Appendix A.1.1 NOTE I. Ver. 87. WARM'D by the light they love, the very fragments ſound.

An alluſion to the frequently-cited verſe of Juvenal: ‘Dimidio magicae reſonant ubi Memnone chordae.’

There is hardly any work of antiquity more celebrated than this myſterious image; a favourite object of ancient and of modern curioſity! Conſidering the attention paid to it in different ages, it is ſingular that the mutilated ſtatue ſhould ſtill retain a name which, according to an ancient tradition, was aſſigned to it improperly.

This miraculous coloſſal figure is commonly called the Statue of Memnon, and ſuppoſed to repreſent an Aethiopian prince of that name, the ſon of Tithonus and Aurora: but Pauſanias, from whom we de⯑rive one of the early accounts of it, expreſsly ſays, the inhabitants of the city where it was placed (the Thebans of Aegypt) aſſerted that it was [168] not a repreſentation of Memnon^*, but of Phamenophis, a native of their country; "and I have heard perſons affirm," continues Pauſa⯑nias, ‘that it is the ſtatue of Seſoſtris which Cambyſes broke aſunder; and now as much of it as extends from the head to the middle of the body is thrown down: the remainder is ſtill ſitting, and ſounds every day at the riſing of the ſun. Its ſound is moſt like the burſting of a ſtring on the harp or lyre.’

The intelligent and accurate Strabo has recorded his own viſit (in a more early age) to this ſtatue, in company with his friend Aelius Gallus, and a military train. He declares that he heard the miraculous ſound, but intimates a doubt whether it really proceeded from the baſe, from the fragment of the figure, or from the artifice of perſons who formed a buſy circle round it^†. Strabo does not aſſign any name to the ſtatue in queſtion; but calls the ſcene where it was placed the Memnonium. "Here," he ſays, ‘are two coloſſal figures, each of a ſingle ſtone, and near to each other. One is preſerved; the upper part of the other has fallen, and, as they ſay, by an earthquake.’

The ſagacious geographer expreſſes, in very ſtrong terms, his un⯑willingneſs to believe that the ſurpriſing ſound he heard could be the ſpontaneous production of the ſtone itſelf^‡.

A reſpectable traveller of our own country, the learned, faithful, and elaborate Pococke, has laboured to gratify curioſity concerning this [169] this celebrated image, by a very minute deſcription, illuſtrated by en⯑gravings: yet with every advantage that erudition and a ſurvey of the fragment could afford him, he is obliged to leave the ſubject ſtill in⯑volved in conſiderable darkneſs; for among the various ſtatues that he examined in this intereſting ſcene, (the ruins of Thebes,) he found that two of them had pretenſions to be regarded as the miraculous image^*; and of theſe he has given the following circumſtantial account:

Thus far I have tranſcribed the induſtrious and accurate Pococke, be⯑cauſe his menſuration affords a ſatisfactory idea of Aegyptian ſculpture. I omit his diſcuſſion of the arguments concerning the point, which of the two ſtatues he has mentioned is the real Memnon, becauſe ſome ideas ſuggeſted by a later and more lively traveller of France have led me to believe that the report of Pauſanias was perfectly true, and that the marvellous ſtatue was never intended to repreſent the prince of Aethiopia. How it acquired the name of Memnon we ſhall gradually diſcover.

M. Savary, in his elegant, amuſing Letters on Aegypt, has compared ſuch reliques of Thebes as he could inveſtigate himſelf, with the deſcrip⯑tions of this magnificent ſcenery that are to be found in ancient authors, particularly Diodorus Siculus and Strabo, by whoſe aſſiſtance he en⯑deavours to throw new light on this miraculous image. He falls, how⯑ever, into an evident miſtake, in ſaying that Strabo calls it the Statue of Memnon. That illuſtrious and accurate geographer only ſays, after naming a place, which he calls [...], a word that may ſignify the Temple, or perhaps merely the monuments of Memnon, that it contained two coloſſal ſtatues, which he proceeds to deſcribe in the manner I have already mentioned. But the ingenious French traveller, borrowing, perhaps, a hint from Strabo^*, though he does not intimate [172] that he did, has ventured to beſtow on the broken Coloſſus, commonly called the ſtatue of Memnon, the name of Oſymanduas; as he con⯑ceives that the dimenſions of the figure, and the ſcene around it, ſuf⯑ficiently anſwer to the magnificent deſcription by which Diodorus has commemorated the tomb of that Aegyptian monarch, whoſe title Pococke beſtows on another coloſſal figure. M. Savary goes ſtill far⯑ther in his probable conjecture, and imagines that Cambyſes was tempted to break the ſtupendous image by the inſcription which it bore, accord⯑ing to the narrative of the Greek hiſtorian; which inſcription the French traveller tranſlates in the following words: ‘Je ſuis Oſiman⯑duè, roi des rois. Si l'on veut ſavoir combien je ſuis grand, et où je repoſe, que l'on detruiſe quelqu'un de ces ouvrages^*.’— ‘I am Oſymanduas, the king of kings. If any one wiſhes to know how great I am, and where I repoſe, let him conquer ſome of my works.’ The word [...] (literally, "let him conquer,") is rendered by the Engliſh traveller, "let him ſurpaſs;" by the French traveller, ‘let him deſtroy.’ The latter, in his interpretation of this ſuperb inſcrip⯑tion, ſeems to reduce it to a level with the pleaſant, myſterious epitaph in Gil Bias: "A qui eſta encerrada el alma del licenciado Pedro Garcias;" and to ſuppoſe that it was deſigned to lead ſome ingenious interpreter to the happy diſcovery of a latent treaſure. Though I preſume to rally the accompliſhed traveller of France for his ſubtle conſtruction, I am ſtill particularly inclined to credit the conjecture of M. Savary concerning the proper title of this celebrated coloſſal figure, becauſe it tends to con⯑firm another conjecture by which I would account for the manner in which it acquired the very different name of Memnon. Diodorus Si⯑culus, in deſcribing the tomb of Oſymanduas, and the coloſſal ſtatues with which it was adorned, declares that theſe ſtatues were the work of [173] Memnon Sycnites. This ſculptor muſt have been an artiſt of the higheſt celebrity in his time; hence perhaps his moſt remarkable ſtatue aſſumed the name of its maker, in preference to that of the monarch whom it was deſigned to repreſent; and hence, as the name of this marvellous ſculptor happened to be alſo the name by which an heroic prince of Aethiopia was diſtinguiſhed, who is ſuppoſed to have founded the city of Abydus in Aegypt, many fabulous ſtories ſeem to have been invented to account for what in all probability never exiſted; I mean, a ſculptural repreſentation of the Aethiopian hero (the ally of Priam, and the unſucceſsful antagoniſt of Achilles) among the coloſſal ſtatues of Thebes.

Having expatiated ſo far on the name of this intereſting image, I will add but a few remarks on its miraculous ſound. Strabo and Savary ſeem to have agreed in the idea, that the wonder was rather to be ſlighted as the myſterious device of prieſtcraft, than to be regarded as a genuine miracle of Nature. Yet the eminent philoſophical poet of Derbyſhire, who has introduced this faſcinating ſtatue into his delightful Botanic Garden, appears, in a note to that poem, to think that philoſophy might very honeſtly contrive to produce a ſimilar effect.

It may be well worth the attention, both of artiſts and philoſophers, to conſider how far it may be poſſible and proper to engage the ſenſe of hearing as an aſſiſtant to enhance the pleaſure of ſight, when that plea⯑ſure ariſes from any grand work of Art. Antiquity has proved that the picture of a battle may be exhibited to advantage with an accom⯑paniment of martial muſic; and perhaps in a great naval monument, it would be eaſy to introduce, and conceal ſuch works of muſical me⯑chaniſm as might occaſionally increaſe, in a moſt powerful degree, the delight ariſing from ſuch a ſpectacle.

I cannot quit the ſtatue of Memnon without mentioning the moſt il⯑luſtrious of his ancient viſitors. Theſe were the emperor Hadrian with [174] his empreſs Sabina, and a prince perhaps not leſs accompliſhed, and certainly more amiable than Hadrian, that deſerving idol of the Roman people, Germanicus! The hiſtorian Tacitus, who has recorded the viſit of the latter to this attractive ſtatue, ſays not a ſyllable expreſſive of his own opinion concerning the miraculous ſound^*. I confeſs myſelf in⯑clined to imagine that the marvel originated in the avaricious ingenuity of thoſe who were engaged in ſhewing this celebrated ſpectacle: but a different opinion was entertained by a modern writer on ſtatues, whoſe authority is ſo reſpectable, that I ſhall ſubmit to the reader his more candid ideas on this intereſting image. The Abbé Comte de Guaſco, whoſe learned and elegant hiſtorical eſſay, "De l'Uſage des Statues," I ſhall have very frequent occaſion to cite and to applaud, ſpeaks of this figure in his chapter on the prodigies and miracles attributed to ſtatues. He deſcribes it as a ſtatue raiſed to Memnon by Amenophis the Second, on the banks of the Nile; and after noticing the incredulity of Strabo, he ſays in a note, which I ſhall tranſcribe, that modern travellers had aſſured him they had been witneſſes of the phenomenon, which, in his opinion, may be fairly and naturally explained by atmoſpherical in⯑fluence^†.

Appendix A.1.2 NOTE II. Ver. 127. Miltonic temper to thy fervent ſoul.

An alluſion to the following Sonnet, which the author had the plea⯑ſure of addreſſing to his friend ſeveral years ago, before he viſited Italy— a brief but early preſage of his preſent excellence!

In recollecting how warmly I formerly recommended the perſonages of Milton to the attention of my friend the ſculptor, I am naturally led to ſpeak of the ſtriking colours in which thoſe perſonages have recently appeared on the canvaſs of Mr. Fuſeli. The Miltonic Gallery is a noble monument of induſtry and genius. I ſeize with pleaſure an op⯑portunity of declaring my ſentiments of its merit, becauſe thoſe ſenti⯑ments are confirmed by the more valuable judgment of the friend to whom this publication is addreſſed.

Appendix A.1.3 NOTE III. Ver. 227. And conſecrated life to toil intenſe.

Milton, deſcribing, moſt ingenuouſly, the dawn of literary ambition in his own youthful mind, has the following expreſſions:

After mentioning the favour he experienced from his learned ac⯑quaintance of Italy, he ſays,

Appendix A.1.4 NOTE IV. Ver. 238. All that I've done is due to patient thought.

The writer of Newton's Life, in the Biographia Britannica, has very juſtly remarked, that modeſty was one of the many admirable qualities which ſo eminently diſtinguiſhed this ſublime philoſopher. Two ſtrik⯑ing examples of it are recorded; the firſt, drawn from a converſation in which Newton, with the ſimplicity of a mind truly great, ſpoke what he thought himſelf of his own mental exertions: the ſecond, from a paſſage in one of his letters, containing almoſt the very words of the verſe which gave riſe to this note.

Appendix A.1.5 NOTE V. Ver. 246. For low and little cares of languid life.

The two celebrated and amiable phyſicians, Zimmerman and Tiſſot, whoſe writings deſerve the title affixed to the famous library of Aegypt, "Medicine for the Mind," afford moſt valuable advice and conſolation to thoſe votaries of art or ſcience who may have been forced by ſick⯑neſs or ſorrow to ſuſpend their favourite purſuits. Few literary inva⯑lids can fail to feel themſelves ſoothed, and encouraged to ſtruggle with calamity, by the touching deſcription which Zimmerman has given to the world of his own ſufferings, and thoſe of his learned and accom⯑pliſhed friends, Garve and Mendelſohn, in his beneficent Eſſay on Soli⯑tude. Some readers, indeed, are ſo faſtidious as to think that infirmity and affliction ſhould on no occaſion obtrude their private grievances (paſt or preſent) on the eye of the public: but every writer who records, with the eloquence of real ſenſibility, calamities that he has encountered with any degree of ſucceſs, is certainly a friend to ſuffering humanity; as his record may furniſh preſent or future fellow-ſufferers with a freſh incentive to fortitude or exertion; and the general ſympathy of Nature will probably make him ample amends for any accidental cenſure that he may happen to incur from unfeeling individuals.

Appendix A.1.6 NOTE VI. Ver. 280. With thee, inſtructive guide! to ſtudy Rome.

The author had pleaſed himſelf with a proſpect of enjoying the ſociety, and taking a ſhare in the ſtudies of his friend, during the [178] laſt of the ſeveral years that the ſculptor devoted to Italy: but he relinquiſhed this favourite deſign at the earneſt entreaty of ſome other friends, who requeſted him to remain in England for the purpoſe of writing a Life of Milton. He ſacrificed to their requeſt a project that ſeemed to promiſe him infinite advantage and delight. Time and chance conferred on him an unexpected and ineſtimable recompence for that ſacrifice, in the friendſhip of Mr. Cowper, which his attachment to Milton proved the means of his acquiring.

Appendix A.1.7 NOTE VII. Ver. 324. On whom that coyeſt queen her ſmile beſtows.

The paragraph which cloſes with this line is founded on a paſſage of ſingular beauty in one of Milton's Latin letters to his friend Diodati:

Appendix A.2.1 NOTE I. Ver. 42. THE fav'rite idol of benighted zeal.

An ingenious foreigner, who has added extenſive learning to a lively imagination, and who publiſhed, in our country, a work of conſider⯑able magnitude on the origin and progreſs of the Arts, indulges a con⯑jecture that the head of the Urus, or ſavage bull, was the earlieſt work of ſculpture. This idea ſtruck him ſo forcibly, that he has endeavoured to diſplay and confirm a conjecture, not very probable, in the two fol⯑lowing paſſages of his elaborate and amuſing reſearches:

The author ſays, in the ſame volume, where he labours to ſtrengthen his conjecture by the authority of very early medals,

Appendix A.2.2 NOTE II. Ver. 48. The new attraction of a modell'd face.

Two reſpectable writers of antiquity, the philoſopher Athenagoras, and the naturaliſt Pliny, agree in deriving the art of modelling from the celebrated though anonymous Maid of Corinth, whoſe father Dibu⯑tades, a potter, was ſo pleaſed with the ingenuity of his daughter, in drawing the ſhade of her ſleeping lover, by lamp-light, on a wall, that he is ſaid to have filled her outline with clay, and, hardening it with [183] the reſt of his earthen-ware, to have thus produced a buſt, or a me⯑dallion, (for it might be either,) which was preſerved at Corinth as a curious rudiment of art, till that city was deſtroyed by Mummius, according to a tradition mentioned by Pliny^*. The Athenian philoſo⯑pher, who lived a conſiderable time after the deſtruction, and after the revival of Corinth, ſpeaks of this intereſting production of early art as being ſtill preſerved when he wrote, in the reign of Marcus Au⯑relius^†.

The anecdote of the Corinthian Maid is ſo pleaſing to the imagina⯑tion, that we cannot be ſurprized at its being readily received as genuine hiſtory. M. de Caylus makes a very juſt remark upon it, in his excel⯑lent Memoir on the Sculpture of the Ancients: ‘Cette idée eſt melée de vrai-ſemblance dans le détail, et d'agrément dans l'invention: mais quand on voudroit douter de ces prétendus faits, il eſt encore plus commode de les adopter: on ne pourroit mettre à la place que d'autres ſuppoſitions.—Mem. de l' Academie, tom. xxv. p. 305.’

Appendix A.2.3 NOTE III. Ver. 56. Till impious worſhip grew from tender grief.

Herodotus has recorded the very ſingular honours that were paid to a deceaſed daughter by the afflicted Mycerinus, an Aegyptian monarch.

From the energy of thoſe inventive paſſions, love and grief, we might be induced to ſuppoſe that the earlieſt efforts of rude ſculpture would be ſuch as they ſuggeſted for the purpoſe of obtaining a reſem⯑blance, however imperfect, of ſome mortal infinitely beloved or re⯑gretted: but hiſtory proves that ſuperſtitious fear is a paſſion ſtill more creative; and in Greece, which may be conſidered as the home, though not the native climate of Sculpture, it is evident that endeavours to repreſent different divinities by the rudeſt ſymbols preceded every at⯑tempt to expreſs human features by any kind of model. Stocks and ſtones were confeſſedly worſhipped as celeſtial powers, in that land of ingenuity, before any thing like a ſtatue, buſt, or medallion appeared. The trunk of an old tree was ſolemnly preſerved by the Theſpians, and idolized as their Juno^*. But ſtones, of a cubic form, were their more general ſymbols; and Pauſanias mentions a collection of theſe at Pharae in Achaia, in number about thirty, and each diſtinguiſhed by the name of a particular divinity^†. They ſtood near a ſtatue of Mercury, and were probably regarded, in the age of Pauſanias, as curious reliques of that ancient mode of worſhip which, according to his account, had been prevalent among all the Greeks.

[185]At Orchomenos, the favourite ſeat of the Graces, ſo happily cele⯑brated by Pindar, thoſe intereſting divinities were originally repreſented by three white ſtones. When a rude ſymbol was exchanged, in pro⯑ceſs of time, for a more refined image, the Greeks were ſolicitous to preſerve ſome idea of the original type; a practice well illuſtrated by D'Hancarville, in his remark on theſe memorable ſymbols that firſt re⯑preſented the Graces. He imagines that the union of the ſymbols gave riſe to the attitude which theſe patroneſſes of Grecian art aſſumed in their ſubſequent form:

The firſt Minerva adored at Athens is ſaid to have been nothing more than a rough pointed ſtake^*. In contemplating the great contraſt be⯑tween ſuch objects of popular veneration and the works of Phidias and Praxiteles, the mind takes a generous delight in the progreſſive powers of human ingenuity. The pleaſure we naturally feel in ſuch a contraſt has induced many writers to inveſtigate, with great labour, the ob⯑ſcure origin of different arts. M. D'Hancarville, in the ingenious diſ⯑ſertations [186] prefixed to his Etruſcan Antiquities, has endeavoured to trace the riſe and early progreſs of ſculpture through many centuries of dark⯑neſs prior to the age of Daedalus; a period with which the active en⯑thuſiaſm of Winkelman had ſeemed to ſatisfy itſelf, in his elaborate and animated Hiſtory of Ancient Art.

If the conjectures of a writer may be truſted, who ventures to deli⯑neate a period ſo very diſtant and dark, the origin of Grecian ſculpture may be aſſigned to the reign of Apis, the ſucceſſor of Phoroneus, about 1778 years before the Chriſtian aera^*; and according to a very reaſonable ſuppoſition of M. D'Hancarville, this delightful and difficult art was more than a thouſand years in proceeding, by inſenſible degrees, from a ſtate of rude barbarity to its period of exquiſite perfection. Of its moſt remarkable ſteps, and of many memorable artiſts who particu⯑larly contributed to its advancement, I ſhall ſpeak in ſubſequent notes. I return to the immediate ſubject of this,—the diſpoſition to fond idola⯑try in an afflicted parent. Two ſtriking, though very different charac⯑ters of the ancient world are remarkable examples of this diſpoſition— Nimrod and Cicero. The ſtrong feelings of nature, on the loſs of a beloved child, produced the ſame wildneſs of affectionate fancy in the imperial hunter and in the republican philoſopher. Thoſe who recol⯑lect the infinite tenderneſs with which the great Roman orator ſpeaks, in his Letters, of his darling Tullia, will forgive and pity the unhappy father, whoſe exceſs of affliction led him ſo far to forget his own philo⯑ſophical principles as to think very ſeriouſly of building, not a tomb, but a temple, to his departed child, as a proper object of worſhip. The Abbé Mongault has clearly aſcertained this intention of Cicero, in his intereſting remarks on the Fanum Tulliae, in the Memoirs of the French Academy.

Appendix A.2.4 NOTE IV. Ver. 68. Thy fam'd Prometheus, thy primaeval pride.

Of all the celebrated perſonages of antiquity, there is not one who ſeems to have had a harder fate, in every point of view, than this extra⯑ordinary character. He has peculiar claims to a place in this Work, from having been long regarded as the very firſt of Pagan artiſts, and indeed, the firſt of philoſophers^*. The poets have repreſented him as ſuffering the ſevereſt of tortures for ingenuity and benevolence. His acute and energetic ſpirit, nobly painted by Aeſchylus, rendered him a favourite hero of the Athenian, and afterwards of the Roman ſtage, as we may conjecture from the fragments of Accius. At Athens he had an altar inſcribed to him in the Academy; and a feſtival was held in his honour, diſtinguiſhed by a race, in which the candidates for the prize carried a flame as they ran, and he only was conſidered as the victor who brought it alive to the goal^†. Pauſanias, who mentions this tri⯑bute to the memory of Prometheus, relates alſo that the inhabitants of Phocis preſerved, with great veneration, ſome reliques of the very clay from which this firſt of modellers was ſaid to have faſhioned man^‡. Yet ſome of the Pagan philoſophers did not ſcruple to deny the mortal exiſtence of Prometheus, and to reduce him to a mere ſymbol of man's inventive faculty. Some early Chriſtian writers treat him with ſtill [188] more ſeverity. The reſpectable Lactantius, in particular, allows him his exiſtence and his ingenuity, but deſcribes him as employing his rare powers to the baſeſt of purpoſes, to promote the prepoſterous ambition of his relation Jupiter; and as contriving, by his ſculptural art, to convert the tyrant into a god^*.

