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UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

The Estate of the late

PROFESSOR A. S. P. WOODHOUSE

Head of the
Department of English
University College
1944-1964 .

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LAOCOON

Motto by Lessing.

’'YA.rj real rpo7roi5 /uup/^crecos 8ta</>epovcn.

IIAovr. 7 tot. A$. /caret II. r) /caTa 2. evS.

Motto by Translator.

“Macaulay told me that the reading of this little book
formed an epoch in his mental history, and that he learned
more from it than he had ever learned elsewhere.”

Lewes, Life of Goethe , p. 57.

LAOCOON

GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING

TRANSLATED JV1TH PREFACE AND NOTES
BY THE LATE

Rt. Hon. Sir ROBERT PHILLIMORE, Bart.

LONDON

GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, Limited

NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.

6 Lf

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IN MEMORY
OF LONG FRIENDSHIP
AND A COMMON LOYE OF HOMER
THESE PAGES

ARE AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED
BY THE WRITER.

Note.— This edition is reprinted, with the kind consent of
Sir Walter Phillimore, Bart., from the edition published by-
Messrs Macmillan in 1874. A few misprints have been
corrected, and the notes haye been transposed to the end of
the .volume. The publishers take this opportunity of express-
ing their sincere thanks to the family of the late Sir Robert
Phillimore for permission to include his work in their New
Universal Library.

CONTENTS

PAGE

Translator’s Preface 1

Introduction 55

Chapter

I 59

II 64

III 70

IV 74

V . . 85

VI 92

VII 98

VIII . . . . . . . .102

IX 107

X Ill

XI 114

XII 119

XIII ‘ 124

XIV 127

XV 129

XVI 131

CONTENTS

viii

Chapter

XVII

XVIII

XIX

XX .

XXI

XXII

XXIII

XXIV

XXV

XXVI

XXVII
XXVIII
XXIX

Notes

Appendix

Index

PAGE

139

145

152

158

165

169

175

179

183

191

199

203

206

211

290

333

PREFACE

Section I

1. Birth and Education of Lessing i; 2. State of German Literature
when Lessing began his career as author; 3. Lessing’s Works
generally; 4. Winkelinann. Lessing’s Laocoon ; 5. Ancient
Versions of the story of Laocoon ; 6. Notice of some of the prin-
cipal Modern Authors referred to by Lessing ; 7. Notice of
Modern Authors not referred to by Lessing, but who wrote, before
the publication of the Laocoon , on Poetry and Painting.

1. The territory which once formed the ancient
| German margraviate of Lusatia was divided into
Upper and Lower Lusatia. It lay between the
Elbe and the Oder, situated to the north of Bohemia,
to the south of Brandenburg, and to the west of
Silesia. The race which dwelt on the northern de-
clivities of the Giant mountains (Riesen Gebirge),
which separate Silesia from Bohemia, were men
of robust and vigorous minds ; and early in the
seventeenth century intellectual life began to
develop itself simultaneously in Upper Lusatia
and Silesia.

In one of the six towns of Upper Lusatia, of
which Gorlitz was the intellectual centre, Johann
Gottfried Lessing and his wife, Justine Salome,

J whose maiden name was Feller, dwelt. He was
- the Lutheran pastor of Kamenz ; and of these
| parents, on the 22nd of January, 1729, Johann

£ 1 The principal authorities to which I have had recourse for the

■•j materials of this sketch are : G. E. Lessing’s Leben und Werke, vol. i,

" by Danzel ; vol. ii, by Gurauer: Leipzig, 1849. G. E. Lessing’s Sein.
^ Leben und Seine Werke , von A. Stahr : Berlin, 1859. Goedeke’s
4 Grundriss zur Geschichte der Deutschen Dichtung , 1, Oil, § 221. Ger-
i vinus’s Geschichte der Poetisclien National-Literatur, 4, 318 : Leipzig,
1843. Germtin Classics, by Dr Bucliheim, vol. iii, Clarendon Press
. ( Series: Oxford, 1873. Gostwick and Harrison’s Outlines of German
1S\ Literature , 201.

al B

LAOCOON

Gotthold Ephraim, commonly called Gotthold
Ephraim Lessing, the writer of the Laocoon , was
bom. He died at Brunswick in 1781.

Logical powers of a high order, an intense love
of study, which he derived from his father’s ex-
ample and teaching, restless incessant eagerness
of inquiry into every subject unchecked by any
reverence for authority, keen susceptibilities, con-
stant literary and polemical controversy, unsettled
religious opinions, very straitened circumstances,
unquiet habits, a craving for excitement which
sometimes led him to the gaming table, a passion
for that kind of society — in which the stream of
life ran rapidly, though turbidly — and domestic
sorrow, combined to chequer the fifty -two years of
his very distinguished and very unhappy life.

His public education, begun at Meissen in the
year 1741, was continued at the University of
Leipzig in 1746, where he renounced the studies
and career of a Theologian, which his father had
wished him to follow. He went to Berlin in 1748.
He resided for some time at Leipzig, and in 1760
became a member of the Academy there. He sup-
ported himself by translating foreign works, and
taught himself French, Italian, and Spanish. He
resided at Breslau 1760-1764, where he was official
secretary to General Tauenzien. He was at Berlin
from 1765 to 1767. He lived at Hamburg, where
he became a journalist, during 1767-1769. He was
appointed by the Duke of Brunswick Privy Coun-
cillor and Librarian of a great Library at Wolfen-
biittel ; there he took up his abode in May 1770. In
this library he discovered, and afterwards published,
a treatise of Berengarius \ supposed to be lost,
respecting the Holy Eucharist. In 1775 he accom-
panied Prince Leopold of Brunswick in his journey
to Italy. He married, in April, 1776, a widow, Eva
Konig, who died in 1778. He appears to have felt
her loss very deeply.

i Gurauer, 2, 11 ; Goedeke, 611, 612, 663.

PREFACE

2. German literature is one of the youngest1 of
the European family. At the time when Lessing
began to write it was in a very meagre condition.

Leibnitz and Wolff had indeed, in their different
paths, attained deserved literary honours. The
former had been dead nearly half a century, and
wrote his great works in a foreign language. The
latter was too ponderous and too scholastic to be
popular. Neither left any abiding marks upon their
native language or literature 2.

Gottsched and his school had done their utmost
to lower the national taste to the level of a base
imitation of French literature ; and the efforts of
the Swiss, Breitinger and Bodmer, from whom
works of considerable merit appeared simultane-
ously at Zurich in 1740, and upon whom the dawn of
a better day had shone, had not sufficient power to
stem the tide. Haller, Hagedorn, Kastners, Rabe-
ner, Liscow, keeping aloof from the contest between
Gottsched and the Swiss, contributed something,
but not much, to the improvement of German
literature. Klopstock, indeed, vindicated the higher
claims of poetry to be the fruit of genius — unat-
tainable by the intellect alone or mere learned
industry — and to be far above the frozen mediocrity
and petty conventional decencies, within which
Gottsched, in his absence of all the susceptibility of
genius, his blind admiration for the French imita-
tion of classical antiquity, would have confined it.
But it was reserved for Lessing thoroughly to
awaken the sleeping German mind, and imbue it
with a true philosophy, which included the romantic
as well as the classical school within the domain of
poetry ; from which Gottsched’s narrow and unin-
spired mind would have excluded Shakspere, Milton,
Ariosto, and Tasso. ‘ Lessing schrieb deutsch ’, says

1 ‘Die deutsche Literatur ist eine derjiingsten unter der Europa*
isclien’, Schlegel, Kritische Schrtften , i, 1.

2 Danzel, 1, 118; De Quincey, vol. xii, 282; Gervlnus, 4, 63;,
Goedeke, 560-1.

LAOCOON

Gervinus. He was himself ‘ unaffectirt deutsch 7 ;
and because he was a genuine German, and not a
French or Englishman travestied, he drank at the
pure fountains of classical lore, unalloyed by their
passage through a foreign channel \

3. Of the many literary productions of Lessing,
very few are now familiarly known out of, perhaps
even in, Germany. Three at least of his plays are
still read.

Minna Von Barrihelm1 2, finished in 1765, but first
published in its corrected form in 1776, praised by
Goethe as the most genuine production of the Seven
Years7 War, and the most perfect expression of
German nationality, and as having been a peace-
maker between Prussia and Saxony, is still a great
favourite of the German stage ; and the very pretty
and interesting recent edition by Dr Buchheim3,
with English notes, a critical analysis, and a sketch
of Lessing’s life, is likely to restore its popularity
to the libraries at least of England.

Nathan dev Weise. His greatest dramatic, and,
as some think, his most philosophical work, founded
on the Third Novella of Boccaccio4, still lives on
account of its intrinsic merit. It was no doubt a
consequence of Lessing’s friendship with the Jew
Mendelssohn. It has been supposed to have been
the most effective sermon of the day on the Duty
of Toleration in matters of Beligion, and to have
generated a much-needed and beneficial change in
the social status and estimation of the Jews in
Germany. The English reader may be interested
in comparing with it the affecting legend which
ends J. Taylor’s Liberty of Prophesying , and Miss
Edgeworth’s novel of Harrington. The tragedy of
Emilia Galotti was founded on the story of Virginius ,

1 iv, 319.

2 Minna von Barrihelm , oder das Soldatengliick, Goedeke, 615.

3 Published in the Oxford Clarendon Press Series, 1873.

4 Novella Terza. Melchisedeck giudeo con una Novella di tre anelle
■cessa un gran pericolo dal Saladino apparecchiatogli.

PEEFACE 6

but the scene of the drama is in Italy, and the time
is modern.

If ever man deserved the epithet, in which the
Germans delight, of ‘ Polyhistor ’, Lessing deserved
it ; and it has been often bestowed upon him by his
countrymen. The ordinary, indeed the educated,
reader of the Laocoon is astonished at the way in
which Lessing takes for granted his acquaintance
with recondite subjects. Of course everybody
knows, he seems to think, about the ‘politische
verse ? of Constantinus Manasses, about Skanopoeia,
the Ghezzi, and Crocylegmus. I have ventured to
write some notes upon these and other references.

It was at Berlin that Lessing contracted habits
of intimate and lasting friendship with Mendelssohn
and Nicolai. Here, in conjunction with his friends,
he wrote literary trifles for newspapers, and made
translations for booksellers ; and here also he laid
the foundation of the Letters on Modern Literature \
This was the first publication of the time in which
a liberal, unfettered and comprehensive spirit, aided
by a critical faculty of high order, examined into
the claims and merits of the ancients, and did
justice to the literature of England. In the admir-
able criticisms of these letters the shadow of his
Laocoon , though the substance did not appear till
long afterwards, was cast before.

4. We are now brought to the threshold of the
work on which the literary renown of Lessing is
mainly and deservedly built. It is the work of
which the following pages contain a translation, his
famous Laocoon , which first saw the light in 1766.
Lessing, besides the notes which he appended to the
first and completed part, had prepared many notes
for a second and third part. They are unfortunately
only notes : but not a few of them are pregnant
with suggestion, and I have not shrunk from the

1 Briefe die neueste Literatur betreffend. The papers subscribed
F 11 and G are by Lessing, the others for the most part by Abbt,
Mendelssohn, and Resewitz: Goedeke, 615.

6 LAOCOON

labour of translating the latter as well as the
former.

Winkelmann 1 had remarked in his essays on the
Imitation of the Ancients in Painting and Statuary 2,
that the principal characteristics of Greek sculpture
were simplicity and quiet grandeur. The study of
the Laocoon led Winkelmann to this conclusion ;
observing that natural beauty underlaid the beau-
tiful forms of Greek art, he thought somewhat
perhaps in the spirit of a French writer of tragedy,
that greatness of soul was intended to overcome all
expression of pain in Laocoon.

Lessing seems to have felt a reverence for
Winkelmann3, which he felt for no other authority.
This was partly because he was not unaffected by
the general enthusiasm in Germany for him at this
period. Lessing criticises his dogmas with studious
gentleness and unusual forbearance.

The authority of Winkelmann upon art is still
considerable, though much diminished. Fuseli was
a violent hater, and his opinions as to contempo-
raries must always be read with a recollection of
this fact. But I am not aware that he had any
animosity to the memory of Winkelmann. His
opinion of him, in a sketch of Lessing’s life, is not
uninteresting. Fuseli says :

‘ About the middle of the last century the German
critics, established at Borne, began to claim the

1 Assassinated 1768, at Trieste, on his way home from Italy, where
he had been since 1758.

2 Gedanken ueber die Nachahmung der griechischen Werke, in der
Malerey und BildhauerJcunst. Leipzig, 1756.

3 Winkelmann writes to a friend, who sent him extracts from the
Laocoon, that he had bought the book before he left Dresden, and
adds : — * Lessing von dem ich leider nichts gesehen hatte schreibt, wie
man geschrieben zu haben wiinschen mochte’. He would have
written to him if he had not heard he was coming to Rome. ‘ Es
verdient derselbe also, wo man sei vertheidigen kann, eine wiirdige
Antwort. Wie es riihmlich ist von wiirdigen Leuten gelobt zu werden
so kann es auch riihmlich werden ihrer Beurtheilung wiirdig geachtet zu
seyn’. The report at Leipzig that Winkelmann was furious against
Laocoon must have been false. See G. E. Lessing’s Leben, etc., heraus-
gegeben von R. C. Lessing.

PREFACE

exclusive privilege of teaching the art (of painting),
and to form a complete system of antique style.
The verdicts of Mengs and Winkelmann became
the oracles of Antiquaries, Dilettanti, and artists
from the Pyrenees to the utmost north of Europe,
have been detailed, and are not without their
influence here. Winkelmann was the parasite of
the fragments that fell from the conversation or
the tablets of Mengs, a deep scholar, and better
fitted to comment on a classic than to give lessons
on art and style, he reasoned himself into frigid
reveries and Platonic dreams on beauty. As far
as the taste or the instructions of his tutor directed
him, he is right, whenever they are, and between his
own learning and the tuition of the other, his
history of art delivers a specious system and a
prodigious number of useful observations. He has
not, however, in his regulation of epochs, discrim-
inated styles and masters with the precision,
attention, and acumen, which, from the advantages
of his situation and habits, might have been ex-
pected ; and disappoints us as often by meagreness,
neglect, and confusion, as he offends by laboured
ancl inflated rhapsodies on the most celebrated
monuments of Art. To him Germany owes the
shackles of her artists, and the narrow limits of
their aim ; from him they have learnt to substitute
the means for the end, and by a hopeless chase after
what they call beauty, to lose what alone can make
beauty interesting — expression and mind. The
works of Mengs himself are no doubt full of the
most useful information, deep observation, and
often consummate criticism. He has traced and
distinguished the principles of the moderns from
those of the ancients; and in his comparative view
of the design, colour, composition, and expression
of Raffaello, Correggio, and Tiziano, with luminous
perspicuity and deep precision, pointed out the
prerogative or inferiority of each. As an artist he
is an instance of what perseverance, study, expe~

LAOCOON

rience, and encouragement can achieve to supply
the place of genius M.

I have mentioned the extraordinary reverence of
Lessing for Winkelmann ; but Lessing, nourished
upon Homer and Sophocles, could not bring himself
to accept the dictum of Winkelmann about Laocoon.
Lessing, on the contrary, maintains that the Greeks
would have considered the scream of bodily anguish
quite compatible with greatness of soul — a pro-
position which in Germany was fruitful in results
as to the theory of tragedy, and which overcame
the angry and resolute opposition of Herder, and
won the approbation of Schiller and indeed of
Goethe. The first and highest law of ancient art
Lessing maintained was the production of Beauty ;
this Art therefore avoided all caricature, all ex-
tremes of passion which bordered on what was
hideous. The true and proper end of art is that
which she ever works out for herself without the
aid of any other art. That end is, in Plastic Art,
corporeal beauty, to be found only in men, and in
them only by virtue of an ideal 2.

Winkelmann3 had said, ‘In the anguish and
suffering of the Laocoon, which is shown in every
muscle and nerve, we see the tried spirit of a great
man, who wrestles with torment and seeks to sup-
press and confine within itself the outbreak of
sensibility. He does not burst forth into a loud
cry as Virgil describes him to us, but only sad and
still sighs come from him, etc ’ 4.

This comparison stimulated the critical faculty of
Lessing, and together with a perusal of the works

1 Introduction to Fuseli's Life and Writings , vol. ii, p. 13.

2 See Ch. XX, infra , and compare Sir Joshua Reynolds’s Works, vol.
ii, 73, 13th Discourse.

3 For references by Winkelmann to the Laocoon, see i, 31, 65, 216,
251, 255, 382 ; ii, 203-206, 208, 209, 228 ; iii, 84, 320 ; iv, 61, 105, 148,
160, 173, 267, 370, 372, 381, 388, 418, 419; v, 49, 105, 119, 159, 221,
250, 417 ; vi, 1, 101, 131, 263 ; vii, 97, 98, 187, 269, 291. Ed. Dresden,
1817.

4 Kunst der Zeicknung unter den Griechen, 4 Kap. § 34 ; 7 Band, p.
98, ed. 1817.

PEEFACE

of Spence and Caylus, led to his profound examin-
ation of the then generally accepted thesis which
had been current even before the time of Plutarch
and Pliny ; namely, that Poetry was a speaking
Picture, and Painting a dumb Poem. I will here /
cite at length the passage in Plutarch which refers
to this adage and also contains the motto which
Lessing adopted, though he did not quite understand
it, for his Laocoon :

Tovto rb epyov E vcppavoop eypa\f/ey Kal Trapeffnv bpav ev
eiKbvi rr/s fiax^s ro ovyypaiifia Kal r^v avrepeicriv aAKrjs Kal
dujao v Kal Trvev/xaros ye/xovrav. aAA’ ovk ttv ol/xai r)]V (ooypa-
(pov Kp'iariv TTpoaOelrire irpbs rov crrparrjybv , ovbJ avdaxoL(J®€
rcbv 7r porL/xcovroov rbv TTivaKa rov rporraiou , Kal rb ixiixpjxa rrjs
aArjOelas. ttA^jv 6 HU/JLCovibris, rfyv jxev £coy p acpiav, ttolt}-
ct i v cr icon bo a av n p o r ay o pe v cov, rr]V be ttoltiglv ,
(coypacpiav AaAovcrav. &s yap oi ^coypacpoi tt payees bos
yivofjLevas beiKvvovai, ravras oi A0704 yeyevrpxevas biriyovvrat
Kal ruyypacpovcriv' el be oi juev xpc*>/jLacrL K0^ <TX^PacrLVi 0i'
ovb/xaert Kal Ae£ecr4 ravra brjAovaiv, vA rj Kal rpbnois
pu/uiT] a eco s b iacpe pover C reAos 5’ d/ucporepois ev vnbKeirai,

Kal rcbv iaropiKoov Kpanaros 6 r)jv bi^yrjnv ebrnep ypaep^v
Trader t Kal nporconois eibioAonoidiaas1.

The dictum of Simonides, whether correct or in-
correct, was intended to be construed and applied

1 Plutarch, Comm. Bellone an Pace clariores fuerint Athenienses , v. 7,
p. 366, ed. Reiske : ‘ This action Euphranor painted, and you can see in
similitude the story of the battle, and the contest teeming with might,
courage, and spirit ; hut you would not, I think, make comparison of
the painter and the general, nor endure those who would honour the
picture above the trophy, and the imitation above the reality. Yet
Simonides addressed painting as silent poetry , and poetry as speaking
painting. For those actions which painters pourtray as taking place,
are, when they have taken place, recounted and described by words.
But if the one set present these actions by colours and figures, and the
other by names and phrases, they differ in the material and in the modes
of their imitation. Both, however, have one object, and the best his-
torian is he who, in the passions and persons of his story, has produced
a series of images as if they were painted in a picture’. *YAp kcu rpo nois
/tuju.T7<reu>s 8ia<f>epov<ri. ‘ They differ in the material and m the modes
of their expression This is the passage which I mentioned as having
been chosen by Lessing for the motto of his work, and though, as will
have been seen, he slightly misconstrued it, a better could not have
been chosen.

LAOCOON

with the recollection that the variety of the means
employed by the poet and the painter was a matter
of common everyday knowledge. The author of the
dictum, moreover, knew that it would receive modi-
fication in practice from the right feeling of the
artist. It has been said 4 to be the privilege of the
ancients in nothing to do too much or too little ’ \

5. The fable of Laocoon has been variously related
by writers before and after the time of Virgil. As
to the last, according to the version of Quintus
Calaber2, when Laocoon struck the wooden horse
with his spear an earthquake was caused by Minerva
which stupefied him with terror. Nevertheless,
when the horse was moved into the city he was
urgent that it should be burnt : and then Minerva
invoked two serpents from the island of Calydna,
which devoured the children of Laocoon in vain
stretching forth their hands to him for succour.
Then the serpents rush to the temple of Minerva
and disappear beneath the earth, and Laocoon is
smitten with blindness. Hyginus, the next writer
on the subject after Virgil, speaks of the children
being slain with their father, and makes Laocoon
the priest of Neptune and not of Apollo.

As to the authors before the time of Virgil who
wrote about Laocoon, they were Lysimachus, Lyco-
phron, and a once very celebrated poet, Euphorion,
of whom we know from Quintilian3 that Virgil had
a very high opinion. These were writers of the
Alexandrian School,, to whom those of the Augustan
School, and especially Virgil, seem to have been
much indebted4. Laocoon was also probably the
theme of more than one Greek writer. It was the
subject, we know, of a lost tragedy of Sophocles5.

The so-called Cyclic Poets were, according to
Heyne6, (to whom I am chiefly indebted for these
observations), the real fountain of these different

i Gurauer, 11, 13.

3 x, 1, 36.

5 Dionys. Halicar. i, 48.

2 xii, 388-409.

4 Cicero, Tusc. Q. iii, 19.

6 Excurs. v, vi, ad lib. ii Virgil.

PEEFACE

versions, and above all Leschis, 6 quem utique
Quintus expressisse visus est \

Cardinal Sadolet’s comparatively modern poem
on the Laocoon is, as will be seen, given at length
by Lessing, who highly esteemed it, in a note to one
of the sections of this work \

Lessing made use of the fable of Laocoon as fur-
nishing the occasion for expressing certain principles
of criticism discriminating between the arts of
Poetry and Painting. He did not intend — as he
more than once, I think, says — to write a philo-
sophical treatise, modo et forma , on art. One of his
biographers has observed that the pursuit of Truth
was more agreeable to him than the capture of the
object of his pursuit. He delighted in the chase
itself and the opportunities which it afforded for
the exercise of his vigorous sense, great erudition,
and masculine understanding.

6. I have written in the Appendix a few concise
historical notes to each Chapter, illustrative of the
authors mentioned by Lessing, and have added a few
additional references. To many readers the inform-
ation thus supplied will probably be unnecessary,
but there are some, to whom I hope it will not be
disagreeable, and to both classes it may be perhaps
convenient.

There are, however, two or three authors whom
Lessing, for purposes of explanation or censure, very
frequently mentions : and there are others whom
one is surprised that he does not mention. I will
say a word on both these topics.

As to the former, the first author in date is
Dryden.

With Dry den’s Parallel of Poetry and Painting (an
essay prefixed in 1695 to Du Fresnoy’s Latin poem
De Arte Graphica) Lessing seems to have been well
acquainted. The essay, though it bears marks of
his unrivalled style, has not contributed much to
the fame of Dryden. It was truly observed, that

1 See Ch. VI, Note 3, infra .

LAOCOON

‘ wanting a competent knowledge of painting, he
suffered himself to he misled by an unskilful guide ’.
As to the general subject, Dry den relied greatly on
the authority of Bellori,to whom Lessing also refers1.
Dryden says in one place2 ‘that the principal end
of Painting is to please, of Poetry to instruct 9 ; and
in another place 3, 4 that one main end of Poetry and
Painting is to please’. . . ‘The imitation of Nature
is, therefore, justly constituted as the general, indeed
the only, rule of pleasing both in Poetry and Paint-
ing ’ 4. Then he refers to Aristotle’s opinion, which
is considered fully hereafter in the notes to the
Laocoon.

The poem of Du Fresnoy was translated into
English verse by Mason in 1782, and was published,
with valuable notes, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and
is to be found in the last edition of his Works.

Du Fresnoy begins with a fragment from Horace’s
Ars Poetica , ‘Ut Pictura Poesis erit,s. Mason cites
in a note the adage of Simonides from Plutarch, and
says ‘There is a Latin line somewhere to the
same purpose, but I know not whether ancient or
modern, “Poesis est Pictura loquens, mutum Pictura
Poem a”

Francis Junius was born at Heidelberg in or about
1589. A man of vast classical erudition, and a great
traveller, a friend of Grotius, Salmasius, Vossius (his
brother-in-law), and Archbishop Usher.

In 1620 he came to England, and was received
into the household of the Earl of Arundel and Surrey.
Here he wrote his folio volume, De Pictura Veterum ,
on the Art of Painting among the Ancients, which
was first published in Holland. He died at Windsor
in 1678, and in his eighty-eighthor eighty-ninth year.
He was buried at Windsor; and the University of
Oxford, to whom he bequeathed his manuscript and
books out of gratitude, caused a Latin inscription to
be placed over his tomb. In it he is described as

1 Works, iv, 311, ed. Malone. 2 See Ch. IT, Note 17, infra .

3 Works, iv, 318. 4 lb. 322 5 v, 361.

PREFACE

pene nonagenarius , and as one c qui per omnem aeta-
tem sine querela aut injuria cujusquam musis tan-
tum et sibi vacavit \ The edition which I have used
was published at Rotterdam 1694. Lessing blames
Spence for relying on the accuracy of J unius’s cita-
tions without verification. They were often very
incorrect \

Joseph Spence1 2 was for ten years Professor of
Poetry at Oxford. He spent five years on the
Continent, chiefly at Florence and Rome. He
published Dialogues in ten books, in royal folio, in
1747. His work was entitled, P oly metis ; or , an
Inquiry concerning the Agreement between the Works of
the Pom, an Poets and the Remains of the Ancient Artists,
being an attempt to illustrate them mutually from one
another 3.

‘When you look on the old pictures’ (Spence says,
p. 3) ‘ or sculptures, you look on the works of men
who thought much in the same train with the old
poets. There was generally the greatest union in
their designs ; and when they are engaged on the
same subject they must be the best explainers of
one another. As we lie so far north from this last
great seat of Empire, we are placed out of the reach
of consulting these finer remains of antiquity so
much and so frequently as one could wish. The
only way of supplying this defect to any degree
among us is by copies, prints, and drawings ’ .

(P. 285) : ‘ I think, therefore, there can be no room
to doubt that some of the best comments we could
have on the ancient poets, might be drawn from the
works of the artists who were their contemporaries ;
and whose remains often present to our eyes the
very things which the others have delivered down
to us only in words ’.

1 See Ch. XXIX, infra. 2 See Ch. VII, Note 2.

3 It contains forty-one plates, seventeen ‘ ornamental pieces at the
close of the Dialogues’, three figures (disposed in the manner of an
ancient relievo) in the frontispiece : the Goddess of Painting, the God

of Poetry, and the Genius of Sculpture, from antiques.

LAOCOON

This author is continually referred to in the
Laocoon. He and Caylus are the subject of some of
Lessing’s severest and justest criticisms.

J onathan Richardson published Works on Painting
in 1725. Discourses on 1. The Theory of Painting ;
2. Essay on the Art of Criticism, so far as it relates
to Painting ; 3. The Science of a Connoisseur. A
new edition of the Works was prepared by his son,
and dedicated to Sir Joshua Reynolds, in 1773.

In 1728 there was published in Amsterdam, in
three volumes, Traite de la Peinture et de la Sculpture ,
and this is the work to which Lessing constantly
refers. ‘ It is ’ (Pilkington remarks, in his Dictionary
of Painters) ‘ a curious circumstance that a man who
could write so well upon the art should so ill apply
to his own practice the rules he gave to others. Full
of theory, profound in reflections, and possessed of
a numerous collection of drawings, he appears not
to have possessed the smallest invention as applic-
able to the Painter’s art, and drew nothing well
below the head ’ 1.

Hogarth (born 1698, died 1764) published The
Analysis of Beauty , written with a view of fixing the
fluctuating ideas of Taste , in 1753. The object of the
work was to show that the curve was the natural
line of beauty. But Hogarth had no classical know-
ledge, and indeed was, generally speaking, very
uneducated. In his chap, iii, ‘ Of Simplicity or
Distinctness’, he says ‘The authors’ (for there were
three concerned in the work) ‘of as fine a group of
figures in sculpture as ever was made either by
ancients or moderns ’ (I mean Laocoon and his two
sons) ‘ chose to be guilty of making the sons half
the father’s size, though they have every mark of
being designed for men, rather than not bring their
composition within the boundary of a pyramid ’.

Lessing does not refer to this passage, and very
possibly it escaped his notice. Sir J. Reynolds

1 See Ch. XI, Note 1, infra .

PREFACE

says 1 : 1 It naturally occurs to oppose the sensible
conduct of Gainsborough, in this respect, to that of
our late excellent Hogarth, who, with all his extra-
ordinary talents, was not blessed with this knowledge
of his own deficiency ; or of the bounds which were
set to the extent of his own powers. After this
admirable artist had spent the greater part of his
life in an active, busy, and, we may add, successful
attention to the ridicule of life ; after he had
invented a new species of dramatic painting, in
which probably he will never be equalled, and had
stored his mind with infinite materials to explain
and illustrate the domestic and familiar scenes of
common life, which were generally, and ought to
have been always, the subject of his pencil, he very
imprudently, or rather presumptuously, attempted
the great historical style, for which his previous
habits had by no means prepared him ; he was
indeed so entirely unacquainted with the principles
of this style, that he was not even aware that any
artificial preparation was at all necessary. It is to
be regretted that any part of the life of such a
genius should be fruitlessly employed. Let his
failure teach us not to indulge ourselves in the vain
imagination, that by a momentary resolution we
can give either dexterity to the hand, or a new habit
to the mind \

7. And now let me say a word as to authors whom
Lessing does not mention, but with whom he was
acquainted.

The Abbe Du Bos wrote his Reflexions critiques sur
la Poesie et la Peinture in 1719. In this work he
includes, as will be presently noticed, several
ingenious chapters on music, and the relation of
that art to poetry and painting. He died at Paris
in 1742. His work was very highly esteemed by
Voltaire ; and perhaps the tone and spirit of it bore
a closer affinity to the Laocoon than the work of any

l Vol. ii, Disc. 14. 88.

LAOCOON

other predecessor of Lessing. His style is per-
spicuous and agreeable ; his criticisms generally
luminous. Lessing was well acquainted with him,
and certainly made use of him 1. It is strange that
no reference should be made to him in the Laocoon.
It is true that Lessing differed from him as to the
principle of his comparison of poetry and painting,
Du Bos adopting for his motto ‘ Ut Pictura Poesis’.
But Du Bos laid down many of the sound principles
which Lessing relied upon. Above all he held that
Poetry could attain to the sublime, which Painting
could not reach, because she was limited to the
representation of one moment of a continuing
action.

Daniel Webb published, among other works, An
Enquiry into the Beauties of Painting , and into the
Merits of the most celebrated Painters , ancient and
modern , in 1760 2 ; and Observations on the Corre-
spondences between Poetry and Music, in 1769 3 ; and
Remarks on the Beauties of Poetry, in 1762 4.

He sought to establish the position that poetry
was an union of powers of music and painting. He
considered Shakspere to be as great a painter as
Titian. Effective colouring ought in his opinion to
be the great object of the painter.

Webb is said to have derived all his information
on sesthetical subjects from Mengs, with whom he
lived on terms of intimacy for some years. If this
were so, he never acknowledged the obligation. In
his turn, however, £suos patitur manes for I cannot
find that Lessing ever refers to Webb, though his
obligation, if any, wTas certainly much lighter : yet
sometimes there is a remarkable correspondence
in their ideas. Lessing was infinitely his superior,
however, in every literary respect.

Harris (born 1709, died 1780) first published his
treatises, Concerning Art, Music, Painting , and Poetry,
in 1765, a year before the publication of the Laocoon.

i Gurauer, ii, 15. 2 Ed. London, 1787.

3 lb. 1769. 4 lb. 1762.

PREFACE

These treatises have great merit ; they are not
referred to by Lessing, who, but for his extraordinary
erudition, might be presumed not to have been
acquainted with them. I have introduced several
extracts from them in the notes 1.

Section II

1. Effect of the Laocoon in Germany ; 2. On the Continent of Europe.

1. The effect of the Laocoon in Germany was marvel-
lous ; while on the Continent of Europe it was very
great. It is hardly too much to say that what Adam
Smith did, in the domain of Political Economy, by
his Wealth of Nations , Lessing did, in the domain of
Art and Criticism, by this memorable treatise. It
created a new era in sesthetic2 culture and litera-
ture. It has leavened not only the teaching and
the practice of Professors of Art and practical
Artists, but, like other great works, it has purified
the taste, and informed the mind of many, who
have benefited by the streams flowing in various
channels from a fountain head which they have
never visited.

After the publication of the Laocoon a different
atmosphere, so to speak, of sesthetic taste and criti-

1 See Oh. II, Note 18, and Ch. VI, Note 2, infra.

2 ‘In English, this expression, feeling, like all others of a psycho-
logical application, was primarily of a purely physical relation, being
originally employed to denote the sensations we experience through
the sense of touch, and in this meaning it still continues to be em-
ployed. From this, its original relation to matter and the corporeal
sensibility, it came, by a very natural analogy, to express our con-
scious states of mind in general, but particularly in relation to the
qualities of pleasure and pain, by which they are characterised. Such
is the fortune of the term in English ; and precisely similar is that of
the cognate term, Gefiihl, in German. The same, at least a similar,
history might be given of the Greek term cuo-fojcris, and of the Latin
sensus, sensatio, with their immediate and mediate derivatives in the
different Romaic dialects of modern Europe, — the Italian, Spanish,
French, and English dialects’. Sir W. Hamilton’s Lectures on Meta-
physics,, Lecture xli. See also Lecture xlvi.

LAOCOON

cism prevailed, and was insensibly imbibed by pos-
terity, first in Germany, then on the Continent, and
lastly in England.

The similarity and harmony of the two arts,
Poetry and Painting, had been frequently and
copiously discussed ; but Lessing reversed the medal,
and investigated the inherent dissimilarity, and
showed that this dissimilarity was founded upon
laws peculiar to each art, and which often com-
pelled the one to tread a different path from the
other.

Lessing perceived the important relation of the
category of time to painting and the plastic art
generally ; he saw that the artist had only a moment
in which to tell his tale, and he maintained that the
right choice of this moment was everything (a
remark which he often repeated) ; that it should
be one which was most fruitful or pregnant with
suggestion, which allowed the freest scope to the
imagination of the spectator, who the more he
looked at what was represented, the more he ought
to exercise thought. Therefore plastic art ought
not to exhibit the last and extremest thing, which
left no room for the working of the imagination.

Lessing held that the artist ought not to express
what was absolutely momentary and transitory,
and the ancient artist never did this. It has been
observed that the idea in Lessing’s mind was right,
but perhaps not quite correctly formulated in lan-
guage, inasmuch as what is to be avoided by the
artist is not whatever is absolutely momentary, but
that of which the inspection could only be tolerated
for a moment, because it introduced what was
hideous. The painter employs figures and colours
in space, the poet articulate sounds in time. Lessing
having considered the laws of painting or plastic
art generally, then considered those of poetry ; his
main position is that the law respecting the category
of time, applicable to painting, was inapplicable to
poetry.

PEEFACE

It was competent to the poet, by previous recital,
to prepare the mind of his audience for an effect, or
by subsequent recital to soften the consequences of
the effect : and in the Laocoon of the poet who could
employ successive action in aid of his mental pic-
tures, there was a much wider scope of representation
than in the Laocoon of the artist.

Virgil might represent his Laocoon clothed,
because in poetry clothing is no clothing, conceal-
ing nothing. The artist could not even venture to
bind the fillet of the priest on the brow of the
Laocoon, because he would have concealed the brow,
which is the seat of expression.

The best poetical picture therefore possesses fea-
tures of which the artist can make no use ; but the
converse is not true. Every trait of the artist’s
work may be made use of by the poet, and Lessing
thought it far more probable that the artist had
present to his mind the Laocoon of the poet, than
that the poet had present to his mind the Laocoon
of the artist. Lessing is led by the development of
his theory on this subject to condemn Count Caylus
and the French essayists on art, who would compel
the painter to adopt and paint the pictures in
Homer, and the English writers, especially Spence,
who thought that the ancient poets could be ex-
plained by ancient works of art, such as statues
and models, without exercising any discrimination
between the different nature of the two arts, or ob-
serving the far wider scope and province of poetry.

Finally, Lessing arrives at the goal which he had
proposed to himself, and establishes the supremacy
of poetry over all other arts. At the same time he
revives the old precepts of Horace, and denies alto-
gether to poetry the domain of pure description.
4 A flower ’, he says, 4 by a Dutcli painter recalls all
that word painting of it can effect. Homer does
not describe the shield of Achilles when made, but
he paints the action of the divine maker of it, and
thus places the whole before our eyes. The trails-

LAOCOON

•cendent beauty of Helen is painted, by Homer, not
by descriptive detail, but in the effect which it
produced on the aged counsellors of Troy’. That
Lessing carried the doctrine, that poetry had nothing
to do wdth description, too far, in his eagerness to
destroy the passion for descriptive poetry which
prevailed in his youth, and which an extravagant
admiration of Thomson’s Seasons had done much to
foster, is a proposition which I think the reader of
the second volume of Humboldt’s Kosmos will not
dispute.

I purpose to return to this subject a little further
on, but I may observe, how often it happens that
a few words of description animate the painter’s
picture, awakening the imagination to the exquisite
taste and beauty of a performance which, of itself,
would have commanded admiration only for the
merits of imitation and execution. For instance, it
is not difficult to imagine the picture of an old man-
of-war towed by a steam-tug up a river. The exe-
cution of such a subject may deserve great praise
and give great satisfaction to the beholder. But
add to the representation the statement that it is
4 The fighting Temeraire towed to her last berth’,
and a series of the most stirring events of our
national history fills our imagination, while the
contrast between the ancient and modern powers
of navigation is also, but, not alone, forcibly pre-
sented to the mind.

In the following lines the picture of a painting
seems to transcend the painting itself :

2 Servant .

Dost thou love pictures ? we will fetch thee straight
Adonis, painted by a running brook,

And Cytherea, all in sedges hid,

That seem to move and wanton with her breath,

Even as the waving sedges play with wind.

Lord.

We’ll show thee Io as she was a maid,

And how she was beguiled and surprised,

As lively painted as the deed was done.

PREFACE

3 Servant.

Or Daphne, roaming through a thorny wood,

Scratching her legs that one shall swear she bleeds,

And at that sight shall sad Apollo weep :

So workmanly the blood and tears are drawn L

Goethe 2 wrote his essay ‘ upon Laocoon5 in 1797,.
in the Propylaen3. At the close of this essay he
considers the relation of the subject to poetry. ‘It
is a great injustice’, he argues, ‘against Virgil and
poetry to compare the most carefully executed
masterpiece of sculpture with the episodic treat-
ment of the same subject in the Aeneid. The unfor-
tunate tempest-tossed Aeneas had to tell the whole
story of the taking of Troy, and to excuse the in-
credible folly of introducing the wooden horse into
the city.

‘ The history of the Laocoon \ he says, ‘ is a kind
of rhetorical argument, which admits of varied ex-
aggeration. Hence the picture of the enormous
serpents advancing from the sea and fastening upon
the children of Laocoon who had injured the horse.
The people fly — no one dares any more to be a
patriot, and the hearer, aghast at the horrors,
finds the introduction of the horse not unnatural.
In Virgil the history of the Laocoon is only a means
to a higher end, and it is still a very moot question
whether the event be per se a poetical incident \

This work of Goethe is of rather a feeble character.
The mind of Lessing was of a more robust and manly
texture than the mind of Goethe.

Mr Lewes observes that ‘Instruction in the
theory of art he (Goethe) gained from Oeser, from
Winkelmann, and from Laocoon , the incompar-
able little book which Lessing at this period care-

1 Taming of the Shrew , Induction, scene ii.

2 Werke, 38, 13. 49.

3 Goedeke, 824. The Propylaen meant the vestibule of the Temple
of Knowledge or Truth. See Einleitung in die Pro. Goethe’s Werke, B.
38, 1. I t is remarkable that in this essay lie does not refer to Lessing’s
work, to which he was much beholden, and with which he was well
acquainted.

LAOCOON

lessly flung upon the world. Its effect upon Goethe
can only be appreciated by those who in early life
have met with this work and risen from it with
minds widened, strengthened, inspired’1.

Frederick Schlegel2, in his work on Lessing,
remarked with justice ‘that the mere erudition of
Germans was undeniable, what was wanted for the
foundation of their literature was the substratum
of a learned, vigorous and yet popular spirit of
criticism, continued on the model which Lessing
had furnished — a free spirit of investigation strug-
gling to attain just ideas of art, vigorous in logic,
but quick in sympathy, and extending to the whole
domain of literature’.

2. Whether the literary rank and position of
Lessing in Germany was ever equal to that of Dr
Johnson in England — whether a parallel can be
instituted between Lessing and Shaftesbury, the
author of the Characteristics , are propositions which,
in spite of the considerable authority of Mr De
Quincey in favour of them, are to my mind very
doubtful. The effect produced by the Laocoon
upon the European Continent out of Germany,
though great, was by no means equal to its merits.
Europe generally seems to have taken less interest
in it than in his other works. Vanderbourg appears
— I have never seen the work — to have published a
French translation in 1780. But it had no influence
on the criticism then prevalent in France. Another
French translation appeared in 1802, which is more
generally known. Lessing had prepared a French
preface, and intended to have translated the whole
work into that language. It is perhaps fortunate
that he did not execute his intention. His power
of writing French, if we may judge from the preface
which he translated into this language, was much
less than he appears himself to have been aware of.

1 Life of Goethe , p. 57.

2 Lessing's Geist aus seinen Schriften , Oder dessen GedanTcen und
Meinungen zusammengestellt und erlautert. Leipz. 1804.

PBEFACE

Section III

1. Influence of the Laocoon in England ; 2. Writers and Lecturers on
Poetry and Painting. Lord Macaulay ; 3. English Translations
of the Laocoon.

1. Lord Bacon, in his Advancement of Learning,
had said1, ‘The parts of Human Learning have
reference to three parts of man’s Understanding,
which is the seat of learning : History to his
Memory, Poesy to his Imagination, and Philosophy
to his Beason’2. Gurauer remarks that in conse-
quence of this division the English school of thought
naturally considered Fancy ‘ as the common factor ’
of poetry and painting, and it was from this kind
of psychological treatment of the arts that the true
principle of ancient art, namely, objective imita-
tion, that is, the reality of the object, was exchanged
for the subjective principle of fiction. False
Idealism took the place of Nature and Truth, and
prepared the way for the confusion of poetry and
painting in England, which prevailed when the
Laocoon was written. The confusion does appear
to have existed, but, not long after the publication
of the Laocoon, it was in a great measure dispelled
by high authority, as will be seen in the Discourses
of Sir Joshua Eeynolds, the first of which was
delivered in 1769.

The influence of the Laocoon in England was
much later and slower than on the Continent. The
German language was little studied during the last
century in this country.

2. There is a peculiar kind of English literature
in which we should expect to find early mention of
the aesthetic principles laid down in the Laocoon. I
mean the Discourses of the Presidents, and the
Lectures of Professors of Painting, in our Boyal

1 Book vi.

2 ii, 14.

LAOCOON

Academy ; a literature, let me observe, in passing,
very interesting and instructive, and too much
neglected in the present age. Not improbably
Johnson and Burke contributed to the lectures of
Sir Joshua Reynolds; but in any event the educa-
tion of an English gentleman is incomplete with-
out a knowledge of them. The first Discourse
of Sir Joshua was delivered in 1769, the last in
1790.

In no Discourse, in no letter or essay, by Sir
Joshua is there any reference, I believe, to Lessing.
Nevertheless, the reader of the Laocoon will often
be struck by the resemblance of the canons in that
work to those laid down by Sir Joshua. I have
referred in the notes to some of them. The reader
may not dislike to read in this place some of the
passages which bear this character.

eA painter’ (writes Sir Joshua in 1771) ‘must com-
pensate the natural deficiencies of art. He has but one
sentence to utter, but one moment to exhibit ’ 1.

‘ The true test of all the arts is not solely whether the
production is a true copy of nature, but whether it
answers the end of art, which is to produce a pleasing
effect upon the mind \ . . . ‘I believe it may be considered
as a general rule that no art can be grafted with success
on another art 2. For though all profess the same origin,
and to proceed from the same stock, yet each has its own
peculiar modes, both of imitating Nature and of deviating
from it, each for the accomplishment of its own particular
purpose 5 3.

‘ I fear we (painters) have but very scanty means of
exciting those powers over the imagination which make
so very considerable a part of poetry. It is a doubt with
me whether we should even make the attempt. The
chief, if not the only, occasion which the painter has for
this artifice, is when the subject is improper to be more
fully represented either for the sake of decency, or to
avoid what would be disagreeable to be seen ; and this is
not to raise or to increase the passions, which is the reason

1 Works , i, 348, 4th Discourse. 2 See p. 304 of this work.

3 Works, ii, 73, 13th Discourse.

PREFACE 25

that is given for this practice, but, on the contrary, to
diminish their effect 5 h

‘ Invention in painting does not imply the invention of
the subject, for that is commonly supplied by the poet or
historian. With respect to the choice, no subject can be
proper that is not generally interesting. It ought to be
either some eminent instance of heroic action, or heroic
suffering. There must be something either in the action,
or in the object, in which men are universally concerned,
and which powerfully strikes upon the public sympathy ’1 2.

‘ It is not the eye, it is the mind which the painter of
genius desires to address ; nor will he waste a moment
upon those smaller objects which only serve to catch the
sense, to divide the attention, and to counteract his great
design of speaking to the heart. This is the ambition
which I wish to excite in your minds ; and the object I
have had in my view throughout this discourse is that one
great idea which gives to painting its true dignity, which
entitles it to the name of a liberal art, and ranks it as a
sister of poetry - 3.

‘Poetry operates by raising our curiosity, engaging the
mind by degrees to take an interest in the event, keep-
ing that event suspended, and surprising at last with an
unexpected catastrophe.

‘ The painter’s art is more confined, and has nothing
that corresponds with, or perhaps is equivalent to, this
power and advantage of leading the mind on till attention
is totally engaged. What is done by painting must be
done at one blow ; curiosity has received at once all the
satisfaction it can ever have ’ 4.

This was written in 1778.

In one respect Sir Joshua differed materially
from Lessing : he did not disapprove of allegorical
painting 6.

