and of the pyramids, was to receive perhaps only 
 one human body, and to afTure to the fovereigns that raifed them 
 the poor and fcanty poffeflion of fix feet by three : we ftand 
 
 * Goguet's Orig. of Laws, vol. 3. p. 64. + Ibid. vol. 2. p. 140, 149. 
 
 % Herodot. lib. 2. n. 124, 125. Diod. Sic. lib. i. p. 72, 73. 
 § Ibid. p. 56. Lucas's third Voy. vol. 3. p. 37. et feq. Granger's Voy. p. 43, et 
 feq. Pococke, vol. i.p. 139. SicardMem. du Levant, torn. 7. p. 161. 
 II Lucas, ubi fiip. 
 
EGYPTIAN ARTS. 239 
 
 aghafi: at the improvident fpirit which could fo laviflily and un- 
 necefTarily wafte the labours of millions, although it were true 
 that thofe labours were talks, that thofe who underwent them 
 were flaves and prifoners of war, and that no more treafure was 
 employed than in the ordinary rates of the moft ordinary provi- 
 fions ; we are difgufted with the mind, which could feel fo little 
 for the people over whom it prefided, and with the ideas which 
 could fo miferably proftitute the nature of patronage in the arts, 
 if in any moment it were conceived to be patronage ; we la- 
 ment the nation and the government, where the profecution of 
 public magnificence is not conduced on better principles, where 
 the monarch will be content to grind the people down for the 
 furtherance of his vanity, and where the people cannot refift 
 the ruinous diffipation of their fubflance. If works of public 
 magnificence are ever beheld with fatisfaftion, if the indulgence 
 of an elegant and munificent fpirit in monarchs is ever honour- 
 able to themfelves or their country, if the patronage of the fine 
 arts is ever what it fhould be, it is when it brings no public hard- 
 fliip in it's train; when the purpofes for which it is difpenfed, 
 although they be not fl;ri fitly commenfurate perhaps with the ex- 
 penditure bellowed, will bear the approbation of the judicious, 
 and are worthy to be nourifhed at much expence; when a wife 
 OEConomy, meafuring itfelf by public and private circumftances, 
 fets proper limits to an otherwife unbounded munificence of mind. 
 
 This is a charafter of patronage, which, wherever it is rea- 
 lized on a throne, makes the fine arts to be precious, and the 
 cultivation of them to be general, becaufe the people have no- 
 thing to rue in the higheft elevation of thofe arts. But that was 
 unknown in Egypt : all her monuments rofe upon the open 
 facrifice of fuch a principle of patronage. Yet the people. 
 
240 EGYPTIAN ARTS. 
 
 tame as they were by habit, (hewed now and then that they were 
 not abfolutely infenfible of what was hard, and what was wrong. 
 Indignation and difguft very often took poffeflion of their hearts ; 
 the fecret murmurs of oppreffion grouled upon the tongue ; and 
 when the monarchs, who had fo opprefTed them, dropped, they 
 were often followed by execration and uproar to their interment, 
 not always in thofe fecret repofitories which they had prepared 
 for themfelves, guarded by an immenfe compafs and fecurity of 
 edifice. Thus ail the efforts of their ambition were frequently 
 ineffeftual in the end. When thofe edifices were bereft of the 
 manes, to the reception of which they were devoted, all me- 
 mory of their founders perifhed, and not a record of their 
 origin was left but in the exaftions by which they had been 
 raifed. So juft is the refleftion of Pliny, when he calls thofe 
 edifices " regum pecuniae otiofa ac ftulta oftentatio" ; and fo 
 literally true is the account he gives of their end, when he adds, 
 " inter eos non conftat a quibus faftae fint, juftiflimo cafu obli- 
 " teratis tantae vanitatis auftoribus*". 
 
 * Plin. lib. 36. c. 12. 
 
( 241 ) 
 
 BOOK III. 
 GREECE. 
 
 CHAP. I. 
 
 Preliminary obfervations on the general turn of mind, and fome 
 national policy, of the Greeks, which were favourable to per- 
 fedion in the arts — the means by which they obtained the frjl 
 knowledge of thofe arts from Afia ayid Egypt — the Greeks 
 themfelves not improbably a people of Afiatic defcent — the Pe- 
 lafgifrom Caucafus fettled in Greece — the principles of Scythian 
 theology introduced by the Pelafgi, and not lojl in Greece un- 
 der all the variations of their own fuhfeguent mythologies, and 
 the multiplicity of deities that fprung from thence — thofe prin- 
 ciples of Scythicifm the fource of the earliefl Grecian fculp- 
 ture, which was all emblematic , andfo continued to the age of 
 Dcedalus — coins and other fculptures, and charaBers of wri- 
 ting too, capable of being afcertained in Greece before the ar- 
 rival of Cadmus— fculpture piflied in thofe early ages by many 
 circumftances not fo immediately felt by painting — the heroic 
 ages, however, not favourable to much advancement in tajle — 
 Grecian fculpture refcued from the point at which it flood in 
 Afia and Egypt, when beauty was given to it, which wasfirfl 
 learnt from Homer — the acquircmerU of that beauty in the gene- 
 ral forms of the Greeks the foundation of various fettled re- 
 gulations, and of a regular policy — the prefervation of thai 
 
 Vol. I. I i 
 
242 GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 beauty, and the charaEleriJlic perfeElion of their fculptures, 
 Jludied in the correBnefs of contour, which xvas not lojl even 
 under their drapery — how far the principles of beauty were re- 
 conciled with thefludy of Nature — the peculiar fylc of their 
 drapery ajjifant to the perfeElion of their figures — the peculiar 
 fublimity of their exprefjion derived from philofopliy, and 
 tending to firengthen it's principles — that fublimity of expref- 
 fon not confined to the countenance, but governing the whole 
 attitude — that fublimity of exprefjion the befi model to the firji 
 fiudies of artifis—fome qualification neverthelefs ncceffary to 
 the painter in thefiudy of antique fculptures. 
 
 We are now brought to Greece, that illuftrious land of art, 
 into which were conveyed from Afia and Egypt thofe feeds of 
 tafte and genius, which were carried to a cultivation that left the 
 countries, from whence they came, in the afpe6l of rudenefs and 
 barbarifm compared with that into which they were removed. 
 Never on earth was it more confpicuoufly feen than in this in- 
 ftance, that the difciplcs were greater than their mafters in every 
 branch which had conftituted the relation of difciplediip. Per- 
 haps it was not in a brilliant originality of invention that the 
 Grecian chara6ler flood moft confpicuous ; if indeed the differ- 
 ence be great between the ingenuity which ftrikes out an origi- 
 nal device, and that which carries the principles difcovered by 
 others to flages of perfetiion which the firft difcoverers never 
 knew. How^ever that be, in the latter quality of invention, 
 genius, and tafte the Greeks unqueftionably had no rivals. The 
 rudiments which they received became perfetlions in their hands: 
 thofe arts, which had been admired elfewhere, acquired with 
 them a new fpecies of elegance, which left all their former excel- 
 lencies in (liade. Thus, whatever they owed to others for the 
 
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 243 
 
 communication of inventions, they compenfated amply by the 
 rich improvements to which they carried all difcoveries. 
 
 They were mofl happily calculated to do this both by the 
 turn of their minds and by fome parts of their policy. Natu- 
 rally fond of novelty, they were not only open to the introduc- 
 tion of whatever was rare and ingenious, but they fought and 
 courted it ; while the quicknefs of their apprehenfion prefently 
 made all principles their own. Thefe difpofitions gathered 
 ftrength and eflablifliment from their civil regulations. From 
 the time when they had overcome the difhculties and alarms 
 confequent on thofe inteftine hoftilities with which they were 
 plagued for many ages, it was a leading feature of their charafter 
 to open their country to all that would vifit it ; not for the fake 
 of looking at flrangers, but of acquiring what they knew. Their 
 encouragement of ingenuity in every branch was mofl; decided, 
 and fomewhat extraordinary too, when we confider from what 
 countries they derived the whole train of their arts. It might 
 naturally have been expefted, that as they were rude and barba- 
 rous at firft, fo they would have fallen into the trammels of their 
 preceptors, who were in poffeffion of all the fame and character 
 which then exifted on the earth, and that they would have made 
 the profefTion of arts hereditary as in Afia and Egypt, if they had 
 not made them fubordinate to other purfuits, and at leafl; to 
 other profefhons. It certainly befpoke a very enlarged freedom 
 of mind not to be feduced by thofe examples, and more efpeci- 
 ally to difcern a better fource of perfeftion in the very reverfe to 
 the principles of their mafl^ers. Accordingly they left Afia and 
 Egypt to their own contrafted and mifl:aken policy. The cul- 
 tivation of all the arts, and of the more elegant ones efpecially, 
 was either a primary objeft with them, or it was fecond to nothing. 
 
244 GRECIAN SCULPTURE, 
 
 A city valued itfelf as much on having produced a citizen famous 
 for fome Hberal talent, as for having given birth to a philofo- 
 pher, a law-giver, or a hero of the firfl charafter. Painters, ar- 
 chitects, and fculptors enjoyed the mofl flattering diftinftions. 
 Pofterity celebrated their names in feftivals. And as if the ele- 
 gant arts could not be purfued but in concert with the moft libe- 
 ral turn and the beft education of mind, it became in proccfs of 
 time an univerfal decree of the country, that none but perfons of 
 genteel birth fliould be admitted to ftudy and purfue them. If 
 that regulation fliould be thought to have carried the matter too 
 far, or whatever opinions may be formed concerning it in a broad 
 view, it certainly produced two excellent advantages. In the 
 firfl; place, it threw into the arts all that refined and fuperior in- 
 telle6l, all that philofophic dignity, which ftamped their charac- 
 ter in Greece ; and in the next place, it caufed them to be profe- 
 cuted with an independent and difinterefled fpirit ; the emula- 
 tion of fame more than of lucre became the bias to their ft^udies; 
 every artift looked only to the perfection of his art ; the artift 
 and the patron became as it were combined in the fame perfon ; 
 their fpirit was alive to make their arts the records of the coun- 
 try. Thus that aflonifliing perfection, which no other people 
 were ever able to reach, became accompliflied in every branch; 
 and thus the country became filled with thofe works of elegance, 
 whofe amount mufl appear incredible on any other fyflem, if we 
 are to reckon for all as we are authorifed to aflert of Rhodes, 
 which, befides innumerable paintings, poflefled at one time no 
 lefs than 6000 of the choicefl: ftatues*. 
 
 Thefe advantages, however, were the refult of time, and fl;udy, 
 
 * Plin. lib. 35. 
 
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 245 
 
 and experience. It will be proper to fee how the means, which 
 led to them, opened ; and what direftion they took. As this 
 will carry us firfl: to the contemplation of fculpture, which ap- 
 pears to have taken the lead in the public works of the Greeks, 
 as well as of moft other people, and from the influence of the 
 fame caufes, (although the more private ufes of painting, at leaft 
 in it's ftrnpler defign, muft have exifted in all periods) we have 
 thought proper to call the reader's attention to the former branch 
 of art in the firft inftance. 
 
 The communication which the Greeks had with Egypt in the 
 firft periods of their hiftory, or rather the means by which they 
 became acquainted with what was known and done there, were 
 afforded them by the Phoenicians, who traded conftantly with the 
 coafts of Greece *, and who were the only people (as we have 
 already obferved) to whofe veffels the confined policy of Egypt 
 permitted a port to be opened in thofe times. But their commu- 
 nication with the continent of Afia was more eafy and dire61. 
 The Phoenicians alone were an excellent avenue to that commu- 
 nication. But they were not the only or the principal avenue. 
 The Pelafgi, inhabiting the country adjacent to the mountain 
 Caucafus, came into Greece, next after it's firft inhabitantst. They 
 came there, confequently, before the arrival of the Titan princes by 
 whom they were ultimately driven at leaft from a part of Greece, 
 and whofe arrival is fixed to the age of Abraham, full 1900 years 
 before the Chriftian sera. The firft inhabitants, with whom the 
 Pelafgi thus mixed, fhould appear from fome circumftances to 
 have fprung from the fame origin, and to have come from the 
 fame country, with the Pelafgi themfelves ; at leaft the reafons, 
 
 * Herodot. lib. i. n. i. t Strabo, Geog. lib. 6. p. 327. 
 
246 GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 which M. D'Ancarville has brought to I'upport that fuppofition 
 originally his own, have confiderable weight*. We fhall 
 abftraft them in few words. Pliny fayst that the firft name 
 of that mountain was Graucafus, i. e. nive candidum. That 
 name is compounded of grau, and cap, or kop. The firfl of 
 thefe we have embraced in our language by the word gray ; 
 the French exprefs it by^?-^; but the Danes have preferved 
 grau, and in it's original fenfe as well as form, meaning a white 
 colour. Cap or kop, changed for eafier termination into cafe, 
 meant, as it ftill means with us, and was employed by all the 
 Celtic nations to mean, a top or fummit. Keeping to the firft 
 branch of this definition, all that chain of the Alps which llretches 
 from thofe that are called Cottian to thofe which are known by 
 the nameoi Penine, was diftinguiflied by the general appellation 
 of graian, i. e. the white or grey Alps. If that abridged name 
 was given to that ftretch of mountains, how eafy was it for the 
 people inhabiting the neighbourhood of Graucafus to be called 
 Graian, Graii, Greeks, inftead of Grauca/ians ? The idea of 
 Eufebius in his chronicle, and of the geographer Stevens, that 
 Greece took it's name from a prince called Grscus, the father or 
 fon of a king of the Pelafgi in Theflaly, needs a great deal of 
 matter to make it out, and is too abrupt a foundation for the 
 name of fuch a country ; yet in one view it is capable of flrength- 
 ening the probability of the conje61ure here made, if it be fup- 
 pofed that GrKCUs, fhould there ever have been fuch a prince, 
 derived his own name from the country from whence the Pelafgi 
 came. If the Titans be looked upon as the anceflors of the 
 Greeks;]:, or as the founders of their government, ftill thofe Ti- 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 250, 251, 252, note. + Lib. 6. p. 181. 
 
 %_ Orph. Hymn 36. v. 2. D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 52. 
 
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 247 
 
 tans themfelves came from the neighbourhood of the fame Cau- 
 cafus. 
 
 But the Pelafgi originated from that country, and became fixed 
 in Greece. The veftiges of their migration thither, and of the 
 influences of that migration, are very general. They gave their 
 name to many communities and diflrifts of Greece. Herodotus 
 fays, that the lonians, the Cohans, and the Lacedemonians, who 
 were originally Dorians, were all known in remote antiquity by 
 the general name of Pelafgi *. To the people of Argos, a town 
 in Theflaly, Homer has given the firname of Pelafgian. The 
 name of the town itfelf fignifies, as Strabo affures us, a camp'\; 
 and fo it carried in it's name the habits of the Pelafgi to dwell in 
 tents on their arrival in Greece : the name of Argos was there- 
 fore Pelafgian, and the Theflalian language preferving that name 
 fhews itfelf to have been a dialeft of the other J. Thefe people 
 continued to rule the country, or a great part of it, for feveral 
 ages, until thofe who were in Theflaly were driven from thence 
 by Deucalion the fon of Prometheus ^. 
 
 The mention of thefe people opens upon us a very important 
 view in the hiftory of the Grecian arts. To their fettlement in 
 that country we muft look for the foundation of thofe arts, and 
 for the firfl; genius with which they were taken up. The Pe- 
 lafgi were defcended immediately from the Scythians, in whofe 
 country the Caucafus fl;ood ||. They became therefore the im- 
 
 * Herodot. lib. i. fee. 56. p. 21. Lib. 7. fee. 95. p. 413. 
 
 t Strabo Geog. lib. 8. p. 372. % D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 254, note. 
 
 § Dlonyf. Halicar. Antiq. Rom. lib. I. c. 9. 
 
 II Plin. lib. 6. p. 181. ApoU. Bibl. 1. i.e. 7. D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 251, 254, 
 
248 GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 mediate inftruments of conveying into Greece thofe principles of 
 theology, which their Scythian anceftors had fpread through 
 Afia, and which of courfe infuled the fame fpirit into the arts of 
 the former country, and gave them the fame original direftion by 
 which thofe of the latter had been uniformly controuled. Some 
 variations will naturally appear in the denomination of charac- 
 ters, which the influence of fubfequent mythologies in Greece 
 had introduced to a fliare in thofe principles : the fame thing 
 happened, as we have feen, in Egypt ; and in the fame fliades of 
 difference we have found the fame origin?! principles of theolo- 
 gy diverfified through the feveral nations of the eaft. 
 
 That theology, which thus found it's way into Greece was Scy- 
 thicifm ; and it only gave way to Hellenifm, when the Pelafgi loft 
 their footing in the country by the fuperior prevalence of the 
 Titan intereft, from whofe deified princes iflued all the new gods of 
 Hellenifm, at a period which acccording to the Arundelian mar- 
 bles anfwers to the year 1521 before our aera*. All that multi- 
 plicity of new deities, commonly called heathen, but more pre- 
 cifely Hellenian or Grecian, into which the religion of that coun- 
 try then branched, was in truth only fo many variations or fubdi- 
 vifions of the fupreme and primitive principle of Sc)'thicifm, 
 and fo many exemplifications of the attributes and powers of that 
 prim.itive principle, all referable ultimately to it's fuperior fource 
 and fwayt. The Zeus, or Jupiter, who ftepped into the place of 
 that primitive principle, was eafily derived, by the change of a 
 letter or two, from the Tho or Thco which the Pelafgi carried into 
 Greece as the name, and the only name, by which they fpoke of 
 
 * Marm. Oxon. Epoch. 6. D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 252, 255, 256, note. 
 1 Ibid. p. 271, 273, note. 
 
GRECIAN SCULPTURE^ 249 
 
 God or the primitive principle*, and which the Greek language 
 completely embraced when it called all it's divinities Qeoi. The 
 Greek word TJu, which fignifies to burn, was the fame variation 
 with the fame original reference, which it bore very naturally at 
 leaft in the habits of the Pelafgi, and of the Scythians before 
 them, and of the Greeks after them, with whom Hre was the firft 
 emblem of that primitive principle. We are led to conceive that 
 the variation, by which the word ley; was formed, was lubfe- 
 quent in time to the idea which had produced the word Zfw; for 
 in Olympia the Greeks facrificed to fire, under the name of Vef- 
 ta, before they facrificed to Jupitert. That Jupiter, and Tellus 
 the goddefs of the earth, whom Herodotus J exprefsly couples 
 together in the adoration of the Greeks, and alfo the figures of 
 the Bacchus Myfes male and female in one§, not excluding all 
 the other divinities of Greece which were united, and as one 
 may fay married, in both fexes || ; all thefe were manifeftly a con- 
 tinuation of the theological principle which gave the two in 
 one, which had eftablilhed the Papsus and the Apia of the 
 Scythians, the Ofiris and Ifis of the Egyptians, the Brouma 
 and Saraffouadi of the Indians, and had been purfued by the 
 laft-mentioned people in all the combined male and female 
 figures that are found in their pagodas. Bacchus and Apollo, 
 by whom, as Macrobius afiures us**, the Greeks meant only to 
 exprefs different provinces of one and the fame divinity, were 
 new figures of their own, correfpondent to the fame views which 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 217, 227, 249, 270. 
 
 t Paufan. lib. 5. p. 411. Herodot. lib. 4. fee. 59. p. 243. D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 
 Ill, 138, 139, 218, 219. X Ubi fup. 
 
 § Orph. Hymn 41. v. 3. D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 76, 92, 100. 
 II Ibid. vol. I. p. 235, 236. ** Macrob. Sat. lib. i. p. 141. 
 
 Vol. I. Kk 
 
250 GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 had eftablifhed in Afia the ox and the lion as the emblems of 
 the nodlurnal and diurnal fun* : fo they were meant to be con- 
 fidered in the tomb of Bacchus, which was {hewn at Delphi, clofe 
 by the golden ftatue of Apollo. Thefe and many other peculia- 
 rites in the cad of their divinities, created by their mythology, 
 but founded in a reference to a better and more folid principle, 
 were properly explainedt to the initiated in the facred myfteries 
 inflituted by Orpheus, who was himfelf of Scythian origin, and 
 therefore was likely to explain them aright ; and from whofe 
 time we mufl not fail to obferve that the ox, which had 
 been as much received in Greece as elfewhere, and had once 
 in Eubaea a cave which was called his palace, ceafed to be 
 worfliipped as a part of the ancient cofmogony J. 
 
 But the flrongeft feature of the Scythian theology, or of 
 variations upon it, in Greece was found in the worfliip of 
 Bacchus ; whofe worfhip, and whofe every reprefentation, 
 was filled in the courfe of time with all thofe circumftances § 
 which were employed in the worfhip, and in all the reprefenta- 
 tions, of the deified charafter that really conquered and civilized 
 India. The Greeks had forgotten how thole circumftances had 
 been introduced among them, and they were ignorant of their 
 real deftination, even while they were ufing them (|. When in 
 procefs of time they came to find, by their own migrations into 
 India, all thofe circumftances fubfifting and employed there in all 
 
 • D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 64, 233, 271, 273, 275. 
 
 t Macrob. ubi. fup. Eufeb. prxp. Evang. lib. 3. D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 64, 271, 
 364. + Ibid. p. 115, 140, 141. StraboGeog. lib. 10. p. 445. 
 
 § See thofe circumftances as they occur in D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 97. et feq. iii, 
 112,116,117,127, 132, 134.135' 143.198.203,215, 223,228,230,261, 278. 
 
 II Ibid. p. 64. 
 
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 25 1 
 
 iheir force, they vainly imagined that their Bacchus had been the 
 perfon who conquered that country, and that thofe rites, and cul'- 
 toms, and ideas had been tranfplanted thither from Greece it- 
 felf * ; confequently they fubftituted the name of Bacchus for 
 that of Brouma ; and probably it was not long before they be- 
 lieved, whatever others might do, that Bacchus was born in In- 
 dia +, and that they could find the record of his name in the de- 
 nomination of many towns, that were even built by him, in that 
 that country;!;. Thus the foundation was laid for that miftaken 
 fuperftrufture, with which the Grecian hiftories were filled, 
 ere6led on a mythological phantom, whofe fabulous and empty 
 tale Eratofthenes had difcernment enough to difcover^. 
 
 Thefe things are neceflary to be ftated in a refearch after the 
 origin and progrefs of the Grecian arts, becaufe from thefe prin- 
 ciples fo growing in that country thofe arts took their beginning. 
 The firfl: efforts of their fpirit rofe on emblematic ideas ; which 
 had no force, at leaft to the fenfes, until it was given them by the 
 aids of art. Thofe emblematic ideas, widening as they advanced, 
 afforded to the ingenuity which was fo needful to them a field 
 that was hardly to be bounded. They mixed themfelves in every 
 circumfi;ance, whether of convenience or ornament, of private 
 value or public ule, to which the aid of ingenuity could be called. 
 The mind, that once feels thofe ideas as the impreflions of religion, 
 feels them in every thing ; and when they come to take poffefTion 
 of a people, their features will be found in all that paffes from 
 hand to hand, as well as in the more ftated and folemn repre- 
 fentations which concern religion itfelf. There is an anxiety 
 
 * Diod. Sic. Bibl. lib. 2. p. I 51 . t Ibid, et lib. 3. p. 232. 
 
 X D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 98,99, 100. § Strabo Geog. lib. 15. p. 687. 
 
252 GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 alfo that will rife from thofe imprefTions, and will ever be pufliing 
 the efforts of art from one flage of ability to another. Fame itfelf 
 will pulh thofe eflPorts forward, but never fo warmly as when the 
 emulation is engaged with what concerns the fupreme Being ; 
 when it feeks to give a fort of fenfible form to the ideas which are 
 difficult to be grafped, and more difficult ftill to be reduced 
 into ffiape ; when it dares to make us fee what is invifible, and to 
 bring to our very fenfes what is hardly capable of being concei- 
 ved. In this peculiar emulation the feelings of the ruder artift 
 'would make up fomething for the deficiency of his powers. The 
 impoffibility of reaching the end to which his mind would afpire, 
 far from difcouraging his views, would only urge him continually 
 to new efforts, and to attain what perfeftion he could in thofe 
 ftages that lay within his compafs. He could never think to fuc- 
 ceed in the reprefentation of the divine Nature, becaufe it cannot 
 refemble any thing that ever was made ; but he might hope, in 
 the progrefs of thofe emblematical ftudies, to give to the human 
 nature a beauty capable of recalling at leaft the idea of that 
 perfeftion, which our feeble apprehenfions attribute to Him 
 whofe divine qualities are beyond the reach of every com- 
 parifon. 
 
 Thefe views gave the firfl difcovery of arts to the Greeks, as 
 they had done to other people ; and thefe continual efforts led 
 thofe arts from ftrength to flrength. That flrength became gra- 
 dually more encreafed in Greece, even while it's arts were all em- 
 blematic, becaufe thofe efforts were greater and more conflant 
 than any where elfe ; and they were helped forward by a more 
 thriving and progreffive genius in that people than they had 
 found in any others. Neverthelefs, the ftages through which 
 they pafled to any degree of ftrength in art, and firft in fculp- 
 
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 253 
 
 ture as we have faid, were but flow. As fuch, they carry the 
 furer marks of a very high antiquity among a people who were 
 naturally brilliant in mind. And as their fculpture opened with 
 an emblematic theologv, fo we fhall find the principles of that 
 theology, only modified by the peculiarity of their own fables, 
 keeping poffeflion of their fculpture until an attention to Nature, 
 both in charafter and execution, fl;epped into the place of the 
 other in the age of Dsdalus, but never to root it out entirely. 
 
 It was not the firft impreflions of that theology, which the 
 fculpture of the Greeks was enabled to meet. It muft therefore 
 have been in remote ages indeed, when the objefts of that theo- 
 logy, to which fculpture was fo important, were fatisfied by large 
 and tall flones fet up as flatuesof the divinity, in thofe places which 
 were meant to be confidered as the fcite of a temple, but which 
 had no other mark of fuch a defign than the enclofure made by 
 a circular fofs *. Sometimes thofe flones were fingle and de- 
 tached : fometimes they were connefted by others thrown acrofs; 
 fometimes, again, they were arranged three together : and at 
 other times the only diflinftion they had was the conical, pyra- 
 midical, or obelifcal form which was given them. Under all 
 thefe circumflances they were confidered as emblematic images, 
 exprelTmg by their largenefs the majefty of that Being, to whom 
 devotion was there offered ; by their ternary arrangement that 
 three-fold power of the Divinity, which creates, preferves, and 
 deftroys all things ; and by their myftical forms that aftive, vivi- 
 fying, and enlightening fpirit in the divine nature, of which fire 
 and the fun are the mofl; natural emblems — the firft, refembled in 
 it's afcending and pointed flame by the conical and pyramidical 
 
 ♦ D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 459. 
 
254 
 
 GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 form, the latter imitated in it's rays by the obelifcal ftruc- 
 ture *. Thefe theological ideas, thus burfting from the mind of 
 rudenefs and imperfeftion, and fo inertly exprelTed in huge, and 
 one may fay in fhapelefs, ftones, flood neverthelefs the teft of 
 every refinement attained in emblematic ftudies : they were not 
 loft when the fculpture of the Greeks was enabled to convey 
 them by a more a6live, decided, and improved expreflion in gems 
 and medals, and coins, and ftatues. It is by the information af- 
 forded in thefe, far more than by any remains of thofe facred 
 ftones, of which there are neverthelefs fome in many parts of 
 the earth, that we are enabled to know what were thofe firft 
 fanftuaries of religion, and thofe firft religious images, which 
 engaged the attempts of mankind. With fo great veneration 
 were thefe refpefted by the Greeks, that when they were in the 
 power of fubftituting the fineft coloflal ftatues in their place, they 
 preferred the others, and left them undifturbed; they recorded 
 the memorial of them on their coins and medals, when the ele- 
 gance of their fculpture might have been feen in a thoufand 
 more exquifite forms. 
 
 The firft efforts of their fculpture were moft probably 
 found in thofe engravings which were made on agates and other 
 ftones of a harder nature +. If this ftiould appear extraordi- 
 nary, or too much for thofe firft efforts, let it be remembered 
 that although the fkill of engraving on thofe ftones was equal 
 to any that could be wanted for the produftion of an im- 
 preffion on coins, yet that of moulding and throwing the mate- 
 rial into fufion was not neceflary. Many of thofe ftones, en- 
 graved in remote antiquity, have been preferved to the prefent 
 times ; although there are not more than three or four of thofe 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol. i. pref. p. 6, ii. t Ibid. pref. p. 3, 4 
 
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 •^55 
 
 engravers, whofe names have come down to us in ancient au- 
 thors. 
 
 Coins were indifpenfible to their necefTities in very early times, 
 and the Greeks had them" in all the progrefhon of art from fim- 
 ple moulding to the more finifhed impreffion, on gold, and filver, 
 and brafs *. But thofe coins were in every ftage of that progref- 
 hon the emanation of Scythian praftice : Erifthonius brought 
 immediately from Scythia thofe which he firfl introduced into 
 Athens 1463 years before our aera+ ; and there were other coin- 
 ages in Greece long before thatperiod|;, fome of which were un- 
 queftionably brought there by the Pelafgian fettlers. All thofe 
 coins, however, bore in their form and their expreffion, whether 
 ruder or more improved, the recorded principles of the prevail- 
 ing theology ; and in the more ancient ones there was the moft 
 decided fimilitude to thofe that were fabricated in the eaft, and 
 are ftill feen there, both in the various forms of the monies, 
 and in the treatment of their reverfe, and in the whole opera- 
 tion by which they were finifhed §. The obelifcal monies, which 
 feem to have been at leaft as early as any others in Greece, and 
 were aftually derived from Afia, were an exprefs record of the 
 firfl devotion ||. The coins in form of the Tejferat had the fame 
 eaflern origin, and flill fubfifl in Tartary, although they have 
 been difcontinued in Greece for more than 2700 years **. 
 
 The fymbolic charafters expreffed on their coins, and after- 
 wards on their medals as they came into ufe, were all drawn 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol. i. pref. p. i. t Ibid p. 23. % Ibid. p. 30, 31. 
 
 § See ibid. p. 57, 60, 410,416. || Ibid. p. i, 9, 10, 21, 22, 57, 409, 
 
 4">443- ** Ibid, p. 58, 410. 
 
256 GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 from the fame eaftern fource, and were referable to the fame the- 
 ological principles. The emblematic ox was as old as the people 
 who firft inhabited the country, and was revered by the Greeks in 
 the living animal, as it had been revered in Afia and in Egypt, be- 
 fore ever their arts were enabled to give it's figure on their coins 
 and medals *. When it appeared on thofe of Thefeus, it was 
 late in time ; and in that inftance we fee how little Plutarch had 
 gained the proper clue of things, when he gives as a reafon for 
 that impreflion of the ox, that it was the intention of Thefeus 
 either to immortalize the Marathonian bull, and the general 
 Taurus of Minos, or to encourage the citizens in the cultivation 
 of their Iands+. The intention of Thefeus was that fame inten- 
 tion, which was long cherifhed by the Greeks, of preferving in 
 their fculptures, and particularly in their coins and medals, the 
 ideas which had marked them early, and with which their firft 
 growth had begun, whether thofe ideas then continued to be 
 purfued in their firft fimplicity, or were retained in all their firft 
 influence, or not. For at that period we muft recolleft that 
 Orpheus had difcontinued in the facred myfteries the reve- 
 rence of the ox, as a part of the ancient cofmogony. 
 
 The ferpent, whofe influence in the emblematic fyftem was 
 equal to that of the ox, and whofe origin was equally Scythian J, 
 became equally diftinguiflied in the fculptures of the Greeks. 
 The fable of Echidne, the mother of the Scythians, gave her 
 figure terminating as a ferpent to all the founders of ftates in 
 Greece ; from whence their earlieft fculptures reprefented in that 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 140, note. + Plut. viiaThefei. 
 
 ;}: D'Ancarv. vol. I. p. 483. 
 
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 257 
 
 form the Titan-princes, Cecrops, Draco the firfl king of Athens, 
 and even Erifthonius *. In allufion to the fame fource the fer- 
 pent was fymbolized in many of their ancient bafs-reliefs as the 
 leader of armies and colonies : gryphons, in Scythian habits, 
 are found fighting for particular people +. It was a relic of 
 the fame original idea, when prieftcffes were reprefented offering 
 meats to that animal J; and when Phidias placed aferpent befide 
 the fpear of Minerva in the image which he made for the citadel 
 of Athens, which was abfolutely confidered as guarded by that 
 creature ^. It's combinations with other figures in the Grecian 
 coins and medals were all referable to the ancient cofmogony or 
 theology derived from the Scythian creed ; whether the ferpent 
 was feen infolding an egg, as in the medals of Phoenicia || ; or 
 twifted round a trident, the type of the fea, to fhew it's imagined 
 rule over humid nature, as in the images of Tartary** ; or en- 
 circling a flambeau, the known Thyrfus of Bacchus, to befpeak 
 it's emblematic reference to that deity, who fliood as the god of 
 life and death ++ ; or with a ftar under it, and a crefcent over it, 
 to denote it's fymbolic relation to the primitive principle which 
 drew the world from night and chaos J J. The variations in 
 which it was reprefented were almofl infinite : and we cannot 
 wonder at any expreflions of importance given to that emblem 
 by the Greeks, when we recolleft that through the medium of 
 it's fuppofed infpiration, under the name of Python, the firft ora- 
 cles of Delphi and Dodona were conduced, before ever the name 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol, i. p. 52, 54,453. 
 
 t Ibid. p. 454, 489. + Ibid. p. 473, 483. 
 
 § Ibid. p. 48, 485. Herodot. lib. 8. fee. 41. 
 II Ibid. p. 480. See pi. 23. No. 5. 
 *» Ibid. p. 482. See pi. 22. No. 10. 
 
 +t Ibid. p. 463, 464. ++ Ibid. p. 481. See pi. 23. No. 3. 
 
 Vol. I. L 1 
 
258 GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 of Apollo M^as known in Greece*. When that deity was fubfli- 
 luted by the Grecian mythology as the vifible oracle, ftill he 
 was called the Pythian Apollo, and his priefteffes Pythians ; from 
 thence it was alfo faid that Apollo had killed the ferpent Python, 
 whofe place he had taken+. Yet, as if the Greeks were afraid to 
 lofe the popular influence, as well as the popular name, of the 
 ferpent, thofe oracles were flill confidered as originating from 
 him, and on that account he was often reprefented alive on tri- 
 pods in the reverfe of Grecian medals J. 
 
 The vafl: variety of types given by the Greeks to all their di- 
 vinities, and particularly to Bacchus, does not more abound with 
 the proofs of ingenuity, than with thofe of Scythian principles ; 
 and more efpecially when thofe types were the very fame that 
 were employed by many of the Afiatic nations to mark the attri- 
 butes of their divinity. In thofe types or fymbols there was 
 certainly a flage of advancement in genius beyond the idea of 
 expreffing the fuperiority of divine power, or divine wifdom, or 
 divine forefight, by many hands, or many heads, or three eyes 
 given to their figures §. And yet that feems to have been a pri- 
 mary idea ; for the Greeks purfued the fame method for a confi- 
 derable time||. A whimfical, and poor, and vicious mode of fym- 
 bolical expreffion it certainly was ** ; although the difficulty be 
 acknowledged, and efpecially in lefs polifhed ages, of coming 
 in a better way to the objeft at which they aimed, and which was 
 to exprefs ideas not eafy to be comprehended by forms concor- 
 dant to the natural order of things, and to give the exhibition of 
 imaginary powers and afts as foreign to the common order of 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 454, 482. t Ibid. p. 483, note. 
 
 % Ibid. § Ibid. p. 51, 56, 464. 
 
 II Ibid. p. 50, 54. ** Ibid. p. 54, 56. 
 
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 259 
 
 events as that arbitrary alliance of forms was to the order of Na- 
 ture. That difficulty, however, was in part overcome by many 
 of the eaflern nations themfelves. The activity of Grecian ge- 
 nius was never likely to be (hackled by it long, unlefs from a 
 voluntary refpeft for antiquity, and for the firft traits of their 
 favourite theology. If in the purfuit of this new fpirit of alle- 
 gory a language was opened in fculpture very different from that 
 which had been originally fpoken, the freedom and the novelty of 
 the change decided prefently the Grecian choice ; and the fupe- 
 rior elegance of defign, which was confulted in that change, 
 turned every argument in it's favour. Inflead of the ungracious 
 multiplication of parts, or the equally ungracious combination 
 of different fpecies of beings, the various attributes and powers 
 of the Divinity were expreffed by types or emblems, whofe forms 
 or properties were conceived mod appofite to the illuftration of 
 thofe attributes and powers ; while the reference to that original 
 fource, from whence the firfl ideas of thofe qualities had flowed, 
 was maintained as far as it was pofllble. 
 
 The horns of a young ox given to the figures of Bacchus, from 
 whence he was called by the poets corniger, was equal in expref- 
 fion, and much more than equal in elegance of defign, to all the 
 reprefentations which had been given of him by the face of the 
 ox put upon the human frame, or by the human countenance 
 added to the frame of the ox *. 
 
 The mitre put upon the head of Bacchus by the Greeks, as it 
 was put upon that of Brouma by the Indians, fpoke with more 
 elegance and concifenefs, although with more emblematic pro- 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 352, 461. 
 
26o GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 fundity, that ancient cofmogony which to this hour is told at 
 Japan by the figure of a real ox butting againft a real egg, in or- 
 der to affift the birth of creation from it's enclofure; for that egg, 
 when divided in halves, became the very form of thofe mitres or 
 bonnets. The Greeks made fo much of that idea, and were fo 
 well pleafed with it, that both in their paintings and fculptures 
 they gave thofe mitres or bonnets to the brows of Caflor and 
 Pollux ; and in that application they found an egg for their own 
 origin, while they allowed one for the birth of the world ; for 
 they wilhed it to be underftood, that they came forth from the 
 eg(f of Leda formed by her connexion with Jupiter, and they 
 were vain enough to (hew fuch an egg fufpended from the cieling 
 of a temple at Lacedaemon *. 
 
 To mount their deities on birds or animals was common with 
 the Greeks, When Bacchus, either as Liber Pater or as Libera, 
 was reprefented on their medals and bafs-reliefs feated on a fwan 
 that rode on the waters, with fifties around it ; the idea was a 
 plain one, that in their creed that deity ruled over humid nature, 
 as his emblem the aquatic ferpent was of courfe confidered to 
 rule over it. That creed they borrowed from the ancient theo- 
 logy, which looked up to the fupreme generator of all things as 
 drawing forth the world from the bofom of the waters, and as 
 prefiding over their influence, without whofe moifture they knew 
 that neither the earth could be habitable, nor could any of it's 
 creatures fubf ft, nor any of it's produftions vegetate +. They 
 alfo borrowed from the eaft the very emblem which they applied 
 thus to their Bacchus ; for Brouma was often reprefented by the 
 
 • PauTan. lib. 3. c. 16. p. 246. D'Ancarv. vol. i.p. 132. 
 t Ibid. p. 134, 354, 
 
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 26I 
 
 Indians as borne upon the Annon, which Sonnerat tells us is a 
 fpecies of the fwan, and is the fame bird that was given by the 
 Greeks to Bacchus *. If we would know why that fpecial pro- 
 vince of prefiding over all humid nature was given to Bacchus, 
 and was exprefTed with fuch various attention by the Greeks, 
 an hymn of Orpheus will explain the reafonf . Bacchus is there 
 celebrated for having extinguiflied by water a fire which was ori- 
 ginally confuming this earthly globe. That notion found it's 
 way to the Greeks from a fimilar tradition among the Scythians J; 
 although they knew notliing of Bacchus, and confequently never 
 meant to apply it to him. That application was the fruit of 
 Grecian mythology. It was the fource, however, of all the liba- 
 tions on the earth which Bacchus is ever reprefented as making in 
 any of the Grecian paintings, orfculptures, or engravings. 
 
 When dolphins, and other fymbols of waters, are feen on their 
 medals with the ox, the emblem of Bacchus, it is evidently a 
 part of the fame mythology, grafted on the fame Afiatic prin- 
 ciples ^. 
 
 The ivy, with which the figures of Bacchus were crowned, 
 arofe alfo from the fame principles, and was intended to illuftrate 
 the fame purpofe. That plant grows fpontaneous in moift and 
 fhady places : it was therefore chofen as well as the tamara for 
 an aquatic emblem. If the latter announced alfo a divinifation 
 of charafter, the former befpoke the god of waters. And Plu- 
 tarch's authority is full to the point, that " Bacchus was confi- 
 " dered by the Greeks as the lord and mafter of all humid na- 
 
 * Sonnerat's Voy. vol. i. p. 143, note C. t Orph. Hymn 46. v. 2. et feq. 
 
 X Juftin, lib. 2. c. i. D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 283 — 288. 
 ^ D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 224. 
 
262 GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 " ture *•" That deity was therefore crowned with ivy, not as 
 the god of wine, but as the god of waters. +From thence the 
 mufes came to be crowned with ivy, becaufe mythology had faid 
 that the mufes accompanied Bacchus into India, grounding itfelf 
 on the hiftory that many women accompanied Brouma thither. 
 Thofe women were charafterifed, at lead in fable, as great pro- 
 ficients in fcience, and from them were felefted many who were 
 confecrated to the worfliip of the emblematic principle of all ge- 
 neration. They were therefore naturally crowned with that ivy, 
 which the Scythians carried in all the feafts and orgies for which 
 thofe women were confecrated. When the mufes had thus gained 
 the crown of ivy, we fhall no longer be at a lofs for the reafon 
 why it was given to poets, and became in the expreffion of Ho- 
 race " doftarum hederee prsmia frontium." When it was mixed 
 with the laurel in the crowns given to Apollo on fome of the 
 Grecian medals, it befpoke with great eafe the union of that 
 deity with Bacchus, as exhibiting together only different exem- 
 plifications or attributes of one and the fame primitive principle, 
 and the adherence of the Greeks to the ancient theology, which 
 had uniformly tranfmitted the idea of two in one '^. 
 
 But vine-leaves were alfo an emblem appropriated to Bacchus 
 — an emblem, originating from the Greeks themfelves, when they 
 confidered him as the god of wine. If thefe formed a crown to 
 the figure of the fun in fome of the Grecian medals, the language 
 and intent was in faft the fame as if they had crowned the head 
 of Bacchus himfelf, who was fubftituted by the Greeks for the 
 nofturnal fun which had been given by the Indians to Brouma §. 
 
 * Pint, in Ifid. et Oririd. p. 365. t D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 222, 223. 
 
 X Ibid. p. 275, note. § Ibid. 
 
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 263 
 
 In fome bafs-reliefs Bacchus as an infant is feen crowned with 
 thefe leaves of the vine in a cradle, which takes the form of the 
 half of an egg cut in tw^o from end to end : and there we fee the 
 creed, which reprefents his birth, conne6led ingenioufly with the 
 ancient creed of cofmogony, and illuflrating the title of wsyfv;;?, 
 " born of an egg," which was given him by Orpheus * : the 
 Greeks meant to fay that his birth was the birth of the world 
 from the egg of chaos t. 
 
 In fome of the Grecian medals ringlets detached from the 
 refl of the hair, and rifing up like little flames of fire, are feen on 
 the heads both of Apollo and Bacchus, but lefs numerous on 
 thofe of the latter than they appear on the former. By that in- 
 genuity the artifts of Greece recorded in thofe two deities the fun 
 of the world, confidered by the ancient theology as the firft de- 
 fcendant or fon of the primitive principle of fire, and only diver- 
 fified into the diurnal and nofturnal fun, the latter of whom 
 was of courfe lefs illumined than the former J. When thofe ring- 
 lets or fparks were ken on the heads of other gods or goddeffes, 
 they marked equally the divine filiation which was afcribed to 
 thofe deities as defcendants of the Titans, who were concluded 
 to be defcended from heaven. And when the fame fymbols were 
 given as a diadem to the heads of Grecian kings, it was done in 
 profecution of the like claim aflumed by them, after the example 
 of many eafl;ern princes, to be the fons of a god, which the kings 
 of Macedon particularly aflerted to themfelves§. 
 