Of an intereſting character, ſo long the ſport and victim of fancy, fable, and conjecture, it is natural to deſire, but very difficult to obtain, a ſimple, rational hiſtory. Who ſhall ſolve the doubt whether Pro⯑metheus really exiſted or not? He has been called a Cretan, an Aegyptian, a Scythian; and Olaus Rudbecke, in that marvellous work of extenſive erudition and fanciful ingenuity, his Atlantica, ſeems inclined to make him a Swede, and claim him for a countryman with the reſt of the Titans. Of our own modern writers, Lord Bacon and Mr. Bryant (two reſpectable names) agree with the emperor Julian in their inclina⯑tion to melt this primaeval artiſt into a mere allegory. I confeſs myſelf rather inclined to the opinion of the learned and intelligent Brucker, who, in his elaborate and candid Hiſtory of Philoſophy, has very mo⯑deſtly ſtated ſuch conjectures of his own, concerning this celebrated perſonage, as account, in a very probable manner, for all his fabu⯑lous adventures. This author imagines that Prometheus was a ſervant, high in the confidence of Oſiris, an Aegyptian monarch, who ventur⯑ing, without the permiſſion of his ſovereign, to communicate the arts of Aegypt to the ruder Greeks, was impriſoned for that offence, and tormented, till the Aegyptian officer who guarded him was ſlain by Her⯑cules, [189] and the priſoner ſet free^*. But whether Prometheus had a real, or only an imaginary exiſtence, it is clear that the artiſts as well as the poets of antiquity were employed in giving celebrity to his intereſting character.

We learn from Achilles Tatius, and from Seneca, that the two paint⯑ers, Evanthes and Parrhaſius, executed remarkable pictures of his adven⯑tures; and we have reaſon to believe, from the two following epigrams of the Anthologia, that the Grecian ſculptors alſo repreſented his tor⯑tures with admirable energy.

Before I diſmiſs Prometheus, let me obſerve, that if we believe him to have exiſted, we may ſtill acquit him of the offence that Lactantius imputes to him. He was certainly not the firſt mortal who induced his fellow-creatures to worſhip an idol of the human ſhape. Cedrenus aſ⯑ſerts that Serug and Terah, the progenitors of Abraham, were both makers of images; and adds, that Abraham burnt the idols of Terah his father^*. Thoſe who have endeavoured to aſcertain the age of Pro⯑metheus place him in a later period, and make him a cotemporary of Moſes^†. The worſhip of idols, as the preſident Goguet juſtly re⯑marks, in his learned and ſenſible book on the Origin of Laws and Arts, may be traced to very high antiquity: ‘Les teraphim que Ra⯑chel deroba à ſon pere Laban étoient, ſuivant l'avis des meilleurs in⯑terprêtes, de petites idoles qui avoient la figure humaine.’

GOGUET, tom. i. p. 355.

Appendix A.2.5 NOTE V. Ver. 86. Aim'd at eternal ſway in animated braſs.

The following works of public magnificence are aſcribed to Semi⯑ramis:

Such are the wonders of early art which Diodorus has recorded as the works of Semiramis, on the authority of Cteſias, a native of Cnidos, who became the favourite phyſician of a Perſian monarch, Artaxerxes Mnemon, and in that ſituation had better opportunities of acquiring hiſtorical information concerning the antiquities of Aſia, than his coun⯑trymen in general poſſeſſed. Of Cteſias's extenſive writings only a few fragments remain, which are printed as a ſupplement to Herodotus, in the beſt editions of that hiſtorian. The credit of Cteſias has been ſe⯑verely attacked, both by ancient and modern writers; but M. Freret vindicates his veracity in ſeveral particulars, like a very able advocate, in more than one of his elaborate diſſertations on points of ancient hiſtory, inſerted in the Memoirs of the French Academy. The kind of credit that we may rationally give to the curious deſcription that I have cited, ſeems to be very candidly aſcertained by the Abbé Guaſco, who thinks that although works of ſuch magnificence were hardly executed at a period ſo early as that aſſigned to Semiramis, yet it is probable that ſuch actually appeared in Babylon in later ages, but before art had made [194] any conſiderable progreſs in Greece or in Aegypt. ‘Quelque exagerée qu'on a raiſon de croire la deſcription que fait Cteſias des monumens de l'art ſtatuaire qui ornoient les palais et le temple, pretendus bâtis par l'ancienne Semiramis, quelqu' anachroniſme que l'on ſuppoſe à juſte titre, dans les époques données par cet auteur fabuleux à ces monumens: il n'en reſulte pas moins que cet art avoit déjà fait de grands progrès en Aſie durant les anciennes monarchies de Ninive, et de Babylone; car aucun art ne produit de grands monumens tout-à-coup, et ce n'eſt que ſucceſſivement qu'il atteint certains degrès de perfection. Donc quoique les ſtatues de Belus, de Semiramis, de Ninus, avec tout le brillant cortege et appareil, qui les accompa⯑gnoient, ne fuſſent pas des productions d'une époque ſi reculée, mais des monumens poſterieurs, executés ſous quelqu'un de leurs ſuc⯑ceſſeurs du même nom, qui voulut immortaliſer par là les fondateurs de leurs monarchies, il n'eſt pas moins conſtant, que ces monumens ſurpaſſoient en elegance et peut-être en antiquité, les premiers que l'on connoiſſe dans la Greee, et peut-être même ceux d'Aegypte: ils ſont tout au moins des indicés que l'on s'étoit déjà exercé depuis long⯑tems dans ces ſortes d'ouvrages.’

The ſame reſpectable author obſerves that Joſephus and Herodotus attribute, with more reaſon, theſe embelliſhments of Babylon to Nebu⯑chodonoſor, and Nitocris his wife; and that their account is confirmed by what the prophet Daniel has ſaid concerning the ſtatues of gold and ſilver which adorned the temples of that city. He adds, that Aſſyria had more than one Semiramis: ‘Parceque ce nom n'étant qu'une ex⯑preſſion generique compoſée de pluſieurs titres de dignité ſelon le genre et la tournure ordinaire de la langue orientale, il fût commun à pluſieurs reines d'Aſſyrie.—De l'Uſage des Statues, p. 87.’

Several ſtatues of Semiramis are commemorated by antient authors. Lucian ſpeaks of one ſtanding by the temple of the Syrian goddeſs, and [195] pointing to the manſion of the divinity, as if to acknowledge her own paſt offence in having arrogated to herſelf the honours due only to Juno. Valerius Maximus has deſcribed another, not leſs remarkable, in which the Aſſyrian queen was repreſented with her treſſes in a ſtate of diſorder, and thus ſignifying the rapidity with which ſhe is ſaid to have hurried from her toilet to ſuppreſs a revolt in Babylon^*. Let me add, on the authority of Aelian, that Semiramis was as much celebrated for her beauty, as for her talents and power^†.

Appendix A.2.6 NOTE VI. Ver. 94. And hold Semiramis herſelf a dream.

The boldeſt enemy to the mortal exiſtence of this celebrated queen is the illuſtrious mythologiſt Mr. Bryant, who confidently ſays, in the ſecond volume of his great work, ‘I have ſhewn that there was no ſuch perſon as Semiramis:’ and again, ‘I think it is plain that Se⯑miramis was an emblem, and that the name was a compound of Sama Ramas, or Ramis, and it ſignified the Divine Token, the Type of Providence; and as a military enſign (for as ſuch it was uſed) it may with ſome latitude be interpreted the Standard of the Moſt High. It conſiſted of the figure of a dove, which was pro⯑bably circled with the iris, as thoſe two emblems were often repre⯑ſented together. All who went under that ſtandard, or who paid any deference to that emblem, were ſtiled Semarim or Samorim.’

[196]Without robbing this highly reſpectable writer of the credit he juſtly derives from having thrown many ſatisfactory rays of light on the dove of the ark, it might ſtill perhaps be no very difficult taſk to eſtabliſh the exiſtence of one, or of more than one Semiramis, againſt the ſuppo⯑ſition of his annihilating fancy; and ſhould the animated Mr. Morrit amuſe himſelf and his readers in vindicating the life and beauty of Se⯑miramis with the ſame ſpirit that he defended the palace of old Priam, againſt the deſtroying whirlwind of Mr. Bryant's imagination, I hope the venerable Coryphaeus of claſſical erudition, who has himſelf made ſo free with the arguments and conjectures of the higheſt literary names, will not feel angrily unwilling to indulge in a ſimilar freedom a ſpirited and graceful ſcholar, of whom we may ſay, in the words of Homer, (allowing to his aged antagoniſt the dignity of a ſovereign in Grecian literature,)

Appendix A.2.7 NOTE VII. Ver. 130. And guards thy maſſive monarchs with reſpect.

Of all the modern writers on early ſculpture, M. de Caylus ſeems to have rendered the moſt liberal juſtice to the merit of the Aegyptians, in the following remark:

That the Aegyptians delighted in the ſculpture of gems we have a pleaſing proof in the circumſtance recorded by Aelian, that the chief of their judges wore round his neck an image of Truth, engraven on a ſapphire^*.

It is remarkable that Lucian, by birth an Aſſyrian, and in his youth a ſculptor by profeſſion, ſpeaks with ſerious eſteem of the ancient Aegyptians, as diſtinguiſhed by their meritorious efforts in the infancy of Art.

Appendix A.2.8 NOTE VIII. Ver. 140. For Greece, their Helen! was by Aegypt rear'd.

Pauſanias aſſerts that the figures of ſtone on the tomb of Coraebus were the moſt ancient in Greece; and as Coraebus lived in the age of Cecrops, who had migrated into that country from Aegypt, it is pro⯑bable that the Greeks derived from the attendants of this Aegyptian, [198] their knowledge of an art which began to diſplay itſelf among them at that early period. D'Hancarville ingeniouſly interprets the fables con⯑cerning the ſtones of Deucalion, and the ſerpent's teeth of Cadmus, as alluding to the origin of Sculpture.

The Aegyptians ſeem to have taken a pride in their early diſtinction; for Herodotus ſays they boaſted of having invented ſtatues; and Diodo⯑rus Siculus mentions their idea that men were firſt created in Aegypt.

Appendix A.2.9 NOTE IX. Ver. 148. The paths of knowledge, truth, and fame are yours.

An alluſion to the following paſſage from the 14th of Pindar's Olym⯑pic Odes, in which that poet has happily expreſſed the high ideas he en⯑tertained on the influence of the Graces:

[199]In the Memoirs of the French Academy there is an animated diſſert⯑ation "Sur les Graces," by that amiable ſcholar the Abbé Maſſieu, who has collected from ancient authors every particular relating to theſe fa⯑vourite divinities of Greece.

The following paſſage enumerates ſome of the moſt eminent works of art devoted to their honour:

Appendix A.2.10 NOTE X. Ver. 166. To limit England in ſphere of art.

Every friend to literary merit muſt lament that writers of ſuch de⯑ſerved celebrity as Monteſquieu and Winkelman, could be induced to disfigure their immortal works with the ſuppoſition that the inhabitants of England labour under a natural incapacity of attaining excellence in [200] the fine arts; a ſuppoſition that can only diſgrace thoſe who admit and endeavour to ſupport it.

Appendix A.2.11 NOTE XI. Ver. 270. And bleſs'd a bold progenitor in thee.

Daedalus was univerſally revered by antiquity as the father of Grecian ſculpture: but in proportion as his genius became an object of public veneration, his perſonal hiſtory was ſo involved in the decorations or diſguiſes of fable, that (to the regret of thoſe who love to inveſtigate the lives of meritorious men) it is hardly poſſible to obtain a ſatisfactory account of this celebrated ſculptor, architect, and mechaniſt, whoſe early and ſucceſsful ingenuity has ſo juſtly endeared his name to every lover of art.

The learned Junius has aſſigned a very copious article to Daedalus, in his catalogue of antient artiſts; and the Abbé Gedoyn (the reſpect⯑able tranſlator of Quintilian and Pauſanias) has introduced a hiſtory of Daedalus into the Memoirs of the French Academy. Theſe two elabo⯑rate writers have collected all that antiquity could furniſh to elucidate his life; but they both ſeem to admit, as an eſtabliſhed fact, one moſt diſhonourable circumſtance in the hiſtory of their hero, which I am inclined to conſider as not more entitled to ſerious credit than the moſt fabulous portion of his adventures; I mean, the horrid ſuppoſition that he enviouſly murdered his nephew and his diſciple, for poſſeſſing inge⯑nuity ſuperior to his own.

Of this I ſhall ſpeak in its place: let me firſt relate the more early particulars that ancient writers have recorded concerning this celebrated ſculptor. He was by birth an Athenian; and though authors differ on the name of his father, they agree in repreſenting him as the grand⯑ſon [201] or great-grandſon of Erectheus, the ſixth ſovereign of Athens; and Pauſanias aſſerts that he lived in the period when Oedipus reigned in Thebes; that is, about half a century before the ſiege of Troy. Dio⯑dorus Siculus, who may be called the earlieſt biographer of Daedalus that we poſſeſs, deſcribes him as having greatly improved the rude ſculpture of his age, and excited the admiration of his contemporaries, before the charge of having deſtroyed his diſciple reduced him to the neceſſity of flying from his country.

In the account that Diodorus has given of this very improbable crime, there is one particular that ſeems to mark the whole ſtory as a fabulous invention. It is ſaid that this ingenious diſciple, the ſon of his ſiſter, was led to invent a ſaw by the accident of finding the jaw of a ſerpent, and by obſerving the uſe to which its teeth might be ſucceſſ⯑fully applied. It is alſo ſaid that Daedalus, being ſurpriſed and queſ⯑tioned in the act of burying the murdered youth, anſwered, that he was conſigning a ſerpent to the earth.

The hiſtorian mentions it as a wonder (and it ſeems one of thoſe ſpecious wonders, which the Greeks were ſo fond of inventing) that the ſame animal (the ſerpent) ſhould prove both the ſource of a moſt uſeful invention, and the means of detecting an execrable crime. The ſup⯑poſed criminal is ſaid to have been condemned by that ſolemn tribunal the Areopagus: but the mode in which the royal ſculptor is imagined to have accompliſhed the deſtruction of his diſciple is ſuch, that it could hardly admit any legal proof of a murderous intention. Ovid has briefly and forcibly ſtated the circumſtance to which I allude:

[202]The poet adds, that the falling youth was metamorphoſed into a par⯑tridge by the pity of Minerva; and I confeſs that I conſider the meta⯑morphoſis and the murder as equally fabulous.

Every good mind that reflects on the ſubject will eſteem it hardly poſ⯑ſible that a man in an elevated rank of life, and bleſt himſelf with a variety of talents, could be induced to murder a promiſing youth whom he had engaged to inſtruct, and the child of his own ſiſter, for diſplay⯑ing ſuch ingenuity as a maſter and a relation would be naturally diſ⯑poſed to admire and encourage. A fact of this complexion ought, for the honour of human nature, never to be admitted, except in caſes where the evidence that ſupports it is irreſiſtible.

For the glory of Daedalus we may affirm, that the improbable atro⯑city imputed to him is ſo far from being proved by any teſtimony, that it reſts only on dark tradition; and the whole ſtory has ſo much the air of a fable, that it ought long ago to have been diſcountenanced and diſ⯑carded by every ſerious biographer of this illuſtrious artiſt. Yet writers are ſo apt to tranſcribe the wonderful tales of their predeceſſors without examination, or to credit enormities aſcribed to men of talents and diſ⯑tinction, that this barbarous ſtory has been credulouſly repeated from age to age. The modern and enlightened authors who have recently diſcuſſed the hiſtory of Daedalus do not ſcruple to paint him as an aſ⯑ſaiſin. The Abbé Gedoyn endeavours to varniſh his own cruel credu⯑lity on this ſubject by the following remark: ‘De tout tems une baſſe jalouſie a été le vice des artiſans, même de ceux qui font profeſſion des arts les plus nobles; j'en pourrois citer pluſieurs exemples en France, comme ailleurs.’

An Italian writer of our own time, (Franceſco Miliſia,) who has pub⯑liſhed an entertaining and ſucceſsful Hiſtory of Architects, ancient and modern, ſpeaks of Daedalus in his architectural character, and re⯑peats, [203] in brief but energetic terms, his viſionary crime^*. As I am in⯑clined to believe that the artiſts of England may be leſs acquainted with theſe feelings of nera geloſia (to uſe the words of the Italian whom I have quoted) than the more impaſſioned natives of France and Italy, I hope they will approve my endeavour to vindicate from the horrible impu⯑tation of an envious murder their ancient brother of Athens. At all events I have a pleaſure in perſuading myſelf that he was as clearly in⯑nocent as he was confeſſedly ingenious. When he removed from At⯑tica, whatever the cauſe of that removal might be, he is ſaid to have obtained the friendſhip of Minos, the ſecond of that name, who reigned in Crete; and to have executed, in wood, two ſtatues of Phae⯑dra and Ariadne, the celebrated daughters of the Cretan monarch. In Crete he is reported to have built a labyrinth of marvellous intricacy, and copied, on a ſmaller ſcale, from a portentous edifice of Aegypt. He muſt have ſtudied, therefore, the works of Aegyptian art in their own country, before his viſit to Crete. The Cretans were ever re⯑markable for their groſs deviation from truth; and the narrative of ſome ſculptural works aſcribed to Daedalus, in their iſland, contains the moſt filthy and diſguſting fable that ever ſullied the pages of fiction. The reader acquainted with mythology will immediately perceive that I allude to the fable of Paſiphae, the moſt cruelly calumniated queen that ever ſuffered from the licentiouſneſs of fancy. Some decent in⯑terpreters of her ſtory have ſuppoſed that ſhe was enamoured of a Cretan officer who bore the name of Taurus, and that Daedalus was employed in aſſiſting their illicit attachment: but Lucian, with an ad⯑mirable mixture of wit and good-nature, imagines the Taurus of Paſi⯑phae's [204] affection to have been merely the ſign of the zodiac diſtinguiſhed by that appellation; and Deadalus is very happily metamorphoſed, by this ſuppoſition, from the culpable confident of a diſhonourable intrigue, into an innocent maſter of aſtronomy. But however blameleſs the intercourſe might be between the ſlandered Paſiphae and the inge⯑nious Athenian, Daedalus appears to have incurred the reſentment of the Cretan monarch, and to have been under the neceſſity of eſcaping from his dominion with ſecret rapidity. Hence aroſe the fable of his inventing wings for himſelf and his ſon Icarus; a fable ſo captivating to the fancy of the Latin poets, that Ovid has related it twice at con⯑ſiderable length^*. Virgil has embelliſhed it in a few verſes of ſingular delicacy and pathos. Horace, Silius Italicus, and Auſonius have all mentioned it occaſionally. The ancient and ſenſible interpreter of in⯑credible fictions, Palaephatus, has turned the fabulous wings of Daeda⯑lus and his ſon into ſails. He aſſerts, that being impriſoned by Minos, they eſcaped from a window of their priſon, and embarked in a ſkiff: but being purſued by the veſſels of Minos, in tempeſtuous weather, the father only got ſafe to land and completed his eſcape. Apollodorus relates that Hercules found the body of Icarus caſt aſhore upon an iſland, to which he gave the name of Icaria, in honour of the youth, whom he buried. The ſame author adds, that Daedalus rewarded his illuſtri⯑ous friend for this humanity ſhewn to his unfortunate child, by exe⯑cuting a ſtatue of Hercules, which that hero miſtaking in the night, for a living figure, is ſaid to have ſtruck with a ſtone. Pauſanias men⯑tions this ſtatue as preſerved by the Thebans in a temple of Hercules, and gives a ſimilar account of its origin as a tribute of gratitude from the afflicted father, whoſe eſcape from Crete he alſo aſcribes, like Pa⯑laephatus, to the uſe of ſails. Though Virgil and Silius Italicus repre⯑ſent Daedalus as building the temple of the Cumaean Apollo, immedi⯑ately [205] after his eſcape from the tyranny of Minos, the Greek hiſtorian of his adventures ſuppoſes him to have proceeded from Crete to Sicily, and to have ingratiated himſelf ſo ſucceſsfully with Cocalus, a prince of that country, that when Minos, with a naval force, purſued and de⯑manded the fugitive, his generous protector, inſtead of betraying his ingenious gueſt, from whoſe architectural talents he is ſaid to have de⯑rived great advantage, endeavoured to negotiate with Minos in his fa⯑vour. The Cretan monarch accepted the invitation of the Sicilian prince, and, according to the accounts of more than one ancient Greek author, the daughters of Cocalus contrived, from their partiality to the Athenian artiſt, to deſtroy his formidable enemy; which they are ſaid to have accompliſhed by the means of a hot bath, in ſuch a manner, that the Cretans who attended their king ſuppoſed his death to be natural, and departed in peace with his remains—a tale that has much the ap⯑pearance of fiction.

