Chapter VII: Allegory (2)

Variety is the great and only rule to which decorators submit. Perceiving that there is no perfect resemblance between two things in nature, they likewise forsake it in their decorations; and careless of anxious twining, leave it to the parts themselves to find their like, as the atoms of Epicurus did. This liberty we owe to the very nation, which, after having nobly exceeded all the narrow bounds of social formalities, bestows so much pains upon communicating her improvements to her neighbours. This style in decorations got the epithet of _Barroque_ taste, derived from a word signifying pearls and teeth of unequal size[68].

Shells have at least as good a claim for being admitted among our decorations, as the heads of sheep and oxen. You know that the ancients placed those heads, stript of the skin, on the frizes, especially of the Doric order, between the Triglyphs, or on the Metopes. We even meet with them on the Corinthian frise of an old temple of Vesta, at Tivoli[69]; on tombs, as on one of the Metellus-family near Rome, and another of Munatius Plancus near Gaeta[70]; on vases, as on a pair in the royal cabinet at Dresden. Some modern artists, finding them perhaps unbecoming, changed them into thunderbolts, like Vignola, or to roses, like Palladio and Scamozzi[71].

We conclude from all this, that learning never had, nor indeed ought to have, any share in an art so nearly related to what we call _Lusus Naturæ_.

Thus the ancients thought: for, pray, what could be meant by a lizard on Mentor’s cup?[72] The

_Picti squallentia terga lacerti_

Virg. G. IV.

make, to be sure, a lovely image amidst the flowers of a Rachel Ruysch, but a very poor figure on a cup. Of what mysterious meaning are birds picking grapes from vines, on an urn?[73] Images, perhaps, as void of sense, and as arbitrary, as the fable of Ganymede embroidered on the mantle, which Æneas presented to Cloanthus, as a reward of his victory in the naval games[74].

To conclude: is there any thing contradictory between trophies and the hunting-house of a Prince? Surely the author, though so zealous a champion for the Greek taste, cannot pretend to propose to us that of King Philip and the Macedonians, who, by the account of Pausanias[75], did not erect their own trophies. Diana perhaps, amidst her nymphs and hunting-equipages,

_Qualis in Eurotæ ripis, aut per juga Cynthi,_
_Exercet Diana choros, quam mille secutæ,_
_Hinc atque hinc glomerantur, Oreades_—

Virg.

might better suit the place; but we know that the antient Romans hung up the arms of their defeated enemies over the out-sides of their doors, to be everlasting monitors of bravery to every succeeding owner of the house. Can trophies, having the same design, ever be misplaced on any building of the Great?

I wish for a speedy answer to this letter. You cannot be angry at seeing it published. The tribe of authors now imitate the conduct of the stage, where the lover, with his soliloquy, entertains the pit. For the same reason I shall receive, with all my heart, an answer,

_Quam legeret tereretque viritim publicus usus:_

Hor.

for

_Hanc veniam petimusque damusque vicissim._

Id.

AN
ACCOUNT
OF A
MUMMY,
IN
The Royal Cabinet of Antiquities at DRESDEN.

Among the Egyptian Mummies of the royal cabinet, there are two preserved perfectly entire, and not in the least damaged, viz. the bodies of a man and woman. The former, among all those that were brought into, and publickly known in Europe, is perhaps the only one of its kind; on account of an inscription thereon, which none of those who have written on Mummies, except Della Valle alone, discovered on those bodies; and Kircher, among all the drawings of Mummies communicated to him, and published in his Oedipus, has but one, (the same which Della Valle had been possessed of,) with an inscription; though his wooden cut[76] is as faulty as all the copies made afterwards[77]. On that Mummy there are these letters ΕΥ✠ΥΧΙ.

This same inscription is on the royal Mummy, of which I propose to give a brief account, and in examining which I have employed all my attention, that I might be certain of its being genuine, and not drawn by a modern hand from the inscription of Della Valle: for ’tis well known, that those bodies frequently pass through the hands of Jews. But the letters are evidently drawn with the same blackish colour with which the face, hands, and feet are stained. The first letter on our Mummy has the form of a large Greek ϵ, expressed by Della Valle with an E angular, the other not being usual in printing-presses.

All the four Mummies of the royal cabinet being bought at Rome, I proposed to examine whether the Mummy with the inscription, was that which Della Valle was possessed of, and found that both the entire royal Mummies were exact resemblances of those described by him.

Both, besides the linnen bandages, of a Barracan-texture, rolled innumerable times around the bodies, are wrapt up in several (and, according to an observation made in England[78], in three) kinds of coarser linnen; which, by particular bandages of the girdle-kind, is fastened in such a manner as to involve even the smallest prominence of the face. The first covering is a nice bit of linnen, slightly tinged with a certain ground, much gilt, decked with various figures, and with a painted one of the deceased.

On the Mummy marked with the inscription, this figure represents a man, who died in the flower of life, with a thin curled beard, not as represented by Kircher, like an old man with a long pointed one. The colour of the face and hands is brown: the head encircled with gilt diadems, marked with the sockets of jewels. From the gold chain, painted around the neck, a sort of medal hangs down, marked with various characters, crescents, &c. and this over-reaches the neck of a bird, that of a hawk perhaps, as on the breasts of other Mummies[79]. In the right hand of the figure is a dish filled with a red stuff, which being like that used by the sacrificers[80], the deceased may be supposed to have been a priest. The first and last finger of the left hand have rings; and in the hand itself there is something round, of a dark-brown colour; which, as Della Valle pretends, is a well-known fruit. The feet and legs are bare, with sandals; the strings of which appearing between the great toes, are, with a slip, fastened on the foot itself.

