NOTE IV. Ver. 170.

Her fhame his pride, her ornaments his prey.

How deplorable was the fate of Athens, repeatedly the captive of two, the most artful, fanguinary, and impious wretches that dishonoured the lift of ancient heroes-Lyfander and Sylla! Both these barbarous conquerors had a paffion for sculpture; fo great was the influence of that powerful art over the sternest spirits of antiquity! Plutarch informs us, that after Lyfander had taken Athens, he devoted a part of his spoil to the expence of raising his own ftatue, and thofe of his officers, at Delphi. Yet fo truly favage was this deteftable victor, that Plutarch rather seems to believe the report he mentions of Lyfander's having propofed, in the council of the allies, to reduce the Athenians to flavery. A Theban officer, according to the fame authority, proposed the utter demolition of the city; and Athens is faid to have been saved by the happy voice of a Phocenfian, who fung to the conquerors, at a banquet, a few verses from a tragedy of Euripides, which awakened their humanity, and made them fhrink from their horrible purpose of annihilating a city fo admirable, and the parent of men fo illuftrious.

Milton alludes to this incident in the clofe of his 8th Sonnet:

NOTE V. Ver. 192.

And to new fons new excellence affign'd.

Sculpture is affuredly one of the most difficult of the fine arts; yet it is a striking truth that Greece produced feveral fculptors of the first rate, though she could only boaft a fingle Homer. It is alfo remarkable, that the Grecian fculptors were more numerous than the painters of their country. That intelligent and contemplative obferver of antiquity, M. de Caylus, has had the curiofity to compare their respective numbers, as far as the narratives of Pausanias and Pliny enabled him to make the comparison. Of the former he says: " Il ne fait mention que "de quinze peintres, tandis qu'il distingue de la manière la plus claire

cent foixante et neuf fculpteurs. Il faut cependant convenir que "Pline fait mention de cent trente-trois peintres Grecs, bons ou médi66 ocres..... On pourroit repondre pour concilier les deux auteurs, que "Pline a parlé de tous les peintres de la Grèce, de l'Asie Mineure, de “la Sicile, et de ce que l'on appelloit la grande Grèce, &c. et que "Paufanias n'a pas même visité toute la Grèce proprement dite, qu'il "n'écrivoit point l'hiftoire des artistes, et qu'il parloit seulement de ceux dont il avoit vû les ouvrages; ouvrages dont le nombre étoit "encore diminué, par l'avidité des Romains, qui dévastoient ce pays depuis environs quatre-vingt ans; à compter le tems qui s'étoit "écoulé depuis Pline jufqu'à lui.

66

"Il refultera toujours de ce calcul, qu'il y avoit plus de ftatues que de "tableaux dans la Grèce."-Antiquités, tom. ii. p. 109.

Of all the arts in which they excelled, fculpture feems, indeed, to have been the prime favourite of the Greeks; and to the national en

K K

thusiasm in its favour the Grecian statues are principally indebted for their exquifite perfection.

Ver. 206.

Records her forrow, and preferves her fame.

Scopas, a native of Paros, is mentioned by Pliny as a contemporary with Myron and Polycletus, in the 87th Olympiad. He is represented alfo, by the fame author, and by Vitruvius, as one of the eminent artists employed by the magnificent Artemifia in decorating the monument of her husband Maufolus.

But as a fculptor, who lived fo early, could hardly have been living at the time when that fumptuous monument was raised, Winkelman conjectures that more than one artift was diftinguished by the name of Scopas. It seems rather more probable that Pliny was mistaken in the period he affigned to this admirable sculptor; and indeed the chronology of almost all the ancient artists, and their most memorable works, is fo full of perplexities and contradiction, that mistakes of this kind are almost unavoidable in a curfory view of their productions.

The works of Scopas feem to have been full of fancy and feeling; yet it is not easy to form an exact idea of his three ftatues, representing the variations of Love, as they are briefly defcribed by Paufanias *.