Daedalus is reported to have expreſſed his gratitude towards his Si⯑cilian protector by executing many ingenious works in his country. Diodorus relates that he built an impregnable palace for his royal friend; that he fortified and adorned the temple of Venus Erycina; and that he conſtructed a vapour-bath, in which the ſick were plea⯑ſantly cured of their infirmities, without ſuffering from its heat^*. Concerning the latter days and death of Daedalus antiquity furniſhes no anecdotes: but the learned Abbé Gedoyn imagines, with great pro⯑bability, that from Italy he paſſed again into Aegypt, and ended his life in that country—an idea that he reſts on the authority of the Aegyptian prieſts, who reported, according to the narrative of Diodo⯑rus Siculus, that Daedalus conſtructed a moſt beautiful veſtibule to the [206] temple of Vulcan at Memphis, and was held in ſuch veneration by the Aegyptians, that they placed in that temple a ſtatue which he had carved in wood of himſelf, and raiſed, in one of the adjacent iſlands, a temple to the artiſt, in which his memory was religiouſly worſhipped by the natives of that country.

Thus incomplete are the beſt accounts that ancient and modern au⯑thors afford of this extraordinary and intereſting perſonage, whoſe ex⯑iſtence, like that of Prometheus and Semiramis, has been queſtioned by the ſcrutinizing ſpirit of modern refinement. A very ingenious and learned French commentator on Pliny, who ſeems actuated, like Mr. Bryant, by a paſſion for etymological chemiſtry, would reduce the active Athenian artiſt into a mere Syrian ſymbol^*. But preſuming on the evidence of ſeveral works (very credibly imputed to this early ſculptor) that he really exiſted, and preſuming this with the more con⯑fidence becauſe one of his works has the happy and immortal diſtinction of being deſcribed by Homer, I ſhall proceed to enumerate thoſe me⯑morable productions in Sculpture which antiquity aſſigned to him, and which the courſe of this narrative has not yet led me to mention. Of theſe, the moſt ſtriking are two ſtatues of himſelf and his ſon Icarus; the one formed of tin, the other of braſs, and ſaid to have been ſta⯑tioned in thoſe iſlands of the Adriatic gulf that were called Elec⯑trides^†.

[207]Ariſtotle, from whom Stephanus of Byzantium borrowed his account of theſe queſtionable ſtatues, has mentioned Daedalus as a maker of puppets that moved by an infuſion of quickſilver; an idea that D'Han⯑carville has ridiculed with contemptuous pleaſantry:

Pauſanias records, with particular care, the more authentic works of Daedalus that remained in his time: his ſtatue of Hercules, at Thebes; of Trophonius, among the Lebadenſes in Boeotia: thoſe of Britomar⯑tis and of Minerva, in Crete; with the dance of Ariadne, mentioned by Homer in the Iliad, and wrought on white marble; among the Delians, a Venus in wood, with her right hand periſhing by Time, and raiſed on a ſquare baſis inſtead of feet, "I am perſuaded," ſays Pauſanias, ‘that Ariadne received this image from Daedalus, and car⯑ried it with her, when ſhe attended Theſeus. The Delians affirm that Theſeus himſelf devoted it to their Apollo, that it might not, on his return to his own country, awaken in his mind a painful and paſſionate recollection of Ariadne. Beſides theſe,’ concludes Pau⯑ſanias, ‘I know not any works of Daedalus remaining; for as to thoſe which the Argives had conſecrated in their temple of Juno, and thoſe removed to Gela in Sicily from Omphace, they have diſappeared by the influence of Time.’

Pauſanias, in a former part of his deſcription, had mentioned ano⯑ther ſtatue of Hercules by the ſame artiſt, executed alſo in wood, and [208] placed near a temple of Minerva, in the territory of Corinth. This ſtatue, deſcribed as naked, may be therefore conſidered as the ſource of the faſhion that prevailed in the heroic images of Greece; and Pauſa⯑nias, in his account of it, delivers his opinion on the works of Daedalus in general. They did not ſatisfy the ſight, (accuſtomed to the pro⯑ductions of improved art,) yet they had in them an air of inſpiration^*.

From this candid account, a modern reader may eaſily conceive the kind of deficiency, and the degree of animation, that were viſible in the ſtatues of this early artiſt. His extraordinary ſkill as a ſculptor ſeems to reſt on his marble bas-relief, repreſenting the Dance of Ari⯑adne; I ſhall therefore cloſe this long, yet imperfect note, on the father of Grecian art, by tranſcribing the deſcription which Homer has given of his moſt memorable work, with the lively remarks of D'Han⯑carville on this ancient and intereſting ſculpture.

Homer, in deſcribing the ſhield of Achilles, pays the following tri⯑bute to the merit of Daedalus:

[210]The recent verſion of my admirable friend, which he has lately and happily retouched, is more faithful to Homer and to Daedalus:

I have tranſcribed theſe copious remarks, becauſe they ſeem to place in a very fair and judicious point of view the merits of the early ſculp⯑tor, whoſe obſcure hiſtory I have wiſhed to illuſtrate. With ſuch a deſire, I have particularly to regret one of the loſt comedies aſcribed to Ariſtophanes, which bore the name of Daedalus: yet it is poſſible that ſuch a compoſition might not have afforded that clear light concerning the life and character of the artiſt, which we might eagerly expect from its title. As it was the favourite amuſement of Ariſtophanes to ridicule the tragic poets of his country, perhaps his Daedalus con⯑tained little more than a ludicrous parody on the Prometheus of Aeſchylus. However this might be, the name of Daedalus appears to have been generally honoured by the poets of Greece; and I haſten to conclude this attempt to elucidate and confirm his reputation with the words of a Greek epigram, that repreſent him as a paragon of ex⯑cellence:

[214]There were two ſubſequent artiſts, of conſiderable eminence, who bore the name of Daedalus. The firſt, a native of Sicyon, acquired celebrity by many ſtatues that are mentioned by Pliny and Pauſanias. The latter was probably a Bithynian, as he is ſuppoſed to have executed, at Nicomedia, a wonderful image of Jupiter, the patron of armies^*.

The learned Abbé Barthelemy ſays, in a note to his elaborate and lively travels of Anacharſis, ‘Je ne nie pas l'exiſtence d'un Dédale très ancien. Je dis ſeulement que les premiers progrés de la ſculp⯑ture doivent être attribués à celui de Sicyone.—Tom. iii. p. 558.’

I am ſorry to differ from ſo accompliſhed a judge of antiquity; but I conſider the ſculptural merit of the elder Daedalus as completely proved by the teſtimony of Homer. The works of Endaeus, the Athenian diſciple of this early artiſt, are mentioned by Athenagoras and Pauſa⯑nias. The latter ſeems to have examined the works of Endaeus with peculiar attention.

Appendix A.2.12 NOTE XII. Ver. 290. And from oblivion ſav'd the artiſt and the bard.

Although the Lacedaemonians were ſo little attached to the pacific and elegant purſuits of life, that, according to a bold expreſſion of Iſocrates concerning them, they were hardly acquainted with their letters, yet they ſeem to have paid particular regard to the art of ſculp⯑ture. Pauſanias, with his uſual accuracy, has recorded that this early and accompliſhed artiſt, Gitiadas, whom he celebrates for the variety of his talents, was a native of Sparta^†. The minute and intelligent [215] deſcriber of his ſculptural works ſpeaks highly of the figures that he executed in braſs, particularly thoſe of Neptune and Amphitrite. That the Lacedemonians had a ſtrong paſſion for ſculpture ſeems evi⯑dent, from the magnificence of their Amyclaean Apollo, whoſe throne was decorated by Bathycles, an artiſt of Magneſia, and compriſed, as M. de Caylus has juſtly obſerved, an epitome of ancient mythology. Winkelman ſuppoſes Bathycles to have lived in the age of Solon. One ſingular advantage which the Spartans expected to derive from the poſſeſſion of fine ſtatues was to improve the beauty of their offspring; a ſource of their partiality both to ſculpture and to painting which Junius has explained in the following paſſage: ‘Lacedaemonii quondam in re⯑liquis horridiores, pulcherrimas quaſque picturas in ſummo ſemper habuerunt pretio; dicuntur enim de liberorum ſuorum pulchritudine tantopere ſolliciti fuiſſe, ut formoſiſſimorum adoleſcentium Nirei, Nar⯑ciſſi, Hiacinthi, Caſtoris et Pollucis, deorumque ſpecioſiſſimorum Apollinis nempe ac Bacchi effigies gravidis uxoribus repraeſentarent. JUNIUS, de Pictura Veterum, p. 71.’

On the works of Gitiadas, which conſiſted of brazen bas-reliefs, in the temple of the Spartan Minerva, D'Hancarville has made the fol⯑lowing judicious remark:

Gitiadas, according to probable conjecture, lived in the age of Romulus.

Appendix A.2.13 NOTE XIII. Ver. 302. Where haſte inſulted his unfiniſh'd toil.

Dipaenus and Scyllis are uſually mentioned together as brothers and aſſociates in their art, which they learnt from Daedalus. Some authors (according to Pauſanias) ſuppoſed them to be his ſons. The moſt ſtriking part of their hiſtory is contained in the following paſſage of Pliny:

Cedrenus has deſcribed a very curious Minerva, ſuppoſed to be the work of theſe fraternal artiſts, as preſerved at Conſtantinople:

Appendix A.2.14 NOTE XIV. Ver. 316. And blam'd the mean abuſe of mental power.

Anthermus, a ſculptor in the iſland of Chios, had two ſons of his own profeſſion, Bupalus and Athenis. The brothers became famous by works of conſiderable merit in their art; and ſtill more ſo by their degrading it into an inſtrument of malevolence againſt the poet Hippo⯑nax. This animated but ill-favoured bard, diſtinguiſhed by mental ta⯑lents and perſonal deformity, is ſuppoſed to have been in love with the daughter of Bupalus, who, to prevent a connexion that he diſliked, is ſaid to have exhibited a caricatura of the formidable lover. The exaſ⯑perated poet retaliated by a ſatire of ſuch ſeverity againſt the offending ſculptors, that, according to tradition, it made them frantic, and im⯑pelled them to ſuicide—a ſtory which, as Pliny juſtly obſerves upon it, was ſufficiently refuted by their ſubſequent productions.

Their caricature of Hipponax (perhaps the firſt caricature upon re⯑cord) is ſuppoſed by D'Hancarville to have ſuggeſted to Theſpis, their contemporary, the idea of furniſhing his actors with a maſk, inſtead of colouring their faces with vermilion. The ſatire of the vindictive poet, though we may hope it did not produce the horrible effect aſcribed to it, appears to have given celebrity to its indignant author. The Greek Anthologia contains no leſs than four inſcriptions on this powerful ſa⯑tiriſt. I have ſelected the two beſt of them, for the amuſement of my reader:

Hipponax was a native of Epheſus, and he is celebrated by Athenaeus as the inventor of parody: but his title to that invention is in ſome mea⯑ſure controverted by the Abbé Sallier, in his Diſſertation on the Origin and Character of Parody, in the Memoirs of the French Academy. Bayle has an article on Hipponax, in which he has collected many curious examples of perſons who have ſuffered from the dangerous ſe⯑verity of literary vengeance. The enmity between the ſculptor of Chios and the Epheſian ſatiriſt will probably recall to the recollection of [220] an Engliſh reader the ſimilar enmity between thoſe bitter and powerful antagoniſts, Hogarth and Churchill.

From the ſlight fragments that remain of Hipponax, I am inclined to believe that his Satires, celebrated as they have been, were inferior in genius, and perhaps in acrimony, to the vindictive performance of the Engliſh poet, which contains ſo many beautiful paſſages, (beautiful both in ſentiment and expreſſion,) that although good-nature muſt wiſh the quarrel which produced it had never exiſted, the poem is ſtill admi⯑rable as a maſterpiece of poetical indignation.

Appendix A.2.15 NOTE XV. Ver. 326. Whoſe very ſilence cried aloud, "Be free!"

The paſſion of the Greeks for liberty was at once proclaimed and nouriſhed by the various honours which they paid to the memory of Harmodius and Ariſtogiton.

Theſe celebrated young friends had periſhed in their perilous exploit of delivering Athens from the tyranny of Hipparchus: but the grate⯑ful Athenians revered them as the reſtorers of freedom; and according to the animated expreſſions of Demoſthenes in their praiſe, the venera⯑tion which they received from public gratitude was equal to that of he⯑roes and of gods. The four ſtatuaries, Antenor, Critias, Antigonus, and Praxiteles, had diſtinguiſhed themſelves, at different periods, in executing the ſtatues of theſe favourite public characters. Pliny relates that this work of Praxiteles was carried off by Xerxes, in the plunder of Athens, and reſtored to that city by Alexander the Great, after his conqueſt of Perſia. Arrian appears ſo much pleaſed with this munificence of his [221] hero to Athens, that he has mentioned the reſtitution of theſe intereſt⯑ing ſtatues in two different paſſages of his Hiſtory; and exultingly ſays, in his account of them, "they are now in the Ceramicus^*!" Pauſa⯑nias aſſerts that the ſtatues were reſtored to Athens by Antiochus; and Valerius Maximus aſcribes the honour of their reſtitution to Seleucus. Theſe contradictory accounts may be reconciled, if we recollect that many ſtatues were executed of theſe idolized martyrs to freedom; and as it is probable that ſeveral of theſe were carried out of their coun⯑try by the Perſian plunderers, the honour of their reſtitution might of courſe be truly aſcribed to more than one victorious friend to the arts and monuments of Greece. Sculpture and Poetry ſeem to have vied with each other in their endeavours to immortalize theſe young ty⯑rannicides. The Athenian ſong of Harmodius is proverbially fa⯑mous; and its potent enthuſiaſm is thus forcibly deſcribed by our learned and eloquent Lowth, in his admirable Praelectiones:

To return to the brazen ſtatues.—They gave riſe to a very ſpirited but dangerous repartee of Antiphon; who being aſked by the tyrant Dionyſius what kind of braſs was eſteemed the beſt, replied, ‘That which forms the ſtatues of Harmodius and Ariſtogiton.’

Appendix A.2.16 NOTE XVI. Ver. 398. The future ſunſhine of a fairer hour.

Among the infinite number of intereſting perſonal anecdotes which the hiſtory of ancient ſculpture diſplays, there are hardly any more pleaſing to the fancy, or more calculated to exhibit the Grecian character in a favourable point of view, than the anecdotes preſerved by Pauſanias, concerning the Athenian women and their children, who having found a friendly refuge in the walls of Traezene, when the Perſian invaſion reduced them to the neceſſity of flying from their native city, had their ſtatues erected in a portico of the Traeze⯑nian Forum. I preſume that theſe ſtatues were a preſent from the people of Athens. They were ſuch memorials as every patriot of Greece muſt have contemplated with peculiar delight: they were graceful monuments of Grecian courage, benevolence, and gratitude, [223] The Traezenians probably took infinite pride in theſe public orna⯑ments of their city, for they are deſcribed by Pauſanias as a people who delighted in every circumſtance that reflected honour on the ſpot they inhabited^*.

Appendix A.3.1 NOTE I. Ver. 38. A THIRST for praiſe, and panting for the goal.

I follow the authority of Cicero, Vitruvius, and Quintilian in nam⯑ing Myron as the earlieſt of the more accompliſhed Grecian ſculptors, who acquired infinite celebrity by making near approaches to perfection in their art. Pauſanias ſpeaks of Myron as an Athenian: but Pliny affirms that he was born at Eleutherae, (a city of Baeotia,) and a diſ⯑ciple of Agelades, an artiſt of Argos. The Bacchus of Myron is ſaid by Pauſanias to have excelled all his other productions, except his ſtatue of Erectheus at Athens: but this very diligent artiſt appears to have ex⯑ecuted many works of conſiderable excellence, and to have been moſt commended for what he probably regarded as a trifling performance. I allude to his famous heifer of braſs, celebrated by no leſs than thirty-ſix epigrams in the Greek Anthologia; upon which the French ſculptor [226] Falconet ſays, with ſome pleaſantry and ſome juſtice, ‘Les Atheniens étoient les François de la Grèce, et devoient faire autant de jolis vers ſur un vache que nous en avons faits ſur la chatte en ſculpture de Madame de Leſdiguières^*.’

I ought, however, to obſerve, for the credit of Athens, that theſe epigrams are far from having been all produced by her citizens. They form, altogether, ſuch a heap of inſipid compliments as would not, I think, have appeared very flattering to an artiſt of Attic genius. The following, I believe, is one of the beſt of them:

Myron, whoſe Diſcobolos proved how ſucceſsfully he had ſtudied the human figure, could he have heard and underſtood the judicious lan⯑guage [227] in which Quintilian has mentioned that elaborate ſtatue^*, would have been more gratified perhaps by the praiſe of the Latin critic than by all the Greek epigrams on his heifer. This remark cannot be ex⯑tended to Pliny, who has deſcribed the works of Myron as rather defi⯑cient in expreſſion; an opinion which Falconet pronounces to be an egregious miſtake, if the antique head of Jupiter, that was ſtationed in the garden of Verſailles, and aſcribed to Myron, is in truth a perform⯑ance of this celebrated artiſt. Though I am generally diſpoſed to take the part of Pliny againſt the pert malevolence with which the lively and keen Falconet has attacked and derided his opinions, I muſt confeſs that I think the reſpectable connoiſſeur of ancient Rome miſtaken in the preſent point; and his miſtake appears ſufficiently proved by the fol⯑lowing animated Greek verſes on the Ladas of Myron, a ſtatue which, if the poet who deſcribes it may be truſted, was ſurely a maſterpiece of expreſſion:

[229]Myron, like other Greek artiſts indulged his fancy in ſome works of ſupernatural magnitude, and in ſome of extreme minuteneſs.

Strabo has recorded that the iſland of Samos contained three coloſſal divinities by Myron, on one baſis. Antony ſeized the whole groupe; but Auguſtus reſtored two of them, Hercules and Minerva, to their ori⯑ginal ſtation; reſerving the third, a Jupiter, to adorn the Capitol^*. As to the minuter works of Myron, Pliny has mentioned his monu⯑ment of a graſshopper as celebrated in the verſes of the poeteſs Erinna; a luſus of art executed probably to pleaſe ſome fanciful fair to whom the ſculptor might be tenderly attached. The lovers of ſculpture muſt la⯑ment that an artiſt of ſuch merit and celebrity had the misfortune of ending his days in deplorable indigence; as Junius, with too much probability, ſuppoſes him to have done, from the following paſſage of Petronius Arbiter:

Appendix A.3.2 NOTE II. Ver. 54. The Amazon of Phidias yields to thine.

Polycletus, who obtained this ſingular triumph, was a native of Si⯑cyon, and a fellow-ſtudent with Myron under the ſame maſter, Agela⯑des. We are indebted to Pliny for this intereſting account of a conteſt for pre-eminence in beauty among the ſculptured Amazons, executed by artiſts of different periods, and conſecrated in the temple of the Ephe⯑ſian [230] Diana. He ſays that the artiſts who were preſent adjudged the point, by declaring which ſtatue each artiſt eſteemed as ſecond to his own: by this ingenious mode of deciſion Polycletus ranked as the firſt of the rival ſculptors, Phidias the ſecond, Cteſilas the third, Cydon the fourth, and Phragmon the fifth^*. The modern French ſculptor Falconet exults in this anecdote, as a proof of his favourite maxim: ‘Que le peintre et le ſtatuaire ſont de meilleurs juges des productions de leur art, que le public même éclairé ſur d'autres matières.’