The inscription, above-mentioned, is beneath the breast.

The second Mummy is the still more refined figure of a young woman. Among a great many medals, seemingly gilt, and other figures, there are certain birds, and quadrupeds something analogous to lions; and towards the extremities of the body there is an ox, perhaps an apis: Down from one of the neck-chains hangs a gilt image of the sun. She has ear-rings, and double bracelets on both her arms: rings on each hand, and on every finger of the left one, but two on the first: whereas the right hand has but two: with this hand she holds, like Isis, a small gilt vessel, of the Greek Spondeion-kind, which was a symbol of the fertility of the Nile, when held by the goddess[81]. In the left hand there is a sort of fruit, like an ear of corn, of a greenish cast. The leaden seals, mentioned by Della Valle, still remain on the first Mummy.

Compare this description with that in his travels[82], and you’ll find the Mummies of the royal cabinet to be the same with those, which were taken out of a deep well or cave, covered with sand, and sold to this celebrated traveller by an Egyptian; and I believe they were purchased from his heirs at Rome, though in the manuscript catalogue, joined to that cabinet of antiquities, there is not the least hint of any such purchase.

I have no design to attempt an explication of the ornaments and figures; some remarks of that kind having already been made by Della Valle. The following observations concern only the inscription.

The Egyptians, we know, employed a double character in expressing themselves[83], the _sacred_ and the _vulgar_: the first was what is called hieroglyphick; the other contained the characters of their national language, and this is commonly said to be lost. All we know is confined to the twenty-five letters of their alphabet.[84] Della Valle seems inclined to give an instance of the contrary, in that inscription; which Kircher, pushing his conjectures still farther, endeavours to lay down as a foundation for a new scheme of his; and to support it by two other remains of the same kind. For, he attempts to prove[85], that the dialect was the only difference between the old Egyptian and Greek tongue. According to his talent of finding what no body looks for, he makes free with some ancient historical accounts; upon which he obtrudes a fictitious sense, in order to make them tally with his scheme.

Herodotus, according to him, tells us, that King Psammetichus desired some Greeks, who were perfect masters of their language, to go over to Egypt, in order to instruct his people in the purity of the tongue. Hence he concludes, that there was but one language in both countries. But that Greek historian[86] gives an account entirely opposite: he tells us, that Psammetichus, having received some services from the Carians and Ionians, permitted them to settle in Egypt, for the instruction of youth in the Greek language, in order to bring up interpreters.

There is no solidity in the rest of the Kircherian arguments; such as those deduced from the frequent voyages of the Greek sages into Egypt, and the mutual commerce between the two nations; which have not even the strength of conjectures. For the very skill of Democritus, in the sacred tongue of the Babylonians and Egyptians[87], proves only, that the travelling sages learned the languages of the nations they conversed with.

Nor does the testimony of Diodorus, that Attica was originally an Egyptian colony[88], seem to be here of any weight.

The inscription of the Mummy might indeed admit of Kircherian, or such like conjectures, were the Mummy itself of the antiquity pretended by Kircher. Cambyses, the conqueror of Egypt, partly exiled, and partly killed the priests; from which fact Kircher confidently deduces as consequences, the total abolition of the sacred rites, and from that the ceasing to embalm bodies. He again appeals to a passage of Herodotus[89], which, upon his word alone, others have as confidently quoted. Nay, a certain pedant went so far as to pretend, that the Egyptian custom of painting their dead, upon the varnished linnen of the Mummies, ceased with the epoch of Cyrus[90].

But Herodotus says not a word, either of the total abolition of the sacred rites, or of the abolition of the custom of preserving the dead from putrefaction, after the time of Cambyses; nor does Diodorus Siculus give any such hint: we may, on the contrary, from his account of the funeral rites of the Egyptians, rather conclude, that this custom prevailed even in his time; that is to say, when Egypt was changed into a Roman province.

Hence it cannot be demonstrated that our Mummy was embalmed before the Persian conquest.—But supposing it to be of that date, is it a necessary consequence that a body preserved in the Egyptian manner, or even taken care of by their priests, should be marked with Egyptian words?

Perhaps it is the body of some naturalised Ionian or Carian. We know that Pythagoras entered into the Egyptian confession; nay, even consented to be circumcised[91], in order to shorten his way to the mysteries of their priests. The Carians themselves observed the sacred solemnities of Isis, and even went so far in their superstition, as to mangle their faces during the sacrifices offered to that deity[92].

Change the letter ι, in the inscription, into the diphthong ει, and you have a Greek word: such negligences are often to be met with in Greek marbles[93], and still more in Greek manuscripts; and with the same termination it is to be found on a gem, and signifies, “FAREWELL”[94], which was the usual ejaculation addressed by the living to the deceased; the same we meet with on ancient epitaphs[95]; public decrees[96]; and of letters it was the final conclusion[97].

There is on an ancient epitaph the word ΕΥΨΥΧΙ[98]; the form of the Ψ on ancient stones and manuscripts is exactly the same[99] with the third letter of ΕΥ✠ΥΧΙ, which was perhaps confounded with it.

But supposing the Mummy to be of later times, the adoption of a Greek word becomes yet easier. The round form of the ϵ might be something suspicious, with regard to its pretended antiquity; that form being never found on the gems or coins before Augustus[100]. But this suspicion becomes of no weight, by supposing that the Egyptians continued their embalming, even after the time of that Emperor.