 But the diflinftion of the diurnal and nofturnal fun was ne- 
 
 * Orph. Hymn 5. v. 2. + D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 276,277. 
 
 X Ibid. p. 273, 274. § Ibid. , 
 
264 GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 ver feen more flrongly or more ingenioufly condufted in the 
 fculptures of Greece than under the fymbols of the lion and ox, 
 when feen together. Thefe were refpeftively the types of either 
 fun. In fome bafs -reliefs they were reprefented as iffuing, both 
 of them, from the fame leaves of the acanthus, which was itfelf 
 an emblem of fire, like the fruit of the pine on the top of the 
 tli)rfus. As they rufh forth from thofe leaves, they take an op- 
 pofite courfe from each other, defcriptive enough of the oppofi- 
 tion between day and night ; while the equal ardour of both to 
 be gone (hewed very expreflively the flight of time*. 
 
 We have juft mentioned the thyrfus, but it affords more abun- 
 dant notice. It was attached almoft conflantly as a kind of fcep- 
 ter to the figures of Bacchus ; and it was a very fignificant fym- 
 bol, although the Greeks derived it entirely from the Scythians. 
 It carried in it's name the fource which it obtained from the Aga- 
 thyrfes, the eldefl branch of that people : it carried alfo in it's 
 name another reference which it bore to the Thyr or Theo of the 
 Scythians, and confequently it became an emblem of the fupreme 
 principle defcribed by that name : it became that emblem from a 
 part of it's form ; for the apple of the pine or fir put upon the top 
 of it's rod, refembling by it's conical or pyramidical fhape a rifing 
 flame, eafily fixed it for the fymbol of fire, in which the fupreme 
 principle was firfl emblematically viewed. To that principle, 
 by the progrefs of mythology, Bacchus became fubflituted in 
 Greece f. 
 
 \Vhen Diana of Ephefus was reprefented in a car drawn by two 
 * D'Ancan. vol. i.p. 271 — 273. t Ibid. p. 261 — 265. 
 
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 265 
 
 oxen, from whence flie gained tlie name of " bourn agitatrix," 
 the affurance we have that flie was confidered as the moon, and 
 the clofenefs of thofe fymbols to the nofturnal fun, give us that 
 part of the eaftern theology again. And when her figure was 
 taken in a male as well as a female form, making good the words 
 of Arnobius, who fays that (he was addrefled in prayers as equi- 
 vocal in fex*; we know that the Greeks were led to that 
 choice by a principle which never arofe firft in their country f. 
 
 The deity, to whom the Greeks gave the name of Pan, the All, 
 and whom they reprefented with the face and legs of the goat+, 
 becaufe that animal had been an original emblem of the Theo 
 or primitive principle revered by the Scythians, was a fubjeft 
 replete with emblematic fymbols in the hands of the Greek ar- 
 tifts. When he was feen with a diadem on his head, his general 
 authority over all that exifted in nature and creation was clearly 
 and concifely exprelfed ^. When he was reprefented playino- on 
 a flute, they meant to fhew, that he was the principle of harmo- 
 ny to the univerfe ||. When they gave him hairs refembling fea- 
 weeds, which are call upon the fliore, from whence ftatues of Pan 
 fo drelfed were frequently erefted there, and from whence alfo he 
 gained the ndixnt oV Littoral** , it was an eafy mode of expref- 
 fing that fupremacy which he had over the waters, as well as 
 over all the earth ++. When, inftead of being reprefented naked, 
 as he generally was, the (kin of a leopard, called nebrides, was 
 thrown over his flioulders ; the variety of colours and afpefts, 
 
 * Arnob. adv. gent. lib. 3. t D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 237. 
 
 :J: Herodot. lib. 2. fee. 46. p. 108. § D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 332. 
 
 II Orph. Hymn 10. v. 7. D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 333, 334. 
 ** Theocrit. Idyll. 5. tt D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 331, 332, 
 
 Vol. I. ,Mra 
 
266 GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 as well as of things themfelves, difperfed through all Nature over 
 which he prefided, was meant to be announced*. When he 
 was defcribed with a ihepherd's crook, his guardianfhip of flocks 
 was diflinftly given f. 
 
 But how came the Greeks by that idea of Pan, on which this 
 laft fymbol was grounded ? It's paflage to them from the Scy- 
 thians can eafily be traced. That people, a paftoral people, 
 whofe wealth confided in their flocks, naturally looked up to 
 their Theo or primitive principle for the proteftion of their fub- 
 ftance as well as of themfelves J. When the power of that primi- 
 tive principle, in the multiplication of all creatures, came to be 
 revered under an emblem prefent to the fight, the nature of 
 the goat decided that choice^. It was therefore by an eafy pro- 
 cefs of idea, that the Greeks, having received the old emblem 
 of the fupreme generating principle, and which was to the Scy- 
 thians the emblem of it's paftoral protection, gave the fame 
 charafter of paftoral proteftion to their Pan, whom they fubfti- 
 tuted for that generating principle. 
 
 The fame folution will alfo explain at once the origin of all thofe , 
 figures of Sileni, fatyrs, tityri, and fauns, confiderably diverfified 
 from each othei", but all retaining more or lefs the mai-ks and 
 charafters of the goat, which mythology had introduced and 
 attached to the reprefentations of Pan, and afterwards to thofe 
 of Bacchus, when he came to be fubftituted for that deity ||. All 
 thofe emblematic figures were only fo many various expreflions 
 of that fupreme vivifying a6lion, which animates all things, and 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 337. t Ibid. p. 327, note. % Ibid. 
 
 § Ibid. p. 320. I Ibid. p. 330. 
 
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 267 
 
 fpreads itfelf over all kinds, and fpecies, and individuals in crea- 
 tion, however diverfified by names, or forms, or ages, or fexes, 
 or employments*. 
 
 What we have juft intimated concerning the (hare which Bac- 
 chus came to have in thofe fubjefts, will pave the way to an ex- 
 planation of many other circumflances or fynibols attached to the 
 reprefentation of that god of the Greeks. It may naturally be 
 fuppofed that many of thofe fvmbols originally appropriated to 
 Pan, and others peculiarly calculated for Bacchus, would in time 
 be fo confounded by artifls, that they would be applied in fome 
 inflances indifcriminately to either, though not without the pur- 
 pofe of preferving a myfterious fenfef, in which they were refpec- 
 tively concerned : this was the cafe, when the goat's beard of 
 Pan was given to Bacchus ; and, on the other hand, when the 
 long robe of Bacchus, called Bajfarides, was put upon the figures 
 of Pan + 
 
 What we have faid will alfo explain at once the origin and 
 purpofe of all thofe figures of Bacchus which go by the names 
 of Satyr, Dafyllius, or Lafius ; in all of which is exprefied, 
 under fome little difference of defcription, the quality of hairy- 
 nefs peculiar to the goat §. When we recolleft that the imme- 
 diate charafter of Bacchus was that of the ox, which was his 
 firfl emblem, it muff appear furprifing how the Greeks fhould 
 ever think of uniting to that charafter another fo extremely dif- 
 ferent from it as that of the goat ; and more furprifing fl;ill, how 
 they fhould have found the powers of art to effed that combi- 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 325. t Ibid. p. 335, 336. 
 
 + Ibid. p. 337. § Ibid. p. 338, 339. 
 
268 GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 nation, fo corre6lly adjufted as to make itfelf plain and diftinft, 
 without fuffering from the predominance of either charafter over 
 that of the other ; and, again, without lofing any of that nice 
 adjuflment by the injury done to the human figure through the 
 exceffive prevalence of either of thofe charafters over it's pecu- 
 liar traits *. This was certainly a phaenomenon of art, for which 
 it is next to impoffible for lefs capacities than theirs to account 
 diftinftly ; ^nd yet there can be no doubt of the fa6l. A ftronger 
 inflance can hardly be adduced of the perfeflion to which their 
 genius had arrived. 
 
 Previous, however, to the reach of fo much fpirit in art, the 
 emblematic fymbols on their coins and medals had derived a new 
 fpirit, not merely from the endeavour to give more beauty to 
 their compofition, but from deeper reafons connefted with my- 
 thology itfelf. In the forms of thofe fymbols the Greeks effayed 
 to illullrate more than the mere truth of the figure which confti- 
 tuted the fymbol ; they ftrove to fhew the caufes and foundation 
 of it's fymbolical reference and ufe. While they were not wan- 
 tonly carelefs of the laws of Nature, by departing from the gene- 
 ral forms which fhe had prefcribed ; they conceived themfelves 
 at liberty in the treatment of the fymbol to compofe it in fome 
 degree as they pleafed, to ennoble it by new proportions, and 
 to bring within it's outline fuch a defcription of it's parts as ap- 
 peared mofl perfeft, with the alliance too of other parts which 
 would bed complete it as a myflical figure for the obje6l propoled, 
 whether that outline was precifely fuch as was found in Nature 
 or not. Thus in the quadrilateral monies of Athens, which 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 339, note. The obfervations of M. D'Ancarville, tend- 
 ing to explain in fome degree the procefs of thofe aftonifliing compofitions of figures, 
 are deeply founded in philofophic art, and worthy of the reader's attention. 
 
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 269 
 
 bore the impreffion of an ox, the hams there defcribed were by 
 no means the common horns of that animal ; they had a round- 
 nefs and a largenefs which were not feen in any horns whatever; 
 and they terminated in the form of obeHfks, whofe form was in- 
 genioufly bent and adapted to the contour of horns. Now the 
 obelifk was a known fymbol of the rays of the fun. The Greeks, 
 therefore, in that alliance of parts given to thofe horns of the 
 ox, and in the peculiar management of their form, plainly dreffed 
 them fo as to fhew their fymbolic relation to Bacchus as the 
 no6lurnal fun*. 
 
 In the formation of thofe myflic figures which engrafted a new 
 and more enlarged fpirit on the ancient ftyle, the Greek artifts 
 were juflified, as Ammonius tells us+, by Ariftotle on the com- 
 mon diftinftion between a natural and a fymbolic reprefenta- 
 tion ; for Ariftotle was too indifferent about the fine arts to have 
 reached, in all probability, the fource and the elements from 
 whence thofe myftic figures were drawn : but he fays, " there is 
 " this difference between the reprefentation and the fymbol of 
 " an objed:, that while the former adheres faithfully to the na- 
 " ture of the objeft reprefented, the latter is entirely depen- 
 " dent on the imagination of him who compofes it, and who 
 " may give it that variation or compofition which he (hall 
 " think beft calculated to convey the idea which his own mind 
 " has entertained, and which he does not mean to reprefent mi- 
 " nutely, but to fignify by an appofite fymbol." In the treat- 
 ment of thofe fymbolic forms the Greek artifts afted as the poets 
 of Greece had done, who by the mode of exprelfion, by the 
 combination of many words or ideas in one, were enabled to 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 424 — 426. t Ammon. in Lib. de Interpret. 
 
270 GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 throw into that one the precife impreffion at which they aimed, 
 the colleftive impreflion of all the aggregate parts, which could 
 never have been conveyed by any of thofe parts themfelves in 
 their feparate ftate *. 
 
 In thefe emblematic works were the fculptural arts of Greece 
 employed in the earlier ages, until Daedalus made his appear- 
 ance f. If in the purfuit of the emblematic figure Nature had 
 been violated, if to the conflitution of that figure more parts 
 had been given than were natural, he fl;rove to recover thofe laws 
 which were warranted in Nature, he brought theartifls of Greece 
 to an exaft imitation of her forms, and thofe at leaft who fol- 
 lowed his principles abandoned from thenceforth the ftyle which 
 Greece had received from Afia, and to which Afia never ceafed to 
 adhere J. Neverthelefs, fome ancient figures of that emblematic 
 fpecies, adopted by fuperftition, or by the habits which are equal 
 to it, or by the necelTity of maintaining the figures employed 
 of old in the fervice of religion, were facredly preferved, and 
 even frequently repeated in later times by the moft celebrated 
 mailers §. 
 
 That attention to Nature, for the introduftion of which, 
 as a melioration of the Grecian fculptures, Daedalus was 
 credited, muft not be fet down as very improved beyond the 
 interruption it gave to emblematic defigns. As an expreffion 
 of the natural figure, if we combine with the mere figure any 
 ideas of it's fpirit, certainly much more than was done in his fculp- 
 tures, and in thole of his fchool, was wanted to conflitute any con- 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 426, note. t Ibid. p. 55, 425. 
 
 % Ibid. vol. 2. p. 395, note. § Ibid. vol. i. p. 55, 425. 
 
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 271 
 
 fiderable melioration of defign, if there were in that age any 
 fculptures at all, afFefting the plain and diftinft natural figure, 
 with which they might be compared ; for, as we have already 
 had occafion to remark, on the authority of Plato, Paufanias, 
 and others, nothing could have advanced much lefs beyond the 
 mere block, or beyond the fculptures of Egypt, than his figures. 
 They did indeed manifeft an attention to Nature, fo far as that 
 was proved by a regular difplay of the feveral parts of the figure, 
 by the feparation of the arms and legs, or at leafl of the latter*, 
 and by fome little communication of attitude: but, beyond thefe, 
 their pretenfions to the expreffion of Nature were very hum- 
 ble+ ; although in thefe circumftances fome ftep was undoubtedly 
 gained in art, and it was to the credit of Daedalus that he was 
 able to go beyond the rudenefs and deformity of fuch fculptures 
 as the palladium, and the ftatue of Amyclas, and that of the 
 Ephefian Diana, all of them made before his time, and only dif- 
 tinguifhed from columns by the head, and the hands, and the 
 extremity of the feet J. The ftatues on the tomb of Choraebus 
 at Megara, we doubt not, were in that rude ftyle ; for they were 
 made 250 years before the age of Daedalus, and about 1540 
 years before our asra ^. It was certainly to the credit of Daeda- 
 lus that he was able to give the Greeks fome rules in the praftice 
 of their fculpture ||. In his fchool, which produced many re- 
 fpeftable difciples, among whom Endius was eminently marked, 
 they faw for the firfl time the arts of defign purfued on fome re- 
 gularity of principles**. Perhaps it is true, that he carried the 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol. 2. p. 423. t Paufan. lib. 2. cap. 4. p. i2r. 
 
 ^ D'Ancarv. vol. 2. p. 261, 262, 423. § Ibid. vol. 2. p. 343. 
 (I Diod. Sic. Bibl. lib. 4. c. 31. D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 55. Vol. 2. p. 284, 285. 
 ** Paufan. lib. 8. cap. 53. p. 708. 
 
272 GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 imitation of Nature fo far as to have made portraits of his fta- 
 tues ; which, although it were a confiderable ftep in the firft en- 
 deavours to follow Nature, might yet be done by thofe who had 
 a talent for it, without much merit in the general figure. It is 
 on the language of Apollodorus that this idea is grounded, who 
 fpeaks of fome ftatues of Hercules, done by Daedalus, which 
 Were very like the original*. 
 
 Daedalus had fome cotemporaries in art, whofe names arc 
 tranfmitted by authors, but not with equal fame that is 
 given to him+. The age in which he lived, how late foever 
 it came in the antiquity of Grecian fculpture, feems to have 
 given the firfl opening to freedom and truth in that art. The 
 family of Daedalus was very ingenious, and an important acqui- 
 fition to that age. They feem to have been born for the fine arts. 
 Whether or no it be true, as Pliny has afferted J, that Euchir the 
 father of Dxdalus firft introduced, or, as it is faid, invented paint- 
 ing in Greece ; we may reafonably conclude from the mention of 
 him in that way, that he had made himfelf noticed in that art. 
 We are alTured, however, by Diodorus Siculus that Talus the 
 nephew of Daedalus invented the potter's wheel, by means of 
 which the Greeks began to execute thofe fine vafes, in which 
 they afterwards fo much excelled ^. Whether Dzedalus himfelf 
 invented the plaftic art, or that of moulding figures, and alfo the 
 art of cafting them in metals, is not quite decided ; but he was 
 at leaft matter of thofe arts, if Ariftotle fays rightly, that two 
 ftatues reprefenting himfelf and his fon Icarus were caft by him, 
 
 * Apollod. lib. 2. c. 6. p. 126. D'Ancarv. vol. 2. p. 292, note. 
 
 + Paiifan. lib. 7. c. 4. p. 531. D'Ancarv. vol. 2. p. 285. 
 
 1 Plin. lib. 7. c. 56. § Died. Sic. Bibl. lib. 4. c. 29. 
 
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 273 
 
 the one in lead and the other in brafs*. In this circumftance, 
 therefore, Pliny muft have been miftaken, when he gave the 
 invention of the plaftic art to Theodorus and Rhsecus of the 
 ifleofSamost, who did not come upon the llage of life till 
 the firfl olympiad at fooneftj: probably that author was 
 mifled by confounding that Theodorus with another artift of 
 the fame name, but a native of Miletus, who appears to have 
 been cotemporary with Daedalus^. The genius of this laft 
 artill feems to have been of a general kind in fculpture, to fay- 
 nothing of him as an architeft'; for among the many ftatues dif- 
 perfed over different parts of Greece, which he made of his friend 
 and cotemporary Hercules from various materials, one was made 
 of pitch, which fo deceived Hercules himfelf, that miftaking it 
 for a man in the night, he flung a ftone at the figure ||. It was 
 not merely in fingle figures that his art was feen. Paufanias tells 
 us, that the Gnoflians had a bafs-relief in white marble by his 
 hand, which reprefented the dance of Ariadne, defcribed after- 
 wards by Homer in the Iliad**. The age itfelf appears to have 
 been emulous of ingenuity : for Plutarch fays, that the Meropi- 
 des, who lived in the fame period with Hercules, and confe- 
 quently with Daedalus, firft conceived the idea of reprefenting 
 the gi-aces in the hands of the god of mufic++. And Endius 
 did not fall fhort of that fpirit, when he executed at Erythra; th 
 figure of the graces and the hours in marble JJ. Hercules en- 
 couraged that progrefs in genius ; for he confecrated many 
 figures in different parts of Greece, as well as the lion in flone 
 
 * Ariftot. de Mirab. Aufcult. t Plin. lib. 35. c 12. 
 
 X D'Ancarv. vol. 2. p. 292, note. § Athenag. Athen. regat. 
 
 11 Apollod. lib. 2. c. 6. p. 126. ** Paufan. lib. 9. c. 40. p. 793, 
 
 +t Plut. de Miifica, p. 11 36. Xt Paufan. lib. 7, c. 5. p. 534. 
 
 Vol. I. N n 
 
274 GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 at the temple of Diana Euclea in Thebes *. It was not long 
 after that period, when Helen was carried off to Troy : and the 
 curiofity of antiquarian refearch has difcovered that (he then 
 took with her a ring formed of an afterite ftone, or a done in 
 the form of a ftar, which fhe uled for a feal, and on which was 
 engraved the figure of a fifh +. Ulyffes alfo, who went to the war 
 which followed that event, carried with him a ring, on which was 
 engraved the figure of a dolphin : it is remarkable that Stefi- 
 chorus fays, the fame figure was engraved on his ring and on his 
 fliield+. 
 
 When it is faid by many authors §, that the Greeks had not 
 arrived to the ufe of marble and ftone in ftatues until the time of 
 Dipaenus and Scyllis, that is, about the 50th olympiad; theinftan- 
 ces which we have juft mentioned will be fufficient to evince the 
 error of fuch an idea||, without adducing many others which 
 may be drawn from antiquity. It is plain that thofe writers, 
 who have reprefented the movements of Grecian fculpture as fo 
 tardy, have been led by that progrefs of fkill which has appear- 
 ed moft probable to their own minds, rather than by any atten- 
 tive refearch into real fa61s. Or if an authority was reforted to, 
 the filence of Homer concerning ftatues of marble and ftone is 
 taken as a fufficient proof that no fuch works had exifted in 
 Greece at the time of the Trojan war ; as if that poet was com- 
 pelled to mention every thing that was then known and praftifed 
 in his country. The fa6l is, that hardly any materials can be 
 named, in which ftatues have been formed, and which were not 
 
 • Paufan. lib. 9. c. 17. p. 743. 
 
 t Photii Biblioth. cod. 190. ex Ptol. Hephasft. lib. 7. p. 494. 
 
 X Plut. de folert. animal, p. 985. § Plin. lib. 36. fee. 4. Goguet, vol. 2. 
 
 II D'Ancarv. vol. 2. p. 286, 287. p. 227. Vol. 3. p. 87. 
 
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. QJ^ 
 
 employed forthat purpofe by Daedalus and his difciples*. Endius, 
 we are affured, wrought many flames in ivoryt : and there can 
 be no doubt that his mafter had done the fame. Paufanias, de- 
 fcribing the ftatues of Jupiter and Juno, which were in the tem- 
 ple of that goddefs built at Olympia by Oxilus in the next cen- 
 tury after Daedalus, and which were quite in the fimple flyle of 
 Daedalus himfelf, fays exprefsly that they were made not only ot 
 ivory but of gold J. It is improbable, that when the art of cafting 
 ftatues in metal was known in the age of Daedalus, as we have 
 already obferved, that age Ihould be incompetent to the ufe of 
 any metals whatever in which ftatues were caft at a time fo little 
 diftant from it, and by artifts who had advanced nothing upon 
 the execution of Daedalus himfelf. We fhall think lefs of the 
 employment of gold and filver even in coloflTal fculpture, when 
 we recolleft what was done in that way at Babylon, and in the 
 temple of the ox at Japan, in ages far more remote, and perhaps 
 lefs informed in many parts of art, than that of which we are 
 fpeaking in Greece. And therefore when Homer, fpeaking of 
 the Trojan war, which happened according to the Arundelian 
 marbles 1209 years before the Chriftian aera, and within fifty 
 years after the time of Daedalus, defcribes not only ftatues of 
 gold^, but various other fculptures of extraordinary workman- 
 fhip in gold, and filver, and ivory, and tin || ; we have a reafon- 
 able affurance from all the circumftances which have already 
 been mentioned, and that aftlirance is capable of being ftrength- 
 ened by many other collateral evidences of real works in fculp- 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol. 2. p. agi, note. 
 
 + Paufan.llb. 2. c. 47. Lib. 8. c. 46. p. 694. D'Ancarv. vol. 2. p. 260, 285. 
 
 X Paufan. lib. 5. c. 27. p. 418. § Iliad, lib. 18. v. 516. 
 
 H Iliad, lib. 18. v. 561. Lib. 28. v. 548. D'Ancarv. vol. 2. p. 290, 291. 
 
276 
 
 GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 ture which might be adduced, that neither in thofe particular 
 details, nor on the fubjefl; of the fhield of Achilles, he has merely 
 indulged poetic fiftions, but has defcribed what at leaft was in 
 the capacity of the arts to accomplifli at the time of which he 
 wrote *. 
 
 The truth is, whatever was moft rare and coflly in the 
 materials of ftatuary, it was moft ardently coveted in thole ages 
 of Greece ; as if the confcioufnefs of what they wanted in tafte 
 and execution fuggefted to them the probability of it's being made 
 up by the luxury that was afforded in the materials themfelvesf. 
 The fame thing took place in the nations of Afia J ; with this dif- 
 ference, that while they were intent on the coftlinefs of the mate- 
 rials which they employed in the ftatues of their divinities, they 
 were negligent from firft to laft of that which fliould have been 
 their primary ftudy, the advancing towards perfe6lion in the art ; 
 for they hardly ever rofe beyond a certain point of ability ; 
 whereas the Greeks, although deficient in tafte and fkill, did not 
 fuffer their pride in materials to interrupt their progrefs in art. 
 Neverthelefs fome ages elapfed before that pride ceafed to be a 
 ruling paffion ; they had not loft it even when they firft reached 
 the high perfeftions of fculpture§. 
 
 When it is faid, that ftatuary itfelf was invented by Dsdalus, 
 or by him and Theodorus the Milefian together ||, if by ftatuary 
 be underftoodthe formation of the diftinft human figure, perhaps 
 the idea is a juft one. Statues, which partook of the column 
 
 • D'Ancarv. vol. 2. p. 288. 
 % Ibid. vol. 2. p. 299 — 303. 
 li Athenag. ubi fiipra. 
 
 + Ibid. vol. 2. p. 296, 297. 
 § Ibid. vol. 2. p. 306, 307. 
 
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 277 
 
 as well as of portions of the human frame, were certainly the 
 oldefl; with which the Greeks were acquainted. Their great 
 antiquity is marked in the examples, which have already been 
 mentioned, of the Amyclean Apollo, and the Ephefian Diana ; 
 and in others flill earlier by a century at leaf!, which might be 
 adduced under Danaus*; but more efpecially in thofe on the 
 tomb of Choraebus, which were earlier than all the others, and 
 were the oldeft flatues in ftone which Paufanias had feen in 
 Greece +. Thefe were at once columns and llatues, not figures 
 placed upon bafes, as the Latin interpreters have wrongly under- 
 ftood them to be J. Thofe ftatues, which more properly defer- 
 ved the name, by giving the parts of the human figure diftincl, 
 were certainly not older than Daedalus. The progrefs, by which 
 ftatuary advanced to the condition which it obtained under him, 
 may be traced in antiquity, and will be properly related in this 
 place. • 
 
 Stones or columns of the obelifkal form ferved at firft, as we 
 have alreadv remarked, to reprefent the divinity. In the mean 
 time the influence of emblematic theology had eftabliflied living 
 forms, and that of the ox in an early inftance, as exemplificati- 
 ons of the attributes and afts of the divinity, or at leaft as a me- 
 dium through which thofe attributes and afts were contemplated. 
 It was not long before new fuperfi;itions engrafted their growth on 
 thofe ancient emblems. It was conceived that the attributes of 
 the divinity would be more divinifed, if we may fo fpeak, and be 
 lifted more fublimely to the contemplation and the worfliip of man- 
 kind, if they were not left to be viewed in the bafer animal alone, 
 
 * Paufan. lib. 2. p. 154. D'Ancarv. vol. 2. p. 281, 282. 
 
 t Paufan. lib. i.e. 43. p. 106-. t D'Ancarv. vol. 2. p. 281, note. 
 
278 GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 if the flamp of the human countenance at leaft, beyond which 
 the mind could raife itfelf to no created form, were added as the 
 mirror of thofe attributes. In confequence of this, the ox aflu- 
 med the human head, or it became united more or lefs in it's 
 parts to the human frame* ; for, not to have gone hand in hand 
 with the autliority of primitive emblems, and with the fanftion of 
 the ancient theology, was a meafure againft which that new theo- 
 logy itfelf would have revolted. In that meafure, however, by 
 which the human head was feen aflbciated with a religious em- 
 blem, and of courfe connedled with fome ideas of the divinity, 
 we are to confider the foundation laid for all the other ftatues of 
 divinities in human form, and for all the progrefs which was given 
 to fculpture in that wayt. That confequence became gradually 
 raanifelled with the growth of national mythologies. When 
 thefe took a flrong polfefhon of the human mind, although the 
 fame reverejice was Hill retained for the emblems of primitive 
 inftitution, necellity feemed to diftate tlie reprefentation of that 
 new order of divinities by fome fpecific form, and that of courfe 
 was human. The old timidity, which durft not feparate the 
 human head from the emblematic animal, was flill unable to 
 go this new length without confulting at lead popular feelings, 
 if not it's own private reflraints. Therefore it only changed the 
 fhelter to it's movements ; it embraced one objeft of ancient re- 
 verence inilead of another ; the human head, and perhaps fome- 
 thing more of the human form, was combined with thole obe- 
 liflcal columns, whofe religious ufe had obtained the early attach- 
 ment of the people J. Thefe were the firft ftatues of deities in 
 Greece : and if Eufebius and others be right in their authorities, 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol. i. pref. p. 15, i6. + Ibid. vol. i.p. 177. Vol. 3. p. 137. 
 
 J Ibid. vol. 2. p. 281. 
 
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 2/9 
 
 thefe were as old as Cecrops, who was fixty-three years older than 
 Cadmus in Greece, and whofe arrival there is determined by the 
 Arundelian marbles* to the year 1582 before our 3era : thofe au- 
 thorities tell us, that Cecrops firfl introduced into the temples of 
 Greece the ufe of images +, which could not have been any 
 others than thofe columnal images of which we have fpoken. 
 We muft recolleft that the images on the tomb of Choraebus 
 were placed there only forty years after Cecrops. If images, 
 then, in that form were as old as that king of Athens, how 
 much older muft have been thofe emblematic coins and medals 
 with the ox and the human head ? We muft confider them as 
 going back to the moft ancient times of the Greeks, to the times 
 of the Pelafgi, who brought to Greece it's firft arts, it's firft em- 
 blematic theology, and it's firft letters too, long before Cadmus 
 came into the country J. However thefe things might be, ref- 
 peftively, in point of antiquity, fo flood the progrefs of fta- 
 tuary in the columnal image, when Daedalus came to refcue it 
 from all it's confinements, and ftiewed the way by which it might 
 become more worthy of it's name. 
 
 It muft neverthelefs be confeffed, that however unworthy an 
 emblematic theology was to detain fculpture always in it's tram- 
 mels, and to ftiut out the elegant views of Nature, it was owing 
 to the influence of that theolog)^ among other circumftances, 
 that fculpture was puflied in Greece not only fooner than paint- 
 ing, but more vigoroufly for many ages. The variety of ways; 
 in which fculpture was enabled to meet the objefts of fuch a the- 
 
 * Epoch, I. 
 
 t Eufeb. Chron. lib. 2. p. 55. Praep. Evang. lib. 10. c. 9. p. 486. 
 
 X D'Ancarv. vol. 2. p. 366, 371, 372. Ifidor, Orig. lib. 8. c. 11. p. 69. 
 
28o GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 ology in coins, and ,nedals, and flatues, and bafs-reliefs; the 
 facility with which thefe were made to enter into all the fituations 
 and tranfaftions of fociety, and to keep alive the principles of 
 which they were the records, gave it a great advantage whicli 
 could not equailv be felt by painting. Befides thefe, fuperfti- 
 tion as a pafTion could not readily find in painting that force and 
 effeft of gratification, which no reprefentation can ordinarily 
 bring fo home to fuch a mind as the image that is formed by the 
 fculptor's hand. Perhaps the fublime and the beautiful, which we 
 fhall find were not long before they took poffeffion of Grecian 
 zeal, were gratified mod completely by that art which gave the 
 human figure in it's fine proportions, and in all it's finell expref- 
 fions of chara6ler, to their full contemplation. Where nothing 
 of that kind was concerned, the fpirit with which architecture 
 was purfued took along with it the purfuit of fculpture as accef- 
 fary at leaft to the other, and encreafed the demand for ftatues, 
 and bafs-reliefs, and all the ornaments of the chiflel, which give 
 dignity or grace to llruftures. Under thefe impreflions we can- 
 not wonder to find the predilections for fculpture fo flrong, and 
 the perfections of it fo highly ftudied and advanced, as they 
 were in a progrefs of time among the Greeks. Every city 
 was a fchool emulous of it's exercife : evers- ifle, and every town 
 in that ille, ftrove to rival every other in the accomplifhment of 
 that art. Nor was that zeal confined to any one age of Greece. 
 We do not refer particularly to thofe periods in which fculpture 
 feemed moft proud of it's powers, and felt the mod cherifhing 
 encouragements. The fculptors who followed the age of Peri- 
 cles, and that of Alexander, feeni to have been no lefs anxious 
 for their art than any that went before them. 
 
 It was well for the growth of fculpture, as an elegant tafle, 
 
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 281 
 
 that this love of it's perfeftions was fo warm in the Grecian 
 bread. For, without going back to times of which there may 
 be no regular record, a thoufand years muft have elapfed in the 
 hiftory of that people, in the courfe of which they muft have felt 
 little elfe but thofe domeftic difcouragements, which are ever moft 
 hoftile to ingenuity, and under which nothing fhort of a decided 
 paftion for the fine arts could have fuftained any branch that is fo 
 called. The times, to which we refer, were truly called heroic ; 
 for then military atchievements and the fhedding of blood were 
 the whole employment of the Greeks as a people. Public tran- 
 quility was not to be enjoyed, and then that which is pri- 
 vate will rarely be known, or only with much imperfeftion. We 
 fliall pafs by the numberlefs petty divifions which took place 
 among themfelves, and reckon only the more eminent caufes of 
 general commotion — the two wars of Thebes, which put all 
 Greece into a flame, and the laft; of which ended with the ruin 
 of that city — the expedition of the Argonauts, which eventually 
 brought on the ever-ruinous meafure of employing the flower of 
 the country in a diftant land — the league next formed for the 
 deftruftion of Troy, which became the fource of the moft un- 
 happv diforders in Greece — and, laft of all, the revolution which 
 the return of the Heraclidae caufed in Peloponefus, and which 
 re-plunged Greece almoft into the fame barbarifm, from which 
 the colonies formed by migrations from Afia and Egypt had 
 drawn it. Let thefe events be reviewed, and then let it be faid, 
 if amidft fuch circumftances the Greeks had time to breathe. 
 But in all thofe events another confequence was ripened, that 
 every ftate was rendered poor, and weak, and inconfiderable, 
 the neceflary care of individual prefervation precluding the 
 power of cultivating the means of general welfare. Let that 
 Vol. I. Oo 
 
282 GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 confequence be confidered, and then let it be faid, if it were 
 eafy for the Greeks to cultivate the arts. 
 
 Thofe fcenes of turbulence undoubtedly kept back the Gre- 
 cian genius extremely, and contributed to lengthen thofe fuccef- 
 fions of time in which thofe arts were moving to any eminent 
 advantage from the principles laid down by Daedalus. Some 
 greater refpite indeed was given to thofe colonies which were 
 puflied out into Afia Minor within a century after Daedalus, in 
 confequence of the general crufh which was felt by Greece in 
 the conflicts brought on by the return of the Heraclidse into Pe- 
 loponefus ; and in thofe colonies was undoubtedly laid the foun- 
 dation of new llrength to the general advantages of arts, and 
 fciences, and literature too. They came prefently to enjoy a 
 greater quietude, and they lay fomewhat nearer to a communi- 
 cation with the original fources of art in Afia and Egypt. But 
 no dillinftion mull be made between the degrees of cultivation 
 in the colonies and the mother-country ; however feparated no- 
 minally, and yet hardly feparated in faft, they were all equally 
 Greeks, their communication with each other was conftant, and 
 the progrefs of one was the progrefs of both. This obfervation, 
 whofe truth is unqueftionable, will fettle at once all the fancied 
 pretenfions to an originality of genius, or a priority of cultiva- 
 tion in the arts, which are fometimes fet up in favour of the for- 
 mer to the difadvantage of the latter. In both fituations, however 
 diverfified by fome circumllances, we find the fame participation 
 of general caufes, the fame retardation to the arts operating with 
 an equal effetl for the fame length of time ; as if it were equally 
 true in the political, as in the natural body, that the head 
 and the members fliall all feel alike for the better or the worfe. 
 If in any inftance thofe arts feemed to be more forward in the 
 
GRECIAN SCULPTURE, 283 
 
 colonies than in the mother-country, it was in architefture only, 
 for which a plain reafon may be given, that in the neceflity of 
 founding new cities it's principles became more immediately im- 
 portant to new colonies. Whether they were original in thofe 
 principles, a better opportunity than the prefent will hereafter 
 be afforded to our difcuffion. 
 
 It will not appear furprifing, when we look back on thofe 
 public events, affefting every part of Grecian fociety, that the 
 principles of natural expreffion in fculpture, fuggefled by Daeda- 
 lus, (hould have employed near 500 years before they were car- 
 ried into any ftrong acquirements of tafte. At leaft, it was 
 nearly that length of time before any monument of tafte ap- 
 peared, concerning which we are enabled to fpeak from any 
 records that have come down to us. We muft go for that mo- 
 nument to the period which faw the commencement of the 
 Olympiads ; but it is found at Corinth, and not in the Grecian co- 
 lonies. The monument, to which we allude is the Coffer of Cyp- 
 I'elus, of which Paufanias has left fo fine and fo minute a defcrip- 
 tion, to whofe account of it we (hall refer the reader*. That 
 coffer was made of cedar, and the figures upon it were partly of 
 gold and ivory, and partly formed in the wood itfelf. The re- 
 port which Paufanias has given of that piece of art abundantly 
 juftifies the judgement which M. D'Ancarville has paffed upon it's 
 defign and execution. In the former, it was fuperior beyond all 
 comparifon to the compofition of the bafs-reliefs on the fliield of 
 Achilles : and in the latter, it may be confidered as equal to 
 the ftate of fculpture in Italy in the 15th century f. This 
 will be thought a high encomium indeed ; and that monument 
 deferves to be highly fpoken of for it's age : but this does not 
 
 * Paufan. lib. 5. c. 37, and 38. + D'Ancarv. vol. 2. p. 329.. 
 
284 GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 mean to fay that it's execution was in the firft tafle of Greece ; 
 for we muft be reminded that the fummit which was reached by 
 fculpture in Italy in the 15th century was never equal to the per- 
 feftion which it obtained in Greece. In that ancient monu- 
 ment we find the firft openings, which antiquity has left to us, of 
 that ideal beauty and that exprelFion of character, which is cer- 
 tainly the moft important point in the art, and which the age of 
 Daedalus could not convey. To make that capacity peculiarly 
 their own, and to carry it as far as it was capable of being carried, 
 was the glory of the Grecian artifts. And what muft we think 
 of that genius, which amidft all the depreffions and tumults of 
 the heroic ages, was enabled to raife itfelf up to that idea, and to 
 carry on the progrefs of art to fuch a fpecimen as that monu- 
 ment afforded, near 800 years before the Chriftian aera, and near 
 thirty years before the foundation of Rome. 
 
 It was that ideal beauty, and that expreflion of charafter, fo 
 wonderfully perfefted by the Greeks, without which all the arts, 
 and particularly fculpture, muft have ftood forever at the point in 
 which they were left in Afia and Egypt, notwithftanding the 
 degree of advancement which was gained by Daedalus. The 
 Greeks had been working their way to that ideal beauty, and 
 that exprefl"ion of charafter, through all the ftages of emblema- 
 tic art ; and the ftep that was taken by Daedalus was a happy 
 movement towards it. They began to perceive, that beauty 
 could not be expreffed but by a harmony of proportions, and a 
 regularity of forms, and that charadier muft be the refult of foul, 
 or of foul combined with peculiar traits of figure. It was ne- 
 ceffary therefore not only to get rid of every thing that was not 
 confonant to Nature, but to affemble whatever was found moft 
 perfeft in that nature itfelf. If power and ftrength were to be 
 
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 285 
 
 difplayed, they would be expreffed with far more elegance, and 
 a more harmonious effe6l, by the amplitude and vigour of the 
 mufcles, and by the relative grandeur of the whole frame to all 
 it's parts, than by the multiplication of heads and arms. When 
 that beauty and charafter were applied to divine figures, and to 
 exprefs the attributes of Divine Nature, all emblematic forms 
 were gone ; or, at leaft, the only emblem that remained (if fo it 
 can be called) was in that harmonious conftitution of fublimity 
 given to the figure, and diverfified according to the fuppofed 
 traits of the divinity to be reprefented, which made the human 
 frame to become the mirror of a divine beauty and a divine cha- 
 rafter, fuch as never could belong to itfelf By means of thofe 
 ftudies the fpirit of art accomplidicd, in time, thofe divine ftatues 
 in Greece, which were never to be refembled by thofe of any 
 other country in the world, and whofe foundation in ideal beauty 
 and charafter became regularly conveyed into all the other fculp- 
 tures that came from the hands of the Grecian mafters. They 
 were indebted for their firft and beft impulfe to thofe views of 
 art, and for fome rules of reaching them too, to the poems of 
 Homer, who had firft fliewn the capacity of forming divine 
 figures by his pen, and in whofe works they had found fuch ani- 
 mated defcriptions of beauty, and fuch continual eulogies of it 
 too, that the imprelfion on tafte and genius became impoflible to 
 be refifted*. 
 
 The Greek artift did not draw altogether from the ftores of his 
 own mind that ideal beauty, whofe name may poffibly fuggefl 
 fuch an apprehenfion. It was fitly called ideal, when it was em- 
 ployed to conftitute the charafter of divinities ; and it was alfo 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol. 2. p. 311 — 314 
 
286 GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 ideal in a proper fenfe, when it was made up from the feleftion 
 of various exifting perfeftions in real Nature ; becaufe in that 
 cafe the mind of the artift mufl lead to that general determina- 
 tion of charafter, which not only precedes all choice of parti- 
 cular forms, but condufts the affemblage of all, and makes up 
 in the iffue what may ftill be left imperfeft by any poflible com- 
 binations to conftitute the charatler intended. The reader will 
 perceive from hence what were the means of which the Greeks 
 availed themfelves, to accomplifh that high perfeftion of beauty, 
 in divine figures. They felefted from many of the fined human 
 forms thofe different traits of perfe6lion, which befl fuited the 
 age and chara6ler given by mythology to that particular di- 
 vinity ; thefe they combined with fuch admirable artifice, that 
 the whole feemed to be either the copy of the mind itfelf, or the 
 copy of one only perfeft form*. Thus Zeuxis formed his He- 
 lent. On thofe principles Polycletus completed his flatue called 
 " the Rule." The fame means were extended, and with the 
 fame good fenfe, to all greater fubjecls by the pencil as well as bv 
 thechiffel : Polygnotus led the way to it as a painter, making it 
 his maxim in the difplay of greater charafters to give that refem- 
 blance which beautiful Nature afforded, but which he endea- 
 voured to render ftill more handfome by the fupply of his own 
 mind. 
 
 That fludy of ideal beauty never fuffered the Greeks to reft 
 till they had brought the general forms of their men and women 
 to be that beautiful Nature, which might be taken as a nioft 
 finifhed model in their perfons for any fubjeft of character be- 
 
 * Maximus Tyrius Diflcrt. 7. Cicero de Invent, lib. 2. c. i. 
 •t Dionyf. Halicain. Plin. lib. 35. c. g. 
 
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 287 
 
 low divinity. Hence came that aflonifliing elegance ot" figure, 
 with which all the Grecian fculptures, and we doubt not their 
 paintings too, were marked ; and which were only tranfcripts of 
 living Nature to be leen among them every hour of the day. The 
 reply, which was made by Eupompus the painter to Lyfippus 
 thefculptor, might have been made with truth by every artill io 
 the country : when the latter was furveying a fine figure in a 
 painting of the former, he afked, from what fculptor the model 
 had been obtained ; to which Eupompus anfwered, pointing to 
 crouds in the ftreets, " there are my models, 'tis Nature I follow, 
 " we need not the models of a workman*". There is no doubt 
 that Greece afforded more models of beautiful Nature in the hu- 
 man frame than any country that ever was known. We will not 
 contradift the idea, that fo general an accomplifliment of figure 
 might have been aflided by the influence of a mofh mild and 
 temperate climate. Hippocrates and Galen have both laid down 
 that idea as a principle +. The truth of it is faid by travellers to 
 be manifeft in Georgia, which they call "that country of beauty, 
 " where a pure and ferene Iky pours fertility;];" Yet we fhall not 
 take the oracle's word for it, which gave to one element only, 
 and that was to the lymph Arethufa, the power of forming 
 beauty ^. 
 
 Thofe peculiar advantages of Greece will ftand on better 
 ground, when the fludy to obtain and make them general was 
 fupported by many regulations of policy, and bent to itfelf a va- 
 riety of cufloms and habits. They were the refult of the gym- 
 
 * Plin. lib. 34. fee. 19. t Hippocr.Tfp/TCTMV, p. 288. Galen, p. 171. B. I. 43 
 JChardin's Voy. Perf. vol. 2. p. 127, et feq. 
 § Eufeb. praep. Evang. lib. 5. c. 29. p 226. 
 