1 Works i, 460, 8th Discourse. 2 lb., 845, 4th Discourse.

3 lb., 340, 3rd Discourse. * ib., 439, 8th Discourse.

5 Ib., i, 420-1, 7th Discourse. Compare Fuseli’s Life, ii, 197.
See p. 112 of this work, where the following note would have been
better placed : ‘ Premettiamo, che di tre fatte esser posson gli Em-
blemi : poich6 alcuni sono, die dichiarano la natura, e la cagion delle
cose : e questi si diiamano Fiaici. Altri sono, che racchiudono
qualclie azione, o favolosa o vera, die sia: e questi si dicono Jstorici ,

sc 1’ azione fu vera ; o Mithilogici , se 1’ azione fu falsa. Altri tinal-

LAOCOON

It was in 1807 that John Opie read his lectures
to the Koyal Academy. He does not mention
Lessing, but he makes the following observations
on the arts of Poetry and Painting :

‘ Here, however, it will be proper to remark, that,
though from the acknowledged similarity in the principles
-and effects of these two arts, the one has been called mute
poesy , and the other speaking picture , such is still the very
great diversity in their modes and means of exerting their
powers, that the study of one can, at best, be considered
as a general only, and, not at all, as a technical help to
invention in the other : the roads they take, though
parallel, lie as entirely apart, and unconnected, as the
senses of hearing and seeing, the different gates by which
they enter the mind. The one operates in time, the other
in space ; the medium of the one is sound, of the other
colour ; and the force of the one is successive and cumula-
tive, of the other collected and instantaneous. Hence the
poet, in His treatment of a story, is enabled to bespeak the
reader’s favour by a graceful introduction, describing his
characters, relating what has already happened, and
showing their present situation ; and thus preparing him
for what is to come, to lead him on step by step with
increasing delight, to the full climax of passion and
interest ; whilst the painter, on the contrary, deprived of
all such auxiliary aid, is obligated to depend on the effect
of a single moment. That indeed is the critical moment
in which all the most striking and beautiful circumstances
that can be imagined are concentrated, big with suspense,
interest, passion, terror, and action ; in short, the moment
of explosion, which illuminates and brings at once into
view the past , present , and future , and which, when well
rendered, is often more than equivalent to all the
successive energies of the past.

‘ This contrariety in their means, in some degree,
separates and limits their fields of operation ; and (though
there are many subjects equally adapted to both arts)
calls, in general, for a different principle in the choice of

xnente a’ costumi s’ aspettano ; e si chiamano Ethici , o Morali *. II
Quadrio, Della Storia e Ragione d' ogni Poesia, Lib. ii, Dist. iii, vol.
iii, c. ix, part, v, p. 413.

PREFACE

them. The most striking beauties, as presented to one
sense, being frequently wholly untranslatable into the
language of another, it necessarily results that many
interesting passages in history and poetry are incapable of
affording more than a bald and insipid representation on
canvass ’ \

In 1813, Dr Copleston published at Oxford his
Praelectiones Academicae , in which the philosophy of
poetry is treated with the acumen, the grace of
style, and admirable Latinity which were among
the accomplishments of the distinguished writer.
The whole treatise was divided into four parts :
]Je Imitations, De Affectibus , De Phantasm , De Judicio.
In the first part he examined the propriety of call-
ing poetry an imitative art ; and, like Lessing, took
Homer2 for his example and authority, speaking of
his ingenii plusquam Prometheus ardor , by which he
had penetrated into the whole domain of nature.
The lectures contain a comparison of Poetry with
Painting — an enquiry, among other matters, into
the proper functions of each, with respect to de-
scription, embellished and supported by many
citations from the classics. No reference is to be
found to Lessing, and I think the Laocoon was
unknown to him.

Henry Fuseli, or Fuessli, a native of Switzerland,
came to England at an early age, and, encouraged
by Sir Joshua, devoted himself to painting in this
country. He died at the age of eighty-seven, in the
year 1 825. In 1803 he was elected Professor of Paint-
ing to the Royal Academy, an office of which he dis-
charged the duties for twenty years. During this
period he published his Lect ures , which have obtained
considerable reputation. His English is not idio-

1 Opie’s Lectures on Painting (published 1800). Lecture II, read at
the Royal Academy, Feb. 23, 1807, pp. 61-3.

2 ‘ Atque ut omittam nunc dicere de variis scribendi formis, quales
sunt Epica Lyrica Dramatica aut de styli varietate, de ipsa re ac
materia videatnus, quantum inter partes sit discrimen quae sensibus
nostris oblectamentum pariunt. Quod ne in infinitum excurramus
JJnius Homeri finnandum est exemplo ’, etc. Prael. 2, p. 17.

LAOCOON

matie or pure, and is often turgid, but not without
force and fire. Of German he was a complete
master — one consequence of which was that, first of
English Professors of Painting, he did full justice
by name to Lessing’s Laocoon, upon the principles
of which his third lecture ‘ on Invention ’ is in great
measure founded. It opens with a reference to
Simonides and Plutarch, and observes

‘ that as Poetry and Painting resemble each other in
their uniform address to the senses, for the impression
they mean to make on our fancy, and by that on our mind,
so they differ as essentially in their materials and in their
modes of application, which are regulated by the diversity
of the organs which they address, ear and eye. Successive
action communicated by sound and tune are the medium of
poetry : form displayed in space and momentaneous energy
are the elements of painting 5 \

Professor Phillips succeeded to the chair of
Fuseli in 1824, and in one of his very eloquent
lectures shows himself to have been imbued with
the principles of the Laocoon , though he does not
refer to the work, and probably knew them only
through the medium of F useli’s Lecture on Invention .

‘ It is scarcely possible ’, Phillips says, ‘ to consider the
quality and the object of invention, as employed by the
painter, without reference to its influence in poetry.
There is an unity of object in the minds of the poet and
the painter, which gives a near degree of affinity to the
arts they profess when employed upon the illustration of
history or the productions of fancy ; they differ only in
their varied means. One spirit actuates them, one power
directs them to the same end ; their course only is differ-
ent, as are the agents through whose means they act upon
the different organs of our senses, the eye, and the ear.

‘ The greatest and most important effort required of
invention in either of those arts, is the selection of that
which best relates, adorns, and elevates the subject
chosen ; or the separation of that which is essential,

1 Fuseli, J Forks, vol. iii, pp. 133-4 ; ed. Knowles, 1831.

PEEFACE 29

which gives vitality to it from the ordinary matter
accompanying all mundane things.

‘Under what regulation the painter or the poet may
select from among these visions of his imagination which
are calculated to elevate, or to give to his subject the
air of ideal character, or of refinement demanded by his
fancy, remains a matter of taste ; but one thing is clear,
the basis of his means for the fulfilment of his desire
must be sought for on earth, and he must elevate the
matter as he may ; with constant reference to nature. A
character understood by human beings must be main-
tained in the vision ; and, however small the portions,
it will be the leading principle in the mind of the reader
of the poem, or the observer of the picture.

‘ Though both the poet and the painter are confined in
their compositions to this principle of reference to nature,
the poet is infinitely the most unrestrained of the two.
The instrument he employs, and the organ he addresses,
require far less of materiality than is demanded of the
painter ; and numberless are the instances in which the
privilege has been successfully indulged ’ 1.

During the last half century a knowledge of
German has become very general in this country.
Mr Lewes 2 says 4 Macaulay told me that the read-
ing of this little book (the Laocoon) formed an
epoch in his mental history, and that he learned
more from it than he had ever learned elsewhere ’.

3. The Laocoon was translated into English by
Mr Eoss in 1836. Mr De Quincey’s eloquent
paraphrase of a part of the Laocoon will be found
in the twelfth volume of his works. Mr Beasley’s
translation appeared in 1859, and one by an
American lady, Miss Froth ingham, appeared first
in Boston, and afterwards in London, during this
year 3.

That there are still in tins country many edu-
cated persons capable of appreciating the Laocoon ,
but reluctant to take the trouble of reading it in
German, I am satisfied. Not long ago I suggested

1 Phillips’s Lectures on Painting (1S33), pp. 194-100.

2 Life of Goethe, p. 57. 3 1874.

LAOCOON

the perusal of a German book to a highly educated
man, adding, 4 1 suppose you read German ? ’. He
said, 4 Yes, but I prefer reading a translation \ It
may, indeed, be not unreasonably asked why another
English translation should appear ? To which the
answer must be, however unsatisfactory, that I
had nearly finished this translation before I could
obtain a copy of Mr Beasley’s work, and quite
finished it before the American translation reached
me : and it seemed to me that a translation with a
preface and notes, and which was not confined to
the first part of the Laocoon , but included the frag-
ments of the unfinished parts, which have not yet,
I believe, been translated into English, might still
be acceptable to the public, and conduce in a
humble degree to a better acquaintance with
Lessing’s great work. I hope I have not incurred
the censure of Don Quixote, and shown, as he says
bad translators are apt to do, the wrong side of the
tapestry \

Section IY

1. Poetry in its relation to the Drama, ITamburgische Dramaturgic ;

2. Poetry in its relation to Music.

1. Lessing might have been satisfied that he had
laid down sound sfesthetical principles on the re-
spective boundaries of Poetry and Painting when
he published his essay on the Laocoon ; but he
knew that he had not exhausted even this subject,
while he had left almost untouched others inti-
mately connected with it. First, poetry in the
form of the drama required a fuller consideration,
both generally and as compared with painting ;

i Don Quixote, t. iv, cap. cxv. 330 ; ed. Madrid, 1777. The German
edition of the Laocoon which I have used was published at Berlin,
1839.

PREFACE

secondly, these arts had not been treated in their
relation to, and in comparison with, the science of
sound and the art of music \

The defect as to the former subject was in a
great measure supplied by a very remarkable,
though now much forgotten, publication. The first
number of the Hamburgische Dramaturgie appeared
on the 1st of May 17671 2. It reached 104 numbers,
and the last appeared, I believe, on the 19th of
April 1768. The work consisted of weekly Papers
on the drama and dramatic literature published
at Hamburg. The title was taken from an Italian
work entitled Dramaturgia , written at the begin-
ning of the 16th century by Leo Allatius or Leoni
Alacci. In these vigorous essays Lessing let loose
all his wrath against the French dramatists and
the French stage3. If tragedy was the highest
form of dramatic poetry, by that standard the
French, he maintained, had no theatre. He treated
with merciless severity the pretensions of Voltaire,
then the unworthy idol of Europe, to be an his-
torian, or a dramatic poet ; and he maintained that
the principle upon which Corneille wrote tragedy
was thoroughly rotten and false 4. He threw over
with might and main the French worship of the
three unities of place, time, and action, and con-
fined, with a vehemence which went perhaps beyond
its mark, the drama within the unity of action 5.
He dwelt on the extraordinary merits and genius
of Shakespere. But he did more. ‘The Laocoon
is the work ’ (says Gervinus) 6 ‘ which by one blow

1 ‘Dry den’s Musical Pictures.’

2 Goedeke, Grundriss 2. Gesch. d. deutschen Dichtung , 2. 615. 16.

3 Stahr’s Lessing , 324, Kap. 5. 4 Stahr, 338.

5 It is remarkable that neither Manzoni, in his admirable letter to
Monsieur Chauvet, ‘Sur l’unite de temps et de lieu dans la Tragedie’,
nor Goethe in his approving reviews of Manzoni’s Carmagnola and
Adelchi, should refer to Lessing’s Dramaturgie ; Manzoni’s proposi-
tion being that unity of action was alone necessary ( Opere , <$v. di

Manzoni , p. 95, Paris, 1843). Goethe, Werke , 38. 253. 305. Goethe
speaks, however, of the principle as well known in Germany.

<> Gesch. der deutschen Lit. 4. 399.

LAOCOON

set us free from the yoke of French bondage, and
which called forth the energy, the life, and the
depth of our national literature. It was the polar
star of the future poets of Germany \

At present we are only concerned with these
essays in their relation to the Laocoon. ‘If you
wish’, observes Gurauer1, ‘to find a parallel in the
former works of Lessing to the Dramaturgic, both
with respect to the form and the depths of the
discussions, the Laocoon presents itself to you for
this purpose. As the laws of the plastic arts and
of poetry, especially of epic poetry, were in the
Laocoon the object of his inquiry, so in the Drama-
turgic are the laws of dramatic poetry, especially
of tragedy’. The transition from the one to the
other was natural. In the same way as there is no
formal proposition of the schools laid down as the
basis of the Laocoon, from which laws and ideas
arose in a complete symmetrical system, inasmuch
as they arose from the consideration of a single
work of art, and wandered into various paths in
order to arrive at general results ; so the Drama-
turgic was not intended to be a teacher’s book on a
dramatic system ; but certain pieces, not always
the best, considered together, were examined and
used for the purpose of throwing light upon certain
contested or obscure questions without arriving at
a complete resolution of them. But they were to
be considered only as thoughts, the chief value of
which was to stimulate the reader to think for
himself. Nevertheless, the course taken by the
critic was different in the two works.

4 In the Laocoon his principal object was to discover the
law of the plastic arts— first as compared with Poetry by
speculative abstractions, chiefly taken from Homer and
the principal works of antiquity. This wTas not the
object of the Dramaturgic. Lessing was of opinion that
the codex dramaticus was not to seek, but was found ; it

i P. 170.

PREFACE

existed in the Poetics of Aristotle. Lessing had no rever-
ence for merely great names or consecrated authorities.

1 6 If that were all ”, he said1, “ I would make short work of
Aristotle 55 ; but it is because his canons and propositions
as to the drama exactly agreed with those of Lessing ;
because, after studying the drama for many years, he was
convinced that you could not take a step in an opposite
direction from the rules of Aristotle’s Poetics without
taking a step in the opposite direction to perfection.
Pointing with his finger, as it were, to Shakespere, Lessing
laid down in his Dramaturgic canons for the German
drama, even as in his Laocoon he had furnished canons for
the theory and practice of art and poetry. Laocoon
sufficed for the latter ; Homer and Milton, Sophocles and
Shakespere, for the former

2. Now as to the second point, namely, the relation
of Music to Poetry. Herder, who trembled unneces-
sarily for the fate of all lyrical and epic poetry, as
undermined by the principles of the Laocoon2, wrote
upon this work his first important criticism ; and
complained of the want in it of a comparison and
juxtaposition of Music and Poetry.

He did not know that Lessing intended to deal
fully with this theme — which he afterwards touched
upon in his Dramaturgic — in the second part of his
Laocoon, for which we have only a few notes, and
‘with a depth and comprehensiveness’, says one of
his biographers 3, ‘ which Herder never imagined \
It appears, from an anecdote related by Gurauer,
that Lessing was not able to endure a musical per-
formance of any length, especially of sonatas, and
that, after a certain time, he was obliged to rush
out into the air in order to breathe freely. How
far, if at all, this curious physical fact in his consti-
tution might have influenced his opinion on the
subject we cannot tell, but there are many reasons
for lamenting that Lessing never completed his

1 lb. 171. 2 Gurauer, ii, 76.

3 Stahr, ii, 347. See also Gurauer, ii, 3 47 ; i, 12, 67, and see pp. 816-
20 of this work.

LAOCOOIST

Laocoon ; and especially we must regret that we
are deprived of a treatise by him on the relation of
music to poetry and the plastic arts.

He well knew that an investigation of the com-
mon bond which united them all was one of the
most interesting subjects of philosophy, both with
respect to its moral results and to the mutual
working and influence of each art upon the other.
He knew too, and perhaps this was his peculiar
merit, that the subject ought to be considered not
merely as a cold abstraction, but in its relation to
daily actual life ; the finest needs of which had
called the arts into existence, and made them one
of the noblest vocations of man.

He knew that from a keen perception and critical
observance of their mutual affinities had been
derived the doctrine both of the beautiful and the
ideal, which had animated the unrivalled creations
of the great philosophers, poets, and artists of
Greece, and led to a recognition of a divine origin
in the inspirations of Homer and Pindar.

He knew how important a part in the education
and elevation of man the art of music had played,
not only in the wide signification which it obtained
among the ancients, but in the much narrower and
more restricted signification of modern times ; and
though he could hardly have anticipated the posi-
tion which it has assumed in the present system of
education, he would scarcely have approved of the
statement that ‘music, as distinguished from the
various rude attempts of the past, is only about
400 years old ’ K

The great Italian work by Doni 2, written about
the beginning of the seventeenth century, has been
said, by competent authority, to have sounded the
depths of ancient Greek music, both theoretical and
practical, vocal and instrumental, and to have
brought to light and compared every classical

1 Music and Morals , by Rev. H. R. Haweis, 9.

2 Tiraboschi, Storia della Lett. Ital. vol. viii, pp. lvi. lvii.

PBEFACE

authority upon the subject. Nevertheless it is
probable that a treatise by Lessing on the science
of sound and the art of music would have given us
another occasion for admiring his immense erudi-
tion, the vigour of his criticism, and the clearness
of his conclusions, while he brought to our know-
ledge, in his own way and after his own fashion,
what Aristotle, Plato, Cicero, Quintilian, Aristides
Quintilian, and St Augustine, had said upon the
subject ; and not only with respect to antiquity,
but with regard to modern times, he would have
known how ‘to clear the whole matter with good
distinctions and decisions’ h

We should have had the advantage of his great
critical faculty in the investigation and apprecia-
tion of the theories of modern writers, so far as they
had then been developed. He would have passed in
review before us opinions of Doni, Martini, Webb,
Harris, Du Bos, upon the once much vexed question
as to whether and to what extent music is to be
considered as an imitative art ; he would have
dwelt upon the distinction between the power of
music to affect the mind by direct and by indirect
imitation, and especially with reference to the
difference in this respect between vocal and instru-
mental music. We should have had his opinion
upon the propositions of Webb2, which were prob-
ably suggested by Mengs, that while painting and
sculpture produce their effect simply as imitative
arts, music has the double character of an art of
impression as well as of imitation, that the passions
are to be traced by their internal movement, or
external signs, that the musician first catches the
movement of the passions as they spring from the
soul, the painter waits till they take the form of
action, the poet possesses the advantages of both
and embraces in his imitations the movement and
the effect. And then what illustrations he would

1 Bacon, Of Church Controversies .

2 On Poetry and Music , p. 28.

LAOCOON

have drawn from Shakspere, whom he so thoroughly
appreciated, and who is pre-eminently the poet of
music.

There is one portion of this subject on which we
should have listened with especial interest to his
remarks, namely, the origin and progress of those
theatrical representations in which the charms of
music and poetry were intended to be combined.
He who knew Milton so well might have taken for
the text of his lectures on this subject

And ever against eating cares,

Lap me in soft Lydian airs,

Married to immortal verse,

Such as the meeting soul may pierce
In notes, with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out,

With wanton heed, and giddy cunning,

The melting voice through mazes running,

Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony.

What would he have said upon this ‘marriage5 of
Music and Poetry as shown in the gorgeous repre-
sentations which arose out of the prodigious magni-
ficence of the Medici feasts at Florence, towards the
end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seven-
teenth century, and which offered to Italy ‘the
first apparition of a new art V \ This music, founded
upon a careful study of the treatises of Greek music
brought into Italy after the capture of Constanti-
nople, faithfully noted the accent, the quantity,
without symmetrical rhythm or regular measure,
and was in fact a declamation rendered more
pathetic by appreciable sounds and vocal charms ;
this ‘ canto recitativo ‘ chant recitatif 5, eventually
losing its adjective, became, as a substantive, the
‘ recitative 5 of the then new Italian opera 2.

It would have been interesting to hear his opinion
on the probable future effect of this class of musical

1 Gingu6ne, pt. 6, ch. xxvi.

2 Della Storia e della Ragione d ’ ogni Poesia , etc., di F. S. Quadrio,
vol. v, p. 427, lib. iii, Dist. iv, cap. 1. Dove dell ’ Origine e delV Anti -
chitd del Musicali Drammi si parla ; ed. Milano, 1744.

PREFACE

representation on poetry. Would he have fore-
stalled the opinion of great modern critics ? Would
he have foreseen that this music would end in de-
basing poetry, and, having been her handmaid,
would become her tyrannical mistress 1 ; and that
‘the poet would be hampered by the composer and
the composer by the poet ? ’ 2. That poetry and music
were both great arts, but greater alone than in
company? Or would he have pronounced their
union happy and natural, their separation unhappy
and unnatural? Would he have agreed with Du
Bos that music was invented to give increased force
to poetry ? 3.

Then, as to the imitative character of music,
would he have said, with Harris4, that the genuine
charm of music, and the wonders which it works,
are due, not to its powers of imitation, which lie
within a narrow range and are of little comparative
efficacy, but to its power of raising the affections ;
and that the ideas of the poet make the most sensible
impressions when the affections to which he appeals
have been already excited by music? It is then
that he

pectus inaniter angit,

Irritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implet,

Ut magus 5

It seems to me most probable that he would have

1 Hallam, ii, 153. 2 Haweis, 28.

3 * II nous reste & parler de la Musique, comme du troisi^me des
moyens que les homines ont inventes pour donner une nouvelle force
a la Poesie, et pour la mettre en 6tat de faire sur nous une plus grande
impression. Ainsi que le Peintre imite les traits et les couleurs de la
nature, de mdme le Musicien imite les tons, les accens, les soupirs, les
inflexions de voix, enfin tous ces sons, & l’aide desquels la nature nieme
exprime ses sentimens et ses passions. Tous ces sons, comme nous
l’avons d6j& expose ont une force merveilleuse pour nous emouvoir,
parcequ’ils sont les signes des passions, institu^s par la nature dont
ilsontreQU leur 6nergie ; au lieu que les mots articul6s ne sont que
des signes arbitrages des passions. Les mots articules ne tirent leur
signification et leur valeur que de l’institution des homines, qui n’ont,
pu leur donner couis que dans un certain pays’. Du Bos, Reflexions
critiques sur la Poksic et sur la Peintiirc, vol. i, pp. 406, 467.

4 Discourse on Music , Painting , and Poetry , pp. 99, 100.

5 Hor. Ep. 1. 1. 2.

LAOCOON

anticipated the more modern judgments on the
question whether music, by certain sounds alone,
moves the passions or affects the general mental
disposition, without presenting any distinct image
to the mind and without the aid of words ; and
that it was only in the ancient sense of music,
including within its wide scope a recitative in
language, and in connection with the drama, that
music could properly be called an imitative art 1.

Because, though music might imitate natural
sounds of the inanimate world, such as the Hail-
stone Chorus, the imitations of the wind, the
thunder, and the sea, by Handel, or sounds of the
animate world, such as the songs of birds, accord-
ing to Lucretius2, or of the human kind, like sounds
of j oy and grief and anguish ; yet these are imita-
tions of so secondary and subordinate a kind, when
compared with the great power of music in other
respects, as not to justify the application of the
term imitative to the art in general3.

It was early in the nineteenth century that Mr
Twining became acquainted, through a French
translation, with the Dramaturgic of Lessing, and,
in his own admirable translation of, and dissertation
upon, Aristotle’s poetry, Twining remarks upon the
many ‘excellent and uncommon things’ which
Lessing’s work contained, regretting that he had
not written a regular commentary upon Aristotle’s
works4. I think Lessing would have approved of
his admirer’s observation upon the present subject.

‘With respect to modern writers5, Twining says, ‘at
least, there seems to be a manifest impropriety in de-
nominating music an imitative art, while they confine the

1 For a very ingenious and learned disquisition on the sense in which
Aristotle in his Poetics used ulmo-ls, and the difference on this subject
between him and Plato, the reader is referred to a little tract, De
Mi Screws, etc., by G. Abeken, Gottingen, 1836.

2 ‘At liquidas avium voces imitarier ore’, etc. Lucret., lib. v, 1378.

3 Harris, j Discourse on Music , Painting , and Poetry , p. 68, note.

4 Twining’s Aristotle, Treat, on Poetry, with two Dissertations on

Poetical and Musical Imitations. Ed. 1812, p. xxxi.

PREFACE

application of the term imitative to what they confess to
he the slightest and least important of all its powers. In
this view consistency and propriety are, certainly, on the
side of Dr Beattie, when he would ‘ ‘ strike music off the
list of imitative arts 55 \ But, perhaps, even a farther
reform may justly be considered as wanting in our language
upon this subject. With whatever propriety, and how-
ever naturally and obviously, the arts both of music and
of poetry may be separately and occasionally regarded
and spoken of as imitative, yet, when we arrange and
class the arts, it seems desirable that a clearer language
were adopted. The notion that painting, poetry, and
music are all arts of imitation, certainly tends to produce,
and has produced, much confusion. That they all in
some sense of the word or other imitate, cannot be denied ;
but the senses of the word, when applied to poetry or
music, are so different both from each other, and from
that in which it is applied to painting, sculpture, and the
arts of design in general — the only arts that are obviously
and essentially imitative — that when we include them all,
without distinction, under the same general denomination
of imitative arts, we seem to defeat the only useful purpose
of all classing and arrangement ; and, instead of producing
order and method in our ideas, produce only embarrass-
ment and confusion ’ 2.

The common bond, if these remarks be just, which
unites Poetry, Painting, and Music, would not be
the principle of mere imitation, but the common
property which each art, properly cultivated, pos-
sesses of affecting the emotions, raising the imagi-
nation, and directing heart and mind to the
contemplation of the sublime’ 3.

‘ These arts in their highest province ’, says Sir
X Reynolds, ‘ are not addressed to the gross senses,
but to the desires of the mind, to that spark of
divinity which we have within, impatient of being
circumscribed and pent up by the world which is
about us’4.

l Op. at. p. 129. 2 ib., pp. 91-3.

3 See Gervinus, 4, 64, as to Breitinger’s, Lessing’s forerunner’s,
opinion on this point.

4 Vol. ii, 78 18th Discourse.

LAOCOON

Lessing would probably have admitted that music
was the universal language of man, but he would,
I think, have assigned to poetry, especially dramatic
poetry, pre-eminence over music as well as painting
— would have agreed with the modern author of the
Epilogue to Lessing’s Laocoon :

They speak ! the happiness divine
They feel, runs o’er in every line.

Its spell is round them like a shower ;

It gives them pathos, gives them power.

No painter yet hath such a way
Nor no musician, made, as they ;

And gather’d on immortal knolls
Such lovely flowers for cheering souls !

Beethoven, Raphael, cannot reach

The charm which Homer, Shakspeare, teach.

To these, to these, their thankful race
Gives, then, the first, the fairest place !

And brightest is their glory’s sheen,

For greatest has their labour been L

Section Y

1. Notice of some defects in Lessing ; 2. Lessing’s censure of descrip-
tive Poetry considered ; 3. Lessing’s account of himself.

1 . It is a defect in Lessing 2 not to have recognised
or understood the effect of Christian life and teach-
ing upon the art of Painting ; and the defect is the
more remarkable as with respect to the art of Poetry
he was fully aware of the merit of the romantic
poetry of Milton and Shakspere, as compared with
the classical poetry. To this defect is traceable a
certain hardness of tone, as if the standard of
ancient art was the only standard, a hardness which
by degrees Herder and Schiller softened and over-
came. They recognised the claims of the modern
or romantic school in poetry, architecture, painting
especially, and landscape painting, which latter
Winkelmann and Lessing greatly underrated, but

1 Poems by Matthew Arnold, p. 171.

2 Gurauer, ii, 67.

PREFACE 41

which the Kosmos of Humboldt restored to its
proper place.

Lessing makes, as it were, only one bound from
the age of the ancients to the age of the moderns.
He takes no cognizance of that long intervening
period which we call the Middle Ages. Yet in these
ages the seed of modern culture, art, and poetry
was sown. And for a long period pictures1 were
the books of the people, according to Gregory the
Great’s well-known remark, ‘ quod legentibus scrip-
tura, hoc idiotis praestat pietura cernentibus, etc’2.

The mediae val pictures as well as the mediaeval
religious edifices strove to attain expression of
sentiment as their highest, and indeed only, end.
And the mediaeval painter while he sought out this
end, out of regard to the common people clothed his
figures : he, moreover, introduced allegory into his
picture in order to teach the fact of Scripture
history.

2. One of the biographers of Lessing observes,
4 Since we have had Lessing’s Laocoon it has become
the A B C of poetry that the poet should not
paint’3. And it has no doubt been a common
remark that a death blow was given by Lessing to
what is called descriptive poetry4. Not the less
fatal a blow because he who dealt it had in his early
life written in praise of Thomson’s Seasons.

This seems to me to be an error. It is true that
a Dutch painter, to use the illustration of Lessing5,
will give a better idea of a flower by his picture of it
than a poet can do by descriptive verses, though even
this proposition with regard to a single object is not
universal. Mackintosh 0 asks what Chinese could
paint a butterfly better than Spenser :

1 ‘ Die alte Welt ist nicht schroff von der neueren gescliicden ’ :
* There is no abrupt line of severance between the old and the new
world ’ ; Humboldt observes, Kosmos, ii, 2(5.

2 S. Greg. Registr. Ejpist. lit. xi, Indict, iv, Ep. xiii, ed. Paris, 1705.

2 Stahr, 242.

4 Preface to Minna von Barnhe.hn, by Dr Bucliheim, p. 34.

0 P. 142. (> Mackintosh’s Memoirs, ii, 246.

LAOCOON

The velvet nap which on his wings doth lie,

The silken down with which his back is dight,

His broad outstretched horns, his hairy thighs.

His glorious colours, and his glistering eyes !

Take also this single image :

His station like the herald Mercury,

New lighted on a heaven kissing hill l.

Is John of Bologna better than this ?

But in any case it is not true that a painter can
always give a better representation of scenery,
whether at sea or on land, than a poet. And here
it must be observed that if the maxim were true it
would apply to all descriptions by words, whether
in prose or poetry.

The proposition is surely much too broadly stated.
That a mere catalogue or enumeration, even with
distinctive epithets, of a series of natural objects,
does not convey a picture to the mind, may be
safely maintained2. But the writer who makes a
happy choice of various natural objects, who,
grouping them so as the imagination shall represent
them, avails himself of his powers to bring them
forward in succession , may often surpass the painter,
who must exhibit his scene at once. Homer3, I
think, deserves Lucian’s title of being the best of
painters, whether of landscape or of sea, as of men
and actions ; though indignation of Pope’s false and
meretricious version, ascribing to Homer puny
epithets and descriptive words which he did not
employ, has given rise perhaps to a contrary
opinion.

I venture to offer some examples in poetry and
prose in support of my proposition. First as to
landscape. Take Homer’s unsurpassed moonlight
scene 4 :

O l dy€, fieya (ppoveovres, iirl tt roAegozo 7 €(pvpas
Emro Travvvx101' ^vpa 8e aepiai Kaiero TroWd.

1 Hamlet, act iii, sc. 4. 2 Copleston, Prael. iv. ; Twining, 44, etc.

3 See Ch. XI, Note 2, of this work. 4 r, © 549-55.

PREFACE

*,Qs 5’ #r’ 4v ovpaucS frarpa (paeivfy apcfl a’eX’fivrjV
•Pait'er’ apiirpeirea, ore r €tt\ ero VT)vep.os cu07?p,

3/E k r 4(pauev Tracrcu (TKOirial , real nrpwoves &Kpoi,

Kal vaivar ovpavoQev 8’ tip’ inreppayr] aenreros aiQ^p,

Tlavra 84 r etderai ’acrrpcv y4yrj0e 84 re (f>p4u a ‘Koip.'pv1 2.

Truly does Lessing say ‘All the masterpieces of
Homer were older than any masterpiece of art : for
Homer had looked at nature with the eye of a
painter long before Phidias and Apelles 7 2.

Take a scene which no Claude can rival, in which
Aeneas’s entrance into the Tiber is described by
Virgil3 :

Jamque rubescebat radiis mare, et aethere ab alto
Aurora in roseis fulgebat lutea bigis ;

Quum venti posuere, omnisque repente resedit
Flatus, et in lento luctantur marmore tonsae.

Atque hie Aeneas ingentem ex aequore lucum
Prospicit. Hunc inter fluvio Tiberinus amoeno,

Vorticibus rapidis, et multa flavus arena
In mare prorumpit. Variae circumque supraque
Assuetae ripis volucres et fluminis alveo
Aethera mulcebant cantu, lucoque volabant 4

1 Pope’s translation, with ‘ his swain blessing the useful light ’, is as
feeble as old Chapman’s is vigorous :

And spent all night in open field : fires round about them shined
As when about the silver moon, when air is free from wind,

And stars shine clear : to whose sweet beams high prospect and the
brows

Of all steep hills and pinnacles thrust up themselves for shows ;

And even the lowly vallejs joy to glitter in their sight,

And the unmeasured firmament bursts to disclose her light,

And all the signs in heaven are seen that glad the shejfiierd’s heart.

2 See Ch. XVIII, infra. 3 Virg., Aeneid, lib. vii, 25-34.

4 Now, when the rosy morn began to rise,

And wav’d her saffron streamer thro’ the skies,

When Thetis blush’d in purple, not her own,

And from her face the breathing winds were blown,

A sudden silence sat upon the sea,

And sweeping oars, with struggling, urge their way.

The Trojan, from the main, beheld a wood,

Which thick with shades, and a brown horror, stood :

Betwixt the trees the Tiber took his course,

With whirlpools dimpl’d ; and with downward force
That drove the sand along, he took his way
And roll’d his yellow billows to the sea.

LAOCOON

Similar features of natural beauty made a deep
impression on Columbus as be sailed along the coast
of Cuba, between the small Lucayan Islands and
the Jardinillos. This great man speaks of the
wonderful aspect of the vegetation, in which the
leaves and flowers belonging to each stem were
scarcely distinguishable, and of the rose-coloured
flamingoes fishing at the mouths of the rivers in the
early morning, and animating the landscape * 1.

Then as to the ocean. What painter can rival
Homer’s painting of the sea ? 2.

‘Hs 8' oV 4v alyLaXcS ttoXvtjx et KVfia 6a\da-(rrjs
vO pvvr eiracavrepov, Z eepvpov viroKwriaavros'

Y\6vtk> pikv Tcfc irpoora Kopv<T<rercu , avrhp <4n reira
Xepcrco priyvv/jLevov fieyaXa &p4/j.ei, a fi<p\ 84 t5 dupas
K vprbv 4bv Kopvcpovrai, aTTOTTTvei 8 ’ a\bs 3

Or take Virgil’s excellent copy4

Fluctus uti medio coepit cum albescere ponto,

Longius ex altoque sinum trahit : utque, volutus
Ad terras, immane souat per saxa, neque ipso
Monte minor prooumbit : at ima exaestuat unda
Vorticibus, nigramque alte subjectat arenam5

About him, and above, and round the wood,

The birds that haunt the borders of his flood,

That bathed within, or bask’d upon his side,

To tuneful songs their narrow throats applied.

Dryden’s Virgil , book vii, 35-49.

l Kosmos, ii, 56. % II., A 422.

3 And as when with the west wind flaws the sea thrusts up her

waves,

One after other, tlrck and high, upon the groaning shores :

First in herself loud, but opposed with banks and rocks, she roars,
And all her back in bristles set, spits everyway her foam.

Chapman.

4 Georg., iii, 237.

5 Not more with madness, rolling from afar,

The spumy waves proclaim the watery war,

And mounting upwards, with a mighty roar,

March onwards, and insult the rocky shore.

They mate the middle region with their height,

And fall no less than with a mountain’s weight ;

The waters boil, and belching from below,

Black sands, as from a forceful engine, throw. — Dryden.

PBEFA.CE

Magnificent as Homer’s storm is, I do not fear to
place Shakspere’s in comparison :

Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy’s eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge ;

And in the visitation of the winds,

Who take the ruffian billows by the top,

Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
With deafening clamours in the slippery clouds.

That, with the hurly, death itself awakes ? 1

Take a modern poet’s description 2 :

Loud hissed the sea beneath her lee — my little boat flew fast,

But faster still the rushing storm came borne upon the blast.

Lord ! what a roaring hurricane beset the straining sail !

What furious sleet, with level drift, and fierce assaults of hail !

What darksome caverns yawn’d before !, what jagged steeps behind I
Like battle steeds, with foamy manes, wild tossing in the wind,

Each after each sank down astern, exhausted in the chase,

But where it sank another rose and galloped in its place ;

As black as night — they turned to white, and cast against the cloud
A snowy sheet, as if each surge upturned a sailor’s shroud.

What painting can place such a picture of a sea-
storm before the mind as is placed by the descrip-
tion of these poets h

Turn to the gentler image of a landscape, possess-
ing all the picturesque features of which a cultivated
country is susceptible, and listen to Lucretius3 :

Inque dies magis in inontem succedere sylvas
Cogebant, infraque locum concedere eultis :

Prata, lacus, rivos, segetes, vinetaque laeta
Collibus, et campis ut haberent, atque olearum
Caerula distinguens inter plaga currere posset
Per tumulos, et convalleis, camposque profusa :

Ut nunc esse vides vario distineta lepore
Omnia, quae pomis intersita dulcibus ornant,

Arbustisque tenent felicibus obsita circum4

1 Henry IV, pt. II, act iii, scene 1.

2 Hood, The Demon Ship. 3 Lib. v, 1309-1377.

4 These beautiful lines are about to lose much of their charm in my
translation :

And day by day unto the mountain-top
The wood receded, and the valleys smiled
With culture. Meadows, pools and rivers,

Corn and glad vines, and olives with a band
Of grey-blue foliage climb, and mark their course

LAOCOON

Juvenal’s picture of the Egerian grot affords
another illustration* 1 :

In vallem Egeriae descendimus et speluncas
Dissimiles veris. Quanto praestantius esset
Numen aquae, viridi si margine clauderet undas
Herba, nec ingenuum violarent marmora tophum ? 2

So Ovid’s Valley and Cave of Diana3 :

Vallis erat, piceis et acuta densa cupressu,

Nomine Gargaphie, succinctae sacra Dianae ;

Cujus in extreme est antrum nemorale recessu,

Arte laboratum nulla ; simulaverat artem
Ingenio natura suo ; nam pumice vivo,

Et levibus tophis navitum duxerat arcum.

Fons sonat a dextra, tenui perlucidus unda,

Margine gramineo patulos incinctus hiatus.

Hie Dea silvarum, venatu fessa, solebat
Virgineos artus liquido perfundere rore 4

And again his Hymettus 5 :

Spread over knoll and valley. All around
Smiles with a varied grace, while flowering shrubs,
Apples, and fruit-trees beautify the ground.

1 Juvenalis Satirae, Sat. iii, 17.

2 Thence slowly winding down the vale, we view
The Egerian grots — ah, how unlike the true !

Nymph of the Spring ! more honour’d hadst thou been,

If, free from art, an edge of living green
Thy bubbling fount had circumscribed alone,

And marble ne’er profaned the native stone.

Gifford’s Juvenal , Sat. iii, 27.

3 Ovid, Met., lib. iii, 155.

4 Down in a vale with pine and cypress clad,

Refresh’d with gentle winds, and brown with shade
The chaste Diana’s private haunt there stood,

Full in the centre of the darksome wood,

A spacious grotto, all around o’ergrown
With hoary moss, and arch’d with pumice-stone
From out its rocky clefts the waters flow,

And trickling swell into the lake below.

Nature had everywhere so play’d her part,

That everywhere she seemed to vie with art.

Addison, in Garth’s Ovid, p. 357.

5 Ovid, Arte Amandi, lib. iii, 687-694.

Near, where his purple head Hymettus shews
And flow’ring hills, a sacred fountain flows,

With soft and verdant turf the soil is spread
And sweetly-smelling shrubs the ground o’ershade,

PREFACE

Est prope purpureos colles florentis Hymetti
Fons sacer, et viridi caespite mollis humus.

Silva nemus non aita facit ; tegit arbutus herbam,

Ros maris, et lauri, nigraque myrtus olent ;

Nec densae foliis buxi, fragilesque myricae,

Nec tenues cytisi, cultaque pinus abest.

Lenibus impulsae Zephyris auraque salubri
Tot generum frondes, herbaque summa tremunt.

I pass by the pictures to be found in the pastoral
epics of Theocritus and in the Greek Tragedians,
such as the picture of Colonos 1 in Sophocles, and
those in the Ion 2 and the Bacchae 3 of Euripides,
Aelian’s vale of Tempe,4 with the detailed de-
scription of natural scenery, in which he uses the
remarkable expressions, dLaypd\pcofj.eu Kal Bianxdo-cafjLGy,
depingamus atque effingamus : ‘ Let us paint and let
us mould \ For the Greeks5 6, though they did not
cultivate according to our modern ideas, as a distinct
branch of aesthetics, the art of describing natural
scenery, though they had not the counterpart of
our word ‘ picturesque 1 6, and were less occupied
with describing the phenomena of inanimate nature

There, rosemary and bays their odours join.

And with the fragrant myrtle’s scent combine,

There, tamarisks with thick-leav’d box are found,

And cytisus, and garden-pines, abound.

While thro’ the boughs, soft winds of Zephyr pass,

Tremble the leaves and tender tops of grass.

Dryden, in Garth’s Ovid.

1 Oed. Col. 668, etc. 2 Ion, 82.

3 Bacchae, 1045. 4 i. 191.

5 See the first and second chapters of the second volume of Hum-

boldt’s Kosmos.

6 ‘ The feelings of satisfaction which result from the joint energy of
the understanding and phantasy, are principally those of beauty and
sublimity ; and the judgments which pronounce an object to be
sublime , beautiful, &c., are called by a metaphorical expression Judg-
ments of Taste. These have also been styled JEsthetical Judgments ;
and the term cestlietical has now, especially among the philosophers of
Germany, nearly superseded the term taste. Both terms are unsatis-
factory. The gratification we feel in the beautiful, the sublime, the
picturesque, &c., is purely contemplative, that is, the feeling of
pleasure which we then experience, arises solely from the considera-
tion of the object and altogether apart from any desire of, or satisfac-
tion in, its possession’. Sir W. Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics:
Lect. XLVI. Compare Sir J. Reynolds, vol. ii, 78, end of 13th
Discourse.

LAOCOON

than the actions and passions of men1, were not, as
has been vulgarly supposed, wanting in sensibility
to the charms of nature. It is true that the
Christian, dwelling on the greatness and goodness
of the Creator, who has made ‘ all nature beauty to
the eye and music to the ear’, delighted in those
descriptions of that beauty which are to be found
in the works of the early Greek Fathers.

The sensibility to natural beauty was of later
growth among the Latins than the Greeks, and.
scarcely appeared before the poets and writers of
the Augustan age. Yirgil and Lucretius and Ovid
have been cited. Ovid abounds in passages of
picturesque description ; and though such passages
are rare in the prose writers of Eome as of Greece,
many are to be found in the letters of Cicero. It
is hardly necessary to mention Pliny 2 ; but I do
not think his description of the Clitumnus could
be transferred to canvass, although it must be
admitted that when he describes, with great
minuteness of detail, the picturesque features of
his villa at Tusci, he sums it up, as it were, in one
sentence, saying it gives you the pleasure of a well
painted landscape3.

How wonderfully Poetry, Music, and Painting,
are all blended together, and all present to us, in
this one description of a midsummer night in these
lines :

1 Socrates tells Phaedrus that the country and trees do not teach
him anything, and that as a lover of knowledge he prefers men and
cities, 2vyytV<o<r/ce Se p. ot, to apurre* <Jn\op.a6r)<; yap etpu. ra p.e v ofiv
Xiopia, Kal ra Sej/Spa ovSeu /a’ e0e'A.ei SiSacnceii/, oi 8’ ev tw acrret avdpu) ttoi.
(Platonis Opera, ed. Stalbaum, vol. iv, p. 20, D. Phaedrus.) dhe
banished Duke in As You Like It had another philosophy :

And this our life, exempt from public haunt,

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones, and good in everything. — Act ii, sc. 1.

2 Lib. viii, Epist. ix.

s ‘ Magnam capies voluptatem si hunc regionis situm ex monte pro-
spexeris. Neque enim terras tibi, sed formam aliquam, ad eximiam
pulchritudinem pictam videberis cernere ; ea varietate ea descripticne
quocumque inciderint oculi, reficiuntur \ Lib. v, Ep. vi, 13.

PREFACE

And bring your music forth into the air.

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank !*

Here \* ill we sit, and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears ; soft stillness and the night.

Become the touches of sweet harmony.

Sit, Jessica : Look, how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold 1.

No painting could describe the Dover cliff like
Edgar2, though in this marvellous passage the
power of delineating natural beauty is less remark-
able than the power of describing the height so
as to make the brain of the reader dizzy. Not less
power does Imogen, enquiring after her husband’s
departure, exhibit of painting in words the vanish-
ing point of distance. In all these instances, especi-
ally the two last, the poet reaps the full advantage
of his successive description over the moment of the
painter.

One more example. The encampment of the
hosts before the day of battle may be fraught with
circumstances of which the painter may avail
himself : but could he paint what follows ?

From camp to camp, through the foul womb of night,

The hum of either army stilly sounds ;

That the fixt sentinels almost receive
The secret whispers of each other’s watch :

Fire answers fire ; and through their paly flames
Each battle sees the other’s umbered face ;

Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs
Piercing the Night’s dull ear ; and from the tents
The armourers, accomplishing the knights,

With busy hammers closing rivets up,

Give dreadful note of preparation 3.

The picturesque descriptions in the Paradise Lost
are familiar to the reader of Milton ; in them, indeed,
many principles of modern landscape, in which art
imitates, cultivates, and improves nature, are to be
found. The subject is a very large one, and the
temptation to enter more at length upon it must be
resisted 4. The English writers in prose offer many

1 Merchant of Venice , act v, sc. 1. 2 See p. 324.

2 Henry the Fifth , act ir : Chorus.

4 I abstain from noticing the pictures in Italian Poetry and tho
Lusiad of Cainoens, so much esteemed by Humboldt, Kosmos , 2, 1.

LAOCOON

illustrations of the position for which I am con-
tending, but I will confine myself to an extract
from the prose of that great painter in prose and
poetry, Sir Walter Scott. His novels abound in
passages of the highest picturesque merit. Often
what appears as a single picture in his description,
cannot be represented on canvass otherwise than
by a series of paintings, and then with a loss of
effect.