However, the word cannot be an Egyptian one, being inconsistent with the remains of that ancient tongue in the modern Coptick, as well as with their manner of writing; which was from the right to the left, as the Etrurians did[101]; whereas the word in question (like some Egyptian characters[102],) is traced from the left to the right. As for the inscription discovered by Maillet[103], no interpreter has yet been found. The Grecians, on the contrary, wrote in the occidental manner, for six hundred years before the christian æra, witness the Sigæan inscription, which is said to be of that date[104].

What has been said relates also to an inscription upon a piece of stone[105], with Egyptian figures, communicated to Kircher by Carolo Vintimiglia, a Palerman patrician. The letters ΙΤΙΨΙΧΙ are two words, and signify, “Let the soul come.” This stone has met with the same fate as the gem engraved with the head of Ptolomæus Philopator: for here an Egyptian has joined two random figures, and there the inscription may be of a Greek hand. The litterati know what little change it wants to be orthographical.

AN
ANSWER
TO THE FOREGOING
LETTER,
AND
A further EXPLICATION of the SUBJECT.

I could not presume that so small a treatise as mine would be thought of consequence enough to be brought to a publick trial. As it was written only for a few _connoisseurs_, it seemed superfluous to give it a learned air, by multiplying quotations. Artists want but hints: their task, according to an ancient Rhetor, is “to perform, not to peruse;” consequently every author, who writes for them, ought to be brief. Being besides convinced, that the beauties of the art are founded rather on a quick sense, and refined taste, than on profound meditation, I cannot help thinking that the principle of Neoptolemus[106], “to philosophize only with the few,” ought to be the chief consideration in every treatise of this kind.

Several passages of my Essay are susceptible of explications, and, having been publickly tried by an anonymous author, should be explained and defended at the same time, if my circumstances would permit me to enlarge[107]. As to his other remarks, the author, I hope, will guess at my answer, without my giving one explicitly.—Indeed they do not require any.

I am not in the least moved by the clamours concerning those pieces of _Corregio_, which, by undoubted accounts, were not only brought to _Sweden_[108], but even hung up in the stables at _Stockholm_. Reasoning is of no use here: arguments of this kind admit of no other evidence but that of _Æmilius Scaurus_ against _Valerius_ of _Sucro_: “He denies; I affirm: Romans! ’tis yours to judge.”

And why should there be any thing more derogatory to the honour of the Swedes, in my repeating Count _Tessin_’s relation, than in his giving it? Perhaps, because the learned author of the circumstantial life of Queen _Christina_ omits her indiscreet generosity towards _Bourdon_, and that bad treatment which the pictures of _Corregio_ met with? or was _Härleman_[109] himself charged with indiscretion or malice, on his relating that, at _Lincöping_, he found a college, and seven professors, but not one physician or artificer?

It was my design to explain myself more particularly, concerning the negligences of the Greeks, had I been allowed time. The Greeks, as their criticism on the partridge of Protogenes, and his blotting it[110], evidently shews, were not ignorant in learned negligence. But the Zeus of Phidias was the standard of sublimity, the symbol of the omnipresent Deity; like Homer’s Eris, he stood upon the earth, and reached heaven; he was, in the style of sacred poesy, “_What encompasses him?_ &c.” And the world has been candid enough to excuse, nay, even to justify on such reasons, the disproportions in the Carton of Raphael, representing the fishing of Peter[111]. The criticism on the _Diomedes_, though solid, is not against me: his action, abstractedly considered, with his noble and expressive contour, are standards of the art; and that was all I advanced[112].

The reflections on the Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks may be reduced to four heads, viz.

I. The perfect Nature of the Greeks;

II. The Characteristicks of their works;

III. The Imitation of these;

IV. Their manner of Thinking upon the Art; and Allegory.

Probability was all I pretended to, with regard to the first; which cannot be fully demonstrated, notwithstanding all the assistance of history. For, these advantages of the Greeks were, perhaps, less founded on their nature, and the influences of the climate, than on their education.

The happy situation of their country was, however, the basis of all; and the want of resemblance, which was observed between the Athenians and their neighbours beyond the mountains, was owing to the difference of air and nourishment[113].

The manners and persons of the new-settled inhabitants, as well as the natives of every country, have never failed of being influenced by their different natures. The ancient Gauls, and their successors the German Franks, are but one nation: the blind fury, by which the former were hurried on in their first attacks, proved as unsuccessful to them in the times of Cæsar[114], as it did to the latter in our days. They possessed certain other qualities, which are still in vogue among the modern French; and the Emperor Julian[115] tells us, that in his time there were more dancers than citizens at Paris.

Whereas the Spaniards, managing their affairs cautiously, and with a certain frigidity, kept the Romans longer than any other people from conquering the country[116].

And is not this character of the old Iberians re-assumed by the West-Goths, the Mauritanians, and many other people, who over-ran their country?[117]

It is easy to be imagined what advantages the Greeks, having been subject to the same influences of climate and air, must have reaped from the happy situation of their country. The most temperate seasons reigned through all the year, and the refreshing sea-gales fanned the voluptuous islands of the Ionick sea, and the shores of the continent. Induced by these advantages, the Peloponnesians built all their towns along the coast; see Dicearchus, quoted by Cicero[118].

Under a sky so temperate, nay balanced between heat and cold, the inhabitants cannot fail of being influenced by both. Fruits grow ripe and mellow, even such as are wild improve their natures; animals thrive well, and breed more abundantly. “Such a sky, says Hippocrates[119], produces not only the most beautiful of men, but harmony between their inclinations and shape.” Of which Georgia, that country of beauty, where a pure and serene sky pours fertility, is an instance[120]. Among the elements, beauty owes so much to water alone, that, if we believe the Indians, it cannot thrive, in a country that has it not in its purity[121]. And the Oracle itself attributes to the lymph of Arethusa a power of forming beauty[122].