288 GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 naflic exercifes of the Greeks ; of their diet, which was calcu- 
 lated to counteraft corpulency ; of their drefs, which never im- 
 peded the freeft ufe of the limbs ; of their happy ignorance of 
 thofe diforders, which are mofl deftruftive to beauty ; and of 
 their various rules to avoid every deforming cuflom. The cau- 
 tion of Alcibiades, when he was a boy, and refufed to learn the 
 mufic of the flute, left it fliould difcompofe his features, was 
 not peculiar to himfelf alone above all the other youths of 
 Athens. To thefe circumftances we may add that univerfal eafe 
 and freedom of manners, unreftrained by the rigour of forma- 
 lity, which gave Nature to be feen in all her freeft movements. 
 Thus the Greeks became models of the beautiful in either fex. 
 And the opportunities of ftudying thofe models were as familiar 
 as poftible : they were afforded by every folemnity, every fefti- 
 val, almoft every public occafion ; without fixing upon the people 
 an extravagant charge of indecency, or at leaft without fixing thofe 
 ftrong impreflions which might be fuppofed to arife from fuch 
 opportunities, and which were confiderably diminifhed by the 
 force of habit. In confequence of thofe habits, the eye became 
 diftinftly acquainted with the conftitution and turn of beauty in 
 all it's attitudes ; the elafticity of the mufcles, and the ever vary- 
 ing motions of the human frame in all it's fituations were made 
 familiar to the artift in a far more perfeft manner than can ordi- 
 narily be obtained from any hired models in modern academies*. 
 From thence they were enabled to digeft into principles what 
 was thus familiar to their obfervations. They were enabled to 
 form certain general ideas of beauty, and certain rules of pro- 
 portion as well for the inferior parts as for the whole. Thefe 
 came in time to be fo perfeftly eftabliflied, that if an individual 
 
 * Winckelm. Reflefl. on Paint, and Sculp 8vo. p. lo. 
 
GRECIAN SCULPTlTRt. 289 
 
 appeared more beautiful than the generality, the ftandard by 
 which the comparifon of that beauty was made was their fculp- 
 tures — '• he was as beautiful as a flatue ;" reverfing the language 
 which in modern fculpture would be ufed in fuch a cafe — " it is 
 the beauty of perfeft Nature itfelf." 
 
 To follow that beauty of Nature, fo acquired by the Greeks, 
 through all the concomitant circumftances in whicli it was mani- 
 feded in their fculptures, is to take up thofe fculptures in all their 
 charafteriftic perfedions : it is to unfold thofe excellencies of 
 their art, which have gained the never-ceafing celebration of 
 ages. It is our duty to pay this debt to the memory of thofe 
 immortal artifts ; and it is our happinefs, that we are enabled' 
 from exifting monuments to afcertain thofe charafters of their 
 fculptures, which time has not fuffered us to give of their paint- 
 ings, unlefs by authority derived from others. 
 
 Yet we cannot take fo wide a compafs as is embraced by paint- 
 ing, when we fpeak of the powers of fculpture in a general view. 
 As a fine exhibition of Nature, undoubtedly flie meets the eye, 
 and flrikes the mind, with an advantage which is not always 
 derived from flat furfaces. Yet that advantage is narrowed 
 again by the fcale of fubjefts to which it is confined, perhaps in 
 fdme meafure by the nature of things, which does noteafily give 
 it the capacity of addrefiing to our contemplations, with an equal 
 cfifed, multitudinous figures in a combined fubjeft. This has 
 been attempted in bafs-reliefs, but not with complete fuccefs, 
 efpecially by the ancients, whofe imperfeft knowledge in that 
 branch of perfpeftive neceffary to it became a confiderable ad- 
 dition to all the other natural difficulties of the undertaking. 
 Nor have the moderns, with a more perfeft knowledge of that 
 
 Vol. I. P p 
 
290 - GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 perfpeftive, been able to exhibit in the bafs-relief of fculpture 
 the fame compafs and variety of fubje6l, which can be given by 
 the pencil, Neverthelefs, the capacities of fculpture in all it's 
 branches are admirable, and in the hands of the Greeks they 
 mufl; demand an eulogium, which will need no enthufiafm of 
 tafte to exalt and inflame it. 
 
 In all the Greek figures the precifion of contour was a flrong 
 characleriftic diflinclion. By this contour we are to underftand 
 not merely the delicacy of the extreme outline, but the correft 
 proportions of parts which that outline contains. This was ad- 
 jufted, in general, by the Greeks, with the niceft hand even in 
 their moft tedious works, on gems ; although it is evident that 
 the line by which Nature divides completenefs from fuperfluity is 
 the finefl; imaginable, and mofl difficult to be hit : if ever it was 
 miffed by them, it was in running into leannefs*, to avoid corpu- 
 lency which of all things fhocked them mofl:. Perhaps there 
 was another qualification to their corre6lnefs in this circumftance, 
 that they exhibited the bony and cartilaginous parts of the body, 
 fuch as the clavicles, the knees, the arms, &c. nearly as fmooth 
 and even as thofe parts that were more flefliy. And yet we mufl; 
 not carry this obfervation fo far as to forget, that the wrift-bones 
 were often drawn with a degree of angular fmartnefs. The faft 
 is, the delicate was their ftudy, in the purfuit of which they over- 
 looked lefler niceties, although founded fl^riftly in general Na- 
 ture, which they thought it right to improve by the more beauti- 
 ful, or to lh\ct\ that more beautiful if it were found only in a 
 fingle inftance of Nature. But, as we have already obferved, that 
 more beautiful and harmonious regularity of frame was no un- 
 common appearance in the figures, and efpecialiy in the youthful 
 
 * Plin. lib. 35. c. 10. 
 
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 29I 
 
 figures, of the country ; fo that in felecting it they needed not 
 to depart from an exa^lnefs in copying Nature. The celebrated 
 gladiator of Agafias in the Borghefe may be taken as a flandard 
 both of that fmoothnefs of parts, or want of bony prominence, 
 which we meet with in all the other Greek ftatues, and of Nature 
 as it commonly appeared among them. For the fculptor was 
 compelled by the Amphiftyones, who were judges of his per- 
 formance, to take the viftor at the public games in a ftri6l re- 
 femblance of Nature, and in the veiy form and attitude of body, 
 in which he overcame his antagonift*. And that ftatue was in 
 all probability one of thofe that were erefted in the places where 
 the games were held, to the memory of the feveral vi61orsf. 
 
 The remark we have jufl made on their attention to Nature, 
 amidll their decided attention to beauty, will require to be ex- 
 tended further. If that attention to Nature (liould be confidered 
 by us as moft judiciouflv maintained by a fcrupulous attention to 
 minuter parts, the Greeks afted on a very different principle in 
 their flatues. Their difcrimination of parts was marked very 
 fparingly ; if thofe parts were beauties, they were touched more 
 with reference to a harmony in the whole than for their own lake ; 
 if they were the particular expreflions of particular geflure, rifing 
 on the body, they were foftened down from wrinkles, or plaits, or 
 humid expanfions of the ikin, into eafy and regular undulations 
 embraced by the flefh, which harmonioufly followed their direc- 
 tion:):. Shall it be faid, that this is not ftriaiy Nature? At lead, it, 
 is the mod graceful and mofl healthy Nature, as well as it was more 
 eminently the Nature of the Greeks; and if it had been lefs emi- 
 
 * Lucian, pro Imagin. p. 490. + Winckelm. ubi fup. p. 169. 
 
 § Winckelm. ubi fup. p. 15. 
 
2g2 GRECIAJ^ SCULPTURE. 
 
 nently fo, the Greek fculptor was not afraid to feleft for the eye 
 what was mofl graceful and moft healthy. If any moderns have 
 conceived that more truth and more ability are difcovered in the 
 purfuit of Nature under it's individual circumftances, abftrafted 
 from the confervation of an harmonious beauty in the whole, their 
 claim to admiration will fucceed with thofe who have jufl difcern- 
 ment enough to applaud the moles or dimples of a portrait, but 
 furely their own minds muft be as devoidof fublimity as the age that 
 fhould embrace their principles would become devoid of it. The 
 mind of the fculptor, which is able to foar above the fenles, and 
 to form a complete whole by combining perfeftions which his 
 •mind fiiall affemble, ennobles thofe perfeftions which he fo com- 
 bines, leads the general mind to great contemplations, and lifts 
 his own art into the dignity of inftrufhion, which otherwile may 
 be levelled to humble imitation. He rifes on the luftre of talents, 
 inftead of creeping in the tamenefs of induftr}^ 
 
 The Grecian drapery, under which the correftnefs of contour 
 was rarely loflto the eye, forms another objeft of confideration, 
 and of particular excellence. It took a ftyle of it's own, which, 
 has never been mended, and never can, if grace and freedom and 
 harmony are permanent principles. It was grand, and elegant, 
 and natural. The fmaller foldings fprung gradually from the 
 larger, and were loft in them again with perfeft eafe, each reliev- 
 ing the other, and the whole difplaying an uniformity of truth 
 and fl-cill. There was nothing ftiff", nor abrupt, nor heavy ; no- 
 thing huddled indifcreetly together ; all was eafy, undulating, 
 and harmonioufly graceful. Thefe principles were maintained 
 in all their draperies, whether of a coarfer or finer kind ; for 
 in fome of their reliefs, in their bufts, and in their piftures, dra- 
 peries of a coarfer kind were admitted. But, in general, thefe 
 
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 293 
 
 were of peculiar finenefs, and efpecially tliofe of the Greek la- 
 dies, whofe robes, took from thence the name of /'<?/' /o?i. The 
 thin floating texture was their prevailing tafle. In the difpofi- 
 tion of this, more or lefs licence was ufed according to the nature 
 of the charafter. Bacchanals and dancing figures, even if they 
 were ftatues, had garments more waved, and playing more upon 
 the air. So the draperies appear for the moft part on their gems. 
 Yet in all thefe the Greeks were extremely cautious not to ex- 
 ceed the nature of the materials. In gods and heroes, whom 
 the mind reveres as the inhabitants of facred and awful dwellings, 
 that wafted airy fyftem of draper)' gave way to another more 
 fimple, chafle, and modeft, and more fuitable to the gravity of 
 their charafters. Still the thin floating texture continued to form 
 their general drapery. It minifl:ered to more ufes than fancy. It 
 was a part of their predominant defire to difplay the correftnefs 
 and precifion of their contour. Thofe thin draperies clafped 
 the body, and difcovered the fliape. Thus their fa\'ourite con- 
 tour was not loft, perhaps it was helped in the proportion where- 
 in it might cafually or purpofely be hid. How far, and whether 
 for the better, thofe thin draperies fo elegantly and i'o advan- 
 tageoufly employed by the Greeks have been abandoned by the 
 moderns, will more properly be enquired under thofe periods in 
 which the arts of the moderns fliall be reviewed. 
 
 The expreflion attained by the Greeks is the laft obfervation 
 we fliall need to employ on their fculptures. And fomething 
 more is neceflary to be faid on this circumftance, in addition to 
 what has already been fcantily advanced. Many ages elapfed 
 before they became mafters of this expreflTion, even after their 
 fculptures had acquired confiderable tafte in other refpecls ; and 
 their philofophers had contributed greatly to fix this power. 
 
294 GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 Their paintings acquired it ; and it was their philofophers who 
 adifted their paintings. Indeed their great painters were philo- 
 fophers themfelves ; and therefore when PauUis Emilius defired 
 the Athenians to give him a painter and philofopher to inftruft 
 his children, they fent him Metrodorus*. In the Areopagetic 
 fchools, and in the council-houfe at Athens, to name no other in- 
 ftances, was coUefted a mod copious alTemblage of exprcihon in 
 the portraits of all the great philofophers of Greece, drawn with 
 that ftrength and accuracy of charafter peculiar to each, which 
 gave their fouls to the eyef, and which has been ever fince af- 
 fumed in every reprefentation of them which is mod legitimate. 
 There was a language too, and a fentiment, in the writings of 
 thofe philofophers, from which fame could never be withheld, 
 and which therefore naturally found their way into the kindred 
 writings of the fculptor and the painter. The lludies of thofe 
 philofophers were direfted to the invefligation of chara6lers and 
 manners : it was their zeal to explore, and their glory that they 
 did well explore, all the latent recelfes of the human heart, 
 and all the fubtle difcriminations of human pafTions : they fol- 
 lowed virtue and vice through all their diflind fhapes : and how 
 much foever their theory of morals may appear to more en- 
 lightcd minds to have been mixed with error and imperfeftions, 
 mod certainly the piftures which they have drawn of thefe are as 
 highly finidied as could be done within the fcale of their princi- 
 ples ; and all their delineations of life and charafters, of fenti- 
 ments and meafures, are drawn with an energy which could not 
 eafily be exceeded by any pen in the hands of genius. 
 
 Here therefore were examples of expredion, naturally ex- 
 tending their influence to every part of tade — examples, to 
 
 * Plin. lib. 35. c, II. t Sicionius Apollinaris, lib. 9. epift. 9. 
 
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 295 
 
 which the hand that held the pencil or the chifTel was as 
 competent as that which direfted the pen — examples, which 
 would have left us indeed to wonder if they had not been uni- 
 verfally emulated by that aflive fentiment which diflinguifhed 
 the Greeks. It w^as juft as reafonable to expeft that their fculp- 
 tors would breathe into all their ftatues and figures that force 
 of expreflion in which they had feen the philofophers to fuccced 
 fo well, as that Phidias Ihould mould his Jupiter after the traits 
 afforded by Homer. Plato, living in an age when that vigour of 
 fentiment and expreflion was at the higheft, and helping not a 
 little to kindle the fire of emulation which naturally fprung 
 from it, might well fay of the fculptors then exifting, that " it 
 " would be a fliame indeed if their ftatues were as tame as thofe 
 " that were done in the age of Daedalus." 
 
 In the beft age of their philofophy, in the Socratic and Pla- 
 tonic fchools, the human mind was feen in a peculiar elevation, 
 A dignity of fentiment was highly maintained, which fliewed the 
 influence of philofophy, or, as they meant it, of virtue in an af- 
 peft which was certainly worthy to be admired, and the more fo 
 becaufe it was of all things the moft difficult to be reached. Phi- 
 lofophy then looked down with negleft on every thing in the 
 human mind that was not fuperior to every other thing which 
 could invade, or at leaft overfet, it. It was marked by a fimpli- 
 city, which fought within itfelf alone what can befl; ennoble the 
 human charafter — a ferenity, fed by the confcioufnefs of that 
 fimplicity — a fteadmefs, which would not be defpoiled of the 
 principles which had become it's anchor— a grandeur conftituted 
 by the habits of fuperior contemplation, and by that heroifm of 
 feeline, which in the confcioufnefs of tried virtue mounts no 
 higher than the calmnefs of fatisfaftion ; in the hurry of joy, 
 
2g6 GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 exhibits no more than an inward pleafure ; in the experience of 
 great mifery, temperates anguifh by fortitude ; and in the tumul- 
 tuoufnefs of thickening misfortunes, rides majeflic in the whirl- 
 wind, and unfubdued in the ftorm. This fedatenefs, this con- 
 templative dignity of charafter, became the foul of fculpture, 
 and marked with it's gefture and expreffion the mofi: approved 
 Greek figures. Hence they never failed to carry in their afpefl; 
 the imprelfions of a cultivated wifdom, of a foul becalmed and 
 ftrengthened by refleftion. Look upon the Niobe, and all thefe 
 principles of Grecian exprelTion are illuflrated : in the utmoft 
 pangs of Nature flie continued flill the heroine, difdaining to vield 
 to Latona. Am.ong other features, the clofed lip has ever been 
 the index of the thoughtful mind. How varied foever this fe- 
 datenefs might be under thepreflure of incumbent circumflances, 
 you never fee any of the Greek figures, unlefs in the expreffion 
 of contempt or great pain, with an open mouth. The mouth of 
 the Laocoon is open, and it is a ftrong confirmation of our re- 
 marks that under all his excruciating agony it is only fo much 
 open as pain compelled. That fedatenefs and ftrength of foul, 
 llruggling againft the flrife of torture, is the more confpicuous 
 when it fubmitted only to afford a proper vent to the groan that 
 ^vould be difcharged. Had he not afforded that vent, had not 
 the anguilh within broken through all the refiftance of firmnefs, 
 and combined itfelf with that firmnefs in the countenance, all 
 would have been outrageouffy unnatural, and infiead of a fedate 
 fortitude we fliould have beheld a compofition of flill-life, of 
 Itrange quietude which might poflibly not difguft in the Spartan 
 boy, who was the creature of cogent difcipline, or which might 
 pleafe in the floic, who was the hardy bigot to opinionated pride, 
 but certainly would not do juftice to that free and rational energy 
 of fpirit in philofophy at large, which counts it a fufficient tri- 
 
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 297 
 
 umph that it can balance fufFerings by fortitude, and maintain a 
 portion of tranquility combined with the inevitable traits of af- 
 fliftion, but greatly fmoothing their furrows. 
 
 The tranquility, which was the fruit of the Grecian philofo- 
 phy, affefted no more than this ; and this it could and did ac- 
 complifti. In this, therefore, fculpture was dignified as well as 
 the fchool of the philofopher. 
 
 And it was not merely the expreflion of the countenance, but 
 the whole attitude was governed by this principle of fedate and 
 eafy dignity. The Greeks conceived that the pureft reprefenta- 
 tion of charafter was when it was feen in private, and as little as 
 poflible imprefled by external circumftances. Their figures 
 therefore mufl: be beheld as the images of thofe who thought 
 themfelves alone and unobferved, who are looking only into 
 themfelves, and whofe deportment is fuch as would naturally 
 arife if they appeared before men of fenfe. No matter what is 
 their pofture, whether they ftand, or fit, or lie down, it is with 
 perfeft eafe. Their fituation is always quiet, and the direftion of 
 every limb and member fpeaks that natural and eafy pofl:ure 
 which unites with a quiet fituation. The attitudes of Baccha- 
 nals only are violent, although in Bacchanals that violence does 
 not reach the countenance, through which it is only a dawn of 
 luxury that peeps. The Greeks confidered what was violent 
 in gefture or feature, however urged by incumbent pafiion, to 
 be vulgar, to be natural indeed with common minds, and likely 
 to ftrike a common eye with applaufe, but greatly below the 
 true propriety of expreffion, becaufe it was below what could 
 ever be found in a great man poflefied of elegant and im- 
 proved conceptions. Their ideas alfo, and their emulations, of 
 
 Vol. I. CI9 
 
298 GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 grace, which cannot exift where the palTions are violent, 
 would not fufFer them to feleft the expreflion which was ex- 
 cefTive. 
 
 That circumflance was ib much avoided, that they avoided 
 even what was accumulated in exprefhon. Their fublime was 
 conveyed in great fimplicity ; they ftudied to exprefs much in 
 little, and they were complete mailers in that fuperior manage- 
 ment of a little, which not only diftinguifhes artift from artift, 
 but draws the bell line between the more and the lefs able in all 
 parts of learning. Thus Homer, making all the gods to rife from 
 their feats when Apollo enters, leaves far behind him in the true 
 fublime all the oflentation of heathen theology,. So in the Lao- 
 coon, again, the pain and indignation which twifl the nofe, and 
 the paternal fympathy which dims the eye-balls, are ftrokes of 
 the higheft expreflion, which produce a multiplicity and refine- 
 ment of feelings to be reached by no complex attempts, and 
 to be difcovered only by thofe who are able to underfland 
 them *. 
 
 The only quellion which remains to be afked is, whether this 
 fage dignity, and this energetic concifenefs, of expreflion in the 
 fculptures of Greece, unqueftionably involving the fublime of cha- 
 rafter, may be committed without prejudice to the young artill, 
 whether fculptor or hiftoric painter, as the model by which his 
 firfl fl;udies Ihould be formed. It may be faid, and it has been 
 faidt, that this purity of ftyle, being ftript of all that is excre- 
 fcent, redundant, or very llrong in expreflion, would narrow 
 
 * Winckelm. ubi fup. p. 255. 8vo. 
 
 t Objeftionsto Winckelm. Refled. p. 114. 8vo. 
 
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 2.99 
 
 the genius of the youthful artift, and caufe him to negleft the 
 purfuit of Nature and character through all the variety of their 
 plainer and more common difcriminations — that in the youthful 
 efforts of genius there Ihould be fome fuperfluity, fomething to 
 be taken off — and that it is eafier to amputate what is fuperfluous 
 than to communicate what is ufeful, as it is eafier to lop the 
 young rank branches of a vine than to give it vigour. The figure, 
 in which this argument is put, being grounded on the elegance of 
 Cicero*, may poifibly give it fome advantage. But the analogy 
 is not correft ; nor is the conclufion juftly drawn from the ex- 
 crefcencies which it may be proper to indulge and to nurfe in the 
 general vigour of talents, to a fimilar encouragement of fuper- 
 fluity in the fublime of tafte. The fire of genius will, in pro- 
 portion to it's intenfenefs, become in time a more genial glow, as 
 the juices of the grape, when mellowed by age, become in pro- 
 portion to their original fl;rength a more rich and generous cor- 
 dial. But the fublime of tafte can never become more pure or 
 more mellowed than it is at once ; there is nothing fuperfluous in 
 it, nothing to be lopped ; it is the perfeftion of truth and Na- 
 ture ; nothing that is common or ordinary can enter it's compo- 
 fition ; and when attained, the artift that is capable of it is under 
 no temptation to employ in it's ftead, in thofe works which are 
 worthy of it, whatever may fall ftiort of it's fpirit and it's ftand- 
 ard. Yet, how does it narrow the genius, or the views of na- 
 tural chara6ler ? The mind, which can feleft from the various 
 groups of expreffion that which is moft finiflied, muft be mafter 
 of all : the mind, which can comprefs a powerful fentiment or 
 feeling, muft be equal to the flcill which would fpeak them more 
 at large ; the mind, which can combine what is thus felected and 
 
 • De Oratore, lib. 2. c, 21. 
 
300 GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 comprefled, mufl have powers commenfurate to the fined expref- 
 fion of art. 
 
 But the queftion may be reverfed, and it may be afked, if there 
 is not more danger to the perfeftion of art in the latitude of the 
 fuperfluity which is to be lopped than in the more correfted 
 compafs of the true fublime. In the firft there is much to be 
 unlearned ; in the lad there is nothing. To unlearn is the mod 
 difficult part of fcience, becaufe the mind naturally clings to 
 what it has purfued and made it's own. But to unlearn in fpe- 
 culative fcience is far lefs difficult than to unlearn in praftical 
 tafte ; becaufe in tafte, whatever it be that is embraced, the mind 
 is in a manner made up, and derives from it's talent not only a 
 fatisfaftion but a pride which it will not eafily furrender. In the 
 queftion before us, the ftudies which have purfued paffions and 
 feelings in their more ordinary appearances, from the perfuafion 
 that nothing is feen in fo much truth as when it is expreffed moft 
 at large, are moft likely to retain the habits of their bias in moft 
 frequent inftances, becaufe the bulk of mankind are attrafted 
 moft by that which is moft commonly before their eyes ; to this 
 a far greater portion of artifts will be competent than to the 
 rarer beauties of the fublime, which requires a peculiar ftrength 
 and conftitution of mind to difcern it, and for which an artift 
 muftlook inwardly into himfelf, in aconfiderable degree. With 
 the greater part, therefore, the ftyle of expreffion which partici- 
 pates leaft of the fpirit and perfeftion of the Greeks, will be re- 
 tained longeft, notwithftanding the more refined purity to which 
 they may afterwards be introduced ; becaufe that ftyle of ex- 
 preffion firft occupied their ftudies, and formed their minds ; and 
 with the remaining few, if ever it yields to that more refined pu- 
 rity of Grecian expreffion, it is from a peculiar elevation of 
 
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 30I 
 
 fpirit and ftrength of judgement capable of difcerning the dif- 
 ference, and ftudioufly cherifhing the perfe6lions which they have 
 difcerned. The firft fort, even fuppofing them lefs elevated in 
 fpirit and lefs ftrong in judgement, if they had been earlier ini- 
 prefled with that fublimity of expreflion, might have rifen to 
 thofe capacities in it, of which the pafl: train and influence of 
 their ftudies will not fuffcr them to be fenfible : and the latter, 
 under the fame early advantages, would become Greeks them- 
 felves. How (hould it be otherwife ? There is no more labour 
 to the mind, free and difengaged, allowing for the difference of 
 natural capacities, in the cultivation of a finer direftion than in 
 the purfuitof one more humble. It may as well be trained to a 
 fenfe of the mofl exquifite perfeftion as of that which is fubor- 
 dinate. It is not neceffary that its refinement fhould advance 
 through the flages of vulgarity ; nor that it fliould find it's way 
 to the fublime, which it cultivates, through any other principles 
 than thofe which conflitute the fublime. The foundations of art 
 laid in thofe principles promife the fureft prevention of medio- 
 crity, they give the happiefl earnefl of elevation, and therefore 
 they muft certainly be laid in the greatefl wifdom. Let the mind 
 be ftored with thofe principles before it has become engaged by 
 others lefs perfe6l, and they will be confirmed by habit, they 
 will become rooted by maturing judgement, the tafle and fiyle 
 that are acquired will affimilate to themfelves all the fludies and 
 all the powers that fhall follow, not in the way in which princi- 
 ples lefs perfeft would fo affimilate by the mere force of preju- 
 dice, but by that full fatisfaclion of fentiment, which invariably 
 in polite art, however variably it may a6l in moral virtue, being 
 once imprelfed with a confcioufnefs of dignity and elevation, 
 will never floop to embrace what is of a lower charafter, but 
 
g02 ■GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 will make all things necelTarily pure to the purity of which it- 
 felf is pofleffed. 
 
 The man of art, therefore, like the man of literature, cannot 
 too foon become familiar with thole ft udies which open the views 
 of elegance, and with thofe examples which rivet them on the 
 mind. It is by this method that any moderns have reached the 
 fublime of expreflion, and have maintained it as a feature of 
 their own character in art. It was by this method that Raphael 
 made it his own. He carefully ftudied all the antiques within his 
 reach, and of the perfeftions of fuch as were not within his own 
 reach he fpared no pains to become poffeffed by means of the 
 beft copies which others were employed to make for him. In him 
 therefore we fee all the fuperior feleftion of Grecian expreflion 
 revived, the dignity, the fedatenefs, the chaftity, the contem- 
 plative force, and energetic concifenefs of charafter; not bor- 
 rowed, but original ; moving indeed on the fpirit of the ancients, 
 but exerciling that fpirit in the free contemplation of Nature 
 through all the varied ftrength of fuperior charafter, and there- 
 fore making that fpirit his own ; difplaying the fruits of it in all 
 that natural variety from the original ftock which it will acquire 
 when lodged in a new breaft, as the bloffoms of a tranfplanted 
 tree differ from thofe that fprung in it's native foil. Thefe in- 
 deed were not Raphael's firft views of art ; he faw nothing of 
 thefe in the fchool of Perrugino, nor in the fchools of Urbin : 
 but he no fooner became apprized of them at Rome, than the 
 foundnefs of his underftanding, and the maturity of his genius 
 grafped them all ; leaving to all that came after him this impor- 
 tant leflbn from his example, that the ftudy of Nature and of the 
 human mind in all it's higher feelings is the confummation of art ; 
 
GRECIAN SCULPT URK. 3O;} 
 
 that the works of thofe ancients, who unifofmly puiTued and 
 happily reached this confummation, mufl be the eternal ftandards 
 of inflruftion from whence it mufl: be drawn ; that the fooner 
 we become imbibed with it's principles, the fooner we move in 
 the right path to greatnefs ; that without it we may be juft, we 
 may be natural, we may be excellent in various ways, but we 
 can never be fublime. 
 
 To the Greeks therefore let the young artift, whether fculp- 
 tor or painter, go for fublimity of exprelFion. I fay, for fubli- 
 mity of exprefhon; not meaning to urge to the painter that un- 
 qualified idea which has mifled fome, and to which thofe fculp- 
 tures mufl: obvioufly be incompetent, of being univerfally pro- 
 fitted by them in his art. But in the hiblimity of expreffion un- 
 quefl^ionably the difcovery of antique fculptures afforded a very 
 important advantage to modern art in the painter's hand. Thofe 
 fculptures difplayed the mind : they aimed at a character rather 
 than an individual expreflion, even where there was a neceflity 
 to preferve refemblance, and where they did preferv'e it : they 
 foared from the humbler to the more elevated difplay, from the 
 perfonal to the moral, from the private objeft to the public in- 
 ftruftion. So far they become models of fl:udy to the hifl:oric 
 painter ; thefe are the emulations of his pencil ; in thefe we 
 expeft to find the fuperiority of his talents. His judgement 
 difcreetly exercifed will readily difcriminate the circumftances, 
 in which thofe fculptures may become proper models to his pen- 
 cil. To them the firfl: abilities in his art have been indebted for 
 their befl: perfeftion in modern ages ; the fpirit of defign, which 
 they have infufed, has given celebrity to many who have been 
 
304 GRECIAN PAINTING. 
 
 vifibly deficient in other powers : and where the advantages of 
 them has not been enjoyed, the want of that advantage has been 
 the grand defideraium which the moft original abilities have not 
 been able to fupply. 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 
 The climate of Greece favourable to painting — whether Pliny be 
 right in the latenefs which he has given to it's Jirjl effays in 
 that country — thejleps by which it's firjl progrefs was marked 
 — the piEture of Bularchus — the farther progrefs of the pen- 
 cil, and of the arts in general, obfcured by the adverfity of 
 public circunijiances for 272 years till the retreat of Xerxes — 
 that retreat thefirfl epoch of vigour to all the Grecian arts — 
 the progrefs of painting in the hands of all the more celebra- 
 ted artijls from that period to the death of Alexander the 
 Great — it's highejl fame clofed with that age. 
 
 The art of the pencil added in it's progrefs no lefs than that 
 of the chiffel to the glory of Grecian genius. Whether or no 
 it was true, that the climate of Greece was propitious to the 
 produftion of beautiful forms in it's people, there feems to be 
 no doubt that the painter derived many advantages from thence 
 to the exercife of his art. He enjoyed a clear and vivid fky, fo 
 needful for the beft lights ; and a temperate, dry, and healthy 
 air, fo convenient for the prefervation of his works. The coun- 
 try was verdant, and mellowed in all it's natural produfclions, 
 which alfifted the artifl in his imagery and fcenes. Can there 
 be a queftion that thofe caufes contributed to the lively and 
 
GRECIAN PAIXTING. Q05 
 
 aftive turn of mind, by which the Greeks were marked ? And 
 why may not the feeds of genius, like thofe of animal and vege- 
 table nature, depend on the influences of fls^y, and be capable of 
 nutrition, advancement, or repreflion by the operations of the 
 atmofphere ?* We know how the Greeks would have anfwered 
 that queftion, by their ccnfure of Baeotia. And although the 
 cenfure might poffibly originate in prejudice, and certainly was 
 gainfayed by a few fplendid exceptions, yet if the principle laid 
 down in fome codes of jurifprudence be true, " the exception 
 " proves the rulet". 
 
 Illuftrious as the Greeks became in painting, it was but late in 
 ages when any evidences of it, which we can call by that name 
 appeared among them. If Pliny had any authority for his afler- 
 tion, that Euchir the father of Daedalus firft made it known to 
 them, then what he has faid in another paffage muft alfo be true 
 that it was not underftood in Greece at the Trojon war J. If we 
 could believe that Pliny meant there to fpeak of it as a regular 
 art, in any ftages of colouring, we might perhaps fubfcribe to 
 his opinion, having no evidences to the contrary. But if it be 
 underftood in it's fimpler ftages of mere defign, we can fee no 
 reafon why the Greeks fliould not have been capable in their ear- 
 lieft periods of thofe traits, which have appeared coeval with 
 the earlieft periods of all the people of the earth. The faft is, 
 that Pliny has ftudioufly endeavoured to modernize as much as 
 poffible the introduction of this art in Greece, even in thofe cru- 
 der traits of defign from which it did probably firft advance 
 among every people, to whom it was not brought at once in 
 
 • See Cumberl. Anecd. vol. i. p. 198. t Coke on Littleton, fjepe. 
 
 X Plin. lib. 35. c. g. 
 Vol. r. Rr 
 
306 GRECIAN PAINTING. 
 
 I 
 
 better ftages of progreis. For in the account which he has given 
 of thofe cruder traits of defign, while he has mentioned no pe- 
 riods to whicli they might refpettively be referred, he has advan- 
 ced the names of particular men as the authors of every new 
 flep, moft of whom appear from fome collateral circumftances 
 not to have been older than the war of Troy. In this part of 
 his relation we have reafon to apprehend that he was biaffed by 
 a defirc of making the Romans appear in this inflance of art 
 more forward than the Greeks, For, having carried down thofe 
 fimpler traits of defign in Greece to the very fimplell flate of 
 colouring in a period coeval with Romulus, he adds this fingular 
 declaration, that "even then painting was perfeft in Italy ;" of 
 which he gives as proofs fome paintings in a temple at Ardea, 
 and others at Lanuvium in Tufcany *. With refpeft to the in- 
 tercft which Rome may have in this queflion, we fhall pafs that 
 by for the prefent ; obferving only, that time has certainly left 
 Pliny in the poffelTion of his affertions, as to Greece, having 
 left us in the poffefrion of no pofitive evidences to contradifl 
 him : the firfl evidence of any regular pi61:ure in that country, 
 which antiquity has fuflfered to come down to us, is undoubtedly 
 coe\'al with the age of Romulus. We fliall neverthelefs judge 
 for ourfelves in this matter from that natural courfe of things 
 which has fhewn itfelf in other countries, and from which the 
 great antiquity of the Greeks fliould give us no caufe to conclude 
 that they were excepted. 
 
 The fteps, however, by which that author has reprefented 
 painting as rifing into power among the Greeks are natural, and 
 may properly be embraced. It's firft elTays were content with 
 
 * Plin. ubi flip. 
 
GRECIAN PAINTING. 307 
 
 the external lines of objefts formed by the fliadeof the figure in 
 the fun, and therefore caMedJktography. The name of Saurias 
 is mentioned by Pliny as the firfl who drew a horfe in that 
 manner*. 
 
 Within thofe external lines the internal parts of the figure, as 
 the limbs, fhoulders, hips, &c. were next attempted, but flill in 
 fimple linest ; and therefore this ftage of defign was called mo- 
 nograph)!. Sometimes Philocles the Egyptian or Cleanthes the 
 Corinthian, at other times Ardices of Corinth and Telephanes of 
 Sicyon, are referred to by Pliny for the firft idea of this im- 
 provement;];. This monography, or lineal drawing, although it 
 be found among the infant movements of defign, muft not be 
 confidered as of delpicable capacity. Without fuppofing thofe 
 ancients, by whom it was firfl praftifed, to have carried it's pow- 
 ers of expreflion to that developement of chara6ler and pafTion, 
 which we have feen accomplifhed by it in modern days, yet we are 
 alfured by Philoftratus ^, that thofe ancients could give it not only 
 a degree of relief in particular parts, but fuch an expreffion as dif- 
 tinguifhed the general cad of the charafter, and fuch an approxi- 
 mation to colour in the general figure as fhewed whether the in- 
 dividual were white or tawny. 
 
 In thofe ftages of pifture there was no colour employed ||. The 
 next flep therefore was from fimple defign to fimple colour, called 
 the monocromatic** . We are not to conclude that any one co- 
 lour only was known or ufed, for the Greeks embraced four primi- 
 
 * Plin. lib. 35. c. 3. t Qj^iint. Infl:. Orat. lib. 11. c. 6. 
 
 X Plin. ubi fup. § De Vita Apollonii, lib. 2. c. 10. 
 
 II Plin. ubi fup. ** Ibid. & cap. 8. 
 
3o8 GRECIAN PAINTING. 
 
 tive colours from the firft*; but only one colour was ufed at one 
 time, and in one objeft, under the monocromatic. Pliny there- 
 fore, fpeaking of thofe works, very accurately fays, and moft con- 
 fidently with what the Greeks knew of colour, Jingulis coloribus, 
 not fingxdo colore. Hygiemon, Dinias, and Charmas are men- 
 tioned by that author in one paffage, and in another Cleophantus 
 of Corinth, as the inventors or firft pra6lifers of that fingle colour- 
 ing. Under this head he has come much clofer to the point of 
 time, and it is produftive of fome confequence ; for he fays that 
 Hygiemon, Dinias, and Charmas were aliguanto ante Bular- 
 chum, " fome little time before the painter Bularchus," who was 
 much better known in his period at leaft than all the reft. 
 
 Before we get to that painter it will be proper to remark, on 
 the authority of Pliny himfelf, that in the ufe of the monocro- 
 matic there were two other artifts who appeared very eminent, 
 and gave a confiderable extenfion to the powers of that fimpH- 
 city of painting. Thefe were Eumarus the Athenian, and Ci- 
 mon of Cleona^at. Till thefe men appeared we muft conclude 
 that the monocromatic was vilely dull and infenfible, and that 
 inftead of mending, it had only prejudiced, the more diftin61: 
 expreffion of lineal drawings. For the praftice had been to re- 
 prefent alike all figures of the fame kind, without diftin6lion of 
 fexes ; and the ufe of it had not been carried to all kinds of 
 figures. Both thofe defects were remedied by Eumarus. Yet 
 much more was left to be done by Cimon his pupil, who was 
 deftined to rife greatly upon the fteps by which his mafter had 
 advanced;]:. For there was ftill much ftiffnefs and barbarity left 
 
 * Plin. ubi flip. &cap. 7. + Ibid. lib. 35. c. 8. 
 
 + Felib. vol.i.p. 53,54. 
 
GRECIAN PAINTING. 309 
 
 in every figure, and a great want of aftion and variety. Thefe 
 were referved for the genius of Cimon to do away, even with 
 the fimplicity of the monocromatic pencil. He threw his figures 
 into different attitudes, by which means he flarted the fir(t ideas 
 and fpecimens of forefiiortening*. For fo much is certainly im- 
 plied in the word catagrapha, along with the varieties of attitude 
 adduced by Pliny as illuftrations of his meaning, which could 
 not be done without forefliortening. The improvements of Ci- 
 mon were not confined to the general frame. He gave diftinft- 
 ly the joints of the limbs, and the veins of the body, in all his 
 nude figures ; and in his draperies he difcriminated the folds and 
 wrinkles. On thofe accounts it is no wonder that Cimon, more 
 than all the painters who lived before him, has been the fubjeft 
 of celebration by the pens of the learned from Pliant to Gro- 
 tius J. He was the firft. great man that held the pencil in Greece ; 
 and he was the more extraordinary for his capacity of making 
 it produ6tive of fo much expreffion in fo confined a compafs of 
 a6lion. 
 
 We do not mean to urge thofe improvements of Cimon as 
 contradiftions to Pliny's affertion, that the monocromatic was 
 firft brought into ufe " a little while before Bularchus," who was 
 coeval with the age of Romulus ; although, if we had not taken 
 that author's report, who has exprefsly ranked Cimon among 
 the monocromatic painters, we might have been led to infer 
 from fome circumltances in his improvements, either that he had 
 been earlier in time, and had fhewn his great and original pow- 
 ers in lineal drawings, or that he had been ftill later, and had 
 
 * Plin. ubi fup. t Hift. Div. lib. 8. c. 8. 
 
 X Tranflat. Epigram. Anthologia. 
 
310 GRECIAN PAINTING. 
 
 arrived to the ufe of more colours than one. But an obfer- 
 vation of Ouintilian averts every dfficuky on this head. He 
 obferves, that " the ancient painters in the monocromatic could 
 " fo manage the fingle colour which they ufed, as to give every 
 *' appearance of relief to parts, by making fome things to rife, 
 " and others to fall*". Let it pafs then, for any thing in the 
 example of Cimon, that the Greeks had gotten no further than 
 to the monocromatic painting a little before Bularchus. 
 
 If that were the cafe, the pifture which has faved the name of 
 that artift from oblivion, mull have been either a monocromatic 
 execution, or but very little advanced beyond it. That pifture 
 is undoubtedly the oldeft of which we can fpeak in Greece. It 
 reprefented, on fome confiderable fcale+, a battle of the Magne- 
 lians, a people of Afia Minor, fought in defence of the Jonians 
 and Eolians J ; and it was bought for it's weight in gold by Can- 
 daules king of Lydia, cotemporary with Romulus^. This lafl 
 circumflance has generally imprefled thofe, to whofe knowledge 
 it has reached, with the idea that the pencil mufl; have been in 
 great power at that time in Greece. And yet it is pofTible that 
 the language, reprefenting the purchafe, may fuggefl a more 
 enormous price than that which was paid, in facl, for the pic- 
 ture, whofe materials might not be heavy. Be that as it may, 
 there is no arguing on that ground to the merit of any work of 
 art in ages fo very remote, and fo liide acquainted with the 
 perfe6lions of which it was capable, where the purchafer too was 
 a prince for whom a Paftolus flowed, and turned up it's fands in 
 gold. If Bularchus, coming after Cimon, had the fortune to 
 
 * Quint, lib. II. c. 3. t Haud mediocris Spatii. Budxus, lib. 7. c. 38. 
 
 ; Bibl. Photii Art. 186. § Plm. lib. 35. c. 8. 
 
GRECIAN PAINTING. "H 
 
 profit by the difcoveries which that artifl had made, and if his 
 pifture exhibited the powers which Cimon could have exempli- 
 fied, then there was juftly an efiimation due to it in that age, 
 whatever was the ftate of it's colouring ; and all fubfequent ages 
 have reafon to look with much refpeft on the capacities then 
 reached bythe Grecian painters, how fhortorhow long foever had 
 been the time in which they had moved to thofe capacities. What 
 the pencil had gained under Cimon amounted to this : it had at- 
 tained the difcrimination of corporeal parts, with fome of the finer 
 textures of the corporeal frame, as the joints, and the veins : it 
 had reached the difcriminations of natural chara6ler ; aftion, and 
 gefture in great variety ; and what was far more difficult than all 
 the reft, forefhortening : it was mafter of much truth and neat- 
 nefs in drapery. Thefe no doubt are all capable of various 
 ftages of perfeftion ; and much more than thefe is neceffary to 
 the full perfeftion of the art : we muft confider them here in a 
 mediocrity of pretenfion. But if thofe talents fo qualified were 
 fhewn in the pifture of Bularchus, then let it have been bought 
 for it's weight in gold, Candaules did not beftow his money for 
 nothing. Whether or no Quintilian had that pifture in view, he 
 evidently fpeaks of paintings in the charafter of thofe times, and 
 his obfervations feem to fettle the point of general merit on the 
 one hand, and of general eftimation on the other, on a reafona- 
 ble ground, although it be indeed fomewhat lower than one 
 fhould expeft from an eftimate which had paid a proper attention 
 to the improvements of Cimon. He fays, " the firft works of the 
 " pencil, recommendable in fa6l for their antiquity more than 
 " for any thing elfe, perfeftly fimple and without variety in 
 " their colouring, yet as being the early productions of a grow- 
 " ing art, or, if you will, the prefages of future brilliancy, na- 
 
312 
 
 GRECIAN PAINTING. 
 
 " turally pleafed and charmed all by their imperfeft (ketches, 
 " not to fay by their very groffnefs and barbarity*". 
 
 There can be no doubt but the genius and induftry, which had 
 carried the pencil thus far, would not ceafe their exertions to im- 
 prove it's gifts. And yet we muft lofe fight of thofe exertions for 
 a period of 272 years from the age of Bularchus. It is not paint- 
 ing alone, but the whole chain of the arts, that we lofe for that 
 period, unlefs in a few inftances hardly worthy of obfervation. 
 It is not neceffary to fuppofe, nor is it true, that they were all 
 ftagnate for that length of time. They kept themfelves alive, 
 they enjoyed vegetation, they crept on infenfibly, or there could 
 have been no foundation for the burfl: with which they came forth 
 at the end of that period ; but they were kept down by a conca- 
 tenation of circumftances from becoming either potent in them- 
 lelves, or confpicuous to the world. Thofe circumftances were 
 the ifiue of the public government, partly condutled upon 
 ftrange and capricious principles, partly converted into a general 
 fcourge by feverity, partly difturbed, and partly overthrown by 
 revolutions : they were thofe public caufes, under which the fine 
 arts have ever ftirunk, and ever muft ftirink, if they do not ex- 
 pire, in every country upon earth. It is our bufinefs to detail 
 thofe circumftances, which we (hall do with all poftible brevity. 
 
 At the commencement of that period, in which we left Bu- 
 larchus, 720 years before the Chriftian aera, Athens, the moft 
 favourable of all the Grecian governments to the prefervation 
 of the arts, was governed by Archons, whofe power was limited 
 to ten years. However fatisfatlory that fyftem might be to the 
 
 * Quint. Inft. Orat. lib. 12. c. 10. 
 
