which begins with ἐν μὲν ἔτευξε, οι ἐν δὲ ποίησε, οι ἐν δ ̓ ἐτίθει, οι ἐν δὲ ποικιλλε ̓Αμφιγυήεις(42). Where there are not these introductory words, there is no ground for assuming a distinct picture. On the contrary, every picture they enclose must be considered as a single one, if no stronger reasons can be adduced to the contrary, than that they fail in that arbitrary concentration into a single point of time, which, as a poet, he was in no way bound to observe. I should rather say, that, had he maintained and rigidly complied with it, had he abstained from introducing the smallest feature, which could not have been combined with it in a material representation of his picture, in a word, had he so acted, as his critics would have desired him, he would not, it is true, have laid himself open to their censure, but he would not have won the admiration of any man of taste. Pope approved of the divisions and designs of Boivin; but thought that he had made an extraordinary discovery, when he further argued that each of these sub-divided pictures could be indicated according to the most rigid rules of painting in vogue at the present day. He found contrast, perspective, and the three unities, all strictly adhered to in them. He knew quite well that, on the authority of good and trustworthy evidence, painting at the time of the Trojan war was still in its cradle. Homer therefore must either, by virtue of his divine genius, have paid regard not so much to what painting had accomplished at the time of the war, or in his own day, as to what he foresaw it would be enabled to attain in its highest perfection; or the evidence itself cannot be of so authoritative a nature, as to outweigh the palpable testimony of the skilfully wrought shield. He who will may adopt the former hypothesis; of the last, at least, no one will be persuaded who knows anything more of the history of art, than the mere data of the historians. For the belief that painting in Homer's time was still in its infancy is not only supported by the authority of Pliny and other writers, but is grounded upon the decisive proof, afforded by the works of art enumerated by the ancients, that, many centuries later, art had not advanced much farther, and that the paintings of a Polygnotus, for instance, would be far from able to sustain the test, which Pope believes the pictures in Homer's shield are capable of undergoing. The two large pieces of this master at Delphi, of which Pausanias has left us so minute a description, are plainly devoid of all perspective. It is undeniable that the ancients possessed no knowledge of this branch of art, and what Pope adduces to show that Homer had some idea of it, only proves that his own conceptions as regards it were of the most imperfect nature(43). "That 66 d Homer," he says, was not a stranger to aerial per"spective appears in his expressly marking the dis d Phocic. cap. xxv-xxxi. "tance of object from object: he tells us, for instance, "that the two spies lay a little remote from the other "figures; and that the oak, under which was spread "the banquet of the reapers, stood apart; what he "says of the valley sprinkled all over with cottages and flocks, appears to be a description of a large country in perspective. And indeed a general argument for this may be drawn from the number of 'figures on the shield; which could not be all ex'pressed in their full magnitude; and this is there"fore a sort of proof that the art of lessening them 'according to perspective was known at that time." Mere observance of the law, derived from optical experience, that a distant object appears less than a neighbouring one, does not constitute perspective in a picture. Perspective requires a single point of view, a definite, natural, horizon; and in this the ancient paintings were wholly deficient. The ground in the pictures of Polygnotus was not horizontal, but was so excessively raised at the back, that the figures, which ought to have stood behind, appeared to be above one another. That this was the general position of their single figures and groups seems to be shown by the ancient bas-reliefs, where the hindmost figures always stand higher than, and overlook, the foremost; it is therefore natural to assume that it is e Observations on the shield of Achilles, Pope's Iliad, B. XVIII. vol. v. p. 169, edited by Gilbert Wakefield, B. A. (London, T. Longman, and B. Lawse, 1796.) 1 employed in Homer's description; and those of his pictures, which, in accordance with this practice, can be combined in a single painting, ought not to be unnecessarily separated. Consequently the twofold scene in the peaceful town, through the streets of which a joyous wedding procession moves, whilst a weighty lawsuit is being decided in the market place, does not necessarily involve two paintings; Homer, certainly, might easily think of them as one, since in his imagination he would look at the whole town from so high a point of view, that he could obtain an uninterrupted view of the streets and market-place at the same time. It is my opinion that real perspective in painting was discovered, as it were, experimentally, by means of scene painting; and, even when this last had reached perfection, there still remained the far from easy task of applying its rules to a picture painted on a single surface. At any rate, in the paintings of a later period, among the antiquities of Herculaneum, such numerous and manifold offences against perspective are to be found, as would not be pardoned even in a beginner. But I will spare myself the trouble of collecting my scattered observations on a question, which I hope to find satisfactorily solved in the history of art promised us by Winkelman. f Reflections on Painting, p. 185. CHAPTER XX. BUT I return to my old path, if indeed, one who is rambling only for his own pleasure, can be said to have any. What I have asserted of bodily objects generally is doubly true, when applied to beautiful bodily objects. Typical beauty arises from the harmonious effect of numerous parts, all of which the sight is capable of comprehending at the same time. It requires therefore, that these parts should lie near each other; and since things, whose parts lie near each other, are the peculiar objects of the plastic arts, these it is, and these only, which can imitate typical beauty. The poet, since he can only exhibit in succession its component parts, entirely abstains from the description of typical beauty, as beauty. He feels that these parts, ranged one after another, cannot possibly have the effect that they produce, when closely arranged together; that the concentrating glance, which, after their enumeration, we try to cast back upon them, imparts to us no harmonious image; that it surpasses the power of human imagination to represent to oneself what effect such and such a |