Quand les anciens arrivèrent à la decouverte des proportions con"venables à la beauté ideale, leur analogie avec les proportions bar moniques fervit à prouver qu'ils avoient incontestablement atteint au "but de l'art, et l'impoffibilité de trouver une beauté fupérieure à celle qui réfulta de fes proportions, elle nous fert maintenant à demontrer que l'art des Grecs ne peut en aucun tems, ni en aucun lieu, ni par aucun moyen, être surpaffé *." With an enthusiastic esteem and admiration for the excellence of the Greeks in art and in literature, the moderns ought to cherish a persuasion that even that excellence, great as it is, may poffibly be furpaffed. Such an idea may be censured as prefumptuous but in every arduous pursuit a degree of prefumption is the very fource of fuccefs. Reason and fancy may unite in refusing to believe that, in cultivating the fine arts, any nation, or any individual has yet arrived at the utmost limits of attainable perfection. In fculpture, indeed, it is not very probable that any modern artist, in any part of the globe, may poffefs all the advantages to lead him to excellence which the sculptors of antiquity poffeffed; yet the modern may avail himself of fome advantages to which the ancient was a ftranger. But I forbear to enter on a topic which may be more properly difcuffed when modern art is the immediate fubject before us.-I return to Polycletus. Winkelman has ftyled him a fublime poet in his art; and he seems, indeed, to have enjoyed that rare mixture of industry, confidence, and imagination which is so favourable to felicity in the works of his profeffion. Ælian has related the following anecdote, to fhew how fuccefsfully he corrected the temerity of popular criticism: * Antiquités Etrufques, Grecques, et Romaines, tom. iv. p. 137. H H Polycletus executed two ftatues at the fame time; gratifying, in the one, the caprice of the crowd; in the other, adhering to the rules of art. He gratified the multitude in this manner: According to the fuggeftion of all his vifitors, he retouched and altered fomething in conformity to the opinion of each. At laft he produced his two figures; the one was univerfally admired; the other derided. "Yet this," said Polycletus, “ which you condemn, is your own work; and the other, which you admire, is mine *." It is recorded of this excellent sculptor, that he excelled also as an architect; and Paufanias extols the temple of Efculapius, which he built for the Epidaurians, as furpaffing, in harmonious beauty, all the magnificent structures of the Romans. I shall close my imperfect account of this accomplished artist with the Greek epigram on his ftatue of Polyxena : ΠΩΛΛΙΑΝΟΥ εις 5ηλην Πολυξενης. Α δε Πολυκλείτοιο Πολύξενα, εδε τις αλλα Ταν αιδω γυμναν σωφρονι κρυπτε πεπλῳ. Παρθενικας ο Φρυγων κειται ολος πόλεμος. * Δυο εικονας ειργασετο Πολυκλείτος κατα το αυτό, την μεν τοις όχλοις χαριζόμενος, την δε κατα τον νόμον της τέχνης. Εχαρίζετο δε τοις πολλοις τον τρόπον τώτον : καθ' εκαςον των εισιόντων μετετίθει τι, και μετεμορφα, πειθόμενος τη εκας υφηγησει. Προώθηκεν εν αμφοτέρας : και η μεν υπο πάντων εθαυμάζετο, η δε ετερα εγέλατο. Υπολαβων εν έφη ο Πολύκλειτος, αλλα ταύτην μεν, ην ψέγετε, υμείς εποιησατε, ταυτην δε, ην θαυμάζετε, εγω. ELIAN. Var. Hift. lib. xiv. c. 8. 235 Grotii Verfio. Ifte tuus labor eft, Polyclete, Polyxena, fenfit Germanum Junonis opus; cerne ut fibi prudens Pro vita facit illa preces, in virginis udis Eft oculis, quantum eft de Phryge Marte fuper. Pollianus, on the Column of Polyxena. Polyxena, by Polycletus wrought! His hand alone this heavenly semblance caught. Hides the rent veft that leaves her body bare. Wretched, the prays for life; and in her eyes Lo Troy's whole war, and all its trouble, lies! NOTE III. Ver. 141. That Athens was eclips'd by her Olympian fane. The talents and reputation of Phidias were fo great, that they are allowed to form the most honourable æra in the hiftory of art. The Abbé Gedoyn has added to his hiftory of Dedalus an account of this his moft illustrious fucceffor, for the fake of difplaying at once, in the lives of these two memorable men, the commencement and the perfection of sculpture. Athens had the honour of giving birth to them both; for Phidias, by the authority of Plato, is proved to be an Athenian. He ftudied under two masters of no great celebrity, Agelas and Hippias: but he had the advantage of having two brothers diftinguished by their talents as painters, and the ftill greater advantage of having cultivated and brought to maturity his own genius, at that fortunate period when the triumphant ftate of his country, and the magnificent fpirit of Pericles, afforded him a most favourable field for its exertion. With what patriotic pride and delight muft an Attic fculptor have exerted his powers in converting that very marble, which the Perfian invaders had brought with them to form a trophy of their conqueft, into a memorial of their defeat! I allude to the Nemefis of Phidias, a statue executed under these animating circumftances, according to Pausanias, and stationed in a temple at Rhamnus, at the diftance of fixty ftadia from Marathon-a ftatue, celebrated in the following epigram: ΘΕΑΙΤΗΤΟΥ ΣΧΟΛΑΣΤΙΚΟΥ, εις το εν Ραμνούντι Νεμεσιως αγαλμα. Χιονεην με λίθον παλιναύξεος εκ περιωπης Δαιμον υπερφιάλοις αντιπαλον μερόπων. Νίκη Ερεχθείδαις, Ασσυρίοις Νεμεσις. Grotii Verfio. Me niveum vivâ lapidem de rupe cecidit, Marmoream rumpens cufpide duritiem, Theætetus, on the Rhamnufian Statue of Nemefis. Of fnowy whiteness, from a mountain rock, A Median sculptor in a maffive block |