GRECIAN PAINTING. 313 
 
 people in the view of liberty, it was by no means equally pro- 
 mifing to the arts with that plan of government, which had left 
 the Archons in rule for life. For where the chief magiftrate 
 was to refign his fituation at a determinate time, and to account 
 for the whole of his adminiftration to a people who were perhaps 
 capricious, and perhaps rendered avei-fe to him, his patronage 
 was very unlikely to be fpirited, and the emulation of artifts 
 would confequently be tame. We (hall find in all the ages of 
 Greece, that notwithflanding the fine arts had a tenure of coun- 
 tenance there which they knew not in any other fituation, yet the 
 patronage which bore them up flowed principally from thofe 
 who held the reins of government. The truth and the impor- 
 tance of that faft was fully illufi;rated under the Archons. While 
 they were continued for life, the arts had gained every progrefs 
 which we have hitherto related ; and upon the acceffion of de- 
 cennial Archons thofe arts began to retire from our view. 
 
 A revolution of nine Olympiads produced another revolution 
 in the government, more inimical fl:ill to thofe arts, by limiting 
 the Archons to one year, and infl:ead of one, appointing nine to 
 fliare the authority. That more decided overthrow of regular 
 patronage, which took place 680 years before our aera, proved 
 equally the overthrow of all civil reform, and of all order itfelf, 
 beyond the word effefts by which regal power had ever been 
 marked in any times. And from that hour, if we except the 
 diforders and exceffes naturally arifing from a fyftem which left 
 no fettled authority, nor any fettled plans of adminiftration, a 
 dead and lifelefs inaftion took place, a ftillnefs both of intelle6l 
 and indufl:ry, which left nothing of importance to mark the 
 country to other nations and other times, until it faw the admi- 
 niftration of Draco in the year 624 before Jefus Chrift. 
 
 Vol. I. S s 
 
314 GRECIAN PAINTING. 
 
 His fevere adminiftration befpoke the univerfal diforders and 
 excefles which had preceded it. But laws written in blood are 
 never likely to mend the wayward and vicious contradiftions in 
 human nature. After the experience of their inefficacy for near 
 half a century, a Solon became necefTary to foften and heal by 
 humanity, and by the confiderations of jufl; feelings, the irritations 
 which had more nearly extinguifhed than reformed the people. 
 
 Solon was pofTeflTed of many elegancies of mind and talents : 
 his philofophy was neverthelefs fupreme over all. If that philo- 
 fophy would have led him to any cultivation of the finer arts, 
 yet unfortunately he had not time to indulge the attention. His 
 care could go no further than to the common mechanical em- 
 ployments*. Nor could the faint infpeftion of the Areopagus 
 into every man's diligent employment of his time become a fuf- 
 ficient fpur to artifls, where there was no generous patronage to 
 call forth an emulation. The fituation of the country afforded 
 no fuch encouragement. Athens was rent by feuds and diffen- 
 tions, in confequence of difaflers abroad, as well as vexations at 
 home. The code of laws, formed by Solon for the correftion 
 of abufes, fhews that all regular education, and all proper cul- 
 tivation of talents, were grofsly neglefted. In his time there- 
 fore the fine arts could gain no ground. When he was gone, 
 the Athenians (hewed that they had thofe arts in their hands, if 
 they had been called for : they erefted a fl;atue of brafs to his 
 memory. But Pififlratus revoked many of his laws. 
 
 This man had affumed, and mufi; maintain, the tyranny. If 
 all ingenuity was funk in diffolutenefs before, it was now become 
 
 * Pint, in vita Solonis, 
 
GRECIAN PAINTING. 3I5 
 
 torpid by flavery : at beft, it flumbered beneath the afhes with 
 which liberty and itfelf were covered together. The firfl; talents 
 in Athens bound upon their limbs the chains which Pififtratus had 
 provided for them. This new revolution happened in the year 
 ^66 before the Chriftian sera. Yet does Pififtratus prefentlv be- 
 come the epoch of the literary age of Greece. He founded in 
 the latter days of his reign one of the fineft libraries that ever 
 was collefted. So far his ambition took an honourable turn. He 
 was himfelf accomplifhed in all the learning of his age. His 
 court became the refort of genius. Athens became lifted up 
 anew. From that time fhe took the lead of all the other ftates 
 in literature and fignificance : fhe became the fchool of phi- 
 lofophy, the theatre of poets, and the capital of talle and ele- 
 gance. 
 
 Amidfl all thefe advantages, continued under the fons of Pi- 
 fiftratus to the conclufion of their reigns in the year 514 before 
 our aera ; the fine arts, although participating fomewhat in them 
 all, could not call the days arrived which were capable of lift- 
 ing them from their paft depreftion. Attica itfelf, with all it's 
 endeavours to fliine again, was ftill too much in defolation to 
 recover at once it's wealth and profperity. It had never ceafed 
 indeed to feel, during the whole reigns of the Pififtratidae, a very 
 fenfible depreflion of fpirits from the confcioufnefs, ever grievous 
 in a Grecian breaft, that it was governed by tyrants ; for fo thofe 
 were called, who had feized the reins of government, which they 
 were not conftitutionally entitled to hold. That confcioufnefs, 
 for which enlightened minds were never formed, was not to be 
 erafed from the Athenians by the moft attra61:ive accomplifli- 
 ments of the tyrant himfelf; elfe, furely Pififtratus would have 
 erafed it; and that people fhewed by the manner in which 
 
3l6 GRECIAN PAINTING. 
 
 they met the elegancies of his reign, that they ftrove to erafe 
 it from their breafts. But the viftory over that confcioufnefs 
 could not be completely gained to genius, till it was firll 
 gained over the Pififtratidae themfelves by their final expulfion. 
 The general mind, completely fet free by the recovery of liberty, 
 began then to expand itfelf in the pleafurable indulgence of ele- 
 gant and ingenuous ideas. Yet was that indulgence a fliort one ; 
 it was prefently reverfed by another check from another quarter 
 to abfolute defpair. The event, to which we now refer, was the 
 formidable invafion of Xerxes, which took place 480 years before 
 Jefus Chrift. When that invader was overthrown in the fpace of 
 a year in the battles of Salamin and Plataeze, and was compelled 
 to make his retreat into Perfia, then w'e come to the epoch in 
 which every Grecian depreffion ceafed ; when the people felt 
 themfelves alive from the dead ; when the country gained a new 
 exiftence in that new fecurity, which brought wealth to her pof- 
 feffion, and made all her refources to flourifh ; when courage re- 
 fumed it's feat and it's influence in the general breaft ; and when 
 o-enius of courfe awoke from it's flumber, rubbed off the ruft 
 with which it had been covered, and began to think of the fame 
 which was referved for it's attainment in arts, no lefs than that 
 which had been glorioufly atchieved by the Grecian courage in 
 arms againft the enemies of the country. It is on the authority 
 of Diodorus Siculus that we fpeak of that event in this manner. 
 Thefe are his own words. " The expedition of Xerxes into 
 " Greece, fupported by the wonderful extent of his forces, fo 
 " terrified that people, that they counted afluredly on flavery 
 " and ruin. But when beyond all expeftations the war termi- 
 " nated in their favour, the Greeks freed from the danger rofe 
 " prefently into glory. Every one of their cities grew fo weal- 
 " thy from the influx of riches, that the who\e world had but to 
 
GRECIAN PAINTING. 317 
 
 " wonder at the fudden change of their fortune. For Greece 
 " profpered fo exceedingly in the next fifty years after that event, 
 " that all the fine arts fprung forward, and became highly advan- 
 " ced by the wealth which flowed into her country, and which 
 " raifed many famous artifts, among whom was Phidias, the or- 
 " nament of the times *". 
 
 It was the brother of that Phidias, Panasnus by name, whom 
 the Grecian records next bring forward 448 years before the 
 birth of Chrift, to continue that thread in the progrefs of paint- 
 ing, which was broken by the chafm whofe hiftory we have en- 
 deavoured to fupply. He carried to extent and advantage the 
 attempts in colouring, at which the art had long refted. The 
 remark, which Pliny has coupled with the charafter of that artift, 
 is ftriking, adeo jam colorum ufus increbuerat-^. It feems to 
 conneft us immediately ^vith the two centuries and more which 
 we have left behind in the hands of Bularchus, as if the interval 
 had been engaged to fuppl)' what was then left deficient in the 
 firfl advances of colour. The battle of Marathon, in the Paecile 
 at Athens, is adduced by that author as a proof of the im- 
 provements which Panaenus had given to that branch of the art. 
 In that painting the artifl had portrayed from the life all the prin- 
 cipal generals both on the Grecian and Perfian fide, which unquef- 
 tionably required a great variety of colouring. To fliew the points 
 of his art, was not the only important circumftance in that 
 thought : it was a mofl delicious advantage to a fubjeft, which 
 came within 30 years after the event, to hand down to poflerity 
 the very portraits of thofe men who had ferved their country fo 
 
 * Diod. Sic. lib. 12. Hor. Epift. ad Augiift. v. 93. 
 t Plin. lib, 35. c. 8. 
 
3l8 GRECIAN PAINTING. 
 
 well ; they who were ftill living, and who had taken a part in 
 that fcene, would feed, while they viewed it on the remembrance 
 of what was fo dear to them, and they would flied the luxurious 
 tear of affeftion over the portraits of thofe who were gone. 
 But we cannot help remarking further, that the invention ofPa- 
 n2enus appears to have been wonderfully happy in that piece. 
 For it is faid that he there reprefented the faithful dog of Cynae- 
 girus, from whofe fide, when he had loft both his hands in the ac- 
 tion, that conftant animal would never depart, but fought in his 
 mafter's place when he was dead, and had then feized by the 
 throat a Perfian, who was expiring under the grafp of his fangs, 
 when he was killed at his mafter's feet. — Let the reader feel this, 
 and regret that he cannot review with his own eyes that rarity of 
 fcene, more beautiful than half the feats of heroes. 
 
 We have not yet done with Panxnus. To him Greece was 
 indebted for the endeavour to kindle a general zeal in the arts by 
 committing himfelf to the firft public challenge in painting, and 
 to a generous exhibition of works for the trial of public opi- 
 nion. That exhibition was made at Delphi, during the feaft of 
 Apollo, by that artift on one fide, and by Timagoras of Chalcis 
 on the other. The latter indeed carried the prize by the fuflfra- 
 ges of Greece, and that is all the record which has been left to 
 us concerning him ; but the former was immortal in the portico 
 of Athens. 
 
 If the pencil was indebted to Panaenus for fome improvement 
 in colour, it was much more indebted both in colouring and de- 
 fign to Polygnotus. That artift, if he was not cotemporary with 
 the firft days of Panaenus, came into fame very ftiortly after. 
 Pliny fays that he was prior to the 90th Olympiad. It is agreed 
 
GRECIAN PAINTING. qIq 
 
 that in his painting of the Trojan captives in the Paecile, he gave 
 the portrait of Elpinice, Cimon's filler, and a notorious courte- 
 zan, for the figure of Laodice. Elpinice therefore muft have 
 been then in fome degree of youth ; and we know that her bro- 
 ther died in the 83d Olympiad, in middle age. His filler muft 
 have been confiderably younger than he, or flie would have been 
 too old a portrait for Laodice ; and Polygnotus muft have done 
 that painting not long after Panaenus in the 83d Olympiad, or 
 ftill flie would have been too old. From this circumftance we 
 fhould be inclined to think that Polygnotus muft have been quite 
 as early as Pansenus, whom the reader will recolleft to have 
 flourifhed 448 years before Chrift. And we have faid this much 
 on a point of more curiofity than aftual ufe, chiefly becaufe 
 Monfieur Rollin in his Chronological Table annexed to his An- 
 cient Hiftory has put Polygnotus fo late as the year 424 before 
 the Chriftian a;ra. At that period, fuppofing Elpinice's brother 
 to have died no older than forty, and that flie was fifteen years 
 younger than he, flie muft have been fifty years old, when Po- 
 lygnotus felefted her for the young and beautiful Laodice. 
 
 So much for the point of time when this artift came forward 
 ■with thofe originalities, compared with which all that had been 
 admired for painting before were as nothing. * He ftarted at 
 once from the old manner in attitude and figure, which with 
 all the improvements of Cimon had yet much ftiffhefs to lofe. 
 His figures were quite unfliackled, and obtained in all fituations 
 an enlarged freedom, eafinefs, and indeed gaiety of air. The 
 countenance was no longer a blank furface, or piece of pafte. 
 He fliewed the world how to give it the expreffion of paflion ii^ 
 
 * PHn. lib. 35. c. 9. Arift. de Arte Poetica. Felib. vol. i. p. 54. 
 
320 GRECIAN PAINTING. 
 
 every feature. The mouth itfelf fpoke, which hitherto had al- 
 ways been clofely (hut. His Ajax in the Paecile gave at one look 
 the brutal charafter of the man, whofe violence to the chafte 
 Caffandra in the facred temple of Minerva was the fubjeft of 
 council by the Grecian chiefs. In colouring he took a ground 
 as new and original as were his traits of defign. To him we are 
 indebted for the firfl difcovery of light and fhade, of which he 
 availed himfelf greatly in a new and agreeable appearance given 
 to his draperies, particularly of women. Perhaps his fort was 
 beft feen when he painted that fex, to whofe head-dreffes he had 
 found a method of giving a mod elegant air, with a moft agree- 
 able variety. Lucian, in the celebrated paflage de imaginihcs, 
 endeavouring to give the portrait of his perfeft woman, felefts 
 the powers of this artift for that purpofe. He fays, " Polygnotus 
 " fhall open and fpread her eye-brows, and give her that warm, 
 " glowing, decent blufh, which fo inimitably beautifies his Caf- 
 " fandra. He likewife fhall give her an eafy, genteel, flowing 
 " drefs, with all it's tender and delicate wavings, partly clinging 
 " to her body, and partly fluttering in the wind." 
 
 After this view of Polygnotus, what mufl be the ftrength of 
 that pencil which next appeared in the hands of Apollodorus, 
 and caufed it to be faid of him, that before his time there was 
 not a painting in Greece worthy to engage or detain the atten- 
 tion of the beholder* ? He entered on the theatre of arts a few 
 years after Polygnotus, about the year 408 before the Chriftian 
 sera . That high encomium of his pencil, which has come from 
 the pen of Pliny, and we fhould naturally fuppofe was founded 
 on the fentiments of former times, will probably be explained 
 
 * Plin. lib. 35. c. 9. Felib. vol. i. p. 55. 
 
GRECIAN PAINTING. 
 
 32i 
 
 without much difficulty by following the evidences which are ftill 
 left us of it's difcriminating perfeftions. We fhall firft conclude, 
 that the figures of Polygnotus, with all their life and expreffion, 
 went no further than a juft refemblance of Nature in it's ordinary 
 forms. Apollodorus was not content with that. We cannot fay 
 that he ftruck out the idea of that beautiful Nature, which be- 
 came the delight of Greece, the ftudy of her internal policy, the 
 firfl: objeft of both painting and fculpture, and the tefl of ex- 
 cellence in her fchools, becaufe we have already feen the marks 
 of that beautiful idea in the fculpture of Cypfelus 400 years 
 before : he was neverthelefs the firfl: painter who had exempli- 
 fied it ably on the canvafs. . He gave it as the cloathing to all 
 his fubjefts. It may feem ftrange, that this maft;erly talent was 
 fo long in making it's appearance in painting, after it had 
 been feen in fculpture. Neverthelefs, the fa6l appears to have 
 been fuch. It has always been afcribed to Apollodorus, that he 
 was the firfl painter who gave that advantage to his figures. 
 Does it not fhew the wider compafs, and the fuperior difficul- 
 ties, embraced by the pencil ? It's advances to perfe6lion were 
 flower than thofe of fculpture, becaufe it had more powers to be 
 perfefted. How ftrangely then mufl; Pliny have been mifl;aken, 
 when he aflerted that " none of the fine arts was fo quickly car- 
 " ried to confummation as that of painting?*" 
 
 Colouring had not gained that advantage under Polygnotus, 
 which Apollodorus was enabled to give it. He rofe on the light 
 and fliade of his predeceflbr by the more extraordinary difcovery 
 of the clair-obfcure. Befides that, he introduced a grace and 
 foftnefs into his colours, which left his predeceflbr behind him. 
 
 * Plin. lib. 35. c. 3. 
 Vol. I. T t . 
 
322 
 
 GRECIAN PAINTING. 
 
 Yet it is faid that he was a mannerift in fome degree. Wliere every 
 thins was fo new in the art, we fhall not wonder to meet fome 
 things confined. The fervices he rendered were great, and it 
 was not the leaft among the reft, that he formed the pencil of 
 Zeuxis his difciple. 
 
 In the 95th Olympiad, or the year 400 before the Chriftian 
 Taera, this great artift was in the enjoyment of his fame*. Apol- 
 lodorus his mafter faid of him, that " when the doors of the art 
 " had been opened to him, he walked in and carried away all 
 " that belonged to it." That only (hewed that Apollodorus did 
 not fee completely all the perfections of the pencil ; for in that 
 penegyric he went too far. Zeuxis, however, determined not to 
 leave the art where he found it, and he made his refolution good. 
 In colouring it is not enough to fay that he was far greater than 
 his mafter and all that went before him : the queftion feems only 
 to be, whether he was not greater in that refpeft than all who 
 came after him, Apelles himfelf not excepted. He had the ta- 
 lent, peculiar to himfelf, of forming the clair-obfcure in the mo- 
 nocromatic or fingle colour, and in the more difficult manner of 
 effefting it with white laid on a black ground, correfpondent in 
 effeft to our mezzo-tinto. This is what Pliny means, when he 
 fays, " pinxit et monocromata ex albo." He puflied his way 
 to a further moft important exercife of the art in the infenfible 
 tranfition of colours. In that talent the trial of {kill is well 
 known, which he had with his cotemporary and rival Parrhafius, 
 whofe fort that infenfible tranfition was, with all it's great effeds 
 in relief, and by whom it may be faid that thofe powers were 
 eftabliftied in complete perfeftion+. 
 
 • Plin. lib. 35. c. 9. Felib. vol. i . p. 56. 
 t Ibid. lib. 35. c. 10. Felib. vol. 3. p. ig. 
 
GRECIAN PAINTING. 30^ 
 
 The field was large, and ever will be large, in this art. It was 
 not fo filled by thofe who had gone before, as to exclude Parr- 
 hafius from new excellencies. The beautiful nature of Apolio- 
 dorus was carried further by the perfeft fymmetry of Parrhafius ; 
 that is, he formed his fymmetry not merely on what Nature had 
 done in her mod beautiful exifling figures, but on what fhe 
 might have done in the fulleft proportions of beauty. Thofe 
 principles he illuftrated in a treatife, of which time has unfor- 
 tunately left us no remains. To underfland this matter rightly, 
 it muft be obferved that there were three ftages of procefs to this 
 point of the art, and Parrhafius appears to have carried it to the 
 furthefl: extent of the three. The firft ftep was, to feleft the 
 moft beautiful forms in individuals. They next colleded from 
 many individuals what parts were moft beautiful in each, and 
 out of thofe they compofed a whole, giving it thofe juft pro- 
 portions which belonged to fuch a figure. But this was working 
 upon Nature aftually formed, which poflibly might never have 
 exemplified the perfe6tly beautiful, or might not eafily afford 
 it to be collefted. Parrhafius therefore exhibited the perfect- 
 ly beautiful in ftandard-proportions, or, to fpeak technically, in 
 ftandard-fymmetry, and he exemplified it in his treatife ; a work,, 
 whofe obje6l has never fince been fupplied. 
 
 In other refpe61s that artift improved confiderably on the ex- 
 cellencies of Polygnotus, having carried to a more refined extent 
 the life, and energy, and expreffion which the latter had given 
 to his figures, and alfo the peculiar graces of the mouth, and 
 the adjuftment of the hair, and the elegant dreffes of the head. 
 It is no wonder that he took extraordinary pains in thefe orna- 
 mental circumftances, when we know what is recorded of his 
 attachment to the fair fex, and to fumptuoufnefs in female 
 
324 GRECIAN PAINTING. 
 
 drefs*. It is to be regretted that this turn of mind (hould have 
 carried his pencil into fubjefts unfit for the virtuous eye. 
 
 Amidft thofe fteps, by which the art was rifing to it's fummit, it 
 will naturally be thought that the zeal with which it's perfeftions 
 were purfued, would cultivate the eftablifhment of fome public 
 foundations, by which thofe perfeftions might be taught and 
 maintained. There were at that time two public fchools of the 
 arts in Greece, the one called the Grecian, and the other the 
 Afiatic, fchool. Eupompus, of whom as an artift the lapfe of 
 ages has left us little knowledge, flood neverthelefs fo high in 
 charafter as to give extenfion to thofe foundations +. He pre- 
 vailed that his native Sicyon, which had boafted to have firfl 
 introduced painting into Greece, and where it was then thought 
 by many to be mod highly cultivated J, fliould fhare with Athens 
 the honour of fupporting the art by a public fchool. From that 
 time, what had been called the Grecian was divided into the 
 Sicyonian and the Attic ; and that which had been the Afiatic 
 took the name of the Ionian, in memory of the colony in Afia 
 Minor, from whence the arts had gained an early afliftance. In 
 confequence of thofe regulations, there became three fchools in 
 Greece, differing fomewhat in manner, as all fchools do ; but 
 proving, as they all do, the extenfion and improvement of the 
 arts in the zeal with which thofe fchools are multiplied. 
 
 Pamphilus the Macedonian, who flourifhed in the reign of Phi- 
 Fip the father of Alexander the Great, was the difciple of Eupom- 
 pus ; and pofTeffed, as we mufl: conclude, confiderable excellen- 
 
 * Junius de Pift. Vet. p. 49. t Plin. lib. 35. c. 10. 
 
 X Plut.in Vita Arati. 
 
GRECIAN PAINTING. 
 
 325 
 
 cies, although we are not able minutely toftate them, becaufe the 
 elegant and judicious Aratus felecled all his pieces, which he was 
 able to purchafe, for Ptolemy Philadelphus *. He followed, 
 however, his matter's fteps by feeking thofe eftablifliments for the 
 arts, which were conceived to dignify and raife them. From his 
 influence arofe that remarkable ordinance, firfl at Sicyon, and af- 
 terwards made univerfal in Greece, that the arts of defign fliould 
 be praftifed by no flave, but that all other children fhould be 
 compelled to learn them. In his own character thofe arts were 
 undoubtedly ennobled, as he poflelfed all the belles lettres of the 
 age, and exemplified that extent of education, for which he fo 
 ftrenuoufly contended as an artift, and to which that ordinance 
 was meant to lead the profeffors of the arts. We have already 
 touched on fome advantages which were unqueftionably given 
 by that meafure to the general fpirit of thofe arts, although per- 
 haps it was not a meafure which might fit any other country but 
 it's own, in a general view. It was not the lead advancement 
 which he gave to the pencil, when he brought up the man, after 
 whom it might be needlefs to fpeak of any advancement it re- 
 ceived. The reader will anticipate the mention of Apelles. 
 
 + In the 112th Olympiad, or 332 years before the Chriflian 
 aera, this artifl: trained by all the improvements that went before 
 him, and nouriflied by the favour and patronage of Alexander 
 the Great, carried his art perhaps to the higheft pitch it could 
 ever attain, at leaft under thofe advantages of colours which 
 were then enjoyed by the ingenious world. The eulogium, which 
 Pliny has given, is indeed unqualified : he fays, " omnes prius 
 " genitos, futurofque poflea, fuperavit Apelles." Neverthelefs, 
 
 * Plin. lib. 35. c. 10. t Ibid. Felib. vol. i . p. 63. 
 
326 GRECIAN PAINTING, 
 
 with all due enthufiafm, the limitation above-mentioned feems 
 indifpenfible to be drawn, although it fhould be true in faft that 
 no fucceeding ages, with the advantages of more materials in 
 colour, have reached the whole excellencies of his pencil. It is 
 a very fenfible mortification, that when our minds are wound up 
 by the reported wonders of this extraordinary artift, time fhould 
 have bereft us of every trait by which we might have been ena- 
 bled either to form a judgement for ourfelves, or to gratify on 
 the mod fatisfaftory grounds that enthufiaftic applaufe, which 
 has become irrefiftible from prefcription. We have but to retail 
 the general (Iri^lures, which have been left to us by thofe who 
 were much nearer the fource of correft information. 
 
 When we review the advancements which Apelles gave to his 
 art, the queftion feems only to be, whether he did not carry to 
 the higheft conceivable point all the individual perfeftions which 
 gave fame to any of his predeceflbrs, in defign, in colouring, in 
 keeping, in the exprefhon of charafter, in proportions, in con- 
 tour, and in the mod perfeft beauty of Nature. Be that as it 
 may, if we are to take our fentiments from the decided fuffrage 
 of antiquity, while he fhewed himfelf a mafter in all thofe gifts, 
 he approved himfelf an original in another gift, which feemed as 
 if it were vouchfafed immediately from heaven, and communi- 
 cated by infpiration alone ; and that was, the grace which over- 
 fpread every thing he did. By means of that grace, the free- 
 dom which he gave to his figures outftripped every improved 
 idea of eafe ; his life was fuch as animation never poflefled ; and 
 the humanity of his forms partook of the celeftiality of Being. 
 " Ideas," fays the well-informed Felibien, " can hardly conceive 
 '" thefe, and all language is too weak to exprefs them*." With 
 
 * Felib. ubi fiip. 
 
GRECIAN PAINTING. 
 
 327 
 
 thofe enchanting powers as an artifl, it is pleafing to know that as 
 a man he united an equal modedy, that precious and never-fail- 
 ing proof not only of profeflional wifdom, but of wifdom in it's 
 moft comprehenfive and accomplifhed ftate. Apelles would in- 
 genuoufly declare that Amphion* furpafied him in ordonance, 
 and Afclepiodorus in proportions. Among the other attain- 
 ments of his genius, the art was indebted to him for the difco- 
 very of a varnifh, which contributed much to the mellowing of 
 his colours, and ferved as a mirrour through which the eye might 
 behold the brightefl tints without any offenfive glare, while at 
 the fame time it fhielded his paintings from the foil of duft. 
 Unfortunately that difcovery is loft to pofterity. 
 
 Confiftently with the voice of antiquity, we muft fuppofe, 
 that he had no rival in his day in any one perfeftion of his art. 
 And yet there was a cotemporary, concerning whom it might be 
 concluded, from the expreflions of Pliny, that he contributed 
 fome original improvements, which were not found in others. 
 That artift was Ariftides, of whom Pliny fays, " is omnium pri- 
 " mus animum pinxit, et fenfus humanos expreflit, quae vocant 
 " Graeci li'flii ; idem perturbationes +". That author had faid 
 before of Parrhafius, that he firft gave the exprefllon of fenti- 
 ment to the countenance, " primus argutias vultus dedit." And 
 furely the pencil of Apelles after him could not be deficient in 
 this, or it -would ill be entitled to the eulogium which has been 
 given it. How then could Ariftides be faid firft to paint the 
 
 * Qujere, Are not almoft all the books wrong from Pliny to the prefent day in the 
 name given to this artifl ? Should it not be Echion ? Sec Durand's Notes on Pliny 
 ad loc. Lucian in Herodot. Felib. vol. i . p. 63. in margine. 
 
 t Plin.lib. 35.C. 9. 
 
328 GRECIAN PAINTING. 
 
 mind, to exprefs the fentiments or manners, taken in their befl; 
 fenfe, and as the Greeks underftood them by the word ^M ? It 
 is difficult to reconcile this nicety, at leaft with the prefervation 
 of confiftency to the author of it. A little refleftion however 
 may carry us fome way towards it. There is certainly a differ- 
 ence between the painting of the mind, the foul, the internal 
 of the charafter, in it's fettled and calm conftitution, and the 
 painting of any particular affeftion prevalent on the counte- 
 nance. If the merit of Parrhafius lay chiefly in the latter way, 
 then there was no inconfiftency with refpeft to him in faying 
 that Ariftides was original in the former. But from a fair inter- 
 pretation of the whole fentence we fhould rather conceive Pliny's 
 meaning to have been, that Ariftides was the firft painter who 
 could exprefs in the countenance and chara6ler all the various 
 fentiments and affeftions of the human mind, not only the more 
 regular manners, i^Gvi, but the more violent paffions, perturbati- 
 ones : a talent, which is rare indeed in the hands of one man, 
 and poffibly might not have been marked in any others before 
 him, although others might have admirably expreffed thofe fen- 
 timents or thofe paffions feparately. We know that the talent of 
 Zeuxis lay more eminently in painting the fofter and more regu- 
 lar manners, while that of Timomachus excelled in the more 
 vehement paffions. The Penelope gives the befl: trait of the 
 former's pencil ; and the Ajax, or perhaps the Gorgon, as Pliny 
 fays *, beft exhibits that of the latter. If this fl:ri6lure be right, 
 it would feem that Ariftides could draw either a Penelope or an 
 Ajax, a Penelope or a Gorgon. Admitting this to be the cafe, 
 and that Ariftides was firft diftinguilhed by that talent, there is a 
 vaft field of art in which he might be left inferior to the powers, 
 
 * Plin. lib. 35. c. II. 
 
GRKCIAN PAINTING. 329 
 
 and confequently to the fame, of Apelles. But, after all, the 
 confiftency of Pliny is not yet cleared. For how much lefs than 
 that talent of Ariflides did Parrhafius exhibit in his 5v?/iov or ge- 
 nius of Athens? in which, according to Pliny's own account, 
 he painted every different fentiment and manner, and every dif- 
 ferent paffion, that can be conceived to enter into the human 
 breaft *. 
 
 Protogenes of Rhodes was another cotemporary of Apelles, 
 and cannot be paffed unnoticed, when we recolleft the very ex- 
 traordinary admiration which his Jalyfus occafioned in Apelles 
 himfelf t. Yet we are not fufficiently furnilhed by antiquity 
 with the peculiarities of his pencil tofpeak of it with precifion J. 
 Neither are we diftinftly informed of the feveral coats of colours, 
 which Pliny fays he laid upon his paintings, in order to fhield 
 them from the injuries of time and accident. On his Jalyfus he 
 laid four of thofe coats, fo that if any one of them failed, a frelh 
 pifture rofe up underneath. We are yet to be informed how 
 that is to be underftood; whether Protogenes painted the pic- 
 ture four feveral times in the ufual manner, without the interven- 
 tion of any other medium ; or whether he ufed another medium, 
 over every coat of which he painted the pifture again. The lat- 
 ter idea has generally been embraced, more efpecially as the ob- 
 jeft propofed would not have been equally fecured by the former ; 
 for it would not be quite eafy to take off" a real coat of painting, 
 immediately laid on another, without prejudice to that which lay 
 underneath; and befides, thefe would form, in faft, only a thicker 
 cruft, which would be more likely to crack than a thinner body. 
 
 * Plin. lib. 35. c. 10. ,iio ;,.; + Plut. in vita Demetrii. 
 
 X See Plin. ibid. Felib. vol. i. p. 65—67. 
 Vol. I. U u 
 
3,30 GRECIAN PAINTING. 
 
 Perhaps the hv.il paintings for keeping their texture are thofe,' 
 o\ er which the pencil has never gone twice. Some of thofe 
 are to be feen, particularly by Guido and Titian, which have 
 flood a long tcfl of time, and tlirough which an accurate eye 
 nia^' partly perceive the canvas, not more naked now than it 
 appears to have been at firit. What that medium was, which 
 Protogenes employed, we are neverthelefs entirely unacquainted. 
 A fimilar pra6ncc, if the praftice were his, has been purfued 
 in modern times. Some of the paintings in the collefclion of 
 our unfortunate Charles I. particularly his portrait by Van- 
 dyke now in fine prefervation, were fa\'ed from the general 
 wreck of his property by the ingenuity of an artift, who difguif- 
 ed it by a coat of a gummy nature, as it is fuppofed, over 
 which he painted the pifture again more humbly, as will eafily 
 be conceived. The Diana of Titian, lately recovered by Mr. 
 Welt, the prefident of our royal academy, from the lumber- 
 rooms in which it had lain for many years, and which has many 
 (Irong evidences of having been in the fame royal colledlion, 
 was alfo covered with fuch a coat, over which it was painted 
 again. 
 
 With the age of thefe artifts we are brought down very nearly 
 to the overthrow of the liberties of Greece, which only furvived 
 them a little more than 150 years. We have no need, however, 
 to inveftigate the progrefs of the arts in that further period, be- 
 caufe after the age of thofe artifts no further original progrefs 
 was made, nor was there indeed room for it to be made. It is 
 true that after Apellcs many names arofe,to which celebrity was 
 annexed, but not for any original perfeftions : fuch were Eu- 
 phranor, Paufias, Nicias. Thefe and other names of their times 
 bring us into the lift and the age of minor-painters ; whofe age, 
 
GRECIANPAINTING. 33 1 
 
 like that of minor-poets, although it was not bereft of excellen- 
 cies, yet as it was more fparingly illumined by the warming rays 
 of admiration, feldom invites the fedulous invefligation of inqui- 
 rers. Such an age Nature muft have in all her greatefl. gifts. After 
 the Cycle, which was made up full by the perfeftions of Apelles, 
 there was no more room for another on the fame fcale ; Nature 
 could go on no longer on. the fame plan ; the fame ftretch of per- 
 feftions could not be maintained; flie muft fink a little, and 
 take new ground, in order to fliun the being quite exhaufted. 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 
 The prodigious progrefs of the Grecian arts from Pericles to 
 Alexander the Great — that progrefs ejfeded by the peculiar 
 fpirit of patronage in thofe two charaders — the fare advan- 
 tages to the fine arts from every fuch patronage — no part of 
 human talents fo dependent on patronage for fuccefs as thofe 
 arts — the fupr erne power in a country the only effedual fource 
 of their nurture — the mechanical arts confiderahly depreffed, 
 where they are negleded by government — the principles and 
 characters of Grecian patronage — the public fenttments of the 
 Greeks highly favourable to elegant artifis — thofe artifis thevi- 
 felves aHuated by the mojt liberal and ingenuous principles — the 
 necefjity of fuch principles in the artifis of every country to 
 give the fine arts perfeElion and a lafiing celebrity. 
 
 It will now be proper that we confider more clofely the ge- 
 neral caufes which carried the fine arts of Greece to that perfec- 
 tion and fuccefs, which they have been feen to reach. We find 
 
3;32 GRECIAN PATRONAGE. 
 
 that from the time when any date can be given to the painters in 
 the monocromatic to the age of Apelles, or, to fpeak more pre- 
 cifely, to the death of Alexander the Great, no lefs than 450 
 years were employed. Out of that period we can only reckon 
 the lalt 130 years, in v/hich painting was at all in vigour and in 
 fame ; that is, from it's breaking forth with Panaenus, and under 
 Pericles. When at that time it broke forth from the cloud with 
 which Greece had long been obfcured, the reader will recolleft 
 that it did but appear with imperfeftion. The peculiar language 
 of Plinv on it's appearance at that time is a fufficient trait of it's 
 condition, " colorum ufus jam increbuerat :" he marks it as a 
 novelty, that the ufe of colours was then extended ; as if he 
 meant to tell us in better expreiTions, that it had for fome time 
 fhaken off the monocromatic. The fa 61 is then, that in 130 
 years it rofe from it's infancy to full maturity; it accompliflied 
 all the vigour, perfeftion, and fame with which it has ever been 
 attended upon earth. 
 
 And what was the caufe, which gave it that extraordinary 
 growth ? It was that, without which the fine arts are more im- 
 becil and weak than all the other gifts of man ; without which, 
 they are foon overfliaded by the coarfeft and humbled of human 
 inventions ; but, with which, they beggar all the luftre that from 
 any other fource can ever encircle the human head. It was pa- 
 tronage — fettled, fyflematic patronage — patronage that rifes not 
 merely to employ, but to improve — patronage fed by a genuine 
 fcnfe of elegant improvements, as well as by views of glory — 
 the patronage of brilliant minds, pofTefied of fupreme rule, and 
 moving in the decided purfuit of what eternizes the applaufe of 
 power, and the beft glory of a people. Till fuch a patronage 
 arofe, vain were all other admirations, applaufes, or encourage- 
 
GRECIAN PATRONAGE.' 
 
 333 
 
 ments of the arts, although backed by the rich and great, or 
 perhaps by the (hew of royal gold. Till fuch a patronage arofe, 
 how did the arts ftruggle no iefs than three centuries for a faint 
 exiflence, and fcarcely able to creep towards ftrength, although 
 they wanted not occafionally the encouragements of individuals, 
 and at all times the applaufe of all ? What could they gain from 
 the cafual favour of a Candaules, more than the weight of his 
 money, and the contents of his purfe ? The pifture could make 
 no more profelytes in Greece, let it's merit have been what it 
 might; it was gone with the enraptured monarch into Lydia ; 
 where his zeal, once roufed fo high for the works of the pencil, 
 had probably foon fubfided, being fatisfied with what it had 
 obtained. 
 
 But when the dignity of the human mind, and the glory of 
 giving full difplay to it's capacities, came to be rightly appre- 
 hended — when the fpirit of fine art began to be felt, with the 
 advantages refulting from the beft cultivation of human ingenu- 
 ity, not only by furnifhing the higheft delights to a polidied tafte, 
 but by perpetuating truth, virtue, fame, all the deareft events 
 to a country, on which future generations may feed with happi- 
 nefs and M-ith a glorious emulation — when thefe principles and 
 thefe views had made their way to a people, efpecially to thofe 
 feats of power, which were beft enabled to give them their greateft 
 force ; then two individuals *, who held the reins of government, 
 although at fome diftance from each other, were able to do in 
 130 years what from the beginning of the world could never be 
 accomplifhed by the befl cultivations in the fame country. Nay, 
 the former of them alone, Pericles I mean, was able in Iefs than 
 
 * Pericles and Alexander the Great. 
 
334 
 
 GRECIAN PATRONAGE. 
 
 forty years to raife the arts to a fplendour, which left but few 
 perfeftions to be added to thofe which were then attained ; for in 
 his time the pencils of Zeuxis and Parrhafius flouriflied ; and 
 in fculpture Phidias, Myron, Glicon, Scopas, and Alcamenes ; in 
 architefture Iftinus and Callicrates, Coraebus, Metagenes and 
 Xenocles ; the leveral excellencies of thefe were difplayed in the 
 foundation or in the finilhing of the immenle temple of Pallas, 
 and die Eleufinian Chapel. So much was done by one man, 
 determined to Hand forth at the head of the fine arts, and to give 
 fcope to the ingenious talents of his country- And fuch was the 
 cffetl of his patronage, that not all the dark and wayward and 
 difaftrous events, affefting efpecially the Athenian ftate, which 
 filled the whole interval between his death and the rife of Alex- 
 ander the Great, were able to crufh their growth. 
 
 Poffefled of that fettled flrength, how differently were they ena- 
 bled to look in the face the fame, or fimilar, circumftances under 
 which they had iUnk before ? When they were in their cradle, 
 the flufluating inftitution of nine annual Archons had fmothered 
 their infant-progrefs, by leaving them no fettled nurture : but 
 after the days of Pericles they could behold thirty tyrants under 
 the name of Archons, and the four hundred too combined in 
 equally tyrannical government, and even the general evacuation 
 of the Hate for a time, without lofing any part of the ground 
 which they had gained. One reafon for this, added to their own 
 llrength, undoubtedly was, that hardly more than one generation 
 had pafled in that interval. Some of thofe difciples, who were 
 lafl; brought up at the feet of the great mafters under Pericles, 
 might without improbability have continued on the ftage of life 
 till Alexander was born. Had his days been more remote, it is 
 hard to (ay, what confequence would have followed. But feel- 
 
GRRCIAK PATROMAGE. ^jfj^ 
 
 ing as he did, in his exahed fituation, a fuperior love (or the fine 
 arts, and unaffected by any circumftances to fhackle or bound his 
 patronage, what could refid it ? What was there that muft not 
 flourifli under it's favour? What could the coldnels or the blank 
 of near a century preceding oppofe to the warmth of his invigor- 
 ating beams? Could more than he fupplied be needful to make 
 human ingcnuitv generoufly afpire, to carry that afpiration to 
 perfection, to lift that pcrfcftion into luftre ? 
 
 It is yet too foon to lofe the leffons that will fpring from this 
 fubjetl of patronage. What happened in Greece has been veri- 
 fied in every age and country of the world. The more elegant 
 arts could never get forward by any polfible means without a 
 pure and exalted patronage. To adduce the proofs of this in 
 every period, and in every qaarter where they have attempted 
 to rear up their heads, would be to bring their whole hiftory to- 
 gether. Tlie peculiarity of their fituation, as it refpefts this 
 point, is ftriking. There are none of the human talents fo criti- 
 cally circumflanced as thefe, and fo dependent on caufes or 
 events over which they can have no controul. Eloquence will 
 pufli it's way into fame and fituation, in fpite of all refifting cir- 
 cumflances. Military prowefs will atchieve for itfelf grandeur, 
 renown, and wealth without the help of any other hand than it's 
 own. And literature, in every branch, is fure to carry the world 
 after it, which will contribute to all that it's talents can feek. 
 Even the arts which concern only the loweft and moft ordinary 
 utilities of mechanical (kill, can carve their own fortune and fuc- 
 cefs with confiderable affu ranee. 
 
 Not fo thofe finer portions of art, which leave to all other 
 inventions the more proper name of trades, and which by their 
 
^36 GRECIAN PATRONAGE. 
 
 exquifite combinations unite in their powers and in their ufe 
 the effects of eloquence, Hterature, and atchievement, and alfo 
 convey thefe by lading monuments to the fervice of pofterity. It 
 is not enough that the poffeffors of thofe arts are emulous or con- 
 fpicuous : the people around them, at leaft in higher ranks, muft 
 have a correfpondent tafte, although they have not an equality 
 of Ikill, before the tafte and {kill of profeffors can reach their 
 proper value. It is not enough that they are patronized by the 
 more wealthy, or the more fignificant, in fcattered fituations : 
 what ftandard-tafte, what ftandard-perfeftions, or what ftandard- 
 advantages can accrue to a country from the finer arts, liipported 
 only in fo defultory a manner ? It is not enough that thofe arts 
 receive all the affiftance which can arife from the objefts of com- 
 merce : the country' may be ferved at home, and honoured 
 abroad, by thofe means ; but the arts will never be brought to 
 reach their higheft point, becaufe wherever gain is concerned, 
 the encouragement which flows from it's views to the emulation 
 of genius muft be limited. Nothing lefs than the protection and 
 nourilhment afforded by the fovereign power of a country can 
 give thofe arts a full eftabliftiment and growth : it is when they 
 are taken up by that public ftrength which can rear every thing ; 
 when they are warmed by that fuperior countenance, in which 
 the public attention is naturally concentered ; and when they 
 are called to thofe purpofes of elegance, and glory, and grand 
 inftruftion, which are the natural views of thofe who watch over 
 the enlarged interefts of a nation ; it is then that thofe arts ex- 
 pand, and emulate, and foar, and prove the rank which they 
 hold in the gifts of the human mind. 
 
 The proteftion and encouragement of the fupreme government 
 is ahke important to the beft advancement of every thing that 
 
GRECIAN PATRONAGE. <ioy 
 
 confifts in talents, Thofe very mechanical arts, on which every 
 fociety depends for it's firft accommodations, are found to 
 droop, where there is no attention in the government to their pro- 
 grefs, and no fyftem of encouragement is held forth to their 
 views. Read the hiftory of the prefent inhabitants of Cartha- 
 gena*. You find a people as bright, as ingenious, and as forward 
 in their talents as any people exifting. They arrive betimes to a 
 great maturity in all the arts which are known in their country, 
 as well as in every other part of their knowledge. But when 
 they fliould be met by the inviting hand of government ; when 
 their importance fliould be felt, and their perfeverance encourao-ed 
 by thofe honourable views which ingenious merit may reafonably 
 contemplate, then they find their own zeal to be their only en- 
 joyment, and their only profpetl. Hence, inftead of endeavour- 
 ing to improve on their mafl;ers or themfelves, a natural indo- 
 lence checks their progrefs ; they fall back in chagrin, and droop 
 in defpair; leaving imperfeft thofe effefts of their capacities, 
 which were rather furprifing at an early age, and would have 
 been confummate if they had experienced the nurture of govern- 
 ment. Such is the cafe of that people, as it is reported by thofe 
 who have vifited them, and who have witnefled in their examples 
 how ineffeftual are all other incitements to ingenuity, if that 
 which flows from the fupreme power of a country be wanting. 
 
