them, fufficient. lights to fatisfy those, whe fet out with a good opinion of the taste and genius of the ancients. Plutarch tells us, that Euphranor painted the engagement of the cavalry at the battle of Mantinea, [n] as if he had been infpired. The painter had never merited fuch fingular praise, had he not wrought his fubject to the nearest femblance to truth; and that this could not have been without a particular attention to the difpofition, the fame writer proves in another inftance; when, fpeaking of the battle fought by Araftus against the Etolians, he adds, that Timanthes the painter, brought this action, as it were, before the eyes of the beholders, by the [o] evidence of bis disposition. Thus, it is plain, that the Infpiration of Euphranor, and the evidence of Timanthes, flowed from the fame excellence, an

[κ] Ουκ ανενθουσιαςως.

De Gloria Athen. p. 346. Ed. Paris. [2] Εμφανλικως τη διαθέσει. In Arato, p. 1042.

union of the two kinds of difpofition, the expreffive, and the picturesque.

B. HAVING thus raised the curtain and examined the scenery, let us proceded to what you call the drama of painting.

A. IT was with great propriety so termed by the ancients; because, like a dramatic poem, it contains, first, a subject, or fable; fecondly, its order, or contrivance; thirdly, characters, or the manners: Fourthly, the various paffions which fpring from those characters. Philoftratus, fpeaking of the compofition of a picture, calls it in exprefs terms the [p] drama of the painter: Pliny has [9] the fame idea, to his commendation of Nichophanes. But we fhall be better fatisfied of the juftnefs of this application,

[1] Το όραμα του ζωγράφου.

[q] Cothurnus ei, et gravitas artis.

by

by examples, than by authorities. [r] It was the opinion of Nicias, one of the greateft of the Greek painters, that the fubject was of no lefs confequence in painting, than the fable in poetry; and, of course, that great and noble actions tended to elevate and enlarge, as the contrary must humble and contract the genius of the painter. The ancients had great advantages in this particular; they had, not only their profane hiftory, rich in the most glorious and interefting events; but their facred, whilst it furnished them with new ideas of the fublime, gave no check to the pathetic. Their gods, fuperior in grace, majefty and beauty, were yet fubject to all the feelings and paffiions of humanity. How unequal is the lot of the modern artists? employed by priests, or princes who thought like priefts, their fub

μέρος είναι της

[τ] Ωέλο ὑπόθεσιν αυτην και την γας ζωγραφικής τέχνης, ώσπερ τους μύθους των ποιήτων. Dem. Phal. de eloc. § 76.

jects are, for the most part, taken from a religion, which profeffes to banish, or subdue the paffions: Their characters are borrowed from the lowest fpheres of life: Men, in whom, meanness of birth, and fimplicity of manners, were the best titles to their election. Even their divine mafter, is no where, in painting, attended with a great idea; his long ftrait hair, Jewish beard, and poor apparel, would undignify the most exalted nature, humility and refignation, his characteristics, are qualities extremely edifying, but by no means picturefque. Let us, for example, compare (I must be understood to mean only as fubjects for painting) a Chrift armed with a fcourge, driving the moneychangers out of the temple, to an Alexander, the thunder in his hand, ready to dart it on the rebellious nations. It is not in the fublime alone, that their fubjects are deficient; they are equally fo in the pathetic: The fufferings, which they moftly reprefent,

are

are in obedience to prophecies and the will of heaven; they are often the choice of the fufferers; and a ten-fold premium is at hand. When St. Andrew falls down to worship the cross, on which he is foon after to be nailed; we may be improved by fuch an example of piety and zeal, but we cannot feel for one, who is not concerned for himself. We are not fo calm at the facrifice of Iphigenia; beautiful, innocent, and unhappy; we look upon her as the victim of an unjuft decree; fhe might live the object of univerfal love; fhe dies the object of univerfal pity. This defect in the subject, and of habitude in the painters, accounts for the coldness, with which, we look in general on their works in the galleries and churches; the genius of painting wafting its powers on crucifixions, holy families, last suppers, and the like, wants nerves, if at any time the subject calls for the pathetic or fublime: Of this we have an inftance