Those who every a most pernicious art, and only enervated the human race. constantly exercised themselves in boxing or wrestling, became leaner day, from their thighs to their feet, while their superior parts acquired a prodigious bulk. Those who incessantly practised leaping or foot-racing became meagre from their head to their haunches, while their inferior parts were of an enormous size. The Discoboli were those athletics who flung large and heavy quoits, made of wood or stone, but much thicker in the middle than at the extremity; these they were to launch to the extremity of the career, which must have required a most violent exertion. These men had monstrous fleshy arms, with necks that lost all their flexibility, which they could neither turn to the right or left, because the head violently pressed the vertebra, to increase the power of flinging the quoit. The nervous system of man cannot, without injury, undergo these violent exercises, which the new theories of new philosophers, have lately attempted to revive. When nature feels herself oppressed in any part of the human body, she instantly avenges her own cause; thus these violent wrestlers found, while their hands became stronger, their feet became more feeble; while the foot-racer found his feet fortified at the expence of his weakened arms. A moderated exercise of these games would certainly not have proved so pernicious; but it is acutely observed by De Pauw, that this moderation could never have been practised, because the whole was founded on emulation; each was resolved to out-do his predecessor or his rival, and for one athlete who won a wreath, a hundred perished in their feeble essays, and bit the dust on which his rival triumphed. VIGNETTE. APOLLO. A FRAGMENT part of the FACE OF APOLLO, with the remaining part of his bow, from a sulphur cast in Stosch's Collection. The original is a master piece of the art; a single glance of the eye shews the beauty of the god, and the excellence of the engraving; the beauty and majesty of the countenance is truly divine. The bow characterizes the archer-god. APOLLO MUSICUS holding the lyre, a cameo from Stosch's Collection. Two flutes are at the feet of the god; these flutes have tubes or prominences fixed upon the holes, like the flute of one of the muses seen in Bartoli's pitture antiche del sepolcro de Nasoni Tav. 5. This gem appears to us a composition complete in all its parts, and from the frequent use which has been made of the attitude on numberless occasions, we are justified in classing this figure of the musical god among the most graceful attitudes. HALF-LENGTH OF APOLLO, a cameo in the Marlborough Collection. A bust crowned with laurel, the quiver on the shoulder, and the bow in the left hand. From the style of engraving, it must be one of those cameos where nothing is sacrificed to the strata or colours of the stone, and from a cast in sulphur might easily be mistaken for an intaglio. An air of simplicity and elegance prevails through the character. HEAD OF APOLLO engraved on hyacinth; an orange or saffron coloured stone on which they frequently engraved the divinity of the sun. The head of the god is crowned with laurel, and full of inspiration and dignity. The style of engraving is exquisite, and deserves the attention of the student in forming his taste for CHARACTER in DESIGN; one of the most neglected parts of the student in design. We too frequently observe a sameness of character prevailing in compositions of considerable merit; but when a young artist has seriously applied to the study of the antique, he will run no risk in consulting ordinary life, for character and expression. This variety of character in design constitutes no small portion of the celebrity so justly obtained by Mr. Smirke and Mr. Stothard. An antique LYRE, with fillets. Cornelian. The fillets tied on this ancient instrument of music, mark its sacred use. By these they were accustomed to suspend the lyre in temples, or other holy places, in honour of the gods. When the lyre appears without these bandeaus, it is given merely as a simple attribute. The number of strings were not always the same in the lyre; some had three, four, five, and even to twelve; each distinguished by appropriate names, such as the tetracorda, pentacorda, &c. They touched the strings of the lyre in two manners; either by striking them with the plectrum, a kind of short rod of ivory or polished wood, which they held in the right hand, or in pinching the strings between the fingers. It may be observed, that the ends of the lyre form two horns, (called by the Romans its cornua) these were anciently of reed, afterwards they were KEPATA, real horns. See Mus. Florent. According to the old poetical legend, Mercury, after stealing some bulls which belonged to Apollo, retired to a secret grotto at the foot of a mountain in Arcadia. On entering the cave he found a tortoise; and having killed it for his food, as he was amusing himself with the shell he was pleased with the sound it gave from its concave figure. Having also found out that a thong pulled straight, and fastened at each end, when struck by the finger produced a musical sound, he cut several thongs out of the hides he had stolen, and fastened them tightly to the shell of the tortoise, on which he had fixed a pair of the horns of oxen, and in playing on them, made a novel music to amuse himself in his retreat. This account of the first invention of the lyre, (observes Spence) is not altogether unnatural. We have ancient lyres represented as made of the entire shell of the tortoise; and the Romans had a sort of lyre called testudo, or the tortoise. Without the knowledge of this circumstance, many passages of the Latin poets would not be intelligible. Mr. Cosway has made a beautiful design from this fable, of the origin of the lyre; it is a pleasing illustration of the principle which derives the origin of most inventions and arts from accident. We shall further observe, that the LYRE was consecrated to the praises of the god, and the FLUTE to the eulogiums of mortals. Horace seems to point at this distinction, in the 12th ode of the first book, Quem virum aut Heroa lyra vel acri Tibia sumes celebrare Clio? What man, what hero, on the tuneful lyre Or sharp-toned flute, will Clio chuse to raise, FRANCIS. VIGNETTE. EGYPTIAN. We have thrown together as a Vignette, some Egyptian hieroglyphics. The SPHYNX; by this symbolical figure the Egyptians designed, as we have noticed in the Introduction, the time of the inundation of the Nile. The Greek poets describe her as a monster with the face of a woman, the wings of a bird, the claws of a lion, and the rest of her body resembling that of a dog. These are Greek, not Egyptian sphinxes. The Sphinx which Augustus bore for his seal, (see our Introduction, p. 26) was designed by that emperor as a hieroglyphic, which signified, that the secrets of princes should ever be kept inviolable. This fabulous animal has been a favourite decoration in architecture; it ornaments balustrades, flights of steps, &c. Our Sphinx is a faithful copy of an Egyptian Sphinx placed on the point of the obelisk of the sun, in the Campus Martius, at Rome, remarkable for its beauty of workmanship, and the position of the hands; the right one being placed on the left, and the left on the right; for which, however, we can give no reason. It holds a pyramid, and it has an adder on its head-dress; the Egyptians considered that reptile as indicative of a good genius. The circular SERPENT with its tail in its mouth, is one of the symbols of Time and Eternity; apparently not having a commencement nor an end, emblematic also, more particularly, of the YEAR; which in its revolution, swallows its end in its beginning. As such it frequently occurs among the works of painters. R |