As to the general merit of Polycletus, the words of the intelligent Strabo give a very high idea of it, where he ſays that the ſtatues of this artiſt were in technical excellence moſt beautiful; but, in high finiſhing and magnificence, inferior to thoſe of Phidias^†.

Cicero has alſo mentioned the works of Polycletus as examples of perfection: ‘Nondum Myronis ſatis ad veritatem adducta, jam tamen quae non dubites pulchra dicere. Pulchriora etiam Polycleti, et jam plane perfecta, ut mihi quidem videri ſolet.’

In his orations againſt Verres, the Roman orator expatiates on the extreme beauty of two bronze figures, the celebrated Canephorae of Polycletus; and Winkelman, in his Monumenti inediti, (No. 182.) has engraved, from a bas-relief in terra-cotta, two Athenian virgins that he ſuppoſes to have been copied from theſe favourite ſtatues.

But the moſt conſiderable performance of Polycletus was his Juno of Argos, or rather of Mycenae, according to the local deſcription which Strabo has given of her temple. This admired ſtatue is deſcribed by [231] Pauſanias as a grand ſitting figure of ivory and gold, adorned with a crown, on which the Graces and the Hours were repreſented. The majeſtic image is alſo celebrated in the following Greek epigram:

The reputation of Polycletus ſeems to have been much extended by a Treatiſe on Proportion, illuſtrated by a ſtatue, regarded as a model of perfect ſymmetry, and ſaid to have been ſtudied as ſuch, in a later period, by Lyſippus. Many writers have mentioned this remarkable [232] ſtatue, but the moſt ſatisfactory account of it is contained in a paſſage of Galen, quoted by Junius, which expreſsly ſays that it was deſigned to confirm thoſe principles of art which the ſculptor taught in writing upon ſymmetry; and that both his treatiſe and his ſtatue were diſtin⯑guiſhed by a common name, "The canon of Polycletus^*." D'Han⯑carville, in the following paſſage, points out a mode of recovering the loſt theory of the Grecian artiſt:

The author purſues his idea in diſcuſſing proportions relating to the face, collected by Mengs, and cited by Winkelman, from the fineſt ſpecimens of ancient ſculpture. Into the minutiae of ſuch a diſcuſſion the intent of this work does not lead me to enter. He draws an in⯑ference from theſe reſearches which I confeſs myſelf unwilling to allow; for he ſays:

With an enthuſiaſtic eſteem and admiration for the excellence of the Greeks in art and in literature, the moderns ought to cheriſh a per⯑ſuaſion that even that excellence, great as it is, may poſſibly be ſur⯑paſſed. Such an idea may be cenſured as preſumptuous: but in every arduous purſuit a degree of preſumption is the very ſource of ſucceſs. Reaſon and fancy may unite in refuſing to believe that, in cultivating the fine arts, any nation, or any individual has yet arrived at the utmoſt limits of attainable perfection. In ſculpture, indeed, it is not very probable that any modern artiſt, in any part of the globe, may poſſeſs all the advantages to lead him to excellence which the ſculptors of an⯑tiquity poſſeſſed; yet the modern may avail himſelf of ſome advan⯑tages to which the ancient was a ſtranger. But I forbear to enter on a topic which may be more properly diſcuſſed when modern art is the im⯑mediate ſubject before us.—I return to Polycletus.

Winkelman has ſtyled him a ſublime poet in his art; and he ſeems, indeed, to have enjoyed that rare mixture of induſtry, confidence, and imagination which is ſo favourable to felicity in the works of his pro⯑feſſion.

Aelian has related the following anecdote, to ſhew how ſucceſsfully he corrected the temerity of popular criticiſm:

[234]Polycletus executed two ſtatues at the ſame time; gratifying, in the one, the caprice of the crowd; in the other, adhering to the rules of art. He gratified the multitude in this manner: According to the ſug⯑geſtion of all his viſitors, he retouched and altered ſomething in con⯑formity to the opinion of each. At laſt he produced his two figures; the one was univerſally admired; the other derided. "Yet this," ſaid Polycletus, "which you condemn, is your own work; and the other, which you admire, is mine^*."

It is recorded of this excellent ſculptor, that he excelled alſo as an architect; and Pauſanias extols the temple of Aeſculapius, which he built for the Epidaurians, as ſurpaſſing, in harmonious beauty, all the magnificent ſtructures of the Romans. I ſhall cloſe my imperfect ac⯑count of this accompliſhed artiſt with the Greek epigram on his ſtatue of Polyxena:

Appendix A.3.3 NOTE III. Ver. 141. That Athens was eclips'd by her Olympian fane.

The talents and reputation of Phidias were ſo great, that they are allowed to form the moſt honourable aera in the hiſtory of art. The Abbé Gedoyn has added to his hiſtory of Daedalus an account of this his moſt illuſtrious ſucceſſor, for the ſake of diſplaying at once, in the lives of theſe two memorable men, the commencement and the per⯑fection of ſculpture. Athens had the honour of giving birth to them [236] both; for Phidias, by the authority of Plato, is proved to be an Athe⯑nian. He ſtudied under two maſters of no great celebrity, Agelas and Hippias: but he had the advantage of having two brothers diſtinguiſh⯑ed by their talents as painters, and the ſtill greater advantage of having cultivated and brought to maturity his own genius, at that fortunate period when the triumphant ſtate of his country, and the magnificent ſpirit of Pericles, afforded him a moſt favourable field for its exertion. With what patriotic pride and delight muſt an Attic ſculptor have ex⯑erted his powers in converting that very marble, which the Perſian in⯑vaders had brought with them to form a trophy of their conqueſt, into a memorial of their defeat! I allude to the Nemeſis of Phidias, a ſtatue executed under theſe animating circumſtances, according to Pauſanias, and ſtationed in a temple at Rhamnus, at the diſtance of ſixty ſtadia from Marathon—a ſtatue, celebrated in the following epigram:

Phidias is ſaid to have diſtinguiſhed himſelf by his general knowledge, and a perfect acquaintance with the laws of proportion, and the princi⯑ples of optics.

That ſingular metrical compiler of anecdotes, Tzetzes, has related, in his Verſus Politici, a profeſſional conteſt between Phidias and Alca⯑menes, in which (if credit may be given to ſuch an hiſtorian) this ad⯑mired [239] chief of Athenian ſculptors ran ſome danger of his life from the ignorance and irritability of his judges^*.

The rival artiſts contended in forming a Minerva of bronze for the city. The moſt beautiful figure was to be choſen, and ſtationed on a lofty column. The two ſtatues were produced. That of Alcamenes was immediately admired for its delicacy; and the work of Phidias ap⯑peared ſo diſguſting to the people, from its open lips and diſtended noſtrils, that its author was in ſome danger of being ſtoned to death by popular indignation^†: but when the rival goddeſſes were raiſed to their intended height, Alcamenes became the jeſt, and Phidias the fa⯑vourite of the people.

Such is the amuſing ſtory of Tzetzes. What degree of ſerious credit it may deſerve I leave to the judgment of my reader, and haſten to no⯑tice the two moſt celebrated works of Phidias; his more magnificent Minerva, ſtationed as the patroneſs of Athens in her temple called Parthenon; and the ſtatue extolled as the maſterpiece of antiquity, his Olympian Jupiter at Elis.

Pauſanias deſcribes this Minerva as an upright figure, with a garment deſcending to her feet. He does not mention her height; but M. de Caylus, from the expreſſion of Pliny, (cubitorum viginti ſex,) eſtimates it at thirty-nine feet, of the French meaſure. ‘The coſtly ſplendor of the ſtatue,’ ſays Winkelman, ‘may be conceived from the quan⯑tity of gold employed in its decoration. This, as we learn from a [240] ſpeech of Pericles preſerved in Thucydides, amounted to forty ta⯑lents; the drapery was of gold, and the uncovered parts of the figure formed of ivory.’ The latter material was alſo employed in the head of Meduſa that appeared on the breaſt of the goddeſs, according to the deſcription of Pauſanias; and perhaps gold and ivory were united in the image of Victory of four cubits, that was placed in one of her hands; though its poſition is not aſcertained by Pauſanias, who only ſays that in her hand ſhe held a ſpear. But the ſmaller figure of Vic⯑tory that was frequently added as a decoration to a coloſſal ſtatue, and diſplayed in the extended hand of the triumphant divinity, was ſome⯑times of ſolid gold, as we may conjecture from the profane jeſt of Dio⯑nyſius, the tyrant of Syracuſe, who, in ſtealing ſuch figures, ſaid it would be folly not to take from the gods what they appeared to offer.— But to return to the Minerva of Phidias. Pliny ſays that on the promi⯑nent ſide of her ſhield the battle of the Amazons was repreſented; and in the concave part, the conflict between the giants and the gods. Nay, even her ſandals were decorated, according to his account, with the battle of the Centaurs and the Lapithae.

M. de Caylus has ventured to criticiſe, with a becoming ſpirit, theſe minute decorations:

The ſculptor Falconet, who attacks, without mercy, the inaccu⯑racies of Pliny, and is ſometimes rather petulantly ſevere on the re⯑ſpectable connoiſſeur of his own country whom I have juſt quoted, yet highly commends theſe remarks on the Minerva of Phidias. At the ſame time he makes a lively, but a raſh attempt, to vindicate the Athe⯑nian artiſt in the following conjecture:

This animated artiſt, who is often very acrimonious in cenſuring the inaccuracy of reſpectable writers on ſubjects relating to his own pro⯑feſſion, has fallen himſelf into conſiderable inaccuracies, in ſpeaking of this celebrated Minerva. I ſhall not enter into a minute diſcuſſion of theſe, but merely obſerve, that his conjecture concerning the figures on [243] the ſhield of the goddeſs is entirely overthrown by many paſſages from ancient authors collected by Junius to illuſtrate this ſtatue.

It was alleged as a crime againſt Phidias that he had introduced his own portrait and that of Pericles in the battle of the Amazons, which formed the moſt ſtriking ornament of the ſhield in queſtion; and Ju⯑nius has cited a paſſage from Ariſtotle particularly remarkable, as it diſ⯑plays the ingenious ſolicitude of the ſculptor to preſerve his own figure from the malignity of any one who might wiſh to ſtrike it out of the group^*.

Plutarch conſiders the baſe attempt to ruin Phidias in the eſteem of the Athenians as a political manoeuvre to try the public influence of his patron Pericles. We owe to that invaluable biographer the anec⯑dote to which I have alluded in the Poem: I mean the friendly pre⯑caution of Pericles, by which he protected the ſculptor from the ſlan⯑derous accuſation of having embezzled a part of the gold conſigned to him for the decoration of Minerva. By the advice of his illuſtrious friend, the artiſt is ſaid to have contrived the golden habiliments of the goddeſs in ſuch a manner that they might be eaſily removed, and his probity aſcertained by the infallible teſt of the ſcales.

The vindication of his innocence in this important article did not ſecure Phidias from the inſidious rancour of his enemies. He was ac⯑cuſed of alluring the chaſte matrons of Athens to his houſe, under the pretence of ſhewing his ſtatues, for the diſhonourable purpoſe of grati⯑fying the licentious paſſions of his patron. It has been ſaid that he [244] periſed in priſon, under the popular indignation which this calumny excited: but the indefatigable Meurſius has proved, by the authority of an old ſcholiaſt on Ariſtophanes, that the perſecuted artiſt eſcaped to Elis, and ended his days with honour in a ſcene which he is ſuppoſed to have adorned, in gratitude for the protection it afforded him, with the ſublimeſt work of ſculpture that was ever produced, even by Grecian talents—his Olympian Jupiter; an image which he conceived, accord⯑ing to his own ingenuous account, from Homer's deſcription of the god^*.

I will not enlarge this long note by tranſcribing all the animated paſſages in ancient authors which allude to this moſt memorable ſtatue: but as it may gratify my reader to have an immediate opportunity of comparing my ſketch of it in rhyme with more minute deſcriptions in proſe, I will add the Greek original from Pauſanias, and a modern copy from the eloquent Travels of Anacharſis.

The dimenſions of this wonderful ſtatue (which Callimachus is ſaid to have expreſſed in Iambic verſe) are not preſerved: but from a paſ⯑ſage in Strabo, which repreſents the head of the ſitting figure as near the roof of the temple, (in height ſixty feet,) we are enabled to form ſome conjectures concerning its magnitude. Falconet ſuppoſes that the temple and the ſtatue were wretchedly diſproportioned to each other: [247] but the general voice of antiquity, in praiſe of the very ſublime effect which this ſpectacle altogether produced, is ſufficient to refute his ſup⯑poſition. Livy deſcribes this effect very forcibly, in ſpeaking of Paulus Aemilius: ‘Olympiam aſcendit, ubi et alia quidem ſpectanda viſa, et Jovem velut praeſentem intuens, motus animo eſt^*.’

Cedrenus affirms that the ivory Jupiter of Phidias was preſerved at Conſtantinople; and, if we may credit an author ſo frequently erro⯑neous, the ſame city contained alſo a reclining Jupiter in marble, by this illuſtrious artiſt^†.

But it is time to take leave of Phidias.—Let me firſt obſerve that he ſometimes uſed the pencil as well as the implements of ſculpture, and painted a portrait of his kind and powerful friend Pericles, diſtinguiſhed by his lofty title "the Olympian."

Pliny mentions a portrait of Pericles in bronze, (by the ſculptor Cteſilaus,) with the fame appellation: ‘Cteſilaus (fecit) Periclem Olmypium dignum cognomine.’ Many artiſts were undoubtedly patronized by this magnificent ſtateſman: but Phidias was his favourite, and entruſted with the ſuperintendance of thoſe ſplendid public works with which the liberal ambition of Pericles delighted to decorate his country.

Appendix A.3.4 NOTE IV. Ver. 170. Her ſhame his pride, her ornaments his prey.

How deplorable was the fate of Athens, repeatedly the captive of two, the moſt artful, ſanguinary, and impious wretches that diſhonoured the liſt of ancient heroes—Lyſander and Sylla! Both theſe barbarous conquerors had a paſſion for ſculpture; ſo great was the influence of that powerful art over the ſterneſt ſpirits of antiquity! Plutarch informs us, that after Lyſander had taken Athens, he devoted a part of his ſpoil to the expence of raiſing his own ſtatue, and thoſe of his officers, at Delphi. Yet ſo truly ſavage was this deteſtable victor, that Plutarch rather ſeems to believe the report he mentions of Lyſander's having propoſed, in the council of the allies, to reduce the Athenians to ſlavery. A Theban officer, according to the ſame authority, propoſed the utter demolition of the city; and Athens is ſaid to have been ſaved by the happy voice of a Phocenſian, who ſung to the conquerors, at a banquet, a few verſes from a tragedy of Euripides, which awakened their humanity, and made them ſhrink from their horrible purpoſe of annihilating a city ſo admirable, and the parent of men ſo illuſtrious.

Milton alludes to this incident in the cloſe of his 8th Sonnet:

Appendix A.3.5 NOTE V. Ver. 192. And to new ſons new excellence aſſign'd.

Sculpture is aſſuredly one of the moſt difficult of the fine arts; yet it is a ſtriking truth that Greece produced ſeveral ſculptors of the firſt rate, though ſhe could only boaſt a ſingle Homer. It is alſo remark⯑able, that the Grecian ſculptors were more numerous than the painters of their country. That intelligent and contemplative obſerver of an⯑tiquity, M. de Caylus, has had the curioſity to compare their reſpective numbers, as far as the narratives of Pauſanias and Pliny enabled him to make the compariſon. Of the former he ſays: ‘Il ne fait mention que de quinze peintres, tandis qu'il diſtingue de la manière la plus claire cent ſoixante et neuf ſculpteurs. Il faut cependant convenir que Pline fait mention de cent trente-trois peintres Grecs, bons ou médi⯑ocres..... On pourroic repondre pour concilier les deux auteurs, que Pline a parlé de tous les peintres de la Grèce, de l'Aſie Mineure, de la Sicile, et de ce que l'on appelloit la grande Grèce, &c. et que Pauſanias n'a pas même viſité toute la Grèce proprement dite, qu'il n'écrivoit point l'hiſtoire des artiſtes, et qu'il parloit ſeulement de ceux dont il avoit vû les ouvrages; ouvrages dont le nombre étoit encore diminué, par l'avidité des Romains, qui dévaſtoient ce pays depuis environs quatre-vingt ans; à compter le tems qui s'étoit écoulé depuis Pline juſqu'à lui.’

Of all the arts in which they excelled, ſculpture ſeems, indeed, to have been the prime favourite of the Greeks; and to the national en⯑thuſiaſm [250] in its favour the Grecian ſtatues are principally indebted for their exquiſite perfection.

Scopas, a native of Paros, is mentioned by Pliny as a contemporary with Myron and Polycletus, in the 87th Olympiad. He is repreſented alſo, by the ſame author, and by Vitruvius, as one of the eminent artiſts employed by the magnificent Artemiſia in decorating the monu⯑ment of her huſband Mauſolus.

But as a ſculptor, who lived ſo early, could hardly have been living at the time when that ſumptuous monument was raiſed, Winkelman conjectures that more than one artiſt was diſtinguiſhed by the name of Scopas. It ſeems rather more probable that Pliny was miſtaken in the period he aſſigned to this admirable ſculptor; and indeed the chronology of almoſt all the ancient artiſts, and their moſt memorable works, is ſo full of perplexities and contradiction, that miſtakes of this kind are almoſt unavoidable in a curſory view of their productions.

The works of Scopas ſeem to have been full of fancy and feeling; yet it is not eaſy to form an exact idea of his three ſtatues, repreſenting the variations of Love, as they are briefly deſcribed by Pauſanias^*.

Pliny has enumerated many works of Scopas, that held, in the pe⯑riod when he wrote, a very high rank among the ſculptural decorations [251] of Rome. The Palatine Apollo, a ſitting Veſta with two female attend⯑ants, and a collection of marine divinities, which, according to the lively expreſſion of the enthuſiaſtic Pliny, might be termed a glorious performance, if it had employed the whole life of the artiſt^*.

M. de Caylus imagines that theſe Nereids, riding on their ſea-horſes, were executed in bas-relief. Falconet is of a different opinion. It is, however, probable that they were ſo, and that they are ſtill preſerved.

I have ſeen admirable ſketches of ſuch Nereids as anſwer to Pliny's deſcription, executed at Rome by Mr. Howard, an Engliſh artiſt, who has the rare talent of drawing from ſculpture with ſuch preciſion and delicacy, that England may ſoon ſurpaſs other countries in a juſt and graceful repreſentation of thoſe ancient ſtatues which her men of for⯑tune and taſte have collected; eſpecially as the Dilettanti Society have judiciouſly confided to this artiſt the conduct of ſuch a work, peculiarly calculated to diſplay his abilities, and to reflect an honour on their own inſtitution. It is much to be lamented, that almoſt all the prints, de⯑ſigned to illuſtrate the many voluminous and coſtly books upon ſculpture, are rather caricatures of ancient art, than a faithful copy of its per⯑fections.

But to return to the ancient artiſt whoſe works are the immediate ſub⯑ject of this note.—Pliny has very highly praiſed a Venus by Scopas, and is ſuppoſed to have ſaid that it excelled the Gnidian Venus of Praxiteles, which he had juſt celebrated as the moſt beautiful ſtatue to be found on earth. Falconet, with his uſual petulance, derides Pliny for ſo groſs a contradiction; and even his liberal friend and admirer, M. de Caylus, laments this ſtriking inconſiſtency. Let me hazard [252] what appears to me a probable conjecture, to ſave the credit of an author to whom the lovers of art have infinite obligation. I am per⯑ſuaded that all the blame which Pliny has incurred for this ſuppoſed contradiction aroſe ſolely from a ſlip of the pen in the original manu⯑ſcript: but to elucidate the point, I muſt tranſcribe the paſſage as it ſtands, and add the new reading I wiſh to introduce: ‘Praeterea Ve⯑nus in eodem loco nuda Praxitelicam illam Gnidiam antecedens, et quemcunque alium locum nobilitatura.’—According to the preſent reading, there is not only a contradiction of what he had juſt aſſerted concerning the pre-eminence of the Gnidian ſtatue, but the latter part of the ſentence has little or no meaning. By the following ſlight change in the orthography the abſurd contradiction will be utterly re⯑moved, and a ſignificant ſpirit will appear in the cloſe of the ſentence: ‘Praeterea Venus in eodem loco nuda Praxitelicam illam Gnidi non antecedens, at quemcunque alium locum nobilitatura.’—‘A naked Venus, not ſurpaſſing, indeed, that of Praxiteles at Gnidos, but ſuch as would ennoble any other place.’

