feems but little known or attended to by the modern profeffors of this fine art. 17. NIL ORITURUM ALIAS, NIL ORTUM TALE FATENTES.]l n'eft impoffible, fays M. DE BALZAC, in that puffed, declamatory rhapsody, intitled, LE PRINCE, de refifter au mouvement in poet; if indeed the writer of them deserve that name; for, whoever he was, he is fo far from partaking of the original fpirit of Virgil, that, at most he appears to have been but a fervile and paltry mimic of Ovid; from the opening of whofe Metamorphofis the defign was clearly taken. The turn of the thought is evidently the fame in both, and even the expreffion. Mutatas dicere formas is echoed by ardentes dicere pugnas: dicere fert animus, is, by an affected improvement, accingar dicere: and Tithoni primâ ab origine is almoft literally the fame as primâque ab origine mundi. For the infertion of thefe lines in this place, I leave it to the curious to conjecture of it, as they may; but in the mean time, muft efteem the office of the true critic to be fo far refembling that of the poet himself, as, within fome proper limitations, to justify the honest liberty here taken. Cum tabulis animum cenforis fumet honefti ; CEDANT, ET VERSENTUR ADHUC INTRA PENETRALIA VESTAE. [2 Ep. ii. 10. terieur, terieur, qui me pouffe. Je ne sçaurois m'empecher de parler du Roy, et de fa vertu; de crier à tous les princes, que c'est l'exemple, qu'ils doivent fuivre ; DE DEMANDER A TOUS LES PEUPLES, ET A TOUS LES AGES, S'ILS ONT JAMAIS RIEN VEU DE SEMBLABLE. This was spoken of a king of France, who, it will be owned, had his virtues. But they were the virtues of the man, and not of the Prince. This, however, was a diftinction, which the eloquent encomiaft was not aware of, or, to speak more truly, his business required him to overlook. For the whole elogy is worth perufing, as it affords a ftriking proof of the uniform genius of flattery, which, alike under all circumftances, and indifferent to all characters, can hold the fame language of the weakeft, as the ableft of princes, of LoUIS LE JUSTE, and CAESAR OCTAVIANUS AUGUSTUS, 23. SIC FAUTOR VETERUM, etc. to ỷ 28.] The folly, here fatyrized, is common enough in all countries, and extends to all arts. It was just the fame prepofterous affectation of venerating antiquity, which put the connoiffeurs in painting, under the emperors, on crying up the fimple and rude fketches of AGLAOPHON and POLYGNOTUS, above the exquifite and finished pictures of PARRHASIUS and ZEUXIS. The account is given by Quintilian, who, in his cen fure fure of this abfurdity, points to the undoubted fource of it. His words are thefe: "Primi, 66 quorum quidem opera non vetuftatis modò "gratiâ vifenda funt, clari pictores fuiffe dicun"tur Polygnotus et Aglaophon; quorum fim plex color tam fui ftudiofos adhuc habet, ut ❝illa propè rudia ac velut futurae mox artis "primordia, maximis, qui poft eos extiterunt, "auctoribus praeferantur, PROPRIO QUODAM 66 INTELLIGENDI (ut mea fert opinio) AM“BITU." [L. xii. c. 10.] The lover of painting must be the more furprized at this strange preference, when he is told, that Aglaophon, at leaft, had the ufe of only one fingle colour; whereas Parrhafius and Zeuxis, who are amongst the maximi autores, here glanced at, not only employed different colours, but were exceedingly eminent, the one of them for correct drawing, and the delicacy of his outline; the other, for his invention of that great fecret of the chiaro ofcuro. "Poft Zeuxis et Parrhafius: quorum prior .. LUMINUM UMBRARUMQUE INVENISSE RA"TIONEM, fecundus, EXAMINASSE SUBTILIUS 66 LINEAS DICITUR.” [Ibid.] 28. SI, QUIA GRAIORUM SUNT ANTIQUISSIMA QUAEQUE SCRIPTA vel OPTIMA, etc.] The common interpretation of this place fupposes the poet to admit the most antient of the 4 Greek Greek writings to be the beft. Which were even contrary to all experience and common sense, and is directly confuted by the history of the Greek learning. What he allows is, the fuperiority of the oldeft Greek writings extant; which is a very different thing. The turn of his argument confines us to this fenfe. For he would fhew the folly of concluding the fame of the old Roman writers, on their first rude attempts to copy the finished models of Greece, as of the old Greek writers themselves, who were furnished with the means of producing those models by long difcipline and cultivation. This appears, certainly, from what follows: Venimus ad fummum fortunae: pingimus atque The defign of which hath been entirely overlooked. For it hath been taken only for a general expreffion of falfehood and abfurdity, of juft the fame import, as the proverbial line, Nil intra eft oleâ, nil extra eft in nuce duri. Whereas it was defignedly pitched upon to convey a particular illuftration of the very abfurdity in queftion, and to fhew the maintainers of it, from the nature of things, how fenfeless their pofition was. It is to this purpose: "As well "it may be pretended, that we Romans furpafs "the Greeks in the arts of painting, mufic, and "the "the exercifes of the palaeftra, which yet it is "confeffed, we do not, as that our old writers "furpass the modern. The abfurdity, in either "cafe, is the fame. For, as the Greeks, who "had long devoted themselves, with great and "continued application, to the practice of these arts (which is the force of the epithet UNCTI, "here given them) muft, for that reafon, carry "the prize from the Romans, who have taken "very little pains about them; fo, the modern "Romans, who have for a long time been "ftudying the arts of poetry and compofition, muft "needs excel the old Roman writers, who had "little or no acquaintance with thofe arts, and "had been trained, by no previous discipline, "to the exercise of them." The concifenefs of the expreffion made it neceffary to open the poet's fenfe at large. We now fee, that his intention, in these two lines, was to expofe, in the way of argumentative illuftration, the ground of that absurdity, which the preceding verfes had reprefented as, at first fight, fo fhocking to common fenfe. 33. UNCTIS.] This is by no means a general, unmeaning epithet: but is beautifully chofen to exprefs the unwearied affiduity of the Greek artists. For the practice of anointing being effential to their agoniftic trials, the poet elegantly |