Take for example the following extract from the
first chapter of Ivanhoe :

The sun was setting upon one of the rich grassy glades
of that forest which we have mentioned in the beginning
of the chapter. Hundreds of broad short-stemmed oaks,
which had witnessed perhaps the stately march of the
Roman soldiery, flung their broad gnarled arms over a
thick carpet of the most delicious green sward : in some
places they were intermingled with beeches, hollies, and
copsewood of various descriptions, so closely as totally to
intercept the level beams of the sinking sun : in others
they receded from each other, forming those long sweep-
ing vistas, in the intricacy of which the eye delights to
lose itself, while imagination considers them as the paths
to yet wilder scenes of sylvan solitude. Here the red rays
of the sun shot a broken and discoloured light, that par-
tially hung upon the shattered boughs and mossy trunks
of the trees, and then they illuminated in brilliant patches
the portions of turf to which they made their way. A
considerable open space, in the midst of this glade, seemed
formerly to have been dedicated to the rites of Druidical
superstition ; for on the summit of a hillock, so regular as
to seem artificial, there still remained part of a circle of
rough unhewn stones, of large dimensions. Seven stood
upright ; the rest had been dislodged from their places,
probably by the zeal of some convert to Christianity, and
lay, some prostrate near their former site, and others on
the side of the hill. One large stone only had found its
way to the bottom, and in stopping the course of a small
brook, which glided smoothly round the foot of the
eminence, gave, by its opposition, a feeble voice of murmur
to the placid and elsewhere silent streamlet. The human

PREFACE 51

figures which completed this landscape were in number
two \

One more example from the opening of a chapter
in The Heart of Midlothian :

If I were to chuse a spot from which the rising or setting
sun could be seen to the greatest possible advantage, it
would be that wild walk winding around the foot of the
high belt of semi-circular rocks called Salisbury Craigs,
and marking the verge of the steep descent, which slopes
down into the glen, on the South-eastern side of the city of
Edinburgh. The prospect in its general outline commands
a close-built high-piled city, stretching itself out beneath
in a form which to a romantic imagination may be sup-
posed to represent that of a dragon ; now a noble arm of
the sea, with its rocks, isles, distant shores, and boundary
of mountains : and now a fair and fertile champaign
country, varied with hill, dale, and rock, and skirted by
the varied and picturesque ridge of the Pentland Moun-
tains. But as the path gently circles round the base of
the cliflfe, the prospect, composed as it is of these enchant-
ing and sublime objects, changes at every step, and presents
them blended with or divided from each other in every
possible variety which can gratify the eye and the imagin-
ation. When a piece of scenery so beautiful yet so varied,
so exciting by its intricacy and yet so sublime, is lighted
up by the tints of morning and evening, and displays all
that variety of shadowy depth exchanged with partial
brilliancy, which gives character even to the tamest of
landscapes, the effect approaches nearer to enchantment.

In these extracts the descriptive power of the
painter is, I think, surpassed. But there are many
other passages where the author is the rival of the
painter, such as the approach to the Baron of
Bradwardine’s Tully Veolan2, the return of Morton3
to Scotland by the winding descent which led to
Bothwell Castle and the Clyde, the spot in which
Rob Roy, the morning after his escape, spreads the
morning banquet for Osbaldistone 4.

1 Chap, i, p. 6. 2 Waverley , i, 74.

3 Old Mortality , 8. 108. * R0b Roy , 3. 280.

LAOCOON

My conclusion is, even from these scanty pre-
misses— but they might be very greatly increased
— that Lessing is mistaken in saying the poet,
whether he write in poetry or prose, ought not to
paint or describe natural scenery 1 ; that, on the
contrary, the poet may often rival and sometimes
surpass the painter even in this department of art.

3. It remains only to draw the reader’s attention
to Lessing’s estimate of his own powers : Lessing,
Gervinus says2, was not deceived about himself.
You may desiderate certain gifts in him : but the
use which he made of those he had is an everlasting

example to us He knew that he was a cold

thinker, that he had none of that enthuiasm which
he called the a/e/dz, the crown and blossom of the
fine arts, the want of which in a poet it would be a
sin to suspect. He makes this confession at the
close of his Dramaturgic , and resolves to devote his
intellect to science and criticism. Nevertheless,
adds Gervinus, let no man of mere sesthetical pur-
suits, or historian of literature venture, out of the
wisdom of his own conceit, to decide hastily against
Lessing ; let him be judged by his own never to be
forgotten words :

6 I am’ — such is his explanation — ‘neither an actor nor
a poet. People have often done me the honour of calling
me the latter : but only because they do not know what
I really am. It is by no means an inference to be drawn
from a few dramatic essays which I have attempted. Not
every one who takes a brush in his hand and lays on
colours is a painter. The earliest of these essays were
written in those years in which one mistook joyousness
and levity for genius. For whatever is tolerable in the
later essays I am well convinced I am entirely and alone
indebted to criticism. I do not feel the living spring
within me which works its way up by its own strength,
which by its own strength shoots out into such rich,
fresh, pure rays. I am obliged to squeeze everything out

1 See pp. 141, 143, 292.

2 Gesch. der deutschen Dichtung, 4. 348.

PEEFACE

of myself by pressure and conduit pipes. I should have
been so poor, so cold, so shortsighted, if I had not learnt
in some measure to borrow modestly from the treasures
of others, to warm myself at a stranger’s fire, and to
strengthen my vision by the glasses of art. I have there-
fore always been ashamed and vexed when I have heard
or read anything which found fault with criticism. It
ought to stimulate genius, and I flatter myself that I
have gained something from it which comes very near to
genius. I am a lame man who cannot p ssibly be edified
by a satire upon crutches. But of course I am aware
that crutches may help the lame to move, though they
cannot make him run and so it is with criticism ’.

LAOCOON

INTRODUCTION

The first person who compared Painting and
Poetry with each other was a man of fine feeling,
who perceived that both these arts produced upon
him a similar effect.

Both, he felt, placed before us things absent as I
present, appearance as reality. Both deceived, and t
the deceit of both was pleasing. A second person J
sought to penetrate into the inner nature of this
pleasure, and discovered that in both it flowed from
one and the same source. The beautiful, the notion
of which we first derive from corporeal objects, has
general rules applicable to various things ; to actions,
to thoughts, as well as to forms. A third person,
who reflected upon the value and upon the dis-
tribution of these general rules, remarked that some
of them had prevailed more in Painting and others
more in Poetry, and that with respect to the latter
rules, Poetry could be aided by the illustrations and
examples supplied by Painting ; with respect to
the former rules, Painting could be aided by the
illustrations and examples supplied by Poetry.

The first was an amateur; the second was a
philosopher; the third was a critic.

It was not easy for the two first to make a wrong
use either of their feeling or of their reasoning. On
the other hand, the principal force of the remarks
of the critic depends upon the correctness of their
application to the particular case, and it would be
astonishing, inasmuch as for one really acute, you

LAOCOON

will find fifty merely witty critics, if this application
had always been made with all the caution requisite
to hold the scales equal between the two Arts.
Apelles and Protogenes, in their lost writings upon
Painting confirmed and illustrated the rules relating
to it by the rules of Poetry, which had been already
established; so that we may be assured that in
them the same moderation and accuracy prevailed,
which at the present day we see in the works of
Aristotle, Cicero, Horace, and Quintilian, when they
apply the principles and experience of Painting to
Eloquence and to Poetry.

f It is the privilege of the Ancients in no one thing
" to do too much or too little.

But we moderns have often believed that in many
of our works we have surpassed them, because we
have changed their little byways of pleasure into
highways, even at the risk of being led by these
shorter and safer highways into paths which end in
a wilderness.

The dazzling antithesis of the Greek Voltaire,
that Painting is dumb Poetry, and Poetry eloquent
Painting, is not to be found in any rudimental
work. It was a smart saying, like many others of
Simonides, the true side of which is so brilliant that
we think it necessary to overlook the want of
precision and the falseness which accompany it.

But the Ancients did not overlook this ; for while
they confirmed the dictum of Simonides as to the
effect produced by both Arts, they did not forget to
inculcate that, notwithstanding the perfect simi-

(larity of this effect, these Arts differed, as well in
the object as in the manner of their imitations
(''TAt? Kai rpfaois fu/uLyiarecas) 1. Qm**'*4"

f ^Nevertheless, many of our most modern critics,
as if they were ignorant of any such distinction,
have said the crudest things in the world upon the
i harmony of Painting and Poetry.

At one time they compress Poetry within the
narrow* limits of Painting : at another time they

INTRODUCTION 57

make Painting fill the whole wide sphere of Poetry.
Whatever is the right of the one must be conceded
to the other. Whatever is in the one pleasing, or
unpleasing, must necessarily please or displease in
the other ; and full of this idea, they pronounce in
the most confident tone the most superficial judg-
ments, when, criticising the works of the Poet and
the Painter upon the same subject, they consider
the difference of treatment to be a fault, which
fault they ascribe to the one or the other accordingly
! as they happen to have more taste for Poetry or for
Painting.

This spurious criticism has partially corrupted
even the Virtuosos themselves. It has generated a
mania for pictorial description in Poetry, and for
allegorical style in Painting ; while it was sought
to render the former a speaking Picture, without
really knowing what could and ought to be painted ;
and the latter a mute poem ; not having considered
how far general ideas are susceptible of expression
without departing from their proper end, and
without falling into a purely arbitrary style of
phraseology.

To oppose this false taste, and to counteract these
unfounded opinions, is the principal object of the
following observations.

They have arisen casually, and have grown to
their present size rather in consequence of the
course of my reading than through any methodical
development of general principles. They are rather
irregular collectanea for a book, than a book. Yet, I
flatter myself that, even as such, they will not be
wholly despised. We Germans have no lack of
systematic treatises. We know, as well as any
nation in the world, how, out of some granted
definition, to arrange all that we want to arrange
in the very best order.

Baumgarten acknowledged that he was indebted
to Gesner’s Dictionary for the greater portion of
his examples in his treatise on Aesthetics. If my

LAOCOON

raisonnement is not as conclusive as Baumgarten’s,
at least my examples will savour more of the
fountain head.

As I set out from Laocoon, and often return to
him, I have thought it right to give him a share in
the title of the work. As to other little digressions
upon several points, of the ancient history of the
Arts, they contribute little to my main object, and
they are only allowed to remain here because I
cannot hope to find a better place for them
elsewhere.

I should also mention that under the name of
Painting I include generally the plastic Arts ; and
I do not deny that under the name of Poetry I may
also have had some regard to the other Arts which
have the characteristic of progressive imitation.

CHAPTER I

Winkelmann considers that the characteristics
of general excellence, which are to be found in
the masterpieces of Greek painting and sculpture,
consist of a noble simplicity: and quiet grandeur as t
well in their attitude as in their expression. •

As the depths of the sea, he says1, always remain at
rest, let the surface rage as it will, even so does the ex-
pression in the Greek figures show through all suffering f
a great and calm soul. This soul is pourtrayed in thej
countenance of Laocoon, and not in the countenance alone,
notwithstanding the intense severity of his suffering.
The pain which discovers itself in all the muscles and
sinews of the body, and which from these only, without
considering the face and other parts, we seem to perceive
in the agonised expression of the belly alone ; this pain,

I say, expresses itself nevertheless without any torture
in the face or in the general position. He utters no I
horrible scream as Virgil’s verse makes his Laocoon utter : 1
the opening of his mouth does not show this : it is rather |
a subdued groan of anguish, as Sadolet2 describes it.
Pain of body and greatness of soul are distributed with
equal strength throughout the whole figure and in equal
proportions. Laocoon suffers, but he suffers like the
Philoctetes of Sophocles : his misery touches our very |
souls ; but we desire to be able to bear suffering as this j
great man bears it.

The expression of so great a soul goes far beyond a
representation of natural beauty. The Artist must have
felt in himself the strength of the soul which he has
impressed upon his marble. Greece had artists and
philosophers blended in one person, and more than one
Mctrodorus3. Philosophy gave her hand to Art, and
breathed into the forms of it no common soul, etc.

The observation which lies at the foundation of
this theory, namely, that pain does not show itself I
59 '

LAOCOON

in the countenance of Laocoon with that furious
vehemence, which from the intensity of it we should
expect, is perfectly true. It is also indisputable
that in this respect where a man of half knowledge
would pronounce that the Artist had not attained
to nature and had not reached the true pathos of
suffering : in this very respect, I say, the wisdom of
the observation is most clearly manifest.

It is only as to the fundamental reason on which
Winkelmann founds this wise observation, and as
to the generality of the rule which. he extracts from
this fundamental reason that I venture to differ
,from him.

I confess that the unfavourable side glance which
he casts upon Virgil startled me at first, and in the
next place the comparison with Philoctetes. From
this I will take my point of departure, and write
down my thoughts in the order in which they have
been developed.

4 Laocoon suffers like the Philoctetes of Sophocles’.
How does he suffer ? It is strange that his suffer-
ings have left so different an impression upon us.
The lamentations, the screams, the wild curses with
which his pain filled the camp, and disturbed all
the sacrifices, all the holy acts, resounded no less
dreadfully in the desert island, and were the cause
of his being banished to it. What tones of dejection,
misery, and despair, with the imitation of which the
Poet caused the theatre to resound. The third Act
of this piece has been discovered to be much shorter
than the others ; a plain proof, say the critics4, that
the Ancients troubled themselves very little about
the equal length of the Acts 5. That I too believe ;
but I should prefer to found my belief upon another
example. The piteous exclamations, the moaning,
the broken off & & </>e0 <xtt aral & fioi /aol ; whole lines
full of Traira iraira, of which this Act consists, and
which must have been declaimed with other pro-
longations and pauses than would be needed for a
continuous reading, have, in the representation of

CHAPTER I

this Act, doubtless caused it to continue as long as
the others. It appears much shorter on paper to
the reader than it would have appeared to the
spectators.

To scream is the natural expression of bodily pain.
Homer’s wounded warriors not unfrequently fall
with a scream to the earth. The wounded Venus
screams loudly, — not in order that by this scream
she may appear as the soft goddess of pleasure, but
rather to give her a right to a suffering nature 6.

| For even the brazen Mars, when he felt the lance of
!,; Diomede, shrieks as dreadfully as ten thousand
raging warriors would shriek at once — so dreadfully
that both armies were terrified 7.

High as Homer exalts his heroes above human
nature, yet they remain true to it whenever there
is a question of the feeling of anguish or suffering,
or of the expression of that feeling by screams or
tears or invectives. In their deeds they are creatures
of a higher kind ; in their feelings they are true
men.

I am aware that we, the refined Europeans of a
wiser posterity, know how to command better our
mouths and our eyes. High breeding and decency
forbid screams and tears. The active courage of
the first rough ages of the world has been changed,
in our day, into the courage of suffering. Yet even
our forefathers were greater in the latter than in
the former. But our forefathers were barbarians.
To suppress all expression of pain, to meet the
stroke of death with unchanged eye, to die smiling
under the asp’s bite, to abstain from bewailing our
sins or the loss of our dearest friend, are traits of
the old hero courage of the Northmen 8. Talnatako
laid down a law to his Gomsburgers that they
should fear nothing, and that the word fear should
not once be named amongst them.

Not so the Greek ! He had feelings and fear ; he
uttered his anguish and his sorrow ; lie was ashamed
of no mortal weakness ; none ought to withhold him

LAOCOON

from the path of honour or the fulfilment of his
duty. What the barbarian derived from savageness
and from being inured to hardship, principle pro-
duced in the Greek. In him heroism was like the
concealed sparks in the flint, which sleep in peace
so long as no external force awakens them9, and
which do not take from the stone either its clearness
or its coldness. In the barbarian, heroism was a
bright devouring flame which was always raging,
and devoured, or at least obscured, every other
good quality he possessed. When Homer leads the
Trojans with a wild shout, and the Greeks, on the
other hand, in deliberate stillness to the battle, the
commentators justly remark that by the former
the poet intended to represent the barbarians, by
the latter the people of civilisation. I am surprised
that they have failed to notice a like opposition of
character in another passage10. The rival hosts
have agreed to a suspension of arms ; they are
busied with the burning of their dead, which does
not take place without many hot tears, daupva 6ep/ici
X^oyres. But Priam forbids his Trojans to weep,
ov8 5 efa KXaie'lv Tlpiaiuos fieyas. He forbids them to
weep, says Madame Dacier, because he is afraid that
they would enfeeble themselves, and on the morrow
combat with diminished fury. Well, but I ask
myself, why must Priam alone feel this anxiety ?
Why does not Agamemnon give the same prohibi-
tion to his Greeks ? The meaning of the poet lies
deeper. He wishes to teach us that only the civil-
ised Greeks can at the same time weep and be bold :
while the uncivilised Trojan cannot weep without
having first stifled his manhood. N efiecraw/uai ye p.ev
ovhev KXaie'iv he makes, in another place, the discreet
son of the wise Nestor say n.

It is remarkable that out of the few Tragedies
which have come to us from antiquity, there are
only two in which bodily pain is not the least part
of the misfortune which affects the suffering hero.
Besides Philoctetes there is the dying Hercules.

CHAPTER I

He also is made by Sophocles to complain, whine,
weep, and scream. Thanks to our clever neighbours,
those masters of the 4 convenable ’, no longer can a
whining Philoctetes, a screaming Hercules, those
most ridiculous and intolerable personages appear
on the stage. It is true that one of their latest
Poets has ventured on a Philoctetes. But would he
venture to show us a real Philoctetes ? 12.

Laocoon himself is mentioned among the plays of
Sophocles. If fate had only spared us this Laocoon !
From the slight notices of some old Grammarians
we cannot draw any inference as to how the Poet
treated this subject ; of this I am assured, that he
would not have described Laocoon as more stoical
than Philoctetes and Hercules. Everything stoical
is unsuited to the stage, and our sympathy is always
proportioned to the suffering wdiich the object of
interest expresses. If we observe that he bears
suffering with a great soul, this great soul will, it is
true, awaken our wonderment ; but wonderment is a
cold affection : the inert amazement produced by it
is excluded by every warmer passion, as well as by
every more distinct representation of the idea.

And now I come to jny_conclusion. If it be true \
that the cry which arises fromTHe sensation of bodily
suffering, especially according to the old Greek '
fashion of thinking, may well consist with a great
soul, then the outward" expression of such a soul
cannot be the cause why — notwithstanding it— the
artist should not imitate in his marble this cry ;
but there must be another cause why, in this respect,
lie differs from his rival the Poet, who has very good
reasons for expressing this cry.

CHAPTEE II

Be it fable or history that Love caused the first
attempt of the creative Art, thus much is certain,
that it was never weary of assisting the great old
Masters ; for although now the scope of Painting is
enlarged so as to be more especially the art which
imitates bodies upon flat surfaces, yet the wise Greek
placed it within much narrower limits and confined
it to the imitation of beautiful bodies. His Painter
painted nothing but the beautiful ; even the com-
mon type of the beautiful, the beautiful of an in-
ferior kind, was to him only an accidental object
for the exercise of his practice and for his recreation.
The perfection of the object itself must be the thing
which enraptures him : he was too great to require
of those who contemplated him that they should be
content with the cold satisfaction arising from the
sight of a successful resemblance, or from reflection
upon the skill of the artist producing it ; to his Art
nothing was dearer, nothing seemed to him nobler
than the object and end of Art itself.

/ ‘Who would paint you when nobody will look
at you ? 5 says the old epigrammatist of a very ugly
man 1. Many modern artists would say, 4 Be as ugly
as it is possible to be, I will nevertheless paint you,
though no one will willingly look at you, yet they
will willingly look at my picture ; not because it
reproduces you, but because it is a proof of my
skill which can so exactly imitate so hideous an
object \

In truth the connection between this extravagant
boasting and a fatal dexterity, which is not enno-
bled by the worth of the object, is only too natural ;
even the Greeks have had their Pauson and their

CHAPTER II

Pyreicus.2 They had them, but they passed severe
judgment upon them. Pauson, who confined him-
self to the beautiful of ordinary nature, whose low
taste most congenially expressed 3 the deficient and
the hateful, lived in the most sordid poverty4 ; and
Pyreicus, who painted barbers’ rooms, dirty work-
shops, donkeys, and kitchen vegetables with all the
diligence of a Dutch painter, as if such things in
nature had so much fascination and were so rarely
seen, obtained the nickname of 4 'PwirapSypcupos ’, the
filth painter 5 ; although the rich voluptuary bought
his works at extravagant prices, thus coming to the
help of their utter worthlessness by impressing upon
them a fictitious value. Governments themselves
have not thought it unworthy of their vigilance to
restrain by force the artist within his proper sphere.
The law of the Thebans, which ordered the imita-
tion of the beautiful and forbad the imitation of
the ugly, is well known. It was no law against the
bungler, which it was generally supposed to be, even
by Junius 6. It condemned the Greek Ghezzi7, the \
unworthy trick of Art to attain a likeness through
an exaggeration of the uglier parts of the original
— in a word, the caricature.

F rom the spirit of the beautiful also flowed the law
of the Olympic judges. Every Olympian conqueror
obtained a statue, but an Iconic was only granted
to him who had been three times a conqueror 8.
Portraits of the moderately successful were not
allowed to abound among works of Art, for although
even the portrait approached to the ideal, never-
theless the likeness was the dominant circumstance ;
it is the ideal of a certain man, not the ideal of a
man generally.

We smile when we hear that with the Ancients \
even the Arts were subjected to civil laws ; but we '
are not always right when we smile. Unquestion-
ably laws should exercise no power over sciences,
for the end of science is truth. Truth is necessary
for the soul, and it would be tyranny to exercise the

LAOCOON

! slightest compulsion with respect to the satisfaction
of this essential need.

The end of Art, on the other hand, is pleasure,
and pleasure can be dispensed with ; therefore, it
may always depend upon the law-giver what kind of
pleasure he will allow, and what amount of each
f kind.

The plastic Arts especially, over and above the
certain influence which they exercise upon the char-
acter of a nation, are capable of an effect which
requires the vigilant supervision of the law. If
beautiful men are the cause of beautiful statues, the
latter, on the other hand, have reacted upon the
former, and the state has to thank beautiful statues
for beautiful men.

With us the tender imagination of the mother
appears to express itself only in monsters. From
this point of view I believe that in certain ancient
legends, which are generally thrown aside as untrue,
there is some truth to be found. The mother of
Aristomenes, Aristodaemos, Alexander the Great,
Scipio, Augustus, Galerius, all dreamt during their
pregnancy that their husband was a snake. The
snake was the sign of godhead9, and the beautiful
statues of a Bacchus, an Apollo, a Mercury, a Her-
cules, were seldom without snakes. These honour-
able wives had in the day-time fed their eyes on the
god, and the bewildering dream awakened the form
of the wild beast. This is how I read the dream,
and despise the explanation which was given by the
pride of sires and the shamelessness of flatterers :
for certainly there must have been one cause why
the adulterous fancy always took the form of a
snake.

But I return to my path. My only wish has been
to lay down firmly the principle that with the
ancients beauty„was the highest law of the imitative
Art.

This principle being firmly established, it neces-
sarily follows that everything else by which the

I. jS 7kg MA

/LfT11 "J

CHAPTER II 67

imitative Art can at the same time extend its
influence must, if it does not harmonise with beauty,
entirely give place to it, and if it does harmonise, at
least be subordinate to it. Let me dwell on the
consideration of Expression.

There are passions and degrees of passion which
express themselves in the countenance by the most
hideous distortions, and which place the whole body
in such attitudes of violence that all the fine lines
which mark it in a position of repose are lost. The
ancient artists either abstained from these altogether
and entirely, or used them in a subordinate degree,
in which they were susceptible of some measure
of beauty. Rage and despair do not disgrace any
of their works. I dare aver that they have never
created a Fury 10.

Wrath is diminished into severity. The Jupiter
of the poet who hurls the thunderbolt is wrathful ;
the Jupiter of the artist is severe.

Lamentation is softened into sorrow ; and when
this mitigation cannot take place — if the lamenta-
tion should be equally degrading and disfiguring,
wh at did Timantlies do ? His picture of the Sacrifice
of Iphigenia, in which he distributed to all the by-
standers their proper share of grief, but veiled the
countenance of the father, which ought to manifest
a grief surpassing that of all the others, is well
known, and many clever things have been said about
it. He had u, said one critic, so exhausted himself
in the physiognomy of sorrow that he despaired of
being able to give an expression of greater sorrow
to the father. He thereby confessed1’2, said another
critic, that the grief of a father in such a catastrophe
was beyond all expression. I, for my part, see
neither the incapacity of the artist nor the incapacity
of the Art. As the degree of the affection becomes
stronger, so do the corresponding features of the
countenance ; the highest degree has the most
decided features, and nothing is easier for Art than
to express them. But Timantlies knew the limits

LAOCOON

which the Graces had fixed to his Art. He knew
that the grief which overcame Agamemnon as a
father found expression in distortions, which are
always hideous. So far as beauty and dignity could
be combined with this expression he went. He
might easily have passed over or have softened what
was hideous : but inasmuch as his composition did
not permit him to do either, what resource re-
mained but to veil it ? What he might not paint
i he left to conjecture. In a word, this veiling is a
\ sacrifice which the artist made to beauty. It is an >
| example not how an artist can force expression
i beyond the limits of Art, but how an artist should
\ subject it to the first law of Art — the law of beauty 13.
j Apply this observation to the Laocoon and the
\ reason which I seek is clear. The master strove to
attain the highest beauty in given circumstances of
bodily anguish. It was impossible to combine the
latter in all its disfiguring vehemence with the
former. It was therefore necessary to diminish it ;
he must soften screams into sighs, not because the
screaming betrayed an ignoble soul, but because it
disfigured the countenance in a hideous manner.
Let any one only in thought force wide open the
mouth of Laocoon and judge. Let any one make
him scream and then look. It was a creation which
inspired sympathy, because it exhibited beauty and
suffering at the same time ; now it has become a
hideous horrible creation from which we gladly turn
away our face, because the aspect of it excites what
is unpleasant in pain without the beauty in the
suffering object which can change this unpleasant-
ness into the secret feeling of sympathy.

The mere wide-opening of the mouth — putting
out of consideration how violent and disgusting the
other portions of the face distorted and displaced
by it would become — is in painting a blot, and in
statuary a cavity, which produces the worst effect
possible. Montfaucon showed little taste when he
declared an old bearded head with an open mouth

CHAPTER II

to be Jupiter 14 instructing an Oracle. Must a god
scream when he reveals the future? Would a
pleasing curve of the mouth make his speech sus-
picious? Neither do I believe Valerius that Ajax,
in the picture by Timanthes already mentioned,
must have been represented as screaming15. Far
worse masters in the time of decayed Art do not
allow the wildest barbarians, when suffering terror
and agony of death under the sword of the conqueror,
to open their mouths so as to scream 16.

It is certain that this reduction of the most
extreme bodily anguish to a lower scale of feeling
was visible in many of the ancient works of Art.
The suffering Hercules in the poisoned garment, by
the hand of an unknown ancient master, was not the
Hercules of Sophocles, who yelled so dreadfully
that the Locrian cliffs and the Eubean promontories
re-echoed with it. He was rather melancholy than
mad17. The Philoctetes of Pythagoras Leontinus
appeared to impart his pain to the observer, an
effect which the slightest feature of ugliness would
have prevented. It may be asked how I know that
this master had made a statue of Philoctetes ? — from
a passage in Pliny, which ought not to have waited
for my correction, so palpably is it corrupted or
mutilated 18.

1 • i . 1 '

CHAPTER III

•tU-c

-*4'i

T* But, as has been already remarked, Art has in
these modern times greatly widened its boundaries.
Its imitative power, it is said, extends over all
visible nature, of which the beautiful forms but a
I. small part. Truth and expression are its first law ;
and as nature herself always sacrifices beauty to
higher views, so must the artist also subordinate it
to his general design and pursue it further than
— truth and expression allow. It suffices that through
truth and expression the most hideous thing in
nature is changed into the beautiful of Art.

T Suppose we allow this idea to pass unchallenged,
as to its merit or demerit ; are there not other
considerations independent of it which, neverthe-
less, oblige the Artist to observe moderation in his
expression, and not to choose for representation the
most extreme point of action? I believe that the
* single moment to which the material limits of Art
confine all her imitations will lead us to such
-Lconsiderations.

If the Artist out of ever changing nature cannot
; use more than a single moment, and the Painter
especially can only use this single moment with
: reference to a single point of view ; if their works,
however, are made not only to be seen but to be
considered, and considered for a long time and re-
peatedly; then is it certain that this single moment,
and the single point of view of this single moment,
musfi be chosen which are most fruitful of effect.
That alone is fruitful of effect which leaves free
play to the power of imagination. The more we
see, the more must we aid our sight by thought ;
the more we aid our sight by thought, the more
70

CHAPTER III

must we believe that we see. But in all the grada-
tions of a passion, there is no moment which has
less this advantage than the moment of the highest
degree of the passion. Beyond this there is nothing,
and to show the eye the extremest point is to bind
. the wings of Fancy, and to compel her, inasmuch
as her power cannot go beyond the impression on
the senses, to busy herseli with feeble and sub-
ordinate images, beyond which is that visible fulness
of expression which she shuns as her boundary.
When Laocoon sighs the imagination may hear him
scream ; but when he screams, then it can neither
advance a step higher in this representation, nor
descend a step lower without beholding him in a
more tolerable and therefore in a less interesting
condition : you either hear him groan for the firstT"
time, or you see him already dead.

Moreover, if this single moment obtains througlrT
Art an unchangeable duration, then it ought to
express nothing which in our conception is transi-
tory All phenomena, the character of which we
consider to be that they suddenly appear and
suddenly disappear — that they can only be what
they are for a moment — all such phenomena, be
they agreeable or shocking, obtain, when prolonged
by Art, so unnatural an appearance, that their im-
pression becomes weaker with each repeated in-
spection, and ends in our feeling disgust or fear at
the whole object. La Mettrie who allowed himself ^
to be painted and engraved as a second Democritus,
smiles only the first time you see him. Look at
him oftener, and instead of a philosopher, there is
a fool ; the smile has become a grin. So it is with
the screaming. The grievous pain which forces out
the scream, either soon ceases or destroys the
sufferer. The most enduring man screams, but does
not scream incessantly ; and it is only this apparent
unceasingness in the material imitation of Art
which reduces his scream to a womanish incapacity,
and a childish intolerance of pain. This, at least,

LAOCOON

the Artist of Laocoon had to avoid, even if the
screaming would not have injured beauty, and even
if it were permitted to his Art to express suffering
without beauty.

Among the old Painters Timomaclius appears to
have adopted by choice subjectsMn which emotion
is carried to an extreme ; his raging Ajax, his child-
murdering Medea, were famous pictures ; but From
the accounts which we have of them it is clear that
he perfectly understood and knew how to combine
that point at which the observer not so much sees
as surmises the crisis, with that phenomenon with
which, we do not so necessarily connect the idea of
the transitory, as to render the prolongation of it
displeasing in a work of Art. He has not painted
the Medea at the moment in which she actually
murders, her children ; but some minutes before,
while maternal love was still struggling with
jealousy. We foresee the end of the struggle. We
[shudder by anticipation at the mere sight of the
[savage Medea, and our imagination goes far beyond
what the Painter has been able to draw in this
iterrible moment. But for this very reason the
prolonged indecision of Medea represented by Art,
so little distresses us, that we rather wish that in
nature it had so remained, that the strife of passion
had not ended, or, at least, had lasted long enough
to allow time and reflection to disarm rage, and to
secure the triumph of maternal feeling. This
wisdom on the part of Timomachus has procured
for him great and frequent praise, and raised him
far above other obscure painters who were so un-
intelligent as to paint Medea at the moment of her
greatest fury, and to give a perpetuity to that
transitory and fleeting degree of the extremest
raving which revolts everybody’s nature. The poet 2
who blames them for this says, very sensibly, while
he addresses the picture itself, — ‘Dost thou con-
tinually thirst for the blood of thy children? Is
there for ever a new Jason, for ever a new Creusa,

CHAPTER III

those who unceasingly exasperate you ? to the
Devil with you even in your picture ! \ he adds,
full of disgust.

As to the raging Ajax of Timomachus, we can
form an opinion from the account of Philostratus 3.
Ajax did not appear as he vented his fury on the
herds, and bound and slew oxen and goats. But
the master painted him as he was sitting exhausted
with these mad acts of heroism, and taking the
resolution to slay himself : and this is really the
mad Ajax, not because he is at the moment mad,
but because we see that he has been mad ; because
the intensity of his madness is most vividly appa-
rent from the shame and despair under which he is
now suffering. We see the storm in the wreck, and
the corpses which are thrown upon the beach.

CHAPTER IY

I examine tbe^^minent reasons why the master
artist of the Laocoon was obliged to observe modera-
tion in the expression of bodily pain; I find that
they are altogether derived from the peculiar nature
of Art, and from the necessary limits and require-
ments of Art. It would be difficult to apply any of
these reasons to Poetry.

Without stopping here to enquire how far the poet
can be successful in describing corporeal beauty, thus
much is indisputable, that the whole unbounded
realm of perfection lies open to his imitation, this
visible veil, under which perfection becomes beauty,
can be only one of the subordinate means by which
he knows how to interest us on behalf of his per-
sons. These means he often entirely neglects, assured
that, if his hero has won our favour, we shall either
be so much occupied with his nobler qualities as not
to think about his bodily form ; or, if we do think
about it, to be so prepossessed in his favour as to
bestow on him, if not one absolutely beautiful, yet
one which is not unpleasing : least of all will he refer
to the sense of sight any poetical trait not intended
expressly for the eye.

When Yirgil’s Laocoon screams, who does not
know that a wide mouth is necessary for screaming,
and that this wide mouth is hideous ? Enough that
clamor es horrendos ad sidera tollit produces a sublime
effect on the sense of hearing, whatever it may
produce on the sense of seeing.

If there be any one who desiderates an image of
beauty, he has entirely failed to appreciate the
general effect which the poet intended to convey.

Nothing, in the next place, constrains the poet to

k-fU^fiC A-/*ffilpTER IV 75

concentrate his picture upon a single moment. He
takes up each of his actions as he likes from their
very beginning and carries them through all pos-
sible changes up to the very end ; each of these
changes which would have cost the painter a whole
work specially devoted to it, costs the poet only a
single trait, and even if this trait, considered by
itself, might jar on the imagination of the hearer,
either such preparation has been made for it by
what has gone before, or it has been so softened
and compensated for by what has followed as to
lose its particular impression, and in this combina-
tion produces the best possible effect ; and, if it
were really unbecoming a man to scream in the
bitterness of his anguish, how could this slight and
transitory impropriety derogate from the esteem
which his virtues in other respects have already
won from us ?

Virgil’s Laocoon screams, but this screaming
Laocoon is the very same whom we have already
known and loved as the wisest of patriots and the
kindest of fathers. We attribute his scream not to
his character but to his intolerable suffering. This
alone we hear in his scream ; and it is only by this
scream that the poet can make us sensible of his
suffering. Moreover, who blames him ? Who does
not rather acknowledge that if the sculptor did
well in not allowing Laocoon to scream, the poet
did as well in allowing him to do so?

But Virgil is here only a narrating poet. In this
justification is the dramatic poet to be also included ?
The narrative of a scream makes one kind of impres-
sion ; the scream itself makes another. The Drama, l
which is destined to be a living painting through
the representation of the actor, ought perhaps on
that very account to adhere the closer to the laws \
of material painting. In the actor we not only
believe that we see and hear a screaming Philoc-
tetes : we actually do see and hear him scream.
The nearer the actor approaches to nature, the

LAOCOON

more will our ears and eyes be afflicted ; for so they
would certainly be in nature, if we witnessed such
loud and vehement utterances of pain. Besides,
bodily pain is not generally susceptible of the sym-
pathy which evils of another kind awaken. Bodily
pain does not present a sufficiently distinct idea to
our imagination to produce by the mere aspect of
it at all a corresponding feeling in us. Sophocles,
therefore, would have carelessly overstepped not
merely an arbitrary sense of decorum, but one
f deeply founded in the very nature of our feelings
1 if he had made Philoctetes and Hercules whine, and
weep, and scream, and roar in this manner. The
bystanders in the scene could not possibly take so
great a share in his sufferings as these immoderate
outbreaks of sorrow would seem to require. To us
spectators they would appear comparatively cold,
and yet we can only consider their sympathy as
the measure of our own. Add to this observation
that the actor can scarcely, or indeed not at all,
push to the verge of actual illusion the representa-
tion of bodily pain ; and who knows whether the
modern dramatic writers are not rather to be
praised than blamed for shunning altogether and
entirely these rocks, or at least for coasting round
them in a light skiff?

How much in theory would have appeared incon-
testable if the achievements of genius had not
succeeded in proving the contrary. All these observ-
ations have some foundation, and, nevertheless,
Philoctetes remaips one of the masterpieces of the
stage. For one part of these observations does not
specially affect Sophocles, and it is only because he
has thrown aside the other part of them that he
has attained to beauties of which the timid critic,
without this example, would never have dreamt.
The following remarks will show this more exactly :

1. How wonderfully the poet has known how to
strengthen and deepen the idea of bodily pain ! He
\ chose a wound (for the circumstances of the story

CHAPTER IV

may be considered by us as dependent upon his
choice, inasmuch as, on account of these advan-
tageous circumstances, he chose the whole story), he
chose, I say, a wound and not an internal malady,,
because he was able to make a more vivid repre-
sentation of the latter than of the former, however
painful it may be. The inward sympathetic fire
which consumed Meleager when his mother sacri-
ficed him by the burning of the fatal log to the
wrath of his sister, would have been less adapted to
the theatre than a wound. This wound, moreover,
was a divine punishment ; a poison worse than any
to be found in nature incessantly raged within him,,
and it was only the vehement access of pain which
had its appointed limit and then the wretched man
fell into a stupefying sleep, in which he was obliged
to refresh his exhausted nature in order that he
might again enter upon the same path of suffering.
Chateaubrun represents him as wounded only by
the poisoned dart of a Trojan. From such a com-
mon occurrence what extraordinary result is to be
expected ? In the wars of ancient times everybody
was exposed to it ; how came it to pass that in the
case of Philoctetes alone the consequences were so
dreadful ? A natural poison working for nine years
without causing death is infinitely more improbable
than all the fabulous wonders with which the Greek
has ornamented his story.

2. However great and horrible he made the bodily
sufferings of his hero, he felt nevertheless that they
alone would not be sufficient to excite a marked
degree of sympathy. He combined them with other
evils, which, considered in themselves, were not
calculated to excite especial emotion, but which,,
through this combination, wore so melancholy an
aspect as to cause a sympathy in their turn with
the bodily pains. These evils were an entire priva-
tion of the society of man, hunger, and all the
distresses of life to which, in such privation and
under an inclement sky, a man would be exposed.1

LAOCOON

Let any one only reflect npon the condition of a
man in such circumstances. But give him health,
strength, and industry, and he becomes a Robinson
Crusoe who makes little claim upon our sympathy,
although we are far from being indifferent about
his fate. For we are rarely so delighted with
human society that the repose, which out of it we
enjoy, does not appear fascinating to us, especially
if we add the conviction, with which every one
flatters himself, that he will learn by degrees to
dispense with assistance from others altogether.
On the other hand, le;t a man have the most painful
and incurable disease, but surround him with
pleasant friends, who will not let him be in need of
anything — who lighten, so far as in them lies, his
suffering, in whose presence he may utter freely
groans and lamentations — there will certainly be a
sympathy with him, but it will not last long, and
at last we shrug our shoulders and advise him to be
patient. It is only when both predicaments concur,
when the solitary man has no control over his body,
when the sick man receives as little from others as
he does from himself, and when his cries perish in
the desert air — it is then that we witness all the
misery which can befall human nature smite with
collected force the wretch, and every fleeting
thought by which we place ourselves in his position
excites shuddering and horror. We see nothing
before us but despair in its most ghastly form, and
no sympathy is stronger, none melts the soul more
completely, than that which mingles itself with the
representation of despair. Of this kind is the sym-
pathy which we feel for Philoctetes, and most
strongly in that moment when we see him deprived
of his bow, the only thing which had enabled him
to support his miserable life. Oh ! that Frenchman
who had no understanding to perceive this, no heart
to feel this ; or, if he had, could have been petty
enough to have sacrificed it all to the wretched
taste of his own countrymen. Chateaubrun places

CHAPTER IV

Philoctetes in the society of other persons. He
makes a princess’s daughter come to him in the
desert island, and this is not all, but she brings a
mistress of the ceremonies with her, of whom it is
difficult to say whether the princess or the poet
stood most in need. He leaves out altogether the
excellent dramatic incident of the bow ; but he
makes beautiful eyes take the place of it. In truth,
the bows and arrows would have appeared ridiculous
to the young French hero. On the other hand,
nothing is more serious to him than the wrath of
the beautiful eyes. The Greek tortures us with the
harrowing reflection that poor Philoctetes will re-
main without his bow in the desert island and
perish miserably. The Frenchman knows another
way to our hearts. He makes us fear that the son
of Achilles will depart without his princess. This
is what the Parisian critics call to triumph over the
ancients, and one of them proposed to call the
Chateaubrunian piece la difficult 4 vaincue 2.

3. Next to the general effect let any one consider
the only scene in which Philoctetes is no longer the
deserted sick man — where he hopes soon to leave
his wretched desert and to return to his kingdom ;
where, moreover, all his misfortune is confined to
his bitter wound. He whines, he screams, and
undergoes the most ghastly convulsions. Here,
properly speaking, arises the objection of violated
decorum. It is an Englishman who makes this
objection, a man, moreover, whom one would not
lightly charge with false delicacy. As has been
already remarked, he has good ground for his ob-
jection. All feelings and passions, he says, with
which others can very little sympathise, become
repulsive when they are too vehemently expressed3.

It is for the same reason that to cry out with bodily
pain, how intolerable soever, appears always unmanly and
unbecoming. There is, however, a good deal of sympathy
even with bodily pain. If, as has been already observed,

LAOCOON

I see a stroke aimed and just ready to fall upon the leg or
arm of another person, I naturally shrink and draw back
my own leg or my own arm, and when it does fall I feel
it, in some measure, and am hurt by it as well as the
sufferer. My hurt, however, is no doubt excessively
slight, and, upon that account, if he makes any violent
outcry, as I cannot go along with him, I never fail, to
despise him4. ( 0

Nothing is more deceitful than general laws for
our feelings. Their tissue is so fine and complicated
that the most cautious speculation can scarcely seize
upon any single thread and follow it through all its
entanglements ; and if we could do this what should
we gain ? There is in nature scarcely any one un-
mixed feeling ; with every individual one a thousand
others spring up at the same time, the least of which
alters entirely the ground of the feeling, so that
exceptions grow upon exceptions, which end in
confining the presumed general principle to the
experience of a few particular instances. We de-
spise those, says the Englishman, whom we hear
violently screaming from corporeal suffering. But
not always : not for the first time : not when we see
that the sufferer does all in his power to stifle his
anguish ; not when we know him to be in other
respects a man of firmness ; still less when we see
amid his sufferings proofs of his steadfastness, wdien
we see that his anguish can force him to scream but
to nothing further ; that he would rather subject
himself to a larger continuance of his suffering than
make the slightest change in his manner of think-
ing, in his resolutions, although in such a change
he might expect the end of his suffering. All this
is to be found in Philoctetes. Moral greatness con-
sisted, in the opinion of the ancient Greeks, as much
in an unchangeable love to friends as in an unalter-
able hatred to enemies. This greatness Philoctetes
throughout all his sufferings possessed. His suffer-
ings had not so dried his eyes that he could not
shed tears over the fate of his old friend. His pain

CHAPTER IV

had not made him so abject that in order to obtain
his liberty he would forgive his enemies and lend
himself to the execution of all their selfish projects ;
and would the Athenians have despised this rock of
a man because the waves, which could not shake
his purpose, made him cry aloud ? I acknowledge
that I have little taste for the philosophy of Cicero ;
least of all for that which he ostentatiously displays
in the second book of his Tusculan Disputations upon
the endurance of bodily suffering, — one would
suppose that he was training a gladiator, so vehe-
ment is he against the outward expression of bodily
suffering. In that expression he appears to find
only impatience, without considering that it is fre-
quently quite involuntary, but that true courage can
only show itself in the actions of a free will. In
the tragedy of Sophocles, he hears nothing but the
complaining and screaming of Philoctetes, never
considering the constant manliness of his conduct
in other respects. How otherwise would he have
found occasion for his rhetorical onslaught on the
Poets?5. ‘They would make us effeminate while
they introduce to our notice the bravest man crying
aloud’. They must let him cry : for a theatre is no
arena. It is the part of the venal or condemned
gladiator to do and suffer everything with decorum.
From him no loud cry must be heard, in him no
convulsion of pain must be seen. For his wounds,
his death, must divert the spectator ; therefore
Art must learn to hide all feeling. The slightest
expression of it would have awakened sympathy,
and frequently sympathy excited would have made
a speedy end to the cold ghastly performance.
But the emotion which should not be excited here
is that which is the very purpose of the tragic
scene, and which requires an exactly opposite be-
haviour. The heroes of the theatre must mani-
fest feeling, must utter their anguish, and allow
nature herself to work in them. If they betray
that they are acting under control and restraint,

LAOCOON

they leave our hearts cold, and prizefighters in
buskins can, at the utmost, but excite our wonder.
This appellation all the persons of the so-called
tragedies of Seneca deserve ; and I am firmly of
opinion that the Gladiatorial shows were the prin-
cipal cause why the Romans in their tragedies
remained so far below mediocrity. The spectators
learnt in the bloody amphitheatre to mistake all
that was natural. A Ctesias 6 could indeed have
studied his Art there, but a Sophocles never. The
most tragical genius accustomed to these artificial
death scenes must have been corrupted into bom-
bast and rhodomontade. But these rhodomontades
were as incapable of inspiring a true heroic spirit,
as the lamentations of Philoctetes were of causing
effeminacy. The lamentations are those of a man,
but the acts are those of a hero. Both compose the
manly hero who is neither effeminate nor hardened,
but at one time appears as the former, at another as
the latter, even as nature, principle, and duty alter-
nately require. It is the sublimest subject which
wisdom can produce, and Art can imitate.

