fore, and a lyre behind them; on the other side is engraved the present subject of Marsyas and Apollo, the face of which last bears the likeness of the youthful Nero. Nero, who seems to have been a poetical, as well as a political tyrant, could not have chosen a subject more expressive of his sanguinary disposition, and which more effectually served to communicate despair to those who would have entered the lists with him; a list in which it shewed more skill to be an applauder, than a competitor.

The fable of Marsyas is perhaps best told by Diodorus Siculus. The historian records, "that they contended who could produce greater pleasure and effect, each on his own instrument. The inhabitants of Nysa were their judges. The god preluded by playing an air on his lyre. Marsyas then breathed on the double flute (his own proud invention) and the judges, enchanted by the softness and novelty of the sounds which he skilfully drew forth, awarded him the meed. Apollo having obtained a further hearing, mingled the celestial tones of his voice with the sounds of his lyre; and carried the votes; but Marsyas represented that the question to be decided was not the charm of the voice, but that of the instrument, and that it was unjust to contend with a single art, by blending two distinct artsThe god replied, that he had employed no other means than those which Marsyas himself had used; the finger and the mouth. The argument of the god was held good, and on the third trial Apollo was finally declared triumphant. Indignant at the temerity of the unfortunate Marsyas, this inhuman rival flayed him alive." Such is the tale of Diodorus. Would it not have been more worthy of this god to have pardoned an ingenious rival? but the story is instructive, for Apollo was the god of poets, and a poet himself. The allegorical explanation of this fable by Fortunio Liceti, in his Hieroglyphics, is very ingenious. He conceives this fable was invented to express the superiority of the lyre over the flute; or rather vocal over instrumental music.

The subject of this gem, and the pleasing manner of treating so horrid a catastrophe, induces us to make an observation on the different taste of the ancients from the modern artists, alike in the arts of poetry and design. This beautiful gem exhibits nothing to disturb or shock our feelings, and we think

that no work of the first order of Greek sculptors can be produced which goes into a detail of barbarities.

We have now before us, the same subject executed by a modern artist, and we are shocked at the (literal) execution! We behold Apollo triumphantly seated on a rock; at its foot is the young Scythian whetting his knife, and Marsyas, with his arms above his head, suspended on a tree, and with part of his body bearing traces of the already commenced revolting punishment.

We recollect another design of the same subject, where barbarity was rendered still more barbarous. The butcher, for such the Scythian becomes here, is in the act of tearing the skin off Marsyas with his hands, whilst the scalping knife is held (till wanted) between his teeth. When such subjects are treated with so rude an invention, the artist succeeds not in exciting horror, but disgust, at his own arid imagination and blunted taste; like the poet who shocks us on the stage with the gross realities of the tolling bell and the gallows. A painter and a poet are not to abuse their art, of which the beauty will always be to give the reader and spectator something to fill up from their own imagination.

On this subject, Dr. Darwin has made the following ingenious observation:The true artist will discover the line of boundary between the tragic and the horrid. For instance, if an artist should represent the death of an officer in battle, by shewing a little blood on the bosom of his shirt, as if a bullet had there penetrated, the dying figure would affect the beholder with pity; and if fortitude was at the same time expressed in his countenance, admiration would be added to our pity. On the contrary, if the artist should chuse to represent his thigh as shot away by a cannon ball, and should exhibit the

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bleeding flesh, and shattered bone of the stump, the picture would introduce into our minds ideas from a butcher's shop, or a surgeon's operation room, and we should turn from it with disgust.

Are we not shocked at the innumerable barbarities we see in the shapes of martyrdoms, which pollute the canvass of the modern painters? They originate frequently in two causes; the artist wants genius to interest the attention by happier conceptions, and the people to whom such pictures are addressed want intelligence and correct feelings to awaken their sympathy by means less gross.

How different is this manner of treating a terrific subject to that employed by the graceful Reynolds! exemplified in the death of Count Ugolino, and his family. This picture, without any circumstance of apparent barbarity, works on the feelings by the pictured mind and deep silent misery so masterly expressed in the sublime head of the hopeless father. For pathos and grandeur of design it yields to no composition. All speaks to the shuddering mind of the spectator!

The following lines from Simonides on the celebrated picture of Medea, by an anonymous versifier in the Literary Journal, elegantly illustrate the principle of which we have reminded the young artist.

When the great master all his art combin'd
To paint the tumults of Medea's mind,
Her inward struggles swelling into view,
Beneath the magic of her pencil grew:
Behold the vivid lines distinctly glow,

Stamp'd with a double character of woe.
Dark is the frown that clouds her gather'd brow,

But bright the tear that trickles from below;
Parental pity in that glistening tear,

In that black frown a thousand threats appear;

Each look is pregnant with an offspring's fate,
Now life in love, now death is doom'd in hate-

But here the skilful artist drew a veil

O'er the dire sequel of the dreadful tale;

Else had we seen a parent's hand imbrued— Suffice the horrid thought !—in filial blood. His fault'ring touch confess'd a finer soul, Nor stain'd the canvass with a deed so foul.

DIOMEDES, WITH THE PALLADIUM.

THIS celebrated gem is a cornelian, the work of Dioscorides, whose name it bears, in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire, esteemed one of the most perfect productions of art.

Diomedes appears descending from a square altar, decorated with a festoon, holding in his left hand the Palladium, and in his right a sword; in the same attitude he is represented on other engraved stones. The guardian lies dead at his feet, and the statue of Minerva upon a cippus turns her back to him, that she may not witness the bloody sacrilege. The figure of Diomedes is exquisitely drawn; the anatomical markings rather beautiful than strong, but with perfect science. The action is that of a moment; on first sight he appears sitting, but that could not be possible, from the situation of the left leg and foot underneath the thigh: this in the act of rising to spring forward might be admitted, and the space perceptible from the seat to the thigh, with the menacing attitude of the figure, justifies the supposition. The subject is an important event in the Trojan war; the seizing and carrying off the Palladium, or guardian deity of Troy. Agreeably to ancient sculpture the hero is represented naked: whenever drapery is introduced, it is generally for the purpose of assisting the composition; but in this instance it appears to do more. It shews the sacred regard that even the hero, flushed with victory, felt for the person of the divinity, by enveloping the hand which holds the hallowed image in the drapery. To have grasped the consecrated idol with the naked hand would have been the most impious profanation.

This gem is considered as the ne plus ultra of art. Its style is finished without harshness, and without the least appearance of manner, which may be defined, that, where the means and not the end appears. This gem is a happy union of finish and execution with the beautiful ideal, exhibiting the highest possible degree of excellence. Dioscorides the celebrated artist lived under