The Greek tongue affords us also some arguments in behalf of their frame. Nature moulds the organs of speech according to the influences of the climate. There are nations that rather whistle than speak, like the Troglodytes[123]; others that pronounce without opening their lips[124]; and the Phasians, a Greek people, had, as has been said of the English[125], a hoarse voice: an unkind climate forms harsh sounds, and consequently the organs of speech cannot be very delicate.

The superiority of the Greek tongue is incontestible: I do not speak now of its richness, but only of its harmony. For all the northern tongues, being over-loaded with consonants[126], are too often apt to offend with an unpleasing austerity; whereas the Greek tongue is continually changing the consonant for the vowel, and two vowels, meeting with but one consonant, generally grow into a diphthong[127]. The sweetness of the tongue admits of no word ending with these three harsh letters Θ, Φ, Χ, and for the sake of Euphony, readily changes letters for their kindred ones. Some seemingly harsh words cannot be objected here; none of us being acquainted with the true Greek or Roman pronunciation. All these advantages gave to the tongue a flowing softness, brought variety into the sounds of its words, and facilitated their inimitable composition. And from these alone, not to mention the measure which, even in common conversation, every syllable enjoyed, a thing to be despaired of in occidental tongues; from these alone, I say, we may form the highest idea of the organs by which that tongue was pronounced, and may more than conjecture, that, by the language of the _Gods_, Homer meant the Greek, by that of _Men_, the Phrygian tongue.

It was chiefly owing to that abundance of vowels, that the Greek tongue was preferable to all others, for expressing by the sound and disposition of its words the forms and substances of things. The discharge, the rapidity, the diminution of strength in piercing, the slowness in gliding, and the stopping of an arrow, are better expressed by the sound of these three verses of Homer, Iliad Δ.

125. Λίγξε βιὸς, νευρὴ δε μέγ’ ἴαχεν, ἆλτο δ’ ὀϊστὸς[128]

135. Διὰ μέν ἂρ’ ζωστῆρος ἐλήλατο δαιδαλέοιο,

136. Καὶ διὰ θωρηκος πολυδαιδάλου ἠρήρειστο,

than even by the words themselves. You see it discharged, flying through the air, and piercing the belt of Menelaus.

The description of the Myrmidons in battle-array, Iliad Π. v. 215.

Ἀσπὶς ἄρ’ ἀσπίδ’ ἔρειδε, κόρυς κόρυν ἀνέρα δ’ ἀνήρ.

is of the same kind, and has never been hit by any imitation: what beauties in one line!

Plato’s periods were, from their harmony, compared[129] to a noiseless smooth-running stream. But we should be mistaken in confining the tongue to the softer harmonies only: it became a roaring torrent, boisterous as the winds by which Ulysses’ sails were torn, split only in three or four places by the words, but rent by the sound into a thousand tatters[130]. This was the “_vivida expressio_,” the living sound; supremely beautiful, when properly and sparingly used!

How quick, how refined must the organs have been, which were the depositaries of such a tongue! The Roman itself could not attain its excellence: nay, a Greek father, of the second century of the christian æra[131], complains of the horrid sound of the Roman laws.

Nature keeps proportion; consequently the frame of the Greeks was of a fine clay, of nerves, and muscles most sensibly elastic, and promoting the flexibility of the body: hence that easiness, that pliant facility, accompanied with mirth and vigour, which animated all their actions. Imagine bodies most nicely balanced between leanness and corpulency: both extremes were ridiculed by the Greeks, and their poets sneer at the Philesiases[132], Philetases[133], and Agoracrituses[134].

But though they were beautiful, and by their law early initiated into pleasure, they were not effeminate Sybarites. As an instance of which we shall only repeat what Pericles pleaded in favour of the Athenian manners, against those of Sparta, which were as different from those of the rest of Greece, as their public oeconomy was: “The Spartans, says Pericles, employ their youth to get, by violent exercises, manly strength: but we, though living indolently, encounter every danger as well as they; calmly, not anxiously, mindful of its approaches, we meet it with voluntary magnanimity, and without any compulsion of the law. Not disconcerted by its impending threats, we meet its most furious attacks, with no less boldness than they, whom perpetual practice has prepared for its strokes. We are fond of elegance, without loving finery; of genius, without being emasculate. In short, to be fit for every great enterprize, is the characteristic of the Athenians[135].”

I cannot, nor will I pretend to fix a rule without allowing exceptions. There was a Thersites in the army of the Greeks. But it is worth observing, that the beauty of a nation was always in proportion to their cultivation of the arts. Thebes, wrapt up in a misty sky, produced a sturdy uncouth race[136],[137]according to Hippocrates’s observation on fenny, watry soils[138]; and its sterility in producing men of genius, Pindar only excepted, is an old reproach. Sparta was as defective in this respect as Thebes, having only Alcman to boast of; but the reasons were different: whereas Attica enjoyed a pure and serene sky, which refined the senses[139], and of course shaped their bodies in proportion to that refinement; and Athens was the seat of arts. The same remark may be made with regard to Sicyon, Corinth, Rhodes, Ephesus, &c. all which having been schools of the arts, could not want convenient models. The passage of Aristophanes, insisted on in the letter[140], I take for a joke, as it really is—and thereby hangs a tale: to have the parts, whereon

_Sedet æternumque sedebit_
_Infelix Theseus,_

Virg.

moderately complete, were Attick beauties. Theseus[141], made prisoner by the Thesprotians, was delivered from his captivity by Hercules, but not without some loss of the parts in question; a loss bequeathed to all his race. This was the true mark of the Thesean pedigree; as a natural mark, representing a spear[142], signified a Spartan extraction; and we find the Greek artists imitating in those places the sparing hand of nature.