Pliny mentions it as a doubt, in his age, whether the Niobe at Rome is the work of Praxiteles or of Scopas. M. de Caylus makes a pleaſant remark on the modeſty of the Roman author, and recommends it as a leſſon to modern connoiſſeurs:

Among the impaſſioned works of Scopas, his Bacchanal was parti⯑cularly admired. Junius, in his account of this artiſt, has inſerted two Greek epigrams from the Anthologia, in praiſe of the figure to which I allude: but there is a third epigram, by Paulus Silentiarius, [253] (one of the beſt among the late writers in that motley collection!) which was probably compoſed on the ſame ſtatue, and which I prefer to the two epigrams cited by Junius. It runs thus:

There is a very pompous eulogy on the Bacchanal of Scopas in that ſingular little work, Deſcriptions of Fourteen Ancient Statues, in Greek proſe, by Calliſtratus. It is ſurpriſing that two ſuch ſcholars as Meur⯑ſius and Olearius could ſuppoſe theſe deſcriptions to be written by the very Calliſtratus whom Demoſthenes attended, with delight, as his maſter in eloquence. They rather ſeem the production of ſome trifling and declamatory ſophiſt, of a much later period. The deſcription of the Bacchanal cloſes, however, with a high compliment to the genius of Scopas; as it aſſerts that his ſculpture diſplayed that ſort of energy and ſpirit which characteriſed the orations of Demoſthenes. Olearius, who publiſhed Calliſtratus in his excellent edition of the two Philoſtrati, ſuppoſes this compariſon of the ſculptor with the orator to have been added to the original deſcription by ſome later hand. As it is peculi⯑arly [254] honourable to Scopas, I will tranſcribe it at the bottom of the page^*.

This eminent artiſt, like his predeceſſor Phidias, and many of the Greeks, was doubly diſtinguiſhed as an architect and a ſculptor. Per⯑haps he was employed in both capacities on the magnificent tomb of Mauſolus, a work celebrated by many writers of antiquity as one of the ſeven wonders of the world, and ingeniouſly illuſtrated by M. de Caylus, in a diſſertation on its form and dimenſions, which the curious reader may find in the Memoirs of the French Academy. Five artiſts of diſtinction were engaged in this ſtupendous ſtructure, which roſe to the height of an hundred and forty feet, including what crowned the ſummit—a triumphal chariot of marble! The columns that ſurrounded the lower part of the fabric amounted to thirty-ſix, compriſing its four fronts. Thoſe to the ſouth and north were more extenſive than the other two. The eaſtern aſpect was aſſigned to the conduct of Scopas. The monument is doubly remarkable as a work of magnificent expenſe and of genuine affection. The fair ſovereign of Caria was ſo ſincere a mourner, that ſhe is ſaid to have died literally of grief for the loſt Mauſolus before his ſumptuous monument could be completed. She had, however, ſufficient energy of character to act as a heroine after his de⯑ceaſe; and Vitruvius records an anecdote of her proweſs which I am induced to mention, as it ſhews, in a very forcible light, the veneration paid by the ancients to the ſtatues erected under the auſpices of Victory.

The Rhodians, who were ſubject to Mauſolus, rebelled againſt his widow Artemiſia. The indignant queen, by a very bold ſtratagem, took poſſeſſion of their city, and raiſed in it, as a trophy of her con⯑queſt, [255] two ſtatues of braſs; her own figure, and another repreſenting Rhodes ſubmitting to her authority. "The Rhodians," ſays Vitruvius, ‘were prevented, by their religion, from removing thoſe ſtatues: but they built around them, to conceal from the view of the public me⯑morials of their diſgrace^*.’

Demoſthenes, in his fine oration in favour of the Rhodians, inti⯑mates that Artemiſia would not oppoſe ſuch efforts as Athens might honourably make to reſtore the liberty of Rhodes.

There is a medal of this affectionate heroine, with the Mauſoleum, but it is a counterfeit, as I learn from the inſtructive and entertaining Eſſay on Medals by Mr. Pinkerton: a writer equally admirable for depth of reſearch and vivacity of deſcription.

Appendix A.3.6 NOTE VI. Ver. 240. And Cupid, ſoon her own, repays the fond device.

Praxiteles, who is mentioned by Pliny as flouriſhing with his brother artiſt Euphranor, in the 104th Olympiad, aroſe to the higheſt diſtinction for the impaſſioned delicacy of his works, both in braſs and marble, but particularly in marble. The rank he held in the public eſteem is evi⯑dent from the petty anecdote recorded in Phaedrus, that thoſe who had delicate pieces of ſculpture to ſell, enhanced the price of them by eraſing [256] the name of Myron, and inſerting that of Praxiteles in its place^*. Pliny, who has enumerated many productions of Praxiteles, celebrates his Gnidian Venus as the moſt perfect image of beauty that ſculpture ever produced; and relates ſome amuſing incidents in proof of its per⯑fection, particularly an offer made to the inhabitants of Gnidos, by the king Nicomedes, who was deſirous of purchaſing this admired ſtatue on the liberal terms of paying the heavy public debt of their iſland. They choſe rather to ſtruggle with any difficulties than to relinquiſh a work of art with which Praxiteles had ennobled their country. The ſtatue was ſtationed in a ſmall open temple, that the form of the goddeſs might be viſible in every direction; and it was eſteemed ad⯑mirable in every point of view ^†. Univerſal admiration gave birth to ſeveral Greek epigrams on this exquiſite ſtatue. I have ſelected the two following from the Anthologia:

The glory that Praxiteles acquired from the excellence of his Venus was increaſed by the felicity with which he executed more than one ſtatue of Cupid. The orations of Cicero againſt Verres have given ce⯑lebrity to the marble Cupid, which the orator repreſents as a rival to one ſtill more famous, by the ſame artiſt, that formed the pride and the wealth of the Theſpians—a ſtatue ſpared by Mummius, when he plun⯑dered the cities of Greece. The rapacious Verres had robbed an in⯑genious and friendly Sicilian of a ſimilar exquiſite and invaluable work of art, which Cicero deſcribes as the production of Praxiteles. It is remarkable that the Roman orator ſpeaks with ſingular modeſty, on this occaſion, of his own knowledge as a connoiſſeur: ‘Marmoreum Praxitelis, (nimirum didici etiam, dum in iſtum inquiro, artificum nomina.’) The rapacity of the infamous governor had indeed amaſſed ſuch a collection of ſculpture, that an examination of his plunder was almoſt ſufficient to form a Roman connoiſſeur. The curious reader may find this collection agreeably illuſtrated in a Diſſertation by the Abbé Fraguier, inſerted in the Memoires of the French Academy, and intitled "The Gallery of Verres."

The happieſt of Cicero's repartees alluded to a ſtatue of this collection, a very valuable ſphinx of bronze, which formed a part of the power⯑ful [259] extortioner's Sicilian plunder. Verres had beſtowed it, as a retain⯑ing fee, on his advocate, the celebrated orator Hortenſius, who had a ſtrong paſſion for works of art. In the courſe of the pleadings, Hor⯑tenſius happened to ſay to his antagoniſt, ‘I do not underſtand theſe riddles!’—"But you ought," replied Cicero; ‘for you have the ſphinx at home^*.’

To return to the Cupid of Praxiteles.—The ſculptor Falconet has cen⯑ſured his countryman, M. de Jaucourt, for inſerting in the French En⯑cyclopedia an anecdote relating to this celebrated ſtatue, told on the au⯑thority of the preſident de Thou. The ſtory ſays that the March⯑ioneſs of Mantua poſſeſſed, in the year 1573, the Cupid of Praxiteles, and the ſleeping Cupid of Michael Angelo; and that de Thou, with other gueſts of the Marchioneſs, were charmed with the work of the modern artiſt, till they compared it with a ſuperior work of antiquity that ſeemed to annihilate its merit. The ſtory is certainly improbable in many points of view; and Falconet exults in producing what he conſiders as a proof that the fact was impoſſible: I mean, the teſtimony of Pauſanias, declaring that the famous Cupid of Praxiteles, a ſtatue of marble, and the idol of the Theſpians, periſhed (after a variety of ad⯑ventures) in a fire at Rome. The evidence of Pauſanias ſufficiently proves, indeed, the fate of the Theſpian ſtatue, but it does not amount to a proof that it was impoſſible for the Marchioneſs of Mantua to poſſeſs a Cupid executed by Praxiteles; becauſe we have already ſeen that there exiſted two marble Cupids of acknowledged beauty, by this illuſtrious ſculptor; and among the ſtatues deſcribed by Calliſtratus, two Cupids, by the ſame artiſt, in bronze, are celebrated as works of ex⯑quiſite [260] perfection. On one of theſe, perhaps, the following epigram was written; though Junius imagined that it was compoſed on the Theſpian Cupid, and that the poet had taken the liberty to turn the marble into braſs:

That curious collector of amorous anecdotes, Athenaeus, relates that Praxiteles gave Phryne the choice of his two admired ſtatues, Cupid and a Satyr. The lively device by which ſhe is ſaid to have obtained the Cupid I have deſcribed, with a little variation, from Pauſanias:

This highly-admired ſculptor had the happineſs of training his ſon Cephiſſodorus to conſiderable excellence in his own profeſſion. That pleaſing and accurate writer, the Abbé Guaſco, has fallen, I think, into a little miſtake concerning this ſon of Praxiteles, whom he repreſents as purſuing the art of his father, without inheriting his talents. The words of Pliny, who mentions ſeveral ſtatues executed by this eminent ſon, of a father ſtill more eminent, may rather lead us to think that the genius as well as the property of his parent deſcended to the filial artiſt^*.

[262]I cannot quit Praxiteles without obſerving, that at the magnificent funeral of Michael Angelo an imaginary portrait of the Grecian ſculp⯑tor was introduced among the various decorations of that ſolemn ſpectacle, and diſtinguiſhed by his favourite ſtatue of the Satyr. "Era un quadro," (ſays Vaſari, in deſcribing theſe decorations,) ‘alto braccia ſei, e lungo otto, nel quale con nuova, e quaſi poetica inven⯑zione era Michel Agnolo in mezzo, come giunto ne campi Eliſi, dove gli erano da man deſtra, aſſai maggiori che il naturale, i piu famoſi, e que' tanto celebrati pittori e ſcultori antichi. Ciaſcuno de quali ſi conoſceva a qualche notabile ſegno. Praſſitele al ſatiro, che è nella vigna di Papa Giulio III.—VASARI Vita di M. Bonarroti, p. 339. edit, di Bottari.’

Appendix A.3.7 NOTE VII. Ver. 246. In glory's car he ſeated Philip's ſon.

Quintilian ſpeaks highly of Euphranor, as an artiſt univerſally ac⯑compliſhed^*; and Pliny commends him for many excellencies, parti⯑cularly for giving peculiar dignity to the character of his heroes^†. He ſeems to have been equally diſtinguiſhed by genius and application, as he excelled in the two arts of ſtatuary and painting, and wrote upon ſymmetry and colours. One of his memorable pictures was the Battle [263] of Mantinea. In the liſt of his ſtatues Pliny mentions a Paris, of ad⯑mirable expreſſion; two coloſſal images of Virtue and of Greece; and triumphal figures of Alexander and Philip^*.

Appendix A.3.8 NOTE VIII. Ver. 265. Lyſippus might have wiſh'd his works to reſt.

Lyſippus was one of the happy few whom an extraordinary com⯑bination of genius, induſtry, and good fortune has exalted from an humble, unpromiſing origin, to the ſummit of excellence and honour. He was a native of Sicyon, and at firſt a common artizan: but hav⯑ing talents for deſign, and being inſtructed, probably, by the eminent painter Eupompus^†, he roſe to the higheſt diſtinction as a ſculptor. Propertius has ſimply and happily expreſſed his peculiar merit and his great celebrity in a ſingle verſe: ‘Gloria Lyſippo eſt animoſa effingere ſigna.’

His works were particularly admired for truth and energy of charac⯑ter; and the period in which he flouriſhed (the 114th Olympiad) afforded him a moſt favourable field for the utmoſt exertion of his ta⯑lents. The number of his works is a noble proof of his indefatigable [264] application. They amounted to ſix hundred and ten, according to the moſt moderate of the two accounts that different copies of Pliny ex⯑hibit. Even this number has rather a marvellous ſound: but the fol⯑lowing intelligent remarks of M. de Caylus, on this ſubject, are ſuffi⯑cient to ſatisfy readers, not familiar with the proceſs of this admirable art, that the multitude of bronzes aſcribed to Lyſippus is far from ex⯑ceeding the limits of credibility; though Pliny has mentioned them in ſuch terms as might produce, without the explanation of experience, only incredulous aſtoniſhment.

[266]This illuſtrious connoiſſeur proceeds to ſhew the delight which the ancients took in ſmall ſtatues of bronze. I ſhall ſoon introduce to my reader a Roman poet's deſcription of the moſt memorable image of this kind, executed by Lyſippus: but I will firſt notice a few of his moſt remarkable productions, on a larger ſcale.

The city of Tarentum was decorated with two coloſſal divinities by Lyſippus,—a Jupiter and a Hercules. When Fabius Maximus made himſelf maſter of the place, he ſaid, (according to Plutarch,) "Let us leave to the Tarentines their angry gods;" and he left them their lofty Jupiter; influenced, moſt probably, more by the difficulty of removing a ſtatue, whoſe height exceeded forty cubits^*, than by his devotional ideas; for he carried off the Hercules, a Coloſſus of in⯑ferior bulk, to place it in the Capitol; and Plutarch cenſures this wary Roman for being more rapacious in Tarentum than Marcellus was in Syracuſe.

Rome poſſeſſed another work of Lyſippus particularly memorable, as it diſcovers the lively intereſt which the Roman people took in theſe Grecian ornaments of their city. The ſtatue I allude to repreſented a man rubbing himſelf after the uſe of the bath. It had been ſtationed, with the uſual ſolemnities, before the baths of Agrippa: but as it hap⯑pened to delight the fancy of Tiberius, that ſubtle and cautious em⯑peror was raſh enough to remove it to his own chamber. The people demanded, by loud clamours in the theatre, that the ſtatue ſhould be reſtored to its proper place; and the ſovereign ſubmitted to its reſto⯑ration^†. The hiſtory of ſtatues is particularly intereſting, as it illuſ⯑trates [267] the manners and the feelings of the ancient world. What a por⯑trait does this anecdote exhibit of the Roman people, who could cla⯑morouſly ſolicit and obtain the reſtoration of a public ſtatue, a ſimple foreign figure, when they had not courage or virtue enough left to vindicate their liberty againſt this timid, licentious, and deſpicable ty⯑rant!

But to return to Lyſippus. The work which was probably his own favourite performance, I mean his equeſtrian ſtatues of Alexander and the guardian attendants of that idolized monarch, were tranſported to Rome after the Roman conqueſt of Macedonia, and adorned the Por⯑tico of Metellus^*.

The Anthologia contains more than one epigram on the portrait of Alexander by Lyſippus. The following appears to be the beſt:

Plutarch, in one of his Moral Treatiſes, has cited, with ſome ap⯑plauſe, the two laſt lines of this epigram; and a very elegant, accom⯑pliſhed writer of our own country, Mr. Webb, has inſerted a tranſla⯑tion of them in his 7th Dialogue on the Beauties of Painting: but I think he has made the ſuppoſed ſpeech of the hero rather more diſ⯑reſpectful to Jupiter than the Greek poet intended. I will give my reader an immediate opportunity of correcting me, if I am wrong in this ſuppoſition, by tranſcribing the couplet to which I allude:

[269]We are indebted to Plutarch for the intereſting anecdote concerning the juſt reproof of Lyſippus to his brother artiſt Apelles^*. The cha⯑racter of this great ſtatuary appears to have been ſo noble, that his life was probably as worthy of being recorded for its virtues, as his pro⯑ductions were for their fidelity to truth and nature: yet, to our regret, we can know but very little of his perſonal hiſtory, and of his nu⯑merous invaluable works. The two eminent antiquarians, Winkelman and Caylus, have ſuppoſed that not a ſingle fragment remains. D'Han⯑carville is inclined to believe that a buſt of Bacchus, preſerved at Por⯑tici, is a real work of this exquiſite artiſt; and his reaſons for think⯑ing ſo may ſerve to illuſtrate the peculiar excellencies of Lyſippus.

In ſpeaking of Lyſippus, I musſt not fail to obſerve that his brother Lyſiſtratus was alſo an eminent ſtatuary, and particularly diſtinguiſhed as the firſt who executed portraits with the utmoſt exactneſs, by the in⯑genious device of taking a caſt in plaiſter from the face.

[270]In citing the words of Pliny, which celebrate Lyſiſtratus for this in⯑vention, I will venture to ſuggeſt a new reading in the paſſage, which may vindicate (as I imagine) this intereſting author from the charge of having expreſſed himſelf rather abſurdly on this ſubject^*.

I have ſeen it ſomewhere obſerved, that a ſtatue, reſembling the di⯑minutive Hercules of Lyſippus, was formerly in the poſſeſſion of the celebrated Pithou, who has been called the Varro of France: but I apprehend that intereſting work of ancient art has long ceaſed to exiſt; and as the animated poem, in which Statius has deſcribed the ſtatue and its moſt amiable poſſeſſor, has not appeared (to my recollection) in our language, I ſhall conclude this note with an entire verſion of the Latin epiſtle I allude to, as the moſt pleaſing tribute that antiquity has paid to the talents of Lyſippus.

Appendix A.3.9 NOTE IX. Ver. 399. And Grief's convulſion ſhakes the ſphere of Art.

M. de Caylus cloſes one of his Diſcourſes on the Sculpture of the Ancients, in the Memoirs of the French Academy, with a circumſtantial account of the Rhodian Coloſſus, collected from the authors of remote and recent times who have occaſionally mentioned this moſt magnificent of all coloſſal figures, the memorable production of a little iſland once ennobled by the united influence of liberty, art, and naval power! Yet, after the reſearches of an accompliſhed writer, on a ſub⯑ject ſo attractive to his fancy, we muſt ſtill remain in ignorance of ſome particulars relating to this intereſting image, that a lover of the arts would be glad to aſcertain. Much, however, is known. Pliny has deſcribed the fragments of this Coloſſus in clear and animated lan⯑guage^*. The Greek epigram, containing its dimenſions, varies (ac⯑cording to different readings) from ſeventy to eighty cubits. M. de Caylus, forming his calculation from the expreſſion of Pliny, that few men could embrace the thumb, concludes that the height of the per⯑fect ſtatue was about an hundred and five feet.

[281]We learn from Strabo that it was broken aſunder at the knees, and that the Rhodians conſidered themſelves as prohibited by an oracle from replacing it. They probably guarded the fragments with a religious veneration. I know not otherwiſe how to account for a very ſurpriſing fact, which my deceaſed friend Gibbon has recorded with his uſual elegance and energy of expreſſion. He obſerves, that ‘after ſtanding fifty-ſix years, the Coloſſus of Rhodes was overthrown by an earthquake: but the maſſy trunk and huge fragments lay ſcat⯑tered eight centuries on the ground.’ I cannot tranſcribe the words of an accompliſhed author, whoſe memory is ſo juſtly dear to me, with⯑out reflecting, with poignant regret, what infinite advantages, for the improvement of my preſent work, I might have derived from his taſte, knowledge, and kindneſs, had his life been extended according to my wiſhes. Gibbon, though he was not a collector of ſtatues or pictures, had a lively eſteem for all the fine arts.

I return to the Rhodian Apollo.—If we may truſt the Byzantine writers, Theophanes and Conſtantine, the braſs of this Coloſſus was gilt^*. The Saracen chief, who invaded Rhodes in the year 672, ſeized and tranſported this ponderous plunder into Syria, where it was publicly ſold to a Jew of Edeſſa. The ſtory of loading nine hundred camels with the weight of theſe ſtupendous relies has the air of an Arabian tale. M. de Caylus imagines that modern writers have fallen into a great miſtake concerning the attitude and the ſtation of the ſtanding Coloſſus, by repreſenting it as a ſtriding figure at the entrance of the port, as the reader may have ſeen it in ordinary prints, with veſ⯑ſels failing between its legs. This intelligent writer rather ſuppoſes it to have been placed on the ſhore, upon a ſingle triangular baſis of white marble. He ſays that no ancient author, no ancient monument, is [282] found to countenance the modern ſuppoſition of a ſtriding attitude: yet I apprehend the following epigram in the Anthologia, according to one mode of conſtruction, amounts almoſt to a proof that the ſtatue had a double baſis; part on the land, and part in the water:

But circumſtances relating to this celebrated work are ſo far from being clearly known, that the ſtatue has been aſcribed to different [283] artiſts: to Chares, to Laches, and to Lyſippus himſelf. Meurſius ſup⯑poſes, with great probability, that it was begun by Chares, and finiſhed by Laches. Theſe two ſculptors were both natives of Lindus, a Rhodian city; and Chares is known to have been a favourite diſciple of Lyſip⯑pus. A paſſage of Cicero, in which he is mentioned as ſuch, informs us in what particular parts of the human figure different ſculptors of eminence were thought to excel^*.