Pliny has enumerated many works of Scopas, that held, in the period when he wrote, a very high rank among the fculptural decorations

Σκοπα δε Έρως, και Ιμερος, και Ποθος, είδη διαφορά εσι, κατα ταυτα τοις ονόμασι και τα έργα σφισι. The commentator on Paufanias, to elucidate these three Greek titles of Cupid, refers his reader to the Grecian Phurnutus "De Natura Deorum:" but on confulting Phurnutus, I find no light, but rather the "darkness vifible" of ridiculous etymologies.

of Rome. The Palatine Apollo, a fitting Vesta with two female attendants, and a collection of marine divinities, which, according to the lively expreffion of the enthusiastic Pliny, might be termed a glorious performance, ifit had employed the whole life of the artift *.

M. de Caylus imagines that these Nereids, riding on their fea-horses, were executed in bas-relief. Falconet is of a different opinion. It is, however, probable that they were so, and that they are ftill preserved.

I have seen admirable sketches of fuch Nereids as anfwer to Pliny's defcription, executed at Rome by Mr. Howard, an English artist, who has the rare talent of drawing from fculpture with fuch precision and delicacy, that England may foon furpass other countries in a just and graceful representation of those ancient statues which her men of fortune and taste have collected; especially as the Dilettanti Society have judiciously confided to this artist the conduct of fuch a work, peculiarly calculated to display his abilities, and to reflect an honour on their own inftitution. It is much to be lamented, that almost all the prints, defigned to illuftrate the many voluminous and coftly books upon sculpture, are rather caricatures of ancient art, than a faithful copy of its perfections.

But to return to the ancient artist whose works are the immediate fubject of this note.-Pliny has very highly praised a Venus by Scopas, and is fuppofed to have faid that it excelled the Gnidian Venus of Praxiteles, which he had just celebrated as the most beautiful ftatue to be found on earth. Falconet, with his ufual petulance, derides Pliny for fo grofs a contradiction; and even his liberal friend and admirer, M. de Caylus, laments this ftriking inconfiftency. inconsistency. Let me hazard

"Sed in maxima dignatione Cn. Domitii delubro in Circo Flaminio Neptunus ipfe, et "Thetis, atque Achilles, Nereides fupra Delphinos, et Cete et Hippocampos fedentes. "Item Tritones chorufque Phorci, et Priftes, ac multa alia marina, omnia ejufdem manus, «præclarum opus, etiamfi totius vitæ fuiffet.-PLIN. lib. xxxvi. c. 5.

what appears to me a probable conjecture, to fave the credit of an author to whom the lovers of art have infinite obligation. I am perfuaded that all the blame which Pliny has incurred for this fuppofed contradiction arofe folely from a flip of the pen in the original manufcript: but to elucidate the point, I must tranfcribe the paffage as it stands, and add the new reading I wish to introduce: "Præterea Venus in eodem loco nuda Praxitelicam illam Gnidiam antecedens, et quemcunque alium locum nobilitatura."-According to the present reading, there is not only a contradiction of what he had just asserted concerning the pre-eminence of the Gnidian ftatue, but the latter part of the sentence has little or no meaning. By the following flight change in the orthography the abfurd contradiction will be utterly removed, and a significant spirit will appear in the close of the fentence: "Præterea Venus in eodem loco nuda Praxitelicam illam Gnidi non "antecedens, at quemcunque alium locum nobilitatura."—" A naked "Venus, not furpaffing, indeed, that of Praxiteles at Gnidos, but "fuch as would ennoble any other place."

Pliny mentions it as a doubt, in his age, whether the Niobe at Rome is the work of Praxiteles or of Scopas. M. de Caylus makes a pleasant remark on the modefty of the Roman author, and recommends it as a leffon to modern connoiffeurs :

"On doit lui favoir gré de l'aveu de fon ignorance fur le nom des "auteurs des ouvrages, qui decoroient la ville de Rome. Il donne.

en ce cas une leçon à tous les curieux prefens et à venir, dont la "décifion eft pour l'ordinaire imperieufe et fans appel."-Mem. de l'Academie, tom. xxv. p. 322.

Among the impaffioned works of Scopas, his Bacchanal was particularly admired. Junius, in his account of this artift, has inferted two Greek epigrams from the Anthologia, in praise of the figure to which I allude: but there is a third epigram, by Paulus Silentiarius,