But this liberality of nature was confined to Greece, in a narrower sense. Its colonies underwent the same fate, which its eloquence met with when going abroad. “As soon, says Cicero[143], as eloquence set out from the Athenian port, she plumed herself with the manners of all the islands in her way, adopted the Asiatick luxury, and forsaking her sound Attick expression, lost her health.” The Ionians, transplanted by Nileus from Greece into Asia, after the return of the Heraclides, grew still more voluptuous beneath that glowing sky. Heaps of vowels brought wantonness into every word; the neighbouring islands partook of their climate and manners, which a single Lesbian coin may convince us of[144]. No wonder then, if their bodies degenerated as much from those of their ancestors, as their manners.

The remoter the colonies the greater the difference. Those Greeks, who had chosen their abode in Africa, about _Pithicussa_, fell in with the natives in adoring apes; nay, even gave the names of those animals to their children[145].

The modern Greeks, though composed of various mingled metals, still betray the chief mass. Barbarism has destroyed the very elements of science, and ignorance over-clouds the whole country; education, courage, manners are sunk beneath an iron sway, and even the shadow of liberty is lost. Time, in its course, dissipates the remains of antiquity: pillars of Apollo’s temple at Delos[146], are now the ornaments of English gardens: the nature of the country itself is changed. In days of yore the plants of Crete[147] were famous over all the world; but now the streams and rivers, where you would go in quest of them, are mantled with wild luxuriant weeds, and trivial vegetables[148].

Unhappy country! How could it avoid being changed into a wilderness, when such populous tracts of land as Samos, once mighty enough to balance the Athenian power at sea, are reduced to hideous desarts[149]!

Notwithstanding all these devastations, the forlorn prospect of the soil, the free passage of the winds, stopped by the inextricable windings of entangled shores, and the want of almost all other commodities; yet have the modern Greeks preserved many of the prerogatives of their ancestors. The inhabitants of several islands, (the Greek race being chiefly preserved in the islands), near the Natolian shore, especially the females, are, by the unanimous account of travellers, the most beautiful of the human race[150].

Attica still preserves its air of philanthropy[151]: all the shepherds and clowns welcomed the two travellers, Spon and Wheeler; nay, prevented them with their salutations[152]: neither have they lost the Attick salt, or the enterprising spirit of the former inhabitants[153].

Objections have been made against their early exercises, as rather derogating from, than adding to, the beauteous form of the Greek youths.

Indeed, the continual efforts of the nerves and muscles seem rather to give an angular gladiatorial turn, than the soft Contour of beauty, to youthful bodies. But this may partly be answered by the character of the nation itself: their fancy, their actions, were easy and natural; their affairs, as Pericles says, were managed with a certain carelessness, and some of Plato’s dialogues[154] may give us an idea of that mirth and chearfulness which prevailed in all the Gymnastick exercises of their youth. Hence his desire of having these places, in his commonwealth, frequented by old folks, in order to remind them of the joys of their youth[155].

Their games commonly began at sun rise[156]; and Socrates frequented them at that time. They chose the morning-hours, in order to avoid being incommoded by the heat: as soon as their garments were laid down, the body was anointed with the elegant Attick oil, partly to defend it from the bleak morning-air; as it was usual to practice, even during the severest cold[157]; and partly to prevent a too copious perspiration, where it was intended only to carry off superfluous humours[158]. To this oil they ascribed also a strengthening quality[159]. The exercises being over, they went to bathe, and there submitted to a fresh unction; and a person leaving the bath in this state “appears, says Homer, taller, stronger, and similar to the immortal Gods[160].”

We may form a very distinct idea of the different kinds and degrees of wrestling among the ancients, from a vase once in the possession of Charl. Patin, and, as he guesses, the urn of a gladiator[161].

Had it been a prevailing custom among the Greeks to walk, either barefooted, like the heroes in their performances[162], or with a single sole, as we commonly believe, their feet must have been bruised. But there are many instances of their extreme nicety in this respect; for, they had names for above ten different sorts of shoes[163].

The coverings of the thighs were thrown off at the publick exercises, even before the flourishing of the art[164]; which was a great advantage to the artists. As for the nourishment of the wrestlers in remoter times, I found it more proper to mention milk in general, than soft cheese.

If I remember right, you think it strange, and even undemonstrable, that the primitive church should have dipped their proselytes, promiscuously: consult the note[165].

As I am now entering upon the discussion of my second point, I could wish that these probabilities of a more perfect nature, among the Greeks, might be allowed to have some conclusive weight; and then I should have but a few words to add.

_Charmoleos_, a Megarian youth, a single kiss of whom was valued at two talents[166], was, no doubt, beautiful enough to serve for a model of _Apollo_: Him, _Alcibiades_, _Charmides_, and _Adimanthus_[167], the artists could see and study to their wish for several hours every day: and can you imagine those trifling opportunities proposed to the Parisian artists, equivalents for the loss of advantages like these? But granting that, pray, what is there to be seen more in a swimmer than in any other person? The extremities of the body you may see every where. As for that author[168], who pretends to find in France beauties superior to those of _Alcibiades_, I cannot help doubting his ability to maintain what he asserts.