4. It is not enough that Sophocles has secured
his sensitive Philoctetes against contempt ; he has
also wisely forestalled all the objections which
otherwise might have been brought against him
by the Englishman. For, although we do not
always despise the man who screams from corporeal
suffering, it is nevertheless incontestable that we
do not feel for him so much sympathy as this
scream seems to demand. How then should those
comport themselves who have to do with the
screaming Philoctetes? Should they be moved in
a high degree ? That is contrary to nature. Should
they show themselves as cold and embarrassed as
men are actually wont to be in such circumstances ?
That would place them entirely out of harmony
with the spectators. But, as has been observed,
this also has been forestalled by Sophocles ; namely,
by causing the attendant persons to have their

CHAPTER IV

own interests ; so that the impression which the
scream of Philoctetes makes upon them is not the
only thing which concerns them, and the spectator
does not so much heed the disproportion of their
sympathy with the scream, as observe the change
which arises, or ought to arise, in their own feelings
and projects through this sympathy, whether it
be weak or strong. Neoptolemus and the Chorus
have deceived the wretched Philoctetes ; they are
aware of the despair into which their deceit has
plunged him ; for now a terrible access of his
malady comes on before their very eyes : if this
access does not excite any remarkable sympathetic
emotion in them, it can, at least, compel them to
retire into themselves, to have respect for so much
misery, and not to increase it by treachery. This the
spectator expects, and finds his expectation fulfilled
by the noble-minded Neoptolemus7. If Philoctetes
had retained the mastery of his suffering, Neopto-
lemus would have retained the mastery of his dis-
simulation. Philoctetes, whose suffering makes him
incapable of dissimulation, however necessary it
may seem in order that the future companion of
his travels may not repent of his promise to take
him with him, Philoctetes, who is all nature, brings
back Neoptolemus to his own nature. This return
is excellent, and the more affecting as it is the
result of pure humanity. In the French tragedy
the fine eyes come into play8. But I will spend no
more thought on this parody. In the Trachinke
Sophocles has made use of the same stroke of art,
namely, of connecting with the sympathy excited
by the scream of corporeal suffering another emo-
tion in the spectator. The suffering of Hercules
is not an exhausting suffering ; it drives him to
the verge of madness, in which he is snuffing up
revenge and nothing else. Already lie lias in this
rage seized upon Lichas and shattered him to pieces
on the rocks. The Chorus is composed of women ;
it is all the more natural that fear and dread should

LAOCOON

overpower them. This fact, and the waiting to see
■whether a god will yet hasten to the help of
Hercules, or whether Hercules will sink under his
affliction, cause the only general interest, to which
sympathy contributes a very faint shading. So
soon as the result is decided by the intelligence
from the oracle, Hercules becomes tranquil, and
astonishment at his last resolution takes the place
of all other emotions. But it is especially necessary
to remember, in comparing the suffering Hercules
with the suffering Philoctetes, that the former is a
demigod and the latter a man. The man is not
ashamed of his lamentation, but the demigod is
ashamed that his mortal part has so much influence
over his immortal part as to make him whine and
whimper like a girl 9. We moderns do not believe
in demigods, but yet the least hero with us must
feel and act like a demigod.

Whether the actor can bring the scream and the
contortions of pain so home to us as to create an
illusion I will neither affirm nor deny. If I find
that our actors cannot do this, I should wish first
to know whether a Garrick 10 would not be capable
of it, and if he should not succeed, should still
remember that the scenic 11 apparatus and declama-
tion of the ancients reached a perfection of which
now-a-days we have no notion.

CHAPTER Y

r.t_

There are connoisseurs of antiquity who hold
indeed that the Laocoon group was the work of a
Greek master, but of the time of the emperors,
because they believe that the Yirgilian Laocoon
served as the model for it. Of all the ancient
learned men who have been of this opinion I will
only mention Bartholomew Marliani1 ; and of the
modern, Montfaucon 2. They found, without doubt,
so remarkable an agreement between the work of
art and the description of the poet that it appeared
to them impossible that both should by accident
have lighted upon the same circumstances, which
certainly do not naturally suggest themselves.
They further maintain that as to the honour attach-
ing to the invention and first conception, the pro-
bability is much more in favour of the poet than
the artist.

Only they appear to have forgotten that a third
predicament is possible. For, perhaps, the poet
has as little imitated the artist as the artist has the
poet, but both have drawn their supply from the
same ancient fountains. According to Macrobius 3,
the works of Pisander were these ancient sources.
For while the works of this Greek poet were yet
extant, it was a matter of school learning, pueris
decantatum , that the Roman writer had not so much
imitated as literally translated the whole conquest
and destruction of Ilium, that is, his whole second
book. If, moreover, Pisander had been Virgil’s
X^redecessor in the history of Laocoon, it was never-
theless not the custom of the Greek artists to derive
their instruction from any Latin poet, and the
conjecture drawn from the epoch rests on no
foundation.

LAOCOON

In the meanwhile, if I were compelled to maintain
the opinion of Marliani and Montfaucon, I would
offer them the following escape from the objection.
The poems of Pisander are lost : how he told the
story of Laocoon cannot certainly be said ; but it
is probable that it was narrated with the same
circumstances of which we now find the traces in
Greek authors. Now these do not in the least
accord with the narrative of Virgil, but the Eoman
poet must have molten together the Greeks’ tradi-
tions according to his good pleasure. The misfor-
tune of Laocoon, as he narrates it, is his own
invention. It follows that if the artists did agree
in their representations with him they must have
lived after his time and have worked after his
model. Quintus4 Calaber, it is true, like Virgil,
makes Laocoon manifest a suspicion of the wooden
horse ; but the wrath of Minerva, which on this
account he draws down upon himself, is very
differently, expressed by Virgil. The earth gapes
under the forewarning Trojan. Terror and anxiety
overtake him ; burning anguish flames in his eyes ;
his brain is affected ; he raves ; he is blinded.
Blind as he is, he ceases not to counsel the burn-
ing of the wooden horse, and then Minerva
sends two dreadful serpents, which, however, only
seize the children of Laocoon. In vain do these
stretch out their hands to their father : the poor
blind man cannot help them ; they are torn to
pieces, and the serpents disappear in the earth.
To Laocoon they do no harm ; and that this circum-
stance is not peculiar to Quintus6, but must rather
be taken to be generally adopted, is evident from a
passage in Lycophron, where these serpents6 have
the epithet of children-eaters. But if this incident
had been generally accepted by the Greeks, Greek
artists would scarcely have ventured to depart from
it, and it could hardly have happened that they
would have departed from it in the same manner
as the Boman poet if they had not known him, and

CHAPTER V

had not received an express commission to work
after his model. He who wishes to defend Marliani
and Montfaucon must take up this position. Virgil 7
is the first and the only writer who makes the father
as well as the children to be killed by the serpents.
The sculptors do the same, though, as Greeks, they
ought not to do it ; it is therefore probable that
they did it in imitation of Virgil. I know very
well how much this probability falls short of his-
torical certainty. But, although I do not wish to
push further this conclusion from history, at least
I think it may stand as an hypothesis upon which
the critic may express his opinion. Be it proved
or not proved that sculptors have not followed
Virgil, I will assume the fact merely for the purpose
of seeing how they have imitated him. I have
already expressed my opinion as to the scream.
Perhaps a further comparison may bring me to
results not less instructive. The incident of bind-
ing the father through the coils of the devouring
serpents into one knot with his two sons is un-
questionably very happy, manifestingan uncommon
picturesque imagination. Who invented it?— the
poet, or the artist ? Montfaucon is determined that
it shall but be the poet 8 ; but I think that Mont-
faucon has not read the poet with sufficient care.

Illi agmine certo

Laocoonta petunt, et primiun parva duorum
Corpora natorum serpens amplexus uterque
Implieat, et miseros morsu depascitur artus.

Post ipsum, auxilio subeuntem et tela ferentem
Corripiunt spirisque ligant ingentibus 9.

The poet has described the wonderful length of
the serpents. They have entwined themselves round
the boys, and when the father comes to their help
they seize on him {corripiunt). Such is their size
that they are not obliged for an instant to let go
the boys ; there must also be a moment when they
have just fallen upon the father with their heads
and foremost parts, and yet hold the children fast

LAOCOON

by their hind parts, already twisted round them.
This moment in the progress of the poetical picture
is necessary — the poet makes us fully perceive it ;
but that was not the time to paint it in detail.
That the old commentators were perfectly aware of
this, appears probable from a passage 10 in Donatus n.
How improbable it is that it would have escaped
the artists to whose intelligent eye all that can
be advantageously used so quickly and so clearly
appears !

In the very windings of the serpents, which the
poet entwines round Laocoon, he carefully avoids
including the arms, in order to leave the arms fall
liberty of action.

Ille simul manibus tendit divellere nodos 12

In this the artist must necessarily follow him.
Nothing, gives more expression and life than the
movement of the hands, especially in the repre-
sentation of the passions ; the most speaking coun-
tenance without it is insignificant. Arms fast
bound to the body through the coils of the serpent
would have spread coldness and death over the
whole group. But we see them in the principal
figure, as well as in the accessory figures, in full
activity, and there most employed where for the
present the pain is greatest13.

But the artist found nothing except this freedom
of the arms from the coils of the serpents useful to
borrow from the poet. Yirgil makes the serpents
wind themselves in double coils round the body and
the neck of Laocoon, and tower high above him
with their heads.

Bis medium amplexi, bis coilo squamea circum
Terga dati, superant capite et cervicibus altis i*

This figure admirably fills our imagination. The
noblest parts of the body are compressed even to
suffocation, and the poison is carried directly into
the face. Nevertheless, the figure is not one for
the artist who wishes to show the working of the

CHAPTER Y

poison and of the pain in the body. For, in
order to make these conspicuous, the principal
parts must be left as free as possible, and through-
out no external pressure must operate upon them
which would change and weaken the play of
the suffering nerves and working muscles. The
double coils of the serpents would have covered
the whole body, and that agonised contraction of
the lower part of the body, which is so expressive,
would have remained invisible. Whatever parts of
the body, above, below, or between the coils could
be seen, would appear amid the pressure and the
distension not to have been caused by pain within,
but by weight without. The neck enclosed in such
repeated folds would have entirely lost that pyra-
midal termination of the group 16 which is so agree-
able to the eye ; and the summits of the serpents’
heads stretching out of these folds into the air
would have made so sudden a falling off of pro-
portion that the shape of the whole would have
been extremely repulsive. There are, nevertheless,
artists who are so unintelligent as to follow servilely
the poet. We recognise with horror the conse-
quences, to take one of several instances, from a
print of F rank Cleyn 16. The old sculptors saw with
a glance that their art in this respect required an
entire alteration. They transferred all the coils
from the body and neck to the thighs and feet.
Here the coils, without injury to the expression,
could cover and bind as much as was necessary.
Here arose the idea of an impeded flight and of a
kind of immovability, which is very favourable to
the idea produced by Art, of permanence in one
and the same condition.

I know not how it has happened that the artists
have passed over in complete silence this difference
in the coils of the serpents which so plainly appears
between the works of the artist and the description
of the poet. It exalts the wisdom of the artist
quite as much as other things which they all seize

LAOCOON

upon, but which they do not so much venture to
praise as seek to excuse. I mean the difference as
to the dress. Virgil’s Laocoon is in his priestly robes,
and he appears in the group with both his sons quite
naked. It is said that there are persons who find
a gross absurdity in representing a king’s son, a
priest at his sacrifice, as naked, and to these persons
the connoisseurs reply in sober earnestness that it
is certainly an unusually grave fault, but that the
artist was constrained to commit it because his
figures could have no becoming dress. Statuary,
they say, cannot imitate any stuff. Thick folds
have a bad effect. Of two inconveniences the least
must be chosen, and it is better to run counter to
the truth than to be subject to blame for the
drapery 17. The old artists would have laughed at
tliis reproach, but I do not know what they would
have said to the answer. It is impossible to degrade
Art to a lower depth than by these means. For let
it be granted that sculpture can imitate stuffs of
different kinds as well as painting, must Laocoon
have therefore "necessarily been clothed? Should
, we lose nothing by the adoption of this clothing ?
Has a garment, the work of 18 servile hands, as
jmuch beauty as the work of eternal wisdom, the
organised body ? Does it require the same capacity,
— is there the same merit,— does it confer the same
honour, to imitate the one as the other? Do our
eyes only require to be deceived, and is it all the
same to them wherewith they are deceived ? W ith
the poet a garment is no garment : it covers no-
thing : our imagination sees entirely through it.
Let the Laocoon of Virgil either have it or have it
not, his suffering is as visible in one part of his
body as in the other. The forehead is bound by
the priestly fillet, but is not veiled by it. Hay, this
fillet hides nothing, absolutely nothing : it only
strengthens the idea which we form of the misfortune
of the sufferer.

Perfusus sanie vittas atroqne veneno *9

CHAPTER V

The priestly dignity nothing avails him. The very
emblem of it, which everywhere procures for him
respect and honour, is thoroughly defiled and dese-
crated by the poisonous saliva. But the artist
must abandon this subordinate idea if the principal
work is not to suffer. If he had left even this fillet
to Laocoon, he would greatly have weakened the
expression 20. The forehead would have been covered,
and the forehead is the seat of expression. As in 4
the matter of screaming he sacrificed expression ta
beauty, so here he sacrifices what is conventional to
expression. With the ancients what is conventional
was considered a very small thing. They felt that
the highest end of their art led them entirely to
dispense with it. Beauty is their highest end. ?
Necessity invented clothes. What has Art to do
with necessity ? 21 . I grant that there is a kind of
beauty in apparel, but what is it when put in
competition with the human form ? And shall he
who can attain the greater be content with the
less ? I much fear that the most perfect painter of
dress shows by this very dexterity in what he is.
really wanting.

CHAPTER VI

My supposition that the artists have imitated
the poet in no way depreciates the former. Rather
does their wisdom in this imitation appear in the
very best light. They follow the poet without
allowing themselves to be in the slightest particu-
lar corrupted by him. They have a model, but as
to the mode of transferring this model from one
art to the other they have ample scope to think
for themselves ; and the original ideas which they
manifest in their departures from the model demon-
strate that they are as great in their Art as he in
bis.

Now, I will reverse this supposition : the poet
shall have imitated the artists. There are learned
men who maintain this proposition as a truth h I
do not know that they have any historical grounds
for so doing ; but finding this work of Art over-
whelmingly beautiful, they cannot persuade them-
selves that it belongs to a later epoch. It must
belong to that time when Art was in its most
perfect bloom, because it deserves to belong to it.

It has been shown that, however excellent Virgil’s
picture may be, nevertheless there are several
features in it of which the artist could not avail
himself. This proposition is also subject to
limitations.

That a good poetical painting must make a really
good picture, and that the poet has painted well
only so far as the artist can follow him in all his
details. We are disposed to take for granted this
limitation, before we see it confirmed by examples.
Simply from a consideration of the wider sphere of
Poetry, of the unbounded field of our imagination,

CHAPTER VI 93

of the immateriality of its images, which can stand
side by side in the greatest multitude and multi-
formity, without the one concealing or injuring the
other, just as the things themselves, or the natural
signs of them, in the narrow limits of space or
time, would stand.

If, however, the less cannot contain the greater,
the less can be contained in the greater, or I will
put it thus : although not every trait which the
painting poet uses can produce as good an effect
on canvas or in marble, yet perhaps evety trait of
the artist may produce as good an effect in the
work of the poet ? Certainly ; for that which we
discover to be beautiful in a work of art is not
discovered by our eye, but by the force of our
imagination, through the eye. The same form may,
moreover, be excited in our imagination by arbi-
trary or by natural signs, and, each time, the same
pleasure, though not in the same degree, will arise2.

All this being granted, I must confess that, to
me, the proposition that Virgil has imitated the
artist appears much more unintelligible than the
opposite proposition. If the artist followed the
poet I can give a reason and can account for all his
deviations from him. He must deviate from him
if the very traits of the poet would have caused
improprieties in his work which they do not pro-
duce in that of the poet. But why must the poet
deviate ? If he had copied the group faithfully in
all its parts, would he not have delivered to us an
excellent picture?3. I quite understand how his
fancy working for himself could bring him to this
or that trait : but the causes why his judgment
was obliged to change the traits of beauty before
his eyes into these other traits are by no means
apparent to me.

It seems to me that4 if Virgil had had the group
for his model, he would hardly have so far re-
strained himself as to have left us to conjecture
that all the three bodies were entwined in one

LAOCOON

knot. They would have been placed in too lively
a representation before his eyes, and he would
have found the effect resulting from them too ex-
cellent not to have given them a more conspicuous
place in his description. I have said that it was
not then the moment to paint in detail this entwin-
ing. No ; but one single word more would have
produced, perhaps, a very marked effect even in
the shadow in which the poet was obliged to leave
it. What the artist would, without this word, have
revealed, the poet, if he had seen it in the work of
the artist, would not have left without this word.

The artist had the most urgent reasons for not
allowing the anguish of Laocoon to burst forth
into a scream. If, however, the poet had had
before him so affecting a combination of pain and
beauty in the work of art, what could have so
irresistibly compelled him to leave altogether
unexpressed the idea of manly demeanour and
magnanimous patience, which arises out of this
combination of pain and beauty, and to shock us
at once with the ghastly screaming of his Laocoon ?
Richardson says : ‘ Virgil's Laocoon must scream
because the poet does not wish so much to excite
pity for him as horror and dismay in the Trojans \
I will grant, although Richardson does not seem to
have considered it, that the poet does not make the
description in his o\vn proper person, but causes
Aeneas to make it, and to make it in the presence
of Dido, whose sympathy Aeneas was eager to take
by storm. But it is not the scream which so much
surprises me as the want of all gradation up to
this scream to which the work of the artist would
naturally have led the poet, if he had, as has been
assumed, taken it for his model. Richardson re-
marks 6 : 4 The history of Laocoon is intended only
to lead up to a pathetic description of the final
destruction of the city ; the poet, therefore, did
not intend to make Laocoon too interesting, in
order not to dissipate, through the misfortune of

CHAPTER VI

one individual citizen, the attention which this last
night of horrors ought to concentrate upon itself
But this is arbitrarily to consider the matter from
the one moment of a painter’s view, from which it
ought not to be considered at all. The misfortune
of Laocoon and the destruction of the city are not
intended by the poet to be two pictures, one next
to the other ; they do not both together make one
whole, so that our eye may or ought to overlook
both at the same moment ; and on no other hypo-
thesis would it be desirable that our glance should
rather light upon Laocoon than upon the burning
city. Both descriptions follow one upon the other,
and I do not see what advantage accrues to the one
which follows, from the fact that the one which
precedes has so very greatly affected us. It would
show that the one which followed did not, in itself,
sufficiently affect our feelings. Still less motive
would the poet have had to alter the coils of the
serpents. In the work of Art they occupy the
hands and bind the feet. So pleasing to the eye
is this distribution, so lively is the picture which
remains of it in the imagination. It is so distinct
and clear that it can be represented by words not
much more feebly than by natural signs :

Micat alter, et ipsum

Laocoonta petit, totumque infraque supraque
Implicat et rapido tandem ferit ilia morsu

At serpens lapsu crebro redeunte subintrat
Lubricus, intortoque ligat genua infima nodo 6

These are the lines of Sadolet, which would doubt-
less have been produced with yet more pictur-
esqueness by Virgil if a visible model had kindled
his fancy, and which would then certainly have
been better than what he now gives us in their
place 7 :

Bis medium amplexi, bis collo squamea circum
Terga dati, superant capite et cervicibus altis

These traits entirely fill our imagination ; but

LAOCOON

our imagination must not tarry there, it must not
seek to analyse them, it must at one time see only
the serpents, at another time only the Laocoon ;
it must not represent to us the effect which both
together create. So far as it attempts to do this
the Virgilian picture begins to be displeasing, and
to be highly unpicturesque.

If, however, the alterations which Virgil would
have made in the model presented to him would
have been happy, they would still have been purely
arbitrary. We imitate in order to produce resem-
blance ; can we produce resemblance when we make
alterations beyond the necessity of the case ?
Rather when this is done it is clear that we did not
intend to produce a resemblance because we have
not imitated. It may be replied, No, not the whole,
but this or that part. Good. Still, what are then
these individual parts wThich, in the description of
the poet and in the work of the artist, so closely
harmonize as to make the poet appear to have
borrowed the former from the latter h The father,
the children, the serpents were all furnished by
history to the poet, as well as to the artist. Apart
from history they agree in nothing but in this,
that the children and the father wrere entwined
in one serpent knot. But their harmony in this
respect sprang from the altered version, that the
very same misfortuue which had smitten the father
smote the children. But this alteration, as has
been already said, Virgil appears to have made, for
the Greek tradition is quite different. It follows
that if in regard to this common fact of entwining
there has been an imitation on the one side or the
other, it may be presumed with greater probability
to be on the side of the artist than of the poet*
In all other respects the one differs from the other,
only with this distinction, that if it is the artist
that has made the deviation, his intention to
imitate the poet may still be maintained, inasmuch
as the vocation and the limits of his art constrained

CHAPTER VI

him to make this deviation ; if, on the other hand,
the poet be thought to have imitated the artist,
then all the deviations which have been mentioned
disprove this supposed imitation, and those who
notwithstanding maintain it, can only mean that
the work of Art is older than the poem.

CHAPTER VII

When it is said that the artist imitates the poet,
or the poet imitates the artist, this mode of speech
may have a twofold meaning. Either the one
makes the work of the other the real object of his
imitation, or they have both the same object of
imitation, and the one borrows from the other the
manner and style of imitation. When Yirgil
' describes the shield of Aeneas, he imitates in the
first meaning the artist who has made the shield.
The work of Art, not that which is represented in
the work of Art, is the object of his imitation ; and
if he also describes what is seen to be represented
thereon, he describes it as a part of the shield, not
as the shield itself. If Yirgil, on the other hand,
had imitated the group of Laocoon, this would have
been an imitation in the second meaning. For he
would not have imitated this group, but what this
group represents, and would have borrowed from it
only the details of his imitation.

In the first imitation the poet is original, in the
second he is a copyist. The first is a part of general
imitation which constitutes the essence of his art,
and he works at it as a genius, whether he takes his
object from another art or from nature. The
second, on the contrary, altogether degrades him
from his dignity : he imitates, instead of the thing
itself, the imitations of it, and gives us cold reminis-
cences of the traits of a foreign genius, instead of
*** original traits of his own l.

As, however, the poet and the artist treat the
circumstances which they have in common, not un-
frequently, from the same point of view ; then it
cannot but happen that these imitations in many
98

CHAPTER YII

portions must, without there having been the least
idea of imitation or of emulation, resemble each
other. These concurrences may lead contempor-
aneous artists and poets to mutual explanations as
to things which are no longer present to us. But
to push these explanations to the extent of con-
verting accident into intention, and especially to
impute to the poet that in every trifling detail he
had reference to this statue or that picture, is to
render him a very doubtful service ; and not only
him, but also the reader to whom they make the
most beautiful passage very clear, if you will, but
excessively cold. This is the object and the mistake
of a celebrated English work. Spence wrote his
Polymetis 2 with much classical erudition, and with
a very trustworthy acquaintance with the works of
ancient Art which remain to us. He has often
accomplished with success his design of illustrating,
by means of these, the Roman poets ; and, on the
other hand, of extracting from the poets explana-
tions as to unexplained works of ancient Art. But
notwithstanding I maintain that, to every reader
of taste, his book must be absolutely intolerable.

It is natural that when Valerius Flaccus describes,
the winged lightning on the Roman shields

Nec primus radios, miles Roman e, corusci

Fulminis, et rutilas scutis diffuderis alas

this description should become more intelligible to
me when I see the form of such shield upon an
ancient monument3. It may be4 that Mars was
represented in that hovering attitude, in which
Addison thought he saw him over Rhea on a coin,
and was also represented by the ancient armourers
upon the helmets and shields ; and that Juvenal
had such a helmet or shield in his thoughts when
he alluded to it in a word which, up to the time of
Addison, had been a riddle to all interpreters. It
appears to me that when I consider the passage in

100 LAOCOON

Ovid in which the wearied Cephalus invokes the
cooling breeze,

Aura . . . venias

Meque juves, intresque sinus, gratissima, nostros

and in which his Procris takes this aura for the
name of a rival, that this passage is more natural
when I observe in the ancient works of Art that
they really personified this gentle breeze, and wor-
shipped a kind of female sylphs under the name
aurae 6. I grant that when Juvenal compares a
good-for-nothing fellow" of rank to a Mercury on a
column, one can scarcely discover the resemblance
in the comparison without seeing such a column,
without knowing that it is a badly-executed column
that carries only the head, or, at most, only the
trunk of the god, and that because we see neither
the hands nor the feet, it gives the idea of inactivity.6
Illustrations of this kind are not to be despised,
although they are not always necessary nor always
sufficient. The poet has the work of Art as a sub-
stantive thing and not as an imitation before his
eyes : or artist and poet have adopted the same
idea, and consequently there must be a harmony in
their representations, from which we may infer re-
ciprocally the generality of their ideas. But when
Tibullus 7 paints the form of Apollo as he appeared
to him in a dream : — the most beautiful of youths, his
temples bound with the chaste laurel, Syrian odours
are wafted from his golden hair which flows over
his slender neck ; dazzling white and purpling red
are mingled over his whole body, as upon the tender
cheek of the bride who is brought to her beloved : —
why must these features have been borrowed from
old celebrated pictures ? Echion’s nova nupta vere-
cundia notabilis may have been in Home, may have
been copied a thousand and a thousand times.
Was bridal modesty on that account banished from
the world ? After the painter had seen it, was it
no more to be seen by any poet except in the imita-

CHAPTER VII

101

tion of the painter?8. Or if another poet speaks of
Vulcan wearied, and of his red countenance glowing
from the forge, must he learn from the work of the
painter that toil wearies, and heat inflames ? 9. Or
when Lucretius describes the changes of the seasons,
and leads them forth in their natural order, with
the whole train of their effects in the sky and on
the earth, was Lucretius an Ephemeron ? Had he
never lived through a whole year, so as himself to
have experienced all these changes, so that he is
obliged to paint them in imitation of a procession
in which the statues of them would be borne round ?
Must he first learn from these statues the old
poetical idea of Art of making the abstracta 10 actual
existences ? n. Or Virgil’s pontem indignatus Araxes ,
that admirable poetical image of a stream over-
flowing its banks as it tears asunder the bridge
thrown over it, would it not have lost its entire
beauty if the poet had alluded to a work of Art in
which the River God was represented as having
actually torn the bridge in pieces?12. What have
we to do with such illustrations as these, which dis-
possess the poet of his brightest passages, in order
that the idea of the artist may shine through them ?

I lament that so useful a book as Poly metis other-
wise would have been, should, through this tasteless
whim of substituting for the natural fancy of the
old poets one derived from another Art, have be-
come so repulsive and so much more injurious to
classical authors than the watery commentaries of
the most insipid etymologist could ever have been.
Still more do I lament that in this respect Spence
should have been preceded by Addison, who, out of
a laudable desire to raise the knowledge of ancient
works of Art to the standard of a mean of inter-
pretation, has so little discriminated the cases in
which the imitation of the artist is becoming to the
poet, and those in which it is derogatory.

CHAPTER VIII

Of the mutual resemblance which subsists between
Poetry and Painting, Spence has the most extra-
ordinary notions. He thinks that both arts, in the
opinion of the ancients, were so closely bound
together that they went hand in hand, and the
poet never lost sight of the painter, nor the painter
of the poet. That Poetry is the more comprehensive
Art, that its beauties are subject to laws which
Painting cannot reach, that there may often be
reasons for preferring unpicturesque to picturesque
beauties he seems never to have considered, and is
therefore, when the least difference occurs, in the
greatest perplexity, which makes him have recourse
to the most marvellous shifts in the world.

The ancient poets for the most part gave Bacchus
horns. It is therefore strange that Spence so
seldom sees these horns on his statues1. He has
recourse to all kinds of reasons for this, to the
ignorance of antiquaries, to the smallness of the
horns themselves, which might have crept in amid
grapes and ivy leaves. He goes round and round
the real reason without suspecting it. The horns
of Bacchus were no natural horns, as those of the
fawns and satyrs were. They were an ornament
to the forehead, which he could take off and lay
aside.

Tibi cum sine cornibus adstas
Virgineum caput est

says Ovid2 in his solemn invocation of Bacchus.
He could also be seen without horns when he
wished to appear in the beauty of his youth. In
this beauty the artists desired to represent him,
and would therefore have avoided all accessories
102

CHAPTER VIII

103

which could have produced a bad effect. Such an
accessory, horns, which were fastened to the diadem,
would have been, as can be seen on a head in the
Royal Cabinet at Berlin3. Such an accessory was
the diadem itself, which covered the beautiful fore-
head, and therefore is as seldom found in the statues
of Bacchus as the horns, although the former is so
often ascribed to him as the inventor by the poets.
The horns and the diadem furnished the poets with
subtle allusions to the acts and character of the
god. To the artist, on the other hand, these were
hindrances to the display of greater beauties ; and
if Bacchus had, as I believe, the additional name of
Biformis, A i/u6p(f)os, because he could appear terrible
as well as beautiful ; then it was quite natural that
the artist should prefer to choose that form which
was most in harmony with the end of his Art.

In the works of the Roman poets, Minerva and
Juno often hurl the thunderbolt. But why not
also in the paintings in which they are represented ?
says Spence4. He answers : it was a particular
privilege of these two goddesses, the reason for
which is perhaps to be found, originally, in the
Samothracian mysteries. But, as among the ancient
Romans, artists were considered as common people,
and were therefore seldom admitted to these mys-
teries, they doubtless knew nothing about this, and
what they did not know they could not represent.
I might ask Spence, on the other hand : Did these
common people work at their own suggestion or at
the command of persons in higher life, who could
be informed of these mysteries ? Were the artists
as contemptuously considered by the Greeks?
Were not the Roman artists born Greeks? and
so on.

Statius and Valerius Flaccus6 paint an enraged
Venus, and with such terrible features, that for the
moment she might be taken for a Fury rather than
the Goddess of Love. Spence looks in vain in the
ancient works of Art for such a Venus. What is

104

LAOCOON

his conclusion ? That a greater latitude is allowed
to the poet than the sculptor or painter ? This is
the conclusion which he ought to have drawn ; but
he has taken it as a fundamental principle once for
all that in poetical description nothing is good
which would be unbecoming if represented in a
statue or a picture. It follows that the poets who
have done this have erred6. Statius and Valerius,
he says, belong to an epoch when Homan poetry
was already declining7. They manifest in this
matter a corrupted taste and a bad judgment8. In
the poets of a better epoch you will not find such
an offence against picturesque expression.

This sort of remark requires very little power of
discrimination. I will not, however, undertake the
defence of Statius or of V alerius in this matter, but
content myself with a general observation. The
gods and spiritual beings, as represented by the
artist, are not entirely the same as those whom the
poet makes use of. To the artist they are personified
absbracta , which must always maintain the same
characteristics if they are to be recognised. To
the poet, on the other hand, they are real acting
creatures, which, in addition to their general
character, have other qualities and affections, which,
as circumstances afford the opportunity, predomin-
ate. To the sculptor Venus is nothing but love :
he must give her all the decent modest beauty, all
the sweet charms, which enchant us in the object
of our love, and which we therefore bring with us
to our consideration of the abstract idea of love.
The least deviation from this ideal prevents our
recognition of her image.

Beauty, attended by more majesty than shame,
is no Venus, but a Juno. Charms rather more
imperious and masculine than sweet give us a
Minerva instead of a Venus. An angry Venus, a
Venus agitated by revenge and wrath, is, in the
eyes of the sculptor, a perfect contradiction : for
love as love is neither angry nor revengeful. But

CHAPTER VIII

105

with the poet, on the other hand, Venus is indeed
also love, but the goddess of love, who besides this
character has an individuality of her own, and
must in consequence be as capable of aversion as of
affection. What marvel, then, that in his work she
burns with rage and fury, especially where it is
injured love itself which excites them in her !

It is indeed true that the artist also, as well as
the poet, can introduce into his groups Venus or
any other goddess as a really acting being, in
addition to her general character. But then her
actions must at least not contradict her character,
even if they are no immediate consequences of it.
Venus delivers to her son the divine weapons : the
artist as well as the poet can represent this action.
There is nothing in it which hinders him from
giving Venus all the grace and beauty which belong
to her as goddess of love : rather by this act is she
the more easily recognised. But when Venus wishes
to revenge herself on the men of Lemnos, who have
scorned her, and in the form of a magnified fury,
with spotted cheeks, disordered hair, seizes upon
a torch, throws a black garment around her, and
departs in a storm, borne upon a dark cloud : that
is no moment for the artist to choose, because in
this moment he has no power to make the goddess
recognised. It is a moment only for the poet,
because he has the privilege of connecting with it
so closely and so nearly another form in which the
goddess is altogether Venus, so that even in the
fury we do not lose sight of Venus. This is what
Flaccus does :

Neque enim alma videri
Jam tumet : aut tereti crinem subnectitur auro
Sidereos diffusa sinus. Eadem effera et ingens
Et maeulis suffecta genas 8 ; pinumque sonantem
Virginibus Stygiis, nigramque simillima pallam 9

This also Statius does :

Ilia Paphon veterem centumque altaria linquens,

Nec vultu nec crine prior, solvisse jugaleni

106

LAOCOON

Ceston, et Idalias procul ablegasse volncres
Fertur. Erant certe, media qui noctis in umbra
Divain alios ignes majoraque tela gerentem,

Tartarias inter thalamis volitasse sorores
Vulgarent : utque implicitis arcana domorum
Anguibus, et saeva formidine cuncta replevit
Limina to

In other words, it may be said that the poet alone
possesses the artificial power of painting with
negative traits, and, by the mingling of negative
with positive feature, of bringing two appearances
into one. No more the sweet Yenus ; no more the
hair fastened with golden clasps ; no azure garment
floating round ; without any girdle ; with flames of
another kind ; armed with heavy arrows ; in the
company of furies like herself. But while the
artist must lack this power, shall the poet abstain
from that which he has ? If Painting will be the
sister of Poetry, at least let her be no envious sister,
and let not the younger deny the elder all the robes
which she cannot wear herself.

CHAPTER IX

When we compare the painter and poet with
each other in particular instances, it is above all
things necessary to observe carefully whether both
have had their full liberty, whether, free from all
external compulsion, they have been able to bring
their art to its highest pitch.

Religion not unfrequently operated as such an
external compulsion to the ancient artist. His
work, destined to promote worship and devotion,
could not always be as perfect as if it had for its
single object the satisfaction of the spectator.
Superstition overloaded the gods with emblems,
and the most beautiful among them were not uni-
versally esteemed as the most beautiful b Bacchus
stood in his temple at Lemnos, from which the pious
Hypsipile saved her father, under the likeness of
the god, with horns2, and so undoubtedly he ap-
peared in ail his temples, for the horns were an
emblem which denoted his existence. It was only
the free artist, who did not sculpture his Bacchus
for any temple, who could leave out this symbol ;
and when among the statues which have survived
we find none with horns3, this is perhaps a proof
that these were not in the category of consecrated
statues under the form of which he was really
worshipped. It is, at all events, highly probable
that upon such the wrath of the pious destroyers in
the first centuries of Christianity especially fell,
which only here and there spared works of art
unpolluted by worship4.

As, however, among the excavated antiques some
are to be found which belong to both kinds, I could
wish that we only appropriated the name of works
107

108

LAOCOON

of art to those in which the artist could alone show
himself as an artist, in which beauty had been his
first and last object. Everything else in which
marked traces of aptitude for devotional purposes
are shown does not deserve this name, inasmuch as
in these the Art has not laboured for its own sake,
but merely as an aid to religion, and in the sensible
representations presented by it has had in view
rather the significant than the beautiful, although I
do not mean to say that she has not often included
all that was significant in what was beautiful, or
out of regard for the Art, and the finer taste of the
century, has not left out so much of the significant
as would allow beauty to be the dominant feature.

Without such a distinction as this, the connoisseur
and the antiquary would be perpetually at variance,
from mutual misunderstanding, with each other.
If the former, according to his insight into the
vocation of the Art, maintains that the ancient
artist has never done this or that, that is, not as
artist, not of his own free will, the latter will go
further and maintain that neither religion nor any
cause lying outside the domain of Art had made the
artist do this, that is, the artist considered as a mere
worker with his hand — and so the antiquarian will
believe that he has been able to contradict the
artist by producing the first figure that he found,
which the artist without scruple, but to the great
disgust of the learned world, condemns to the heap
of rubbish from which it was taken5.

On the other hand, it is possible to lay too great
a stress upon the influence of religion over Art.
Spence affords a remarkable instance of this. He
found in Ovid that Yesta was not worshipped in
her temple under any personal image, and this fact
he thought sufficient to warrant the conclusion that
there had been no images of this goddess, and that
whatever had hitherto been holden to be such was
not a Yesta but a Yestal 6. A marvellous conclusion !
Did the artist lose his right with regard to that

CHAPTER IX

109

being to whom the poets had given a definite
personality, making her the daughter of Saturn and
Ops, fail into dangers, be subject to the ill treatment
of Priapus, and all that is said on this subject, — did
he, I say, lose his right to personify this being
according to his own art because in one temple it
was only worshipped under the emblem of fire?
For Spence also commits this fault, that he extends
what Ovid says of a particular temple of Vesta,
namely, of the one at Rome, without discrimination,
to all temples 7 of this goddess, and to her worship
generally. She was not universally worshipped as
she was in this temple at Rome : she was, indeed,
not worshipped at all in Italy before Numa built
her a temple. Numa would not allow any divinity
to be represented in human or animal form ; and
herein doubtless consisted the improvement which
he introduced into the worship of Vesta, namely, in
forbidding all personal representations of her. Ovid
himself teaches us that before the time of Numa
there were images of Vesta in her temples, which,
when her priestess Sylvia became a mother, lifted
up from shame their virgin hands before their eyes8.
As to the temples which the goddess had without
the city in the Roman provinces, that her wmrship
was not fully conducted in the manner which Numa
had prescribed appears to follow from certain
ancient inscriptions in which mention was made
of a Pontificis Vestae9. Also at Corinth there was
a temple of Vesta without any images, with a
bare altar on which sacrifices were ottered to the
goddess 10. But does it follow that the Greeks had
no statues of Vesta ? At Athens there was one, in
the Prytaneum, near the statue of Peace11. The
people of Jasos boasted of one which stood under
the open sky, and upon which neither snow nor rain
ever fell12. Pliny mentions a sitting one wrought
by the hand of Scopas, which, in his time, he found
at Rome in the Servilian Gardens. Let it be
conceded that it is difficult to distinguish a mere

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Vestal from a Vesta, does this prove that they were
not distinguished by the ancients, or that they
would not distinguish them? Certain attributes
declare more plainly for the one than the other.
The sceptre, the torch, the palladium, can only be
surmised to have been in the hands of the goddess.
The tympanum which Codinus attributes to her
perhaps belonged to her only as representing the
earth ; or Codinus may not have rightly understood
what he saw13.

CHAPTER X

I must notice an expression of wonder on the part
of Spence which clearly shows how little he must
have reflected upon the boundaries of Poetry and
Painting.

As1 to the Muses in general, it is remarkable that the
poets say but little of them, in a descriptive way ; much
less than might be expected for deities, to whom they
were so particularly obliged.

What is this but to wonder that the poet, when
he speaks of them, does not employ the dumb speech
of the painter ? Urania is among poets the muse of
astronomy : from her name and her functions we
recognise her office. The artist, in order to make
this intelligible, must explain them with a staff* upon
a globe. This staff, this globe, this position, are his
alphabet out of which he composes for us the name
of Urania. But when the poet wishes to say :
‘Urania has long ago foretold his death from the
stars ’

Ipsa diu inspectis letura praedixerat astris
Uranie 2

why should he, having regard to the painter, add,
‘Urania, with her radius in her hand, the celestial
globe before her V Would it not be much the same
as if a man, who can and ought to speak aloud, were
nevertheless to employ the signs which the mutes in
a Turkish seraglio for want of voice have invented ?
Spence expresses the same wonder even at these
moral beings, or those divinities who, according to
the ancients, preside over the virtues and conduct
of human life :h

It is observable, he says, that the Roman poets say less
of the best of these moral beings than might be expected,
ill

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LAOCOON

The artists are much fuller on this head ; and one who
would settle what appearances each of them made should
go to the medals of the Roman emperors. . . . They
speak of them often as persons ; but they do not generally
say much of their attributes or dress, or the appearance
they make.

When the poet personifies abstracta , they are suffi-
ciently characterised by their names, and by what
he causes them to do. To the artist these means
are wanting. He is obliged, therefore, to attach
emblems, through which they may be understood,
to his personified abstracta. These emblems, because
they are somewhat different, and signify something
different, make the figures allegorical.

A woman4 with a bridle in her hand, another
leaning on a pillar, are in Art allegorical beings.
Rut moderation, stedfastness, are with the poet no
allegorical persons, but only personified abstracta.

The emblems of these beings, as employed by the
artist, were the invention of necessity. For by no
other means can he make intelligible what this or
the other figure signifies. Necessity constrains the
artist, but why should the poet, who knows no such
necessity, be compelled to have recourse to it 1

That which surprises Spence so much ought to be
prescribed as a rule to the poets. They ought not
to make their wealth out of the needs of the Artist.
They are not to consider the means which Art has
invented in order to come near to Poetry as per-
fections of which they have reason to be envious.
When the artist decorates a figure with emblems, he
elevates a bare figure into a higher order of being.
But if the poet employs this picturesque apparel of
the painter, he turns his higher being into a doll.

As the observance of this rule was characteristic
of the ancients, so is the intentional transgression
of it a favourite fault of the modern poets. All the
creatures of their imagination walk in masks, and
those who best understand these masquerades for
the most part, understand the least the true end of

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113

their work, namely, to let all the beings of their
creation act, and by means of their actions display
their character.

Yet among the attributes by which the artists
designate their abstract a, there is a class which is
more susceptible and more worthy of poetic use. I
mean those attributes which are not, properly speak-
ing, allegorical, but which may be considered as
instruments, which the beings to whom they are
given can and may, if they were to act as real
persons, use. The bridle in the hand of Temperance,
the pillar on which Steadfastness leans, are purely
allegorical, and of no use to the poet. The scales in
the hand of Justice are less open to this objection,
because the right use of the scales is really a part
of Justice. The lyre or the dute in the hand of a
Muse, the lance in the hand of Mars, hammer and
tongs in the hands of Vulcan, are in no respect
emblems, but simply instruments, without which
these beings cannot produce the effects which we
ascribe to them. Of this kind are the attributes
which the ancient poets sometimes interweave in
their descriptions, and which on this account, in
order to distinguish them from the allegorical class,
I would call poetical. The latter signify the thing
itself, the former only something resembling it5.

CHAPTER XI

Even Count Caylus seems to require that the
poet shall adorn the creatures of his imagination
with allegorical attributes1. The Count understood
Painting better than Poetry. Nevertheless, the
work in which he expresses this desire has suggested
to me higher considerations, the more important of
which I here notice for the purpose of deliberately
examining them.

The artist, according to the Count’s opinion,
should make himself more familiar with the greatest
painter-poets2, with Homer as with a second nature.
The Count points out to the artist what rich and
insufficiently-used materials for the most excellent
painting, history, as treated by the Greeks, can
supply, and how his execution as an artist will be
the more perfect the more closely he attends to the
least circumstances which are noticed by the poet.

In this proposition the two kinds of imitation
which we have just separated are mixed together.
The painter (it is here suggested) should not only
imitate what the poet has imitated, but he should
also imitate it in the same traits ; he should use the
poet not only as a narrator, but as a poet.

But why should this second kind of imitation,
which is so derogatory to the poet, not also be so to
the painter ? If there had been present to Homer
such a series of pictures as Count Caylus derives
from him, and we knew that the poet had taken his
work from these pictures ; would not our admiration
of him be immeasurably lessened? How does it
happen that we withdraw none of our high esteem
from the artist, when he does no more than express
the words of the poem in forms and colours ?

CHAPTER XI

115

The cause appears to be this : With the artist
execution appears to be more difficult than inven-
tion. With the poet, on the other hand, the case
seems to be reversed, and his execution appears to
be an easier achievement than his invention. If
Virgil had taken the entwining of Laocoon and his
children from the group of the sculptor, then that
merit which, in his work, we hold to be the greatest
and most considerable, would be wanting, and the
lesser merit alone remain. For to create this en-
twining in the imagination is a far greater achieve-
ment than the expression of it in words. On the
other hand, if the artist had borrowed this entwining
from the poet he would still, in our estimation, have
attained sufficient merit, although the merit of in-
vention would have been wanting. For expression
in marble is infinitely more difficult than expression
in words ; and when we weigh against each other
invention and representation, we are always inclined
to make allowance to the artist for what he is
wanting in one respect, accordingly as we think
that he has exceeded in another. There are, indeed,
cases in which it is a greater merit in the artist to
have imitated nature through the medium of the
poet than without it.

The painter who, in imitation of the description
of a Thomson, has represented a beautiful landscape,
has done more than one who has copied directly
from nature. The latter sees the original picture
before him, the former must first strengthen his
power of imagination until he believes that he
sees the picture before him. The former, out of a
lively impression on the senses, creates something
beautiful ; the latter, out of a slender and feeble
representation of arbitrary signs, produces the
same result.

But natural as our readiness to allow the artist
the merit of invention may be, not less natural is it
that an indifference should arise on his part to this
kind of merit. For, seeing that invention could not

116

LAOCOON

be his brilliant side, and that his greatest praise
depended on execution, it was almost a matter of
indifference to him whether the invention was old
or new, used once or an indefinite number of times,
whether it belonged to him or to another. He
remained within the limited circle of a few subjects,
generally well known to himself and the public, and
expended his whole power of invention upon merely
effecting changes in them by new combinations of
old objects. This is really the idea winch the
painters5 elementary books connect with the word
invention. For although they divide it into
picturesque and poetical, the poetical is not con-
cerned with producing the design itself, but simply
with the arrangem ent or expression 8. It is invention,
but not the invention of the whole, but of particular
portions and of their relative position. It is in-
vention, but of that inferior kind which Horace
recommends to his tragic poet :

Tuque

Eectius Iliacum carmen deducis in actus

Quam si proferres ignota indictaque primus 4

Eecommended, I say, but not commanded ; recom-
mended as easier, more becoming to, more advan-
tageous for him ; but not commanded as better and
nobler in itself.

In fact, the poet has made a great step in advance,
who has treated of known history and known
characters. He can pass over a hundred cold details
which would otherwise be necessary for the under-
standing of the whole subject ; and the sooner he
becomes intelligible to his audience the more speedily
will they be interested in him. The painter also
possesses this advantage, when his design is not
strange to us, when at the first glance we recognise
the intention and meaning of his entire composition ;
when we, in one word, not only see his characters
speak, but also hear what they say. The principal
effect depends upon the first glance, and when this

CHAPTER XI

117

compels us to have recourse to wearisome reflections
and deliberations, our desire to be interested grows
cold ; and in order to revenge ourselves upon the
unintelligent artist, we harden ourselves against
the expression ; and woe to him, if he has sacrificed
beauty to expression ! In that case we find nothing
to entice us to linger over his work : what we see
does not please us, and what we ought to think
about it we do not know.

Now, let us take the two propositions together :
first, that the invention5 and novelty of subject are
by no means the principal things which we require
from the painter; secondly, that a well-known
subject forwards and assists the effect of his art ;
and I think that the reason why he so seldom under-
takes a new subject is not, as Count Caylus supposes,
for the sake of his own convenience, or on account
of his ignorance, or on account of the difficulty of
the mechanical part of the Art, which requires all
his industry and all his time ; but the reason has a
deeper foundation, and perhaps what at first sight
appears to be a limitation imposed on his art, and
a diminution of our satisfaction, we should rather
be inclined to praise as a wise and intrinsically
useful restraint on the part of the artist himself. I
am not afraid of being contradicted on this point by
experience. The painter would thank the Count for
his goodwill, but would scarcely avail himself of it
so generally as he expects. But if it were other-
wise, then every hundred years a new Caylus would
be necessary to recall to our recollection the old
subjects, and bring back the artist into that field
where others before him had failed to gain immor-
tality for their laurels. Or is it desired that the
public should have the same learning which the
connoisseur derives from his books, that all the
scenes of history and of fable which could furnish a
beautiful picture should be familiarly known to it ?
I grant that the artists would have done better it’,
since the time of Raffaello, they had taken Homer

118

LAOCOON

for their hand-book instead of Ovid. But as that
has not once happened, we must leave the public in
the beaten path, and not put more acid into its
pleasure than in the nature of things pleasure itself
requires.