Appendix A.3.10 NOTE X. Ver. 421. Servility benumbs the ſoul of Greece.

Winkelmann, who juſtly eſtimated the influence of freedom upon art, has obſerved, that after Greece was reduced to the condition of a Roman province, hiſtory mentions no Greek artiſt of any note till the period of the Roman triumvirate. "The liberty of the Greeks," ſays that animated author, ‘was buried in the ruins of Corinth. Art ſunk entirely in Magna Graecia, where it had flouriſhed with the phi⯑loſophy of Pythagoras and of Zeno, in the boſom of many free and opulent cities. It periſhed utterly by the arms and the barbarity of the Romans.’

Appendix A.3.11 NOTE XI. Ver. 441. And, faintly promiſing to flouriſh, died.

The learned and enthuſiaſtic hiſtorian of ancient art, in noticing its migration from the deſolated cities of Greece into Syria and Aegypt, remarks, that being employed to ſerve the pomp and pageantry of courts, it loſt an infinite portion of its grandeur and genius under the Seleucides and the Ptolemies. Yet he aſſerts, that under Ptolemy Phi⯑ladelphus, "Alexandria became almoſt what Athens had been."

Is not this paying rather too high a compliment to the Egyptian mo⯑narch? He was, however, a patron of art, and a lover of magnifi⯑cence. His regard for a Grecian city, diſtinguiſhed by talents, appears conſpicuous, from a circumſtance recorded by Athenaeus, in the de⯑ſcription of a ſplendid feſtival with which Ptolemy amuſed himſelf and the people of Alexandria. In this gorgeous ſcene an immenſe multi⯑tude of ſtatues were carried in proceſſion; and near to that of Ptolemy himſelf (who was attended by three oddly-grouped companions, Alex⯑ander, Virtue, and Priapus) was the image of Corinth, adorned with a diadem of gold^*.

Winkelmann imagines, from the profuſion of ſtatues which appeared in this ſumptuous pageant, that a great number of Grecian ſtatuaries found, at this peirod, an aſylum in Alexandria. If they did, it is but too probable that their talents were enfeebled by their change of ſitua⯑tion; ſince Winkelmann himſelf has obſerved, that of the artiſts who [285] then flouriſhed in Egypt, we know only the name of a ſingle ſculptor, Satyreius, who formed, of chryſtal, a portrait of Arſinoe the wife of Ptolemy Philadelphus; a performance celebrated in the following Greek epigram from the Fourth Book of the Anthologia:

[286]Winkelmann conſiders this repreſentation of Arſinoe as an engraved gem: but I have ſeen a ſmall buſt of chryſtal and porphyry united, which may poſſibly be the very portrait deſcribed by Diodorus.

Ptolemy was ſo fond of the arts and of his queen, that he is ſaid to have projected a temple to her memory, ſo vaulted with loadſtone, as to keep a metallic ſtatue of Arſinoe ſuſpended in the air; a project which the death of his famous architect Dimocrates is ſuppoſed to have defeated! Arſinoe happened to ſuffer, in a ſingular manner, in conſe⯑quence of her huſband's paſſion for ſculpture. In marrying his daughter to Antiochus king of Syria, Ptolemy had affectionately conducted the bride to Seleucia; and being charmed by a magnificent ſtatue of Diana, he received it as a preſent from his ſon-in-law, and tranſported it to Alexandria: but Arſinoe falling ſick on its arrival, ſaw, in her troubled dreams, the offended goddeſs, who complained of being removed from her Syrian temple. Ptolemy had tenderneſs ſufficient to calm the diſ⯑turbed fancy of his queen, by ſending back the favourite ſtatue, but had not the reward he deſerved for his humanity—the delight of re⯑ſtoring the health of his Arſinoe.

Winkelmann, in ſpeaking of the arts at the court of Seleucia, aſſerts that the Grecian ſculptors who migrated into Aſia ſurpaſſed, in their works, ſuch of their brethren as remained in their own country; and he quotes the laſt character of Theophraſtus in proof of this aſſertion. In conſulting the character referred to, I find nothing that can relate to works of art: but in a character very near the laſt, (the 23d, on Oſtentation,) I find a paſſage which, if it proves any thing, may be thought rather to prove the reverſe of what the learned hiſtorian of art has, in this inſtance, advanced with an inaccuracy very pardonable in an animated writer, whoſe reſearches were ſo extenſive, and whoſe general merits are ſo great. Theophraſtus makes his man of oſtentation, who boaſts of his campaigns with Alexander, contend that the artiſts in [287] Aſia are ſuperior to thoſe in Europe; whence we may reaſonably infer not that they really were ſo, but that Theophraſtus rather thought the contrary. The paſſage, however, alludes not to ſtatues, but to goblets and gems^*.

The learned Heyne, in his Diſſertation on the Ptolemies, has juſtly obſerved, ‘Primorum ſtatim regum ſtudia artium et cupiditates ope⯑rum ad faſtum et magnificentiam potius ſe inclinaſſe, quam ad judicii elegantiam aut verae pulchritudinis ſenſum: ex ipſis enim regni opibus mature luxus et mollities orta aulam et urbem tanquam peſti⯑lenti ſidere afflavit.—HEYNE Opuſcula, vol. i. p. 115.’

Appendix A.3.12 NOTE XII. Ver. 463. Thy zeal to ſave may Sculpture's field expreſs!

Whether we contemplate the excellence or the number of ancient ſtatues that have been wonderfully recovered in the three laſt centuries, our obligations to Time, as a preſerver, are ſuch as may juſtly excite aſtoniſhment and gratitude. Had he reſtored only the Laocoon, the Apollo of the Belvedere, and the Medicaean Venus, a lover of the arts might conſider his kindneſs in the department of ſculpture, as equivalent to his literary beneficence in preſerving the compoſitions of Demoſthenes, Plato, and Homer. The liberality of Time, as a reſtorer, will appear in the ſtrongeſt point of view, if we contraſt what Poggio ſaid of the ſtatues in Rome, in the fifteenth century, and what the Abbé Guaſco [288] wrote to his brother, on the ſame ſubject, about fifty years ago. I will tranſcribe the two paſſages I allude to; obſerving that the teſtimony of Poggio is the more to be depended on, as he was particularly fond of ancient ſculpture. His delight in collecting fragments of antiquity is recorded by the accompliſhed hiſtorian of Lorenzo de Medici.—Roſ⯑coe, vol. ii. p. 196.

‘Me maxime movet, quod, his ſubjiciam, ex innumeris ferme Co⯑loſſis, ſtatuiſque tum marmoreis, tum aeneis (nam argenteas atque aureas minime miror fuiſſe conflatas) viris illuſtribus ob virtutem po⯑ſitis, ut omittam varia ſigna voluptatis atque artis cauſa publice ad ſpectaculum collocata, marmoreas quinque tantum, quatuor in Con⯑ſtantini Thermis; duas ſtantes pone equos, Phidiae et Praxitelis opus; duas recubantes; quintam in foro Martis; ſtatuam quae hodie Martis fori nomen tenet; atque unam ſolam aeneam equeſtrem deauratam quae eſt ad Baſilicam Leteranenſem Septimio Severo di⯑catam, tantum videmus ſupereſſe; ut partem maximam ſtragis urbis ſi quis numerum advertat, hoc ſolum fuiſſe fateatur.’—Thus feel⯑ingly did Poggio deſcribe, the ſculptural poverty of Rome; poſſeſſing only five ancient ſtatues in the year 1430, according to Gibbon's re⯑marks on the date of his "elegant, moral lecture" De Varietate Fortunae. In the year 1745 the Abbé Guaſco, writing from Rome to his brother, gives the following account of the ſculpture that had delighted him in that city:

Appendix A.3.13 NOTE XIII. Ver. 509. This richeſt offspring of confederate ſkill.

It is a ſuppoſition of Winkelmann, that the Rhodian ſculptor Ageſan⯑der executed himſelf the figure of Laocoon, and Ageſander's two ſons, Athenodorus and Polydorus, the two younger figures of the group: an idea ſo pleaſing, that the fancy and the heart are both willing to embrace it.

Felix de Fredis, a Roman citizen, had the good fortune to diſcover the Laocoon, and to receive from pope Julius the Second an eccleſiaſti⯑cal penſion for his diſcovery. Leo the Tenth exonerated the revenues of the church from this penſion, and gave to Fredis in exchange the poſt of apoſtolical ſecretary, in the year 1517. The raiſing of this, glo⯑rious work of art from its grave might form, perhaps, a very intereſt⯑ing hiſtorical picture; as ſome eminent perſonages might be introduced as ſpectators of the ſcene. The following Latin verſes were written on the ſtatue, ſoon after its revival, by the celebrated Cardinal Sadolet:

Appendix A.3.14 NOTE XIV. Ver. 517. Of wretched beauty, and of ruin'd pride.

I have already obſerved that it was a doubt, in the age of Pliny, whether the Niobe ſhould be aſcribed to Praxiteles or to Scopas. Win⯑kelmann and the Abbé Guaſco agree in aſſigning it to the latter.

If their conjecture be juſt, it is yet probable that Praxiteles alſo exe⯑cuted a ſtatue of Niobe, from the following epigram in the Anthologia:

Appendix A.3.15 NOTE XV. Ver. 525. His brief exiſtence ebbing as he lies.

The ſtatue, commonly called the Dying Gladiator, has been ſuppoſed to be the work of Cteſilaus deſcribed by Pliny: ‘vulneratum deſici⯑entem, in quo poſſit intelligi quantum reſtat animae ^*.’ But Win⯑kelmann imagines it to be rather the figure of a herald, and allows his reader the choice of three eminent heralds of antiquity who were ſlain in deſpight of their pacific office;—Polyphontes, the herald of Laius, killed by oedipus; Copreas, the herald of Euryſtheus, deſtroyed by the Athenians; and Anthemocritus, the herald of Athens, murdered by the inhabitants of Megara.

Appendix A.3.16 NOTE XVI. Ver. 535. And feels the god reanimate his frame.

In contemplating the Farneſian Hercules, I believe many ſpectators feel an involuntary mechanical impulſe to muſcular exertion. The daily contemplation of very fine ſculpture, that expreſſed, with the ut⯑moſt powers of art, great elevation of mind, would probably have a ſtrong and happy influence on mental character.

The legs of this celebrated Hercules were wanting, when the ſtatue was firſt diſcovered. The following anecdote concerning them is re⯑lated by Bottari, in one of his notes to Vaſari's Life of Michel Angelo:

Appendix A.3.17 NOTE XVII. Ver. 547. Saw, in his touch, the grandeur of the whole.

The intereſting deſcription of Michel Angelo's amuſement in the decline of life reſts on the authority of Sandrart, who publiſhed his "Admiranda Sculpturae Veteris" in 1680. Bottari, in the book that I have cited in the preceding note, expreſſes himſelf rather angrily againſt Sandrart for having repreſented Michel Angelo as blind; a circum⯑ſtance that he conſiders as falſe. But the laborious painter of Ger⯑many, who publiſhed ſuch extenſive, well-intended, yet very imperfect works upon Art, might very innocently call a noble veteran of ninety blind, without meaning more than ſuch infirmity of viſion as naturally belongs to that age. Or perhaps he might too eaſily credit a popular report. That Sandrart was credulous in the extreme the reader will readily allow, who happens to recollect the ridiculous things he has re⯑lated concerning the Apollo of the Belvedere, in his ‘Admiranda Sculpturae.’

Appendix A.3.18 NOTE XVIII. Ver. 563. Scorn for the rancour of malignant foes.

‘Of all the productions of art that have eſcaped deſtruction, the ſtatue of Apollo,’ ſays Winkelmann, ‘is unqueſtionably the moſt ſublime. It riſes, indeed, as a ſingle figure, to the higheſt pitch of excellence: but I confeſs the group of the Laocoon appears to me a ſuperior effort of ſculpture.’

Appendix A.3.19 NOTE XIX. Ver. 599. A fav'rite truth reſerv'd for future verſe.

Some of the moſt accompliſhed of recent writers on Painting and Sculpture (particularly Winkelmann and Webb) ſeem to conſider the influence of revealed religion as unfavourable to each of theſe intereſting profeſſions. On the contrary, it may, I think, be proved that Chriſt⯑ianity is as much ſuperior to Paganiſm, for the favourable guidance of art, as it confeſſedly is for the moral conduct of life; a point that I hope to illuſtrate more at large, if I ſhould happen to have powers and oppor⯑tunity to execute, what I originally thought of blending with the preſent publication,—an extenſive Sketch of Modern Sculpture!

Appendix A.4.1 NOTE I. Ver. 44. MIGHT owe the maſk dramatic muſes wear.

Dempſter, who has laboured with admirable zeal and erudition to revive the honour of Etruria, contends very ſtrenuouſly for the invent⯑ive genius of the Etruſcans. Among the many inventions that he aſcribes to them, we may reckon not only the maſk, the buſkin, and the brazen trumpet, but almoſt all ‘The pomp and circumſtance of glorious war;’ and particularly the ſolemnities of triumphal magnificence.

This early and zealous advocate for the glory of Etruria is angry with Strabo for having imagined that the Romans had borrowed ſuch ſo⯑lemnities from the Greeks: ‘Videtur Strabo triumphandi apparatum ad Romanos quidem a Tuſcis veniſſe ſignificare, ſed et illos a Graecis hauſiſſe: quod non poteſt mirum videri in Graeculo, im⯑penſius [298] patriae ſuae encomiis favente. Nam verius Appianus Alexan⯑drinus, facundus olim Romae advocatus, et verax hiſtoricus, anti⯑quiorem multo facit triumphi apud Etruſcos inventionem, ſcilicet mille annis et amplius ante Romam. DEMPSTER, Etruria Regalis, tom. i. p. 328.’

Appendix A.4.2 NOTE II. Ver. 52. Made home the paſſion of the virtuous breaſt.

‘Lares apud antiquos nihil profecto erant, niſi piorum animae, quae corpore functae familiam ſuam et poſteros tuebantur, qua de re impenſiſſime per ſingulas domos colebantur, tantaque religione, ut ab ipſis Laribus per quoddam tranſlatum ipſae aedes vocatae ſint.’— The learned Paſſerius thus deſcribes the Lares, in his intereſting Diſ⯑ſertation "De Laribus Etruſcorum," inſerted in the firſt volume of his ſplendid work, "Picturae Etruſcorum in Vaſculis."

It is Macrobius, if I remember right, who ſays that the Aegyptians had their Lares. The [...] of the Greeks are alſo conſidered as an⯑ſwering to the Lares of the Latins; yet I imagine it may be juſtly aſ⯑ſerted that the Etruſcans were peculiarly diſtinguiſhed by their remark⯑able attention to theſe domeſtic deities. The word Lar is Etruſcan, and originally ſignified "a hero", in that language. The Lararia, (‘in domibus ſecreta quaedam penetralia, in quibus diligentiſſime dii do⯑meſtici ſervabantur, Lares, et Genii utriuſque ſexus,’) the ſcenes in which theſe houſehold deities were guarded and worſhipped, are fre⯑quently diſplayed in the works of Etruſcan art; ſo that we may almoſt ſay, in the words of old Ennius, (altered a little for this application of them,) ‘Hoc filo pendebit Etruria tota.’

[299]I cannot conclude this note without obſerving that the domeſtic deities afford a delightful ſubject for poetry; and that the ſubject has been treated with great moral elegance and exquiſite ſenſibility, in a poem entitled "Hymn to the Penates," by Mr. Southey.

Appendix A.4.3 NOTE III. Ver. 62. Foil'd in ſharp conflict from the Tyrrhene coaſt.

It appears from a paſſage in Athenaeus, that the Etruſcans had a naval engagement with the Argonauts; and that of all the Grecian heroes, their pilot Glaucus was the only one who eſcaped without a wound. Even he perhaps was drowned in the conflict, as the words of this obſcure tradition may lead us to conjecture^*.

Appendix A.4.4 NOTE IV. Ver. 78. His mild morality's benignant ſway.

Dempſter, ever zealous for the glory of Etruria, contends, on the authority of Suidas, that Pythagoras was an Etruſcan, and not a native of Samos, as he is generally called. Suidas indeed aſſerts, that when he was a youth he migrated from Etruria to Samos with his father Mneſarchus, a ſculptor of gems. But wherever this illuſtrious phi⯑loſopher [300] was born, the moral influence of his doctrine on the cities of Tuſcany is univerſally allowed; and Brucker, in his elaborate Hiſtory of Philoſophy, thus deſcribes the effect of his admonitions on the in⯑habitants of Crotona: ‘Ita emendabat Crotoniatorum mores, et ad frugalitatem revocabat, et ad virtutem ſingulas hominum aetates et ſexum mira eloquentiae efficacia excitabat.—Hiſt. Crit. Philoſ. tom. i. p. 1012.’

Appendix A.4.5 NOTE V. Ver. 94. Her brave Haleſus of Argolic race.

"En paſſant en Etrurie," ſays the Abbé Guaſco in ſpeaking of ſtatues raiſed in honour of public characters, ‘nous trouverions que les anciens fondateurs ou legiſlateurs de cette nation, obtinrent dans ce pays les mêmes honneurs que les Grecs accorderent à leurs héros. On y voyoit le ſimulacre d'Haleſus, le premier qui porta dans ces contrées les myſteres de Junon, qui fonda quelques villes, et que l'inſcription en caractère Etruſque, qu'on liſoit aux pieds de ſa ſtatue, diſoit fils de Neptune et deſcendu des Veiens...... Le cabinet de Cortone conſerve une ſtatue de ces héros, armé en cuiraſſe et en caſque.’

I apprehend the learned Abbé has led me to confound two different heroes of the ſame title. This is not the Haleſus who makes a much more graceful figure as a warrior in the poetry of Virgil, than his nameſake does in the ancient ſculpture of his Etruſcan cotemporaries,— according to the engraving of his image, which I find in the Firſt Vo⯑lume of Gori's "Muſeum Etruſcum."

[301]Dempſter imagines there were two Etruſcan kings of this name. The firſt governed the Veientes before the aera of the Salian prieſts; the ſecond is believed to have been a ſon of Agamemnon, immortalized in the following verſes of Virgil and of Ovid:

I ought not to quit Etruria without obſerving, that many laudable efforts have been made to reſcue and elucidate the almoſt annihilated reliques of this unfortunate nation, by ſeveral authors of indefatigable induſtry and refined erudition. Much may be learned from Dempſter, Gori, and the ſenator Buonarotti: ſtill more from the various Latin diſſertations of Paſſeri, and the Saggio di Lingua Etruſca Dall Abate Lauzi. The latter has added to his deep reſearches into the language of Etruria a very pleaſing little Treatiſe, ‘Circa la Scoltura degli Anti⯑chi e i varii ſuoi Stili.’ On that of Etruria he obſerves: ‘Direb⯑beſi che il diſegno Etruſco nelle figure ſi conforma con quello della lot loro architettura—l'ordine Toſcanico è il piu forte di tutti, ma il meno gentile.’

Appendix A.4.6 NOTE VI. Ver. 116. Their works ſhe blindly prais'd and baſely ſtole.

Nothing could exceed the inaptitude of the Romans to excell in the art of ſculpture, except the rapacity with which they ſeized the ſtatues of the various nations who ſurpaſſed them in ingenuity.

Their public ravages of this kind were often followed by petty acts of barbariſm and baſeneſs ſtill more deteſtable; for, not contented with having carried off the monuments of public merit from the countries they overcame, they eraſed inſcriptions from the ſtatues of illuſtrious men, and inſerted falſe titles of their own. On this occaſion it is juſ⯑tice to exclaim with Cicero, "Odi falſas inſcriptiones ſtatuarum aliena⯑rum."