What has been said hitherto might also answer the objection drawn from the judgment of our academies, concerning those parts of the body which ought to be drawn rather more angular than we find them in the antiques. The Greeks, and their artists, were happy in the enjoyment of figures endowed with youthful harmony; for, we have no reason to doubt their exactness in copying nature, if we only consider the angular smartness with which they drew the wrist-bones. _Agasias_’s celebrated _Gladiator_, in the _Borghese_, has none of the modern angles, nor the bony prominences authorised by our artists: all his angular parts are those we meet with in the other Greek statues. And this statue, which was perhaps one of those that were erected, in the very places where the games were held, to the memory of the several victors, may be supposed an exact copy of nature. The artist was bound to represent any victor in the very attitude, and instantaneous motion, in which he overcame his antagonist, and the _Amphictyones_ were the judges of his performance[169].

Many authors having written on this, and the following point of the treatise, I have contented myself with giving a few remarks of my own. Superficial arguments, in matters of this kind, can neither suit the deeper views of our times, nor lead to general conclusions. Nevertheless we do not want authors whose premature decisions often get the better of their judgment, and that not in matters concerning the art alone. Pray, what decisions of an author may be depended upon, who, when designing to write on the arts in general, shews himself so ignorant of their very elements, as to ascribe to _Thucydides_, whose concise and energetick style was not without difficulties, even for _Tully_[170], the character of simplicity?[171] Another of that tribe, seems as little acquainted with _Diodorus Siculus_, when he describes him as hunting after elegance[172]. Nor want we blockheads enough who admire, in the ancient performances, such trifles as are below any reasonable man’s attention. “The rope, says a travelling scribler, which ties together Dirce and the ox, is to connoisseurs the most beautiful object of the whole groupe of the Toro Farnese[173].”

_Ah miser ægrota putruit cui mente salillum!_

I am no stranger to those merits of the modern artists which you oppose to the ancients: but at the same time I know, that the imitation of these alone has elevated the others to that pitch of merit; and it would be easy to prove that, whenever they forsook the ancients, they fell into the faults of those, whom alone I intended to blame.

Nature undoubtedly misled Bernini: a _Carita_ of his, on the monument of Pope Urban the VIIIth, is said to be corpulent, and another on that of Alexander the VIIth, even ugly[174]. Certain it is, that no use could be made of the Equestrian statue of Lewis XIV. on which he had bestowed fifteen years, and the King immense sums. He was represented as ascending, on horseback, the mount of honour: but the action both of the rider and of the horse was exaggerated, and too violent; which was the cause of baptizing it a Curtius plunging into the gulph, and its having been placed only in the Thuilleries: from which we may infer, that the most anxious imitation of nature is as little sufficient for attaining beauty, as the study of anatomy alone for attaining the justest proportions: these Lairesse, by his own account, took from the skeletons of Bidloo; but, though a professor in his art, committed many faults, which the good Roman school, especially Raphael, cannot be charged with. However, it is not meant that there is no heaviness in his Venus; nor does it clear him from the faults imputed to him in the Massacre of the Innocents, engraved by Marc. Antonio, as has been attempted in a very rare treatise on painting[175]; for there the female figures labour under an exuberance of breasts; whereas the murderers look ghastly with leanness: a contrast not to be admired: the sun itself has spots.

Let Raphael be imitated in his best manner, and when in his prime; those works want no apology: it was to no purpose to produce Parrhasius and Zeuxis in order to excuse Him, and the Dutch proportions! ’Tis true, the passage of Pliny[176], which you quote concerning Parrhasius, meets commonly with the same interpretation, viz. _that, shunning corpulency he fell into leanness_[177]. But supposing Pliny to have understood what he wrote, we must clear him of contradicting himself. A little before he allowed to Parrhasius a superiority in the contour, or in his own words, _in the outlines_; and in the passage before us, _Parrhasius, compared with himself, seems, in POINT OF THE MIDDLE PARTS, to fall short of himself_. The question is, what he means by middle parts? Perhaps the parts bordering on the outlines: but is not the designer obliged to know every possible attitude of the frame, every change of its contour? If so, it is ridiculous to give this explication to our passage: for the middle parts of a full face are the outlines of its profile, and so on. Consequently, there is no such thing as middle parts to be met with by a designer: the idea of a painter, well-skilled in the contour of the outlines, but ignorant of their contents, is an absurd one. Parrhasius perhaps either wanted skill in the Chiaroscuro, or Keeping in the disposition of his limbs, and this seems the only explication, which the words of Pliny can reasonably admit of. Unless we choose to make him another La Fage, who, though a celebrated designer, never failed spoiling his contours with his colours. Or, perhaps, to indulge another conjecture, Parrhasius smoothed the outlines of his contour, where it bordered on the grounds, in order to avoid being rough; a fault committed, as it seems, by his contemporaries, and by the artists who flourished in the beginning of the sixteenth century, who circumscribed their figures, as it were with a knife; but those smooth contours wanted the support of keeping, and of masses gradually rising or sinking, in order to become round, and to strike the eye: by failing in which, his figures got an air of flatness; and thus Parrhasius fell short of himself, without being either too corpulent or too lean.

We cannot conclude, from the Homeric shape which Zeuxis gave his female figures, that he raised them, like Rubens, into flesh-hills. There is some reason to believe, from the education of the Spartan ladies, that they had something of a masculine vigour, though they were the chief beauties of Greece; and such a one is the Helena of Theocritus.

All this makes me doubt of finding among the ancients any companion for Jacob Jordans, though he is so zealously defended in your letter. Nor am I afraid of maintaining what I have said concerning him. Mr. d’Argenville is indeed a very industrious collector of criticisms upon the artists; but as his design is not very extensive, so his decisions are often too general, to afford us characteristical ideas of his heroes.

