*

dess; but are we to conclude from this that the Greeks had no statues of Vesta? Why, there was one in the Prytaneum at Athens, close to the statue of Peace, † On the island of Jasus there was another, standing in the open air, on which the inhabitants boasted that neither snow nor rain ever fell. Pliny also mentions one in a sitting posture, the work of Scopas, which was placed in the Servilian Gardens at Rome. § Even allowing that it might be difficult for us to distinguish the statue of a Vesta from that of a mere Vestal, does it therefore follow that the ancients were either unable or unwilling to distinguish them ? There are certain symbols which would readily assist the decision; the sceptre, the lamp, the palladium, could only be looked for in the hand of the goddess herself. As for the tympanum, which Codinus attributes to her, it probably accompanied her only when

Pausanias Corinth, cap. xxxv. p. 198. Edit. Kulm. † Idem. Attic, cap. xviii. p. 41.

Polyb. Hist., lib. xvi. § 11. Op. t. ii. p. 443. Edit. Ernest.

§ See Note 31, end of volume.

she was intended to represent the Earth; or possibly Codinus may have mistaken what he

saw.

* See Note 32, end of volume.

TENTH SECTION.

Those Objects which are addressed solely to the Eye, must not be employed by the Poet.—Among these Objects may be reckoned all the various Attributes of Divinities.—Misapprehension of Spence on this Point.

I shall now take notice of another passage in Spence, which plainly shows how little that author had reflected on the relative limits of Poetry and Painting. It is this:—" As to the muses in general, it is remarkable that the poets say but little of them; much less than might indeed be expected for deities, to whom they were so particularly obliged."-What is this but an expression of surprise that the poets do not employ the mute language of the painter? Urania is with the poet the muse of astrology;

* Polym., Dial. viii. p. 91.

her name, her operations, at once inform us of her office. The artist, on the other hand, in order to render this cognizable, is obliged to represent her pointing with a wand to a celestial sphere; this wand, this sphere, this action, are the only characters he can give us wherewith to decipher the name of Urania. But, when the poet tells us of Urania foretelling her death from the stars,

· Ipsa diu positis lethum prædixerat astris
Urania, *

do we expect him to open his narration, out of
consideration for the painter, by a pompous
description of the Muse, with a wand in her
hand, and a globe by her side?
Such a pro-
ceeding would be as great an absurdity as if a
man who had the complete command of language
were to accompany all his words with the signs
which the mutes of a Turkish seraglio adopt as
a substitute for speech.

Similar surprise is expressed by Spence on the subject of the moral beings, or those deities

* Statius, Theb. viii. v. 551.

" It

who presided, according to the ancients, over the virtues and the conduct of human life. is observable," says he,* "that the Roman poets say less of the best of these moral beings, than might be expected. The artists are much fuller on this head; and one who would settle what appearances each of them made, should go to the medals of the Roman emperors." " They (the poets) speak of them often as persons, but they do not generally say much of their attributes or dress, or the appearance they make."†

When the poet personifies abstract ideas, they are sufficiently characterized by their names and their operations. The artist wants these means, and is therefore obliged to add certain symbols to his personified abstracts, in order to render them intelligible. These accompanying symbols being necessarily of a different nature and different signification in themselves, convert them at once into allegorical figures.

A female with a bridle in her hand, and another leaning on a pillar, are allegorical

* Polym., Dial. x., p. 137.

+ Polym., Dial. x., p. 139.