Protogenes had painted the mother of Aristotle.
I do not know how much the philosopher paid him
for it, but either instead of payment, or over and
above his payment, he gave him a piece of advice,
which was worth more than the payment. For I
cannot fancy that his advice was mere flattery.
But because he considered that the principal
requisite of Art was to be intelligible to all, he
advised him to paint the exploits of Alexander ;
exploits of which at that time all the world was
speaking, and which he could foresee would not be
forgotten by posterity. But Protogenes was not
steady enough to follow this advice. ‘Impetus
animi,J says' Pliny, £ et quaedam artis libido * 6 — a
certain insolence of art, a certain craving after the
strange and the unknown, drove him into entirely
different subjects. He preferred to paint the history
of a certain Ialysus 7 and of a certain Cydippe, and
of others of the same character, as to which paintings
we can no longer conjecture what they were intended
to represent.

CHAPTEK XII

Homer creates two classes of beings and of actions,
visible and invisible. Painting is incompetent to
represent this difference ; with it everything is
visible, and visible after one fashion only.

When the Count Caylus places the invisible
actions in unbroken sequence with the visible, when
in these pictures of mixed actions in which visible
and invisible beings take their part, he does not
indicate, and perhaps cannot indicate, how the
latter (which only we who consider the picture can
discover in it) are so to be brought into relation
with the former, that the persons in the picture
do not see them, or at least must of necessity not
appear to see them, — then also of necessity the
whole series of the pictures, as well as many iso-
lated portions of it, become extremely perplexing,
unintelligible, and contradictory.

Yet it would be possible, with the book in one’s
hand, to remedy this fault. The worst consequence
is this, that as the distinction between visible and
invisible is taken away by the painter, all the charac-
teristic features are immediately lost, by means of
which this higher kind is elevated above the lesser.

For instance: when at last the gods, who are
divided as to the fate of the Trojans, come to blows :
with the poet1 all this battle is represented as in-
visible, and this invisibility permits the imagination
to widen the scene, and leaves it free scope2 to
represent to itself the persons of the gods and their
actions as gigantic, and as far above ordinary
humanity as it pleases. But painting must adopt
a visible scene, the various dimensions of which,
necessarily known to us, must furnish the standard

119

120

LAOCOON

for the persons who are to act in it, a standard
which the eye has close to it, and the disproportion
of which to these higher beings causes these higher
beings which the poet had represented as huge to
become on the canvas of the artist enormous.

Minerva, upon whom Mars in this battle makes
the first onset, steps back, and snatches in her
mighty hands from the earth a dark, rough, huge
stone, which in ancient days the united force of
men’s hands had rolled there for a boundary.

*H 5' avax^caaiuLeurj \lQov e'iAero XeLP 1
Kel/uevov ev ned 'up, fieXava, rpr\x^v re, /ueyav re
T&v p &v5pes 'Kp6repoi Qeaav efi/aevat ovpoi' apovprjs 3

In order properly to estimate the greatness of
this stone, we must remember that Homer makes
his heroes for the nonce as strong as the strongest
man in .his day ; but he makes those men whom
Nestor knew in his youth surpass them in strength.
Now, I ask, with respect to this stone, which not
one man out of the men of Nestor’s youthful con-
temporaries could have put down for a boundary
stone, — now, I ask, if Minerva had thrown such a
stone at Mars, of what stature must the goddess
be? If her stature is to be proportioned to the
greatness of the stone, then the wonder ceases. A
man who is three times larger than I am must
naturally be able to throw a stone three times
greater. But if the stature of the goddess be not
proportioned to the greatness of the stone, then
there arises an evident improbability in the paint-
ing, the repulsiveness of which is not removed by
the cold reflection that a goddess must have super-
human strength. Where I see an effect greater
than usual, I expect to find an instrument greater
than usual. And Mars overthrown by this mighty
stone,

'Enra 5’ eir ecrx* vi\eBpa

‘ covered seven acres ’. It is impossible that the

CHAPTER XII

121

painter could give this extraordinary size to the
god, but if he does not give it him, then Mars
does not lie upon the ground like the Homeric
Mars, but like a common warrior4. Longinus says,
it often occurs to him that Homer had intended to
elevate his men to the rank of gods, and to degrade
his gods to the rank of men. Painting carries
this degradation into execution. In it everything
vanishes which in the hands of the poet made the
gods superior to the god-like men. Greatness,
strength, speed, qualities which Homer keeps in
reserve for his gods in a higher and more wonderful
degree than those which he attributes to his best
heroes, must, in the painting5, sink down to the
level of the common measure of humanity, and
Jupiter and Agamemnon, Apollo and Achilles, Ajax
and Mars, become entirely beings of the same kind,
who can only be distinguished by certain outward
conventional signs. The means which Painting
uses in order to make us understand that, in her
composition, this or that object must be considered
as invisible, is a thin cloud, in which the object is
concealed on the side which is turned towards the
actors. This cloud appears to have been borrowed
from Homer himself. For when in the tumult of
the fight one of the more important heroes gets into
danger, from which only divine aid can save him,
the poet makes a protecting deity cover him with
a thick cloud, or with night, and so rescues him,
as Paris is saved by Venus6, Idaeus by Neptune7,
Hector by Apollo.8 And this mist, this cloud, Caylus
does not forget to recommend strongly to the artist,
when he sketches out for him the picture of such
events. Rut who does not see that the poet can
only use this veiling in mist and night as a poetical
mode of describing invisibility ? It has always
amazed me to find this poetical expression reduced
to reality, and a real cloud put into the picture,
behind which the hero, as behind a screen, stands
concealed from his foe. This was not the intention

122

LAOCOON

of the poet. This is to go beyond the limits of
painting ; for this cloud is here a real hieroglyphic,
a mere symbolical sign which does not render the
rescued hero invisible, but appeals to the spectator
to consider him as invisible. It is no better than
the scrap of writing which comes out of the mouth
of persons in the old Gothic paintings.

It is true that Homer makes Achilles, when Apollo
delivers Hector from him three times, thrust his
lance into the thick cloud : rpls 5’ r)€pa rvif/e J3a0€iay9.
But that in poetical language means no more than
that Achilles was so furious that he three times
thrust forward his lance without perceiving that
his foe was no longer before him. Achilles saw no
real cloud, and the whole artifice, by which the gods
are made invisible, does not consist in the cloud, but
in the speedy withdrawal of the person. Only in
order to point out that the withdrawal is so rapidly
effected that no mortal eye can follow the figure
which is withdrawn, the poet previously wraps him
in a mist; not in order that a cloud may be seen
instead of the withdrawn body, but that we may
consider that which is veiled in a mist as invisible.
With this view he sometimes reverses the state of
things, and instead of making the object invisible,
smites the subject witli blindness. Thus Neptune
darkens the eyes of Achilles when he rescues Aeneas
from his murdering hands, whom he with a single
effort removes from the middle of the crowd at
once into the rear10. In fact, however, the eyes of
Achilles are as little darkened in this instance as in
the other instance, when the rescued hero is veiled in
mist ; but the poet uses the one and the other only
for the purpose of making apparent the extreme
swiftness of the withdrawal which we call vanish-
ing. But the painters have not only appropriated
the Homeric cloud in those cases in which Homer
had, or would have used it, that is, on occasions of
invisibility 'or vanishing; but on every occasion
when the spectator ought to perceive in the picture

CHAPTER XII

123

what the persons in the picture, either all or part
of them, cannot perceive. Minerva was visible to
Achilles alone when she restrained him from pro-
ceeding to violence against Agamemnon. In order
to express this, Caylus says : ‘ I know no other way
than that he should be concealed in a cloud from
the rest of the assembled council7. This is alto-
gether against the spirit of the poet. To be in-
visible is the natural condition of the gods. They
require no blinding and no cutting off of the rays
of light in order to be invisible, but they require11
an illumination and an elevation of the mortal
countenance when they wish to be seen. Nor is it
sufficient that the cloud is to the painter an arbi-
trary and not a natural sign : this arbitrary sign
has never the distinct significance which as such it
should have, because it is employed as well for the
purpose of making what is visible invisible, as of
making what is invisible visible12.

CHAPTER XIII

If Homer’s works were entirely lost, if we had
nothing remaining of his Iliad and Odyssey but a
series of pictures like those which Caylus put forth,
should we from these pictures — let them be drawn
by the hand of the most perfect master — be able to
form the idea which we now have, I will not say of
the poet altogether, but merely of his talent for
painting ? Let us make a trial of the first and best
piece. Let it be the picture of the pestilence1. What
do we see on the canvass of the painter? — Dead
corpses, burning funeral piles, dying men busied
with the dead, an angry god shooting his arrows
from a cloud upon the people. The greatest wealth
of this picture is the poverty of the poet. For if
we were to restore Homer from this picture, what
could we say ? — ‘ Hereupon Apollo was angry, and
shot his arrows into the hosts of Greeks, many
Greeks died, and their corpses were burnt’. How
read Homer himself :

B? ) de tear * ObXvy.iroio xapriucov, x^o/ievos xrjp ,

To|5 &jJLOicnv afj.(f)rjp€(p€a re tyaperpriv

''F.xXay^av 5* &/>’ o'icrrol eir’ tafioov x^o^^olo,

Avtov Kivr\Qevros • 6 5 ’ fl'Ce vvtzrl eoixws'

"E £er’ €7r eir arravevQe vevv, jxera. d 5 ibv erjKew
Aeiv)] KAayyfy y ever’ apyvpeoio fiioio.

Ovprjas /lev tv poorov h r^X6T0> xal kvvols apyovs'

Avrap eneir* avrottfi fieXos ex^^vfces etyiels

BaAA’* aiel de tt upal vexvwv xaiovro Oaueiai 2 II. A 44-52.

As far as life transcends a picture, so far does the
poet here transcend the painter. In grim rage,
armed with bow and quiver, Apollo steps down
from the ramparts of Olympus. I not only see him

124

CHAPTER XIII

125

descend, I hear him. At every step the arrows
rattle on the shoulders of the wrathful god ; he
marches onward like the night. Now he seats him-
self opposite the ships, and lets fly — fearful is the
sound of the silver bow — the first arrow upon the
beasts of burden and the dogs. Then, with a more
poisoned arrow, he pierces the men themselves ;
and, everywhere, incessantly, blazes up the funeral
pile with corpses. It is impossible to translate into
another tongue the musical painting which the
words of the poet convey to us. It is as impossible
to form an idea of it from the material painting,
though that is among the least of the advantages
which the poetical picture has over the other. The
principal advantage is this, that the poet leads us
through a whole gallery of pictures to the one
which the material painting has borrowed from him.
But perhaps the pestilence is not a favourable sub-
ject for painting. Here is another which has more
charms for the eye. The Banqueting Gods at
Council 3 ; the open golden palace. Groups of the
most beautiful and dignified figures placed accord-
ing to the will of the painter. Hebe, eternal youth,
ministering with a goblet in her hand. What archi-
tecture ! What masses of light and shade ! What
contrasts ! What manifold variety of expression !
Where shall I begin ? Where shall I cease to feed
my eye? If the painter so bewitches me, how
much more will the poet do so ! I open his volume,

and I find myself -deceived. I find four good

plain lines, which might be used as an inscription
on the picture, in which lies the material for a
picture, but which are no picture themselves :

Oi 5e Oeol 7r ap Zrjvl icaQiifievoi yyopioovTO

Xpvaecp iu dairtSy /xera Se a(pi(U ndryia "H/3 tj

Nexrap icpvoxdei' rol 5e XPV(X*0LS 8e7r aetrcriv

A eid4xaTi aAA^Aous, Tpcocov eicropoccvres 4

An Apollonius, or even a yet inferior poet, could
not have written more poorly ; and here Homer

126

LAOCOON

remains as far below the painter as the painter, in
the other subject, remained below him. It is to be
observed that Caylus, in the whole fourth book of
the Iliad , finds no other picture than the one
represented in these four lines.

Whatever effect, he says, this fourth book may produce
through the manifold incitements to combat, through the
abundance of brilliant and marked characters, and through
the skill with which the poet shows us the multitudes whom
he sets in motion ; nevertheless this book is wholly useless
to the painter.

lie might have added to this : however rich it may
be in what is called poetical painting ; for in truth
there are to be found in this fourth book as many
and as perfect poetical paintings as in any other
book. Where is there a more finished picture, one
more fraught with illusion, than that of Pandarus,
when, at the instigation of Minerva, he breaks the
truce, and lets fly his arrow at Menelaus ? — than
that of the advance of the Greek host ? — than that
of the simultaneous attack of both armies ? — than
that of the act of Ulysses, by which he avenges the
death of his Leucus ?

But what is the inference from this ? That not a
few of the most beautiful pictures of Homer afford
no pictures for the artist, — that the artist can ex-
tract pictures from him where he himself had none !
That those which he had, and which the artist
could use, would be only very poor pictures indeed,
if they exhibited no more than the artist exhibits !
What is the final conclusion? That my question,
put at the beginning of this paragraph, must be
answered in the negative ; that from the material
pictures for which the poems of Homer furnish
the subject, be they ever so many, and ever so
excellent, no conclusion can be drawn as to the
pictorial talent of the poet.

CHAPTEE XIV

But is it so ? and can a poem be very useful to
the painter, and yet be in itself not picturesque ;
while, on the other hand, can another be very
picturesque, and yet be of no avail to the painter h
Then there is an end to the idea of Count Caylus,
which makes the usefulness of the poet to the
painter the touchstone of poets, and fixes their rank
according to the number of pictures which they
afford to the artist1.

Far be it from us to permit, even by our silence,
this to acquire the semblance of a rule. Milton
would be the first innocent sacrifice. For it really
appears probable that the scornful sentence of con-
demnation which Caylus passes upon him is not so
much the result of national taste as the consequence
of this supposed rule. The loss of his sight, he says,
is the principal feature of resemblance which Milton
had to Homer. Indeed, Milton can fill no picture
galleries. But if it were a necessary condition of
my preserving bodily eyesight that the sphere of it
should also be the sphere of my mind's eye, then I
should consider the loss of the former, if it set me
free from such a limitation, as a great gain 2.

Paradise Lost , therefore, is not the less the first
epic poem after that of Homer because it offers few
pictures ; even as the history of our Lord’s Passion
is not a poem because one can scarcely touch, even
with the point of a needle, a passage in it which lias
not furnished material to a multitude of the greatest
artists. The Evangelists narrate the facts with all
possible dryness and simplicity, and the artist avails
himself of the different portions of their narrative,
though they on their part have not manifested the

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slightest spark of pictorial genius. There are
picturesque and unpicturesque facta , and the his-
torian can narrate in a very unpicturesque manner
those that are most picturesque, even as the poet is
able to represent in a picturesque manner those
that are most unpicturesque3. To understand it
otherwise is to allow yourself to be deceived by an
equivocal expression. A poetical picture is not
necessarily that which can be changed into a ma-
terial picture ; but every trait, every combination
of several traits through which the poet renders his
object so sensible to us, that we become better
acquainted with this object than with his words, is
called picturesque , is called a picture , because it
brings us nearer to the degree of illusion which the
material picture is especially capable of exciting,
and which in the first instance, and most easily,
results from the subject of the material picture4.

CHAPTER XY

Now it is also in the power of the poet, as ex-
perience shows ns, to elevate to this degree of
illusion the representation of objects other than
those that are visible. Consequently the artist
must necessarily forgo whole classes of pictures
which the poet has before him. Dryden’s Ode on
St. Cecilia’s Day is full of musical pictures which the
pencil cannot touch, but I will not waste my time
in such examples as these, from which, after all, one
does not learn much more than that colours are not
tones, and that ears are not eyes. I will confine
myself to the consideration of pictures of purely
visible objects, which are common to the poet and
painter. How comes it to pass that many poetical
pictures of this kind are of no use to the painter,
and, on the other hand, how many pictures, properly
so-called, lose the greatest part of their effect under
the treatment of the poet ?

Examples must guide me. I repeat it : the picture
of Pandarus in the fourth book of the Iliad is one of
the most finished and the most fraught with illu-
sions of any in Homer. From the grasp of the bow
to the flight of the arrow every moment is painted,
and all these moments are so close to each other,
and yet so distinct, that if one did not know how to
manage a bow, one might learn it from this picture
alone h

Pandarus bends his bow before him, fastens the
string to it, opens his quiver, chooses a new and
well-leathered arrow, puts the arrow on the string,
draws back the string with the arrow ; the string
is close to his breast, the iron barb of the arrow
rests on the bow, the great rounded bow resounds

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LAOCOOX

as it stretches, the string whirrs, the arrow springs
forth, and eagerly flies to its mark. Cay Ins cannot
have overlooked this admirable picture. What was
it he found therein which led him to think it in-
capable of occupying the artist ? and what was it
which made him think that the assembly of the
banqueting gods in council was more useful for this
purpose ? Here, as well as there, are visible objects,
and what does the painter want more than visible
objects to cover his canvas ?

The knot of the difficulty must be this. Although
both objects, so far as they are visible, are equally
susceptible of being painted, in the proper sense of
the word, there is nevertheless this essential differ-
ence between them : that the former is a visible
action in progress, the different parts of which, by
degrees, and in succession of time, develope them-
selves ; the latter, on the other hand, is a visible,
stationary action, the different parts of which un-
fold themselves, one next to the other, in space. But
if painting, on account of the signs and means of
imitation which it employs, and which can only be
combined in space, must entirely renounce time,
then progressive actions cannot, in so far as they
are progressive, be included in the number of its
subjects, bat it must content itself with co-existent
actions, or with mere bodies, which, on account of
their position, cause an action to be suspected.
Poetry, on the other hand,

CHAPTEB XVI

But I will try to consider the matter upon first
principles. I reason in this way. If it be true that
Painting, in its imitations, makes use of entirely
different means and signs from those which Poetry
employs ; the former employing figures and colours
in space, the latter articulate sounds in time, — if,
incontestably, signs must have a proper relation to
the thing signified, then co-existent signs can only
express objects which are co-existent, or the parts
of which co-exist, but signs which are successive
can only express objects which are in succession, or
the parts of which succeed one another in time-
Objects which co-exist, or the parts of which co-
exist, are termed bodies. It follows that bodies,
with their visible properties, are the proper objects
of painting. Objects which succeed, or the parts of
which succeed to each other, are called generally
actions. It follows that actions are the proper
object of Poetry.

But all bodies do not exist only in space, but
also in time. They have continued duration, and
in every moment of their duration may assume a
different appearance and stand in a different rela-
tion. Each of these momentary appearances and
relations is the effect of a preceding, and the cause
of a subsequent action, and so presents to us, as it
were, a centre of action. It follows that Painting
can imitate actions, but only by way of indication,
and through the means of bodies.

On the other hand, actions cannot subsist by
themselves, but must be dependent on certain
beings. In so far, now, as these beings are bodies,
or may be regarded as such, poetry also paints

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LAOCOON

bodies, but only by way of indication, and through
the means of actions.

Painting, with regard to compositions in which
the objects are co-existent, can only avail itself of
one moment of action, and must therefore choose
that which is the most pregnant, and by which
what has gone before and what is to follow will be
most intelligible.

And even thus Poetry, in her progressive imita-
tions, can only make use of one single property of
bodies, and must therefore choose that one which
conveys to us the most sensible idea of the form of
the body, from that point of view for which it
employs it.

From this is derived the rule of the unity of
picturesque epithets, and of frugality in the de-
scription of bodily objects.

I should put little confidence in this dry chain of
argument did I not find it fully confirmed by the
practice of Homer, or rather, I should say, if the
practice of Homer had not introduced me to it.
Upon these principles only the great manner of the
Greek can be defined and explained, and the sentence
which it deserves be passed on the directly opposite
manner of so many modern poets who wish to rival
the painter in a performance in which they must
necessarily be surpassed by him. I find that Homer
paints nothing but progressive actions, and paints
all bodies and individual things only on account of
their relation to these actions, and generally with
a single trait. What wonder is it, then, that the
painter, where Homer has painted, finds little or
nothing for himself to do, and that his harvest
is only to be gathered where history brings to-
gether a multitude of beautiful bodies, in beauti-
ful attitudes, within a space favourable to art,
while the poet himself may paint as little as he
pleases these bodies, these attitudes, and this space ?
Let any one go through the whole series of paint-
ings, piece by piece, which Caylus has taken from

CHAPTER XYI 133

him, and he will find a confirmation of this
remark.

Here I leave the Count, who would make the
colour-grinding stone of the painter the touchstone
of the poet, in order that I may throw a greater
light upon the manner of Homer.

I say 1 that Homer usually makes use of one trait.
A ship is to him at one time a dark ship, at another
a hollow ship, at another a swfift ship, at the most
a well-rowed black ship. He goes no farther in the
painting of a ship but the navigation, the departure,
the arrival of the ship ; out of these he makes a
detailed picture, a picture out of which the painter
must make five or six separate pictures if he wishes
to place it entirely upon his canvas.

If particular circumstances compel Homer to fix
our attention for a longer time upon one individual
corporeal object, he nevertheless produces no picture
which the painter can imitate with his pencil ; but
he knows how to use numberless expedients of art,
so as to place this single object in a successive
series of moments, in each of which it appears in a
different form, and for the last of which the painter
is obliged to wait, in order that he may show us
completely formed that object, the gradual forma-
tion of which we have seen in the poet. For ex-
ample, when Homer wishes to show us the chariot
of Juno, he makes Hebe put together every piece
of it before our eyes. We see the spokes and the
axletrees, and the driving-seat, the pole, the traces,
and the straps, not brought together as a whole,
but as they are separately put together by the
hands of Hebe. Upon the wheels alone the poet
lavishes more than one trait, and he shows us the
eight brazen spokes, the golden fellies, the tires of
bronze, the silver naves — each individual separate
thing. One might almost say, that because there
were more wheels than one, therefore he was
obliged to spend much more time on their descrip-

134

LAOCOON

tion than the putting on of each particular part
would in reality have required.

"HjSTj 5’ afjL(f)f dx^o'cri 6oa>s /3aAe KafnrvAa kvkAci,
XaAicea, 6icraKP7jjuaf aidripecp ol^qvl a ju(pis.

Toov tfroi xpvff*T) fovs &(pOtTos} avrap vnepOev
XctA/ce’ eTriaffcorpa, Trpoffaprjpora, dav/aa idecrOai"

IT Arj/uLveu 5’ dpyvpov €l<t\ 7r epldpo/uoi djacporepcodey’

A bppos de XPv(T*0lffl KC d apyvpeoicriy i/uLaffiv
’Evrerarai' doiaX de Trepldpofioi dvrvyes ei&iv.

Tou 5’ e£ apyvpeos fiv/xbs ireAev’ avrap eir’ tiucpy
Arjcre xpucretoi/ xaAbv £vybv, ev de A enadua
KaA’ ejSaAe xpyo-€i’ 2 . . .

Does Homer wish to show us how Agamemnon was
clad ? Then the king must put on his whole cloth-
ing piece by piece before our eyes — the soft under-
garment, the great mantle, the beautiful sandals,
the sword — and then he is ready, and grasps the
sceptre. We see the raiment in which the poet
paints the act of his being clothed ; another would
have painted the clothes in detail down to the
smallest fringe, and we shall have seen nothing of
the action of putting on the raiment.

MaA aicbv d’ evdvve xLT^vcli
KaAby, V7]ya reov’ irepl de \xeya fcaAAero <papos *

TlocrcrX d y bird Anrapoiaiv ed^caro Ka Aa irediAa.

’Afupl d’ ap’ &p.oi(Tiv /3aA ero }-t(f>os apyvpdrjAov,

E'/Acto $6 arKTjTTTpoi v tt arpcviov, dcpOirov alei 3

And as to that sceptre which here is only described
as ancestral and immortal, as in another place one
like it is described only as xPv(Te'LOls faouri TrenapiuLevov,
garnished with golden bosses, when I say we are to
have a more complete and more accurate picture of
this mighty sceptre, what is it that Homer does'?
Does he paint for us, besides the golden bosses, the
wood of which it is made, and the carved head ?
Yes, it would have been so in a description of
heraldic art, in order that in future time it might

CHAPTER XVI

135

be possible to make one exactly like it. And I am
certain that many a modern poet would have given
such an heraldic description, with the simple and
honest notion that he himself was really painting
because a painter could imitate him. But did
Homer trouble himself with considering how far he
should leave the painter behind him ? Instead of a
description he gives us the history of the sceptre :
first we see it as worked by Vulcan ; next it glitters
in the hand of Jupiter ; then it proclaims the dignity
of Mercury ; then it becomes the commander-staff
of the warrior Pelops ; and then it is the pastoral-
staff of the peaceful Atreits.

’XKTiirrpov r b ''H<pai(TTOS Ka/j.6 revxtov,

“E-fpcuffros pikv device A it Kpcovluvt avaKri *

A vrap a pa Zeus decree diarerSpep 3 Apyei(p6vTr) ’

'E p/xeias de decree? IleAoTU TrArj^Linrcp'

Avrhp 6 av re Ile'Ao^ date3 ’Ar pel’, Xawv’

’Arpevs <5e Qwr)<nta)V eAnrev 7ro\dapvi Quecrr??*

A vrhp 6 auTe ©ueuV ’Ayajuejuvovi Ae?7re (popr/vai .
noAArjcnv v^eroicrL real *'A pye'i iravrl avderffeiv 4

And thus, at last, I am better acquainted with this
sceptre than if a painter had placed it before my
eyes, or a second Vulcan delivered it into my hand.
I should not be surprised to find that one of the
ancient expositors of Homer had admired this
passage, as containing the most perfect allegory of
the origin, the progress, the establishment, and
finally of the hereditary character of kingly author-
ity among men. I should smile, indeed, if I were
to read that Vulcan, who wrought the sceptre,
represented fire, that thing which is most indis-
pensable to the support of man, that relief of our
necessities which had induced the first mortals to
subject themselves to the rule of a single person ;
that the first king was a son of Time (Zeus Kpovfav),
a venerable old man, who wished to share his power
with an eloquent clever man, with a Mercury
( 5iaKr6pcp ’A pyei(p6vTTj\ or entirely to give it up to

136

LAOCOOIST

him ; that the wise orator, at a time when the
young state was threatened by foreign foes, had
delivered up his supreme authority to the bravest
warrior (neAo7ri TrXrjVnnrcp) • that the brave warrior,
after he had subdued the enemy and secured the
state, had found means to transfer it to his son,
who, as a peace-loving ruler, as a beneficent pastor
of his people, had made them acquainted with good
living and abundance (7 roi/iV a accv\ whereby he had
paved the way after his death for the wealthiest of
his relations ( noAvapvi ©vearr}) : so that what hitherto
confidence had bestowed and merit had considered
rather as a burthen than a dignity, should now be
obtained by presents and bribes, and secured for
ever to the family, like any other acquired property.
I should smile, but I should notwithstanding be
confirmed in my esteem for the poet to whom so
much could be attributed.

But this lies out of my path, and I consider the
history of the sceptre merely as an artifice to induce
us to contemplate for a while an individual thing
without introducing us to a frigid description of
its separate parts. Also, when Achilles swears by
bis sceptre to avenge the contumely with which
Agamemnon has treated him, Homer gives us the
history of this sceptre. We see it green and flourish-
ing on the mountain, the steel severs it from the
trunk, strips off its leaves and bark, and makes it
a fitting instrument to signify, in the hands of the
judges of the people, their divine dignity.

Nal fia r65e aKriTrrpov, rb juev ovttotc (pvWa Kal u£ovs
4>u<rei, eTreidTi TTp&ra iv opecrffi AeAonrev,

Ovd * ava0T}\ 7)<T6i* tt epl yap pa e xa^K^s ^AevJ/ei/

<£uAA a T6 Kal <p\oi6v ‘ vvv avre puv vTes ’Axcu&v
5Ev TraXd/bLrjs (popsovai biKaaniXoi, oTre Be/Luaras
Upbs Aibs elpvarai 5

It was not so much the object of Homer to paint
two sceptres of different materials and forms, as to
make a clear and plain representation to us of the

CHAPTER XVI

137

difference of power of which these sceptres were
the emblems. The former, a work by Yulcan ; the
latter cut on the mountain by an unknown hand :
the former, the ancient possession of a noble house ;
the latter destined for the strongest hand : the
former in the hand of a monarch stretched over
many islands and over the whole of Argos ; the
latter borne by one chosen out of the midst of the
Greeks, to whom, with others, the administration
of the laws was confided. This was really the dis-
tance at which Agamemnon and Achilles stood
from each other ; a distance which Achilles himself,
in spite of all his blind wrath, could not do other-
wise than confess.

But not only on those occasions when Homer
combines with his descriptions of this kind ulterior
objects, but also when he only desires to show us
the picture, he will disperse, as it were, the picture
in a kind of history of the object, in order that the
different parts of it, which in nature we see com-
bined together, may in his picture as naturally
seem to follow upon each other, and to keep true
step with the flow of his narrative. For example,
he wishes to paint for us the bow of Pandarus : a
bow of horn, of such-and-such a length, well
polished, and tipped at both ends with beaten gold.
What does he do ? Does he give us a dry enumera-
tion of all its properties, one after the other? No
such thing : that would be to give an account of a
bow, to enumerate its qualities ; but not to paint
one. He begins with the chase of the wild goat,
out of whose horns the bow is made. Pandarus
had lain in wait for him in the rocks, and had slain
him : the horns were of extraordinary size, and on
that account he destined them for a bow. They
are brought to the workshop ; the artist unites,
polishes, decorates them. And so, as I have said,
we see the gradual formation by the poet of that
which we can only see in a completed form in the
work of the painter.

138

LAOCOON

T 6£oi/ iv£oov, l£a\ov aiybs
’Ayplov, qv fid nor’ avrbs , virb crrpevoio rvx^cras ,

ITeTprjs eKfiaivovra SeBey juevos 4v TrpodoKrjo'iv,

Be£ \d)K€i Trpbs <rrrj0os * 6 5’ vtttios ^/xire ere 7re rpy'

Tov Kepa 4k KecfiaXjjs eKKaibeKddoopa rr€(f)VK€i’

K al rd fj.lv cuTK^cras K6pao£6os tfpape tcktcov,

Ylav d 1 €u Aei^uas, XPV(T^VV eneOTjKe Kopdvrjv 6

I should never have done if I were to transcribe
all the instances of this kind. They will occur in
multitudes to him who really knows his Homer.

CHAPTER XYII

But, it will be "objected, the signs of Poetry are
not only successive, but they are also arbitrary ;
and as arbitrary signs they are certainly capable
of expressing bodies as they appear in space.

We find instances of this in Homer himself. We
have only to remember the shield of Achilles, and
we are supplied with the most conclusive example
how discursively and yet how poetically it is
possible to paint a single thing in all its co-existing
parts.

I will answer this two-fold objection. I call it
two-fold because a right conclusion must avail even
without an example ; and, on the other hand, the
example of Homer has weight with me, even when
I do not know how to justify it by any argument.

It is true that, as the signs of speech are arbi-
trary, so it is very possible that by means of them
one may cause the parts of a body to follow in
succession as easily as in nature they exist side by
side. But this is a property of speech and of signs
in general, but not in the relation which is most
favourable to Poetry. The poet wishes not only to
be intelligible, — his representations ought not only
to be clear and perspicuous ; with this the prose
writer may be content. But the poet desires to
make the ideas which he awakens in us so vivid,
that from the rapidity with which they arise we
believe ourselves to be really as conscious of his
objects as if they were actually presented to our
senses ; and in this moment of illusion we cease to
be conscious of the means — that is, of the words —
which he employs for this purpose. This brings us
back to the explanation already given of poetical
pictures.

139

140

LAOCOON

But the poet should always paint ; and now we
wish to see to what extent bodies considered in
their co-existing parts can be the subject of this
kind of painting.

How shall we attain to the clear representation
of a thing in space? First let us consider the
separate parts of it, then the combination of these
parts, and lastly the whole. Our senses achieve
these different operations with so astounding a
speed, that they appear to us to be but one, and
this speed is necessarily indispensable when we
have to attain a conception of the whole, which is
no more than the result of the conception of the
parts, and of their combination. Let it be granted
that the poet leads us in the most perfect order
from one part of the object to another1 ; let it be
granted that he knows how to make the combina-
tion of the whole clear to us, — how long a time
does he require for this purpose ? That which the
eye at once surveys he enumerates to us with
marked slowness by degrees, and it often happens
that we have forgotten the first when we have
arrived at the last. Nevertheless, it is out of these
traits that we must compose a whole. To the eye
the parts considered remain constantly present, we
can run over them again and again : to the ear, on
the contrary, the parts, which have been appre-
hended, are lost if they have not remained in the
memory ; and if they do so remain, what trouble,
what striving does it cost us to renew the impres-
sions all in the same order, and as vividly as at
first, even once to recall them with moderate
swiftness, and to attain to even an approximate
conception of the whole !

Let any one make the experiment in an example
which may be called a masterpiece of its kind :

There does the noble Gentian raise his head
High o’er the lower troop of common plants,

Beneath its standard serve a tribe of flowers ;

Its own blue brother bows and honours it.

CHAPTER XYII

141

While golden pyramids of brilliant flowers
Cling round the stem and crown its robe of green,

The leaves of brilliant white, with deepest green,

Streaked and inlaid throughout, are seen to glow
With the moist diamond’s many-coloured rays.

Most righteous law ! uniting strength with graee,

In the fair body dwells the fairer soul.

Here creeps a lowly plant like some grey mist,

Its leaves by nature shaped as cruciform ;

Two gilded beaks formed by the lovely flower
Spring from a bird made out of amethyst.

Here a bright finger-fashioned leaf doth cast
Its green reflection in the limpid stream.

The flower of snow, with purple lightly tinged,

Environed by the white rays of a star ;

Emeralds and roses deck the trodden heath,

And cliffs are covered with a purple robe 2

Here are plants and flowers which the learned
poet paints with great skill after nature. Paints,
but paints without producing any illusion 3. I will
not say that he who has never seen these plants
and flowers cannot represent them at all to himself
from this picture. It may be that all poetical
pictures require a previous acquaintance with their
objects ; nor will I deny that in him who possesses
such an acquaintance the poet may not awaken a
more vivid idea of some of the parts of the object.
I only ask how he is affected with the conception
of the whole. In order that this conception should
be vivid no single part of it should be prominent,
but a higher light must be equally distributed over
all ; our imagination must rapidly glance over all
alike, in order to place at once combined before us
that which in nature would be seen at once. Is
that the case here h and if it be not, how can it be
said 4 that the most accurate drawing of the painter-
must be entirely feeble and dim, when compared
with this poetical picture ? ’ I It remains, however,
infinitely inferior to that which lines and colours
could express on canvas, and the critic who has
bestowed this exaggerated praise must have con-
sidered the poetry from an entirely false point of
view ; he must have paid greater regard to the
extraneous ornaments which the poet has therein

142

LAOCOOIST

interwoven in order to exalt the vegetable life, and
to develope its inward perfections, to which out-
ward beauty serves only as the rind, — to this he
must have paid greater regard than to the beauty
itself, and to the degree of vividness and resemb-
lance of the picture which the painter or the poet
could present to us as created from it. Here we
are only concerned with the latter, and he who can
say that these lines alone

While golden pyramids of brilliant flowers
Cling round the stem and crown its robe of green,

The leaves of brilliant white, with deepest green,

Streaked and inlaid throughout, are seen to glow
With the moist diamond’s many-coloured rays

in respect to the impression which they make, can
rival a picture by Van Huysen, must either not
have consulted his sensations, or have chosen de-
liberately to contradict them. It may be that a
man who held a flower in his hand might recite
these verses with great effect ; but, taken by them-
selves, they are little or nothing. In these words
I hear the poet labouring at his work, but I am
very far from seeing the thing itself.

Once again let me say I do not deny to language
generally the power of painting a corporeal whole
in its parts. It can do so because its signs, although
they are successive, are nevertheless arbitrary.
But I do deny that language can use them as a
means of poetry, because the power of creating
illusion is wanting to these word-paintings of
bodies, upon which power poetry principally de-
pends. And this power of creating illusion, I
say, must necessarily be wanting, because the co-
existence of bodies thereby comes into collision
with the consecutiveness of language. And because
the former is dissolved in the latter, which, it is
true, facilitates the dismemberment of the whole
into its parts, but makes the final putting together
again, or recomposition of the parts into a whole,
an extremely difficult and often an impossible task.

CHAPTER XVII

143

In every case, indeed, where there is no question
about creating illusion, where the author has only
to address the understanding of the reader, and
has for his object only to convey clear, and, as far
as possible, complete ideas, these may well find
their place in descriptive paintings of bodies, from
which poetry is debarred ; and not only the prose
writer, but the dogmatic 5 poet (for in so far as he
dogmatises he is no poet) can use them with great
advantage. Thus, for example, Virgil, in his poem
of the Georgies, describes a cow which is a good
breeder :

Optima torvae 6

Forma bo vis, cui turpe caput, cui plurima cervix,

Et crurum tenus a mento palearia pendent ;

Turn longo nullus lateri modus ; omnia magna ;

Pes etiam, et eamuris hirtae sub cornibus aures.

Nec mihi displiceat maeulis insignis et albo,

Aut juga detrectans, interdumque aspera cornu,

Et faciem tauro propior, quaeque ardua tota,

Et gradiens ima verrit vestigia cauda.

Or a beautiful foal :

Illi ardua cervix ?

Argutumque caput, brevis alvus obesaque terga,
Luxuriatque toris animosum pectus 8

Who is there who does not see that the poet has.
been more intent on a division and distinction of
the parts, than on showing us the whole? He
desires to show us the signs of a beautiful foal, or
of a cow that is a good breeder, in order that we
may be in a condition, in the event of our meeting
with few or more of these animals, to form a judg-
ment as to the goodness of the one or the other..
Whether he has enabled us easily to comprehend
all these signs in a vivid picture or not is a matter
of little importance to him 9.

Except for this purpose, pictures in detail of
corporeal objects, lacking the above-mentioned
Homeric artifice of changing what is co-existent
into what is really successive, have in all ages been
considered by the best judges as pieces of frigid
conceit, for which little or rather no genius is.

144

LAOCOON

required. When the scribbler of poetry, says
Horace, can advance no further, he begins to paint
a grove, an altar, a brook flowing through lovely
flowers, a rustling stream, a rainbow

Incus, et ara Dianae ;

Et properantis aquae per amoenos ambitus agros,

Aut fiumen Rhenum, aut pluvius describitur arcus 10

Pope, when he came to man’s estate, looked back
with contempt upon the attempts at the picturesque
of his poetical childhood. He expressly laid it
down that whoever wished to bear worthily the
name of a poet, ought to renounce as early as
possible the mania for pictorial description, and
declared that a poem purely descriptive was a
feast made of sauces alone11. As to Herr Yon
Kleist, I can say for certain that he prided himself
very little upon his Spring. If he had lived longer
he would have given it a very different form. He
contemplated the introduction of a plan for it, and
meditated upon the means of placing in a natural
and successive order before his eyes the multitude
of images, which he appeared to have snatched at
hazard from the infinite space of renewed creation.
He would at the same time have followed the
advice which Marmontel, referring to his Eclogues ,
had profitably bestowed upon several German
poets, — he would have converted a series of pictures
but scantily interspersed with sentiments, into a
series of sentiments but scantily interwoven with
pictures 12.

CHAPTER XVIII

And yet it is said that Homer himself has been
guilty of these cold descriptions of corporeal
objects. I think that there are but very few
passages which can be cited as sustaining this
allegation ; and I am certain that even these few
passages are such that they confirm the rule from
which they appear to be exceptions.

The principle remains : succession of time is the
domain of the poet, as space is the domain of the
painter. To bring two periods of time, necessarily
at a distance from each other, into one and the
same picture, as Francesco Mazzuoli1 does the rape
of the Sabine maidens, and the reconciliation of
their husbands with their kindred ; or as Titian
does the whole history of the prodigal son, his
libertine life, and his misery and his repentance2,
is an invasion by the painter of the domain of the
poet, which good taste condemns.

To enumerate one by one to the reader divers
parts or things which in nature I can survey at a
glance when they form a whole, — to do this in
order thereby to present an image of the whole,
is an invasion by the poet of the domain of
the painter, whereby the poet squanders much
imagination without any profit.

As two equitable friendly neighbouring states do
not indeed permit one to take unbecoming liberties
in the interior of the empire of the other, but freely
allow a mutual indulgence to prevail on their
extreme frontiers, with respect to those little in-
fractions of the strict rights of each other which
the necessity of the moment and the force of cir-
cumstances produce, and which admit of mutual
compensation, so it is with Painting and Poetry.

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LAOCOON

I will not adduce in proof of this proposition the
fact that in great historical paintings the single
moment is almost always a little protracted,3 and
that perhaps no single picture very rich in figures
can be found in which each figure has exactly that
motion and position which in the moment of action
it should have ; one figure is engaged in the
moment which precedes, another in the moment
which follows. This is a liberty which the artist
must justify by certain refinements in his arrange-
ment, by the turning away or the removing to a
distance some of his persons, so as to allow them
to take a part, more or less momentary, in the
action. I will content myself with citing the
remark which Mengs makes on the drapery4 of
Baffaello 5 :

All the folds of his draperies have a meaning and reason,
whether derived from their weight or from the action of
the limb which it covers. Frequently you may trace in
them the previous position of the limb. Bafiaello has
sought to give them this meaning. You see by the folds
whether a leg or an arm, previously to their present
action, has been forward or backward, whether the limb
has passed from a contraction to an extension, or whether
it is in the act of passing, or whether it has been extended
and is now contracted.

It is indisputable that in this case the artist
brings together into one two different moments.
For if upon the foot which is behind, and is moving
itself forward, that part of the drapery which lies
upon it immediately follows, unless the drapery be
made of very stiff material, which on that account
would be most unsuitable for painting : so there is
not a moment in which the drapery forms in the
least degree a fold other than the actual posture of
the limb requires ; but if another fold were made
the drapery would be represented as belonging to
the former moment, and the limb to the present
moment. Nevertheless, who would criticize the

CHAPTER XVIII

147

artist severely who finds his advantage in exhibit-
ing the two moments at one and the same time?
Who would not rather praise him for having had
the sense and the courage to commit so slight a
fault, in order to attain to a greater perfection of
expression ? 6.

The poet deserves the same indulgence. His
progressive imitation allows him, to speak strictly,
to present only one side, only one property, of his
corporeal objects. Rut when the happy organisa-
tion of his speech enables him to do this with a
single word, why should he not from time to time
add a second such word ? And why not, if it be
worth the trouble, a third ? or indeed a fourth ? I
have said that with Homer, for example, a ship is
either a black ship, or a hollow ship, or a swift ship,
or at most a well-rowed black ship. That is to be
understood of his general manner. Here and there
one finds a passage where he adds a third pictur-
esque epithet, KafJL7rv\a KvK\ax^K€a OKTaKV'0/j.a, ‘ round,
brazen, eight-spoked wheels \ Also a fourth : aa-irtSa
Tvavroa' 1(T7]v, kclX^v, xaAebP' OjfiAarov, i an uniformly
smooth, beautiful, brazen, hammered shield’. Who
blames him for it ? Who would not rather thank
him for this little excess when we find what a good
effect it can produce in a few suitable passages ?

I do not mean, however, to deduce a strict justifi-
cation of the poet or the painter from the above-
mentioned comparison of two friendly neighbours.
A mere comparison proves and justifies nothing.
But this observation must justify them. In the
case of the painter, the two different moments are
in such near and immediate contact, that without
any violent effort they might be considered as one.
In the case of the poet the multiplied traits which
describe the different parts and properties in space
follow so quick upon one another, so very closely,
that we seem to hear them all at once.

And herein I say Homer derives very uncommon
aid from the excellence of his language. It not

148

LAOCOON

only allows him all possible freedom in the accumu-
lation and composition of epithets, but it also
allows these accumulated epithets to be placed in
so happy an order7 that there is no disagreeable
uncertainty as to the objects to which they relate.
Modern languages, generally, are entirely devoid of
one or more of these advantages. Such, for instance,
is the French language, which, by way of illustra-
tion, is obliged to make use of a circumlocution to
express Kayii7ruAa, kvkXcl , ^aA/cea OKraKurj/jLa , as 4 the
round wheels which are of brass, and have eight
spokes’, expressing the meaning but destroying the
picture. But here the sense is nothing, the picture
everything ; and the former without the latter
makes the most animated poet a dreary proser, a
fate which the good Homer has often undergone
under the pen of the learned Madame Dacier. Our
German language, on the contrary, can indeed
change the Homeric adjectives, for the most part,
into equivalent and equally short adjectives, but
it cannot imitate the happy collocation and order
in which the Greek places them. We say, indeed,

4 the round, brazen, eight-spoked ’ — but 4 the wheels ’
drag slowly behind. Who does not see that the
three different predicates only convey a weak
confused picture before we know the subject to
which they belong ? The Greek binds the subject
immediately with the first predicate, and allows
the others to follow. He says : ‘round wheels,
brazen, eight-spoked’. Thus we know at once of
what the poet is speaking, and are made acquainted,
according to the natural order of thought, first with
the thing itself, then with its accidents. Our
language has not this advantage, or shall I say
that it has it, and can seldom make use of it
without ambiguity ? It is the same thing. For if
we place the adjectives after the substantives they
must stand in statu absoluto ; we must say : 4 round
wheels, brazen and eight-spoked ’. But in this status
our adjectives are used adverbially, and if they are

CHAPTER XVIII

149

united as such to the nearest verb which is predi-
cated of the subject, produce not seldom an entirely
false, but always a very ambiguous sense.

But I am delayed by trifles, and seem to have
forgotten the shield of Achilles, that famous picture,
in consequence of which more especially Homer
has from all antiquity been considered as a teacher
of painting8. A shield, it will be said, is surely an
individual corporeal object, the detailed descrip-
tion of the successive parts of which cannot be
allowed to belong to the province of the poet.
And yet Homer has described this shield in more
than a hundred admirable verses, as to its material,
its form, and all the figures which fill up its enor-
mous surface, so circumstantially and so accurately
that modern artists have found no difficulty in
making a picture exactly resembling it in all its
parts.