A good eye must be allowed to be a better judge, in matters of this kind, than all the ambiguous decisions of authors: and to fix the character of Jordans, I might content myself with appealing to his Diogenes, and the Purification, in the royal cabinet at Dresden. But, for the reader’s sake, let me inquire into the meaning of what you call _Truth_ in painting. For if truth, in the general sense, can by no means be excluded from any branch of the arts, we have, in the decision of Mr. d’Argenville, a riddle to unfold, which, if it has any meaning at all, must have the following:

Rubens, enabled by the inexhaustible fertility of his genius, to pour forth fictions like Homer himself, displays his riches even to prodigality: like him he loved the marvellous, as well in thought and grandeur of conception, as in composition, and chiar’-oscuro. His figures are composed in a manner unknown before him, and his lights, jointly darting upon one great mass, diffuse over all his works a bold harmony, and amazing spirit. Jordans, a genius of a lower class, cannot, in the ideal part of painting, by any means be compared with his great master. He had no wings to soar above nature; for which reason he humbly followed, and painted her as he found her: and if this be _truth_, he, no doubt, had a larger share of it than Rubens.

If the modern artists, with regard to forms and beauty, are not to be directed by antiquity, there is no authority left to influence them. Some, in painting Venus, would give her a Frenchified air[178]; another would present her with an Aquiline nose, the Medicean Venus, as they would say, having such a one[179]: her hands would be provided with spindles instead of fingers; and she would ogle us with Chinese eyes, like the beauties of a new Italian school. Every artist, in short, would, by his performance, betray his country: but, as Democritus says[180], if the artists ought to pray the gods to let them meet with none but auspicious images, those of the ancients will best suit their wishes.

Let us, however, make some exception in favour of Fiamingo’s children. For, lustiness and full health being the common burden of the praises of children, whose infant forms are not strictly susceptible of that beauty, which belongs to the steadiness of riper years; the imitation of his children has reasonably become a fashion among our artists. But neither this, nor the indulgence of the academy at Vienna, can be, or indeed was meant to be decisive, in favour of the modern children; it only leads us to make a distinction. The ancients went beyond nature, even in their children: the moderns only follow her; and, provided their infant forms, exuberant as they are, do not influence their ideas of youthful and riper bodies, they may be allowed to be in the right, though, at the same time, the ancients were not in the wrong.

Our artists are, likewise, at full liberty to dress the hair of their figures as they please: but, being so fond of nature, they, must needs know, that it is nature which shades, with pendant locks, the forehead and temples of all those, whose life is not spent between the comb and the looking-glass: and finding this manner carefully observed in most statues of the ancients, they may take it as a proof of their attachment to simplicity and truth; a proof of the more weight, as they did not want people, busier in adorning their bodies than their minds, and as nice in adjusting their hair, as the most elegant of our European courtiers. But it was commonly looked upon as a mark of an ingenuous and noble extraction, to dress the hair in the manner of the statues[181].

The imitation of the ancient contour has indeed never been rejected, not even by those whose chief want was that of correctness: but we differ about imitating that “noble simplicity and sedate grandeur” in their works. An expression which hath seldom met with general approbation, and never pronounced without hazard of being misunderstood.

In the Hercules of Bandinelli, the idea of it was deemed a fault[182]: an usurpation in Raphael’s Massacre of the Innocents[183].

The idea of “nature at rest,” I own, might, perhaps, produce figures like the young Spartans of Xenophon; nor would the bulk of mankind be better pleased with performances in the taste of my treatise, (supposing even all its precepts authorised by the judges of the art) than with a speech made before the Areopagites. But it is not on the bulk of mankind that we ought to confer the legislative power in the art. And though works of an extensive composition ought certainly to have the support of a vigour and spirit proportioned to their extent, yet there are limits which must not be overleapt: use not so much spirit as to represent the everlasting Father like the cruel God of war, or an ecstasied saint like a priestess of Bacchus.

Indeed, in the eyes of one unacquainted with this characteristick of the sublime, a Madonna of Trevisani will seem preferable to that of Raphael in the royal cabinet at Dresden. I know that even artists were of opinion, that its being placed so near one of the former, was not a little disadvantageous to it. Hence it seemed not superfluous to enquire into the true grandeur of that inestimable picture, as it is the only production of this Apollo of painters, that Germany is possessed of.

No comparison, indeed, is to be made of its composition with that of the transfiguration; which, however, I think fully compensated by its being genuine: whereas Julio Romano might perhaps claim one half of the other as his own. The difference of the hands is visible: but in the Madonna, the spirit of that epoch, in which Raphael performed his Athenian school, shines with so full a lustre, as to make even the authority of Vasari superfluous.

’Tis no easy matter to convince a critick, conceited enough to blame the Jesus of the Madonna, that he is mistaken. Pythagoras, says an antient philosopher[184], and Anaxagoras look at the sun with different eyes: the former sees a God, the latter a stone. We want but experience to discover truth and beauty in the faces of Raphael, without enquiring into their dignity: beauty pleases, but serious graces charm[185]. Such are the beauties of the ancients, which gave that serious air to Antinous, which we generally ascribe to his shading locks. Sudden raptures, or the enticement of a glance, are often momentary; let an attentive eye dwell upon those confused beauties which the transient look conveys, and the paint will vanish. True charms owe their durability to reflection, and hidden graces allure our enquiries: reluctant and unsatisfied we leave a coy beauty, in continual admiration of some new-fancied charm: and such are the beauties of Raphael and the ancients; not agreeably trifling ones, but regular and full of real graces[186]. By that Cleopatra became the beauty of all ensuing ages: nobody[187] was astonished at her face, but her air engaged every eye, and subdued the melted heart. A French Venus at her toilet is much like Seneca’s wit: which, if put to the test, disappears[188].