 What then was the fpirit and charafter of that patronage, by 
 which the arts were fo aftonifliingly raifed and matured in 
 Greece ? 
 
 In the ideas of what was virtuous and honourable among en- 
 lightened heathens, in their notions of what was excellent and 
 
 * See Ulloa's Voyages, vol. i. p. 33, 34. 
 Vol. I. Xx 
 
338 GRECIAN PATRONAGE. 
 
 glorious in general, in their opinions of human events and of di- 
 vine adminiftration, we are not to expeft fuch principles as 
 would naturally diflinguifh minds enlightened by revelation, 
 Confequently, in their fupport of the arts, and particularly of 
 painting, as a cogent impreffion of great and inftruftive leffons, 
 we mufl not expeft them to be guided by thofe chafte and cor- 
 reft ideas, which would befpeak them poffefTed of the purefl 
 truths, and aduated by the beft views of glory. 
 
 The aftions of gods who had no exiftence, aftions perhaps which 
 
 never found a human being to perform them — feats of heroes, 
 
 which under the difcipline of better knowledge would be deemed 
 
 fitter to be buried in oblivion than to be recorded — events, which 
 
 have had their foundation more in vain-glory than in faft, in the 
 
 adulation which particular countries have been ufed to pay to a 
 
 particular race of men more than in any real caufe whatever — 
 
 the immortalizing of deified men and women, whofe pretenfions 
 
 to divinity were not half fo folid as fome ufeful fervices rendered 
 
 by them to the people — thefe objefts will naturally be fuppofed 
 
 to engage theattentionof thofe ancient Greeks, who were greatly 
 
 attached to the heroic, and very open to fable and impofition. 
 
 And when to thofe objefts we have added the real events which 
 
 formed the better hiflory of Greece, and were glorious in it's 
 
 annals ; when we have added the immortalizing of thofe real 
 
 and worthy heroes, who nobly flood by their country in it's 
 
 greateft dangers ; thefe fubjefts, with occafional fcenes of fubor- 
 
 dinate virtue, or fubordinate appeal to particular feelings, and 
 
 now and then fome harmlefs jeux d'efprits upon the canvas, will 
 
 be found to conflitute the general purpofes which the arts of 
 
 Greece were called to aflift. 
 
GRECIAN PATRONAGE. 339 
 
 When the Amphiftionic council filled the temple at Del- 
 phi, when the fenate of Athens filled the portico of that city, 
 when all the principal cities of Greece filled their galleries and 
 public buildings, with thofe fcenes of martial ardor on which 
 the fate of their refpeai\e commonwealths depended ; with thofe 
 fcenes in the Trojan war, which perhaps exifted only in the cre- 
 ation of the poet, but which were neverthelefs attraaive and 
 illuftrious to the Greeks ; with the portraits of thofe philofo- 
 phers, who ftood fucceffively at the head of inftruftion, and 
 were memorable for the peculiarities, if not always for the foli- 
 dity, of their principles : was not that patronage as great and 
 judicious as could be planned by wifdom, or embraced by art, 
 looking each of them to the caufe of public or private virtue ? 
 When a tyrant* of Elataea, or a kingt of Pergamus, partici- 
 pating in the triumph of elegant arts, called forth from the cele- 
 brated pencils around them figures of deities J, twelve in one 
 fubjeft, at 300 pounds weight of filver for every figure ; of 
 figures in war §, a hundred in one fubjeft, at ten pounds weight 
 of filver for every figure ; or the fingle figure of Bacchus \\, at the 
 value of 6000 fefterces : we admire their rapture, but we cannot 
 impeach their judgement, which aimed to keep up the reverence 
 of what they held as religion, and their reverence of deeds which 
 crufhed the inveteracy of their Perfian enemies. Their " high 
 " priefts at worfhip" ** kept up the fame reverence of religion. 
 Their "Jupiter on his throne, furrounded by all the gods"++, car- 
 ried that reverence as high as it could go. Their " hell, or infer- 
 " nal {hades"+J, had it's foundation in their belief, and it's ufe 
 
 * Mnafon. t Attains. X % Afclepiodorus, for Mnafon. 
 
 § By Ariftides, for Mnafon. || By Ariftides, and purchafed by Attains. 
 
 ** By Apollodorus,Z,euxis,Parrhafius, Apelles.and almoftall the celebrated artifts. 
 tt ByZeuxis. XX % Nicias. 
 
340 
 
 GRECIAN PATRONAGE; 
 
 upon their minds. Their " wreftlers"*, and their " chariots in 
 " the race"+, kept up the hardinefs of their nature, and the ac- 
 tivity of their poHcy. " Alexander holding thunder", or " tri- 
 " umphing, attended by the image of war whofe hands were tied 
 " behind"+, were quite legitimate to the charafter and conduft 
 of that hero, concerning whom we do not wait to enquire whe- 
 ther his heroic deeds were always juft or neceffary. His immor- 
 talizing by thirty ftatues the memory of fo many valiant officers 
 who fell in the paffage through the Granicus, was natural and 
 juft in him who had fo many obligations to their valour. 
 
 To give in one word the character of Grecian patronage, it 
 aimed to maintain religion, to perpetuate valuable truth and in- 
 llruftion, to immortalize illuftrious merit, to record glory preci- 
 oufly acquired, and along with thofe objefts to aftift the improve- 
 ment of the arts themfelves. 
 
 Thofe objefts were confiderably helped by the prevalence of 
 public fentiments in favour of arts and artifts. The latter were 
 called forth, as Pliny reprefents, by kings and ftates §. They 
 were confidered as public benefits ||, as citizens peculiarly gifted 
 to ferve their country, by recording to pofterity the fame or the 
 inftru61;ion that was precious. They were looked upon as watch- 
 men**, appointed to mark the events that were pafhng, and to 
 fele6l for public attention whatever was of public moment. Vir- 
 tue, public and private, equally moved thofe who gave the call 
 and the artifts who obeyed it. The latter, feeling the important 
 truft committed to their hands, difcharged it like men of virtue ; 
 
 • By Zeuxis, Parrhafius, and Eupompus. t By Ariftides. 
 
 X By Apelles. § Plin. lib. 35. c. i. 
 
 D Plin. lib. 35. c. 10. ** Ibid. lib. 35. c. 10. 
 
GRECIAN PATRONAGE. 
 
 341 
 
 they left all mean and felfifli confiderations behind them ; if they 
 could afford it, and often if they could not, they gratuitoufly 
 gave their labours as men who confidered themfelves employed 
 for the public honour and the public good. The proofs of this 
 fa6l are very exalted, and not a few. Hence Protogenes, amidfl 
 all his fame, was content with a fmallhut in a garden, Myron the 
 fculptor did not leave enough behind him to be remembered by 
 his heirs. And Lyfippus, who was followed by all the firft pa- 
 tronage of his age, felt the lafl flroke of want, while he was 
 finifhina a ftatue*. Yet thefe were none of them marked for 
 extravagant living. They fought, with numerous others in their 
 profefiions, the more precious gain of honour. Their minds 
 feem to have been impreded by a common infpiration, that there 
 was a glory arifing to the country from their profeffions, and 
 that their own enthufiafm might lengthen the meridian of their 
 arts, by flimulating future generations to follow their difmterefted 
 emulations. We fhall not wonder at thofe ideas, when we recoi- 
 led the honourable ground on which the fludy of the fine arts 
 was placed by the decree of univerfal Greece, When that ftudy 
 made a neceffary part of the education of all that were free-born, 
 and no flave was permitted to purfue it, what but the moft ho- 
 nourable ideas of the arts could follow ? what could be fo ftrong 
 in the cultivation of them as the emulation of fame ? 
 
 Leaving that objeft behind, the fine arts might probably have 
 ferved the purpofe of telling a ftory, or preferving a chara6ler. 
 But views fo humble never comported with the higher feelings of 
 talents. The Greeks difdained them. In their whole fyftem 
 both of nourifhing the arts as patrons, and of exercifing them as 
 
 * Petron. Satyric. p. 422. Ed. Burm. 
 
342 GRECIAN PATRONAGE. 
 
 artifls, they puflied forward to the very reverfe of thofe views. 
 They fcorned mediocrity, they grafped at perfection. It was the 
 ambition of every man, as well as of Zeuxis, to add fomething 
 to his art, and never to leave it at the point in which he found 
 it. Thus they were always moving from flrength to (Irength, 
 and from lower degrees of excellence to higher. To employ, 
 or to be employed, came by no means up to their views, which 
 were to improve. By thefe examples they taught other ages and 
 countries how boundlefs was the field for improvement afforded 
 by the fine arts, and efpecially by the pencil, whole fcope of ex- 
 cellence, rifing continually into more precious effects with every 
 additional advantage, will never be exhaufted by any zeal. 
 
 Felibien, whofe fentiments are always juft, has confirmed thefe 
 refleftions with forcible expreffion. " At the time", fays he, 
 " when virtue alone conflituted the pleafure of the fine arts, they 
 " flourifhed furprifingly ; a mod agreeable flrife was exhibited 
 " among the mofl able, in the production of fome new excel- 
 " lence ; that the arts might never reft where they were, nor the 
 " means of improving them lie latent, but that the glory of 
 " difcovering and communicating to pofterity whatever might be 
 " fought in thofe arts, fhould be enjoyed by thofe virtuous ages"*. 
 
 If there be a truth which lies more immediately than any 
 other at the foundation of that decline in the fine arts, which 
 marked any fubfequent ages of Greece, or has been vifible in 
 any other countries where they have once been poffeffed in vi- 
 gour, it is the reverfe of that glorious ftrife which diftinguifhed 
 thofe virtuous ages ; it is, when that love and purfuit of virtue, of 
 fame, and of elegant improvement have not aftuated the whole. 
 
 ♦ Felib. vol, I. p. 79. 
 
[ 343 ] 
 
 CHAP. IV. 
 
 The general charaBer of Grecian archite&ure, as fuperior to 
 that which had ever been feen before — the Greeks original in 
 that fuperior character — original alfo in the conjlitution of 
 an order, although they might be led to it by obfervations of 
 what had been done elfewhere — the antiquity of their firfi or- 
 der, the Doric — the procefs of the orders on philofophic prin- 
 ciples, according to which the Grecian mind decided every 
 thing — every poffible character proper for the variety of archi- 
 tectural flruEture provided for in thofe orders, whofe princi- 
 ples no caprice of fubfeguent ages has been able to move or 
 vary — the eflablifhment of a diflinEl character, founded on a 
 firiEl attention to the nature of things, the fixed objed of the 
 Greeks in each of their orders — the extent with which that 
 difiinEl charader was maintained by them in every part and 
 portion of an edifice, fo as to form a complete whole, a very 
 important and curious fpeculation — the philofophy of engaging 
 our mofi rational fenfations aimed at and accomplijhed in a 
 mofi finking manner by their architedure — that objetl greatly 
 qfjified by their fiudies and their powers to produce harmony 
 — how that harmony was effed,ed — the affinity which has been 
 fuppofed by many tofubfifi between the meafures of architedure 
 and mufic — the great caution with which any arbitrary inva- 
 fions of the Grecian examples, and efpecially of the principles 
 of their orders, fhould be attempted— fomc licences neverthelefs 
 difcoverable among the Greek arcluteEls themfelves, but with 
 no violation of principles — their knowledge of perfpeclive — 
 
341 GRECIAN ARCmXECTURE. 
 
 their attentive [ludy of geometry — the Cariatides, and Perjian 
 fupporters — thejlrange extenjion ofthefe by moderns — the pecu- 
 liar manner in which the Greeks difpofed their private man- 
 Jions — the means by xohich they were enabled to raife fuck 
 innumerable and cojily edifices. 
 
 Let us now confider the architefture of the Greeks. In their 
 hands we (hall fee it come forward in a new afpeft, as an art of 
 elegance, poffeffed of all the proportions of beauty, and in it's 
 whole arrangement founded no longer upon chance, or at befl; 
 on the calculated folidity of great maffes, but on the finer 
 principles of Nature, truth, and reafon, deciding not only on 
 the needful meafures of folidity, but on what fhall conflitute the 
 jufleft ornaments. From thofe principles deeply fludied by the 
 Greeks we fee delicacy united with ftrength, elegance with gran- 
 deur, tafte and intelligence with the ufe of the plainefl materi- 
 als ; the art, which in it's origin was merely ufeful, now became 
 charmins[ in it's effefts ; if, before, it was it's befl charafter that 
 it provided for the firft conveniences and comforts of fociety, it 
 was now rendered produftive of the firft lefTons in grace, and 
 regularity, and beauty ; if, before, it was capable of aftonifhing 
 by the immenfity to which it's works were carried, it- was now 
 enabled by the wonders of it's fymmetry to excite an admiration 
 that never could ceafe. 
 
 In thefe views the art may properly be faid to have been created 
 by the Greeks. They owed to no other people on earth what 
 diftinguifhes architefture in thefe views, however they were 
 aflifted in it's plainer and more ordinary rudiments by thofe who 
 had been their general mafters in all the arts. It was their own 
 genius that brought forth this art in the genuine compofition of 
 
GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 345 
 
 fublime. From their own invention proceeded all the beauties 
 with which it was invefted, and which with very few exceptions 
 may be pronounced to be all the beauties of which it is capa- 
 ble. They furniflied the models, they prefcribed the rules, which, 
 with very few variations, have governed and mull ever govern 
 thofe who would execute in the beft tafte monuments worthy to 
 defcend to poflerity. In the three orders of architefture formed by 
 the Greeks are comprifed all the principles which have ever oc- 
 curred to the ingenuity of man as moft natural and efifential to 
 the conftitution of folidity, elegance, delicacy, and richnefs, or 
 of the ornaments beft befitting each of thofe clafles, as they may 
 refpeftively be employed to charafterize the ftyle and fpirit of 
 the edifice that is raifed. 
 
 To go fuch great lengths, with no better documents than they 
 had before them, muft fet the inventive genius of the Greeks on 
 a high ground indeed. Perhaps that inventive genius appeared 
 more in architefture than in the other fine arts ; at leaft, it was 
 {hewn forth here in a great abundance of parts, in things which 
 are of the firft diftinclion, and to which they were led by the 
 feweft helps. The fpacious arch, the elegant portico, the finiflied 
 column, the rich and regular entablature, the beautifully rifing 
 and yet the lightened roof, the power of giving a different ex- 
 preffion to all thefe, were difcoveries which either might claim 
 to be new, or in which their fame could be but little diminiftied 
 by any fteps that had been purfued before. Such extraordinary 
 capacities advancing in times fo early to thofe lengths, beyond 
 which perfeftion has never been conceived by the ages that have 
 followed, have not afforded many examples in the hiftory of 
 mankind. The Afiatics and the Egyptians, whether they be con- 
 fidered as more rude or more enlightened, could not equally 
 
 Vol. I. Y y 
 
346 GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 furprize us by the meafure of their difcoveries in archite6lure, fo 
 far as that meafure can be afcertained, although it rofe upon 
 much fcantier beginnings ; becaufe thofe beginnings were na- 
 tural to the human mind, when once it was turned to the fci- 
 ence of building ; and all their fubfequent difcoveries, if they 
 were more than the rudiments of maintaining ftrength, were 
 thofe rudiments of decorous finifhing which the firfl ideas of that 
 fcience would fuggeft. But the Greeks were too ripe in genius 
 to be contented with firft ideas ; they were too mature in judge- 
 ment, and too perfevering in ftudy, to reft on rudiments ; or 
 they ftruck out rudiments themfelves, on which no further im- 
 provements could be grafted. 
 
 To do juftice to the extent of Grecian genius, it is not necef- 
 fary to fuppofe that in the conftitution of the Doric order, 
 which is generally confidered as their firft, they were perfeftly 
 new in every idea, and were led by nothing that had exifted be- 
 fore in the architefture of others. The invention was great and 
 original enough, which decided on the principles and propor- 
 tions that entered into fo new and elegant a conftitution as that 
 of a regular order. But when we recolleft the age that muft be 
 given to the temple of Perfepolis, now in ruins, but in it's per- 
 fecl condition when the Greeks were forming their fi ft order ; 
 when we look at the columns now ftanding there, and fee the 
 other approaches there made by the mere force of natural idea 
 to all thofe parts by which an order is embraced ; and when 
 we are aftiired that they derived from the fculptures in that tem- 
 ple fome of the emblematic ideas which appeared on their moft 
 ancient coins and medals and feals, particularly the "ox with the 
 " human head," of which that temple exhibited the oldeft exam- 
 ple that we know of in the world, and the only example of it 
 in marble : when we look back upon thofe circumftances, can it 
 
GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 347 
 
 be imagined that the Greeks did not find their way to that cele- 
 brated ftrufture, or that they did not compare with their own 
 minds whatever was prefented to their obfervations there, as well 
 as thofe advancements in architefture which were found in Egypt? 
 
 "What then was the antiquity of their firft order ? This quef- 
 tion has been anfwered, but apparently with more hafte than pre- 
 cifion. There are few points in antiquity lefs capable of being 
 precifely afcertained. The origin of that order has been con- 
 nefted with the age of Dorus the fon of Helenus, and grandfon 
 of Deucalion * ; which was about 1380 years before the Chrif- 
 tian aera. We make no queftion, for it's name imports, that it 
 obtained it's confummation in the hands of the Dorians. But 
 if that confummation be referred to the Dorians fettled in Pelo- 
 ponefus along with the returning Heraclidae, fourfcore years after 
 the taking of Troy, it will make a difference of above two cen- 
 turies in it's age. And it fo happens, that the oldeft Doric flruc- 
 ture we find upon record, and of which we can fpeak affuredly 
 as Doric, is the temple of Juno built by Oxilus at Olympia in 
 Peloponefus in the eighth year after he had obtained the fo- 
 vereignty of Elis on the fuccefs of the Heraclidae, with whom 
 he came at the head of fome Dorians into that country +. The 
 age of that temple then was 1121 years before our aera. 
 
 It does not follow that the origin of the order commenced with 
 that temple, for it mufl have been gradually brought to it's com- 
 pletion. And accordingly we find that 263 years before the 
 foundation of that temple, CEnomaus erefted a palace at Pifa in 
 Elis, of which he was then fovereign ; J one of the columns of 
 
 * Vitruv. lib. 4. c. I. t Paufan. lib. 5. c. 16. p. 416. 
 
 J Paufan. lib 5. c. 20. p. 428. D'Ancarv. vol. 2. p. 289. 
 
348 GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 that palace, almoft perifhed with age, and held together by iron- 
 bands, was fhewn to Paufanias when he made his travels in 
 Greece. Now CEnomaus was cotemporary with the fons of Hele- 
 nas *, and the precife age of that palace was 1384 years before 
 the Chriftian aera. That palace exhibited an order; and that or- 
 der appears at leaft to have approached very much towards the 
 Doric. M. D'Ancarville pronounces it to have been the fame 
 with that which was afterwards called Tufcan + ; for which his 
 reafons are that the Doric was not then formed, and that monu- 
 ments of a fimilar architefture, which have gone by the name of 
 Tufcan, have been vifible at Pila in Etruria, and at Croton and 
 other towns in Magna Grascia, which were all founded by the 
 fame Pelafgi who built the Pifa in Elis. 
 
 We (hall make no objeftion to thofe reafons, and leaft of all 
 to that which conveys from Greece the origin of the order called 
 Tufcan, of which we fhall fay more in it's proper place. Yet 
 great uncertainty has always attended the difcriminations made 
 between that order and the Doric, of which none can be igno- 
 rant who have read the remarks that haye been varioufly made 
 upon the amphitheatre at Verona, and upon the Trajan column 
 at Rome. From that caufe arofe the notion, that in Etruria the 
 Doric was pofleffed as early as in Greece J. That there is room 
 for ftrong difcriminations to be pointed out is certain ; and per- 
 haps no man has fucceeded better in that view than the Marquis 
 Maffei in his treatife on the amphitheatre above-mentioned. But 
 thofe difcriminations never affefted main principles, nor do they 
 prove that the Doric might not have grown out of the other, 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol. 2. p. 273, 275, 282, 289. t Ibid. p. 282, 289, 367. 
 
 ^ Leoni's Albert!, p. 141. 
 
GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 349 
 
 which we fhall here more properly call Pelafgian than Tufcan. 
 It is well known that in the ftrift examples of Doric order, there 
 is a vaft variety, but with the prefervation of the fame original 
 principles ; and the fame thing was done by the Greeks in all 
 their other orders. In the Tufcan itfelf Vitruvius fpeaks of it's 
 having been executed in various ways ; in fome of which it might 
 undoubtedly have palfed for the Doric*. Why therefore might not 
 thofe earlier Pelafgian ftru61ures be confidered as the movements 
 towards that maturer order which was eftabliflied by the Dorians? 
 If we reafon in this manner, there is no knowing to what periods 
 we muft go back for the real origin of the Doric. M. D'Ancar- 
 ville obferves truly, that the architecture, or, as he calls it, the 
 order purfued in the palace of CEnomaus muft have been of a date 
 vaftly prior to the aera in which it appeared there f . Thofe, on 
 the other hand, who will not reafon thus, muft at leaft relin- 
 quifh the opinion, if they have held it, that the Doric was the 
 firft order known in Greece : the inference is then neceflary, from 
 the palace of CEnomaus alone, that there was another order in 
 ufe before it. 
 
 But when we fpeak of the palace of CEnomaus, we fpeak of 
 the work of a modern age compared with thofe fragments which 
 obtrude themfelves on our notice in ages infinitely more remote. 
 What was that order, or that architefture, of which the ancient 
 Samothracians, inhabiting an ifland in the JEgean (ea now called 
 Samandrachi, fo uniformly and conftantly fpoke ? Diodorus Si- 
 culus reports it as their regular tradition, recorded too by the 
 hiftorians of that ifland, that " long before every other deluge 
 " known in thofe parts of the world/' (evidently meaning thofe 
 
 * Vitruv. llb.4.. c. 7. De Tufcanicis generibus. 
 t D'Ancarv. vol. 2. p. 367. 
 
350 GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 of Ogyges, Deucalion, &c.) " an itnmenfe inundation of the 
 " fea broke forth, which covered ever after a confiderable part 
 " of the lands of Samothrace, and alfo not a little of the neigh- 
 " bouring Afiatic coaft ; and that in after-times fifhermen in 
 " thofe parts very frequently brought up in their nets the chapi- 
 " ters of flone columns, which they had dragged from the bot- 
 " torn*." The deluge of Ogyges, much older than that of Deu- 
 calion, happened very near 1800 years before the Chriftian aera. 
 We are loft, when we would follow Diodorus beyond that 
 epoch to look for the chapiters of ftone columns in Greece or on 
 it's coafts. And yet affu redly thofe were no vifionary or fanciful 
 difcoveries, any more than the immenfe banks of human, and 
 other animal, bones, which have been found in thofe parts, and 
 which could not have been thrown fo partially together by the 
 univerfal deluge, nor by any other caufe than fo partial an inun- 
 dation, inftantaneoufly taking placet. Thofe chapiters were the 
 works of thofe people, whofe bones are fcattered in fuch excef- 
 five heaps over that country. They fhew that in the very re- 
 mote times of that deluge, whatever was it's epoch, thofe people 
 had towns, had arts, had architefture which made fome preten- 
 fions to order or to elegance ; and the inference would have been 
 reafonable, if we had not an exprefs authority for it, that they 
 had alfo literary monuments, the lofs of which in that deluge, 
 and the long ignorance that enfued, caufed it in after ages to 
 be faid that Cadmus firft brought letters into Greece J. Down 
 to the time of Auguftus the Samothracians {hewed the various 
 altars raifed in their ifland on the fpots where the waters flopped, 
 
 • Diod. Sic. Bibl. lib. 5. p. 369. D'Ancarv. vol. 2. p. 358, 361. 
 
 t D'Ancarv. vol. 2. p. 357, 360, 361. 
 
 X Diod. Sic. Bibl. lib. 5. p. 376. D'Ancarv. vol. 2. p. 346, 347- 
 
GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 35I 
 
 and their anceftors found a refuge from their fury *. But where 
 is the hiftory that will condu6l us to that ancient period in Greece, 
 fo curious to be known ? 
 
 Thefe lights, fmall as they are, breaking out upon us, naturally 
 enforce the apprehenfion of a much greater antiquity than has 
 been commonly conceived in the architefture of Greece, and in- 
 deed in all it's arts : they alfo give confiderable flrength, if it 
 were wanted, to thofe evidences which prove both architefture 
 and arts to have fubfifted in Afia for an antiquity amounting to 
 more than a thoufand years beyond the ordinary calculation of 
 chronologifts. 
 
 How fuperficial then muft; be the views of thofe, who have 
 formed their opinions concerning the antiquity of the Grecian 
 orders from fuch circumftances as the filence of Homer on the 
 fubjeft of regular architefture, and of architeftural ornaments, 
 and of many of thofe inftruments which are conceived to have 
 been neceffary for architeftural works ? f We have already had 
 occafion to remark on the weaknefs of fuch opinions from the 
 ftate of Grecian fculpture demonftrated by fa6ls. But it feems 
 to be a prevalent idea with many, to make the world and e\er}' 
 thing in it as young as polfible. And certainly in that idea the 
 labour of refearch will be greatly faved, and the knowledge of the 
 antiquarian and of the modern will be brought very much upon 
 an equal footing. 
 
 Leaving here the difficulties which attend the antiquity of the 
 firfl Grecian orders, we fhall profit more by purfuing their philo- 
 
 * Diod. Sic. ubi fup. D'Ancarv. ubi fup. 
 
 + See Goguet's Orig. of Laws, &c. vol. 2. p. 205, 206, 216, 
 
3^2 GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 fophy, and learning what they teach. It is fufficient for us to 
 take them up as wife and fixed principles of architefture, emana- 
 ting from Grecian genius and ftudy, let the time in which they 
 fo emanated at firft. have been earlier or later, and whether it 
 were under the names of Pelalgian or Doric. 
 
 It feems to have been implanted in the Grecian mind, from the 
 moment it became flrong, to do nothing but upon the principles 
 of philofophic reafon. That people conceived that there was 
 fuch a thing as truth in Nature, according to which they could 
 adjuft correftly whatever was connefted with proportion ; and 
 they rightly fought it in the human frame. In the conftruftion 
 of a great edifice nothing was either more ornamental in itfelf 
 than the column, or might fo properly be embraced for the flan- 
 dard of particular tafte and ftyle, or for the index of that relative 
 tafte and ftyle which ought to be purfued through the whole of 
 any particular ftrufture. The firft thing therefore which they 
 ftudied to perfeft was the column, according to thofe principles of 
 proportion which the wife Creator of Nature had prefented to 
 their obfervations in the nobleft living column to be feen in all 
 his workmanfhip, the frame of man. In that frame the foot is 
 properly the diameter, and therefore it was taken for the diame- 
 ter or thicknefs of the column ; and calculating at firft, though 
 fomewhat lefs correftly, that the height of man was fix times the 
 meafure of his foot, they made the diameter of their columns a 
 fixth part of their height; or, in other words, they made the 
 columns fix times higher than they were thick*. . Afterwards 
 corre6ling more properly their firft calculation by the idea that 
 the foot of a man was a feventh part of his height, they added 
 
 • Vitruv. lib. 4. c. i. 
 
GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 353 
 
 a feventh diameter, and made their columns feven times as high 
 as they were thick*. It fhould neverthclefs be obferved, that 
 the proportion of columns to their height was lefs in porticos, 
 and other fuch buildings than in temples, of which we have a 
 particular proof in a Doric portico at Athens f, where the co- 
 lumns are only fix diameters high. 
 
 Having thus gained the diameter, they proceeded in the ufe of 
 it as they obferved the great Creator had proceeded in the human 
 frame, all the parts of which they found concordantly regu- 
 lated by numerical proportions, and that one part ferved for 
 a common meafure to all the others. They therefore made the 
 diameter a meafure, by which more or lefs multiplied, divided, or 
 fubdivided, they arrived at the due proportion of all the other 
 parts of their flru6lure. By this medium, and by no other, are 
 obtained all the meafurcs of the bafe, the fhaft, the neck, the 
 capital, and the feveral members of the entablature above. 
 
 It is neverthclefs proper to obferve, which we (hall do with 
 more connexion in this place than in any other, although it 
 equally concerns all the other orders as well as the Doric, that 
 when the Greeks had thus gained their diameter from the human 
 foot, it was not their defign, nor was it neceffary in their way to 
 perfeftion, to conflru6l the feveral component parts of their 
 column in the fame analogy and proportion to the whole as the 
 feveral component parts of the human frame bear to the whole 
 body ; for inftance, that the capital, or the neck, fhould poffefs 
 the fame proportionable meafure of their whole column as the 
 
 * Vitruv. lib. 4. c. i. Plin. lib. 36. c 56. p. 755. 
 t See Stuart's Athens, vol. i. c. i. p. 2. 
 Vol. I. Z z 
 
354 GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 human head or the human neck pofTefs of their refpeftive 
 bodies. This, I fay, was neither intended nor necefiary, be- 
 caufe they were forming a column as the foundation of an 
 order, not a human image. The feveral members of the co- 
 lumn rofe, therefore, in proportion to the fpecific height and 
 compafs of that column, without deriving any further ex- 
 ample from the human frame than concerned the general idea 
 of their being adopted as members. And yet, varying as thefe 
 did from the rules of proportion obferved in the members of the 
 human body, they were no lefs perfeft in their place than the 
 others. If the head of man in a flrong and mafculine form en- 
 gages about an eighth part of his whole height, taken on an aver- 
 age of five feet eight inches, which if denominated in the Doric 
 order would amount to an eighth part lefs than a whole diameter ; 
 the capital of that order, taken as the mere capital, and mea- 
 furing only, as it does, half the diameter of the column below, 
 which although it rifes to more height than man, is yet not of 
 man's bulk, nor formed in the fafliion of man, is juft as much in 
 perfeft proportion to it's own body as the head of man is to that 
 on which it is placed. The Ionic column is a degree more flender 
 and more elevated than the other, and on the fame principle it's 
 capital obtains a degree lefs in meafurement. The Corinthian 
 advances ftill more into elevation, but takes a new ground ot 
 meafurement to it's capital, reverfing the rule that governed in 
 the other two, but retaining ftill perfeftion to itfelf. For it's ca- 
 pital engages a whole diameter of the column below, and one- 
 fixth part more. But that column was peculiarly dreffed above 
 others, and that circumftance alone required a more diftinguifhed 
 capital, if the richncfs and elevation of the capital had not fur- 
 niftied an original caufe to the order itfelf 
 
GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 355 
 
 Thus was at length perfefted the order called Doric, with this 
 further circumftance attending it, that no bafe was put to the 
 column*. The reafon for this is not eafy to be afligned, whether 
 it was omitted on purpofe, or for want of that maturer confi- 
 deration which has ever fince invariably given a bafe to every 
 column, whether of this or any other order. They might have 
 been led to that omiflion by the example of the Egyptians, whofe 
 malfy columns +, if we may judge from thofe numerous ones 
 which now remain in the edifices of Upper Egypt, had no bafe. 
 It has been fuppofed that the Doric column was formed in imita- 
 tion of the naked man, and therefore that the bafe, anfwering to 
 a (hoe, was omitted :[., But avouM not that fuppohtion leave the 
 difficulty greater ? For the naked man has a foot to fupport his 
 body ; and then they departed with their eyes open from the 
 principles of flrength and (lability which they had profeffed to 
 follow. Perhaps a better reafon may be urged for their omiffion 
 of the bale, and which might apologize in their minds for fo ma- 
 terial an omiffion, if we are difpofed to think that it was purpofely 
 done . The Greeks of thofe times, as well as the Egyptians, 
 ranged their columns \'ery near to one another. The latter 
 did this, becaufe, not knowing how to confhuft an arch, they 
 conceived it not prudent to leave too much to a flat ftone cover- 
 ing the void fpace ; and the former did it from their firft notions 
 
 * Vitruv. lib. 4. c i. Ware's Palladio, p 17. Chambray's Parallel, p. 15, 
 20, 38. Stuart's Athens, vol. i. p. i. 
 
 t See a flcetch of thefe in Goguet's Orig. of Laws, &c. vol. 3. p. 74. Yet, the 
 Ifraelites in the wilderncfs had learned to employ bafes, as well as chapiters, to their 
 pillars in the tabernacle. But when we read the 31ft chapter of Exodus, particularly 
 the 3d and 6th verfes, we (hall paufe before we conclude that every portion of know- 
 ledge difplayed in the workmanfliip of that tabernacle was merely of Egyptian 
 inftrudion. + Chambray's Parallel. 
 
2^6 GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 of greater ftrcngth. Had they then applied bafes to their co- 
 lumns, the paffages between each would have been rendered fo 
 narrow and inconvenient by the angles and projeftures of the 
 bafes, that people as they paffed would have been apt to flumble 
 upon them. It might therefore have been their defign, by avoid, 
 ing the bafe, to keep the pavement clear and unembarrafled to 
 paffengers. They might chufe to prefer conveniency to beauty, 
 precifely for the fame reafon which afterwards occafioned Vitru- 
 vius to direct that the plinth of the Tufcan column fhould be 
 rounded off; that order being adapted, like the Doric, to edi- 
 fices of great bufinefs and refort, and in which therefore a plain 
 but noble fimplicity of ftrength is required. 
 
 But on whatever reafon they a6led refpefting the bafe, a capital 
 was inevitable, correfponding to the head of man, and without 
 which the column would have been an unfiniflied trunk. In 
 Egypt they had never feen a column without a capital, odd and 
 unmeaning as thofe capitals were. The mind of man feems never 
 to have entertained the notion of a fhapelefs block, abruptly 
 terminated. 
 
 With refpeft to ornament in the Doric order, whofe firft pro- 
 feflion was ftrength with fober dignity, no acceffions from orna- 
 ment were fought in the entablature, but fuch as became the 
 manly drefs, and fuited the llrong and manly charafter. It was 
 conceived that the nearer thofe ornaments kept to the fimilitude 
 of thofe parts which were moft material and ftriking in the for- 
 mation of a timber-building, the nearer they would be to Nature, 
 and the more congenial to the plainnefs of this order. Triglyphs 
 and mutules befpoke the greater timbers of the roof : the me- 
 topes reprefented the fpace between thofe timbers ; and the orna- 
 
GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 357 
 
 ments on thofe metopes were generally taken from the ftrength 
 of animal nature, particularly exemplified in the heads of oxen. 
 Yet we {hould not reach the full contemplation of the Greeks in 
 thofe feleftions, if we confidered them as embraced merely from 
 their expreffions of ftrength. The reader has by this time be- 
 come perfeftly familiar with the rank in which the emblema- 
 tic ox was received in the ancient theology of the Greeks, as 
 well as of all other nations to whom the principles of Scythicifm 
 had reached. What ornament therefore could fo confiftently be 
 introduced into the conftruftion of their temples, as that which 
 gave the firft features of their emblematic religion, if it's natural 
 charafter of ftrength had not particularly fuited the charafter of 
 this order ? And therefore it is remarkable that the patera, well 
 known for it's eftabliflied ufe in religious rites, was often aftbciated 
 with the head of the ox in thofe ornaments. 
 
 Sometimes, however, this fimplicity of ornament has yielded 
 to one more rich and elegant, of which we have an exemplifica- 
 tion by Mr. Stuart * in the metopes of one of the pediments in 
 the Doric temple of Minerva Parthenon, which are filled with 
 admirable fculptures of an uncommon kind ; and fo is the frize 
 quite round the temple. In another Doric ftrufture, of which a 
 fragment is given by the fame author +, the triglyphs, which in 
 all other inftances appear to have been confidered as ornaments 
 themfelves, are moft fingularly and richly decorated with fuper- 
 added fculptures. 
 
 The guttae or drops, reprefented in the foffits of the corona, 
 and which feem invariably to have been employed as the efta- 
 
 * See vol. 2. c. i. p. 10. pi. 3 and 4. t Vol. I. p. i. 
 
358 GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 bliflied ornaments of thofe foffits in this order, were introduced 
 with perfe6l nature, becaufe the corona was the gutter in which 
 the rain water was received. 
 
 It is natural for mankind to rife upon their own difcoveries. 
 The Greeks fettled in Ionia wifhed to throw more delicacy into 
 their ftru61ures. Confcious that they could not improve the me- 
 thod purfued in the compofition of the Doric, they needed only 
 to vary it, by taking the proportions in the frame of woman in- 
 ftead of man. In that frame the foot became, at firft, the diame- 
 ter of a feventh part of the height ; and rifmg afterwards in 
 proportion to the increafe at which it had been calculated in the 
 Doric order, it gave an eighth part to the thicknefs of the co- 
 lumn. To this order was alfo given a bafe, which not only 
 anfwered to the (hoes or fandals more decently guarding the 
 female foot, but ferved as a focket or cafe in which the columa 
 more delicate in it's frame might repofe with more folidity ; it 
 was therefore made in the manner of twilled cords, or of a large 
 cable, fupplying that repofe. 
 
 In ornaments a greater indulgence was taken than in the Doric 
 order, and yet thefe were extremely fimple, conformable to the 
 matron-charafter, and intended to reprefent it's drefs. The 
 channelings along the trunk were meant to imitate the folds in 
 in the robes of women. Sometimes thofe channelings were fo 
 terminated as to give room for very elegant ornaments on the 
 upper part of the fhaft above them, an example of which is 
 afforded in the Ereftheum at Athens *. The volutes or leaf- work 
 of the chapiter reprefented the hair hanging in curls on each fide 
 
 * Stuart's Athens, vol. 2. c. 2. pi. 5. 
 
GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 359 
 
 of the neck : and the fruit or flower-work carved on the front 
 refembled the hair on the fore-head. In the Ionic temple on the 
 Ilyflus an example is afforded where the ornament called echinus,, 
 or eggs and anchors, is continued under the volutes, and quite 
 round the building, contrary to the cuflom which has been much 
 embraced by moderns *. In that temple other circumftances of 
 fingular tafte were feen in this order. The mouldings differed 
 much from all other Ionic examples, with which we have been 
 acquainted ; their forms were extremely fimple, but very elegant, 
 and fo well executed, that the temple of which we are now fpeak- 
 ing may be reckoned among the firfl works of antiquity in this 
 ordert. The dentil, which imitated the projeftion of leffer 
 joifts, was thought fuitable to an order profefling lefs ftrength, 
 and therefore it was felefted for the Ionic, as the triglyphs and 
 mutules reprefenting the proje6lion of greater timbers were ap- 
 propriated to the Doric. 
 
 Still there was wanting a chara6ler of richnefs, to which nei- 
 ther of thofe orders approached, and even a greater degree of 
 delicacy than was reached by the Ionic. The attainment of thefe 
 was referved for more diftant times, and appeared in the Corin- 
 thian order. Yet thofe times perhaps were not fo very diftant 
 from the origin of the other two orders as they may generally 
 have been fet down. We are far from being ready to agree that 
 the Corinthian arofe with Callimachus, only 540 years before our 
 aera. But this difcuflion we (hall waive for the prefent, as it 
 would carry us too far from our attention to the conftitution of 
 this order, referving it for the time when fome evidences refpeft- 
 
 * Stuart's Athens, vol. i. c. 2. p. 7. pi. 7. fig- i- 
 + Ibid. c. 2. p. 7. 
 
360 GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 ing it's antiquity will come before us in the architecture of Regal 
 Rome. 
 
 It was not any change in the firfl principles of reference to the 
 human frame, but merely an extenfion of thofe principles which 
 was wanted for the foundation of that order. The human frame 
 muft ever remain the moll perfeft ftandard of proportion in all 
 Nature. Yet that ftandard, although uniform in it's conftitution, 
 is fomewhat varied in it's qualities, which throw a different mea- 
 fure into the different claffes of it's proportion. In the female 
 form the proportions of the grown woman, and of the young 
 virgin, are numerically different with refpeft to the whole frame 
 of each, although fyftematically they are the fame, and governed 
 by the fame analogy, both with refpecl to themfelves, and to 
 each other, and to the form of the other fex too. To the vir- 
 gin-frame therefore the Greeks next reforted for thofe new cha- 
 ra6lers which they wifhed to attain. From thence their order 
 rofe in a new delicacy drawn from the proportions which they had 
 taken for it's rule. The diameter of the column became only 
 the tenth part of it's whole height, which gave a nobler eleva- 
 tion, while equal ftrength was maintained in greater elegance of 
 ftrufture ; and that nobler elevation gave a proportionable en- 
 creafe to the intercolumniations or openings between the columns, 
 by which means greater lightnefs ran through the whole, and the 
 delicacy that was every where maintained became more diftinft 
 to the view. 
 
 The channelings along the fhaft were in their purpofe as appli- 
 cable to this order as to the Ionic. Thofe channelings were not 
 always terminated in that precife form, in which they may gene- 
 rally have been obferved. In the choragic monument of Lyfi- 
 
GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 361 
 
 crates, commonly called the lanthorn of Demofthenes, their lower 
 extremities defcend below their ufual limits into the fcape of" the 
 fhaft, while their upper extremities terminate in the form of 
 leaves, and make a firft row of foliage in the capital*. 
 
 The Attic bafe, appropriated to this order, gave a delicacy 
 and beauty which was extremely well fuited to the peculiar frame 
 of this column, and was by no means reached by the Ionic bafe, 
 even when joined to it's own order. While the component parts 
 of this Attic bafe were in thofe more delicate proportions, which 
 diftinguifhed Corinthian from Ionic, the plinth taking a fomewhat 
 larger fpace gives the appearance of greater folidity than is at- 
 tained by the Ionic, with all it's increafed thicknefs of parts. In 
 one inftance, perhaps among many, had they been equally ref- 
 cued from the ruins of time, I mean, in the portico at Athens, 
 commonly fuppofed to be the remains of the temple of Jupiter 
 Olympius, pedeflals were carried from the bafes down to the 
 ground + ; and the plinths of the bafe projefted there beyond 
 the die of the pedeftals J. In another inftance ftill more fingular, 
 that is, in the oftagonal tower of the winds, no bafes at all were 
 given to the columns of this order §. 
 
 But richnefs along with delicacy, which no invention has fince 
 been able to equal, was confpicuous in the capital. That capi- 
 tal, long eftablifhed in general knowledge, did in all probability 
 fpring from Callimachus. Let the accident related by Vitruvius 
 as having fuggefted that thought to Callimachus be true or fi6li- 
 tious, nothing could be more happily devifed to exprefs either a 
 
 * Stuart's Athens, vol. i. c. 4. p. 32. + Ibid, c, 5. pi. 3. 
 
 X Ibid. p. 43. pi. 7. § Ibid. c. 3. p. 19. pi. 3. 
 
 Vol. I. 3 A 
 
q62 GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 general i-ichnefs of objetl, or the particular elegance of a young 
 lady's head-drefs which it was meant to imitate, than the foliage 
 difplayed in waving fcrolls, and rifing in various rows like curls 
 judicioufly diipoled by art, and made to fwell in new embellifli- 
 ment around the head which is by Nature ornament itfelf to 
 the fex. It is remarkable that the Greeks, felefting that foliage 
 from the bear's foot for the purpofe of that imitation, were fo 
 accurate as to adopt that fpecies of the plant which is more 
 fmooth and cultivated, abandoning the other which was wild 
 and rough. 
 
 But new beauties arofe from it in their hands, when they came 
 to difpofe it's ornaments for the crowning of the column. The 
 fcroll which rofe in the uppermoft height they threw out and 
 fpread a little more on either fide, fo as to produce two admira- 
 ble effefts, which could not otherwife have been attained, and by 
 that means were mofl naturally attained, the one for ornament, 
 and the other for real ufe. As an ornament, thofe more vigorous 
 and fpreading fcrolls not only carry on the whole drefs to termi- 
 nate in a becoming fwell, inftead of leaving it either formal or 
 ungraceful in a perpendicular compafs, or meagre by verging to 
 a narrower point, but they form an angle at each end, which 
 gives a inoft pleafing contraft to the roundnefs of the column 
 below. In point of real ufe, they afford a moft needful, and at 
 the fame time a moft natural, fupport to the abacus or flat cover- 
 ing above, wdiich as a part of the entablature rifing from thence 
 mult neceffarily fpread itfelf beyond the mere compafs of the 
 column, and could not be left without a full fupport to it's whole 
 meafure. 
 