I answer to this particular objection what I have
already answered. Homer does not paint the shield
as perfect and already made, but as a shield being
made. He has availed himself of the much -praised
artifice of changing that which is co-existent in his
design into that which is successive, and thereby
presenting us with the living picture of an action
instead of the wearisome description of a body.
We do not see the shield, but the divine master as
he works. There he is with hammer and tongs
before his anvil, and after he has wrought the plates
out of the roughest ore, the figures which are
destined for its ornament rise up before our eyes,
one after the other, as he fashions them out of the
ore. We do not lose sight of them till all are
finished. Now they are finished, and we stand
amazed over the work, but it is with the believing
amazement of an eye-witness who has seen the
work wrought.

This cannot be said of Virgil’s shield of Aeneas.
The Roman poet was either not susceptible of the
delicacy of his model, or the things which he wished

150

LAOCOON

to represent on his shield appeared to him to be
such as would not justify their being executed in
detail before our eyes. They were prophecies, and
it would have been unfitting that the god should
have declared them in our presence as clearly as
the poet afterwards explains them to us. Prophe-
cies, as prophecies, require a darker speech, in
which the real names of the persons of the future
to which they relate do not occur. But, according
to all appearance, it was the introduction of these
real names® that the courtier-poet had most at
heart. But if this furnishes an excuse for him, it
does not take away the evil effect which his devia-
tion from the Homeric path has caused. Every
reader of fine taste will admit this. The pre-
parations which Vulcan makes for his work are
nearly the same in Virgil as in Homer. But in-
stead of our seeing, as in Homer, the preparation
for the work, we see the work itself. Virgil, after
he has shown us the god busy in a general way
with his Cyclopes

Ingentem clypeum informant. * ... . .

. . . Alii ventosis follibus auras
Accipiunt redduntque ; alii stridentia tingunt
Acra lacu ; gemit impositis incudibus antrum,
llii inter sese multa vi brachia tollunt
In numerum, versautque tenaci forcipe massam 10

lets the curtain fall, and transports us into a very
different scene, whence he brings us by degrees
into the valley in which Venus meets Aeneas with
the arms which had been prepared in the interval.
She leans on the trunk of an oak, and after the
hero had sufficiently gazed at them, and wondered,
and handled and tried them, then the description
begins, or the picture of the shield, which, by
means of the everlasting ‘here is’, and ‘there is’,
* near to it stands ’, and ‘ not far from it is seen ’,
becomes so cold and wearisome, that all the poetical
ornaments which even a Virgil could give are
needed to prevent our finding it intolerable. For

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151

it is not Aeneas who makes this picture ; he is
only delighted with the figures, and knows nothing
of their signification

rerumque ignarus imagine gandet

and not even Venus, although she must be pre-
sumed to know as much as her good-natured hus-
band about the future fate of her dear grandson,
gives us the signification. But it comes from the
mouth of the poet ; and the action remains in
obvious suspense during the narration. Not one
of his personages takes the slightest part in it ;
nor has it the slightest effect upon the result,
whether this or that thing is represented upon the
shield ; the clever courtier is visible throughout,
who decks out his subject with every kind of flatter-
ing allusion, but the great genius is not visible,
which relies upon the intrinsic strength of his work
and despises all outward means of rendering it
interesting. The shield of Aeneas is therefore a
real interpolation, singly and solely intended to
flatter the national pride of the Romans : a little
foreign rivulet which the poet conducts into his
stream in order to make it more lively. The shield
of Achilles, on the other hand, is the natural pro-
duce of its own fruitful soil ; for a shield was to be
made, and as what is necessary does not come
without grace from the hand of a god, the shield
must have its ornaments. But the skill lies in
treating these ornaments only as ornaments, in
interweaving them into the main subject so that
it furnishes to us the occasion of seeing them, and
that could only be done in the manner of Homer.
Homer lets Vulcan fashion the ornaments delicately,
while, and at the same time, he is making the
shield, which is worthy of them. Virgil, on the
other hand, appears to have caused his shield to be
made for the sake of the ornaments, for he thinks
them of sufficient importance to deserve a particular
description long after the shield has been made.

CHAPTER XIX

The objections which the elder Scaliger1, Perrault2,
Terrasson3, and others make to the shield of Homer
are well known. As well known are the answers of
Dacier4, Boivin, and Pope. But it seems to me that
these latter have gone much too far, and in the
confidence of a good cause have maintained pro-
positions which are incorrect, and contribute little
to the justification of the poet.

In order to meet the objection that Homer has
filled his shield with a multitude of figures, within
the circumference of which they have scarcely room
to appear, Boivin undertakes to cause the whole to
be drawn, observing the proper proportions. His
idea of dividing the space into various concentric
circles is very ingenious, although the words of the
poet do not give the least excuse for it ; indeed, not
the slightest trace is to be found that the ancients
had portioned out their shields in this way. Homer
himself speaks of golkos Travroae dedaidaA/JLtvov, of a
shield artfully finished on all sides. I should have
preferred, for the sake of economising space, to have
invoked the concave surface of the shield, for it is
known that the ancients did not leave this empty,
as the shield of Minerva, wrought by Phidias, tes-
tifies6. But it was not enough for Boivin to refuse
to avail himself of this advantage ; he increased
without any necessity the pictures themselves, for
which he must find room in the space thus half
diminished, while at the same time he divides into
two or three pictures that which the poet evidently
intended for one only. I well know what induced
him to do this, but it ought not to have induced
him ; for instead of troubling himself to satisfy the

CHAPTER XIX

153

demands of his adversaries, he ought to have shown
them that their demands were unreasonable. I will
make my meaning clearer by an example. When
Homer, speaking of a city, says 6

A aol S’ elv ayopfj eaav a Q(r6oi' ev6a 5e veiKos
’npilopei’ 8vo 5 ’ avdpes eveiKeov eivcKa ttolvtis
’Avdpbs aTTCxpOijicvov’ 6 /uev cvxgto, tt dvr’ airodovvat,

Aiyxcp 7 TKpavoKcov' 6 8’ avaivero fxrjdev e\ecr6cu‘

VA fMpoo 8’ leaOrjv iir\ tffropi tt elpap e\ecr6cu.

A aol 81 afuporepoicriv ctt^ttvov, afMpls apcayoi *

K i]pvKCS 8’ apa A .abv ip7)TvoV ol Se yepovres
E 'tar iirl ^etTTo'ia’i A lQols, Up# evl KVKXcp’

2 KrjTTTpa 8e KTjpvK&v ev X^P^ *X0V yepCHptoVcav.

T oiaiv €TT6iT tf'i(rcrov, a/noifiridls 8e diKa(ov.

Kelro 8’ Tup ev fjLeacTQUJi dvco xpvcroio raXavra

I believe that he intended to give a single picture
only, the picture of a public trial in a court of
justice upon the contested payment of a consider-
able fine due on account of a homicide. The artist
who has proposed to himself this subject can only
once, and no oftener make use of a single moment :
either the moment of the accusation, or of the
examination of the witnesses, or of the delivery of
the judgment, or of whatever moment he, before
or after, or between these moments, considers most
suitable. This single moment he must make as
pregnant as possible, and deck it out with all the
illusions which his art possesses, and which that of
the poet does not possess, in the representation of
visible objects. But the poet, left so far behind the
painter in this respect, the poet, who has to paint
this subject with words, and does not choose to fail
entirely, what can he do except in his turn avail
himself of the peculiar advantages of his art? And
what are they 1 The liberty of extending in his
work of art his description over what has preceded
as well as over what has succeeded to the single
moment of the painter, and the power of describing
not only what the painter describes, but also that

154

LAOCOON

which he can only leave us to conjecture. It is by
this liberty and this power alone that the poet can
place himself on a level with the artist, and they
will then most resemble each other where the effect
of them is equally vivid ; but not on account of the
greater or less number of pictures which the one
art addressing the soul through the ear, the other
through the eye, may present to it.

These are the principles according to which Boivin
ought to have formed his judgment on this passage
in Homer ; and he would not then have made as
many separate pictures out of it as he thought he
remarked separate epochs of time in it. It is true
that all that Homer said in these verses could not
be combined in one picture : the accusation, the
defence, the appearance of witnesses, the acclama-
tions of the people, the striving of the heralds to
quiet the tumult, and the utterances of the judges,
are all things which follow one upon another, and
cannot stand separately by each other as co-exist-
ing. Though that which, to use the language of the
schools, was not included in actu in the picture
was in virtute therein, and the only true method of
imitating by words a material picture, is to combine
what is virtually implied with what is actually
visible, and not to confine yourself to the limits of
Art, within which the poet, it is true, may enumerate
data for a picture, but will never produce a picture
itself.

In the same way Boivin7 divides the picture of
the beleaguered city into three separate pictures.
He might as well have cut it up into twelve as into
three. For as he never seized the spirit of the poet,
and as he required, the poet to subject himself to
the unities of material painting, he might have
discovered many more oversteppings of these
unities, till at last it would have been necessary to
allot a particular space on the shield for each par-
ticular trait of the poet. In my opinion Homer
has, generally speaking, not more than ten distinct

CHAPTER XIX

155

pictures on the whole shield, each of which he intro-
duces with a & fiev erevge, or ev Troi^e, or eV S' iriOeL,
or eV 5e TToUiWe 'AfKpiyvrj^s8. Where these introductory
words do not occur we have no right to suppose a
separate picture ; on the other hand, all that these
words enclose must be considered as a separate
picture, to which nothing is wanting save the
arbitrary concentration on a particular epoch of
time, which the poet was in no way bound to
indicate. Rather if he had indicated it, if he had
holden vigorously to it, if he had abstained from
introducing the smallest trait which could not have
been combined with it in the actual execution of
the picture — in a word, if he had done what his
censors desired : they, it is true, would have had
nothing to reproach him with, but in reality no
man of taste would have found anything to admire
in him.

Pope not only approves of the division and the
designs of Boivin, but thinks that he (Pope) is
entitled to particular merit in pointing out that
each of these sub-divided pictures is indicated by
Homer in accordance with the strictest rules of
ordinary modern painting. Contrast, perspective,
the three unities, all are observed in the most care-
ful manner ; and although he well knew that in the
opinion of trustworthy witnesses, painting at the
time of the Trojan war was yet in its cradle, there-
fore either Homer must by virtue of his god-like
genius not have paid regard to the paintings of an
earlier date or of his own time, but rather have
divined the future achievements of painting ; or
Pope must have thought that those witnesses them-
selves were not sufficiently trustworthy to outweigh
the palpable evidence afforded by the language
which, so to speak, the shield of the artist itself
expressed. Let who will adopt the first position,
the second at least will convince nobody who knows
anything more of the history of the art than the
mere data which the chronicler supplies. For such

156

LAOCOON

a person will believe that Painting in Homer’s time
was still in its childhood, not only because a Pliny
or a like author says so, but especially because,
having regard to the works of art which the
ancients mention, he concludes that for many hun-
dred years after this epoch Painting had made little
progress. For instance, the pictures of a Poly-

fnotus would not approach to the test to which
'ope thinks the pictures of the Homeric shield
should be subjected. The two great pictures of this
master at Delphi, of which Pausanias9 has left us
so circumstantial a description, were clearly with-
out perspective. This part of the art must be
altogether denied to the ancients, and the proofs
which Pope adduces to show that Homer possessed
the idea of perspective only prove that Pope himself
had a very imperfect conception of it10.

That he was not a stranger (Pope says) to aerial per-
spective appears in his expressly marking the distance 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
expressed in their full magnitude ; and this is therefore a
sort of proof that the art of lessening them according to
perspective was known at that time. (Pope, Works, v,
138.)

Merely to observe, the law of optical experience
that a thing in the distance appears smaller than
one close at hand is far from putting the picture in
perspective. Perspective requires a single point of
sight, a defined natural horizon, and this was want-
ing in the old pictures. The ground plan in the
pictures of Polygnotus was not horizontal, but the
background was so much raised that the figures

CHAPTEB XIX

157

which ought to appear to stand one behind another,
appeared to stand one above the other. And if this
disposition of separate figures and their groups was
general, as we may conclude from the old bas-reliefs,
where the hindmost figures always stand higher
than the foremost, and look over them : then it is
natural to suppose the same in the description of
Homer and not unnecessarily to separate those of
his figures, which he allows to be combined in one
picture. The double scene of the city at peace
through whose streets moves the joyous procession
of a nuptial feast, while in the market-place an
important law suit is being tried, does not neces-
sarily require a double picture ; and Homer might
well consider it as a single one, while he put before
us the whole city from so raised a point of sight,
that he thereby opened a clear view simultaneously
both of the streets and of the market-place.

I am of opinion that the true perspective was
introduced into pictures accidentally, through the
medium of scene-painting ; and although that was
already in perfection, it could not have been so easy
to apply the rules of it to a flat surface, since even
in the later pictures discovered in the ruins of
Herculaneum, we find so many and such various
faults of perspective as we should now hardly
pardon in a beginner11. But I spare myself the
trouble of collecting my scattered remarks upon
this single point, of which I am justified in expect-
ing the most complete treatment in the history of
Art, which Herr Winkelmann has promised to
give us13.

CHAPTER XX

It is better that I should return to my path : if
one who takes a walk for his pleasure can be said to
have a path. What I have said generally with
respect to corporeal objects, is so much the more
applicable to beautiful corporeal obj ects. Corporeal
beauty is the result of the harmonious action of
various parts which can be taken in at a glance. It
requires therefore that these parts should lie near
each other ; and therefore things whose parts lie
near each other are the proper object of painting :
this art and this alone can imitate corporeal beauty.
The poet who can only describe the elements of
beauty, one after the other, abstains altogether from
painting corporeal beauty as beauty. He feels that
these elements arranged in succession cannot possibly
produce the effect which they have when arranged
in juxta-position or as co-existing ; that the con-
centrating glance, which, after their enumeration,
we wish to throw back upon them, in order to
observe them all at once, does not secure to us an
harmonious whole : that it passes the imagination
of man to represent to himself what effect this
mouth and this nose and these eyes taken together
produce, unless we can recollect a similar com-
position of such parts in nature or in art. And here
also Homer is the model of all models. He says :
Niseus was beautiful ; Achilles was yet more
beautiful ; Helen possessed a divine beauty • but he
never allows himself to enter into a more detailed
description of these beauties. Nevertheless the
whole poem is built upon the beauty of Helen.
How greatly a modern poet would have luxuriated
in the description of it ! Constantine Manasses

CHAPTER XX

159

desired to adorn his bald chronicle with a picture of
Helen : I must thank him for the attempt. For I
really do not think I could otherwise have found an
example which so clearly demonstrated how foolish
it is to attempt to do that which Homer has wisely
left unattempted. When I read in him 1 :

7] yvvT] irepiKaW^s, evocppvs , Evxpovarar7]y
Evn apeios evrrp6(rcoTrosf fio&Ttis, xi0J/^XPavs >

* EAiKo/3\€(papos , a/3 pa, xaPLTC0J/ J&ov clKgos
AzVKof$pcLx'i(av rpvcpepa, KaXXos avriKpvs e/xttvovv,

Tb 7rp6<JQt)irou KaraXevKov, 7] irapeia f )ob6xpovs}

Tb 7rp6(TooTrov iirixapL, rb @X4(papov wpcuov.

KaWos av6TTLT7)d6VTov, afiaTTT icrr ov , avroxpovv,
vEj8a7TT6 tt]V XevKOTTjra pod^xpia TrvpivT],

*Qs e? t is rbv iX 4(pavra fia-tyei Xapurpa tt opcpvpq
A eip^j fiaxpa, KaraXeutcos, o6ev e/JLvOovpy^drj
KvKVioyeuT] tt]V evotttov *EX4vr]V xp^aT^eij'

it seems to me that I see stones rolled up a
mountain, out of which on the top a superb build-
ing is meant to be erected ; but all of which of their
own accord roll down again upon the other side.
What sort of image does this pomp of words leave
upon our minds h What was Helen’s appearance ?
If a thousand men were to read the description,
would not all the thousand form their own separate
idea of it ? But it may be said with truth that the
versus politici2 of a monk are not poetry. Listen
then to Ariosto when he describes his bewitching
Alcina 3 :

Di persona era tanto ben formata,

Quanto me’ finger san pittori industri ;

Con bionda cliioma lunga ad annodata :

Oro non 6 che piu risplenda e lustri.

Spargeasi per la guancia delicata
Misto color di rose e di ligustri :

Di terso avorio era la fronte beta,

Che lo spazio finia con giusta meta.

Sotto duo negri e sottilissimi arclii
Son duo negri occhi, anzi duo chiari soli,

Pictosi a riguardare, a mover parclii ;

Intorno a cui par ch’ Amor scherzi e voli,

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LAOCOON

E ch’ indi tutta la faretra scarchi,

E die visibilmente i cori involi :

Quindi il nas<» per mezzo il viso scende,

Che non trova 1’ invidia ove 1* emende.

Sotto quel sta, quasi fra due vallette,

La bocca sparsa di natio cinabro :

Quivi due filze son di perle elette,

Clm ehiude ed apre un bello e dolce labro ;

Quindi escon le cortesi parolette
Da render molle ogni cor rozzo e scabro ;

Quivi si forma quel suave riso

Ch’ apre a sua posta in terra il paradiso.

B anca neve e il bel collo, e’ 1 petto latte :

Il collo e tondo, il petto col mo e largo.

Due pome acerbe, e pur d’ avorio fatte,

Vengono e van come onda al ptimo margo
Quando piacevole aura il mar combatte.

Non potria 1’ altre parte veder Argo :

Ben si pub guidicar che corrisponde
A quel ch’ appar di fuor quel che s’ asconde.

Mostran le braccia sua misura giusta
E la Candida man spesso si vede
Lunghetta alquanto e di larghezza angusta,

D >ve ne nodo appar, ne vena eccede.

Si vede al fin della pt rsona augusta,

Il breve, asciutto e ritondetto piede.

Gli angel: ci sembianti nati in cielo
Non si ponuo eelar soito alcun velo.

Orlando Furioso, Canto vii, at. 111-16.

Milton says of Pandemonium,

The work some praise,

And some the architect 4

The praise of one is not always the praise of the
other. A work of art may be deserving of all
praise, and yet may not contribute in any special
manner to the fame of the artist. On the other
hand, an artist may justly lay claim to our admira-
tion, when his work does not give us full satisfaction.
This should never be forgotten, and it will often
serve to reconcile entirely contradictory judgments.
As in the following case. Dolce, in his dialogue on
Painting, makes his Aretino burst into extra-
ordinary praise of the stanzas5 of Ariosto, which
have just been cited ; I, on the other hand, select
them as an example of a picture without a picture.

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161

Both of us are right. Dolce admires in them the
knowledge of corporeal beauty which the poet
displays ; I only look to the effect which this know-
ledge, expressed in words, has upon my imagination.
Dolce concludes from this knowledge that a good
poet must be an equally good painter ; and I judge
from the effect that wdiat the painter can best
express, through the medium of lines and colours, is
wrorst expressed by words alone. Dolce recommends
the description of Ariosto to all painters as the
most perfect type of a beautiful woman. And I
recommend it to all poets as the most instructive
warning ; that what Ariosto has failed in, no person
with still less chance of success should attempt. It
may be that when Ariosto says

Di persona era tanto ben formata,

Quanto me’ 6 finger san pittori industri,

that he thereby shows himself to have as perfectly
understood the doctrine of proportions, as the most
industrious artist who has studied them in nature
and in the ancient models7. He may have shown
himself by these words alone

Spargeasi per la guancia delicata
Misto color di rose e di ligustri

to be a most perfect colourist, a Titian8.

It may be an inference from the fact that because
he has only compared the hair of Alcina with gold,
and has not called the hair golden, that he dis-
approved of the use of actual gold in the mixing of
colours.9 It may be possible that in her straight
nose

Quindi il naso per mezzo il viso scende

is to be found the profile of that ancient type of
nose of the Greek artists which the Romans
borrowed10. But how does all this erudition and
knowledge profit us readers, who wish to imagine
they see a beautiful woman, who wish to feel in
some degree that gentle agitation of the blood
which accompanies the actual sight of beauty ?

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LAOCOON

If the poet knows of wdiat proportions a beautiful
form is composed, does that make us know it also ?
And, if we do also know it, does he make us see
these proportions ? Or does he in the least facili-
tate the effort of imagination to recall them clearly
and vividly before us ? A forehead enclosed within
proper limits,

La fronte

Che lo spazio finia con giusta meta

a nose than which envy could find nothing better,

Che non trova 1’ invidia ove 1* emende
a hand somewhat long and narrow,

Lunghetta alquanto, e di larghezza angusta.

What sort of image do these common places
suggest? There might be something to say for
them in the mouth of a drawing master, who
wishes to direct the attention of his pupils to the
beauties of an academic model ; for with a glance
at this model they see the proper limits of a serene
forehead, the beautifully cut nostril and the narrow-
ness of the delicate hand. But in the poet I see
nothing, and I feel with disgust the failure of my
best efforts to see something.

In this point in which Virgil by his abstinence
has imitated Homer, he has been tolerably success-
ful. Even his Dido is nothing more than pulcherrima
Dido. When he describes her more in detail it is
by her rich dress, her sumptuous attire :

Tandem progreditur . . .

Sidoniam picto ( hlamydem circumdata limbo ;

Cu pharetra ex auro, crines nodantur in an rum,

Aurea purpuream subnectit fibula vestem 11

And if an attempt should be made to apply to him
what the ancient artist said to a scholar who had
painted a richly attired Helen : ‘ It is because you
could not paint her beautiful that you have painted
her rich * ; then Virgil would reply, 4 It is not my
fault that I have not been able to paint her beauti-

CHAPTER XX

163

ful : the blame is due to the limits of my art : it is
my praise to have kept myself within these limits’.

Here I must not forget the two odes of Anacreon*
in which he analyses the beauty of his maiden and
her Bathyllus 12. The turn which he gives it carries
it off. He imagines that he has a painter before
him and causes him to work under his eyes. 4 Make
me ’ says he, 4 in this way the hair, in this way the
forehead, in this way the eyes, in this way the
mouth, in this way the neck and bosom, in this way
the hips and the hands ! ’ In this way what the
artist can only put together part by part, the poet can
only part by part direct him to do. His intention
is not, that, in this oral direction to the painter, we
should know and feel the full beauty of the beloved
object. He himself feels the insufficiency of ex-
pression by words, and therefore has recourse to
the expression by art, the illusions of which he so
magnifies, that the ode appears to be more a song
of praise upon the art than upon his mistress. It
is not her portrait but herself which he sees, and
fancies that she is going to open her mouth to
speak to him :

’ATre^er j8Ae7ra> yap avr^v.

Tctxa> icy pe, koX \a\r](rets.

So in the portrait of Bathyllus the praise of the
beautiful youth is so interwoven with the praise of
the art and the artist, that it is doubtful to the
honour of which Anacreon has destined his ode.
He collects the most beautiful parts from various
pictures, of which the principal characteristic was
the especial beauty of these parts. He takes the
neck from an Adonis, the breast and hands from a
Mercury, the hips from a Pollux, the belly from a
Bacchus ; until he sees the entire Bathyllus in an
Apollo perfectly finished by the painter.

Me<ra dh Trp6(TWTrov tcrrai,

Thu ’AScovlSus Trap*A6cbv,

’EAetyuvrivos rpaxyAos'

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LAOCOON

Mera/Jia^iov de Tro'iei
Ai dvjuas r e %€?pay * Ep/iov ,

TloAvBevKeos Be /xrjpovs
Alovvgiov de vrjBvv
Tov iAir6AAcova Be rovrov
KaOeAkv, Troiei BaOvAAov.

In the same way Lucian can give us no other
idea of the beauty of Panthea than by referring us
to the most beautiful female statues of the ancient
artists15. But what is this but to confess that lam
guage for this purpose is powerless ; that poetry
stammers and eloquence is dumb, unless art in
some measure assist them as an interpreter ?

CHAPTER XXI

But does not poetry suffer too great a loss if we
take away from her all images of corporeal beauty ?
Who wishes to take them away % If we seek to
prevent her pursuing a particular path, by which
she expects to arrive at such images, while she
follows the footsteps of a sister art, but in which
she painfully wanders up and down without ever
reaching the same goal : do we therefore close every
other path to her, even those in which Art in her
turn must follow her a great distance 'i

Even Homer, who so carefully abstains from
all detailed description of corporeal beauty, from
whom we barely learn, even parenthetically, that
Helen has white arms1 and beautiful hair2, even
this poet knows nevertheless how to give us an idea
of her beauty, which far surpasses all that art is
capable of representing to us.

Let us only remember the passage in which Helen
appears before the Council of the Trojan Elders.
The venerable old men gaze on her, and one says to
the other :

Ov ve/uearis Tpuas kcu €uKV7)/juSas * Axaiovs
Toils’ afxcpX ywaifcl ttoAvu xp°vov &Ayea tt acrxeW
A Ivcos ctOavixTriai 0erjs els <*>7ra toiKev 3

What can convey to us a more lively idea of beauty
than that cold old age should think it justified the
woe which had cost so much blood and so many
tears ? 4.

What Homer could not describe in detail he
makes us understand by the effect : oh ! poets,
paint for us the pleasure, inclination, love, rapture,
which beauty causes, and you will have painted

165

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LAOCOON

beauty itself. Who can think that the beloved
object of Sappho, at the sight of whom she confesses
to have lost sense and judgment, was ugly? Who
does not believe that he has seen the most beautiful
and perfect form the moment he sympathises with
the emotions which only such a form can awaken ?

It is not because Ovid describes the different
parts of the beautiful body of his Lesbia, in the
lines,

Quos humeros, quales vidi tetigique lacertos !

Forma papillarum quam fuit apta premi !

Quam castigato planus sub pectore venter !

Quantum et quale latus ! quam juvenile femur !

but it is because he describes them with that inebri-
ating voluptuousness which so readily awakens our
desires, that we imagine ourselves to enjoy the
siglit which he enjoyed.

Another way by which poetry attains the end of
painting in the description of corporeal beauty, is
by changing beauty into grace. Grace is beauty
in5 motion, and therefore less within the province
of the painter than the poet. The painter can only
create a presumption of motion, in reality however
his figures are without motion. Consequently grace
with him borders on grimace. But in poetry it
remains what it is : a transitory beauty which we
wish to see repeated. It comes and goes : and as
we can generally more easily and more vividly
remember a motion than a mere form or colour : it
follows that grace in the same proportions will
produce a stronger impression upon us than beauty.
All that in the picture of Alcina pleases and excites
us is grace. The impression which her eyes make
is not in consequence of their being black and fiery,
but because they are

Pietosi a riguardar, a mover parchi

have a look of sweetness and languor : that love
flutters round them and discharges his whole quiver
from them. Her mouth charms us not because her

CHAPTER XXI

167

vermilion lips disclose two rows of choice pearl :
but because they form that love-inspiring smile
which of itself opens paradise upon earth : because
from them come those friendly words which soften
the roughest heart. Her bosom enchants us less
because milk and ivory and apples are the image of
their whiteness and exquisite form — but rather
because we see them gently undulate like the
waves on the extremest edge of the shore when a
playful zephyr agitates the sea.

Due pome acerbe, e pur d’ avorio fatte,

Veugono e van, come onda al primo margo
Quando piacevole aura il mar combatte.

I am certain that such traits of grace compressed
into one or two stanzas would have produced more
effect than the five others, over which Ariosto has
scattered them, interweaving with them cold indi-
cations of a beautiful form, in a manner far too
learned to affect our feelings.

Anacreon himself preferred to err by an obvious
impropriety, in requiring an impossibility from the
painter, rather than not animate with grace the
image of his mistress.

T pvQepov 8’ icrca yeueiov,

ITepl Avydivcp rpaX'fl^V
Xapires ireroiVTO Truffai.

4 Let all the graces hover over her soft chin and
her marble neck J. How did he intend this ? in the
most literal meaning ? It was incapable of execu-
tion by the painter. The painter could give the
chin its finest round — its most beautiful dimple
amoris digitulo impressum (for the appears to me
to indicate a dimple), he could give the most beau-
tiful carnation to the neck : but he could go no
further. The movement of this beautiful neck, the
play of the muscles, by which the dimple became
more or less visible, the special grace was beyond
the reach of his power. The poet used the most

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forcible expressions of his art to make beauty-
visible to us, in order that the painter might make
use of the most forcible expression of his art. A
new illustration of our former remark that the poet,
even when he speaks of works of Art, is not on that
account obliged to confine himself within the
boundaries of Art.

CHAPTER XXII

Zeuxis1 painted a Helen, and had the courage to
write underneath it the famous lines of Homer, in
which the enraptured old men confess their emo-
tion. Never have Painting and Poetry been in such
equal competition. The victory remains undecided,
both deserve to be crowned.

For as the wise poet shows only in its effect that
beauty which he felt himself unable to paint in
detail ; so does the not less wise painter show us
beauty only by its details, and holds it unbecoming
his art to have recourse to any other expedient.
His picture consists only of the single figure of
Helen, which was naked. For it is probable that
this was the Helen which he painted for Crotona2.

Let us, for the sake of the curiosity of the fact,
compare with this picture that which Caylus pre-
scribes to young painters, founding his advice on
these lines of Homer

Helen, covered with a white veil, appears in the midst
of several old men, among whom is Priam distinguished
by marks of royal dignity. The artist must take especial
pains to make apparent the triumph of beauty in the
greedy 3 looks and in all the outward expressions of be-
wildered astonishment upon the faces of these frigid old
men. The scene is above one of the gates of the city.
The background is lost, either in the open sky or against
the loftier buildings of the city : the former is the bolder
achievement, but one is as suitable as the other.

Let us suppose that this picture was executed by
the greatest painter of our time, and put in compe-
tition with the work of Zeuxis. Which would indi-
cate the real triumph of beauty ? The latter which

169

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LAOCOON

I feel myself ? or the former in which I am to extract
it from the grimaces of the excited greybeards'?
turpe senilis amor — a greedy look makes the most
honoured face ridiculous, and a greybeard who
manifests the desires of youth is so far an object of
disgust. The Homeric old men are not liable to
this reproach : for the emotion which they feel is a
momentary spark which their wisdom immediately
stifles. It suffices to do honour to Helen without
disgracing them. They avow their feeling and
immediately add

*AAAct kol\ &s, rolrj tt ep (ov<t% iu wqvcrl vsiaQ&y

M r]5’ rj/xiv T6Kee(T<rl r* diriarcroo tt rj/jLa Xittolto 4

Without this resolution they wrould be old fools :
they would be what they must appear to be in the
picture of Caylus. And what is the object upon
which they direct their greedy looks ? 6. Upon a
disguised veiled figure. Is that Helen ? It is to me
inconceivable how Caylus could leave her the veil.
It is true that Homer expressly gives it to her

Avtikcl 5’ apyevvri(Ti Ka^vxf/ajuePT] bQbvycnv

*Q,piAa.T €K QaKafxoio •

but in order that she may pass through the streets :
and even if Homer had described the wonderment
of the old men before she had lifted up or taken off
her veil, it was not the first time that they had seen
her : their avowal therefore did not necessarily arise
from their momentary glimpse at this time, but
they might often have felt what they then, for the
first time, confessed they felt. This could find no
place in the pictures. If in it I see enraptured old
men, I see also the cause of their rapture : and I
am greatly surprised to see, as I have said, no moi e
than a disguised veiled figure on which they had
fixed their passionate gaze. What is there of Helen
in this ? Her wffiite veil and something of the out-
line of her fair proportions, so far as they could be

CHAPTER XXII

171

visible, through the folds of the garment. Perhaps,
however, it was not the intention of the Count that
her face should be covered, and he speaks of the veil
merely as a portion of her attire. If this be so (his
language is scarcely capable of such a construction,
Helene couverte d’un voile blanc) then I have a new
subject for my astonishment : he gives the artists
most careful instructions as to the expression upon
the faces of the Elders : and says not a word on
the beauty of the face of Helen. That modest
beauty, that eye moist and glittering with the tear
of repentance, as she draws near with fear. How
is this ? Is the highest beauty so familiar to our
artists that they do not need to be at all reminded
of it h or is expression more than beauty ? And are
we accustomed to see in pictures, as on the stage,
the ugliest actress play the part of an enchanting
princess if her prince only expresses a sufficiently
warm love for her?

In truth : the picture of Caylus bears the same
relation to the picture of Zeuxis that pantomime
bears to the most sublime poetry.

Homer was certainly more diligently read in
ancient times than he now is6. Nevertheless we do
not find a great many pictures mentioned, which
the ancient painters took from him7. What they
appear to have most industriously availed them-
selves of, were the indications which the poet gives
of certain peculiarities of corporeal beauty ; these
they painted and were well convinced, that, with
regard to these objects alone, it was permitted to
them to compete with Homer. Besides Helen,
Zeuxis painted also Penelope ; and the Diana of
Apelles was the Homeric Diana, accompanied by
her nymphs. I will take this opportunity of ob-
serving that the passage in Pliny which describes
the latter, requires correction8. But it does not
appear to have been agreeable to the taste of the
old artists to paint actions taken from Homer —
merely because they furnished rich composition,

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LAOCOON

advantageous contrasts, and happy effects of light,
and this could not have been agreeable to their
taste so long at least as art confined itself within
the narrow limits which its highest end required.
They nourished themselves by way of compensation
on the spirit of the poet ; they filled their imagina-
tion with his most sublime traits ; the fire of his
enthusiasm inflamed theirs ; they saw and felt as
he did : and so their works became copies of the
Homeric poem, not in the relation of a portrait to
the original, but in the relation of a son to a father ;
resembling, yet different. The resemblance often
lies in a single trait ; all the other features have
nothing in common between them but a general
harmony with the resembling feature as well as with
the others.

It remains to observe, that all the masterpieces of
Homer were older than any masterpiece of art ; for
Homer had looked at nature with the eye of a
painter, long before Phidias or Apelles. So it is not
to be wondered at that these artists found many
very valuable observations, before they had time to
make them for themselves in nature, made by
Homer, where they eagerly seized upon them, in
order through Homer to imitate nature. Phidias
confessed that the lines 9

’H, nal Kvaveyaiv ii r’ 6(ppv(ri vevtre Kpouicvu’

3A/j. fip6(TLCu 8’ &pa xcutcu Gireppaxravro clvclktos

Kparbs a7r’ aOavaToio' pityav d’ ^OAv/nrov’

furnished him with the type of his Olympian
Jupiter, and that it was only through his assistance
he attained to the god-like countenance propemodum
ex ipso caelo petitum.

Whoever thinks that in this language no more is
said, than that the fancy of the artist was kindled
by the sublime image of the poet, and so rendered
capable of a more sublime representation, appears
to me to overlook what is most essential, and to

CHAPTER XXII

173

content himself with a very general explanation,
when greater research would have furnished him
with one much more satisfactory, and resting on
much broader foundations. As far as my opinion
goes, Phidias at the same time confessed that he
had in this passage first remarked how much ex-
pression lies in the eyebrows, quanta pars animi 10
shows itself in them. Perhaps that it first induced
him to bestow greater care and labour upon the
hair, in order in some measure to express what
Homer calls Ambrosian hair. For it is certain that
the ancient artists, before the time of Phidias, little
understood the language and the significance of
physiognomy and especially had greatly neglected
the hair. Even Myron was censurable on both
these points, as Pliny remarks 11 ; and even after
his time Pythagoras Leontinus was the first who
distinguished himself by his delicate sculpture of
hair 12 : What Phidias learnt from Homer the other
artists learnt from the works of Phidias.

I will produce an example of this kind which has
always been very satisfactory to me. Let us re-
member what Hogarth has said about the Belvidere
Apollo 13 : ‘ These two masterpieces of Art are seen
together in the same palace at Home, where the
Antinous fills the spectator with admiration only,
whilst the Apollo strikes him with surprise, and, as
travellers express themselves with an appearance
of something more than human; which they of
course are always at a loss to describe : and this
effect, they say, is the more astonishing, as upon
examination its disproportion is evident even unto
a common eye. One of the best sculptors we have
in England, who lately went to see them, confirmed
to me what has been now said, particularly as to
the legs and thighs being too long, and too large for
the upper parts. And Andrea Saechi, one of the
great Italian painters, seems to have been of the
same opinion, or he would hardly have given his
Apollo, crowning Pasquilini the musician, the exact

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LAOCOON

proportion of the Antinous (in a famous picture
now in England), as otherwise it seems to be a
direct copy from the Apollo’. He adds —

Although in very great works we often see an inferior
part neglected, yet here it cannot be the case, because
in a fine statue, just proportion is one of its essential
beauties : therefore it stands to reason that these limbs
must have been lengthened on purpose, otherwise it might
easily have been avoided.

So that if we examine the beauties of this figure
thoroughly, we may reasonably conclude that what has
been hitherto thought so unaccountably excellent in its
general appearance, hath been owing to what hath seemed
a blemish in a part of it.

All this is very instructive ; and even Homer, X
may add, had discovered and pointed out that there
is a dignity in figures which arises merely from this
addition to stature in the elongation of the foot and
leg. For when Antenor wishes to compare the
appearance of Ulysses with the appearance of
Menelaus, he says14

^rav t(i)V jmev Me^eAaos vi relpex^ evpeas Ionovs,

'AiLMpw d’ €(o/jL6PCt), yepapcorepos ’Odvacevs.

When both stood, Menelaus towered above by his
broad shoulders : but when both sat Ulysses had
the most imposing appearance.

Ulysses gained in dignity from sitting, and
Menelaus lost it from the same posture ; it is easy
to determine the relation which the upper part of
the body in each bore to the lower part. Ulysses
had somewhat an exaggeration of size in the former,
Menelaus in the latter.

CHAPTER XXIII

One single unbecoming part may disturb the har-
monious effect of many others in the production of
beauty ; nevertheless the object will not on that
account alone be ugly. Even ugliness requires many
disagreeable parts, all of which we must perceive at
the same time, in order to make us feel the sensation
opposite to that which beauty makes us feel.

Ugliness, therefore, considered in itself, cannot be
the object of poetry ; and nevertheless Homer has
painted the extreme of ugliness in his Thersites, and
has painted it by describing all the co-existent parts
of it. Why did he permit himself to do that with
respect to ugliness which he so wisely refrained from
doing with respect to beauty ? Is not the effect of
ugliness as much hindered by the detailed enumera-
tion of its elements, as the effect of beauty is
destroyed by the like enumeration of its elements ?

Undoubtedly it is ; but herein lies the justification
of Homer. It is precisely because ugliness by this
painting of the poet is reduced to a less disgusting
appearance of corporeal imperfection, and, so to
speak, with respect to its result, ceases to be ugliness,
that the poet is enabled to make use of it ; and what
he is unable to use for itself, he uses as an ingredient,
in order to produce and to strengthen in us certain
mixed sensations, with which he is obliged to enter-
tain us in the absence of purely agreeable sensations.
These mixed sensations are the ridiculous and the
horrible.

Homer makes Thersites hideous, in order to make
him ridiculous. But it is not through his ugliness
alone that he becomes ridiculous ; for ugliness is
imperfection, and to produce the ridiculous, a

175

176 LAOCOON

contrast between perfection and imperfection is
required.

This is the explanation of my friend1, to which I
would add this contrast must not be too rough and
too sharp, that the Opposite to use the language of
the painter, must be such as can blend with each
other. The wise and good Aesop would not be ridi-
culous if you gave him the ugliness of Thersites. It
was a stupid monk’s trick to attempt to transfer to
his person, by reason of its deformity, the TcAolov of
his very instructive fables. For a deformed body
and a beautiful soul are like oil and vinegar, which,
however we may shake them together, remain
always distinct to the taste. They do not pro-
duce a third sentiment, the body excites displeasure,
the soul pleasure ; each its own sentiment for itself.
It is only when the deformed body is at once
infirm and sick, when it hinders the soul in its oper-
ations, when it becomes the source of injurious
prejudices against itself, then displeasure and
pleasure flow together ; but the new phenomenon
which results from this is not ridicule but com-
passion, and the object, which without this would
only have possessed our esteem, becomes interesting
to us. The deformed and sickly Pope must have
been far more interesting to his friends than the
handsome and healthy Wicherley was to his. But
if Thersites2 was not made ridiculous by ugliness
alone, he would not have been ridiculous without
ugliness. This ugliness, and the conformity of this
ugliness with his character ; the contradiction which
both presented to the idea which he entertained of
his own importance ; the injurious effect of his
malevolent garrulity, humiliating in its result to
himself alone : all must work together for this end.
The last circumstance is the ov (pdapriKbv3, which
Aristotle considers as indispensable to the ridiculous.
My friend 4 (Mendelssohn) considers it also to be a
necessary condition that the required contrast be of
no importance, and does not interest us very much.

CHAPTER XXIII

177

For let us remember that if Thersites himself had
been punished for his malignant depreciation of
Agamemnon by death, instead of by a blow raising
two bloody weals, we should cease to laugh. For
this monster of a man is still a man, whose de-
struction must always appear to us as a greater
evil than all his crimes and vices. In order to be
aware of this, we have only to read the account of
his death by Quintus Calaber5. Achilles regrets
having slain Penthesilea ; her beauty, covered with
her blood so bravely shed, excites the high esteem
and sympathy of the hero : high esteem and sym-
pathy become love. The calumniating Thersites
makes this love a crime, He rages against volup-
tuousness which seduces the bravest man into follies

‘Hr’ cKppova, <f>c*)Ta riOriai
Kal Tnvvr'bv irep iovra.

Achilles is enraged, and, without saying a word,
smites him so cruelly between the cheek and the
ear, that his teeth, his blood, and his soul are vomited
out at the same time. It is too dreadful. The
furious homicide Achilles becomes more odious to
me than the envious, grumbling Thersites. The
scream of joy which the Greeks utter at this act
revolts me, and I take the side of Diomede, who
has already drawn his sword to avenge the murder
of his kinsman ‘ for I feel that Thersites is also akin
to me, that he is a man 6.

Let us, however, suppose that the instigations of
Thersites had broken out into mutiny, that the
rebellious people had really embarked in the ships,
and had treacherously deserted their leaders, that
their leaders had fallen into the hands of a foe
thirsting for vengeance, and that a divine punish-
ment had caused the entire destruction of the fleet
and people : how would the ugliness of Thersites have
then appeared to us? If impotent ugliness may
appear ridiculous, harmful ugliness is at all times
horrible. I do not know how to illustrate this

178

LAOGOON

better than by the citation of two admirable pas-
sages from Shakspere. Edmund, the bastard of the
Earl of Gloster, in King Lear , is not a less miscreant
than Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who has made his
way by perpetrating the most horrible enormities to
the throne, which, under the name of Richard the
Third, he ascended. But how comes it to pass that
the former does not excite the same amount of
shuddering and horror as the latter? When I hear
the bastard say 7

Thou, Nature, art my goddess ; to thy law
My services are bound. Wherefore should I
Stand in the place of custom, and permit
The curiosity of nations to deprive me,

For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines
Lag of a brother? why bastard ? Wherefore base ?

When my dimensions are as well compact,

My mind as generous, and my shape as true
As honest madam’s issue? Why brand they thus
With base? with baseness ? bastardy? base, base?

Who in the lusty stealth of Nature take
More composition and fierce quality,

Than doth within a dull, stale, tired bed,

Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops,

Got ’tween asleep and wake ?

Here I hear a devil, but I see in him the form of an
angel of light. On the other hand, when I hear the
Duke of Gloucester say

But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,

Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass ;

I, that am rudely stamp’d, and want love’s majesty
To strut before a warn on ambling nymph ;

I, that am curtail’d of this fair proportion.

Cheat* d of feature by dissembling nature,

Deform'd, unfinish’d, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,

And that so lamely and unfashion ably,

The dogs bark at me as I halt by them :

Why I (in this weak piping time of peace)

Have no delight to pass away the time,

Unless to see my shadow in the sun,

And descant on my own deformity ;

And, therefore, since I cannot prove a lover
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,

I am determined to prove a villain.

Here I hear a devil and see a devil — in the form
which the devil alone should have.

CHAPTER XXIV

This is the use which the poet makes of personal
ugliness ; what use can the painter make of it ?

Painting, considered as an imitative art, can ex-
press ugliness ; painting, considered as a fine art,
will not express it. In the former category, all
visible objects are within its province ; in the latter
category it includes oniy those visible objects which
awaken agreeable sensations*. But do not disagree-
able sensations please us in imitation? Not all.
A discerning critic has already remarked this on
the subject of disgust :

The representations of fear, he says, of sadness, horror,
compassion, etc. , can only excite our aversion in so far as
we suppose them to be caused by an evil which is real.
These may be resolved into agreeable sensations by the
recollection that they are illusions produced by art. But
the contrary sensation of disgust ensues upon the mere
representation of it to the soul, by virtue of a law of the
imagination, whether the object is considered to be real
or not. What does it matter to the offended imagination
that there is exhibited to it, in whatever degree of excel-
lence, the imitative art ? The aversion did not arise from
the presumption that the evil was real, but from the mere
representation itself, and this is real. The sensations
of disgust come always from nature, never from the
imitation1.

The same may be said of the ugliness of forms.
This ugliness affronts our sight, runs counter to our
taste for order and harmony, and excites aversion,
without regard to the actual existence of the object

* See passages from Aristotle’s Poetics and Rhetoric at tlio end of
this chapter. It. P.

179

180

LAOCOON

in which we perceive it. We do not like to see
Thersites in reality or in a picture ; and if we less
dislike his picture, that is not because the ugliness
of his form ceases to be ugliness in the picture, but
because we have the power to abstract ourselves
from this ugliness, and to please ourselves exclu-
sively with the art of the painter. But even this
gratification is marred every moment by reflecting
on the bad application which is made of art, and
this reflection will seldom fail to bring with it a
low estimation of the artist.

Aristotle2 assigns another cause why things which
we see with repugnance in their own nature, give
satisfaction in their representation, when most ac-
curate : the reason is the universal curiosity of man.
We are sensible of enjoyment when either we can
learn from the copy rl zkclcttov, what each thing is ;
or when we can conclude from it on ovros eKeivos,
that it is this or that object. But no conclusion
can be drawn in favour of the imitation of ugliness.
The satisfaction which springs from the gratification
of our desire is momentary, and is only accidentally
incident to the object which gratifies us ; the dis-
satisfaction, on the other hand, which accompanies
the aspect of ugliness is permanent, and is essential
to the object which awakens it. How can the
former balance the latter h Still less can the small
amusement which the observation of similarity
affords us, overcome the disagreeable effect of ugli-
ness. The closer I compare the hateful imitation
with the hateful original, the more I expose myself
to this effect, so that the pleasure of comparison
soon vanishes, and leaves me nothing but the dis-
agreeable impression of double ugliness. To judge
by the examples which Aristotle gives, he appears
as if he had not himself meant to consider the
ugliness of form as belonging to the category of
disagreeable objects which give pleasure in the
imitation. These examples are savage beasts and
corpses. Savage beasts excite horror even when

CHAPTER XXIV

181

they are not ugly, and it is this horror, not their
ugliness, which in imitation becomes lost in a feeling
of satisfaction. So also with corpses.3 It is the
sharper feeling of sympathy, the terrifying thought
of our own future annihilation, which in nature
makes a corpse to be a revolting object. In the
imitation, however, this sympathy loses, from a
perception of the deceit, its painfulness, and, as to
the fatal recollection, the addition of flattering cir-
cumstances either entirely withdraws us from it, or
is so inseparably connected with it, that it appears
to us rather as an attractive than a terrifying
object. As therefore the ugliness of forms on ac-
count of the sensation it excites is disagreeable, and
yet does not belong to that class of disagreeable
sensations which in imitation are changed into
those that are agreeable, and cannot of itself be the
object of painting as a fine art ; it remains to be
seen whether it cannot, as in poetry, be made useful
as an ingredient to strengthen other sensations.
Can painting, in order to produce the ridiculous
and the terrible, make use of ugly forms ?

