nise, at the first glance, the intention and meaning of his whole composition; at once, not only see that his characters are speaking, but hear what they are saying. The most important effect depends on the first glance, and, if this involves us in laborious thought and reflection, our longing to have our feelings roused cools down, and, in order to avenge ourselves on the unintelligible artist, we harden ourselves against the expression, to which, as we have shewn, beauty must never be sacrificed. We find nothing to induce us to linger before his work. What we see does not please us; nor, even whilst gazing, can we form any conclusion as to the design of it.

Let us now consider these two propositions together. First, That invention and novelty in his subjects are far from being the principal things we look for in an artist. Secondly, That through the subjects being well known, the effect of his art is furthered and rendered more easy. And I think that we shall not look, with Count Caylus, for the reasons why the artist so seldom determines upon a new subject, either in his indolence, in his ignorance, or in the difficulty of the mechanical part of his art, which demands all his industry and all his time; but we shall find them more deeply founded, and shall perhaps be inclined to praise as an act of self-restraint, wise, and useful to ourselves, what at first sight appeared the commencement of the limitation of art,

G

and the destruction of our pleasure. I do not fear that experience will contradict me; the painters will thank the Count for his good intentions, but will scarcely make such general use of him as he seems to expect. But even if they should, still in another hundred years a fresh Caylus would be necessary to bring the ancient subjects again into remembrance, and lead back the artist into that field, where others before him had already gained such undying laurels. Or do we desire that the public should be as learned, as is the connoisseur with his books; that it should be well acquainted and familiar with every scene of history and of fable, which can yield materials for a beautiful picture? I quite allow that the artists would have done better, if, since the time of Raphael, they had made Homer their text book, instead of Ovid. But since it has happened otherwise, let them not attempt to divert the public from its old track, nor surround its enjoyment with greater difficulties than those, which, in order to constitute it such, are its necessary accompaniments.

Protogenes painted the mother of Aristotle. I do not know how much the philosopher paid him for the portrait. But whether it was instead of payment, or in addition to it, he imparted to him a piece of advice, more valuable than the price itself. For I cannot imagine that it could have been intended for mere flattery, but believe, that it was out of an

especial regard to that necessity of art, which obliges it to be intelligible to all, that he counselled him to paint the exploits of Alexander; exploits, with the fame of which, at that time, the whole world was ringing; and which he could well foresee would never be erased from the memory of future generations. But Protogenes had not sufficient steadiness to act upon this advice. "Impetus animi," says Pliny, "et quadam artis libido." Too great a buoyancy of spirits (as it were) in art, and a kind of craving after the curious and unknown, impelled him towards an entirely different class of subjects. He chose rather to paint the story of an Ialysus(32), or a Cydippe; and, in consequence, we can do little more than form conjectures, as to what his pictures were intended to represent.

Plinius xxxv. 36. 20.

CHAPTER XII.

Homer elaborates two kinds of beings and actions, visible and invisible. This distinction cannot be indicated by painting: in it everything is visible, and visible in but one way.

When, therefore, Count Caylus continues the pictures of invisible actions in an unbroken series with those of the visible; and when, in those of mixed actions, in which both visible and invisible beings take part, he does not, and perhaps cannot, specify how these last, (which we only, who are contemplating the picture, ought to see in it), are to be introduced, so that the persons in the painting itself should not see them, or, at least, should not appear as if they necessarily did so. When, I say, Caylus does this, the whole series, as well as many single pieces, necessarily becomes in the highest degree confused, incomprehensible, and contradictory.

Still, ultimately, it would be possible, with book in hand, to remedy this fault. The following evil is the greatest; when painting wipes away the distinction between visible and invisible beings, it at the same time destroys all those characteristic traits, by which the higher order is elevated above the lower.

For instance; when the gods, after disputing over the destiny of the Trojans, at length appeal to arms, the whole of this contest is waged invisibly in the poet; and this invisibility permits the imagination to magnify the scene, and allows it free scope for picturing to itself, as it ever will, the persons and actions of the gods, as far greater and far more exalted than those of ordinary humanity. But painting must adopt a visible scene, the different necessary parts of which become the standard for the persons who act in it. A standard, which the eye has ever before it, and by whose want of proportion to the higher beings, these last, which in the poet were great, are, upon the artist's canvass, converted into monsters.

Minerva, against whom, in this contest, Mars assays the first assault, steps backwards, and, with mighty hand, seizes from the ground, a large, black, rough, stone, which in olden times the united hands of men had rolled there for a landmark.—Iliad, P. xxi. 493.

ἡ δ ̓ ἀναχασσαμένη λίθον εἵλετο χειρὶ παχείῃ, κείμενον ἐν πεδιῴ, μέλανα, τρηχύν τε, μέγαν τε, τόν ῥ ̓ ἄνδρες πρότεροι θέσαν, ἔμμεναι ἶυρον ἀρόυρης.

In order fully to realize the size of this stone, we must recollect, that, though Homer describes his heroes as being as strong again as the strongest men of his own time, he tells us that even they were still