 .1 .!<} .J ,3 .Lifll i- .S£ .q '^ .0 .1 .lov ,. 
 
 Much pains have been taken by feme moderns, feduced by the 
 
GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 363 
 
 afFeftation of originality, to fubftitute for that upper fcroU or 
 volute fomething elfe which might perform the farne fwell, and 
 anfwer the fame purpofe of fupport to the abacus. And we will 
 iiot fay that the charafters of richnefs and elegance, or the re- 
 fources of human invention for the difplay of thofe charafters, 
 in the capital of an order, are confined to the bear's foot, the 
 bafket, and the tile ; but we may venture to affirm, that with the 
 prefervation of the fame foliage no natural combination will 
 ever be made, and with the prefervation of the fame purpofe 
 and effefl no equal fubftitution will be found. 
 
 It mufl neverthelefs be obferved, that the Greeks were no 
 more tamely uniform in the employment of this capital, than 
 they were in the rules by which they formed the channelings or 
 the bafe of the column. In the oftagonal tower of the winds the 
 upper range of leaves was not divided like the bear's foot, or 
 like any other of the foliages proper to the Corinthian capital, 
 but they were fmooth, and refembling what we Ihould call water- 
 leaves*. Again, in the choragic monument of Lyficrates thofe 
 water-leaves, rifing immediately out of the channelings, become a 
 firft row of foliage in the capital below the bear's foot. The fame 
 inflance will afford us other proofs of fmgular variation, which 
 the Greeks were not afraid to indulge, while it broke through no 
 rule of reafon or propriety which they had laid down for the go- 
 vernment of their tafte. In that choragic monument the cor- 
 nice was fingularly crowned with a fort of a fcroll, which we 
 (hall call Vitruvian, inflead of a Cimatium. How often that 
 pra6lice might have taken place, we know not ; that being the 
 only inflance of the kind in ancient flruftures which has come 
 
 * Stuart's Athens, vol. i. c. 3. 
 
364 GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 down to US, although in fome ancient medals there are examples 
 of temples crowned in the fame manner*. 
 
 It was not always that they indulged that richnefs and ele- 
 gance of drefs, which this order might naturally bear, and 
 which has generally been conceived to be juftified to any extent. 
 In the portico at Athens, which has already been mentioned, 
 this order was employed in the moft lingular fimplicity. No 
 part of the mouldings were enriched ; only the foffit of the co- 
 rona f : three fides of the building were without ornaments of 
 any kind ; and the front was in a ftyle of fober magnificence, 
 without one ornament of fculpture, while not a trace of orna- 
 mental decoration appeared in all the infide. We muft recolleft 
 that the building of which we now fpeak was a portico, if Mr. 
 Stuart has rightly conceived it ; and it is for no other reafon more 
 probable that it was a portico, than that fo much plainnefs and 
 fimplicity was maintained there in the ufe of the Corinthian or- 
 der. The Greeks were a modeft people, chafte in the exercife 
 of their genius, and reftrifted in the pride and luxur)' of their 
 architecture to the occafions which were great, and in which the 
 dignity of the ftate or the fanftity of religion were concerned. 
 In all thofe buildings which were not devoted to either of thofe 
 purpofes, a charafterifl;ic fimplicity was preferved and ftudied. 
 The portico was only a degree more public than their own dwell- 
 ings. In thefe laft they dared not, or they would not, as repub- 
 licans indulge a fplendid and decorative appearance. That por- 
 tico too, of which we are fpeaking, was deftined to be made 
 rich with other fplendors of art. The ornaments therefore, 
 which it might have derived from architecture would either have 
 
 « Stuart's Athens, vol. i. c. 4. p. 29. t Ibid. vol. i. c. 5. p. 43. pi. 8. 
 
GRECIAK ARCHITECTURE. 365 
 
 drawn the general attention from thofe other works of art, col- 
 lefted there for the immortalizing of their heroes and of their 
 country, or they would have been loft in the general affemblage. 
 
 Thefe then are the orders which fprung ftom the Greeks, and 
 in which their architefture was employed. Thofe which were 
 the invention or the employment of others will be found in their 
 refpeftive fituations and periods. Of the Grecian orders the 
 Corinthian being the lateft in time was of courf^ not feen in their 
 moft ancient, nor indeed in their moft confiderable, edifices. 
 The temples of Jupiter and of Juno at Olympia, that of Diana 
 at Ephefus, that of Minerva at Athens, and that of Thefeus, 
 were either of the Doric or Ionic order *. In Ionia the latter 
 was moft reafonably to be expefted, and accordingly it has been 
 found moft abundantly there f. It is rather fingular that in 
 Egypt is now remaining at the ancient Ptolemais, now called 
 Ptolemeta, perhaps the only temple exifting in the firft manner 
 of executing that order, the work of Ptolemy Philadelphus ;J;. It 
 was natural that the Corinthian ftiould make it's firft appearance 
 at Corinth. Yet in Athens was feen it's moft eminent difplay. 
 The Romans neverthelefs employed it far more frequently than 
 the Greeks. 
 
 In thofe three orders the Greeks conceived very rightly that 
 they had furniftied every charafter which could be given to 
 architedural ftrufture. All the diverfity, which Nature had ex- 
 prefled in the great prototype of human ftrufture, by which they 
 were guided, was purfued in thofe orders. The human frame is 
 
 • Vitruv. lib. 7. prxfat. Paufan. lib. 5. c. 10. Spon's Voy. vol. 2 p. 420, 455. 
 t Chambray's Paral. p. 41. J Bruce 's Trav. Introduc p. 41. 
 
366 GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 feen in the three gradations of mafculine ftrength, of delicacy 
 joined with a prevalent fimplicity, and of greater delicacy ftill 
 united with an elegance of form and richnefs of drefs. What 
 further chara61er than thefe can architecture take ? In all it's 
 branches, whether for ornament or ufe ; for flrength or gaiety ; 
 for the elegant retreats of pleafure, or the rougher throng of 
 bufinefs ; for the refidence of princes, or the abode of private 
 individuals ; for the purpofes of religion, or thofe of ftate-con- 
 cerns ; the fpirit tlriat beft befits the edifice fhall be found in one 
 or other of thofe orders : the fpirit that beft fuits the circum- 
 ftances and condition of thofe, whether they be individuals or 
 a public, by whom any of thofe edifices may be erefted, fhall 
 find it's convenient accommodation in the various degrees of ex- 
 pence with which thofe feveral orders are purfued. -^ ^^** 
 
 bnuol 
 
 In fucceding times attempts have been made to enlarge their 
 compafs ; but the unfuccefsfulnefs of thofe attempts have proved 
 the fufficiency of the ftandards eftabliflied by the Greeks : they 
 have terminated, at moft, in the creating of a nominal addition 
 to.the number of thofe ftandards, without introducing any vari- 
 ation in their nature and their principles. The ingenuity of man 
 has never yet been able to keep pace with his defires of adding a 
 new ftandard in Nature to thofe which fatisfied the Greeks. If 
 he has fought new ground, it has been more in ornament than in 
 proportion that his refearches have been gratified ; and that gra- 
 tification has been gained not fo much from an equal warranty 
 in Nature as from the licence of his own choice. More frequently 
 that licence has been direfted to a combination of the Grecian 
 orders themfelves, and to the formation of a new charafter from 
 the compofition of the feveral properties of the old. Nothing 
 can render more honour to the completenefs of the Greek inven- 
 
GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 367 
 
 lion than the idea of fuch a compofition ; but perhaps it difpara- 
 ges in an equal degree the pretenfions to original genius in thofe 
 that adopt it ; it yields an eafy compliment to vanity, without 
 any expence to indolence ; but, after all, it is the laft idea which 
 the Greeks would have indulged, with all the licence to which 
 they were unquedionably entitled of making the freeft ufe of 
 their own difcoveries. 
 
 In each of thofe orders it was a fixed objeft of the Greeks to 
 eftablifh a charafter. And that chaiafter was fo diflinftly rela- 
 lative to each, that it was maintained in it's place with the nioft 
 cautious attention. The flrength of the Doric was not con- 
 founded with that which was not charafteriflic of flrength, or 
 which was charafteriftic of lefs flrength than belonged to the 
 Doric fpecies : the delicacy of the Ionic was never vitiated by 
 that which contributed to the folidity of the other : and the 
 greater delicacy flill, the elegance, and richnefs of the Corin- 
 thian fhewed nothing of thofe component parts which were pecu- 
 liar to either of the others, and which in them became dignity, 
 but in this would have been meretricious and abfurd. On this 
 principle Vitruvius obferves, that the Greeks never fulfered, be- 
 caufe confiflency forbad*, the Ionic dentil to be fhewn on Doric 
 chapiters, or the Doric triglyph on the Ionic columns. The dentil 
 reprefented the lefTer flrength of fmall joifls, and the triglyph de- 
 noted the greater folidity of tie-beams. Both therefore were im- 
 proper to fill the place of the other. In every other circum- 
 flance they were equally careful to preferve the uniformity of 
 defign, and to put nothing out of it's place, becaufe they were 
 too philofophic to fee any advantage in the violation of the na- 
 ture of things. 
 
 * Vitruv. lib. i . c. 2. 
 
368 GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 The nature of things held and direfted them evermore ; it was 
 facred to their minds. In all their conftruftions of the parts of 
 architefture, and in all the fymmetry and proportion of thofe 
 parts, they proceeded on thofe principles which had their exif- 
 tence in the nature of things, and which were capable of being 
 demonflrated as truths or proprieties in general argument. And 
 therefore Vitruvius exprefsly remarks again, * that whenever the 
 dentil was employed by the Greeks, it was never put under the 
 mutules or modiglions, which reprefent the ends of the princi- 
 pal rafters, but above them, becaufe it would be a falfe principle 
 of workmanfhip to put the lefler and the weaker under the hea- 
 vier and the ftronger. For the fame reafon he alfo obferves+, 
 that the Greeks never gave the example of either mutules or 
 dentils on the pediments of their edifices in front, but a fimple 
 cornice, becaufe neither the principal rafters nor the lefler joifls 
 proje6l towards the front, but form the eaves on the flank ; and 
 this obfervation of Vitruvius is confirmed by the example of a 
 Doric portico afforded by Mr. Stuart, where the mutules are 
 omitted in the cornice over the pediment;]^. It concerns both 
 thofe inftances of praftice in the Greeks, when we fpeak of a 
 deviation in modern ages from the principle maintained by them 
 in the former of thofe inftances ; and the Roman temples feem to 
 have introduced the deviation. In thofe temples dentils appear 
 under modiglions. Count Galliani is perhaps the onlv modern 
 who has fufficiently explained the reafon of that procedure. He 
 fays, that when the dentils are above the modiglions, they cannot 
 be placed in the horizontal cornice under the tympanum! In or- 
 der therefore to make the fronts of their edifices equally elegant 
 
 • Vitruv. lib. 4. c. 2. % Stuart's Athens, vol. i.e. i. pi. 6. fig. 3. 
 
 t Ibid. 
 
GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 369 
 
 with the other parts, the Romans were tempted to make this de- 
 viation from the pra6lice of the Greeks. Thus, by departing from 
 the Grecian principle in the one inftance, they made their way 
 to that which the Greeks had ftudioufly avoided to exemplify in 
 the other. They were fure to be foUowed by thofe who were not 
 fond of being reftricled to the natural order of things, or who 
 conceived that elegance might be drawn with equal fuccefs from 
 a freer fcope and leffer exaClt^fs. And if that be true, or if the 
 Greeks were too narrow and formal in their attachment to the 
 truth which is exemplified in tJie nature of thing?, then thofe mo- 
 derns are right. 
 
 But the charafter eftabliflied by the Greeks in their feveral or- 
 ders is worthy of attention for it's extent. In this view it has 
 never been fufficiently confidered by writers in general. And 
 yet in this view, beyond queftion, the high merit of thofe orders 
 will beft be feen. It was not the contemplation of the Greeks 
 merely to form a column in diflincl perfection. Their objeft went 
 to afcertain the fpecies of character, which fhould mark every part 
 and portion of the edifice, for which any one of thofe orders 
 was adopted. In this there was good fenfe, and without this all 
 their boafted ingenuity in tlie formation of the orders would 
 have been but an empty flourifh, which would have left architec- 
 ture itfelf a mere caprice, deftitute of any real ftandard by which 
 it's fpirit in any cafe could be decided, and the only one of the 
 fine arts humiliated to the condition of being without variety of 
 fpirit and charafter, or without principles by which a diflinft 
 fpirit and charafter in it might be fcientifically maintained. 
 
 In the works of the pencil, the infinite affemblage of colours 
 and (hades of colours affords not more diflinQ; views than the 
 Vol. I. 3 B 
 
370 GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 vaft variety of charafter and execution in which thofe works are 
 beheld under all the great mafters, who have only followed the 
 principles inherent in the art, and moft congenial to their own 
 fpirit. In fculpture the majeftic, the graceful, the foft and ten- 
 der, the fevere, every diflinftion of charatler, is decidedly main- 
 tained to pervade the whole execution, and to form a whole 
 to I he eye, on principles as fixed and jult as any fpecies of truth 
 in Nature. In mufic, all thofe chaiaclers and difcriminations of 
 fpirit and fentiment and tafte, which are found in the conftitution 
 and procefs of the other arts, are beheld in equal (Irength, and 
 become refpeftively the foul of the compofition in whatever ftyle 
 it may be caft ; fo that the folemn, the lively, the pathetic, the 
 tones of love, or the tones of war, fhall form and finifli the air 
 by which our feelings areaddreffed. Is the fpirit of archite6lure 
 alone bereft of this compals ? No. The orders will lead us in 
 any ftrufture to form a whole under each, as flriclly charafter- 
 iflic of the tafte and ftyle prefcribed as would come from the 
 hands of the moft accomplifhed painter, fculptor, or mufician, 
 ftudying to give any theme all the perfeftion which comprehen- 
 fively belongs to it. The feveral members or portions of the co- 
 lumn, which becomes the order of the edifice, may feem to fu- 
 perficial minds to have no farther reach, and to convey no farther 
 inftru6lion, than to the (hare which they hold in that particular 
 column to which they appertain. But the man who has deeply 
 ftudied their principles, and purfued their more diftant relations 
 and ufes, will be led to all the proportions that arife out of the 
 order, and are demanded by any part of the edifice; to all the 
 ornaments that become it ; to every circumftance in the outline 
 and in the finifhing too. 
 
 Is the ftrufture to be Doric ? The proportions every where 
 
GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 37I 
 
 muft be fuch as produce the appearance of manly flrength and 
 quiet dignity. Height muft not predominate. The parts muft 
 be few : the breadths grand ; the outlines diftinft : the outlines 
 producing movement both in length and height muft be few* in 
 number, and decided in their chara6ler. All the mouldings of 
 courfe will be Doric. The compartments will not be numerous : 
 the piers will exhibit a fuitably ftrong effeft : the openings will 
 be found both in number and dimenfion correfpondent to the 
 general face and rules of that ftrength w^hich prefides over the 
 whole. 
 
 Take the contraft to this in the delicate beauty and richnefs of 
 the Corinthian. The proportion of height to breadth muft every 
 where be greater : the breaks muft be more numerous, and lefs 
 bold : the parts muft be delicate, without being paltry, or frittered 
 away ; the apertures more numerous, and of more flender pro- 
 portions : the aid of fculpture may be called in to adorn the 
 whole ; the delicacy both of the materials and of the execution 
 muft keep pace with the elegance of the whole compofition. 
 
 It is not our purpofe to write for profeflional men, therefore 
 we do not pretend to fpeak here in thofe figures which would 
 make thefe things more plain. Whoever will take the pains to 
 read Vitruvius with attention, will draw thefe things in great 
 precifion from their fource ; he will fee not only the poftibilitv, 
 but the obligation, of carrying on the fame charafter, whatever 
 it be that is felefted, through all the component parts, if I may 
 fo fpeak, of the fame compofition ; and he will not fail to ad- 
 mire the clear and philofophic manner in which that wonderful 
 man, who alone connefts us with ancient Greece, has explained 
 thefe principles fo deeply rooted in fcience and fo involved in 
 
372 GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 figures. That it requires the hand of fteady judgement, and 
 cool comprehenfive recolle6lion, to defign and fill up com- 
 pletely in charafter any great outlines drawn from thefe orders, 
 is beyond queftion ; but that is the very genius of architefture, 
 and it was the pride of the Greeks. 
 
 Emulating this eftablifhment of chara61er in all the.ir works, 
 architefture became in their hands the philofophy of engaging 
 our mofl rational fenfations. Thofe who have come after them, 
 thofe at leaft who have looked no farther into this art than to it's 
 mechanical attainment, may have no notion of the analogy of it's 
 proportions to the finer fenfations of the human mind ; but with 
 the Greeks it abfolutely became a philofophic ftudy to produce a 
 Avork, which (hould flrike the intelligent as forcibly by it's prin- 
 ciple and execution as any other art of defign was known to be 
 capable of doing. And why (liould this be impoflible ? Why 
 Ihould it be thought a fanciful philofophy in the Greeks to pro- 
 duce in archite6lure a theme, which fhould fpeak to the genuine 
 feelings of the human bread ? There are ftruftures of a leffer 
 kind, which can unqueftionably do this. The well-defigned mo- 
 nument, according to it's quality and purpofe, can either flrike 
 us with admiration, lift us into gaiety of heart, or fink us in 
 fadnefs. What do we fay to the fiftitious ftruftures of the thea- 
 tre, whofe regular and forcible execution to the diftant eye, al- 
 though in faft but the rude and fimple imitation of real ftruc- 
 tures, draws forth every fenfation that it pleafes to draw? With 
 the enchanted palace of Armida all becomes magnificent and 
 voluptuous to our fenfes. Let the fcene change, and let the hall 
 of Pluto prefent itfelf, it is met by horror and affrightment. Do 
 we behold the temple of the Sun ? the foul is enwrapt with 
 admiration. Is it a prifon that fucceeds ? we know no feelings 
 but thofe of diftreficd concern. 
 
GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 373 
 
 It was thus that the Greeks endeavoured to build. It was to 
 excite feme powerful and ufeful fenfation that their genius in 
 architefture was employed. They held in contempt the idea of 
 placing flone upon (lone without meaning, and of introducing 
 ornaments without reference to a confident efFeft : they knew 
 nothing of raifing a ftrufture which fhould even ftrike by a ge- 
 neral impreffion every eye that beheld it, but which fhould leave 
 every judgement diflatisfied, and every mind undecided about 
 it's objeft. 
 
 The means by which they made their architefture thus interefl- 
 ing may be comprifed in the general power which they confpicu- 
 oufly poflefled of producing harmony. This is the true key" to all 
 our fenfations, the firfl; impulfe on the human mind, and the fure 
 mover of great effefts in it. Whatever is harmonious mufl always 
 be interefting. All men indeed have not the fame organs, or are 
 not prepared by the fame ftudies, to receive it alike ; but to pleafe 
 it never fails ; if it does not ftrike every man as completely as the 
 man by whom it is created, it never fails to make that impreflion 
 which fatisfies as much as if it were fcientifically underftood. 
 Nature herfelf charms us evermore, only becaufe flie is every 
 where harmonious ; fhe continues for ever the great rule of truth 
 and perfeftion to art, only becaufe the moft perfeft relation fub- 
 (ifts between all the parts of every objeft, and between all the 
 objefls and fcenes upon the face of her creation to one another. 
 The fine arts therefore can have no other fource of intelleftual 
 fatisfadion to the world, but as they are the vehicles of harmony, 
 and exprefs it with new and variegated force not only upon the 
 more refined and cultivated, but upon every fenfible, mind. 
 
 Architefture, in the conception of the Greeks, fliould be 
 
374 GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 flrenuoufly raifed to the produftion of this engaging effeft. The 
 field they took for this purpofe was a large one : every circum- 
 ftance, at leafl; in the external defign, was made contributory to 
 it's fuccefs. It was feen in the nice adjuftment of every edifice 
 to it's fituation, and to that pofition in the fituation which Na- 
 ture and experience taught in fuch a cafe, or which it's peculiar 
 deftination required. It was feen in the judicious relation of all 
 the maffes to the fpot in which they flood ; in their proportion- 
 able relation to each other ; and in the flcilful divifion of all their 
 parts, fo efiential to the prefervation of a clear and unembar- 
 rafled fimplicity ; in the exaft correfpondence too of all thofe 
 parts to one another, fo efiential to the prefervation of a needful 
 uniforiiiity. It was feen in the whole fcope of the elevation, 
 which exhibited not fingle beauties in fingle places, but a confif- 
 tent participation of the fame beauty in it's whole detail. It was 
 feen in the happy diftribution of lights and fliadows mutually 
 relieving each other, and throwing out with more force the bol- 
 der features of the building. It was feen in the proper apporti- 
 onment of thole lights and fliadows to the charafter intended, fo 
 that it fliould become all gay and chearful, or fhould take a feri- 
 ous call, or fhould participate of gloom. It was feen in their 
 chafie and fparing ufe of ornaments, confcious as they were that 
 thefe if not chafie, and perfectly analogous, and temperately 
 employed, do but moleft the harmony of defign, which like true 
 beauty needs but itfelf to pleafe all that behold it. It was feen 
 in the careful maintenance of a confiftent unity of purpofe thro' 
 the whole, which unity of purpofe was not yet fo rigid, nor ne- 
 ceffary fo to be, as to exclude a cautious ufe of variety, for in- 
 fiance in the terminating lines, fome of which might be ftraight, 
 others curved, and others again mixed of both, provided that 
 variety moderately employed was brought to bear confiftently 
 
GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. ^J ^ 
 
 with the general fyftem, and did not produce difcord. Variety is 
 without doubt a great beauty in every thing, when it becomes con* 
 gruity, when it brings together in a regular manner things differ- 
 ent, but proportionable to each other ; and without that variety, 
 harmony will certainly be incomplete. It is by that variety fo 
 brought together and proportioned that mufic accompliflies all 
 it's wonderful effefts. When thebafe anfwers the treble, and the 
 tenor agrees with both, there arifes from that variety of founds 
 that harmonious union of proportions which properly conftitutes 
 the power and the perfe6lion of mufic. 
 
 In this view, and probably in the famenefs of principle by 
 which the meafures and proportions of architefture and mufic 
 are conducted into harmony, there may be room for thofe who 
 feel an enthufiafm for the former to enlarge, as they have done, 
 on it's affinity with the latter. That Nature is fure to aft with a 
 conftant analogy in all her operations is what may fafely be al- 
 lowed ; — that thofe very numbers, by means of which the con- 
 cord of founds affecls our ears with delight, are the fame which 
 pleafe our eyes and our minds, may eafily be credited ; — that in 
 the formation of thofe great concords throughout Nature fhe 
 may have fo ordained it, that they fliall fall with a degree of re- 
 gular conftancy on certain progreffive numbers, is what we fhall 
 not deny, when philofophers in all ages have taken fo much pains 
 to prove it ; — that the ternary principle, which Nature appears 
 in various ways to maintain more eminentlv, is one of thofe 
 progreffive numbers which ffie may have formed particularly fuc- 
 cefsful in the produftion of thefe great concords, is more than 
 probable, becaufe it is abfolutely demonftrated in the harmony 
 of mufic, as well as in various harmonies of Nature; — that 
 architects have availed themfelves of this ternary principle in a 
 
376 GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 diftinguifhed manner, along with other numerical principles, for 
 the compofition of the members of their edifices, and have made 
 ufe of the feveral proportions arifing out of the progrefs of that 
 principle for the attainment of many proportions in their own 
 art, is what we cannot difpute, when it has been fo ably urged 
 by many of the firfl: writers* in that clafs entitled to the firft 
 confidence for their folidity and good fenfe. 
 
 It is fufficient for us barely to mention thefe things, having no 
 intention to dwell on them, however they might contribute to 
 i\\e profoundnefs of architeftural fcience ; becaufe it is not quite 
 fo clear to us whether the Greeks, with whom we are at prefent 
 engaged, aftually formed their principles of architeclure on the 
 dear view and the decided purfuit of thofe principles of har- 
 mony. Let Thebes have been built to the found of Amphion's 
 lyre, it fli-all pafs with us for fable. Let the temple of Solomon 
 have been raifed exaftly to the meafures of mufic, it (hall remain 
 an embellifliment to the " harmonic architefture" of Ouvrard a 
 Frenchman, and to the commentary of the Jefuit Villalpanda a 
 Spaniard, who has fet to mufic, if we may fo fpeak, but in rea- 
 lity has reduced to mufical meafures, the fcripture-proportions 
 of that temple, as well as thofe of other ancient buildings, and 
 all the rules of Vitruvius. To thofe writers we leave the honour 
 of pufhing refinement as far as it will go, being contented for 
 the prefent to know that the principles of Grecian architeclure 
 were laid on the mofl folid and rational foundation, for the pro- 
 duftion of a gracious harmony, whether that foundation and 
 that harmony had more or lefs of the mufical fyftem in the con- 
 templation of thofe that framed them. 
 
 * Vitruvius, Alberti, &c. 
 
GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 377 
 
 By ihis time perhaps it will be conceded, that the Grecian 
 orders were the refult of accurate and deliberate ftudy, and that 
 the perfeftions in architedure poflelTed by that people were no* 
 Humbled upon by chance. If this be allowed, a. departure from 
 the precife principles of any of thofe orders, a latitude in the 
 employment of them which is not warranted by the example of 
 the Greeks, fhould certainly be very cautioufly confidered, and 
 requires to be vindicated on better grounds than the private ca- 
 price of architefts, or the prefumption that beauty may be hit 
 upon by the flight of unregulated genius. We are fenfible that 
 this argument may go to reftri61;ions which good fenfe, and a 
 veneration too for Greek examples, would never mean to im- 
 pofe. Itmay be faid, that thofe orders, as the flandard-language 
 of archite6lure, no more exclude variations of expreflion than 
 the Greek language in it's beft age forbad thofe varieties of ftyle, 
 which, with equal corredlnefs in all, diflinguiflied the pureft ora- 
 tors, hiftorians, and poets of Greece. It has been faid*, that 
 any writer would deferve to be laughed at, who dared not to ufe 
 one word which he could not find in Tully ; and the obfervation 
 has been equally carried to the architeft, who fliould not dare to 
 adopt one article that was not fan6lioned by the ufe of the Greeks 
 in the precifion of the order. Thefe fimilitudes are ingenious ; 
 but either the parallel does not hold completely, or it ftill leaves 
 the Greek orders fecm-e from any arbitrary invafions. So far the 
 parallel may agree, that as in all languages, fo in the orders of 
 Greece, there is a llandard-principle of correftnefs, which will rea- 
 dily determine what variations of flyle are legitimate, and what 
 are otherwife. But the variations of ftyle in writing will always be 
 
 * By Erafmus. 
 Vol. I. 3 C 
 
378 GRECIAN' ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 more abundant than thofe which can flow from the orders of 
 architefture. Becaufe in writinq; what branches out as a varia- 
 tion of ftyle from the flandard-principles of purity becomes in 
 architefture thofe llandard-principlcs themfelves. The flrong 
 and nervous, the charte and dehcate, the ricli, luxuriant, and 
 diflufive, which emanate with various fpirit of expredion from a 
 language whofe principles of truth and corre6lnefs are regulated 
 over them, become in architefture not that emanating fpirit of 
 various expreffion, but thofe very original rules of language, that 
 very fource of principles, from which every variation mult flow. 
 But the variations of Ityle mult neceflarily be more limited, where 
 they are no longer branches from rules, but rules themfelves. 
 
 True, however, it is that the Greeks themfelves took fome 
 liberties with their own orders. But this fhould be rightly un- 
 derftood, lefl; that which was principle in them fliould be made 
 the caufe of fanclioning the want of principle in others. The 
 liberties they took were iiich as argued that they were perfeft 
 mafters of all that naturally grew out of the principles of their 
 orders, not fuch as proved them to be unfteady in thofe prin- 
 ciples themfelves. We know of no inflance in which they man- 
 gled their orders for the purpofe of intermixing them in the 
 fame portions of defign. They Ibmetimes employed two differ- 
 ent orders in different portions of the fame edifice, keeping each 
 diftinft in it's place. But the circumltances, in which that was 
 done, always vindicated plainly it's propriety ; as in the Erec- 
 theum at Athens, which, according to the beft opinions formed 
 on the different levels of the porticos leading into each end of 
 that edifice, appears to have been one temple over another. 
 Where reafons of fo ft,rong a kind did not urge them, they 
 were very fparing of that meafure, efpecially in thofe purer 
 
GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 379 
 
 times when they were difengaged from the influence of the Ro- 
 mans, who were more inclined to indulge it without fuch reafons. 
 In like manner, they were extremely cautious how they broke 
 through the condituting principles of any of their orders : they 
 never increafed on any account the flandard-diameters in the 
 heighth of their columns ; nor did they ever decreafe the ftand- 
 ard-meafures of their entablature, unlefs invited by the pur- 
 pofes of perfpeftive. When moderns have enlarged the former 
 to the height of 14 or i^ diameters, or have wantonly diminiflicd 
 the latter until they occupy no more than the proper meafure of 
 the architrave, aflliredly thev never found an example of that 
 conduft in the Greeks, 
 
 In addition to the inftances which have already been adduced, 
 and in which a latitude or variation was taken for the purpofe 
 of fliewing the richnefs of their invention, the mofl frequent in- 
 ftances in which that latitude appeared were in thofe circum- 
 ftances which made it material!)' alhftant to the fituation of their 
 defign. And fo far the latitude, which violated in no refpeft 
 the wifdom of the orders, muft be allowed to be fair, fmce they 
 were made conducive to their proper purpofe, the effeft of de- 
 fign ; for the energy of defign would be deftroyed, if it were 
 never to move out of exact trammels, while it did not abandon 
 a proper and confiftent fymmetrv. To thofe licences, however, 
 the Greeks contrived to give a new principle, which, although 
 it were created by neceflity, feemed to efl;ablifh itfelf as fatisfac- 
 torily as if had been regularly dictated by the order in queftion. 
 For inftance, when in the infide of temples which had no roofs, 
 but colonades for flielter, the^- introduced two heights of the 
 fame order one above another, for the purpofe of affording gal- 
 leries, and of leffening the diameters above, they wifely made the 
 entablature of the lower order to confift of the architrave alone, 
 at once giving greater liability to the ftruflure, and avoiding the 
 
380 Grecian arcuitecturi:. 
 
 abflirdity of reprefenting there a gutter over the lower order. 
 If ever they departed from rule in dimenfion, it was, where the 
 effefts of vifion were to be confulted, as will prefently appear 
 when we come to fpeak of then- perfpedtive. Perhaps the greateft 
 deviation from general fvflem was exemplified by Hermogenes, 
 when he contrived the Pfeudodipteron, or, in other words, when 
 he took away a whole range of columns to enlarge the portico ; 
 and for that liberty he has been commended by Vitruvius, be- 
 caufe it was ufeful. 
 
 After all, thofe examples of licence in the Greeks will never 
 be capable of furnifliing an argument to the fuperficial architect 
 for the feeking of new beauties from the excurfions of his own 
 imagiHation, For in all thofe licences the Greeks kept fteadily 
 to the principle of a confiftent order, never incumbering it with 
 that which did not belong to the purity of it's idea. If they be- 
 reft it of fome of it's members, if they increafed others, if they 
 altered proportions, they never introduced confufion. 
 
 It will naturally be fuppofed that in the management of defign 
 ^v•ith fo much care and thought as the Greeks have nianifefted 
 and particularly in the production of thofe harmonious effefts of 
 which we have fpoken, the knowledge of pe^fpefti^•e mull have 
 been accuratelv underflood, and fludioufly cultivated by them. 
 
 We have hitherto a\'oided to enter on this fubjetl;, even when 
 we were fpeaking of their paintings, becaufe, however difcrimi- 
 nated may be that procefs of perfpe^live, which reprefents bodies 
 on a flat furface, and thro\v\s them at various diflances, from that 
 which gives the view of objefts, whether round or angular, rifing 
 in the horizon and terminating there in certain lines, all the prin- 
 
GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 381 
 
 ciples branching from one and the fame fcience muft neceffarily 
 be intimately connefted ; and theiefore we thought it beft to re- 
 lerve the whole, both as to painting and architecture, for one 
 o-eneral difcuffion. And that difcuHion was left to be taken in 
 this place, becaufe the perfpe6five of the Grecian architefture 
 Hands on decided evidences ; whereas that of their paintings is 
 brought home to us by more flender fa6ls, the depredations of 
 time having left us, there, as we might naturally expeft, more to 
 infer than to know by pofitive proofs. In thefe laft their powers 
 of perfpeftive has been made a queflion among moderns. Ha- 
 milton has not fcrupled to aflert*, that perfpeirlive is to be rec- 
 koned entirely among the improvements of modern times, that 
 the mathematics of the ancients did not involve the principles of 
 that fcience, and that wherever it appeared among them, it was 
 purfued more by the judgement of the eye than by any certain 
 rules. It is true, that we have none of their books on that fub- 
 jecl, by which we can judge of their principles in it, except a 
 treatife of Euclid, which was too late in time under the Ptolemies 
 to be applied to the flourifhing days of the arts in Greece: that 
 others more ancient had written upon it, we learn from Vitru- 
 vius ; but to what extent of fyftem their principles went, we 
 know not, as thcfc treatifes are loll. Yet it is not from the want 
 of thofe evidences that we ought to conclude any thing on this 
 fubjeft, and efpecially to the prejudice of their knowledge. 
 That conclufion feems to have been chiefly led by the {lyle of 
 their bafs-reliefs ; from whence an inference has grovrn, that all 
 their figures in their paintings were very much difpofed in the 
 fame manner, that is, ^vhole, and on the fame ground, and either 
 not much in groups, or thofe groups afforded very little of the 
 
 * See the preface to his Treatife on Perfpeclivc. 
 
382 GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 pcrfpeftive of a graduating diftance. Whatever foundation 
 there may be, in faft, for thefe fpecifications of their want of 
 perfpeftive in painting, yet when they are drawn as inferences 
 from bafs-reliefs, they can never be regular. We have already 
 had occafion to remark on the very confined capacity of per- 
 fpeftive, which either belongs to works in bafs-relief, or has been 
 exemplified in them at any time. How that comes to pafs is not 
 material to the queftion, what was the fkill of the Grecian pain- 
 ters in perfpeftive, and therefore it ought not to prejudge that 
 queflion. 
 
 There are other evidences which will aflift us more clofely in 
 the progrefs of that queftion. It appears that in early days thofe 
 Grecian painters, who applied themlelves to fcenery, had acqui- 
 red fo much of perfpe6tive as enabled them to give all the effe6ls 
 of it to thofe objecls which they introduced into their fcenes. The 
 authority for this is quite fufficicnt, as it refts on the inveftigation 
 of Vitruvius, who tells us in the preface to his 7th book, that when 
 yEfchylus wrote his tragedies, which was about the time when 
 Xerxes invaded Greece, " Agatharcus made fcenes, and left a 
 " treatife upon them ; and that after him Democritus and Anax- 
 " agoras went ftill further in that way, fhewing the power of 
 " imitating Nature by making all the lines to vanilh to one 
 '■ point as to a centre, when viewed at a fixed diftance ; by which 
 " means they were enabled to reprefent in their fcenes the images 
 '' of real buildings, as they ufually appear to the e)e ; whether 
 " thev were painted on horizontal or upright furfaces, they 
 " exhibited objects near and at a diftance." This authority, al- 
 though it fpecifies the reprefentations of buildings among other 
 objefts, yet comes very home to the point of our enquiry ; and 
 much nearer to that point we conceive, than many of the argu- 
 
GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE, 383 
 
 nients advanced by an ingenious modern advocate * lor the pow- 
 ers of the Grecian painters in perfpedtive. When the authority 
 we liave quoted expreCsly defcrihes diofe powers to be " the 
 " making all the lines to vanifli to one point as to a centre, when 
 " viewed at a fixed diflance ;" what more can befpcak the fyf- 
 tematic principles of perfpettive ? 
 
 And yet none of thofe Grecian paintings, which time has left 
 to modern ages, appear to have reached that character of per- 
 fpe6live, which is given by Vitruvius to the two fcenifts above- 
 mentioned. The drinking pigeons, now preferved at Rome, 
 are unqueftionably proved to be thofe " wonderful pigeons" of 
 which Pliny has fpokenf, and confequently they were the work 
 of that Sofus of Pergamus, who was the mod celebrated artift in 
 Greece for works in mofaic, of which thofe pigeons are a mod 
 charming example. Works in mofaic liave always been confi- 
 dered as a clafs of painting, no matter whether properly or not ; 
 but fo far as perfpetlive may be concerned in them, there can be 
 no objeftion to their being fo confidered. Thofe pigeons are 
 perched on the edge of a bowl filled with water, which bowl is 
 placed upon a table. One of them is drinking, the fliade of 
 whofe head and neck beautifully dyes the water : two others 
 have drunk, and are feen in the various action eidier of fwallow- 
 ing the water, or of picking themfelves, while they are balk- 
 ing in the fun. Nothing can be more admirable and complete 
 than the whole attion and cxprefiion of the birds themfelves. 
 But the vanifliing point of view in the bowl and in the table is 
 by no means one and the fame, although they are prefented m 
 the fame diredion. It is true, that mofaics have never been 
 
 * Webb, on Ancient Painting. t Lib. 36. c. 60. 
 
384 GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 rated ecfUally high with the works of the pencil, and confequently 
 the talents difplayed by artifts in that way may be confidered as 
 no fair criterion of thofe which are pofTefled by celebrated pain- 
 ters. But the talents, which could execute fo admirably the pofi- 
 tion and attitudes of thofe birds themfelves, together with the 
 deceptions of the bowl and of the table, and which evidently 
 aimed at a perfpeftive in all, could as eafily have furniflied that 
 perlpe6tive on fcientific principles, as in an irregular manner, if 
 the former had been underftood. And it muft be recollected 
 that Sofus was no inferior artift, but at the head of all others in 
 his own line of profeflion. 
 
 It is the want of that one vanifhing point, and oftentimes of a 
 vanifhing or degradation at all in the aflemblage of objefts, Avhich 
 meet us in thofe otherwife delightful fubjefts of painting drawn 
 from Herculaneum, and Pompeii, and Stabia, which are now in 
 the mufeum of Portici *. We confider thofe paintings as the 
 works of Greek artilts, becaufe the names of many of thofe ar- 
 tifts appear there, and w^e have no doubt from abundance of col- 
 lateral circumflances, that all thofe paintings, or at leaft the beft 
 of them, were executed by artills called from Greece f. There 
 are among them numerous groups ; but they all appear to be 
 very much on the fame ground, and to exhibit but imperfeftly 
 that degradation which is produced by diftance. Where fome 
 of thofe fcenes are filled up by architecture, with figures appear- 
 ing in tlie openings, there feems to be more of perfpe61ive ; 
 and that looks as if the praftice of it were eafier to them in 
 lines and angles than in the figures of bodies. In all thofe fub- 
 
 * See Le Antichlta ili Ercolano, 410. Ruma, 1789, Tomaflb Piroli ; a finallcr 
 edition correfpontlcnt to the grander one in the library of the king of Naples. 
 
 t See D'Ancarv. vol. 2. p. 16. 
 
GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 385 
 
 je6ls we cannot pronounce that there are any, which appear to 
 have only one point of fixed view. In landfcapes, one fliould 
 certainly expeft to find that point ; and an intelligent traveller *, 
 who has lately gone through the Two Sicilies with very attentive 
 obfervation, remarks exprefsly on fome paintings of that kind 
 which had been found in the ruins of Pompeii, that he was not 
 able to difcover in them any fyftematical knowledge of perfpec- 
 tive. Let it be faid, and taken for granted, as that writer has 
 candidly fuggefted, that thofe paintings mufl not be fet down as 
 the works of the firft Grecian mafters, who cannot be fuppofed 
 to have been employed there on works fo ordinarily met with, 
 as thofe paintings were, in houfes of all ranks and denomi- 
 nations : yet if the principles of true perfpeftive had been com- 
 monly underftood by the painters of thofe times, we fhould natu- 
 rally fuppofe that they would not have been found wanting in 
 thofe of a fubordinate clafs ; for among the artifts of our own 
 country at this day, where thofe principles are perfeftly and cur- 
 rently underftood, there is hardly an ordinary painter, who will 
 not finifh in true perfpeftive whatever fcene he undertakes. And 
 if it be added, that thofe paintings were probably done under the 
 Roman power, when the brilliancy of the Grecian arts was greatly 
 gone by ; yet it is plain from the excellency of defign in thofe 
 works, which is moft admirable in general, that all the marks of 
 brilliancy in the beft artifts of that country were not loft, and 
 that the authors of thofe works were not incompetent to thofe 
 talents which had become univerfal in Greece. 
 
 Thefe things we ftate, as it is fair to do, on both fides of the 
 queftion. Yet there remains an inference which will force itfelf 
 upon our minds, or at leaft will raife a new queftion for our de- 
 
 • oee bwinburne s Travels in Two Sicilies, vol. 3. p. 151 . 
 Vol, I. 3D 
 
-^86 GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 cifion. It is ihis. That the Greeks were complete mafters of 
 perfpeftive in architefture, there can be no doubt ; we (hall pre- 
 fently find that alTertion confirmed by the mofl abundant proofs. 
 It may then naturally be afked, can it be poffible to fuppofe 
 that the Greek painters were deficient in that which was fo 
 thoroughly underflood by the architefts of their country, and 
 which was quite as important to the perfeftion of their art 
 as to that of the others? We mud allow that there is great 
 force in this queflion. And as we cannot difpute the authority 
 of Vitruvius, founded on his well-known accuracy of inveftiga- 
 tion, which has recorded their power of perfpe^bve fo early as 
 the time of iEfchylus, " by making all their fcenes to vanifh ta 
 " one point as to a centre, when viewed at a fixed diftance;" it 
 becomes very difficult to fuppofe that they, who in every other 
 inftance moved with rapid (leps to all the perfections of the arts, 
 fhould lofe in that particular inftance what they feem no fooner 
 to have thought of than to have gained, and what was fo indif- 
 penfible to their charafters as artifts, that without it, or with an 
 imperfeft knowledge of it only, we have no idea how they could 
 acquire any chara6ler at all among thofe who were judges of 
 what was Nature. So accurately has Vitruvius expreffed him- 
 felf in the pafl'age above referred to, when he defcribed the pro- 
 grefs which Democritus and Anaxagoras had made in perfpeftive, 
 by faying that " they fhewed the power of imitating Nature." 
 
 t 
 Leaving therefore this point to the judgement of the reader, 
 or to the more fuccefsful inquiry of others who may obtain bet- 
 ter evidences to decide it, we (hall pafs to the confideration of 
 thofe powers in perfpeftive which their architefts had attained. 
 
 It was a primary ftage, which, as far as it went, opened a 
 
GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 387 
 
 great paflage to their architeftural perfpeftive, to know the 
 efFe6ls of vifion as they were produced by diftance. And thefe 
 were gained by the fculptors as well as the architefts of Greece, 
 for the fame reafon that where great diftances intervened between 
 the objefts and the eye, thofe effe6ls were equally important to 
 be afcertained by both. This is proved in the well known 
 contefl between Phidias and Alcamenes, to produce a Minerva 
 which was to be elevated on a high column *. The work of 
 the former, while it was beheld on the ground, had nearly caufed 
 the author of it to be ftoned, as if he had meant to infult the 
 Athenians by the extravagant and caricature expreflion which he 
 had given to the whole figure of that goddefs, and to every fea- 
 ture in it ; but it became foftened into natural proportion and 
 perfefl: grace, when it was lifted up into it's deflined fituation ; 
 while that of Alcamenes, whofe delicacy of execution and per- 
 feft fymmetry had before decided every voice in it's favor, be- 
 came totally loll to all difcriminate obfervation, and confequently 
 difregarded, at it's full height. Yet it is plain from this inflance, 
 that thofe effefts of vifion as produced by diftance were not uni- 
 verfally underft:ood by artifts in the time of Phidias, becaufe they 
 were miffed by Alcamenes a very celebrated man, and they werQ 
 not apprehended by the general body of the Athenians. Whe- 
 ther or no this circumftance may ferve to acount for that want of a 
 thorough perfpeftive which has been remarked in thofe artifts 
 who painted at Herculaneum and Pompeii, without involving 
 the firft Grecian mafters in the fame conclufion, muft be left to 
 the confideration of the reader. The like circumftance hap- 
 pened, from which the reader may draw the fame ufes, if he 
 pleafes, in the head of Diana fet up on high at Chios f; which 
 
 * Tzetzes Chiliad, xi. hift. 381. & Chiliad, viii. hift. 193. 
 t Plin. lib. 36.C.5. 
 