I will not venture to answer this question with a
direct negative. It is indisputable that impotent
ugliness may become ridiculous in painting ; espe-
cially if an affectation of grace and dignity be united
with it. It is equally incontestable that ugliness
with the power to injure excites in painting, as well
as in nature, horror, and that this ridicule and this
horror, which in themselves are mixed sensations,
obtain in imitation an increased power, the former
of attractiveness, the latter of olfensiveness.

I must, however, remember that nevertheless
painting and poetry are not exactly in the same
condition. In poetry, as I have remarked, the ugli-
ness of form loses almost entirely its disagreeable
effect, because it changes its co-existing into succes-
sive parts. Considered in this way, it ceases almost
to be ugliness, and may be intimately united with
other phenomena in order to produce a new and

182

LAOCOON

special effect. In painting, on the contrary, ugli-
ness has all its forces collected together, and has
nearly as strong an effect as in nature herself.
Impotent ugliness, therefore, cannot long remain
ridiculous ; the disagreeable sensation gets the
upper hand, and that which in the first moment
was ludicrous in the sequel becomes simply horrible.
And it is the same with ugliness which has the
power to injure, the horror gradually disappears,
and the deformity remains alone and unchangeable.

All this being considered, Count Caylus was per-
fectly right in omitting the episode of Thersites
from the gallery of his Homeric pictures. But are
we therefore right in wishing that it was absent
from Homer itself ? I am sorry to find that a
learned man, otherwise of a very correct and fine
taste, is of this opinion 4. I reserve for another
place a fuller discussion of this subject5.

CHAPTER XXV

The second distinction which the above-mentioned
critic finds between disgust and other unpleasant
emotions of the soul, is manifested in the displeasure
which the ugliness of form excites in us.

Other unpleasing passions, he says, are able, not
only in imitation, but even in nature herself, to flatter
our natural disposition. This is because they never excite
simple displeasure, but always mingle the bitterness of it
with voluptuousness. Our Fear is rarely altogether with-
out Hope ; Terror quickens all our faculties to avoid the
danger ; Anger is combined with the desire for Vengeance ;
Sorrow with the pleasant recollection of former Happi-
ness ; 1 Sympathy is inextricably interwoven with the
tender feelings of Love and Affection. The soul is at
liberty to dwell at one time on the pleasing, at another on
the displeasing elements of an affection, and to compound
for itself a medley of what is pleasing and displeasing,
which is more charming than the purely unmixed emotion
of pleasure. Everybody who has paid any attention to
himself must have often observed this. And how other-
wise does it happen that to the Angry man his Anger, to
the Sorrowing man his Sorrow, is more acceptable than
all the joyous images with which we endeavour to tran-
quillise him ? But it is altogether a different case with
disgust, and the emotions connected with it. The soul
does not recognise in them any perceptible admiration of
what is pleasing. What is displeasing gets the upper
hand, and therefore there is no situation conceivable in
Nature or in Imitative Art, in which the natural dis-
position does not recoil with aversion from a representation
of this kind.

Quite true. But as the critic himself admits that
other emotions are allied with that of disgust, and

183

184

LAOCOON

which excite, as it does, aversion, what can be more
closely allied to it than the perception of ugliness
of form ? This is also in Nature without the least
admixture of Pleasure ; and as it is equally incapable
of it in imitation, there is no imaginable situation
in which the natural disposition does not turn away
with aversion from the representation of it. Yet
this aversion, if, at least, I have analysed my feelings
with sufficient accuracy, is altogether of the nature
of disgust. The sensation which is inspired by
ugliness of form is disgust, only in a less degree.
It is true that this is at variance with another
observation of the critic, according to which he
believes that only the obtusest sense, taste, smell,
and touch, are exposed to disgust. ‘ The two former 7
he says, ‘ on account of an excessive sweetness, and
the latter on account of too great softness of bodies
which do not sufficiently withstand the excitable
fibres. These objects become intolerable to the
sight, but only by reason of the association of ideas,
because it reminds us of the aversion which they
create in the taste, smell, or touch. For, to speak
accurately, there is no object of disgust to the sight.7
Nevertheless I think it would be easy to mention
some. A brand in the face, a hare-lip, a broken
nose with projecting nostrils, an entire want of
eyebrows, are ugliness which do not offend the
smell, touch, or taste. Yet it is certain that we are
conscious of a feeling which approaches much more
nearly to disgust than that which is caused by other
deformities of the body, such as a crooked foot or a
humped back. The more delicate our temperament
is, the more are we susceptible of those physical
symptoms which precede the act of vomiting. It
is true that these sensations soon disappear, and
probably no vomiting takes place, the cause of which
will be found to be, that they are objects of sight,
which take in with them and in them a number of
other circumstances, and in consequence of the
agreeable images which they produce, the earlier

CHAPTER XXY

185

disagreeable images are so weakened and obscured
that they have no decided influence over the body.
The obtuser senses, on the contrary — the taste, the
smell, the touch— when they are affected by dis-
gusting objects, take no cognizance of other circum-
stances. The object of aversion, therefore, operates
alone and in its full strength, and must necessarily
be accompanied by a more violent sensation.

To the imitative arts the disgusting bears the
same relation as the ugly. Indeed, as the disagree-
able operation of the former is stronger, it can still
less than the ugly become a subject either for Paint-
ing or for Poetry. Nevertheless, as it is capable of
being softened in verbal expression, I may assert
with confidence that the poet may use the disgust-
ing features at least as an ingredient for those
mixed sensations to which ugliness lends so great
an assistance.

The disgusting can increase the ridiculous : in
other words, the representation of moral worth, of
dignity, put in contrast with the disgusting, become
ridiculous. Many examples of this are to be found
in Aristophanes. I remember the lizard which
interrupted the astronomical speculations of the
good Socrates 2

MA0. Ylpdyv de ye yvdjfxyv fieyaXy^ cupypeOr]

tr Ttt ’ avKaXafioorov. 2TP. T iva rp6irov ; Karenre fioi .
MA0. Zyrovvros avrov ri }s ae\i]vr\s ras oSovs
Kai ras nepicpopas, elr auco Kex^^^ros
’And rrjs opocprjs vvKrwp yaXewrys Karex^frev.

5TP. "HaOyv ya\ eury Karax^avn Scaicparous.

If you take away the disgusting character of what
falls into his mouth, the ridiculous disappears at
once. The drollest traits of this kind are to be
found in the Hottentot narrative Tquassouw and
Knonmquaiha, in the Connoisseur 3, an English weekly
paper which is ascribed to Lord Chesterfield. We
know how filthy the Hottentots are, and how much
there is which they esteem as delicate and holy

186

LAOCOOH

which only excites in ns disgust and horror : a
squashed nose, flabby breasts hanging down to the
navel, the whole body anointed with a varnish of
goat’s fat, the locks clotted with grease, the feet
and arms entwined with fresh entrails : conceive
this to be the object of an ardent, reverential, tender
love : let us imagine these details expressed in the
noble language of earnest admiration, and abstain
from laughing.

The disgusting appears to ally itself yet more
closely with the terrible. What we call the horrible
(Grasliche) is nothing more than a disgust with,
terror. In the picture of sorrow drawn by Hesiod4,
the trait tt)s in i*kv piv&v /uv%cu peov displeases Lon-
ginus5, not so much, as it seems to me, because
it is a disgusting trait, as because it is nothing but
a disgusting trait. For he does not seem to wish to
blame the long nails stretching out beyond the
fingers (p.aKpo\ 5’ owx*s x6LP€(r<riv Yet long

nails are not less disgusting than a running nose.
But the long nails6 are at the same time terrible,
for with them the cheeks are torn so that blood
runs from them to the earth.

€K 5e 7 rapeicov
A Tfi aireXtlficT' «pa£e.

On the other hand, a running nose is nothing but a
running nose ; and I only advise sorrow to shut her
mouth. Let any one read in Sophocles the descrip-
tion of the desert cave of the wretched Philoctetes :
no trace of provisions to support life or of ordinary
appliances are to be seen, except a trodden heap of
dry leaves, a shapeless wooden cup, some imple-
ments for the fire — the whole wealth of the diseased,
deserted man ! How does the poet fill up this sad
and fearful picture ? With the addition of a trait
of disgust. 4 Ha ! ’ says Neoptolemus, shrinking
with horror, 4 here are torn pieces of rag put out to
dry full of blood and matter

CHAPTER XXV

187

NE. 'O pCO K€U7JV oKk7](TLV CLVOpdoTTCtiV 8lXCC*

OA. Ou5’ ivfiov oIkottoi6s earl ns Tpcxpfi;

NE. 2t6£7tt^ ye <pv\\as cds evavXl^ovrl rep.

OA* Ta $’ &AA* eprjjna , Kovdev eaO’ vnoareyov ;

NE. AvrS^vXov y eKTroo/na, (pXavpovpyov nvbs
T ex^ju-ar’ ardpbs, real re vpeT o/iov rade.

OA. Keivov rb Orjaavpia/ia arr) /naive is rode.

N£. ’iou, lob' ical ravra 7’ & AAa BaXirerai
'Panri /Bapetas rov voarjXelas irXea7.

So, in Homer, Hector dragged along his face covered
with blood and dust, his hair matted together.

Squalentem barbam et concretos sanguine crines 8

(as Virgil says) is an object of disgust, but all tho
more on that account a more horrible and affecting
object. Who can think of the punishment of Mar-
syas in Ovid without a feeling of disgust ? 9

Clamanti cutis est suramos derepta per artus ;

Nec quidquam, nisi vulnus, erat : cruor umlique manat ;

Detectiq1 e patent nervi, trepidaeque sine ulla

Pelle micant venae ; salientia viscera possis

Et perlucentes numerare in pectore fibras.

Who does not perceive that the disgusting is here
in its right place ? It makes the terrible horrible,
and the horrible is of itself, in its own nature, if
our sympathy be interested in it, not altogether
unpleasing ; how much less so in imitation ! I will
not multiply examples ; but I must observe that
there is a kind of terrible to which the poet can
find his way open almost solely through the dis-
gusting. It is the terror of hunger. Even in com-
mon life we express the extremest pressure of
hunger, no otherwise than through the narrative of
all the unnourishing, unwholesome, and thoroughly
disgusting things with which the belly must per-
force be satisfied. Since imitation cannot excite in
us anything of the feeling of hunger, it takes refuge
in another disagreeable sensation, but which, in the
case of the most distressing hunger, we recognize
as a less evil. This it seeks to excite in order to

188

LAOCOON

make us infer from the unpleasant character of it
how strong the unpleasant character of the other
must be which makes us forget the loathsomeness
which is present before us. Ovid says of the Oread,
whom Ceres sent to hunger10

Hanc (Famem) procul ut vidit,

. . refert mandata deae ; paulumque morata,

Quanquam aberat longe, quanquam modo venerat illuc,

Visa tamen sensisse Famem.

An unnatural exaggeration ! The sight of one who
is hungry, and even if it were hunger itself has not
this contagious power ; pity and horror and disgust
the sight may cause, but not hunger. Of this horror
Ovid has been lavish in his picture of Fames ; and
in the hunger of Eresichthon, both in his account
and that of Callimachus11, the most disgusting
features are the strongest. After Eresichthon had
devoured everything and had not spared even the
sacrificial cow (which his mother had nourished for
Vesta), Callimachus makes him fall upon horses and
cats, and go begging in the streets for scraps and
filthy remnants from the tables of strangers

. Kal rav fiobv e(pa •yev rav 'Erria erpecpe pLarrip,

I Kal rbv aeOAocpbpov Kal rbv Tro\e/ui7)Xov 'Uttov.

Kal rav aXXovpov , rav %r pe/ue OrjiJLa /jukk^l,

Kal rod’ 6 ra> fiacriArjos evl TpiodoKTt Kadrjffro
AirtGoov aKdXcas re Kal c/cjSoAa A {f/aara dairos.

And Ovid at last makes him fasten his own teeth
into his own limbs, in order to nourish his own
body with his own body

Vis tamen ilia mali postquam consumserat omnem
Materiam.

Ipse suos artus laeero divellere morsu
Coepit ; et infelix minuendo corpus alebat.

The only reason why the hateful harpies are
made so stinking and so uncleanly is that the
hunger which is caused by their carrying off the
food may be the more terrible. Listen to the
complaint of Phineas in Apollonius12

CHAPTER XXV

189

Ti nObv 5’ fjv apa drj7 tot edrjrvos d/x/LU Anrcotn,

Tlvei ride fxvdaXeov re kol o v tA rjrhu fxevos od^ris.

Ov Ke ns ovde fxlvvvQa fSporobv Hvffxoiro neXac raas,

Oud * eX oi addjuavros e\7]\a[Jievov neap eXf).

’AAAa /Lie n iKpj] fir/ra Ke daLrbs in i(rx€L ^vdyKit]

M ifjLveiv, Ka\ iil/AVovra /ca/cr) ev ycurrepi QeaQou.

I should be very glad to defend from this point of*
view the disgusting introduction of the harpies by
Yirgil ; but there is no real present hunger which
they cause, but only an approaching hunger which
they predict ; and then, moreover, the whole pro-
phecy resolves itself into a play upon words. Even
Dante not only prepares us for the history of the
starvation of Ugolino13 by the very disgusting and
ghastly condition in which he places him with his
former persecutor in hell ; but the starvation itself
is not without traits of disgust, which press them-
selves specially upon our attention, when the sons
offer themselves as food to their father. In a note
I will cite a passage from a play of Beaumont and
Fletcher14, which, if we were not obliged to con-
sider it as exaggerated, might take the place of all
other examples.

I now approach to the consideration of disgusting
objects in painting. Even if it were indisputable
that there are, properly speaking, no disgusting
objects in relation to sight, the very nature of
which indicates that they cannot be within the
province of painting considered as a fine art, — even
then it would be necessary to avoid objects which
are generally disgusting because the association of
ideas makes them disgusting to the sight.

Pordenone, in a picture of the sepulture of Christ,
represents a spectator holding his nose. Richard-
son15 is displeased with this, because Christ had not
been dead long enough to allow his corpse to suffer
corruption. At the resurrection of Lazarus, on the
contrary, he thinks it is permitted to the painter
to represent one of the bystanders doing this act,

190

LAOCOON

because the history expressly says that his body
already stank. To me this representation appears
unendurable, for not only the actual stench, but
even the idea of stench, awakens disgust. We fly
from stinking places even when we have a cold.
But Painting, it will be said, does not choose the
disgusting for the sake of what is disgusting ; she
chooses it, as Poetry does, in order to strengthen
the ridiculous and the terrible. Let her do it at
her own peril ! The remarks which I have already
made on this subject as to the ugly apply still more
closely to the disgusting. That loses much less of
its effect in a representation addressed to the eye
than in one addressed to the ear. It cannot in the
former become so closely intermingled with the
ridiculous and the terrible as in the latter ; as soon
as the surprise is over, as soon as the first eager
glance is satisfied, it becomes separated altogether,
and remains in its own original repulsive form.

CHAPTER XXYI

The history of Art by Herr Winkelmann has
appeared : I will not venture a step further without
having read this work. To reason upon general
ideas about Art may mislead one into whims, which,
sooner or later, may be found refuted by works of
Art. The ancients, as well as we, were aware of
the ties which knit Painting and Poetry 1 together,
and they w ould not have drawn them tighter than
was suitable for each. The achievements of their
artists shall instruct me as to what artists speaking
generally should do : and when such a man as
Winkelmann lifts up the torch of history, specula-
tion may follow him with confidence 2.

We are accustomed to turn over the leaves of a
work of importance before we set to work to read
it through steadily. My curiosity was to ascertain
before anything else the author’s opinion about
Laocoon ; not indeed so much with respect to the
merit of the work, upon that he had elsewhere
already expressed his opinion, as with respect to
the date of it. To which party will he adhere ? To
that which thinks that Virgil had the group before
his eyes'? or to that which holds that the artist
worked on the model of the poet ?

The author is entirely silent on the question of
reciprocal imitation, and this is quite in accordance
with my taste. Where is the absolute necessity for*
it? It is not at all impossible that the points of
resemblance, which I have been bringing under
consideration between the poetical picture and the
work of art are only accidental and not intended :
and that so little has the one been the model of the
other that they do not even appear to have once

191

192

LAOCOON

made use of the same model. If indeed Winkel-
mann had been dazzled by an appearance of imita-
tion, he would have pronounced in favour of the
work of the artist having been the model to the
poet. For he is of opinion that Laocoon belongs to
the period when the art of the Greeks had reached
its highest pinnacle : the period of Alexander the
Great 3.

A benevolent destiny, he says, which watches over the
arts even at the period of their destruction, has preserved
to us for the admiration of all ages a work of art of this
epoch, as a proof of the truth with which history records
the glory of so many masterpieces now lost to us. Laocoon
with his two sons, the joint composition of Agesander,
Apollodorus4, and Athenodorus of Rhodes, belongs, ac-
cording to all probability, to this epoch, although it may
not be possible to specify, as some have done, the Olympiad
in which this artist flourished.

And then he adds in a note

Pliny does not say one word as to the time in which
Agesander and his fellow-workmen lived ; Maffei, how-
ever, in his explanatory remarks on the ancient statues,
has chosen to he convinced that this artist flourished in
the eighty- eighth Olympiad, and his authority others, like
Richardson, have followed. I think Maffei has mistaken
an Athenodorus, one of the scholars of Polycletus ; and
as Polycletus flourished in the eighty-seventh Olympiad,
has placed his supposed scholar in a later Olympiad :
Maffei has no other grounds for his opinion.

He can certainly have no other grounds. But
why does Herr Winkelmann content himself with
merely exposing the error of Maffei ? Does it refute
itself? Not entirely. For although it is not sup-
ported by any other grounds, still it has in itself a
slight probability, unless we can prove that Atheno-
dorus, the scholar of Polycletus, and Athenodorus,
the assistant of Agesander and Polydorus, could not
possibly be one and the same person. Fortunately

CHAPTER XXVI

193

this can be proved, and, moreover, that they did
not belong to the same country. The first A then o-
dorus was, according to the express testimony of
Pausanias 6, of Clitor in Arcadia. The other, accord-
ing to the testimony of Pliny, was born at Rhodes.
Herr Winkelmann could not have intended to ab-
stain from refuting incontestably the mistake of
Maffei, and for that reason not have brought for-
ward this circumstance. Rather must the reasons
which he deduces from the art of the work, and
which he founds upon an indisputable knowledge,
have appeared to him so important that he did
not trouble himself with considering whether the
opinion of Maffei has or has not any appearance of
probability. He doubtless recognises in the Laocoon
so many of those argutiae which are characteristic
of Lysippus 6, and with which this master first en-
riched the art, as to render it impossible that this
could have been a work anterior to his time.

But when it is demonstrated that the Laocoon
cannot be older than Lysippus, is it thereby demon-
strated that the Laocoon must belong to about the
time of this sculptor ? that it cannot possibly be of
a much later date? I pass over the periods in
which, up to the beginning of the Roman monarchy,
Art in Greece at one time lifted up, at another hung
down, her head : but why might not the Laocoon
have been the happy fruit of competition amongst
the artists which the extravagant splendour of the
first Caesars kindled into life? Why could not
Agesander and his fellow- workmen have been the
contemporaries of a Strongylion, an Arcesilaus, a
Pasiteles, a Posidonius, a Diogenes ? Would not the
works of even these masters be equally prized with
the best which Art ever produced ? And if un-
doubted works of Art by them were in our posses-
sion, but the age of the authors was unknown, and
could only be inferred from their art, what a divine
inspiration must have been necessary to prevent
the critic from believing that they belonged to that

194

LAOCOON

period which Herr Winkelmann considers to have
been alone worthy to produce the Laocoon !

It is true Pliny does not expressly mark the time
in which the artists of the Laocoon lived. But if I
was obliged to draw a conclusion from the whole
tenor of the passage whether he intended to place
them among the old or the new artists ; I confess
that it appears to me that the latter opinion has
the greater probability. Let any man judge.

After Pliny had spoken in some detail of the
most ancient and greatest masters of sculpture, of
Phidias, of Praxiteles, of Scopas, and afterwards
had named, without any chronological order, the
rest, especially those of whose works there were
some traces existing in Home: he continues as
follows

Nec multo plurium fama est *, quorundam claritati in
operibus eximiis obstante numero artificum, quoniam nec
unus occupat gloriam, nec plures pariter nuncupari pos-
sunt, sicut in Laocoonte qui est in Tibi Imperatoris domo,
opus omnibus et picturae et statuariae artis praeferen-
dum. Ex uno lapide eum et liberos draconumque mira-
biles nexus de consilii sententia fecere summi artifices
Agesarider eT Polydorus et Atiienodorus Rhodii. Simili-
ter Palatinas domus Caesarum replevere probatissimis
signis Craterus cum Pythodoro, Polydectes cum Hermo-
lao, Pythodorus alius cum Artemone, et singularis Aphro-
disius Trallianus. Agrippae Pantheum decoravit Dio-
genes Atheniensis, et Caryatides in columnis templi ejus
probantur inter pauca operum : sicut in fastigio posita
signa, sed propter altitudinem loci minus celebrata 7

Of all the artists mentioned in this passage
Diogenes of Athens is the one the period of whose
existence is the most certainly known. He adorned
the Pantheon of Agrippa. He therefore lived in
the time of Augustus. But let us weigh the words
of Pliny more carefully, and we shall, I think, find
that they fix also as incontestably the age of Crate-

* This is incorrectly cited by Lessing, it should be ‘ Deinde multorum
obscurior, etc.’ R. P.

CHAPTER XXVI

195

rus and Pythodorus, of Polydectes and Hermolaus,
of the second Pythodorus and Artemon, as well as
of Aphrodisius Trallianus. He says of them :
‘Palatinas Domus Caesarum replevere probatissi-
mis signis’. I ask, can this mean only that the
palaces of the Caesars were filled with their excel-
lent works ? Meaning, for instance, that the Caesars
had caused collections of them to be everywhere
made in order that they should be transported into
their dwellings at Rome ? Certainly not. The
meaning must be that these artists executed their
works expressly for these palaces of the Caesars,
and therefore that they lived in the times of these
Caesars.

That there were later artists who worked only in
Italy may be concluded from the fact that there is
no mention of their having worked elsewhere. If
they had worked in earlier times in Greece, Pausa-
nias would certainly have seen some one or other of
their works and would have transmitted to us some
memorial of them. He does indeed mention a
Pythodorus, but Hardouin 8 is quite wrong in con-
sidering him to be the Pythodorus mentioned in
the passage of Pliny. For Pausanias speaks of the
statue of Juno which he saw at Coronea in Boeotia,
as the work of an early master, aya\im apxcuou, which
expression he only applies to the works of those
masters who had lived in the most primitive and
rudest times of the art, long before Phidias and
Praxiteles. And with the works of such an art the
Emperors would certainly not have decorated their
palaces. Still less value is to be ascribed to the
other suggestion of Hardouin, that the Artemon
mentioned is perhaps a painter of the same name of
whom Pliny speaks in another passage. A con-
formity of names furnishes only a very slender
probability, which is far from authorising us to do
violence to the natural interpretation of an uncor-
rupted passage. But it is not to be doubted that
Craterus, and Pythodorus, and Polydectes, and

196

LAOCOON

Hermolaus, with the rest, lived in the times of the
Emperors whose palaces they filled with their ex-
cellent works. Still it appears to me that we can
assign no other epoch to those artists whom Pliny
mentions before them, and from whom he passes to
them with a Similiter.

And these were the master-artists of the Laocoon :
for let us only reflect if Agesander, Polydorus, and
Athenodorus were such ancient masters as Herr
Winkelmann considers them to be ; how clumsy it
would be in a writer, to whom precision of expres-
sion is no slight thing, if he must at once skip from
them to the most modern masters, to make this
spring with a simple Similiter.

But it will be objected that this Similiter does not
relate to a resemblance in respect to epoch, but to
another circumstance which these masters, so dis-
similar in relation of time, have in common with
each other. Pliny speaks of artists who worked in
a community, and who, on account of this com-
munity, were less known than they deserved to be.
For since no one of them could alone claim the
honour of the common work, and yet it would be
too long and tedious to mention every time all
those who had taken part in it (‘ quoniam nec unus
occupat gloriam, nec plures pariter nuncupari pos-
sunt?), so it came to pass that their names, collect-
ively, were neglected. This has been the misfortune
of the master-artists of the Laocoon and of so many
other artists whom the Emperors employed in the
decoration of their palaces.

I agree to *this. But even then it is also most
probable that Pliny intended to speak only of the
modern artists who worked in a community. For
if he had intended to speak of the ancient artists,
why has he only mentioned the artists of the
Laocoon h Why not others also ? An Onatas and
a Kalliteles, a Timocles and a Timarchides, or the
sons of this Timarchides, by whose common labour
there was a Jupiter executed in Borne9. Herr

CHAPTER XXVI

197

Winkelmann himself says that we might make a
long catalogue of similar ancient works which had
been the offspring of more than one father 10 ; and
would Pliny have remembered only the individual
Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus if he had
not wished to confine himself expressly to the most
modern times ?

Moreover, if a conjecture becomes the more
probable as it tends to clear up the greater number
of difficulties, then that conjecture which supposes
the artist of the Laocoon to have flourished under
the first Caesars, certainly deserves to obtain a very
high rank. For if they had worked in Greece at
the period which Herr Winkelmann assigns to
them ; if the Laocoon itself had originally been
executed in Greece, the deep silence which the
Greeks observed with respect to such a work
(‘opere omnibus et picturaeet statuariae artis prae-
ponendo’) is extremely strange. It is also ex-
tremely strange if such great masters had done no
other work, or if Pausanias has entirely everlooked
these other works throughout the whole of Greece,
as he did the Laocoon. In Rome, on the other hand,
the greatest masterpiece might long have remained
concealed, and if Laocoon had been finished in the
reign of Augustus, it would nevertheless not be won-
derful that Pliny had been the first and the last
who mentioned it. For let us only remember what
Scopas said of a Venus which stood in the temple
of Mars at Rome

Quemcunque alium locum nobilitatura. Romae quidem
magnitudo operum earn obliterat, ac inagni offiGiorum
negociorumque acervi omnes k contemplatione talium
abducunt, quoniam otiosorum et in magno loci silent io
apta admiratio talis est 11

Those who see in the Laocoon group an imitation
of Virgil’s Laocoon will seize upon what I have said
with pleasure. Moreover, a conjecture occurs to
me which at the same time they will not much dis-

198

LAOCOON

like. May it not be supposed that it was Asinius
Pollio who introduced, by means of Greek artists,
the Laocoon of Virgil? Pollio was a particular
friend of the Poet, survived the Poet, and appears
to have written a work of his own upon the Aeneid.
For where otherwise than in a work of his own
upon the Aeneid could those observations have
appeared which Servius ascribes to him ? 12. More-
over, Pollio was a lover and critic of Art, possessed
a rich collection of the best ancient works of Art,
caused new ones to be executed by artists of his
time, and so bold an achievement as the Laocoon was
altogether, if we may judge from his collection, in
harmony with his taste. TJt fuit acris vehementiae ,
sic qnaeque spectari monumenta sua voluit 13.

Nevertheless, as, in the time of Pliny, when the
Laocoon stood in the Palace of Titus, the cabinet of
Pollio, with its whole collection still entire, appears
to have been in a place apart ; this conjecture
must, on the other hand, lose some of its probability.
And why should not Titus himself have done what
we wish to ascribe to Pollio ?

CHAPTER XXYII

My opinion that the artists of Laocoon, who
worked under the first Caesars at least, could not
have been so old as Herr Winkelmann states, is
strengthened by a little discovery which he himself
first made. It is the following 1

At Nethuno, formerly Antium, the Cardinal Alexander
Alboni discovered in a great vault, which lay sunk in the
sea, a Vase of dark grey marble, which is now called
Bigio , to which a figure had been attached, on which was
found the following inscription

’A0ANOAHPO2 ’APH^ANAPOY
‘P0AI02 5EnOIH2E.

Athanodorus , the son of Agesander of Rhodes , made it.
We learn from this inscription that father and son worked
at the Laocoon, and presumably Apollodorus (Polydorus)
was the son of Agesander

for this Athanodorus can be no other than the one
mentioned by Pliny. This inscription also proves
that more works of Art were found than the three
mentioned by Pliny upon which the artists had
placed the word done, in the fullest sense of the past
tense, namely, eW^o-e, fecit. He maintains that the
other artists out of modesty made use of the
imperfect tense, inolei, faciebat.

Herr Winkelmann will find little opposition to
his assertion that the Athanodorus in this inscrip-
tion could be no other than the Athenodorus whom
Pliny mentions among the master-artists of the
Laocoon. Athanodorus and Athenodorus are one
and the same, for the Rhodians made use of the Doric
dialect. But upon the conclusions which he would

199

200

LAOCOON

draw from this fact I must make a few observations.
The first conclusion, namely, that Athenodorus was
the son of Agesander may be legitimate. It is very
probable, but not incontestable. For it. is known
that there were ancient artists who, instead of
naming themselves after their father, preferred to
name themselves after their master. What Pliny
says of the two brothers Apollonius and Tauriscus
admits of no other explanation.2 But how is this ?
Shall this inscription contradict at the same time
the assertion of Pliny that not more than three
works of art are to be found upon which master-
artists would have put their names in the past tense
[by eWrjo-e, instead of e™^]? This inscription?
Why must we first learn from this inscription what
we might have well learnt from many others?
Have we not already found upon the statue of
Germanicus K \sofxevris — eirobjo-e, upon the so-called
deification of Homer, ’APxe\aos stt oirjo-e, upon the
well-known vase at Gaeta, SaWav eVoi^o-e ? 3

Herr Winkelmann may say ‘Who knows this
better than I ? \ But he must add, so much the worse
for Pliny, his ‘ assertion is the oftener contradicted,
and the more certainly gainsayed \

Not quite so. For how would it be, if Herr
Winkelmann has made Pliny say more than he
really intended to say ? If the examples which he
puts forward do not contradict the assertion of
Pliny, but merely the addition which Herr Winkel-
mann has introduced into the assertion ? Such is
really the case. I must set forth the whole passage.
Pliny, in his dedication to Titus * wishes to speak
of his work with the modesty of a man who himself
best knows how far it falls short of perfection. He
finds a remarkable instance of such a modesty in
the case of the Greeks, upon the boasting much-
promising titles of whose books [inscriptiones propter
quos vadimonium deferi possit ] he dwells awhile, and
says4

It is, ‘ Vespasiano suo R. P.

CHAPTER XXVII

201

Et ne in totum videar Graecos insectari, ex illis nos
velim intelligi pingendi fingendiqne conditoribus, quos in
libellis his invenies, absoluta opera, et ilia quoque quae
mirando non satiamur, pendent! titulo inscripsisse : UT
APELLES FACIEBAT, aut POLYCLETUS : tanquam
inchoata semper arte et imperfecta, ut contra judiciorum
varietates superesset artifici regressus ad veniam, velut
emendaturo quicquid desiderent, si non esset interceptus.
Quare plenum verecundiae illud est, quod omnia opera
tanquam novissima inscripsere, et tanquam singulis fato
adempti. Trianon amplius, ut opinor, absolute traduntur
inscripta, ILLE FECIT, quae suis locis reddam : quo
apparuit, summam artis securitatem auctori placuisse, et
ob id magna invidia fuere omnia ea.

I desire to draw attention to the words of Pliny,
pingendi fingendiqne conditoribus. Pliny does not say
that there has been a general custom for artists to
use the imperfect tense in writing their name upon
a work ; that it was a custom observed by all artists
at all times. He says expressly that only the first
ancient master-artists, those creators of the arts of
design, pingendi fingendiqne conditores , an Apelles, a
Polycletus, and their contemporaries, possessed this
wise modesty ; and by mentioning these only, he
silently, but pointedly, gives us to understand, that
their followers, especially in later times, expressed
themselves with more confidence.

Proceeding upon this supposition, as indeed we
must, we can allow the discovered inscription of
one of the three artists of Laocoon to have full
authenticity ; and yet it may be true that, as Pliny
says, there have been only three works forthcoming,
in the inscriptions upon which their authors have
used the past tense ; namely, among the old artists
of the times of Apelles, Polycletus, Nicias, Ly-
sippus. But that cannot justify the position that
Athenodorus and his assistants were contemporaries
of Apelles and Lysippus, according to the allegation
of Herr Winkelmann. Rather we must conclude
as follows : — That if it be true that amongst the

202

LAOCOON

works of the old artists, of an Apelles, a Polycletes,
and of the rest of this class, there have been only
three who have used the past tense in their inscrip-
tions : if it be true that Pliny has himself named
these three5, then Athenodorus, to whom none of
the three works belong, and who, notwithstanding,
makes use of the past tense, does not belong to those
old artists ; he can be no contemporary of Apelles,
or of Lysippus, but must be placed in later times.

In one word, I believe that it may be taken for
a very certain criterion that all artists who make
use of €iro'i7)(T€ have flourished long after the time of
Alexander the Great, in a word, either before or
during the time of the Caesars With respect to
Cleomenes it is certain ; as to Archelaus it is very
probable ; as to Salpion, the contrary at least
cannot be demonstrated ; and so as to the rest, not
excluding Athenodorus.

Herr Wink elmarm shall be judge himself! But
I protest by anticipation against the converse
proposition. If all artists who have used iirolrjae
belong to the later epoch, it does not follow that all
who have used eVoiet belong to the earlier period.
There may have been among the later artists some
who have really been endowed with the modesty so
well becoming a great man, and there may be others
who have pretended to possess it.

CHAPTER XXVIII

After the Laocoon, I was most curious to learn
what Herr Winkelmann would say of the so-called
Borghese gladiator. I believed that I had made a
discovery with respect to this statue, of which I
thought as much as one usually does of such
discoveries.

I was only afraid that Herr Winkelmann would
have anticipated me. But I find nothing of the
kind in his observations ; and if any one thing
more than another could make me distrust myself,
it would be that very thing, that my apprehension
was not fulfilled.

Some, says Herr Winkelmann1, make a discobolus of
this statue, that is, a man who throws a discus or a quoit
of metal ; and this was the opinion of the celebrated Herr
von Stosch, in a letter written to me, but without
sufficient consideration of the attitude in which such a
figure should be placed. For he who is about to throw
anything must draw his body backwards, and at the
moment when the throw should take place, the weight
lies upon the thigh on the same side, and the left leg is at
rest : here, however, it is the contrary. The whole figure
is thrown forwards, and rests upon the left thigh, and the
right leg is behind, stretched to the uttermost. The right
arm is modern, and they have put a piece of a lance in his
hand ; on the left arm you see the strap of a shield which
he has holden. You observe that the head and the eyes
are directed upwards, and that the figure appears to be
defending itself with a shield from something coming from
above, which makes it more probably the attitude of a
soldier who has distinguished himself in a situation of
danger. No statue in Greece was, it may be presumed,
ever erected in honour of a gladiator ; and this work
appears to he older than the introduction of gladiators
among the Greeks.

203

204

LAOCOON

A better judgment cannot be given. This statue
is no more a gladiator than a discobolus ; it is really
the representation of a warrior, who has placed
himself in this attitude on an occasion of peril.
And as Herr Winkelmann had so happily discovered
this, how could he stop here ? How came it not to
occur to him that it represented a warrior who in
this very attitude had prevented the entire de-
struction of an army, and to whom his grateful
country had erected a statue in this very attitude ?

In a word, the statue is Chabrias.

The proof is to be found in the following paper in
Nepos, in the life of this generalI 2

Hie quoque in summis habitus est ducibus, resque
multas memoria dignas gessit. Sed ex his elucet maxime
inventum ejus in proelio, quod apud Thebas fecit, cum
Boeotiis subsidio venissit. Namque in ea victoria fidente
summo duce Agesilao, fugatis jam ab eo conductitiis
catervis, reliquam phalangem loco vetuit cedere ; obnixo-
que genu scuto, projectaque hasta, impetum excipere
hostium docuit. Id novum Agesilaus intuens, progredi
non est ausus, suosque jam incurrentes tuba revocavit.
Hoc usque eo in Graecia fama celebratum est, ut illo
statu Chabrias sibi statuam fieri voluerit, quae publice ei
ab Atheniensibus in foro constituta est. Ex quo factum
est, ut postea athletae, ceterique artifices his statibus
in statuis ponendis uterentur in quibus victoriam essent
adepti 3

I know that readers will stand aloof for a moment
before they express their assent ; but I hope for a
moment only. The attitude of Chabrias does not
appear to be precisely the same which we see in
the Borghese statue. The darted lance, projecta
hastay is common to both, but the obnixo genu scuto
is explained by commentators by obnixo in scutum
objirmato genu ad scutum. Chabrias taught his
soldiers how to bend the knee, protected by the

shield, and behind it to await the enemy : the

statue, on the contrary, holds the shield on high.
But suppose the commentators are mistaken ? And

CHAPTER XXVIII

205

if the words obnixo genu scuto do not go together,
and we ought to read obnixo genu by itself, and scuto
by itself, or together with what follows projectaque
hasta ? Only make a single comma, and the resem-
blance is as perfect as possible. The statue is a
soldier qui obnixo genu , scuto projectaque hasta impetum
hostis excipit : it shows what Chabrias did, and is
the statue of Chabrias. That the comma is really
wanted is proved by the projectd and connected quer
which, if obnixo genu scuto were taken together,
would be superfluous, and on this account it is
actually omitted in some editions.

The form of the letters of the inscription of the
master-artist agrees perfectly with the high an-
tiquity to which this statue would then belong ;
and Herr Winkelmann himself has from this con-
cluded that it is one of the oldest of the present
statues in Rome on which the name of the artist is
written. I leave to his penetrating glance to decide
whether, having regard to the principles of Art, he
has remarked anything in the statue which conflicts
with my opinion. If I obtain his assent, I may
flatter myself to have given a better example, how
happily the classical writers are illustrated by these
ancient works of Art, and how these latter in their
turn throw light upon the former, than is to be
found in the whole folio of Spence.

CHAPTEE XXIX

Herr Winkelmann, bringing immense stores of
reading, and the finest and most various knowledge
of Art to his work, has laboured with the noble
confidence of the ancient artists, who applied all
their industry to the principal matters, and with
respect to accessories, either treated them with an
apparently studied neglect, or delivered them over
entirely to the first hand which happened to present
itself.

It is no slight praise to have only committed
such faults as any one could have avoided. They
are apparent on the first cursory reading, and if
they are to be remarked upon at all, it is only for
the purpose of reminding certain people, who think
they only have eyes, that such faults do not deserve
observation.

In his writings on the imitation of Greek works
of art Herr Winkelmann has already in some points
been misled by Junius. Junius is a very dangerous
author ; his whole work is a Cento ; and as he
always will speak with the words of the ancients,
he not unfrequently applies passages in them to
painting which in the originals treat of anything
rather than painting. If, for example, Herr
Winkelmann wishes to teach us that we can as
little attain by the mere imitation of nature to the
highest point in art as we can in poetry, that the
poet as well as the painter must rather choose the
Impossible, which is probable, than the merely
Possible ; he adds to this proposition : ‘ Possibility
and Truth, which Longinus demands from a painter,
in opposition to the Incredible of the poet, may very
well consist with this position’. This additional
206

CHAPTER XXIX

207

remark had much better not have been made ; for
he shows us the twTo greatest critics in a state of
contradiction, which is wholly without foundation.
It is untrue that Longinus has ever said this. He
said something like it about Eloquence and Poetry,
but nothing of the sort about Poetry and Painting :

5’ erepbv n t) p rjropiKT] (pavraaia fiovAerai, Kal erepov i)
7r apa TroiTiTcus, ovk 'a v \ol0ol are (he writes to his Teren-
tian1) ovd’ on rrjs plv iu ir oi7](T€l reAos errnv cKirArj^is, rrjs
5’ 4v A 6yois ivapyeia. And again : Ov fX7]v ’ayy a ra p.ev
irapa r o7s iroiijrats juvdtKcorepav *X€l 'r^)v virepcKirrcocriu’ ws

€(p7]V Kal TTOLVTr) rb TTLCTTOP VlT6paipOV<TaV’ TTjS 5h pr)TOpiKTlS

(pauraaias KaAAicrrou a el rb epirpaKrou Kal euaArjOes. Only

Junius substitutes in this place Painting for Elo-
quence: and it is in Junius and not in Longinus
that Herr Winkelmann has read2: ‘Praesertim
cum Poeticae phantasiae finis sit e/c7rA7?£*s, Pictoriae
vero, evapyeia. Kcti ra pev irapa ro?s iroLijra'is , ut loquitur
idem Longinus’. Yes, the words of Longinus, but
not the sense of Longinus !

The same observation applies to this passage :
‘All actions’, he says, ‘and attitudes of Greek
figures which are not impressed with the character
of wisdom, but are too passionate and wild, are
obnoxious to that fault which the ancient artists
called Parenthyrsus ’ 3. The ancient artists ? for this
position Junius is the only authority. For Paren-
thyrsus was a rhetorical word of art, and perhaps,
as the passage in Longinus appears to inform us, is
only made use of by Theodorus4 : To vrcp irapaKeirai

rp'irov n KaKias eidos ev roTs nadririKols, oirep 6 Qeobwpos
irapevQvpaov eKaAei. VE crn 5e iraQos ’aKaipov Kal Kevbv , evQa

de7 iraOovs' 7) 'aperpov, %vQa perpiov del. Yes, I very
much doubt if this word can generally be applied
to poetry. For in eloquence and poetry there is a
pathos which can be carried to as high a degree as
possible without becoming a parenthyrsus, and it is
only the highest pathos in the most unsuitable
place which is a Parenthyrsus. But in painting
the highest pathos would always be Parenthyrsus,

208

LAOCOOH

even when it may be well excused by the situation
of the person whom it represents. It is probable
that various inaccuracies to be found in his History
of Art originate entirely in the fact that Herr
Winkelmann, in his haste, was minded to consult
Junius rather than the original sources themselves.
For example, when he wishes to show by instances
that the Greeks especially esteemed whatever was
excellent in any art or work, and that the best
workman in the slightest thing could obtain im-
mortality for his name ; he cites, among other
examples, the following6: 4 We know the name of
the workman who made the balances of the most
accurate kind, he was called Parthenius’. Herr
Winkelmann must have read the words of Juvenal,
which he invokes on this occasion, Lances Farthenio
factas , only in the catalogue of Junius.

For if he had looked at Juvenal himself he would
never have been led astray by the ambiguity of the
word Lanx , but would have learnt from the context
that the poet was not speaking of scales or balances,
but of plates and dishes. Juvenal praises Catullus
for having imitated, in a dreadful storm at sea, the
act of the beaver, which bites off its secret parts in
order to save its life ; and in like manner he caused
his most precious effects to be thrown into the sea,
in order that he himself might not perish with his
ship. He describes these precious effects, and says,
amongst other things

Ille nec argentum dubitabat mittere, lances
Parthenio factas, urnae cratera capacem
Et di^num sitiente Pholo, vel conjure Fnsci.

Adde et bascaudas et mille escaria, multuin
Caelati, biberet quo callidus emptor Olynthi 6

Lances , which are here placed amongst cups and
jugs, what else can they be but plates and dishes?
And what else did Juvenal mean than that Catullus
ordered to be thrown into the sea his whole silver
dinner-service, which also contained plates of the
curious workmanship of Parthenius. Parthenius,

CHAPTER XXIX

209

says the old scholiast, caelatoris nomen. But when
Grangaeus in his commentaries adds to this name,
sculptor de quo Plinius, he must have written this
down at haphazard, for Pliny mentions no artist of
this name. ‘Yes’, continues Herr Winkelmann,
4 the name of the currier, as we should call it, who
made the leathern shield of Ajax has come down to
us \ But he cannot have taken this fact from the
authority to which he refers his reader, from the
life of Homer, by Herodotus, for there the lines out
of the Iliad are cited in which the poet gives the
name of Tychius to this worker in leather ; but at
the same time it is expressly said that there was
a worker in leather with whom Homer was ac-
quainted, and towards whom he wished to show
his friendship and gratitude by the introduction
of his name into his poem7: ’AireSoj/ce x^PLV K°d

Tux'icp <tkvt€i, ts ede^aro avrbu kv red N kcp reix^h irpoakX-
dovra irpbs to (Tkvtciop, kv rots €7r <Eai Kardfev^as ev rrj ’iXiadi
To7ffde'

Afas 5’ kyyvQev ^A0e, <pepcov aaKOS, rjvre Trvpyctv,
Xd\K€ov, eTTrafioeioi', '6 oi T v\tos Ka/j.e revx^v
^kvtot6/j.ccv o'x’ apiaros , e/TA rj ivi olxia vcllodv 8

Here is exactly the contrary of what Herr
Winkelmann was so certain, the name of the cur-
rier who made the shield of Ajax was already in
the time of Homer so forgotten that the poet took
the liberty of introducing an entirely strange name
in lieu of it. There are several other small faults,
faults of memory, or which relate to things which
he only brings forward as accidental illustrations.

It was Hercules and not Bacchus of whom
Parrhasius boasts that he had seen him in the very
form in which he painted him Tauriscus did not
come from Rhodes, but from Tralles, in Lydia10.
Antigone is not the first tragedy of Sophocles11 ; but
I must restrain myself from placing such trifles as
these on a heap.

It is true that no one would think I did so from

210

LAOCOON

a desire of malignant criticism, but those who know
my high esteem for Herr Winkelmann might con-
sider it as crocylegmus 12.

N.B. — Here ends the first and only completed part of
the Essay on Laocoon, as it was first published ; but after
the death of Lessing, among his papers were discovered
various notes, for a second part, and perhaps a third part.
They were in a rough state, but contain many valuable
and pregnant suggestions. I have translated nearly all,
certainly all the most important of them, in the Appendix.

NOTES

INTRODUCTION

1 The word should be ‘ the material 5 ; the German word
is ‘ Gegenstanden ’, that is, ‘the objects’, and Lessing
mistook the meaning of *'T which certainly means ‘ the
material \ The mistake, however, in no way affects the
reasoning or theory of the writer. R. P.