The learned Figrelius, who has written at length on the ſtatues of the Romans, relates ſome curious examples of this ſculptural forgery. It appears, from the authority of Dio Chryſoſtom, that Alcibiades was turned into Aenobarbus; and according to Zonaras, even Conſtantine the Great did not ſcruple to put his own name on a ſtatue of Apollo: but if he did ſo, we may hope it was rather to annihilate the worſhip he condemned, than to impoſe the figure of a Pagan divinity on the people as the real repreſentative of a Chriſtian emperor.

In juſtice to the Romans it is proper to remark, that they might poſ⯑ſibly learn from the Greeks themſelves the diſingenuous practice of falſi⯑fying the ſtatues of ancient worthies. We know that Rhodes (one of the moſt magnificent marts of ſculpture in the Pagan world!) incurred conſiderable diſgrace by this ſpecies of falſehood, for which Dio Chryſoſ⯑tom reproves the Rhodians in a very copious, animated, and beautiful [303] oration, which contains ſome intereſting anecdotes of ſculpture, and an eloquent deſcription of its influence on the ſpirit of antiquity:

The learned and judicious Caſaubon joins with Photius in pro⯑nouncing this the beſt of all Dio's orations, and gives the following juſt account of the orator's intentions:

There is another oration of Dio relating to ſculpture, and particu⯑larly entertaining. The orator with great dexterity expreſſes his ſur⯑priſe, to the inhabitants of Corinth, that a brazen ſtatue of himſelf, with which they had honoured him on his former viſit, (about eleven years before,) had vaniſhed from their city—a ſubject of great delicacy, and very gracefully treated, particularly in the cloſe of the oration.

Appendix A.4.7 NOTE VII. Ver. 126. Hunted with fierce inquietude for more.

Marcellus, the plunderer of Syracuſe, was perhaps the mildeſt of Roman ravagers. He is ſaid to have dropped a tear of compaſſion on his conqueſt of that beautiful city. Mr. Pinkerton mentions an exqui⯑ſite medallion, ſuppoſed to be ſtruck by Syracuſe in honour of this compaſſionate victor^*; who, tender as he was, did not fail to play the Roman, in carrying off the rich and tempting ſpoils in his power. The nature of thoſe ſpoils, and the future conſequences of ſuch conduct, are finely deſcribed in the following words of Livy:

The triumphant ſplendor of ancient Rome ſeems to have dazzled even the philoſophical ſpirits of antiquity, and to have ſtruck them blind to the predominant vices of her national character. Theſe were arrogance and rapacity; vices generally ſtigmatized when they appear in an individual, and certainly not deſerving a cenſure leſs ſevere when [305] they form the characteriſtics of a nation. Yet ſo faſcinating is the pride of ſucceſsful valour, that the nation of antiquity moſt injurious in its conduct towards the reſt of the world is often commended as an object for modern emulation. The moſt flagrant enormities of which the go⯑vernors of France (both regal and republican) have been guilty, ſeem to have been greatly owing to an indiſcriminate and fantaſtic imitation of Roman ſpirit; with a prepoſterous paſſion, ſometimes concealed, and ſometimes avowed, for univerſal dominion. The French appear to believe the Romans to have been what they ſuppoſed themſelves to be— a divine race of men, deſtined by ſuperior virtue to ſubdue the other nations of the earth; or, to uſe the words of their elegant but ſervile flatterer Virgil:

A Latin author, of an age not ſo poliſhed, the Chriſtian philoſopher Arnobius, who wrote with the indignant warmth of an African, has drawn, in the oppoſite point of view, a forcible and faithful picture of the Romans, in the queſtions with which he concludes his animated in⯑vective, "Adverſus Gentes."

Theſe prominent features in the national character of Rome are painted alſo, with great fidelity and ſpirit, by Monteſquieu, in his maſterly ſketch of her grandeur and decline; particularly in the chap⯑ter [306] entitled, ‘De la Conduite que les Romains tinrent pour ſoumettre tous les peuples.’

But the ſublimeſt cenſure on the national conduct of Rome is that which Milton has paſſed upon it, in his Paradiſe Regained; where, to exhibit her ambition in the moſt execrable point of view, he makes the Arch-fiend propoſe it as a model, in one of his inſidious ſpeeches to our Saviour, ‘Aim, therefore, at no leſs than all the world. Paradiſe Regained, Book iv. v. 105.’

Appendix A.4.8 NOTE VIII. Ver. 138. Thoſe wonders of her hand that Taſte ador'd.

The burning of Corinth was one of the moſt ſavage acts of Roman fe⯑rocity. The Anthologia contains the following pathetic Greek epigram on the utter demolition of that celebrated city:

Appendix A.4.9 NOTE IX. Ver. 146. With ſpoils thy heroes cannot underſtand.

The ſtupidity of Mummius, the deſtroyer of Corinth, is become al⯑moſt proverbial, from the ſpeech he made concerning the works of Grecian art that he diſpatched to Rome. He threatened thoſe, to whoſe care he had entruſted this invaluable part of his booty, that whatever articles they loſt, they ſhould be bound to replace by new ſimilar pro⯑ductions: ‘Si eas perdidiſſent novas eos reddituros. VELLEIUS PATERCULUS.’

Dio Chryſoſtom in his Oration to the Corinthians very properly be⯑ſtows on this Roman ravager the appellation of [...]; and gives a few curious ſpecimens of his abſurd conduct concerning ſome particular ſtatues that made a part of his Grecian plunder.

Appendix A.4.10 NOTE X. Ver. 156. To die, and not have ſeen the works he wrought.

Appendix A.4.11 NOTE XI. Ver. 168. And ſhar'd the immortality they gave.

The Abbé Guaſco has well deſcribed the deep and lively intereſt that the Grecians took in the perfection of art, and in the honour of its profeſſors:

The Greeks indeed in general paid ſuch honours very juſtly to their ſublime artiſts: but the Grecian philoſophers ſeem to have looked upon them with a very jealous (not to ſay an evil) eye. Even Plato and Plutarch have occaſionally ſpoken of artiſts with a ſort of envious diſreſpect that is particularly unbecoming in men of ſuch cultivated minds. Theſe two enlightened and benevolent philoſophers might have reflected that an accompliſhed ſculptor, whoſe art is properly di⯑rected, [310] may be conſidered like themſelves as the true ſervant of moral philoſophy.

A nation can hardly honour too highly the ſucceſsful profeſſors of any refined and arduous art, whoſe productions have an evident and graceful tendency to give elevation and dignity to national character: ſince, as Cicero ſays, very nobly in his Oration pro Muraena, ‘Omnes enim artes quae nobis populi ſtudia conciliant, et admirabilem dignitatem, et pergratam utilitatem debent habere. Summa dignitas eſt in iis qui militari laude antecellunt: omnia enim quae ſunt in imperio, et in ſtatu civitatis ab iis defendi et firmari putantur; ſumma etiam utili⯑tus: ſiquidem eorum conſilio et periculo, cum republica, tum etiam noſtris rebus perfrui poſſumus.’

The true intereſt, honour, and laſting proſperity of a ſtate ſeems to depend, in great meaſure, on preſerving a due balance and reciprocal reſpect between arts and arms; for wherever too ſtrong a predilection for either prevails, that very predilection (though it produces a blaze of ſucceſs in a ſingle path of celebrity) becomes a certain, yet unſuſpected ſource of future deſtruction. Carthage was ruined by her paſſion for com⯑merce, and Rome by her fiercer paſſion for war.

Appendix A.4.12 NOTE XII. Ver. 178. Spurns the diſtinction of her Roman ſtyle.

"As to a Roman ſtyle in art," ſays the animated Winkelmann, ‘I conſider it as a chimera.’ The ſentiments of Guaſco on this ſub⯑ject are exactly the ſame.

Appendix A.4.13 NOTE XIII. Ver. 206. Juſt to the talents of accompliſhed foes.

Pliny has not applauded his countrymen ſo warmly as he might have done, with juſtice, for this remarkable proof of their magnanimity. In mentioning the ſtatues of foreigners in Rome, he only ſays, ‘Adeo diſcrimen omne ſublatum, ut Annibalis etiam ſtatuae tribus locis viſantur in urbe, cujus intra muros ſolus hoſtium emiſit haſtam. Lib. xxxiv. c. 6.’

Appendix A.4.14 NOTE XIV. Ver. 256. To the poor ſound of a deteſted name.

The anecdote of Sylla and the portable ſtatue, which he made ſub⯑ſervient to his atrocious ambition, is related in the following words by Valerius Maximus:

In the curious little Treatiſe, ‘Caſti Innocentis Anſaldi de Romana Tutelarium Deorum in Oppugnationibus Urbium Evocatione,’ re⯑printed at Oxford 1765, the reader may contemplate the ingenuity of Pagan ſuperſtition in trying to avert the reſentment of thoſe deities, whoſe ſtatues were ſo rapaciouſly removed from their temples by the pride, avarice, or hypocriſy of Pagan conquerors. There is a paſſage, [312] towards the end of this Treatiſe, which paints the Romans, in very juſt and ſtrong colours, as the plunderers of the world:

Appendix A.4.15 NOTE XV. Ver. 310. Said, with parental ſmiles, to bleſs thy natal hour.

The genius and ſpirit of Julius appear, perhaps, to the greateſt ad⯑vantage in a ſimple liſt of the grand projects he had formed juſt before his death—a liſt preſerved by this faithful biographer of the Caeſars. I will only tranſcribe the three firſt articles:

A juſt Life of this moſt extraordinary man, whoſe vices and virtues have had ſuch an extenſive influence over the ancient and the modern world, appears to be a deſideratum in Engliſh literature.

Appendix A.4.16 NOTE XVI. Ver. 376. By native meanneſs in the monarch's mind.

The ſentiments with which an upright and independent lover of learning contemplated the character of Auguſtus, are forcibly diſplayed in a manly and eloquent letter of Sir William Jones to Gibbon, in⯑ſerted in the Poſthumous Works of the hiſtorian.

Winkelmann and Guaſco agree in the opinion, that the ſtatue of this emperor, with naval inſignia alluding to the victory at Actium, is in⯑ferior to other productions of the ſame period.

Among ſeveral laudable actions of this artful tyrant, relating to ſculpture, I will not fail to notice one that is particularly deſerving of praiſe. He melted ſome ſilver ſtatues of himſelf, that ſervility had de⯑voted to him, and applied the coin they produced to the improvement of the public roads.

Mecaenas had given him the advice of a true friend, not to permit any ſtatues to be raiſed to him either in ſilver or gold; as the editor of Dion remarks on the paſſage I have cited.

Appendix A.4.17 NOTE XVII. Ver. 386. Power's fav'rite ſignet, the imperial face.

Appendix A.4.18 NOTE XVIII. Ver. 392. Their own Mecaenas their peculiar gem.

Among the gems of Baron Stoſch, engraved by Picart, there are two admirable heads of Mecaenas: one by Dioſcorides, and one by Solon; upon which the intelligent Mariette very juſtly obſerves: ‘L'on voit bien dans les deux portraits, que l'un et l'autre artiſte ont travaillé d'apres nature, d'apres un objet vivant; l'air de tête eſt le même, cela ne pouvoit être autrement, la reſſemblance n'eut pas été parfaite; mais les cheveux ſont variés: il y a des differences conſi⯑derables dans les parties acceſſoires, les portraits ſe preſentent dans deux ſens oppoſés.’

I cannot quit the intereſting patron of Horace without remarking that the Abbé Souchay, in his "Recherches ſur Mecénas," inſerted [316] in the Memoirs of the French Academy, has ably defended the cha⯑racter of this illuſtrious friend to literature againſt the ſarcaſtic aſperity of Seneca.

Appendix A.4.19 NOTE XIX. Ver. 410. The juſt memorial of his reſcued boy.

The ſeal-rings of antiquity form an extenſive ſubject for curious and amuſing reſearch. Helen, as well as Ulyſſes, is ſaid to have uſed the image of a fiſh for her ſeal:

Appendix A.4.20 NOTE XX. Ver. 438. Made the maim'd vaſſals of his impious pride,

This impartial chronicler of the exploits and enormities of the Caeſars ſpeaks with a becoming indignation, when he ſays of Caligula, ‘Hac⯑tenus quaſi de principe, reliqua ut de monſtro narranda ſunt.’

One of his moſt deteſtable outrages againſt ſculpture, was the demo⯑lition of the ſtatues that had been raiſed to the illuſtrious public cha⯑racters of his country, in different periods, and nobly aſſembled in the Campus Martius, with graceful ſolemnity, by Auguſtus.

Appendix A.4.21 NOTE XXI. Ver. 454. Fail'd in his art to form the fluid maſs.

The particulars of this failure have not been explained; and Falco⯑ner, rejecting a conjecture of M. de Caylus, obſerves, on the occaſion, ‘Pline eſt ici fort obſcur, non dans les termes, mais dans l'objet, qui ſans doute ne lui étoit pas aſſez familier pour en ſaiſir à propos les differens raports.’

Winkelmann imputes the bad taſte of Nero to the influence of Seneca, to gratify his reſentment againſt the conceited philoſopher for preſuming to exclude painters and ſculptors from the circle of the liberal arts.

Appendix A.4.22 NOTE XXII. Ver. 464. Peace, in her temple, gives a purer home.

Veſpaſian, who, as Suetonius ſays of him, ‘ingenia et artes vel maxime fovit,’ collected and diſplayed, in this temple of Peace, (a temple, whoſe portico extended two hundred and forty-four feet,) the ſtatues and pictures that Greece had ſupplied to decorate the Golden Palace of Nero.

Appendix A.4.23 NOTE XXIII. Ver. 478. To ſpare thee torments of domeſtic grief.

Among the gems of Baron Stoſch there is a head of Julia, on beril, by Evodus. Had the life of the beneficent Titus, her father, been ex⯑tended, it is probable that his days would have been deeply embittered by the uncommonly deplorable frailties of his daughter. Juvenal has ſpoken of her diſguſting intrigue, with that filthy coarſeneſs of lan⯑guage which forms a frequent and a dark ſpot on his ſplendid mo⯑rality.

Appendix A.4.24 NOTE XXIV. Ver. 480. The rabble's vengeance on a tyrant kill'd.

Procopius, in his Secret Hiſtory, has related a very ſingular and im⯑probable anecdote concerning a ſtatue of this imperial monſter.

He ſays, that after the death of Domitian, no image of him was ſuffered to remain, except one that was raiſed on the following occa⯑ſion: [320] When the body of the tyrant had been literally torn to pieces by the fury of the people, the ſenate, to expreſs their reſpect for his wife, promiſed to grant any requeſt of her's. She aſked only permiſſion to bury her huſband, and raiſe a ſtatue in bronze to his memory. The requeſt was granted. She collected the limbs, and had a ſtatue exe⯑cuted in ſuch a manner as to mark the different outrages that the body had ſuſtained—a ſtatue, placed on the Capitoline Hill, and ſtill ex⯑preſſing, (ſays the hiſtorian,) in this age, the figure and the fate of Domitian.

Appendix A.4.25 NOTE XXV. Ver. 502. Tenderly juſt, magnificently kind.

An alluſion to paſſages in a letter of Pliny:

Appendix A.4.26 NOTE XXVI. Ver. 512. Thy Venus prais'd thee with victorious ſmiles.

Herodes Atticus, the munificent citizen of Athens, was the accom⯑pliſhed ſon of a moſt fortunate father;—a father, who had not only the rare good fortune to diſcover, and obtain permiſſion from the empe⯑ror Nerva to appropriate to his own family a concealed and inexhauſtible treaſure, but the higher good fortune to find, and ſucceſsfully cultivate, in his child, thoſe talents and virtues which, inſtead of being corrupted by unbounded opulence, rather appeared to derive from it new energy and luſtre. Herodes Atticus became not only the richeſt ſubject in the Roman empire, but he was at the ſame time one of the moſt ſtudious, the moſt eloquent, and liberal of men. It was his noble maxim, that the wealthy ought to employ their riches, not only in relieving the neceſſities of the poor, but in ſaving thoſe of narrow circumſtances from ſinking into poverty. Pauſanias, who lived at the ſame period, has ſpoken with pleaſure of the magnificent gifts beſtowed by this generous Athenian on different parts of Greece. The moſt remarkable were, the Stadium that he formed at Athens, of the fineſt marble, extending ſix hundred feet; and ſtatues of ſingular beauty and ſplendor, with which he decorated the temple of Neptune, on the Iſthmus of Corinth. The Abbé Guaſco, without mentioning his authority, aſſerts that this accompliſhed Athenian practiſed the art of ſculpture himſelf:

[322]In conſulting various ancient authors who have ſpoken of this inte⯑reſting character, and a modern Life of him by Mr. Burigny, in the Memoires of the French Academy, I cannot find any farther proof of his having added a talent for ſculpture to his other accompliſhments; and am therefore inclined to ſuppoſe that the Venus in queſtion was a donation only, and not a work of Herodes. Its merit as a ſtatue may be conceived from the following words of Damaſcius, preſerved in Photius:

I cannot quit this memorable perſonage without obſerving, with pleaſure, that after having obtained conſular diſtinction at Rome, and enjoyed the friendſhip of a virtuous Roman emperor, he ended his days, in a good old age, (ſeventy-ſix,) at his favourite villa, the il⯑luſtrious ſpot of Marathon, where he meant to be privately buried: but the affection of the Athenians, who regarded him as a father, took the body from his domeſtics, and conveyed it, with the moſt honourable ſolemnity, to one of the public ſtructures with which his munificence had decorated their city.

Appendix A.4.27 NOTE XXVII. Ver. 644. And at the mournful ſound the viſions all diſpers'd.

It is thus that Winkelmann (in the Tranſlation of Huber) ſpeaks of this imperial villa, that ſeems to have ſurpaſſed the ſplendor of Aſiatic magnificence. The liberality of Hadrian to the reviving cities of Greece, and particularly to Athens, is recorded by Pauſanias, and forcibly ex⯑preſſed in the two following verſes that were engraved in the Acropolis:

The magnificent public works, and the motley character of this extra⯑ordinary emperor, are ſingularly calculated to excite the oppoſite emo⯑tions of admiration and diſguſt. His prepoſterous idea of deifying An⯑tinous is ſufficiently explained in the following words of the learned Spanheim:

The praiſe beſtowed by hiſtory on Hadrian, in his character of a ſculptor, "proxime Polycletos et Euphranoras," reminds me of the fol⯑lowing anecdote in the imperial hiſtorian Vopiſcus, concerning himſelf and his brother hiſtorians.

Vopiſcus was riding in a carriage with his illuſtrious friend Tiberianus: "Sermo nobis," ſays the hiſtorian, ‘de Trebellio Pollione, qui a duobus Philippis uſque ad divum Claudium et ejus fratrem Quintillum, im⯑peratores [325] tam claros quam obſcuros memoriae prodidit, in eodem ve⯑hiculo fuit, aſſerente Tiberiano quod Pollio multa incurioſe, multa breviter prodidiſſet: me contra dicente, neminem ſcriptorum quan⯑tum ad hiſtoriam pertinet, non aliquid eſſe mentitum; prodente quin⯑etiam, in quo Livius, in quo Saluſtius, in quo Cornelius Tacitus, in quo denique Trogus manifeſtis teſtibus convincerentur: pedibus in ſententiam tranſitum faciens, ac manum porrigens jucundam praeterea, Scribe, inquit, ut libet: ſecurus: quod velis dicas: habiturus men⯑daciorum comites, quot hiſtoricae eloquentiae miramur auctores!!’— VOPISCI, Divus Aurelianus, c. 2.

Appendix A.5.1 NOTE I. Ver. 26. SIGH at the ſculptur'd form of Ammon's ſon.

The effect which the ſtatue of Alexander produced on the mind of Julius, is circumſtantially deſcribed in the following words of Suetonius:

Appendix A.5.2 NOTE II. Ver. 38. While Mercy bleſt thee as her dear ally.

A temple (perhaps rather an altar) in Athens, dedicated to Mercy by the deſcendants of Hercules, is ſaid to have been the firſt Aſylum. To this the poet Claudian alludes:

The Aſylum that Romulus eſtabliſhed in his new city is deſcribed in the Second Book of Dionyſius Halicarnaſſenſis. Ovid thus ſpeaks of it in his Faſti:

The privileges and the abuſes of the ancient Aſyla, in different countries, have probably been well illuſtrated by the Abbé Guaſco, in a Treatiſe which he wrote expreſsly on this intereſting ſubject; a book that I have ſought for, without being ſo fortunate as to meet with it.

Appendix A.5.3 NOTE III. Ver. 84. Virtue's prime purpoſe, to deſerve ſucceſs.