388 GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 fhewed indeed the fcience of the artift, but the want of a fcien- 
 tific perception in others. He had made the goddefs to look 
 fevere on thofe who came into the temple, but mild on thofe 
 who went out of it; that is, the figure, like the Minerva of Phi- 
 dias, appeared rougher as you approached it, but more foften- 
 ed as you moved to a greater diltance : and when the people 
 confidered that effeft as a kind of prodigy, they only fhewed that 
 they were not familiar with the laws of vifion. 
 
 But let the Grecian architefture fpeak for it's own perfpe6live. 
 It will be fufficient if we adduce thofe evidences of it, which are 
 of an obvious and ftriking imprefTion. In the outfide of tem- 
 ples, the columns which flood at the angles were of a greater 
 diameter than the reft, becaufe they were more in the open air ; 
 which, without the aid of a back ground or fliade to throw out 
 the true dimenfions to the eye, naturally diminiflies thofe dimen- 
 fions, and confequently gives to fuperior grofTnefs the effeft of 
 apparent equality. For the fame reafon, when the portico of a 
 temple had two rows of columns, the inward row was fmaller 
 than the outward. And further to aid the deception, in fluted 
 columns thofe fmaller ones had a greater number of flutes than 
 the larger, becaufe they had a new ground of comparifon to 
 combat in the larger ; for in flutes a greater number of angles 
 meeting the eye expofes of couffe a greater furface by their girt; 
 if therefore the fmaller columns did not avail themfelves of an 
 increafed furface by an increafed number of angles beyond the 
 larger columns, they could never appear of equal diameters with 
 them. But we find the Greeks aftually altering the true propor- 
 tions of columns and entablatures at certain diftances, that fo 
 they might counteraft the elfefts of vifion. We find them aftu- 
 ally omitting the perpendicular parts of cornices elevated at a 
 
GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 389 
 
 great height ; becaufe by the laws of perfpeftive thofe perpendi- 
 cular parts are not diftinftly vifible to the eye at great heights -, 
 and they are made lefs vifible, in confequence of another effeft 
 which thofe laws have ordained, that while the projefting parts 
 gain in bulk by their heighth, the perpendicular parts mufl lofe. 
 
 It is curious to follow the various proofs of their ingenuity in 
 the management of many parts of the entablature, for the pur- 
 pofe of confulting perfpeftive. Some of their cornices projeft 
 aftonifhingly, efpecially in the Doric order, of which there are 
 the greateft examples from their hands at Poeflum. We may alfo 
 feleft another example, although it were at Rome, in the theatre 
 of Marcellus, which was affuredly the ftrufture of a Grecian 
 architeft ; for neither were the Romans then fo ripe in tafte as to 
 produce fo perfectly pure and chafte a model of Grecian art, nor 
 did fuch a model ever come from their hands, nor did they build 
 at that time with ftone, as far as we can trace, but with bricks ; 
 whereas that theatre was conftrufted of flones prodigioufly large, 
 which were intended to reprefent an immenfely ftrong rock, to 
 be dreffed with all the poffible fimplicity of art. In that drefs 
 two orders were employed, in each of which the fame foundation 
 is afforded to the obfervations we would make. The immenfe 
 proje61ions of the crown in the Doric cornice below, and alfo in 
 the Ionic above, were perfeftly right in that great mafs of edi- 
 fice, and in the ftages of their refpeftive elevations ; they were 
 wonderfully grand in their effeft. In the former of thofe corni- 
 ces the architeft fhewed a very accurate knowledge of the effefts 
 of diftance upon vifion, by exerting a very fingular example ; 
 for inftead of forming the drops which compofe the ornament of 
 the foffite, and fall upon the triglyphs, all equal in fize, he flo- 
 ped them gradually towards the outfide ; knowing, that to the 
 
390 
 
 GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 eye which looked up at them from beneath they would appear 
 all alike, and would moreover alTifl; in fome meafure the projeftion 
 which he wifhed to maintain in all it's ftrength. In the latter of 
 thofe cornices he manifeftly confulted perfpeftive at the expence 
 of rule. For, knowing at the immenfe height in which it ftood 
 from the eye, that the ufual diminution of it's proportion as an 
 upper order would caufe it to appear as nothing, inftead of lef- 
 fening it a fourth *, he gave it hardly any diminution at all+. In 
 thefe circumftances, which will afford fufficient examples of their 
 attention to perfpeftive, is evidently demonftrated their know- 
 ledge of "it's principles. 
 
 It was not merely to draw finely that this knowledge affifted 
 them ; they employed it as architeds in their whole praftice. It 
 gave them the mod fublime and precious gift, with which the 
 mind of the archite6l can be filled, and without which he can 
 never be original, nor advance beyond a poverty or tamenefs of 
 defign. Where Ihall the fpirit of architefture be found, but in a 
 full and clear preconception of effe6l ? And where fhall that pre- 
 conception of effeft obtain it's radical capacity, but in the accurate 
 knowle dge of perfpeftive ? It is by perfpeftive that we know 
 before-hand effefts according to height, and according to the po- 
 fition in which a building is viewed, whether angularly, or in 
 a fide-elevation ; for it has very different proportions in all thefe 
 cafes. It is by perfpeftive that we afcertain the different effe6ls 
 of cornices according to their different elevations, and of all 
 projeftions on high both as to themfelves and as to what comes 
 above them, a great part of which they will always cut off. It 
 
 * See Vitruvius, lib. 5. c. 15. 
 + See a profile of thefe cornices in Chambray's Paral. p. 21, 45 
 
GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 391 
 
 is by perfpeftive that we are affured of the effects of columns 
 from their various fituations, and are enabled to countera6l the 
 deceptions that will arife from thence ; for inftance, in an upper 
 row of columns placed over a lower order, which will ever ap- 
 pear lefs than their due proportion. In (hort, it is by the educa- 
 tion of perfpeftive, that the architect brings at once to the eye 
 of his mind the future efifecls of every proportion and pofition 
 which he gives to the edifice, and how far beauty, convenience, 
 and propriety will be attained, and will imprefs themfelves on 
 every obferver. To the obferving eye thefe things, and every 
 part of his fkill, mud be accommodated, or there is no longer 
 beauty, convenience, ar^d propriety in his ftrudure, which will 
 oftentimes be loft in the error of Alcamenes. 
 
 It was then in thefe great powers of preconception that the 
 Greek architefts came forth from the ftudy of perfpeftive, and 
 (hewed themfelves accomplifhed in all the finer language of de- 
 fign. They did not move by tame rules and turgid precepts, or at 
 leaft they did not wait for fuch diredions. They left thofe rules 
 and precepts to the idiots, as Vitruvius calls them *, the dull 
 and (hallow defigners, who know not how any thing will appear, 
 unlefs they firft fee it executed ; or who have gotten perhaps at 
 moft a notion of pi6lurefque eflfeft, and value themfelves upon 
 that moft delufive poffelTion, which is produ6live only of weak- 
 nefs, flutter, and falfehood, if it be not combined with a found 
 knowledge of perfpe6live. 
 
 The faft is, the Greeks were po(re(red of all the genuine 
 fources of beauty, which were fo intimate to their minds, that 
 
 * B. 6. laft chapter. 
 
392 
 
 GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 beauty came regularly from their hands without the tedioufnefs 
 of purfuing it through experiments. He that has the foul of a 
 poet will take his flight with affurance, and will carry after him 
 every imagination pleafed with thofe images of Nature, and that 
 beauty of ideas, which flow fpontaneoufly from his mind, and 
 which every man fees and knows to be natural and beautiful, and 
 to be immutably true and immutably forcible in their reach ; and 
 yet they mufl not be attempted with the fame fuccefs by the man, 
 who meafures his movements, and trammels his conceptions. A 
 great mufician will carry captive every heart with thofe jufl:, 
 and delicate, and infinitely varied touches of expreflion, which 
 although correct to the laws of mufic, yet carry the features of 
 ftrong originality ; — features far more affeding, becaufe they are 
 original, and more fublime too than will ever be reached by 
 him, whofe foul cannot move without labour and fludy to all that 
 harmony can give. That fpirit of poetry, that fpirit of harmony, 
 the Grecian architefts had tranfplanted into their fcience ; all 
 the fources of flrong and elegant impreflion were the natural pur- 
 fuits of their minds, and the happy fruits of their ftudies ; and 
 thefe they knew, as great matters, how to feled and combine in 
 a moment with the greateft effed of which they were capable. 
 
 But the ftudy of geometry, difl;in£lly confidered, formed a 
 very important part of their chara61er as architefts, and contri- 
 buted in a very eflential manner to the perfections which they 
 reached. This is a point of view, on which every man mufl keep 
 his eyes intently fixed, who would trace correftly the abilities of 
 the Greeks in archite6lure,or who would emulate thofe abilities in 
 himfelf. In this fludy are laid the elements of that art, without 
 which all is fuperficial, fanciful, and unprincipled. We have 
 feen how early and deeply it took poffefTion of the Egyptians, 
 
GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 393 
 
 how powerfully it (hewed it's ufes amidft the defefts of much tech- 
 nical flvill, how happily it fupplied to a certain degree the want 
 of tafte, and what prodigies of ftrufture it enabled them to raife, 
 almoft fuperior in many inftances to all the ravages of time. 
 The Greeks had perhaps more reafon than the Egyptians to know 
 the importance of that ftudy, becaufe they had feen that impor- 
 tance in a greater fcope of experience accumulated by preceding 
 ages, and confirmed to them by their own induftrious and celebra- 
 ted refearchesinto'the theory of architecture ; and befides they had 
 been intent on the acquirement of tafle, which they had acqui- 
 red, and which might be dangerous to the progrefs of architec- 
 tural perfeftion, if it were not regulated and controuled by thofe 
 principles of fcience, which will forbid tafte to be fubllituted for 
 ftrength, or will teach it to be fo combined as to grow out of a 
 juft diftribution of proportions in ftrength, which effentially 
 conftitutes architedural fl\.ill, and is the firft thing demanded in 
 every edifice. 
 
 The ftudy of geometry was therefore deeply purfued by the 
 Greeks, efpecially after the heroic ages. They availed them- 
 felves of all that their geometrical mafters, the Egyptians, had 
 attained in that fcience, long before Euclid a native of Alexan- 
 dria had deduced his profound and fyftematic demonftrations. 
 The theorems, which we have already mentioned to have been 
 made known to them by their own countrymen Thales and Py- 
 thagoras, are fufficiently indicative of further inveftigations pur- 
 fued by thofe philofophers in that fcience. They (hew us that 
 mathematics were then confidered as a valuable part of philo- 
 fophy, in whatever fhape it was embraced. But to the architecl 
 they became the primary philofophy. And the Greeks were too 
 wife and profound in all things to take up the philofophy of 
 
 Vol. I. 3 E 
 
394 GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 architefture -without it's elements and fundamental principles- 
 They would have been mad to have attempted fuch edifices as 
 they conftrufted, without a radical preparation in geometrical 
 (ludies, more efpecially as they ufed no cement, which in faft is 
 but of little ufe where larger blocks are employed. It was there- 
 fore of the firfl confequence, not only that all their materials 
 Ihould be prepared with exatlnefs, but that they fhould alfo be 
 difpofed with juftnefs, and with a relative proportion to what 
 they were intended to bear. An indifcriminate folidity is abfur- 
 dity itfelf, inafmuch as it becomes wafte if it be more than is 
 wanted, and ruin if it be lefs ; and where it is difcriminated, but 
 not judicioufly, the parts that are to bear mod may fuffer preju- 
 dice from an overcharge of weight on thofe which are to bear 
 leaft. Had the Greeks therefore been lefs perfeft in geometry 
 than they were, and lefs attentive to it's principles, the remains by 
 which we are enabled to judge of their (kill would not have 
 endured any thing like the ages which they have furvived ; they 
 would have been long ago, without a fingle exception, bafelefs 
 fabrics leaving not a wreck behind. That wife people in all 
 their architefture calculated every thing on geometrical preci- 
 fion. The neceflity of that knowledge was carried even to their 
 painters, to whom it was prefcribed as a very important ftudy in 
 all theleftures of Pamphilus*. AH the parts of their edifices, 
 however, were fo nicely proportioned and balanced, that what 
 was faid in humour might hold well enough in the principle, 
 although it were not true in the comment, that let a bird perch 
 upon one end of a wall conjtruded by them, it's weight would be 
 felt by the other. 
 
 Having now difcufled the mod material objefts which prefent 
 * Albert! on Paiming, B. 3. p. 264. 
 
GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. ^p^ 
 
 themfelves to our confideration in the architeftural fcience of the 
 Greeks, and in their ufe of their own orders, it may be proper to 
 make fome obfervations on thofe devices, which they were indu- 
 ced to combine with fome of thofe orders, under the names of 
 Cariatides, and Perfian fupporters ; which are by no means to be 
 confidered as an order of themfelves, but (as Chambray* ob- 
 fervesj a metamorphofe of other regular orders by fubftituting 
 women or men for columns. The firft of thefe, exhibiting the 
 female figure, were put under an Ionic entablature ; to the laft, 
 as reprefenting men, the Doric was applied. But no alteration 
 was made by thefe in the regular proportions of either of thofe 
 orders, and therefore they mufl; be looked upon as a fpecies or 
 modification of either. How the Greeks came to embrace this 
 thought of fubftituting human figures for columns, is fo well 
 known, and is fo commonly found in all the books upon archi- 
 tefture, that we fliall not take up time to relate it. Suffice it 
 to fay, that to eternize the treachery of Grecian women, or 
 the overthrow of Perfian foes — to perpetuate the memory of 
 thofe captives, whom Greece was moft proud of reducing to 
 flavery, and whofe captivity might otherwife be foon forgotten, 
 they were brought forward in the dreCs of their relpeclive coun- 
 tries, to the conftant view of the public, and of future generati- 
 ons, in the ignominious fituation of bearing cumbrous weights, 
 like infenfible blocks of ftone. The Greeks might poftibly be 
 led to that idea by the Egyptians, in whofe edifices we have alrea- 
 dy feen immenfe ftatues, and very often of women, employed 
 inftead of columns to fupport a mafTy cornice. Whether the 
 like reafons, which introduced it into Greece, led the way to it 
 in Egypt, or whether it was taken up there from \vhim and a de* 
 
 • Paral. p. 58. 
 
396 GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 lire of producing a more flupendous extravagance, we know not ; 
 but in the Greeks it became a perpetuity of triumph. They 
 were cautious neverthelefs in the ufe of that triumph, that the 
 difplay and the record of their refentment might not prejudice 
 the reputation of their wifdom. It was not therefore in all forts 
 of buildings that thofe figures were introduced, the occafions of 
 employing them judicioufly muft be chofen, and doubtlefs were 
 chofen by the Greeks*. To have employed them indifcrimi- 
 nately would have been a departure from that genuine reafon 
 and nature of things, which was their lludy and their pride. 
 The nature of things, indeed, was out of the queftion here, as 
 much as when the fame thing was done by the Egyptians, who 
 confulted extravagance more than Nature ; and it was in this on- 
 ly inftance that the Greeks were induced to take fo large a llride 
 from the fettled purity of their principles. They had indeed a 
 reafon for it, although it was no reafon inherent in archite6lural 
 fcience, but a mere reafon of policy, which for once they fuffered 
 to conneft itlelf with their tafte ; and that reafon muft become 
 their apology. 
 
 But what apology fhall be found for others, whether ancients 
 or moderns, who have followed the Greeks in that reafon lb pe- 
 culiar to themfelves ; who have followed them indeed in the only 
 circumftance which was leaft defenfible in their architefture ; 
 and have followed them too with infinite extenfions of that cir- 
 cumftance, which loft fight of every thing that could be borrow- 
 ed from Greece ? It is faid that the Romans very feldom made 
 
 * The temple Pandrofiiim is one of thofe ancient edifices, and the only one that 
 has come down to our knowledge, whofe entablature and roof are fupported by 
 Cariatides. See Stuart's Athens, vol. 2. c. 2. p. 17. 
 
GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 397 
 
 ufe of the Cariatides*, although they often employed the Perfian 
 fupporters. For the laft they had a reafon of their own to give, 
 as good as that which was alTumed by the Greeks, efpecially in 
 the days of the latter emperors, when thofe Perfian fupporters 
 were feen on the arch of Conftantine, more with reference to 
 what had been gained from the Perfians by other emperors, and 
 particularly by Galerius who had wrefted five provinces from 
 Narfes their fovereign, than by Conftantine himfelf who had 
 made indeed a fuccefsful expedition into Afia againft Sapor II. 
 but that was at the clofe of his life which he terminated in that 
 country. The Perfian had been a conftant thorn in the fide of 
 Rome, as well as of Greece, efpecially after the acceffion of 
 Artaxerxes, who having broken up the kingdom of Parthia, 
 which had lafted near 500 years, only renewed with more vio- 
 lence the contefts which the Parihians had entailed on the Ro- 
 mans. We cannot therefore be furprifed that the Romans fhould 
 embrace the example fuggefted to them by the Greeks of ftigma- 
 tizing the Perfians, whatever they might do with the Cariatides. 
 It has fo happened that no remains of the latter in their archi- 
 tefture have come down to us; yet Pliny + mentions thofe of the 
 Pantheon ; we muft therefore take it for granted that Cariatides 
 were employed there, although no diligence of modern obfer- 
 vers has been able to find in that temple, which remains fo entire 
 to this day, any fituation that feems likely to have admitted 
 them. It would have been a mark of fingular good fenfe in the 
 Romans, if they had never employed them at all. When time or 
 circumftances have refcuedfrom modern ages the proofs of their 
 having been employed, the event has not been unfavourable to 
 the chara£ler of the Romans, becaufe they had no reafons of 
 
 * Chambray's Paral. p. 60. t Lib. 35. c. 5. 
 
ggg GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 policy or ftate for the indulgence of fo unnatural an idea as the 
 putting of women to do the office of columns ; which muft ever 
 be attended with an inherent defe61, even if it be fo managed 
 that the eye can be deceived in the burthen with which they are 
 charged, as when they are joined to a wall, and a confole is put 
 over them, which (hall appear to bear all the weight of the en- 
 tablature. But to employ them in temples, where under every 
 fyflem of religion men have affembled to look for mercy, and 
 Ihould come with hearts of peace, muft be improper, if the 
 original idea be retained, that they were captives, and are 
 oxpofed as captives. 
 
 Whether the moderns have been aware of any reafbns why 
 the Cariatides fliould not be employed without diftindlion or re- 
 flraint, we know not; but while they have attempted infinite 
 variations, as it were to obviate particular objeftions, they feem 
 difpofed to lofe no hint which was furnifhed by the Greeks. If 
 the whole female figure was thought inconvenient, as interrupting 
 too much the intercolumniation by it's flowing veftments, the head 
 alone has been introduced inftead of a capital to the column, 
 and the head-drefs has been adjufted to the refemblance of vo- 
 lutes or fcrolls, fo as to fall in with the Ionic column. If the whole 
 figure has been thought too difproportionate for the other co- 
 lumns, the arms have been cut off to make them appear more 
 lio-ht and delicate ; and fometimes lialf the figure has been feen 
 to proceed out of a vagina or flieath. If human figures, efpe- 
 cially when expofed as Haves, have been thought objeftionable, 
 particularly in fome fituations ; they have only furrendered u'p 
 their places to ideal ones, as mufes, graces, virtues, and angels. 
 We will not condemn the emblematic figure, when the primary 
 objedion does not continue, and it is not overcharged with 
 
GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 399 
 
 weight. Freed from this difficulty, we will confider it as taking 
 a new ground to itfelf, whatever might have been it's origin in 
 faft, and as not improperly filling fome fituations with advantage 
 to moral fentiment. When virtues are put to fupport the crown- 
 ing of a throne, and are judicioudy chofen, they are an exercife 
 of genius which brings more forcibly to the mind the contem- 
 plations naturally attached to the obje6l. We will not fay that 
 the fabled charafters of hilarity and gladnefs, properly employed 
 in the hall of banquet, may not be introduced there with advan- 
 tage to the feftivity, which while it is innocent is honourable. It 
 is a more awful idea, although it hardly concerns architedlure 
 unlefs as a defign, and although it paffes from the human to the 
 mere animal figure, when the eagle is put to fupport the facred 
 book of revelation : but furely the emblem, whether naturally 
 or mythologically viewed, affifls the refleftions of fublimity and 
 infpiration. 
 
 There is but one point more on which we fhall fpeak to the 
 architefture of the Greeks, and that is, the difpofition of their 
 private manfions. In this circumftance, if we pay no attention 
 to their habits of living, they will appear inferior to themfelves 
 in the other ufes of their architeftural fkill, and to the moderns 
 in many countries. For they occupied a very great, and what 
 {hould feem a very needlefs, fpace in their houfes ; they appear 
 to have been at the pains of very little contrivance in the diftri- 
 bution of the whole according to art or the beft convenience ; 
 thofe offices, which one fhould think moft properly difpofed at fome 
 diftance and out of fight, were brought the neareft and forward- 
 eft to view, and crowded clofely together. It cannot be denied 
 that architefture muft not found it's fame merely in the perfection 
 of external defign ; the interior difpofition of the edifice to the 
 
400 GREClA^f ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 purpofes for which it is raifed conftitute.s an important part of 
 that fame, akliough it has not been fufficiently ftudied, but has 
 indeed been too much overlooked by the bed architefts in every 
 age, either becaufe it has been thought lefs converfant with ge- 
 nius, or becaufe it is not the firft thing to diffufe their chara6ler 
 through the obferving world. But it is that part of their (kill, 
 which contributes in faft to our firfl and laft fatisfaftions ; and 
 among the quahfications of that (kill certainly it is not one, to 
 wafte an immenfe area in offices which a mature invention would 
 difpofe with equal or greater elegance, and with more utility, in 
 a more compacted compafs. If the Greeks appear not to have 
 cultivated this invention, we mufl refort to their manner of liv- 
 ing for the realbn. The men and women did not live together 
 in habitual fociety, they had their (eparate parts of the building, 
 in which they refided ; fo had the ftrangers, who dined with 
 the mafler of the houfe only the firft and laft days of their vifit ; 
 fo had the flaves, and the other fervants that received wages. 
 With thefe cuftoms a man's family took up in their ordinary ufe 
 three times the extent of building which would have been fufficient 
 On any other plan. Great room was^likewife required for walking, 
 wrefUing, couverfations, and all the various exercifes in which 
 that aftive people were continually engaged. The manner, in 
 which the houfes of their better citizens were generally difpofed 
 for the reception of a family living under thefe regulations, may 
 be found defcribed by Vitruvius, inveftigated more clofely by 
 Scamozzi, and more precifely reduced into a ground-plan by 
 Palladio. 
 
 It may be afked, how the Greeks were enabled to raife fo 
 commonly not only thofe fpacious manfions, but the immenfe and 
 coftly edifices for public ufe or public pride, and indeed all the 
 
GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 4OI 
 
 works of expenfive art, which filled every part of their country. 
 In this queftion we are apt to be led by general conceptions of 
 their fituation as not being pofTefled of thofe refources of wealth, 
 which have diflinguiflied other countries and governments in mo- 
 dern times : we are apt to be (Irengthened in thole conceptions 
 by the recolle6lion that the foil of Greece was by no means fer- 
 tile, without great induftry and cultivation : we recolleft fome 
 leffons of their mod efteemed philofophers, which were very 
 difparaging to trade, and contemptuous of all the profeffions 
 devoted to the gaining of money ; thefe are pronounced by 
 Xenophon, Plato, and Ariftotle as unworthy of a free man * ; 
 Ariflotlet maintains, that in a well-ordered flate the riiiht of 
 citizens fhould never be given to artifans ; Plato J will have a 
 citizen punifhed who {hould enter into commerce ; and both 
 agree in prefcribing that agriculture fliould be purfued only by 
 flaves ^. But thefe were the reveries of theorifls in their fludies, 
 which, however they might be imbibed by fome, certainly did 
 not exprefs the principles on which the Greeks a6led, nor the 
 habits of any one ftate, unlefs it were Lacedeemon, whofe mili- 
 tary conftitution was a fingular exception from the reft. Hefiod 
 and Plutarch have more truly defcribed the principles and habits 
 in which the Grecian dates were condufted, at a time when none 
 of them, and Athens leafl of all, did make that figure in trade and 
 commerce which they afterwards fuflained: thofe wi"iters tell us 
 that no labour was accounted fliameful ; that no art, no trade 
 made any difference among men ; and that traffic was cfteemed 
 
 * Xenoph. jEcon. p. 482. Plato de rep. lib. 2. de leg. lib. 8. p. 907. Arift. dc 
 rep. lib. 7. c. g. lib. 8. c. 2. lib. 3. c. 4. 
 
 t De rep. lib. 3. c. 5. p. 344. A. 
 
 % De leg. lib. 2. p. 799. 
 
 § Plato de leg. lib. 7. p. 891. Arift. de rep. lib. 7. c. 10. p. 437. D. 
 Vol. I. 3 F 
 
402 GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 honourable by the Greeks*. Thefe affertions have reference 
 even to the time of Solon, who went fo far in the encourage- 
 ment of arts and manufactures as to make a law by which a fon 
 was exempted from the obligation of maintaining his father, if 
 he had been taught no tradef . It required indeed more than 
 another age to fee Athens in a condition to profit effe6lually by 
 the wifdom of his regulations. But the fpirit of traffic was then 
 begun in Attica, although it's beginnings were Imall ; and it was 
 much older in other parts of Greece. It had been carried by 
 other dates to a very great extent both by land and fea, before 
 the Athenians came to abforb in a manner it's advantages and it's 
 glory. 
 
 The fa6i: is then, that commerce and navigation gave the 
 Greeks the abilities of accomplifhing all their various andexpen- 
 five works of art. That commerce and navigation had long been 
 gathering ftrength, and by the time the country was become high 
 in the arts, wealth and confideration had flowed in through the 
 channel of maritime traffic and maritime power, fufficient to 
 accumulate all that it poflefled of the arts of elegance. The 
 Corinthians, fituated moft conveniently for commerce, and indeed 
 for the univerfal controul of all the Greeks, by the power of 
 hindering one part of the country from communicating with the 
 other, were fo far more commercial than military, that they were 
 content to overlook all the other advantages attendant on their 
 fituation for thofe which commerce afforded. This they pufhed 
 to fo great an extent, that while the trade of Greece was carried 
 on only by land, the whole of it neceffarily pafled through their 
 hands '^ ; and when navigation came to be more generally under- 
 
 * Hefiod Op. et dies, v. 311. Plut. in Solon, p. 79. D. 
 
 t Plut. ibid. p. 90. X Thucid. lib. i. p. 12. Strabo,lib. 8. p. 580. 
 
GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 403 
 
 flood, which they had begun to cultivate foon after the Trojan 
 war *, it was not long before they became the ftaple of all the 
 merchandifes confumed in Greece f. By thefe means the5>^ amaffed 
 great wealth, infomuch that their city was called by the poets 
 " the opulent";!;. She was without contradiction the richeft 
 and moft voluptuous city in Greece ; and her people, fatisfied 
 with the amafling of great wealth, thought of nothing but the 
 means of getting and enjoying it. It vras certainly the moft ho- 
 nourable part of the luxury which their commerce afforded, that 
 they fpared nothing to render their city one of the moft beauti- 
 ful and magnificent in Greece. 
 
 The people of yEgina had gone before them in thole enter- 
 prizes of commerce. Thefe may be regarded as the firft people 
 of Greece in Europe, who became confiderable for their intelli- 
 gence in maritime traffic, and who held in fatl the empire of the 
 fea for fome time by their naval forces §. They had great com- 
 merce in Greece foon after the return of the Heraclidze into Pelo- 
 ponefus. They difembarked at Cyllene, from whence they made 
 ufe of mules to tranfport their merchandife to the interior parts 
 of the countr)' ||. They were the firft among their countrymen 
 who brought coined money into ufe as the medium of trade **. 
 The opulence and profperity which followed them, the brilliancy 
 of thofe fcenes in which they were engaged, are well known ; 
 but the Athenians did not permit thefe to have a long duration. 
 When they were driven from their ifland by that people in the 
 time of Pericles, we mull look to their conquerors for that com- 
 
 * Thucid. ibid.. t Ibid. + Horn. Iliad, lib. 2. v. 77. 
 
 § Strabojlib. 8. p. 576. JE\i:iu. Var. Hift. lib. 12. c. 10. Eiifeb. Chron. lib. 
 2. n. 1514. p. 129. II Paufan. lib. 8. c. 5. 
 
 ** Marm. Oxon. Epoch. 29. j^llian, ubi fiipra, et Strabo. 
 
404 «RECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 merce and that naval power which was wrefted from their 
 hands. 
 
 In many other of the iflands, as well as in many cities of the 
 continent, the advantages of commerce and navigation were 
 fteadily purfued and felt. The Rhodians rendered their name 
 illuftrious by their naval laws, which firft reduced into a code 
 the reafonable ufages of maritime traffic, and in faft the police 
 of the fea. 
 
 Thefe then were the fources and the foundations of that immenfe 
 wealth which flowed into every part of Greece, and rendered it's 
 people competent to thofe immenfe expenditures which were em- 
 ployed on the arts of elegance. We (hall barely mention the mines 
 of the country, although the hiftory of Athens in particular men- 
 tions very often the filver mines of Laurium, a mountain between 
 the PirsEum and Cape Sunium, and alfo thofe of Thrace from 
 whence many individuals drew immenfe riches : we fliall barely 
 mention thefe, becaufe they were a partial wealth, fo far as they 
 were the property of private perfons ; and if they were the pro- 
 perty of the public, they have been found by fure experience 
 never to enrich a whole people, at lead in any degree equal 
 to the opulence which flows from commerce. Neverthelefs, 
 as far as thefe went, they were additional means of making many 
 rich, and of alTifting and encouraging too their expenditures in 
 the arts. 
 
 Thofe expenditures will appear to be a kind of neceflary ufe 
 and enjoyment of their wealth, efpecially in fome fituations, as in 
 that of Athens, where a prevalent frugality, modefty, and plain- 
 aefs through the whole of private life gave the diflinguifhing 
 
GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 405 
 
 eharafter of the people. In that city a man of wealth could not 
 be diftinguifhed from a flave by his drefs*. The richeft ci- 
 tizens, and the moft: famous generals, were not afhamed to go 
 to market themfelves. Where thefe habits of living are eftab- 
 lifhed,and wealth flows in at every avenue, what indulgence of tafle 
 is there, to which, that people cannot go without difficulty? 
 Tafte indeed, if extenfively indulged, is a moft expenfive cir- 
 cumftance to the largeft fortunes ; but without that indulgence, 
 where thofe are the meafures of private life, great wealth muft 
 become either an overflowing ftream, which muft deluge fome- 
 where, and annoy the country around, or a ftagnated water 
 equally unprofitable to it's poffeflbr and the reft of the world. It 
 was therefore no cenfurable part of their character, that this de- 
 cided frugality and plainnefs in private life was combined with 
 great public pride, and elegance, and fplendour. It was no wafte 
 of their opulence, that the leaft neceflary, but moft polite, arts 
 were fed by it's current, or fed in a meafure beyond what might 
 be pronounced moderate. It was a blefting, even if Ariftotle 
 were prefent to hear it pronounced, that the riches which in any 
 other direftion could have miniftered only to the excefs of perilh- 
 able and animal enjoyments, were made contributory to the ra- 
 tional delights of enlightened ingenuity, giving to their poffeffors 
 a pofthumous fame, and fplendour to the country, when it's re- 
 cords were no longer to be traced. 
 
 The public treafure was fwelled by the fame means which made 
 the people rich, and bv many others befides. If the mines of 
 Greece were afource of private wealth, they equally helped to fill 
 the exchequer of the ftate. In a treatife by Xenophont, which 
 
 * Xenoph. de repub. Athen. p. 693. t De ration, redituum. 
 
■lo6 GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE, 
 
 enieij) at large into this topic, that writer demonftrates the im- 
 menfe profits which might be made ofthofe mines by the public, 
 from the example of fo many perfons whom they had enriched. 
 
 But we (hall take a better view of their refources in the regu- 
 lar revenues of their governments, which were great in other 
 refpefts, and fo wide in their fources that one fhould think we 
 were infpefting the revenues of modern empires. Thofe of 
 Athens arofe, and in no weak or fcanty produftion, not only from 
 the working of mines, but from the fale of woods ; from agricul- 
 ture ; from duties laid on the import and export of merchandife ; 
 from contributions paid by allies, which were often wound up 
 high on various pretences ; from contributions annually paid into 
 the treafury by the three firft clafles of citizens; from general 
 taxes, which although moderate and even necefiary at firft, be- 
 came after a while exceflive and exorbitant ; from extraordinary 
 taxes of capitation on extraordinary emergencies ; and from 
 fines impofed by the judges for various mifdemeanors. A nati- 
 onal treafure, fed and fuftained by thele fources, was capable of 
 doing wonders in the works of art, if the diretlors of that trea- 
 fure were fo difpofed. 
 
 It was a main accufation againft Pericles, that he expended on 
 the patronage of the fine arts thofe funds which were deftined for 
 the public defence, or for public ufes. That queftion will turn 
 very much on the fa61, whether the public defence and thofe public 
 ufes were ncgletled by Pericles. At the fame time it muft not be 
 advanced, that a prudent ceconomy of the public finances, which 
 eithermay render lefs burthenfome the contributions of allies and 
 of the fubjefts themfelves, or without reducing thofe contributions 
 may lay up the whole to accumulate againft a great and fudden 
 
GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 407 
 
 emergency, is not an important charafter in a great and good 
 minifter. The difficulty is, to afcertain the line that fhould be 
 drawn between that ufe of the public revenues which calculates 
 to render a country ftrong at all events, and thofe expenditures 
 which give it luftre and celebrity among the polidied nations 
 of the earth. If the Athenian (late was fo ftrong in the admi- 
 niftration of Pericles, the Athenians themfelves had lefs caufe 
 for complaint againft his patronage of the fine arts ; for thofe 
 among them, who probably could not have gained bread from 
 any other application of the public monies, found themfelves 
 refpeftably fuftained, which perhaps they had a good right to 
 find, as well as others who ferved their country in other ways. 
 And what is the refult, in fa6l, of fuch a fyftem as that which 
 was purfued by Pericles, fo far I mean, as ingenious merit, uncon- 
 nefled with what w'as diffolute or vicious, was patronized and 
 reared ? It was but a circular rotation of treafure, which when it 
 had run through ever fo many hands came back by one means 
 or another to the public account, without tainting the public in it's 
 courfe. If the ocean feeds from it's great plenitude the lefler 
 rivulets, they all run back to pay their tribute to the fea again. 
 
 Thofe works of art were all accomplidied by thofe who were 
 members of the fame ftate. And they will naturally be thought 
 to derive a greater and more rapid extenfion, when we refleft 
 that every man was brought up to fome profeffion of a more 
 aftive or more fedate kind. Socrates himfelf was bred a fculp- 
 tor*. No man was permitted in Athens to be idle : there was, 
 befides, a high zeal of ingenious profeffion, which was more 
 allured by the love of fame than by the thirft of gain. Under 
 
 * Paufan. lib. 9. p. 596. 
 
408 ARTS OF MAGNA GRiCCIA. 
 
 fuch circumflances what effefts of art can be confidered as fur- 
 prifing? We fhall ceafe to wonder that fo many works of archi- 
 tefture, painting, and fculpture in all it's clafles came forth from 
 the patronage and the hands of fuch a people, and were carried 
 with great rapidity to the greatefl perfeftion. 
 
 CHAP. V. 
 
 The origin and general hijlory of the Grecian colonies in Italy 
 and Sicily, with reference to their culture — the principles of 
 Scythian theology carried with them from Greece, and preva- 
 lent in thefpirit of their arts — the evidences of their paintings, 
 in the befl periods, not very difiincl ; although circunifiances 
 encourage the prefumption that they mufl have been eminent 
 in that branch — their architecture mojl confummate, particu- 
 larly in the Doric order, of which the noblefi examples that 
 are to be found in the world are yet remaining there — many 
 of their larger works in fculpture carried off by conquerors, or 
 devaftated by convulfions of Nature — their coins and medals the 
 great monuments of their celebrity — their admirable difcretion 
 in the imprcfpons feleEled for many of their coins, or in their 
 manner of treating them, in order tofieio their origin, or cha- 
 raSler, or the local circwmfances of their fituation — Tarentum 
 and Syracufe the txoo great repofitorics of exquifite andfublime 
 genius in coins — the quejlion difciffed, whether that exquifte 
 and fublime genius, exhibited in either of thofe two Jiates, or 
 in Magna Grcecia in general, is to hefet down as an original 
 fourcc of art, independent of Greece. 
 
 Ancient Sicily, and the fea-coafts of Italy, muft next engage 
 our attention, before we go to ancient Rome ; becaufe, notwith- 
 
ARTS OF MAGNA GR^CIA. 
 
 409 
 
 {landing their vicinity to that city, their connexions with Greece 
 were among the firll which they made, their obligations to Greece 
 for enlightened knowledge were of courfe very early in their hif- 
 torv, at leafl in what is known of their hiflory ; and fb decided 
 were thofe conne6lions and thofe obligations, that the fettlements 
 which were formed there, no longer following the divifions or 
 names of the countries in which they were refpeclively fituated, 
 obtained from their native Greece one general denomination, 
 which fhewed their collective relation to it, bv the name of 
 " Magna Grxcia." * 
 
 It was the policy of the Greeks to relieve their own excelTivc 
 population at home, or it was the fpirit of adventuring indivi- 
 duals among them to feek new fources of wealth, by new colo- 
 nies formed along the countries now under our confideration. 
 They were not the firft ftrangers who came there, unlefs the Si- 
 cani were indigenous in Sicily, and unlefs the Cretans be confi- 
 dered as Greeks, who founded the colony of Oria in the Terra 
 di Otranto of Naples an hundred years before the Trojan warf. 
 But they fixed themfelves, as fome of the Trojans alio did, in 
 thofe countries immediately after the expiration of that war. 
 Were we to name the fettlements founded there about that time 
 by Diomed and others, it would be to relate the firft hiflory of 
 Argyripae, Sipontum, MetapontumJ, Petelia, Canufium, Bene- 
 ventum, Cuma, and Old Girgentum ; befides many other cities 
 
 * Strabo, lib. 6. p. 253. Cluver. Geograph. vol. 3. c. 30. 
 
 t Swinb. Two Sicilies, vol. 2. p. 93. 
 
 X This was built by the archite£l who conflrudled the Trojan horfe, Epeus Di- 
 crateus ; in veneration of whofe memory it is faid that the Metapontincs kept the 
 iron tools with which he made that horfe, as precious relics in the temple of Mi- 
 nerva. Plin. lib. 7. c. 56. Juftin, lib. 20. c. 2. 
 
 Vol. I. 3 G 
 
410 ARTS OF MAGNA GR^CIA. 
 
 which are fpoken of as exifling, and flourifhing too, before either 
 Rome or Carthage were heard of. 
 
 No fooner had thefe countries begun to fhew the free and in- 
 dependent flates whicli rofe up in thofe colonies, all of which 
 were formed on the fame freedom and independence of confti- 
 tution which they had left in the ftate from whence they came, 
 but the natives of Italy flocked in great numbers to participate of 
 their advantages, or to imitate their conduft by forming fettle- 
 ments of their own ; and thefe were followed by Phoenicians allu- 
 red by the profpeft of commerce. However, we muft not yet 
 confider Magna Grsecia as formed by thofe free and indepen- 
 dant colonies. It was between two and three centuries more, 
 after the heroic ages were paft, and when Greece was becoming 
 more meliorated and enlightened, that her citizens, urged on by 
 a more general fpirit of migration, and perhaps encouraged by 
 the parent ftate, gave the Grecian name, the Grecian language, 
 the Grecian manners, and all the circle of Grecian improve- 
 ments to be feen in more extended and thriving eftablifliments 
 throughout thofe countries. It is in \ain to name them all, which 
 would be to go through the whole coafts of fouthern Italy and 
 it's neighbouring ifland, at leaft to collect all the oldeft, the mofl; 
 flouriftiing, and moft celebrated cities in each, of which hiftory 
 has fpoken. Suffice it for the objeft of our prefent inquiry to 
 fpecify fome of the more confpicuous ftations, which reached a 
 more than ordinary celebrity of charafter, and derived that ce- 
 lebrity from the Greeks in the periods of this more general migra- 
 tion. 
 
 In the territory of Naples, Tarentum flood high ; the off"- 
 fpring and model of Sparta at firft, but afterwards mehorated. 
 
ARTS OF MAGNA GRvECIA. 4II 
 
 poliflied, and enlarged by the philofophy of Pythagoras ; fo that 
 it came to unite with it's natural fpirit of military prowefs the 
 cultivation of arts, and fciences, and traffic, and the habits of 
 all polite literature, which made it's fchools no lefs famous for 
 the learning that was raifed in them, than the (late itfelf was 
 famous for the policy with which it was governed, the armies 
 which it fent into the field, the fleets with which it covered the 
 feas, and the profperity which attended it for ages, till by 
 luxury and corruption all it's earlier good principles of govern- 
 ment and morals and found knowledge became perverted and 
 loft. 
 
 The republic of Sybaris had a charafter of it's own, in fome 
 refpefts a great one, in others a charafter which has been cen- 
 fured. If the poet or the orator, the piiilofopher or the fatyrift, 
 laflies the foft voluptuary, the unfortunate Sybarite becomes the 
 eftablifhed figure to his mind. And yet we are not affured beyond 
 reafonable diftruft, that the indulgences of that people, fo highly 
 piftured by thofe who were fure to draw a ftrong pifture when 
 they attempted to draw any, were more than what might be ob- 
 ferved in a thoufand cities, which have been lucky enough to 
 efcape that cenfure, when enriched by wealth flowing copioufly 
 upon them through the channels of commerce. It is not true 
 that the Sybaritans were univerfally effeminate, and facrificed 
 every thing to the pleafure of the prefent moment ; becaufe, 
 without great induftry, great ingenuity, and infinite attention, the 
 two rivers which enclofed their low peninfula could never have 
 been controuled in their courfe, and made falubrious to the people, 
 fertile to the lands, and regular vehicles of riches to the ftate ; 
 without an equal devotion to bufinefs, the warehoufes, and ftores, 
 and immenfe accommodations for traffic, which adorned the 
 
412 ARTS OF MAGNA GR^ECIA. 
 
 banks of thofe rivers, would neither have been raifed nor con- 
 flantly maintained. But indeed they had elegancies and tafle, 
 which in fome inflances were remarkable in their influence ; they 
 fetthe fafhion, in point of drefs, throughout Greece; their cooks, 
 embroiderers, and confe6lioners were famous over all the polite 
 world*. But tliey had alfo military glory, before the hafly 
 hour of their misfortune, equal to the wifdom for which their 
 councils were admired, and greater than the dominion which 
 they exercifed refpeftably over a confiderable country. 
 
 They founded, or they reflored and augmented, Paeftum : but 
 certainly not for the extraordinary perfume of it's double-blow- 
 ing rofest fo Angularly contrafted to the natural pernicioufnefsi' 
 of it's air from the quantity of fulphureous and ftagnaled waters 
 around it. The derivative colony role up into extenfive impor- 
 tance, and fhews by it's prefent ruins how much the fpirit of 
 Greece was cheriflied within it, although by it's great diftance 
 it's people were wont to confider themfelves as banifhed from 
 their native Grecian ftiores^. 
 