The comparison of Raphael and some of the most celebrated Dutch, and new Italian painters, concerns only the management, (_Trattamento_). The endeavours of the former of these, to hide the laborious industry that appears in all their works, gives an additional sanction to my judgment; for, hiding is labour. The most difficult part in performances of the arts, is to spread an air of easiness, the “UT SIBI QUIVIS” over them[189]; of which, among the ancients, the pictures of Nicomachus were entirely destitute[190].

All this, however, is not meant to derogate from Vanderwerf’s superior merit: his works give a lustre even to the cabinets of kings. He diffused over them an inconceivable polish; every trace of his pencil, one would think, is molten; and, in the colliquation of his tints, there reigns but one predominant colour. He might be said to have enamelled rather than painted.

His works indeed please. But does the character of painting consist in pleasing alone? Denner’s bald pates please likewise. But what, do you imagine, would the wise ancients think of them? Plutarch, from the mouth of some Aristides or Zeuxis, would tell him, that beauty never dwells in wrinkles[191].

’Tis said, the Emperor Charles VI. when he first saw one of Denner’s pictures, was loud in its praise, and in admiration of his industry. The painter was immediately desired to make a fellow to the first, and was magnificently rewarded: but the Emperor, comparing each of them with some pieces of Rembrandt and Vandyke, declared, “that having now satisfied his curiosity, he would on no account have any more from this artist.” An English nobleman was of the same opinion: for being shewn a picture of Denner’s, “You are in the wrong, said he, if you believe that our nation esteems performances, which owe their merits to industry rather than to genius.”

I am far from applying these remarks to Vanderwerf; the difference between him and Denner is too great: I only joined them in order to prove, that a picture which only pleases can no more pretend to universal approbation than a poem. No; their charms must be durable; but here we meet with causes of disgust in the very parts, where the painter endeavoured to please us.

Those parts of nature that are beyond observation, were the chief objects of these painters: they were particularly cautious of changing the situation even of the minutest hair, in order to surprize the most sharp-sighted eye with all the microcosm of nature. They may be compared to those disciples of Anaxagoras, who placed all human wisdom in the palm of the hand—but mark, as soon as they attempt to stretch their art beyond these limits, to draw larger proportions, or the nudities, the painter appears

_Infelix operis summâ, quia ponere totum nescit._

Hor.

Design is as certainly the painter’s first, second, and third requisite, as action is that of the orator.

I readily allow the solidity of your remarks, concerning the “reliefs” of the ancients. In my treatise I myself charged them with a want of sufficient skill in perspective; and hence the faults in their reliefs.

The fourth point chiefly concerns _Allegory_.

In painting we commonly call fiction allegory: for, though imitation arises from the very principles of painting as well as of poetry, it constitutes, by itself, neither of them[192]. A picture, without allegory, is but a vulgar image, and resembles Davenant’s Gondibert, an epopée without fiction.

Colouring and design are to painting what metre and truth, or the fable, are to poetry; a body without soul. Poetry, says Aristotle, was first inspired with its soul, with fiction, by Homer; and with that the painter must animate his work. Design and colouring are the fruits of attention and practice: perspective and composition, in the strictest sense, are established on fixed rules; they are of course but mechanical; and, if I may be allowed the expression, only mechanical souls are wanting to understand and to admire them.

Pleasures in general, save only those which rob the bulk of mankind of their invaluable treasure, time, become durable, and are free from tediousness and disgust, in proportion as they engage our intellectual faculties. Mere sensual sentiments soon languish; they do not influence our reason: such is the delight we take in the common landscape, flower, and fruit paintings: the artist, in performing them, thinks but very little; and the connoisseur, in considering them, thinks no more.

A mere history-piece differs from a landscape only in the object: in the former you draw facts and persons, in the latter, sky, land, seas, &c. both, of course, being founded on the same principle, imitation, are essentially but of one kind.

If it be not a contradiction to stretch the limits of painting, as far as those of poetry, and consequently, to allow the painter the same ability of elevating himself to the pitch of the poet as the musician enjoys; it is clear that history, though the sublimest branch of painting, cannot raise itself to the heighths of tragick or epick poetry, by imitation alone.

Homer, as Cicero tells us[193], has transformed man into God: which is to say; he not only exceeded truth, but, to raise his fiction, preferred even the impossible, if probable, to the barely possible[194]. In this Aristotle fixes the very essence of poetry, and tells us that the pictures of Zeuxis had that characteristick. The possibility and truth, which Longinus requires of the painter, as opposites to absurdity in poetry, are not contradictory to this rule.

This heighth the history-painter cannot reach, only by a contour above common nature, or a noble expression of the passions: for these are requisite in a good portrait-painter, who is able to execute them without diminishing the likeness of his model. They are but imitation, only prudently managed. The heads of Vandyke are charged with too exact an observation of nature; an exactness that would be faulty in a history-piece.

Truth, lovely as it is in itself, charms more, penetrates deeper, when invested with fiction: fable, in its strictest sense, is the delight of childhood; allegory that of riper years. And the old opinion, that poetry was of earlier date than prose, as unanimously attested by the annals of different people, makes it evident, that even in the most barbarous times, truth was preferred, when appearing in this dress.

Our understanding, moreover, labours under the fault of bestowing its attention chiefly on things, whose beauties are not to be perceived at first sight, and of inadvertently slighting others, because clear as day: images of this kind, like a ship on the waves, leave but momentary traces in our memory. Hence the ideas of our childhood are the most permanent, because every common occurrence then seems extraordinary. Thus, if nature herself instructs us, that she is not to be moved by common things, let art, as the Orator, ad Herennium, advises us, follow her dictates.