This point is triumphantly proved in the maſterpiece of Demoſthe⯑nes, his Oration [...]; and is ſtill further confirmed by the honor which the Athenians paid to his memory, and the privileges they granted to his deſcendants.

The ſtatue raiſed to this moſt eloquent and incorruptible of patriots, after his deceaſe, was executed by the ſculptor Polyeuctus; and the verſes inſcribed upon it (ſometimes erroneouſly ſuppoſed to contain a ſarcaſm on his military conduct) had been compoſed by the orator on himſelf, according to Demetrius the Magneſian, as he is quoted by Plu⯑tarch: [...] ( [...]) [...],

‘ [...].—PLUTARCHUS, in Vitis decem Oratorum.’

Appendix A.5.4 NOTE IV. Ver. 114. And Gratitude and Glory bleſs'd her aid.

This very ſtriking group of coloſſal ſtatues, erected to honour the Athenians, is mentioned in a decree of the Byzantians, which De⯑moſthenes takes a becoming pride in introducing as a part of his de⯑fence, in his ſublime vindication of his own public conduct:

Appendix A.5.5 NOTE V. Ver. 140. Poignant and ſweet; morality and praiſe.

"One of Pindar's arts," ſays Dr. Warton, ‘which Lord Bacon has obſerved, and in which his copiers fail, is the introduction of many moral reflections.’ The memorable ſtatue which the Athenians ſo gratefully raiſed to this animated poet is agreeably deſcribed in a letter of Aeſchines the orator:

[...].

Appendix A.5.6 NOTE VI. Ver. 174. When the barbarian force o'erthrew your towers.

Appendix A.5.7 NOTE VII. Ver. 190. Her ſingle, nameleſs, deſpicable ſon.

The particulars of this remarkable incident, the condemnation of the ſtatue, for having occaſioned the death of its envious enemy, and the ſubſequent divine honours that were paid to Theagenes when his image was reſtored, according to an admonition from the Pythian oracle, are piouſly related in the Sixth Book of Pauſanias.

Appendix A.5.8 NOTE VIII. Ver. 220. And as a guardian power this patriot Greek rever'd.

Plutarch, in his Life of Aratus, has mentioned the ſtatue of the hero, and preſerved its inſcription.

Appendix A.5.9 NOTE IX. Ver. 236. The friend who taught him virtue's nobleſt tone.

Appendix A.5.10 NOTE X. Ver. 241. By Aeſop's ſtatue Greece this leſſon gave.

A remark of the elegant and moral Phaedrus:

This public memorial, juſtly raiſed by the Athenians to the meritori⯑ous Aeſop, was the work of Lyſippus. The ſculptor and the moraliſt are both applauded in a Greek epigram competed on this ſtatue:

Appendix A.5.11 NOTE XI. Ver. 248. Rever'd his glory as a public truſt.

Diogenes Laertius aſſerts, in his Life of Socrates, that the Athenians immediately repented their conduct towards the philoſopher, and ho⯑noured his memory by a public ſtatue of braſs, the work of Lyſippus! It is remarkable that two men, one eſteemed the wiſeſt, and the other the wittieſt of the Greeks, Socrates and Lucian, were bred to the pro⯑feſſion of ſculpture. The vivacity of Lucian, and his antipathy to a ſe⯑vere relation, his maſter, probably precluded that comic genius from making any conſiderable advances in an art which requires the ſteadieſt union of induſtry and talent. But Socrates is known to have executed ſome works, as a ſtatuary, that were objects of public regard. Pau⯑ſanias has noticed the Graces, in the Acropolis of Athens, as the work of the philoſopher; and in obſerving that theſe and the elder Golden Graces of Bupalus were not deſtitute of drapery, he profeſſes himſelf unable to diſcover what artiſt introduced the cuſtom, prevalent in his time, of repreſenting the Graces naked. Falconet imagines that ſtatues executed by Socrates could have but a trifling degree of merit as works of art, from the philoſopher's having quitted the profeſſion very early in life: but the more candid Greeks ſeem inclined to applaud the laudable endeavours of juvenile talent; and a Greek epigram on a very young ſculptor, Eutychides, ſpeaks of him as equal to Praxiteles, though cala⯑mitouſly hurried out of life at the age of ſixteen:

Appendix A.5.12 NOTE XII. Ver. 264. And rail'd at ſtatues rais'd in woman's name.

Let me introduce the juſt and polite Guaſco, defending the fair ſex againſt the aſperity of the Roman cenſor:

Appendix A.5.13 NOTE XIII. Ver. 272. E'en from a hoſtile king extorted praiſe.

Appendix A.5.14 NOTE XIV. Ver. 286. Conſummate beauty, and the true ſublime.

Cornelia was the admired model of the maternal character in ancient Rome. Her ſons and the people ſeem to have ſympathized in affection⯑ate veneration towards this illuſtrious woman: and a ſtatue was raiſed to the living parent with that moſt ſimple and eloquent inſcription, ‘Cor⯑nelia, Mater Gracchorum.’ Pliny deſcribes the ſtatue in the follow⯑ing words:

Appendix A.5.15 NOTE XV. Ver. 326. Expreſs'd the feelings of that parting hour.

This anecdote, one of the moſt pleaſing in all the records of Pagan hiſtory, is well related in the following words of Pauſanias:

Appendix A.5.16 NOTE XVI. Ver. 340. And with a graceful terror tremble ſtill.

The following little poem of Claudian was written on the group of intereſting figures to which I have alluded:

Appendix A.5.17 NOTE XVII. Ver. 378. Worthy to live in monumental ſtone.

This memorable incident is recorded by Plutarch, in his Life of Timoleon.

Appendix A.5.18 NOTE XVIII. Ver. 384. The dupe of vanity's delirious fire.

Ovid and Rouſſeau have immortalized the delirium of Pygmalion, with the charms of playful imagination, and faſcinating ſenſibility.

Appendix A.5.19 NOTE XIX. Ver. 386. Condemn'd to bellow in his brazen beaſt.

This celebrated brazen bull, in which Phalaris, the tyrant of Agri⯑gentum, is ſaid to have tortured its cruel artificer, was ſeized by the Car⯑thaginians [343] with the reſt of their Sicilian plunder, and conveyed to their own city by the victorious Imilcar. A more powerful Roman con⯑queror ſeized it again in the ſpoils of Carthage; and, according to Ci⯑cero, (who mentions the circumſtance in his Orations againſt Verres,) reſtored it to the inhabitants of Agrigentum.

Appendix A.5.20 NOTE XX. Ver. 388. Of vile obſcenity the venal tool.

I have read of a ſtatuary who ſignalized himſelf at Rome by this abuſe of his art; but his name eſcaped my recollection, and it is better forgotten than remembered.

Appendix A.5.21 NOTE XXI. Ver. 400. Of ancient genius give a wider view.

Appendix A.5.22 NOTE XXII. Ver. 426. With all the ſplendor of departed power.

Thoſe who are amuſed by obſerving the oppoſite extremes into which prejudice and partiality are apt to be hurried in deſcribing the ſame author, may be gratified in comparing what the French ſculptor Fal⯑conet, and his countryman M. de la Nauze, have ſaid, one to depreciate, and the other to magnify, the merits of Pliny as a writer upon art. Perhaps the ſpirit of that indefatigable and illuſtrious Roman, if we could queſtion him on the ſubject, would equally ſmile at the bitter de⯑traction and the exaggerated praiſe, confeſſing ingenuouſly that he really deſerved neither the one nor the other. In his great and unfi⯑niſhed work it is certainly not difficult to find ſome conſiderable imper⯑fections; yet taken altogether it is a moſt valuable and glorious monument of induſtry, intelligence, and good-nature.

Appendix A.5.23 NOTE XXIII. Ver. 440. Thy Panorama of enchanting Greece.

The character of Pauſanias is very juſtly delineated by M. de Caylus.

It is to be regretted that we know ſo little concerning the perſonal hiſtory of a traveller, to whom we are ſo highly indebted for a maſs of moſt intereſting information: it appears however from a paſſage in his work, that he wrote his Grecian Travels in the ſixteenth year of the latter Antonine; and from his mentioning no emperor of a later date, he is ſuppoſed to have died in his reign.

Appendix A.5.24 NOTE XXIV. Ver. 460. And moral beauty decorates the whole.

The Latin folio of Francis Junius De Pictura Veterum is a work of extenſive erudition, and equal philanthropy. The very ſtudious and amiable author was born in the Palatinate, 1599: he firſt embraced the profeſſion of arms, but ſoon quitted it on the eſtabliſhment of peace; and after travelling to France, he viſited England, and reſided for thirty years in the family of that illuſtrious lover of art, the celebrated earl of Arundel; a circumſtance peculiarly favourable to his elaborate produc⯑tion. The firſt edition of it was printed in Holland; but the ſecond, with many additions, and a life of the author by Graevius, was publiſhed in London, 1694.

A letter from Grotius, dated Paris, 1638, in returning thanks to Junius for a copy of his book, contains the following judicious and ele⯑gant deſcription of its merit:

Junius died at Windſor, in the houſe of his nephew Voſſius: and the univerſity of Oxford, to whom this moſt mild and laborious ſcholar bequeathed his books, has honoured his memory with an epitaph that contains the following very pleaſing eulogy:

Appendix A.5.25 NOTE XXV. Ver. 476. And ſunk from glorious toil to dark repoſe.

The abbée Guaſco had the misfortune to have his ſtudies for a long time ſuſpended, and at laſt terminated by a calamity peculiarly ſevere to a man of letters,—the failure of his ſight. He modeſtly cloſes his learned and intereſting work upon Statues with the following pathetic apology:

The preface to the book I have juſt cited contains ſome pleaſing let⯑ters between the author and his brother, an officer of diſtinction, whom he had the misfortune to ſurvive. The abbé was an honorary member of the French Academy; and he lived on terms of great intimacy with Monteſquieu, as I diſcover from a little volume of letters that he pub⯑liſhed ſoon after the deceaſe, and with the name of his illuſtrious friend.

Appendix A.5.26 NOTE XXVI. Ver. 500. Each changeful feature, and her inmoſt ſoul.

Though the eager enthuſiaſtic ſpirit of Winkelman expoſed him oc⯑caſionally to deluſion and to ridicule, there is ſuch a portion of ſolid and of ſplendid merit in his great work, the Hiſtory of Art, as can hardly fail to confer upon its author an honourable immortality. The excel⯑lencies and the failings of this animated writer are candidly diſplayed in the eulogy inſcribed to him by his accompliſhed friend Heyne, the profeſſor of Gottingen. In the copious tide of tranſlations from the German which has recently enriched the literature of our country, it is matter of ſurpriſe and regret to thoſe who delight in the arts, that the works of Winkelman have not yet made their appearance. He has found creditable tranſlators both in France and Italy. Time will pro⯑bably produce a collection of all his different works on deſign, in a becoming Engliſh dreſs, with a ſuitable account of a writer whoſe pro⯑ductions [348] are replete with learning, taſte, and genius; and whoſe per⯑ſonal hiſtory is particularly intereſting.

What an incentive to ſtudious youth in the humble claſſes of life, to trace the ſon of a German cobler overcoming the perplexities of in⯑digent obſcurity, and qualifying himſelf to inſtruct the connoiſſeurs of Italy, and to preſide over the antiquities of Rome. He was born at Stendal in Brandenburgh, 1717; and ſtabbed at Trieſte by an itinerant Italian, who vainly hoped to rob him of ſome valuable metals that he had received as a preſent on his viſit to the court of Vienna.

Winkelman, notwithſtanding the many wounds he received, lived long enough to forgive his aſſaſſin, and to bequeath his property to his illuſtrious friend and patron cardinal Alexander Albani.

Appendix A.5.27 NOTE XXVII. Ver. 520. And charm'd thy ſpirit thro' the ſhades of death.

The delight and advantages ariſing from a lively and liberal paſſion for the fine arts were never more forcibly exemplified than in the youthful, and in the declining days, of that accompliſhed nobleman the Comte de Caylus. Born of a very illuſtrious family in 1692, he began his career of public life as a ſoldier; but on the peace of Raſtadt, he amuſed his active ſpirit by travelling to Italy. In the courſe of his ex⯑curſion, he made a frank offer of his ſword in defence of Malta, then threatened by the Turks: the alarm of that iſland paſſed away, and the count returned to Paris. The love of travelling, and a paſſionate at⯑tachment to the ſtudy of antiquities, now induced him to relinquiſh his military profeſſion. He wiſhed to viſit the ſcenes of ancient art, and [349] ſeized the opportunity of embarking for the eaſt with a new embaſſador from his country to Conſtantinople. As they ſtopt at Smyrna, he was eager to ſurvey the ruins of Epheſus; their diſtance from Smyrna was only the journey of a day. His friends endeavoured to diſſuade him from attempting it, by diſplaying the danger he muſt incur, as the country was infeſted by a mercileſs banditti, under a formidable chief, Caracayali.

But in the Comte de Caylus (ſays his Eulogiſt) fear was always ſub⯑ordinate to deſire. He accompliſhed his wiſhes by an adventurous de⯑vice: clothing himſelf in a ſimple linen dreſs, and taking with him no⯑thing that could tempt rapacity, he ſet forth with two of the banditti, who were ſuffered, from motives of public apprehenſion, to viſit Smyrna occaſionally. He had made a bargain with theſe men, on a promiſe of paying them liberally on his ſafe return. They conducted him, with an interpreter, to their captain. Caracayali, pleaſed with his animated viſitor, took a pleaſure in gratifying his curioſity. He told him there were ruins ſtill nearer, that deſerved his attention; and to convey him thither with the utmoſt celerity, he ſupplied him with two of the fineſt Arabian courſers. The Comte ſeemed to be tranſported by magic to the intereſting ſpot: it preſented to him the ruins of Colopton. After enjoying that unexpected and delightful ſcene, he returned to paſs the night in a fort that formed the reſidence of Caracayali; and the next day he devoted to the ruins of Epheſus. Of the ſtate in which he found the famous temple of Diana, he has left a memoir: but the nature of my preſent work does not allow me to dwell on the extended life and numerous productions of this engaging character: I haſten to ſpeak of his latter days. After returning to France, and viſiting Lon⯑don more than once; after paſſing many years in active, though ſeden⯑tary life, in various compoſitions, particularly his Academical Memoirs on different Branches of Painting and Sculpture, and his very compre⯑henſive [350] Collection of Antiquities, this amiable practical ſtudent, and mu⯑nificent patron of art, began in 1764 to ſhew that his robuſt frame was tending to diſſolution. He triumphed for ſome time over the corporeal miſeries of decaying nature, by the exertions of an active, enlightened, and affectionate ſpirit:—"Il viſita," (ſays his eloquent eulogiſt M. le Beau, from whom I have drawn this brief account of his intereſting hero,) ‘il viſita ſes amis, les ſçavans, les artiſtes, dont il alloit animer les travaux, tandis qu'il mouroit lui-même..... Tout étoit mort en lui, mais l'amour des lettres reſpiroit encore.—Il expira 1765. L'Aca⯑demie, les arts, le monde literaire, ont perdu leur plus vif encourage⯑ment, une reſource toujours active, & leur plus zélé bienfaiteur.—Eloge Hiſtorique de M. le Comte de Caylus.’

Appendix A.5.28 NOTE XXVIII. Ver. 532. But which may beſt befriend art, ſcience, truth, and life.

The incident which gave riſe to the cloſing verſes of this epiſtle is mentioned by M. de Caylus himſelf: in his Antiquities he expreſſes his gratitude to an unknown Engliſh gentleman, who had ſurpriſed him with an unexpected preſent of ſeveral valuable works of art, as a tribute of reſpect to his beneficent character, taking at the ſame time the greateſt precautions that his own beneficence might remain anonymous.

This Engliſh gentleman was, I believe, the late Mr. Hollis, whoſe life was uncommonly devoted to the continual exerciſe of refined libe⯑rality.

Many readers will ſmile at the romantic ſpirit of the wiſh which concludes this Epiſtle, and which, however ſuggeſted by conſiderate hu⯑manity [351] and genuine patriotiſm, the temper of the times is ſo likely to realize.

Yet war is one of thoſe univerſally afflicting and univerſally exe⯑crated evils, to which both the ſpirit and the letter of Chriſtianity ſeem to promiſe a perfect antidote:—its efficacy as ſuch is certainly not vi⯑ſible at preſent; but it is ſtill a comfort to a humane and contemplative mind to reflect, that its operation, however ſlow, muſt be ultimately ſucceſsful.

Appendix A.6.1 NOTE I. Ver. 60. THE ſimple grandeur of her ſeaman's heart.

The character of the Britiſh ſeaman is perhaps the moſt perfect and pre-eminent of all profeſſional characters; or, in other words, the cha⯑racter poſſeſſes, in the higheſt degree, the peculiar and varied excellencies which the profeſſion requires: yet, though it is univerſally allowed that no claſs of men have been more zealous or ſucceſsful in the purſuit of glory, perhaps none have been ſo ſcantily requited with thoſe memorials of merit, which are neceſſary to make glory what Thucydides very hap⯑pily called it—a poſſeſſion for ever. May the juſtice and ſpirit of the nation be animated to ſuch a completion of the projected naval monument, as may moſt gratify our preſent heroes, and moſt happily produce to our country, in a future age, a ſimilar ſucceſſion of defenders!

[354]Demoſthenes has eloquently diſplayed this grand uſe of public monu⯑ments, in cloſing his Oration for the liberty of the Rhodians:

[...].

The Abbé Guaſco has made ſome juſt remarks on the ſtatues of an⯑tiquity equally applicable to this intereſting ſubject:

Appendix A.6.2 NOTE II. Ver. 74. Which even agony has ſmil'd to hear.

The praiſe, ſo ſingularly deſerved, and ſo tenderly beſtowed, was excited by a few remarkable productions; the more remarkable, as the dear ſufferer was, at the time, reduced to ſuch decrepitude, that he was obliged to endure a great increaſe of pain whenever he indulged his fancy in a brief, conſtrained, and haſty uſe of the pencil! Yet under theſe ſevere diſadvantages he executed ſome original deſigns that are thought, by leſs partial judges, to promiſe great future excellence, if Heaven graciouſly reſtores him from a ſtate of the moſt calamitous and complicated ſufferings, which he has now ſupported, for more [355] than two years, with the mildeſt magnanimity. My reader has an op⯑portunity of judging if I ſpeak too partially of the deſigns executed by this dear invalid, as the Death of Demoſthenes (which he drew, re⯑clining himſelf on the couch of pain, for the affectionate purpoſe of decorating this Poem) is one of thoſe I allude to. He will at the ſame time have the candour to recollect that this deſign is literally the pro⯑duction of a youth ſeverely obſtructed in the exerciſe of early talent; and that ‘the ſculptor's art (by which is not meant merely finiſhing his compoſitions in marble, but forming, with correctneſs, figures in any material) demands infinite labour and patience (and maturity of life) to carry it to perfection.’

I borrow the words of an admirable little Treatiſe, intitled "Thoughts on Outline, Sculpture, &c." by Mr. George Cumberland, an author who can employ, with alternate and maſterly command, both the pen and the pencil.

Appendix A.6.3 NOTE III. Ver. 144. And ſighing, bids the imperfect paean cloſe.

I could wiſh (yet I muſt not expect ſuch a wiſh can be realized) that all readers who may be ſubject to affliction like that which has made the cloſe of this Poem ſo different from what the author meant it to be when the Work was begun, might find, in the peruſal of it, a lenient relief ſimilar to what I have found, when I could force myſelf to purſue a compoſition frequently interrupted by paternal anxiety, and frequently reſumed from the influence of the ſame powerful affec⯑tion, to gratify an intelligent and generous invalid. He often re⯑queſted me to purſue my Work at a little diſtance from him, that it might ſave me from ſympathiſing too intenſely in pangs that I could [356] not relieve. Sometimes I could obey his tender injunctions; and ſome⯑times I have been almoſt on the point of exclaiming, in the pathetic words of Virgil, ‘—— Bis patriae cecidere manus.’ But at laſt, through a long viciſſitude of hopes and fears for health in⯑finitely dearer to me than my own, I am arrived at the cloſe of the Work which this beloved promoter of my ſuſpended ſtudies has ſo kindly wiſhed me to complete. I deliver it to the candour of the Public; not inſenſible of its imperfections, yet with feelings of grati⯑tude to the great Giver of all gifts, that, under the bittereſt diſquietude and diſtreſs of heart, he has ſtill granted me ſuch powers of application, as have enabled me to ſooth the corporeal anguiſh of a moſt meri⯑torious and long-ſuffering child, and to beguile many, many hours of paternal affection.