 The commonwealth of Locri, which was founded by Locrians 
 in Greece, and on the fcite of whofe city the prefent Gerace is 
 fuppofcd to Hand, not only became confiderable by it's territory 
 and it's force, but was beheld with admiring eyes by the furround- 
 ing people, and even by the mother-country, for the code of 
 laws which was given it by Zaleucus, and which was pronounced 
 to be a mafler-piece of legiflation. 
 
 * Swinburn's Two Sicilies, vol. 2. p. 154. 
 
 t Biferique rofaria Pasfli. Virg. Odorati lofaria Pasfti. Propert. 
 
 + Strabo and Martial take notice of this circumftance. 
 
 § Swinb. Two Sicilies, vol 3. p. 197. 
 
ARTS OF MAGNA GR^CIA. 413 
 
 In Sicily we might fpeak of Naxus, the oldelt colony in point 
 of time, if Strabo's opinion be right, that Zancle was founded 
 by thofe Naxians* ; which feems to be difputed by others, who 
 give the Zancleans from Euboea an antiquity as old as the age of 
 Ogyges f . We might fpeak of Leontium, now called Lentini, 
 which maintained to the lafl it's correfpondence with the mother- 
 country, and it's fidelity to her interefts ; and Catania, the fcene 
 of lb much various fortune, and of fuch repeated devaftation 
 from the neighbouring volcano. All thefe had the fame founders 
 in the Chalcidians of Eubjea. We might diftinguilh Medina, 
 whofe fertility of country and advantage of fituation have fo 
 often made it the objeft of invafion by commercial and enter- 
 prifing adventurers, fince the time when it received from it's ear- 
 lier mafters the citizens of Samos, and afterwards thofe of Mef- 
 fina. But it will be fufHcient to bring before the notice of the 
 reader the republic of Syracufe, the emanation of Corinthian 
 fpirit, which fooner or later abforbed in a manner the other co- 
 lonies which have been juft mentioned; that illuflrious Syracufe, 
 whofe annals were, in faft, thofe of the whole ifland in which it 
 flood ; and whole celebrity in all thofe atchievements of genius 
 and valour, which give fplendour to ftates, could only be equalled 
 by the mother-country from whence it had derived them all. 
 With refpect to the improvements of genius, it is not of Syracufe 
 alone, nor of the ftates in Sicily alone, that we are enabled to 
 fpeak in this manner. The greateft part of the colonies from 
 Greece attained to fuch excellence in arts and fciences as em- 
 boldened them frequently to vie with the ingenious and learned 
 in the country from whence they fprang J. 
 
 * Strabo Geog. lib. 6. 
 
 t Eufeb. Chron. lib. 2. See D'Ancarv. vol. 2. p. 44.3, 444, 451. 
 
 X Swinb. Two Sicilies, vol. 3. p. 264. 
 
414 ARTS OF MAGNA GR^CIA. 
 
 But before we proceed to the difcunion of thofe improvements 
 in arts which were made by thofe colonies, it will be proper to 
 fhew their participation in thofe fources of art, which gave the 
 firfl; dircftion to it's fpirit in Greece, and which are only to be 
 found in the principles of that emblematic theology which 
 fprang from the Scythians. 
 
 The ox with the human head, or the human head with fome 
 parts of the ox, which mufl be confidered as the firft germ and 
 flep of fculpture in the world, was common in the medals of all 
 thofe Grecian colonies*. Over that head, deftined to Bacchus, 
 the trident is often feen in Sicilian medals, as it is feen over the 
 head of the Tartarian Erlick-Han+. If the head of that em- 
 blematic ox was reprefented by fome defcendants of the Scythians 
 upon a battle-ax, he was reprefented in thofe Greek colonies 
 upon a fpear, both having taken that idea from the Scythians, 
 who carried that emblem before them in all their expeditions, 
 and regarded it as the emblem of the god of armies J. 
 
 The worfhip of the ferpent was as current in all thofe Grecian 
 colonies as at Athens §. 
 
 Figures of Pan in bronze, of that kind which meets the cha- 
 raftcr given him by the Scythians, or by the Pelafgi, have been 
 dug up from the ruins of Herculaneum||, and clearly demonftrate 
 how llrongly the principles of Scythian theology, in all it's va- 
 rious afpefts, had become combined with the arts of Magna 
 Graecia**. 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 144, 173, 193, 431, 432. Vol. 2. p. 113. 
 
 t Ibid. vol. I. p. 463. X Ibid. p. 266, note. § Ibid. p. 485. 
 
 II Bronzi di Ercolano, vol. 2- p. 383, 385. 
 
 ** D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 303, 312, 327. 
 
ARTS OF MAGNA GR^CIA. 4IC 
 
 Figures refembling thofe of Indian and Chinefe idols have 
 been dug up from the fame ruins. And nothing can be more 
 certain than that thefe were never obtained by immediate commu- 
 nication with either of thofe nations, but by the diffufion of thofe 
 common principles of theology, which had made their way to 
 Greece, and from thence to her colonies *. 
 
 The reader will recolleft what has already been faid concerning 
 the flower or the leaf of the tamara or lotus, as the fymbol of 
 divinifation employed by the Afiatic nations, and alfo by the 
 Greeks, after the example of the Scythians. It is remarkable 
 that in many religious monuments of Greece the facred fire is 
 feen fupported by that leaff , although that union of flame with 
 an aquatic plant may appear quite unnatural, without the folu- 
 tion afforded by it's fymbolic meaning. The fame plant was alfo 
 employed in Greece, as it had been in fomeof the Afiatic na- 
 tions, and particularly in Tartary+, as an ornament to pedeftals 
 of metal on which were placed the ftatues of divinities. Thefe 
 things had all found their way into Magna Graecia. Among the 
 bronzes difcovered at Herculaneum were fonie of thofe pedefials 
 adorned with that plant §. 
 
 In the firft coins of thofe colonies wrought in thofe humble 
 periods when they were cafl in lead, the obolary or obelifca] 
 monies, which derived their name and their figure, as we have 
 already feen, from a primary principle in the Scythian theology, 
 were in eflabliflied ufe ; and when in procefs of time monies 
 came to be cafl in more precious metals at Syracufe, fuch was the 
 prejudice for the retention of thofe primitive forms, and for the 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 135, 136. t Ibid. p. iii, note. 
 
 ^ Voy. to Siberia, vol. i. pi. 2t. § D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. m. 
 
4l6 ARTS OF MAGNA GR^CIA. 
 
 principles connefted with them, that thofe obelifcal coins were 
 occafionally employed there fo late as the year 413 before the 
 Chriflian aera*. 
 
 It is curious to fee the origin of a cuftom, which prevailed 
 as much in thofe colonies as in Greece itfelf, and to which there 
 is no doubt that we mufl: alhgn the lofs of an infinite quantity of 
 thofe colonial coins and medals, important to the elucidation of 
 their hiftory and their arts. The cuftom we mean was that of in- 
 terring coins in the tombs of the dead, and fometimes of putting 
 them in the mouths of the deceafed +, as a payment to Charon ;. 
 which was a continuation of the principles, and only a fmall va- 
 riation on the praftice, eftabliflied among the Indians, who buried 
 pieces of money near the ftone on which they had burned their 
 dead ; for they did not inter them unburnt. That ftone, called 
 by them " Aritchandren," anfwered to the Charon of the Greeks 
 both in the mother-country and in the colonies J. 
 
 Thefe fafts are fufficient to conneft with all thofe colonies the 
 progrefs of thofe Scythian principles, which we have feen pre- 
 valent in the fpirit of the arts in every quarter of the world thro' 
 which we have paffed. We fhall now inquire more clofely into 
 the progrefs which thofe arts, or any of them, appear to have 
 made in the moll: brilliant of thofe colonies. 
 
 Much darknefs is undoubtedly thrown over this inquiry by the 
 almoft univerfal ruin wdiich has covered the greateft part of thofe 
 
 * D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 14, 15, 19, 20, 21. 
 
 + Lucian de Lu£l. p. 430. Svvinb. Two Sicilies, vol. 4. p. 93. 
 :j: Sonnerat's Voy. vol. i. p. 90. D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 443. Vol. 2. p. 41, 46, 
 47. 94, 175- 
 
ARTS OF MAGNA GR^C FA. Alj 
 
 Grecian fettlements ; fo that we mufl be content to form our 
 views on thofe fcattered hints which are fupplied by cafual cir- 
 cumftances, or by the remains of more durable art which time 
 has left to us. The works of the pencil muft have met a feverer 
 fate than any others. In the earlier ages of thofe ftates it cannot 
 be thought that any fuch works were produced among them with 
 confiderable merit. The epoch, which hiftory has given for the 
 general eflablifhment of thofe ftates, is between 700 and 800 
 years before the Chriftian aera ; much about the time which pro- 
 duced the pifture of Bularchus in Greece. If the reader recol- 
 lefts the obfervations which have been made on that picture, 
 and on the ftate of painting at that time in Greece ; and if 
 he calls to mind the affertion of Pliny, that " before the time 
 " of Apollodorus there was no painting in that country worthy 
 " to detain the eye-," it will fliorten at once any difcuffion on the 
 ftate of the pencil within the fame periods in Magna Gra^cia, even 
 if we could fuppofe that in the earlier days of their new fituation 
 they had leifure, and inclination, and encouragement to ftudy 
 it's improvements. But certainly the difficulties, with which 
 thofe adventurers muft contend for a confiderable time, were 
 equal to all the public difficulties and depreffions which retarded 
 the exertions of the arts in the mother-country for more than 
 200 years from the age of that Bularchus to their revival after 
 the defeat of Xerxes. 
 
 In procefs of time it is natural to conclude, that when the 
 colonies of Magna Graecia became eafy, and eftabliffied, and 
 profperous, their painters would rife with thofe public advanta- 
 ges. It is faid, but with what truth we know not, that Zeuxis 
 was a native of Heraclea in Magna Graecia ; and it is certain 
 that many of his capital works were placed in the cities of that 
 
 Vol. I. 3H 
 
^l8 ARTS or MAGNA GRiECIA. 
 
 country.* But no evidences havearifen to fhew that he formed 
 his pencil there, or that he painted there in the days of his fame. 
 Thofe capital works might be done for fome of thofe cities, or 
 they might be given as prefents, when he would no longer fell 
 his piftures, as we know that he gave his Alcmena to the people 
 of Affrio-entum i, and fome other pictures to other dates. It 
 cannot, however, be doubted, that the emulation of the pencil 
 which was diftinguifhed in him, and the encouragement of it 
 which was (hewn in thofe cities, had formed other painters in 
 Magna Graecia to confiderable powers in their art, although not 
 equal to thofe which were reached by him, and although their 
 names have been loft to the world. 
 
 In the triumph of Marcellus at Rome paintings were exhibited 
 among the exquifite treafures of art which he had brought from 
 Sicily X- It is quite as reafonable to prefume that, at leaft, many 
 of thofe paintings were the works of mafters in Magna Graecia, 
 as that they had been collecled from the mother-country. And 
 if it be faid, that the Romans were then no judges of good paint- 
 ino-s, and that they were fure to admire thofe performances as 
 the fpoils of a conquered enemy, without any reference to their 
 real merit ; yet the mind of the mature, the refined, the accom- 
 plilhed Marcellus, muft not be fet down as fo deficient in ele- 
 gant difcernment ; nor does either the fele6lion which he made 
 of thofe fpoils, or his boaft to the Greeks that he had given to 
 his countrymen the firft impreffions of tafte, by prefenting thofe 
 works to their view§, look as if he himfelf was quite devoid of 
 that tafte ; at any rate, it is not likely that the paintings he 
 
 * Swinb. vol. 2. 130. t Plut. vita Marcelli. 
 
 t Plin. lib. 35. e.g. § Plut. ibid. 
 
ARTS OF MAGNA GR^CIA. 4I9 
 
 brought were not the choiceft in Magna Graecia, as nothing could 
 be more eafy for him, whatever was the meafure of his own tafte 
 and judgement, to find his way to thofe which were mod ap- 
 proved. 
 
 The frefco-paintings, which have been cut out from the walls 
 of Herculaneum, and Pompeii, and Stabia, and which are now 
 preferved at Portici, are no proofs of what was done by the pencil 
 in thofe days when Magna Graecia was more independent, and the 
 arts more brilliant through all the ftates connefted with Greece. 
 Thofe paintings were ail, mod probably, done under the Ro- 
 man power, although by Greek artifts either refident there, 
 or called from Greece, as we have already obferved. At the 
 two former of thofe places we may almofl be certain, that thofe 
 paintings were not many years old when they were buried by that 
 dreadful eruption of Vefuvius in the jgih year of our sera ; be- 
 caufe fixteen years preceding that event thofe cities were almofl 
 equally deftroyed by an earthquake*. Yet from thofe paintings 
 we may reafon in fome degree to the point now before us. We 
 have already fpoken of the great accuracy and corretlnefs of de- 
 fign difplayed in their figures. If fo much capacity was retained 
 in a period, when both Pliny and Petronius fay " the powers of 
 " the pencil were gone t", what muft thofe ftates have afforded 
 in the art, in their more fhining days ? But the colouring of thofe 
 works, and alfo of the ornaments traced by the pencil on the walls 
 and cielings, has been confidered as inferior, as gaudy, glaring, 
 and too ftrongj. To thofe who have been accuftomed to oil- 
 
 * Tacitus Ann. lib. 15. c. 22. Senec. Nat. Qua:ft. lib. 6. c. i. 
 
 t Plin. lib. 35. c. I. Petron. Arbit. Satyric. p. 320. 
 
 % Swinb. Two Sicilies, vol. i. p. 129. Vol. 3. p. 151, 154. 
 
420 ARTS OF MAGNA GR^CIA. 
 
 paintings, which will always expofe more of muddinefs, per- 
 haps in the moft accomplifhed hands, than the clearer colours 
 employed by the ancients in works of frefco, thefe lafl may very 
 probably appear too glaring and fliowy. If they were not ftrong 
 in one fenfe, they would ill befit the ground that was to imbibe 
 them, and would have infured to themfelves a very perifhable 
 effeft. Admitting thofe ftriftures on their colouring to be right, 
 that colouring leads us perhaps more directly to the circle in 
 which many of thole artifts were found, and certainly to the 
 conclufion that thofe, who were many ages before them, mull 
 have been more accomplifhed. The management of colouring 
 is a circumflance, which, if it does not always difcriminate be- 
 tween provincial works and thofe which are done in the great 
 meridian of a country, yet fliews as much as any thing the differ- 
 ence between a meridian age and one that has long fince 
 paffed it. 
 
 Architefture was fure to engage their earlieft attention, becaufe 
 it's ufes were indifpenfible both to their convenience and magni- 
 ficence ; and time has not robbed us of all the knowledge which 
 we fliould naturally be curious to obtain concerning this part of 
 their taft e. No where within the influence or the connexions of 
 Greece was the fpirit of architefture more completely Grecian 
 than in thofe colonies. They appear to have been extremely 
 attentive in this matter, mofl chafle in their principles, mofl de- 
 cidedly jult to the fpirit of the order, and moft happy in the 
 produftion of a magnificence radically genuine, being conftituted 
 on fimplicity of plan, folidity in proportions, and greatnefs of 
 component parts. Purfuing thefe principles of original gran- 
 deur, which were undoubtedly the firft that were purfued by the 
 Greeks, they raifed in the Doric order thofe monuments^ whkh 
 
ARTS OF MAGNA GR.ECIA. «J21 
 
 even in their ruins are fuperb; but where they remain confiderably 
 entire, they imprefs the mind, which is accuflomed to refleft 
 on the true fources of majeflic dignity, with a veneration which 
 cannot be drawn forth, or made lafting, where the fimple and 
 the folid are loft in richnefs, and where a luxuriance of drefs en- 
 gages the imagination at the expence of the judgement. 
 
 At Paeftum is difplayed the true Grecian folidity, and majefty 
 of tafte, in that order. Few cities have left fuch noble proofs of 
 their magnificence, fuch monuments of their architecture*. There, 
 befides another edifice in the nobleft ftyle of the Doric order, is 
 a moft illuftrious example of the Pfeudodipteros in a temple 
 whofe parts are almoft entire, and which may be fet down as one 
 of the grandeft monuments of antiquity now left, and the rareft 
 in it's kind, Metapontum indeed, out of all the great works 
 which diftinguifhed it's opulence when a colony of the Pylians, 
 has but two rows of columns, and part of an architrave left. 
 But no where does the original fimplicity of the Doric order ap- 
 pear more genuine than in thofe fcanty remains +. 
 
 At Agrigentum, whofe people were faid to have built for eter- 
 nity J, and whofe ftate was only crufhed by the general fall of 
 Grecian liberty, other majeftic remains of priftine opulence and 
 Doric architecture are to be feen, although much in ruins, ex- 
 cept in the temple which is commonly called that of Concord, 
 and which undoubtedly was of priftine conftru6lion, exhibiting 
 to this day it's columns, entablature, pediments, and walls entire, 
 
 * Swinb. Two Sicilies, vol. 3. p. 198. 
 
 t Ibid. vol. 2. p. 118. 
 
 X This was the faying of the philofopher Empedocles a natire of Agrigentum. 
 
^22 ARTS OF MAGNA GRiECIA. 
 
 with the lofs only of part of the roof*. Of the tomb of Thero, 
 as it is there called, we know not what to fpeak, but that it 
 feems impoffible to have been the work of ancient Greeks, from 
 whofe hands a confufion of ornaments and proportions, a Doric 
 entablature crowning Ionic pilafters, never came unlefs it were 
 in that one inftance, whofe general elegance in it's form and 
 ftyle is hardly fufficient to give it a Grecian origin. 
 
 It is to be lamented that the temple, which of all others among 
 the edifices of antiquity in that part of the world was moft in- 
 terefting to the curiofity of modern ages, I mean that of the 
 Olympian Jupiter, is ftill to be looked for, as to it's minuter 
 description, in the pages of Diodorus Siculus. Of thofe gigan- 
 tic remains hardly one ftone is left upon another, although with 
 fome inveftigation the general tafte of the edifice has been pretty 
 well afcertained, and fome proportions of it's columns, which 
 lead in fome meafure by their analogy to reafonable conjeftures 
 on the proportions of the whole +, 
 
 Syracufe, if we are to reafon from that univerfal magnificence 
 which left no equal to itfelf in Sicily, (hould have furnidied to 
 fubfequent ages by far the moft numerous monuments of ancient 
 architefture and opulence, and certainly would have done fo, if 
 the meafure of devaftation through all the fucceffions of it's fate 
 keeping pace with the meafure of it's greatnefs had not over- 
 whelmed thofe monuments, and left the greateft part of that moft 
 fplendid city at one time to become the habitation of wild beafts 
 and birds of the night. At prefent, the ancient Temple of Mi- 
 nerva, a Doric conftruftion, on the fummit of which her ftatue 
 
 * Swinb. Two Sicilies, vol. 4. p. 19. + Ibid. p. 24. 
 
ARTS OF MAGNA GR^CIA. 
 
 423 
 
 was fixed holding a broad refulgent fliield, is become the cathe- 
 dral of the city, after it had been much curtailed by dilapidations, 
 again reduced by an earthquake, and laft of all marred by new 
 and incongruous fupplements of modern architedure. Some re- 
 mains there are, but few, of another ancient temple to Diana. 
 And thefe are all which appear to have been left from the ftu- 
 pendous ereftions of their Grecian forefathers in that once cele- 
 brated city. 
 
 In all thofe ancient remains the diligent and educated obfer- 
 ver will find many things to excite his admiration, and inftruft his 
 mind. He will find more abundant proofs, and more curious 
 ones too, than are afforded elfewhere, of that order in it's original 
 circumftances : he will find the true principles of architefture 
 in general on an enlarged fcale, that it owes it's grandeur to fim- 
 plicity, and to a fyftem of few parts. He will find, in confe- 
 quence, that prevalent fimplicity of ftyle every where cheriflied ; 
 and yet without a tamenefs of fimilarity in all things, and with- 
 out thofe conftant fhackles of rule, which if invariably followed 
 would lead to littlenefs, and deftroy great compofitions ; or at 
 leafl; would deftroy the effeft of differing defigns. While the 
 great principles of the order are maintained, he will find ingeni- 
 ous variations in fome of the parts, as in the fhape of the capital, 
 the fliape of the column, and the fhape of the plinth ; in fome 
 inftances he will find a reafonable and ufeful latitude taken, as in 
 the Pfeudodipteros at Paeflum, where the architeft extended his 
 metopes in breadth, in order to place the triglpyhs at the corner ; 
 and in other inftances he will meet with novelties, as in the tem- 
 ple of Olympian Jupiter at Agrigentum, where the columns on 
 the outfide were let half into the walls, the infide exhibiting a 
 plain furface. At the fame time he will generally find a fyftem 
 
424 ARTS OP MAGNA GR^CIA. 
 
 of proportion purfued throughout the country, and what may be 
 called without difrefpeft a kind of provincial adherence to ftyie 
 in fome things, as in the giving a cella and a perj'ftile to all the 
 temples, except that of the Olympian Jupiter, which being 
 erefted to the fupreme deity of Paganifm might be fuppofed to 
 differ eflentially in it's defign from the reft *. 
 
 Great and noble as the difplay of architefture was in thofe co- 
 lonies, we (hall fee them attaining a ftill higher celebrity in the 
 branches of fculpture. Nor let this be thought extraordinary, 
 on the fuppofition that their paintings were inferior. The advan- 
 ces of fculpture will ever be found to have been earlier than 
 thofe of painting, to have frequently led the way to the latter, and 
 often to have lafted for fome time when the latter has been loft 
 to a country. And the reafon is not more difficult to be affigned 
 than the faft. The ufes of fculpture, or at leaft the elegancies 
 of it, meet our inclinations in various ways ; it has therefore 
 more candidates to encourage it, and confequently more to be- 
 come mafters of it's art. 
 
 In thofe colonies the greater and the more bulky works of 
 fculpture, which were not carried off" by the Roman conquerors, 
 nor devaftated by the Saracens, were moft likely to be buried 
 along with the buildings in which they ftood, and the ground it- 
 felf which fuftained them, by the convulfions to which that part 
 of the globe has always been fubjeft. And fuch has been the 
 cafe, in fa6f. A more complete defolation than was experienced 
 by thofe colonies, in all that the zeal and perfeverance of fculp- 
 tural ingenuity had been accumulating for ages, never happened 
 
 * Swinb. Two Sicilies, vol. 4. p. 25. 
 
ARTS OF MAGNA GR^CIA. 425 
 
 on the face of the earth. At Beneventum indeed the fragments of 
 ancient fculpture are many *, exceeding what any other Italian 
 city except Rome can boaft of; and when we have feen thofe, and 
 what other fculptures have been refcued from ancient ruins, and 
 are now preferved at Portici and in the Studii at Naples, we have 
 no more to expeft, unlefs in thofe works which are handed down 
 to us in the coins of thofe refpeftive flates. 
 
 Thofe coins indeed have met a happier fate ; infomuch that we 
 are able to afcertain, with great exaftnefs, perhaps every differ- 
 ent fpecies, with all their refpeftive characters, which belonged 
 to any of thofe flates. And it was not in any other parts of fculp- 
 ture that a higher celebrity was attained than in thofe coins. 
 Many of them carry as exquifite proofs of genius and fkill as were 
 ever (hewn in that clafs of art on the face of the earth. In them 
 the beautiful forms, the fine contour, the elegant attitude, the 
 wonderful expreflion, which were fo peculiarly emulated and 
 reached by the Greeks, were as highly confpicuous as in any of 
 the larger fculptures which came from their hands. There were 
 diflinftions indeed in their merit, as it would be ftrange if there 
 were not among fo many flates ; and for thofe diflin6lions it is 
 not always eafy to account, as the lead meritorious are not al- 
 ways found where the fewell proofs of the fine arts have exifled. 
 At Pseflum the medals were exceedingly inferior to thofe of many 
 other flates in Magna Graecia, and greatly degenerated in fa6l 
 from Grecian llcill ; while their architefture, as we have feen, 
 was Grecian perfeftion itfelft. In fome of thofe flates the coins 
 alfo bear the marks of greater antiquity than in others ; and 
 among thofe marks the being incufi, that is, convex one fide, 
 
 * Swinb. Two Sicilies, vol. 2. p. 336. t Ibid. vol. 3. p. 198. 
 
 Vol. I. 3 I 
 
426 ARTS OF MAGNA GR^CIA. 
 
 and concave on the reverfe, is confidered as one to be depended 
 on ; fuch are the coins of Sybaris, and Caulon, and fome of 
 thofe of Croton and of Metapontuin, which were among the firft 
 colonies formed by the Greeks in Italy*. 
 
 In all thofe colonies one decided adherence to propriety and 
 good fenfe was retained, amidfl all the variety of images which 
 fiiperftition, or accident, or fancy gave for impreffions on their 
 coins. By their general adherence to the emblem peculiarly ap- 
 propriated to themfelves, or by their manner of treating it, they 
 delivered to poflerity the primary features of their own charac- 
 ter, or thofe of their fituation, the origin from which they arofe, 
 or the ftages of antiquity which they wiflied to mark. Thus in 
 the early monies of Catana, fome of which are flill exifling, and 
 reprefent the double oboli united by their bafes, and fo forming 
 the figure of an acorn lengthened at it's extremities, that people 
 engraved their name lengthway on the oboli, intending by that 
 praftice to give the reference of their origin to the Athenians 
 who had done the fame+. The horfe and the rider, fo frequent 
 on the coins of the Tarentines, tell thofe, whom other records 
 might never reach, the charafteriftic dexterity of that people in 
 horfemanfliip, and efpecially in battle, to which every cavalier 
 went with two horfes;]:. The Metapontines gloried in hufbandry, 
 and in the fruitfulnefs of their foil ; and they told it to all the 
 world in the ear of corn, or in the head of Ceres, on their coins^. 
 The Sybarites owed all their profperity (what a pity that they 
 fhould at lad owe their deftruftion alfo !) to their river which 
 
 * Swinb, Two Sicilies, vol. 2 p. 121, 151, 189, 221. 
 
 + Jul. Polluc. Onomaft. lib. 9. c. 6. D'Ancarv. vol. i. p. 14, 15, 19. 
 
 X Swinb. Two Sicilies, vol. 2. p. 97, 99. 
 
 § Ibid. p. 120. 
 
ARTS OF MAGNA GR.ECIA. 427 
 
 they had with great pains fubdued, and which they very well 
 recorded by the bull with his head turned back upon his flioul- 
 der*. The people of Croton immortalized their relation, or 
 their fuppofed relation, to Hercules by his figure ftrangling the 
 lioni. Thofe of Leontium recorded the truth or the fable, that 
 wheat grew wild in their country, by the ears or grains of that 
 cornj. And thofe of Agrigentum marked the towering fpirit 
 which left them for fome time no fuperior throughout Sicily, 
 Syracufe excepted, by the eagle devouring all things within 
 it's reach and within it's power in the elements around it, fome- 
 times the fowls of the air, fometimes leffer animals that creep 
 or run on the earth, and fometimes the fifhes of the feas §. 
 The objefts of the Syracufans were too high and multifarious to 
 be exprefTed by any one emblem, and therefore their coins 
 abound with all that is grand in idea to a martial, a naval, and 
 an exalted people ||. MefTma took it's name long after the reft, 
 being fo called by Anaxilas the tyrant of Rhegium, who was 
 a native of Meffene in Peloponnefus, and feized upon this colony. 
 Before that event it was called Zancle ; and there appear to be 
 coins incufi, while it went by that name. On the change of it's 
 denomination, it's coins of courfe took a new title, and a new 
 device, undoubtedly to record it's firft connexion with Anaxilas. 
 But what was that device ? It will appear a very fmgular one, 
 and yet it difcovers great dexterity to evade the direft acknow- 
 ledgement of their own fubjeftion. Anaxilas is faid to have 
 brought the firft hares into Sicily, and to have favoured the 
 Meftinians in the firft inftance with that breed : that animal ac- 
 
 * Swinb. Two Sicilies, vol. 2. p. 151. + Ibid. p. 189. 
 
 X Ibid. vol. 4. p. 66, 67. § Ibid. p. 4. ft Ibid. p. 74—86. 
 
|28 ARTS OF MAGNA GR^CIA. 
 
 cordingly obtained a place in their fubfequent coins, almofl 
 without an exception*. 
 
 At Tarentum the moft brilliant fituation in the Italian part of 
 Magna Graecia, and at Syracufe the predominant power of 
 Sicily, our inquiries will be fufficiently fatisfied of that exquifite 
 tafte and (kill which the Grecian genius was capable of bringing 
 forth upon coins. Thofe were the two great repofitories of art 
 which created the greateft notice of the Romans, and firft opened 
 their eyes upon thofe elegant works. If there has been any 
 general fuperiority in the coins of either, it has been thought to 
 preponderate in favour of the latter. " Beyond thofe of Syra- 
 c' cufe," fays the Abbe Winkelman, " no mortal idea can got". 
 "Whether Raphael, in the forming of his mind to the fublime from 
 the fludy of the ancients, ever faw thofe coins, or not, it is im- 
 poffible to fay : if he had not feen them, certainly there was but 
 a fcarcity of beauty before him in that ftudy, as the befl flatues, 
 Laocoon excepted, were not then difcovered ; and fo much the 
 greater mufl have been the ftrength of his own mind, fo much the 
 more muft it have been endowed by Nature with a fenfe of 
 beauty, in it's fublimeft views, when he was capable of rifing fo near 
 to a level with the Greeks from fo little of their works which was 
 afforded to his contemplation. He complained indeed of that fcar- 
 city of beauty : but that complaint would have been needlefs on aa 
 enlarged acquaintance with the coins of Syracufe, or of Taren- 
 tum, or of the other free-ftates in general. In thofe coins the forms 
 are above Nature, or they are fuch as Nature mufl be peculiarly 
 affembled to create. In fa6l, they flowed from the Grecian mind, 
 matured and elevated to that creation, as fpontaneoufly and na- 
 
 * Swinb. Two Sic. vol. 4. p. 155, 196, 197. t Inftrufl. for the Connoifleur. 
 
ARTS OF MAGNA GR.ECIA. 429 
 
 turally as every elegance, which the clay receives, proceeds 
 from the hands of the potter. 
 
 Were the Syracufans then, or the Tarentines, or any other 
 of thofe free-ftates, original in thefe powers of art? Are we to 
 confider them as a new and independent fource, from which the 
 fine arts have flowed, or only as contributing to extend and en- 
 large the great fource of thofe arts which refted in Greece ? 
 When we are doing juftice to the claims of any people for a 
 ftiare in the progrefs of thofe arts, this queflion is entitled to 
 fome difcuflion. It cannot be advanced that colonics muft for 
 ever be indebted to their mother-country for every progrefs in 
 knowledge which they fhall make, and that they can never be 
 conlidered as original in any of thofe cultivations which may be 
 fliared by the country from which they came. Still the determi- 
 nation of this point will reft very much on the nature of the 
 knowledge or fcience in which they have become confpicuous, 
 and on the circumftances around them which may be fairly 
 conceived to effefl their progrefs in that knowledge or fcience. 
 To fpeak more clofely. It is true, that in a part of thofe Gre- 
 cian colonies great originality was manifefted in the fcience of 
 phyfic and furgery. Democides was the firft who dared to am- 
 putate a limbj in order to fave a life*. And this might very 
 well happen, without being indebted to the mother-country, 
 becaufe it was to be acquired by ftudy, rightly direfted, and 
 accurately confirmed by anatomical refearches, which in any 
 part of the earth would have been attended with the fame fuc- 
 cefs. If Pythagoras was not a native of Croton, at leaft that 
 was his fixed place of refidence after his travels, and there was 
 
 * Swinb. Two Sicilies, vol. 2. p. i88. t Ibid. 
 
430 ARTS OF MAGNA GRJECIA. 
 
 his fchool. It is faid,* that from him came the difcovery of that 
 difpofition in the folar fyflem, which with feme modifications 
 has been revived by Copernicus, and is now univerfally received 
 as mod agreeable to Nature and experiment. And in this he 
 certainly might be perfedly original without the help of Greece, 
 becaufe it was to be gathered from ftudy, and from that com- 
 prehenfive and clofe inveftigation of philofophic principles, to 
 which not Greece could lead him, but the mundane fyflem. 
 In many other circumflances of virtuous and of valorous enter- 
 prize, if fuch in any ftage of perfedlion can at any time be called 
 original, fome of thofe colonifls went far beyond the general 
 race of Greeks in the mother-country. They carried the Olym- 
 pic prizes before others, and it was a common proverb, that the 
 firft of the Greeks was the lafl of the Crotoniatest. 
 
 But there is no parallel between thefe cafes, or any others that 
 depend on ftudy and refearch, and that of the elegant arts. No 
 man can throw himfelf into a corner of the earth, or into a pub- 
 lic part of it where thofe arts are not familiarly feen, and be- 
 come a great mafter of their perfeftions, although there fhould 
 happen to be fome well qualified to inftruft him. He muft have 
 thofe arts before his eyes, he muft converfe with the firft ma- 
 fters, and muft have time to contemplate the various circum- 
 flances which entered into the compofition and perfeftions of 
 individual works, and which nothing but a perfonal infpeftion 
 can give him. By thofe means he may indeed go beyond the 
 men whofe works he contemplates, and may become another 
 Corregio in new powers. But without thofe means and oppor- 
 tunities he can do nothing. Without thofe means and oppor- 
 
 * Swinb. TwQ Sicilies, vol. 2, p. i88. t Ibid. 
 
ARTS OF MAGN'A GRMCtA. 43I 
 
 tunities the fine arts have never been difFufed nor acquired in the 
 ^vorld, fince the time when by human inftitution or divine fug- 
 geftion their firit principles were caught. The Egyptians were 
 trained by the progrefs which the Afiatics had made before them ; 
 the Greeks were led on to greater fkill by the Egyptians, and 
 their works ; and every nation, which has fince cultivated thofe 
 arts, has been formed more or lefsby the works of the Greeks. 
 
 But it may be faid, that Greece itfelf was confelTedly original 
 in the powers to which it carried the fine arts, although it had 
 been trained by the Egvptians : and why then, it may be alked, 
 fhould not the free-ftates of Magna Graecia be confidered as ori- 
 ginal too, although we fuppofe them to have been trained at firft 
 by their native Greece, fmce they afterwards carried thofe arts to 
 the moft exquifite refinement in fome of their branches, at a great 
 diftance from thofe to whom they were originally allied ? 
 
 This argument will beft be feparated by the following quef- 
 tion : what powers of originality, fay particularly in fculpture, 
 did thofe free-ftates or any of them exhibit ? 
 
 So far as they were able to produce Avhat was never produced 
 in Greece, nay, fo far as they were able in ftyle to go beyond 
 what the Greeks have reached, let them be fet down as afting on 
 original genius. But there was no power difplayed in their coins, 
 which was not to be feen in the fculptures of Greece. All that 
 exquifite combination of genius and fkill difplayed in thofe coins, 
 " beyond which no mortal idea can go," was found equally 
 great in the beft fculptures of their native countr)'. 
 
 It is important in this cafe to know, that in the firft procefs of 
 
432 ARTS OF MAGNA GR^ECIA. 
 
 their coinage for the obtaining of an impreflion by engraving 
 formed in a mould, neither Italy nor Sicily knew any thing of 
 that matter until it was communicated to them from Greece by 
 Janus, who brought a colony into Italy 1363 years before our 
 a^ra *. Not one of the Grecian colonies in thofe countries, ex- 
 cept it were Zancle, was founded whhin 500 years after that 
 period : and fome time before they were founded, the art of 
 ftriking gold and filver coins was difcovered in Greece by Phidon 
 of Argos, 895 years before Jefus Chrift, and 137 years before 
 the fettlement of Syracufef. Zancle, being much older than 
 the reft in it's foundations, was more forward than all of them 
 in that method of ftriking it's coins after the difcovery of 
 Phidon; for it appears to have ftruck them in 32 years after that 
 difcovery, that is, 863 years before our aera J. Sicily therefore 
 may be acknowledged to have obtained that art before Italy, 
 but certainly not before Greece. And in the more comprehen- 
 five execution of their fculpture, whether on thofe coins or 
 otherwife, it ftiould be remembered that fifty years before Sy- 
 racufe was founded, the coffer of Cypfelus had been wrought at 
 Corinth ; — that coffer, which had reached the exemplification 
 of ideal beauty, and was equal to any of the fculptures of Italy 
 in the 15th century. We are therefore to confider the progrels 
 of art in Corinth, of which Syracufe was an emanation, as 
 carried into Sicily by thofe who founded that colony, and as 
 forming it's tafte in the very firft inftance. 
 
 If any of the exquifite coins of Tarentum or Syracufe can be 
 proved to be the produftions of ages in which the Grecian fculp- 
 ture was known to be inferior, then let thofe ftates by all means 
 
 • D'Aancarv. vol. i. p. 33, 3+, 439> 440- 
 
 t Ibid. vol. 2. p. 397, 435> 437> 44i>448, 449- 
 
 X Ibid. p. 443* 
 
ARTS OF MAGNA GR^CIA. 433 
 
 be fet down as afting on original genius, and let us at once re- 
 verfe our ideas, and no longer confider thofe ftates as helped and 
 trained by Greece in the elegancies of polite art, but Greece 
 herfelf as meliorated by thofe ftates, and deriving confiderable 
 elegance from them. If, for inftance, it could be proved that 
 any of the accompliflied coins of Syracufe were done long be- 
 fore the time of Gelo, it would change very much the fhape of 
 our argument, although we Ihould not forget that the very firft 
 principles of fculpture, which were given to Sicily, were brought 
 there by Daedalus, who did many works both as a fculptor and 
 an architeft for Cocalus then king of that ifland. But the hif- 
 tory of Syracufe is univerfallv obfcure for the two firft ages that 
 elapfed between it's foundation and the time of Gelo. Thofe 
 ages feem to have been employed ia the cultivation of domeftic 
 ftrength, fecurity, and profperity, rather than in fcenes of external 
 policy or ambition, till that great defender arofe, who firft gave 
 the Syracufans to know their real power and importance by de- 
 featino^ the Carthaginians, the allies of that Perfian monarch who 
 was then gone forth to overthrow their mother-country. Here 
 therefore was the epoch, from which Syracufe began to be ac- 
 quainted with great events. The ingenuity of a people, fuccefs- 
 ful in great events, naturally rifes with the advantages that 
 follow. It is not improbable, that whatever proofs that inge- 
 nuity might have given of itfelf in the earlier periods of their 
 hiftory, it became winged with new fpirit to exert itfelf in the 
 growing renown of the countr)'. But then mark the connexion 
 of things : chronology will often throw the beft light on caufes 
 and events. Gelo was cotemporary with Phidias, or, there were 
 not ten years at moft between the period of fame to each. The 
 deliverance of Syracufe from the Carthaginians was on the fame 
 day with the battle of Thermopylae, in Greece, which preceded 
 Vol. I. 3 K 
 
434 ARTS OF MAGNA GR^ECIA. 
 
 only by a few months the total defeat of the Perfians. If the artifts 
 of Greece, on it's dehverance from Xerxes, felt the encourage- 
 ments (as we have already fhewn they did) which pufhed them 
 forward to every energy of which they M'ere capable ; why might 
 not the fimilar fortune of Syracufe, at the fame moment of time, 
 and fpringing from the fame caufe, produce the fameeflfefts there, 
 and become the aera of life to the arts of that city ? 
 
 But did the arts then in either country become fo great at 
 once ? No. That was impolfible. The Jupiter of Phidias was 
 the produftion of efforts which the Greeks had been making (as 
 we have already fliewn) for 200 years from the time when fculp- 
 ture had begun to affume fome portions of merit, Thofe artifts 
 therefore had been working their way to perfeftion from the 
 period (to go no further back) in which Syracufe was founded. 
 
 Whatever was the precife progrefs of fculpture among the 
 Greeks at that period, fhall it be fuppofed that the emigrants, 
 who founded that city, were then more perfeft in fculpture than 
 their brethren whom they left in Greece ? If in the long inter- 
 val of time between that period and the age of Gelo, it be faid 
 that the Syracufans had acquired very confiderable merit in that 
 art; fo had the Greeks too, for the principles and the efforts of tafte 
 had then been working powerfully to the produftion of the Ju- 
 piter of Phidias. If it be advanced, that in any flage of that 
 interval, too early for the confummation of that fkill which ap- 
 peared in Grec e under Phidias, the Syracufans had completed 
 all that exquifite perfeflion which is given to their coins ; then 
 muft it be fhewn from what other theatre of the arts they had it, 
 crone of thefe confequences muft follow; they either had it by 
 watching the progrefs of Greecej or they wrought a miracle, not 
 
ARTS OF MAGNA GR.ECIA. 435 
 
 having within themfelves equally eflablifhed refources with 
 Greece for carrying on it's improvements. 
 
 But they acquired it undoubtedly from their communication 
 with Greece. All the circuraflances attending thofe colonies 
 plainly (hew that, however feparated by diftance, they were one 
 with the mother-country in all things. The Greeks fettled in 
 Mao-na Grvecia became neither Italians nor Sicilians, but re- 
 mained Greeks for ever. Their habits and manners were all 
 Greek : to this hour all the modes of dreffing the hair, which 
 are feen on the Grecian coins, are kept up among the lower or- 
 der of females in Naples*. The very form and model of the 
 Greek charafter is not yet loft : in the filliermen of Santa Lucia 
 is feen the true old Grecian feature, and elegance of perfon, 
 which might dill ferve as a fubjed; in an academy of defignt. 
 
 Their language was Greek, and continued to be fo when 
 nothing elfe of their original country was left. It was fpoken 
 without mixture, till it becanje fomewhat corrupted in fome 
 places by the Latin, in confequence of new. colonies formed by 
 Auguftus in Sicily! ; and it was fpoken by the inhabitants of 
 RolTano fo late as in the fixteenth century^. 
 
 In the earlier days of their ftruggles againft the common ene- 
 mies of the mother-country and of themfelves, the rendezvous 
 of the whole Greek confederacy was generally kept at Heraclea 
 in Magna Gr3ecia||. Their refort to ancient Greece was perpe- 
 tual : their philofophers and men of learning often fought the 
 great meridian of the mother-country, for the purpofe of en- 
 
 * Swinb. Two Sicilies, vol. I. p. 95. + Ibid. p. 102. 
 
 X Ibid. vol. 3. p. 396-7. t Ibid. vol. 2. p. 164. )| Ibid. p. 130. 
 
436 ARTS OF MAGNA GR/ECIA. 
 
 lightening or of being enlightened : their citizens, who were 
 ambitious of excelling in the public games of Greece, or who 
 had the curiofity of feeing the great feats performed there, at- 
 tended them like the inhabitants of the country. Nothing pafied 
 in the Grecian councils, to which they fuffered themfelves to be 
 indifferent ; nothing new arofe, of which they did not feek to par- 
 ticipate. Some of them were fometimes backward, and gene- 
 rally for prefling reafons, to afTift Greece againfl her foes ; but 
 none of them were backward, in their own exigencies, to feek 
 her affiftance to themfelves. So univerfally attached were they to 
 every thing that was connefted with the great origin from whence 
 they fprang, that at length when the Roman empire, which had 
 gathered them all under it's dominion, came to be divided. 
 Magna Gr^cia was affigned tothe eaftern monarch, although it 
 was fo nearly fituated to the weftern. 
 
 Can we doubt then, that as in every thing elfe, fo in the fine 
 arts, fuch an intimate communication fubfifted always between 
 thofe dates and Greece, that the powers of the former muft be 
 blended Avith thofe of the latter? Affuredly in Syracufe itfelf 
 they muft have undergone the fame revolutions as the arts of 
 Peloponefus ; the whole hiftory as well as the medals of that 
 celebrated ftate demonftrate, that it's correfpondence with the 
 mother-Corinth, and with Sparta from whence it fometimes ob- 
 tained generals, muft have been conftant, and it's participation in 
 all the caufes, which concerned the progrefs of elegance among 
 the Greeks, inevitable*. 
 
 * D'Ancarv vol. 2. p. 279, note. 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.