Plutarch, Comm. Bellone an Pace clariores fuerint Athe -
nienses, v. 366, ed. Reiske. R. P.

CHAPTER I

1 Von der Nachahmung der griechischen Werke in der
Mahler ei und Bildhauerkunst, s. 21, 22.

2 This poem of Sadolet is printed at length in a later
part of this essay : but, according to Sadolet, Laocoon —

‘ . dolore aeri et laniatu irapulsus acerbo
Dat gemitum ingentem \

It is true he adds a little later- —

‘ Ferre nequit rabiem et de vulnere murmur anhelum est R. P.

3 Pliny makes emphatic mention of him, Nat. Mist.,
Ixxxv — xl. 30 : ‘ Est nomen et Heraclidi Macedoni. Initio
naves pinxit : captoque rege Perseo Athenas commigravit :
ubi eodem tempore erat Metrodorus pictor, idemque philo-
sophus, magnae in utraque scientia auctoritatis C.
Plinius Secundus, author of the Historia Naturalise born
a. d. 23, died a.d. 79. Uncle of C. Plinius Caecilius
Secundus, born a.d. 61, the writer of the ten books of
Epistolary the time of whose death is doubtful. R. P.

4 Brumoy, Thd&tre des Grecs , t. 11, p. 89.

5 Brumoy, Pierre, a distinguished member of the
Society of Jesuits. Of all his works the Tht&tre des Grecs

211

212

LAOCOON

won for him the greatest reputation as a scholar. Born
1688, died 1742. R. P.

6 Iliad , E. y. 343, 'H Be fie ya la\f/ov<ra.

7 Iliad , E. v. 859.

8 Th. Bartolinus de Causis contemptae a Danis adhuc
gentilibus Mortis , cap. i. He was born 1659. Professor
of History and Civil Law at Copenhagen ; wrote several
Latin treatises besides the one referred to. Died 1690.
In this work, dc Causis , Gray found the Norse Ballad from
which he took his Descent of Odin. R. P.

9 Lessing perhaps had in his mind the Philoctetes which
he so often quotes and so justly admired : —

’Ev 7r erpoKTi 7 rerpov eieTpificov fi6\is
3'E<pr\v> &(pavrov (pus. Pliiloc. 296. R. P.

10 Diad, H. 421.

11 Odyss. A. 195.

12 Chateaubrun, Jean-Baptiste Vivier de Chateaubrun,
born at Angouleme in 1686 ; his tragedy of Mahomet Second
was acted in 1714, and was well received ; but he pro-
duced no other play till 1754, Les Troyennes , which was
successful in 1755. Eleven years before the appearance
of the Laocoon , he produced PliilocUte , which was acted
seven times. He died at the age of 89, in Paris. R. P.

CHAPTER II

1 Antiochus, Antholog. lib. ii, cap. 4. Hardouin on
Pliny, lib. xxxv, sect. 36, p. m. 698, ascribes this Epigram
to a certain Pison. But among all the Greek epigram-
matists there is no one of that name. Hardouin, Jean, a
French jesuit of extraordinary erudition, antiquary,
chronologist, naturalist, commentator, among other works
he was the author of Chronologic Eepliquee par les Medailles ;
he was very fond of paradoxes, and in an epitaph com-
posed for him was styled Hominum paradoxotatos. Bom
1646, died 1729. R. P.

2 ‘ Namque subtexi par est minoris pietura celebres in
penicillo e quibus fuit Pyreicus : arte paucis proferendus :

NOTES

213

proposito nescio an destruxerit se : quoniam humilia
quidem secutus humilitatis summam adeptus est gloriam.
Tonstrinas sutrinasque pinxit et asellos et opsonia ac
similia : ob hoc cognominatur Rhyparographos, in iis
consummatae voluptatis. Quippe ea pluris veniere quam
maximae multorum Plin., Hist. Nat., xxxv, cap. x.
R. P.

3 Therefore pictures, according to Aristotle’s Precept,
should not be shown to young persons, in order to keep
their imagination, as much as possible, pure from all
pictures of what is ugly. (Pol. , 1, viii, c. 5. ) Herr Boden
wished to read Pausanias’ instead of Pauson, because it
was known that the former had painted unchaste pictures
(De Umbra Poetica, Comm. I, xiii.), as if one had first to
learn from this philosophical legislator that youth should
be removed from such lascivious provocations. He had
only to compare the well-known passage in the Poetics
(cap. ii.) in order to withdraw his conjecture. There are
commentators (e. g. Kuhn, upon Aelian Var., Hist., 1. iv,
c. 3), who think that the distinction which Aristotle
makes between Polygnotus, Dionysius, and Pauson was
founded on this supposed fact that Polygnotus painted
gods and heroes, Dionysius men, and Pauson animals.
They all painted the human figure, and that Pauson once
painted a horse does not prove that he was a painter of
animals as Herr Boden imagines. The degrees of the
beautiful which they gave to their human figures decided
their work, and it was solely on this account that Diony-
sius only painted men, and obtained before all others the
appellation of 4 the man painter ’, because he was too
servile a follower of nature, and never could i;aise himself
to that ideal, below which to have painted gods and
heroes would have been an offence against religion. The
passage in the Poetics of Aristotle, 2, § 2, is axnrep ol
ypacpeis' UoXvyvcoTos fxev yap Kpeirrovs, Tlavcroov de x€Lpovs,
A Lovvcnos 5e o/jlolovs. R. P.

4 Aristoph., Pint., 602 ; Acharn., 854.

5 Plinius, 1. xxx, s. 37.

6 De Picturd Vet., L 2, c. 4, § 1. See preface for some
account of Junius. R. P.

7 I venture to doubt whether this word has been under-

214

LAOCOON

stood. The explanation is as follows : Count Ghezzi
(Pietro Leone) was, as his father and grandfather had
been, a painter and engraver of the Roman School ; taught
by his father (Giuseppe), who died at Rome 1721, and
who was the son of another Ghezzi (Sebastiano). P. L.
Ghezzi excelled in caricature ; he is said to have com-
posed no less than 400, of cardinals, princes, ambassadors,
and remarkable persons. He was born in 1674 ; died in
1755, at Rome. R. P.

8 Plin., Hist. Nat., xxxiv, s. 4: 4 Olympica : ubi om-
nium qui vicissent statuas dicari mos erat, eorum vero
qui ter ibi superavissent ex membris ipsorum similitudine
expressa quas iconicas vocant ’. R. P.

9 It is a mistake to consider a serpent as the sign of a
medical Deity only; Justinus Martyr ( Apolog ., ii, 55,
ed. Sylburg) says expressly, napb. n ravr\ ruv vopu^o^vcov
nap’ vjxiv 6<eq> v, v(pis ffvfifioXov [x4ya Ka\ /xvarnpiov avaypd-
(perai ; and it would be easy to produce an array of
monumental records in which snakes accompany Deities
which have not the least relation to health.

4 All the different Arts which I have hitherto mentioned
as taking their rise from the imagination, have this in
common, that their primary object is to please5, D.
Stewart, Phil, of Human Mind , i, 366. 4 Pleasure is the

end of his (the poet’s) art, and the more numerous the
sources of it which he can open the greater will be the
effect produced by the efforts of his genius’, lb., 367.
R. P.

10 Let any .one go through all the works of Art which
Pliny, Pausanias, and others mention ; let him survey
the ancient statues, bassi-relievi, and pictures at present
known to us, and no Fury will be found. I speak of
those figures which belong rather to Allegory than to
Art, such as we find especially on coins. Therefore,
Spence, who must have Furies, would rather borrow them
from coins. (Sequini Numism., p. 178. Spanheim de
Praeft, Numism. Dissert. , xiii, p. 639. Les Cisars de Julien ,
par Spanheim, p. 48. ) These introduce them by an intel-
lectual feat into a work in which they certainly are not.
He says, in Poly metis (Dial. , xvi, p. 272) :

Tho’ Furies are very uncommon in the works of the antient artists,
yet there is one subject in which they are generally introduced by

NOTES

215

them. What I mean is the death of Meleager ; in the relievi of which
they are often represented as encouraging or urging Althaea to burn
the fatal brand ; on which the life of her only son depended. Even a
woman’s resentment you see could not go so far, without a little help
of the devil. In a copy of one of these relievi published in the
Admiranda, there are two women standing by the altar with Althaea ;
who are probably meant for Furies in the original ; (for who but Furies
would assist at such a sacrifice?) tho’ the copy scarce represents them
horrid enough for that character : but what is most to be observed in
that piece is a round, or medallion about the midst of it, with the
evident head of a Fury upon it. This might be what Althaea addressed
her prayers to, whenever she wished ill to her neighbours ; or when-
ever she was going to do any very evil action : Ovid introduces her
as invoking the Furies on this occasion in particular and makes her
give more than one reason for her doing so.

By such devices one can make anything out of anything.

‘ Who ’, says Spence, ‘ but Furies could have assisted at
such an action ? I answer, the maid-servant of Althaea
who kindled the fire must keep it up. Ovid says (Metam. ,
viii, 460, 461),

Protulit hunc (stipitem) taedasque in fragmina poni
Imperat et positis inimicos admovet ignes.

Dryden’s translation, as given in Garth’s Ovid , is :

This brand she now produced ; and first she strows
The hearth with heaps of chips, and after blows.

The taedae of this kind, long pieces of resinous wood,
which the ancients used for torches, were actually carried
by two persons in their hands, and one of them, as is
clear from the attitude, had broken a piece off. On the
boss, in the middle of the work, I do not at all recognise
a Fury. Without doubt it must be the head of Meleager
(Metam., viii, 515).

Inscius atque absens flamma Meleagros ab ilia
Uritur : et caecis torreri viscera sentit
Ignibus : et magnos superat virtute dolores.

J ust then the hero cast a doleful cry,

And in those absent flames began to fry ;

The blind contagion raged within his veins,

But he with manly patience bore his pains.

The artist makes use of him as if to help the transition
into the following Epoch of the same history which
exhibits the dying Meleager in close proximity to it.
What Spence calls the Furies Montfaucon calls the Fates
(Antiq. Expl. , t. 1, p. 162), excepting the head on the boss
which he also considers to be a Fury. Bellori himself

216

LAOCOON

(Admirand, tab. 77) leaves it undecided whether they are
Furies or Parcae. This c or ’ suffices to show that they
are neither the one nor the other. The remaining part of
even Montfaucon’s explanation is deficient in accuracy.
The woman who leans upon her elbows near the bed, he
should have called Cassandra and not Atalanta. Atalanta
is the figure, which, with her back turned to the bed, sits
in an attitude of sorrow. The artist has, with much
intelligence, turned her away from the family, because
she was only the beloved one, and not the wife of Meleager,
and her distress over a misfortune, of which she has been
the innocent cause, must exasperate the relations.

11 Plinius, 1. xxxv, s. 10 : ‘ Cum moestos pinxisset omnes,
praecipue patruum et tristitiae omnem imaginem con-
sumpsisset, patris ipsius vultum velavit, quern digne non
poterat ostendere

12 c Summi maeroris acerbitatem arte exprimi non posse
eonfessus est’, Valerius Maximus, 1. viii, c. 11.

13 The words from which the picture is supposed to be taken are
these : Agamemnon saw Iphigenia advance towards the fatal altar, he
groaned, he turned aside his head, he shed tears , and covered his face
with his robe.

Falconet does not at all acquiesce in the praise that is bestowed on
Timanthes ; not only because it is not his invention, but because he
thinks meanly of this trick of concealing, except in instances of blood,
where the objects would be too horrible to be seen; ‘but’, says he,
‘ in an afflicted father, in a thing, in Agamemnon, you, who are a painter,
conceal from me the most interesting circumstance, and then put me off
with sophistry and a veil. You are’ (he adds) ‘a feeble painter, with-
out resource; you do not know even those of your art. I care not
what veil it is, whether closed hands, arms raised, or any other action
that conceals from me the countenance of the hero. You think of
veiling Agamemnon ; you have unveiled your own ignorance. A
painter who represents Agamemnon veiled is as ridiculous as a poet
would be, who, in a pathetic situation, in order to satisfy my expecta-
tions and rid himself of the business, should say, that the sentiments
of his hero are so far above whatever can be said on the occasion, that
he shall say nothing

To what Falconet has said, we may add, that supposing this method
of leaving the expression of grief to the imagination, to be, as it was
thought to be, the invention of the painter, and that it deserves all
the praise that has been given it, still it is a trick that will serve but
once ; whoever does it a second time will not only want novelty, but
be justly suspected of using artifice to evade difficulties. If difficulties
overcome make a great part of the merit of Art, difficulties evaded
can deserve but little commendation. Sir J. Reynolds, vol. i, p. 462,
Eighth Discourse. R. P.

14 Antiquit . Explic ., t. i, p. 50.

NOTES

217

15 For instance, he thus describes the degrees of sorrow
actually expressed by Timanthes : ‘ Calchantem tristem,
moestum Ulyssem, clamantem Ajacem, lamentantem
Meneiaum’. The screaming Ajax must have been a
hideous figure, and as neither Cicero nor Quintilian men-
tion him in their description of the picture, I am rather
disposed to consider it an addition furnished out of his
own head.

16 Bellorii Admiranda, tab. ii, 12. Bellori was an
Italian antiquary, born 1615, died 1696, wrote a great
number of treatises, among them ‘ Admiranda Romano rum
antiquitatum ac veteris sculptura vestigio a Petro Santi
Bartoli delineanda cum notis5, Jo. P. Bellori: Rome,
1695, in fol. Dryden, in his Parallel of Poetry and. Paint-
ing, speaks of him as ‘a most ingenious author yet
living’. R. P.

17 Plin., xxxiii, s. 8.

18 ‘ Eundem namely Myro (we read in Pliny, xxxiii,
s. 8), ‘vicit et Pythagoras Leontinus, qui fecit stadio-
dromon Aftylon, qui Olympiae ostenditur : et Libyn
puerum tenentem tabulam, eodem loco, et mala ferentem
nudum. Syracusis autem claudicantem ; cujus hulceris
dolorem sentire etiam spectantes videntur’. Let us
examine the last words more closely. Is he not clearly
speaking of a person who, on account of his painful cry, is
generally known? ‘cujus hulceris, etc.’ ; and this ‘cujus’
must refer to the ‘claudicantem’, and the ‘ claudicantem’
perhaps to the still further removed ‘ puerum \ Nobody
has a better right than Philoctetes to be well known on
account of such a copy. I read therefore instead, ‘ claudi-
cantem, Philoctetem ’, or, at least, I contend that the
latter word has been expelled by the former like-sounding
word, and we must read the two together, 4 claudicantem
Philoctetem ’. Sophocles makes him arl^ov tear’ avdyKav
€ pTr € tv t and his lameness must be caused by his walking
with little confidence on his wounded foot.

‘ A painter must compensate the natural deficiencies of
his Art. He has but one sentence to utter, but one
moment to exhibit ’, Sir J. Reynolds, Fourth Discourse,
vol. i, 348. ‘ What is done by painting must be done at

one blow : curiosity has received at once all the satis-
faction it can have’, id., Eighth Discourse, p. 439.

218

LAOCOCXNT

‘ These important moments then (Fuseli says) which ex-
hibit the united exertion of form and character in a single
object or in participation with collateral beings, at once ,
and which with equal rapidity and pregnancy give us a
glimpse of the past, and lead our eye to what follows,
furnish the true materials of those technic powers which
select direct the objects of imitation to their centre’,
Fuseli, Life , etc., Lecture iii, pp. 135-6. 4 For of necessity
(Harris says) every picture is a punctum temporis or
instant ’, Discourse on Music , Painting , and Poetry , p. 63.
Sir Joshua wrote after Harris, and before the publication
of the Laocoon. R. P.

The references to the books and sections in Pliny are
not always correct. I have made them so. R. P.

CHAPTER III

1 According to Mr. De Quincey’s paraphrase, ‘essen-
tially evanescent’, on which words he has a long note, the
earlier part of which is as follows :

‘ Essentially evanescent. The reader (he says) must lay especial
stress on the word essentially , because else Lessing will he chargeable
with a capital error. For it is in the very antagonism between the
transitory reality and the non-transitory image of it, reproduced by
painting or sculpture, that one main attraction of those arts is
concealed. The shows of Nature, which we feel and know to be
moving, unstable, and transitory, are by these arts arrested in a single
moment of their passage, and frozen as it were into a motionless
immortality. This truth has been admirably drawn into light, and
finely illustrated, by Mr Wordsworth, in a Sonnet on the Art of Land-
scape-Painting ; in which he insists upon it, as the great secret of its
power, that it bestows upon

One brief moment, caught from fleeting time,

The appropriate calm of blest Eternity.

Now, in this there might seem at first glance to be some opposition
between Mr Wordsworth and Lessing ; but all the illustrations of the
Sonnet show that there is not. For the case is this : In the succession
of parts which make up any appearance in nature, either these parts
simply repeat each other (as in the case of a man walking, a river
flowing, etc.), or they unfold themselves through a cycle, in which
each step effaces the preceding (as in the case of a gun exploding,
where the flash is swallowed up by the smoke effaced by its own
dispersion, etc.). Now, the illustrations in Mr Wordsworth’s poem
are all of the former class ; as the party of travellers just entering the
wood, but not permitted, by the good considerate painter, absolutely
to enter the wood, where they must be eternally hidden from us ; so

NOTES

219

again with regard to the little boat, if allowed to unmoor and go out a
ftshing, it might be lying hid for hours under the restless glory of the
sun, but now we all see it “for ever anchored in its rocky bed”, and
so on ; where the continuous self-repeating nature of the impression,
together with its indefinite duration, predispose the mind to contem-
plate it under a form of unity, one mode of which exists in the eternal
Now of the painter and the sculptor. But in successions of the other
class, where the parts are not fluent, as in a line, but angular, as it
were, to each other, not homogeneous but heterogeneous, not con-
tinuous but abrupt, the evanescence is essential; both because each
part really has , in general, but a momentary existence, and still more
because, all the parts being unlike, each is imperfect as a represent-
ative image of the whole process ; whereas, in trains which repeat each
other, the whole exists virtually in each part, and therefore reciprocally
each part will be a perfect expression of the whole. Now, whatever is
essentially imperfect, and waiting, as it were, for its complement, is
thereby essentially evanescent, as it is only by vanishing that it makes
room for this complement. Whilst objecting, therefore, to appear-
ances essentially evanescent, as subjects for the artist, Lessing is by
implication suggesting the same class from which Mr Wordsworth has
drawn his illustrations ’. De Quincey’s Works , vol. xii, p. 253, note.

2 Philippus, Anthol lib. xv, cap. 9, ep. 10:

A lei yap Stif/as fSpefpeoov <povov rj rls ’1 7]G(cv

A evrepos, 7] T\avK ^ rls ird\i aot irpScpaais

*E ppe Kal iv Kir]p(p TraiSoKrdpe.

Philippus of Thessalonica probably lived in the time of
Trajan, wrote a great many epigrams himself, and compiled
one of the ancient Greek Anthologies. R. P.

3 Vita Apoll ., lib. ii, cap. 22. There appear to have
been three persons called Philostratus ; the most celebrated
wrote the life of Apollonius of Tyana, which was divided
into eight books ; it was entitled ‘ r a is rbv Tvavea
’ATro\A(i)i'iov\ Apollonius was a Pythagorean philosopher,
born at Tyana four years b.c. He wrote several works,
and was believed to possess magical or supernatural
powers. His life by Philostratus is said to be full of
fables and incongruities. Philostratus was alive a.d.
244-9, probably born a.d. 182; he wrote various other
works, of which the ‘ ei/coVes, imagines 5 is reckoned to be
the most pleasing ; it was an explanation of the subject
of Painting while he lived at Naples. R. P.

220

LAOCOON

CHAPTER IV

1 Lessing observes, in a long note to this passage, that
when the Chorus considers the misery of Philoctetes in
this combination, it is his helpless solitude which more
especially touches them. In these words we hear the
social Greeks. I have, however, my doubts as to one of
the passages belonging to this subject. It is this, v, 691-
698 :

Exposed to the inclement skies,

Deserted and forlorn he lies ;

No friend nor fellow mourner there,

To sooth his sorrows and divide his care. Franklin.

"lv avrbs tt p'ffovpos, ovk txw

Ovde Tii v iyx&puv,

KaKoye'iropa nap* <5 arovov avTirvirov [Sapvfip&T onroK\av<T-
eiev ai/JLarr]p6u.

Lessing discusses various translations of these lines, and
contends that the comma should be placed after Kcucoyei-
rova, and taken away from eyx&poov, and the meaning
would be, notwithstanding these later translations to the
contrary, not ‘an evil neighbour’, but ‘a neighbour to
his woe’; as Kaieoixavris does not mean ‘an evil prophet’,
but ‘a prophet of evil’ ; KaKSrexvos, not ‘a bad clumsy
workman’, but ‘a worker of bad things’. Referring to
one of the Latin translations Lessing says, ‘If this
translation be right, then the Chorus says the strongest
thing that can ever be said in praise of human society ;
the wretched one has no man near him, he knows of no
friendly neighbour’. Thomson had perhaps this passage
before his eyes, when he makes Melisander A, left by some
ruffians in a desert island, say :

Cast on the wildest of the Cyclad isles,

Where never human foot had marked the shore ;

These ruffians left me, yet believe me, Areas,

Such is the rooted love we bear mankind ;

All ruffians as they were I never heard
A sound so dismal as their parting oars.

To him also the society of the ruffians was preferable to

1 Agamemnon , Act ii. Lessing took this reference to Thomson from
Franklin’s translation of Philoctetes. See Franklin’s note to p. 134.
R. P.

NOTES

221

none. A grand and excellent meaning ! were it only cer-
tain that Sophocles had really so expressed himself. But
I must reluctantly confess that I find in him nothing of
the kind. As Lessing’s amendment of the punctuation,
and consequently of the meaning, has been adopted in all
subsequent good editions of Sophocles, it is unnecessary
to continue the translation of this very learned note,
except to add that he approves of Franklin’s translation.
R. P.

2 Mercure de France, Avril 1755, p. 177. Lessing’s
Laocoon was published in 1766. R. P.

3 In that part of the account given by Thucydides of
the Athenian expedition to Sicily, in which he narrates
the last naval action before the mouth of the harbour of
Syracuse, and describes the diversity of passions with
which both armies beheld the action. 4 During this
doubtful conflict on the water’, he says, 4 the army on the
shore of both sides had their struggle and contention of
mind ’ : then the misery of those who saw their side
worsted is described ; and then he says, 4 others that
looked on some part where the fight was equal, because the
contention continued so as they could make no judgment
as to it, moving their todies in their extreme fear in sym-
pathy icith their thoughts , passed their time as ill as the
worst of them ’. Hobbes. clWoi de kcu tt pbs avr'iir a\6v tl
tt]s vav/mxias aundovres, 8*a to aKplrcas £vi tt)s ayiXXrjs,
ical to? s cr do yaa iv avrois i era rr} 8 o | ? j n t ep id eca s
h,vv arc ov ev ovt e s, eu ro?s xaAe7rccTaTa diriyov. vii, 71.

R. P.

4 Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments , part I, sect, ii,
pp. 50, 51. In a subsequent part of the same essay, the
writer says,

In some of the Greek tragedies there is an attempt to excite com-
passion by the representation of the agonies of bodily pain. Philoctetes
cries out and faints from the extremity of his suffering. Hippolytus
and Hercules are both introduced as expiring under the severest tor-
tures, which it seems even the fortitude of Hercules was incapable of
supporting. In all these cases, however, it is not the pain which
interests us, but some other circumstance. It is not the sore foot, but
the solitude of Philoctetes which affects us and diffuses over that
charming tragedy that romantic wildness which is so agreeable to the
imagination. The agonies of Hercules and Hippolytus are interesting
only because we foresee that death is to be the consequence. If those*
heroes were to recover, we should think the representation of their

222

LAOCOON

sufferings perfectly ridiculous. What a tragedy would that be of which
the distress consisted in a colic ! Yet no pain is more exquisite.
These attempts to excite compassion by the representation of bodily
pain may be regarded as among the greatest breaches of decorum of
which the Greek theatre has set the example. Ib. part I, sect, ii, pp.
53, 54. R. P.

5 The passage to which Lessing refers, but does not
fully cite, is as follows :

Sed yidesne poetae quid mali afferant ! Lamentantes inducunt for-
tissimos viros : molliunt animos nostros ita deinde dulces ut non
legantur modo sed etiam ediscantur sic ad malam domesticam discipli-
nam, vitamque umbratilem et delicatam cum accesserunt etiam poetae,
nervos omnis virtutis elidunt, recte igitur a Platone educantur ex ea
civitate quam finxit ille cum mores optimos et optimum Reipublicis
statum exquireret. Tusc ., lib. 1, 2, 11. R. P.

6 I suppose Lessing refers to Ctesias of Ephesus, an
epic poet, who wrote the Uepa^is. His age is unknown,
but he is mentioned by Plutarch, Be Fluv ., 18. It. P.

7 Aristotle illustrates a proposition in his Ethics by
reference to this conduct of Neoptolemus. He says :

‘ Again, if constancy makes you abiding in every opinion,
it may be bad, as if it be in a false opinion ; and if incon-
stancy makes you shifting from every opinion, there will
be a good inconstancy ; as with the Neoptolemus of
Sophocles in the Philoctetes ; for he is to be commended,
in that he abided not in those resolutions to which he
was persuaded by Ulysses, being angered at the cheat
which had been practised on him’. Aristot. E.N. , vii, 2 :
VE tl el Traarr) 56£r) e/m/jLeveriKbv ttoici tj eyKpareia, (pavArj, oiov
el leal rrj if/evdeV zeal el Tracnrjs dbj-ris 7} aiepacrla, earai ns
enroubaia aKpacria’ oiov 6 l£o(poK\eovs NeoTrroAe^aos ev rep $i\ok-
TrjT77‘ eTraiverbs yap, ovk e/jcfievcov oTs eireiaOr] inrb rod
’05 vacrews, dia rb XvireiaQai ij/evddjuevos. P.

8 Act. ii, sc. 3: — {De mes deguisemens que penserait
Sophie?5 says the son of Achilles. If this were not a
fact, it would appear incredible ; it would be thought a
preposterous caricature of French Classical tragedy. R. P.

9 Track, v. 1088, 9 ; #<rris Soare tt apepevos & ePpvxa KXaicvv.

10 Garrick was still in all his glory when the Laocoon was
written ; he left the stage ten years later, 1776 ; died in
June, 1779. This homage of Lessing is remarkable. It. P.

11 The word used by Lessing is generally mistranslated

NOTES

223

as { acting ’, or 2 * 4 * * * 8 la mimique ’ ; but the paraphrase of De
Quincey, ‘subsidiary aids in its mechanic apparatus’,
conveys the true meaning of the word, which, I think,
has in every edition of Lessing a slight misprint. It
stands Ska-ropoeie ; it should be Skam>poeie, from the
Greek 2 KTjvoTrot'ta , c tabernaculorum constructio ’ ; see
Stephen’s Thesaurus on the word, citing Polyb. 6-28, 3.
It is well known that the Greeks took great pains with the
mechanical apparatus which was to introduce a Deity
on the stage and perform other offices. 0e5s curb p^x^vris
enKpaveis was a proverb. R. P.

CHAPTER V

1 Topographia Urbis Romae , lib. iv, cap. 14. et quam-
quam hi (Agesander et Polydorus et Athenodorus Rhodii)
ex Virgilii descriptione hanc statuam formavisse vider-
entur, &c,

Marliani Bartolomeo, an Italian antiquary, born at
Milan towards the end of the fifteenth century, died about
1560. His life was chiefly occupied with archaeological
researches, amongst which was Topographia Urbis Romae.

R. P.

2 Suppl. aux Ant. Expliq t. i, p. 242, ‘II semble

qu’Agesandre Polydore et Athenodore, qui en furent les

ouvriers, ayant travaille comme a, l’envie, pour laisser un

monument, qui rdpondit a l’incomparable description qu’a
fait Virgile de Laocoon

Montfaucon was a very learned Benedictine of St.
Maur ; born 1655, died 1741. His work, UAntiquite
expliquee et represents en Figures , was published at Paris

1724, in five folio volumes, to which a supplement of as
many volumes has been added. R. P.

8 Saturnalia , 1. v, c. 2 :

Quae Virgilius traxit a Graecis, dicturumne me putatis quae vulgo
nota sunt? quod Theocritum sibi fecerit pastoralis operis autorein,
ruralis Hesiodum ? et quod in ipsis Georgicis tempestatis serenitatisque
signa de Arati Phaenomenis traxerit? vel quod eversionein Trojae cum
Sinone suo et equo ligneo, caeterisque omnibus, quae librum secundum
faciunt, a Pisandro pene ad verbum transcripserit ? qui inter Graecos
poetas emmet opere, quod a nuptiis Jovis et Junonis incipiens universas

224

LAOCOON

historias, quae mediis omnibus saeculis usque ad aetatem ipsius Pisan-
dri contigerunt, in unam seriem coactas redegerit, et unum ex diversis
hiatibus temporum corpus effecerit? in quo opere inter historias
caeteras interitus quoque Trojae in hunc modum relatus est. Quae
fi deliter Maro interpretando fabricatus est sibi Iliacae urbis ruinam.
Sed et haec et talia ut pueris decantata praetereo.

Macrobius Ambrosius Aurelius Theodosius, a Latin
writer of the fifth century. His chief work was Saturna-
liorum Conviviorum , libri vii. ; a collection of discussions
of the Saturnalia, the Roman Deities, and the Poetry of
Virgil. He probably was a Greek, and lived in the age of
Honorius and Theodosius. R. P.

4 Quintus Calaber, or Quintus Smyrnaeus (for the name

of Calaber seems to have been given him because a copy of
his poem was first discovered in a convent of Calabria),
wrote a poem on things TrapaXenropievwv praeter-

missorum ab Homero. His exact date is unknown, but
probably he lived at the end of the fourth century after
Christ. His poem was in fourteen books ; the subject,
the events of the Trojan War from the death of Hector to
the return of the Greeks ; the 12th and 13th books refer
to the wooden horse. It is probable that his poem was
founded on those of Aretinus and Lesches. Smith’s G-.
and R. Biog. , iii, 637, 8. The edition of Q. Calaber, which
I have used, is one published at Leyden, 1734. R. P.

5 Barali'p ., lib. xii, v. 398-408 ; v. 439-474.

6 Or rather a serpent, for Lycophron appears to have
only accepted one :

kcl\ Tread 6 ftp got os Troptceeos v^aovs dnrAas.

Porces, 6 Uo preys , was the name of Lycophron’s serpent ;
y Xapifioia, Charibaea, was the name of the other.
A vK&<ppovos ’AAefavdpa, ed. Lipsiae, 1830, p. 84, 1. 347.
See note : IT opreys real Xapifiola ovo/uara orpecov ol TrMvGavres
ire tgov KaXiBucau vyGGuv riXQov els T polav kcl\ di6<p9e7pav rovs
7r aldas AaoKoovros, k.t.X. See, too, p. 308, the Greek
paraphrase ; and p. 467, Scaliger’s Latin translation,
under the name of Cassandra , 1. 347. The poem is a long
vapid Iambic monologue of 1474 verses, in which Cassan-
dra prophesies the fall of Troy. Lycophron was a
celebrated grammarian and poet ; he lived at Alexandria
under Ptolemy Philadelphus, who died b.c. 40. R. P.

NOTES

225

7 I remember that the picture of which Eumolpus gives
an account in Petronius 1 may be cited against me. He
represents the destruction of Troy, and especially the
history of Laocoon, as fully and completely as Virgil ; and
in a certain gallery at Naples, in which it stood, there
were other ancient pictures by Zeuxis, Protogenes, Apelles,
so there is a presumption in favour of this picture also
being considered an old Greek picture. But I must be
allowed not to consider a romance poet as an historian.
This gallery, and this picture, and this Eumolpus, have,
according to all probability, never existed except in the
imagination of Petronius. Nothing more clearly betrays
their entire invention than the obvious traces of an almost
schoolboy’s imitation of Virgil’s description. Virgil says
( Aen . ii, 199-224) :

Hie aliud majus miseris multoque tremendum
Objicitur magis, atque improvida pectora turbat.

Laocoon, ductus Neptuno sbrte sacerdos,

Sollemnes taurum ingentem mactabat ad aras.

Ecce autem gemini a Tenedo tranquilla per alta
(Horresco referens) inmensis orbibus angues
Incumbunt pel ago, pariterque ad litora tendunt ;

Pectora quorum inter fluctus arrecta, jubaeque
Sanguineae superant undas ; pars cetera pontum
Pone legit sinuatque inmensa volumine terga ;

Fit sonitus spurn ante salo. Jamque arva tenebant,
Ardentesque oculos suftecti sanguine et igni,

Sibila lambebant linguis vibrantibus ora.

Diffugimus visu exsangues. Illi agmine ceito
Laocoonta petunt ; et primum parva duorum
Corpora natorum serpens amplexus uterque
Implicat et miseros morsu depascitur artus ;

Post ipsum, auxilio subeuntem ac tela ferentem,

Corripiunt, spirisque iigant ingentibus ; et jam
Bis medium amplexi, bis collo squamea circum
Terga dati, superant capite et cervicibus altis.

Ille simul manibus tendit divellere nodos,

i ‘ Petronius is described by Tacitus (Ann. xvi, 18, 19) as the most
accomplished voluptuary at the court of Nero. His days were passed in
slumber, his nights in visiting and revelry. But he was no vulgar
spendthrift, no dull besotted debauchee. An air of refinement per-
vaded all his extravagancies ; with him luxury was a serious study, and
he became a proficient in the science. The careless, graceful ease,
assuming almost the guise of simplicity, which distinguished all his
words and actions, was the delight of the fashionable world ; he gained
by polished and ingenious folly an amount of fame which others often
fail to achieve by a long career of laborious virtue ’. Smith’s Diet.
His title of ‘ arbiter ’ comes from the expression ‘ elegantiae arbiter’ in
Tacitus. R. P.

226

LAOCOON

Ferfusus sanie vittas atroque veneno,

Clamores simul horrendos ad sidera tollit :

Qualis mugitus, fugit cum saucius aram
Taurus et ineertam excussit cervice securim.

A greater omen, and of worse portent,

Did our unwary minds with fear torment, V
Concurring to produce the dire event. J
Laocoon, Neptune’s priest by lot that year,

With solemn pomp then sacrificed a steer ;

When (dreadful to behold !) from sea we spied ’’j
Two serpents, ranked abreast, the seas divide, V
And smoothly sweep along the swelling tide. J
Their flaming crests above the waves they show ;

Their bellies seem to burn the seas below ;

Their speckled tails advance to steer their course,

And on the sounding shore the flying billows force
And now the strand, and now the plain they held.

Their ardent eyes with bloody streaks were filled ;

Their nimble tongues they brandished as they came
And licked their hissing jaws, that sputtered flame.

We fled amazed : their destined way they take,

And to Laocoon and his children make ;

And first around the tender boys they wind,

Then with their sharpened fangs their limbs and bodies grind.
The wretched father, running to their aid
With pious haste, but vain, they next invade ;

Twice round his waist their winding volumes rolled ;

And twice about his gasping throat they fold.

The priest thus doubly choked — their crests divide,

And towering o’er his head in triumph ride.

With both his hands he labours at the knots ;

His holy fillets the blue venom blots ;

His roaring fills the flitting air around.

Thus when an ox receives a glancing wound,

He breaks his bands, the fatal altar flies,

And with loud bellowings breaks the yielding skies.

Dryden’s Virgil , Aeneis II.

And Eumolpus (of whom it may be predicated that he
has shared the fate of all impromptu poets, whose memory
has always as great a part in their verses as their
imagination) says :

Ecce alia monstra. Celsa qua Tenedos mare
Dorso repellit, tumido consurgunt freta,

Undaque resUltat scissa tranquillo minor,

Qualis silenti nocte remorum sonus
Longe refertur cum premunt classes mare,

Pulsumque marmor abiete imposita gemit,

Respicimus, angues orbibus geminis ferunt
Ad saxa fluctus : tumida quorum pectora,

Rates ut altae, lateribus spumas agunt :

Dant caudae sonitum ; liberae ponto jubae
Coruseant luminibus, fulmineum jubar

NOTES

227

Incendit aequor, sibilisque undae tremunt.

Stupuere mentes. Infulis stabant sacri
Phrygioque cultu gemina nati pignora
Laocoonte, quos repente tergoribus ligant
Angnes corrusci : parvulas illi manus
Ad ora referunt : neuter auxilio sibi,

Uterque fratri ; transtulit pietas vices,

Morsque ipsa miseros mutuo perdit metu.

Accumulate ecce liberum funus parens,

Infirmus auxiliator ; invadunt virum

Jam morte pasti, membraque ad terram trahunt.

Jacet sacerdos inter aras victima.

Yol. ii, p, 28, Brescia, 1807 ; Satire de Tito Petroneo
Arbitro, Latin and Italian. R. P.

The principal features in these passages are the same,
and in various places the same words are used. But these
are trifles which are at once apparent to us. There are
other marks of imitation which are finer, but not less
certain. If the imitator be a man who has any confidence
in himself, he rarely imitates without wishing to em-
bellish ; and, if this embellishment is in his opinion
successful, he is fox enough to sweep away with his tail
the footsteps which would have betrayed the way by
which he came. It is by this very foolish desire to
embellish, and this care to appear original, that he is
detected. For his embellishment is nothing but exaggera-
tion and unnatural refinement. Virgil says, * sanguineae
jubae\ Petronius , ‘juba luminibus eoruscant’. Virgil ,

‘ ardentes oculos suffecti sanguine et igni Petronius ,

‘fulmineum jubar incendit aequor5. Virgil , ‘fit sonitus
spumante salo \ Petronius , ‘ sibilis undae tremunt ’. And
so the imitator always goes on from the Great to the
Monstrous ; from the Wonderful to the Impossible. The
boys coiled round by the serpents are in Virgil a by-work
(Trdpcpyov), which he adds to the main work by a few
significant touches, in which we are conscious of nothing
but their helplessness and their lamentation. Petronius
paints elaborately this by-work, and makes two heroes
out of these boys : —

Neuter auxilio sibi
Uterque fratri transtulit plus vices
Morsque ipsa miseros mutuo perdit metu.

Who expects from men, from children, this self-abase-
ment? How much better the Greek knew human nature
(Quintus Calaber, lib. xii, x, 459, 61), who, on the appear-

228

LAOCOON

ance of these terrible serpents, makes the mother forget
her children, so entirely was each person occupied in
saving his own life.

ivQa ywcuK€s

O IpLGO&V, Kal 7 TQV TLS icoV 67T€\^ (TCLTO TeKVOW,

A vt^j aXevo/jLevr] (TTvyepbv / xopov .

As a general rule the imitator endeavours to conceal
himself by throwing a new light upon objects, and by
placing those which in the original are in shadow in the
light, and vice versa. Virgil takes pains to make clearly
visible the great size of the serpents, because upon their
size the probability of the events which follow depend :
the tumultuous rushing noise with which they come is
only an accessory circumstance, and intended to excite a
more vivid idea of their size. Petronius, on the contrary,
makes the accessory the principal ; describes the tumult-
uous rushing noise with all conceivable extravagance, and
so much forgets the size that we can only infer it from
the noise. It is difficult to believe that he could have
fallen into this clumsy defect, if he had only painted from
his own imagination, and had not had a model before
him, which he wished to copy, but did not wish to reveal
that he copied.

So it is that we can with certainty pronounce every
poetical picture, overloaded with little traits and wanting
in great ones, to be an unsuccessful imitation, however
many prettinesses it may have, and whether we know the
original or not.

8 Suppl. aux Antiq ., Expl. t. i, p. 243 : ‘II y a quelque
petite difference entre ce que dit Virgile, et ce que le marbre
represente. II semble, selon ce que dit le Po&te, que les
serpens quitterent les deux enfans pour venir entortiller
le pere, au lieu que dans ce marbre ils liert en meme terns
les enfans et leur pere \

9 Their destined way they take,

And to Laocoon and his children make ;

And first around the tender hoys they wind,

Then with their sharpened fangs their limhs and bodies
grind. Dryden. K. P.

10 Donatus, iElius, a renowned grammarian and rhe-
torician. Servius constantly refers to him. He must
have composed a commentary on Virgil. He taught at

NOTES 229

Rome in the middle of the fourth century, and was the
preceptor of St. Jerome. R. P.

11 Donatus, ad v. 227, lib. ii, Aen. : ‘ Mirandum non
est clypeo et simulacri vestigiis tegi potuisse, quos supra
et longos et validos dixit, et multiplici ambitu circumde-
disse Laocoontis corpus ac liberorum et fuisse superfluam
partem \ It seems to me that as to these words, miran-
dum non est , either you must leave out the word non , or
that there is something wanting in the end of the second
proposition. For as the serpents were so extraordinarily
large, it is much to be wondered at that they could be
concealed under the shield of the goddess, if this shield
was not itself very large, and did not belong to a colossal
figure ; and that was what the wanting part of the
second proposition must have stated, or the non has no
sense.

12 Shakespeare knew this : describing Gloster’s death,
he says : —

But see his face is black, and full of blood,

His eyeballs further out than when he lived,

Staring full ghastly like a strangled man :

His hair uprear’d, his nostrils stretched with struggling ;

His hands abroad displayed , as one who grasp'd
And tugg’d for life, and was by strength subdued.

Hen. VI. Part ii. Act 3, sc. 2. R. P.

13 With both his hands he labours at the knots.

Aen. ii, Dryden. R. P.

14 Twice round his waist their winding volumes rolled,

And twice about his gasping throat they fold ;

The priest thus doubly choked, their crests divide,

And towering o’er his head in triumph ride.

Aen. ii, Dryden. R. P.

15 Of which the Holy Family by RafFaello in the Munich
Gallery is a striking example. R. P.

16 In the fine edition of Dryden’s English Virgil (Lon-
don, 1697, in grand folio). And yet this gives the
windings of the serpents round the body only once, and
has not brought them round the neck at all. If so
moderate an artist deserves any exculpation, the only
one that can be made is that the engraving ought only
to be considered as an illustration of a book, and not as a
work of art on its own account.

230 LAOCOON

17 This is the opinion of De Piles, in his remarks upon
Du Fresnoy, v. 120 :

Remarquez s’il vous plait, que les Draperies tendres et legeres
n’etant donnees qu’au sexe feminin, les anciens sculpteurs ont evite
autant qu’ils ont pu, d’habiller les figures d’hommes ; parcequ’ils ont
pense, comme nous l’avons d6ja dit, qu’en sculpture on ne pouvait
imiter les 6toffes & que les gros plis faisaient un mauvais effet. II y a
presque autant d’exemples de cette verite, qu’il y a parmi les antiques
de figures d’hommes nuds. J e rapporterai seulement celui du Laocoon,
lequel selon la vrai semblance devrait etre vetu. En effet, quelle
apparence y-a-t’il qu’un fils de Roi, qu’un Pretre d’ Apollon se trouvat
tout nud dans la ceremonie actuelle d’un sacrifice; car les serpens
passerent de l’lsle de Tenedos au rivage de Troie & surprirent Laocoon
& ses fils dans le temps meme qu’il sacrifiait a Neptune sur le bord de
la mer, comme le marque Virgile dans le second livre de son Eneide.
Cependant les artistes, qui sont les auteurs de ce bel ouvrage ont bien
vu, qu’ils ne pouvaient pas leur donner de vetemens convenables a
leur qualite, sans faire comme un amas de pierres, dont la masse
ressembleroit a un rocher, au lieu de trois admirables figures, qui ont
ete & qui sont toujours l’admiration des si^cles. C’est pour cela que
de deux inconveniens, ils ont jug£ celui des draperies beaucoup plus
facheux, que celui d’aller contre la verite meme.

18 Lessing does not mean, I think, as sometimes sup-
posed, the hand of a slave, but the hand which is the
servant of the body. So Jeremy Taylor speaks of 4 the
discerning head and the servile feet, the thinking heart
and the working hand \ Lady Carbery’s Fun. Sermon.
R. P.

19 ‘ His holy fillets the blue venom blots \ Dryden.
R. P.

20 Reason must ultimately determine our choice on
every occasion ; but this reason may still be exerted
ineffectually by applying to taste principles which, though
right as far as they go, yet do not reach the object. Ho
man, for instance, can deny that it seems at first view
very reasonable that a statue which is to carry down to
posterity the resemblance of an individual, should be
dressed in the fashion of the times, in the dress which he
himself *wore ; this would certainly be true, if the dress
were part of the man ; but after a time, the dress is only
an amusement for an antiquarian ; and if it obstructs the
general design of the piece, it is to be disregarded by the
artist. Common sense must here give way to a higher
sense. In the naked form, and in the disposition of the
drapery, the difference between one artist and another is
principally seen. But if he is compelled to exhibit the

NOTES

231

modern dress, the naked form is entirely hid, and the
drapery is already disposed by the skill of the tailor.
Were a Phidias to obey such absurd commands, he would
please no more than an ordinary sculptor ; in the inferior
parts of every art, the learned and the ignorant are nearly
upon a level. These were probably among the reasons
that induced the sculptor of that wonderful figure of
Laocoon to exhibit him naked, notwithstanding he was
surprised in the act of sacrificing to Apollo, and conse-
quently ought to have been shown in his sacerdotal
habits, if those greater reasons had not preponderated.
Art is not yet in so high estimation with us, as to obtain
so great a sacrifice as the ancients made, especially the
Grecians, who suffered themselves to be represented
naked, whether they were generals, law-givers, or kings.
Sir Joshua Reynolds, Lit. Works , vol. i, Discourse vii,
pp. 419, 420.

21 Here, He Quincey rightly observes, is a singular specimen of
logic. Necessity invented clothes; and, therefore, Art can have
nothing to do with drapery. On the same principle, Art would have
nothing to do with architecture. . . .

Necessity invented dress, and to a certain extent the same necessity
continues to preside over it ; a necessity, derived from climate and
circumstances, dictates a certain texture of the dress ; a necessity,
derived from the human form and limbs, dictates a certain arrange-
ment and corresponding adaptation. But thus far dress is within the
province of a mechanic art. Afterwards— and perhaps in a very
genial climate, not afterwards but originally— dress is cultivated as
an end per se, both directly for its beauty, and as a means of suggest-
ing many pleasing ideas of rank, power, youth, sex, or profession.
Cultivated for this end, the study of drapery is a fine art ; and a
draped statue, is a work not in one, but in two departments of art.
Neither is it true, that the sense of necessity and absolute limitation
is banished from the idea of a fine art. On the contrary, this sense is
indispensable as a means of resisting (and, therefore, realizing) the
sense of freedom ; the freedom of a fine art is found not in the absence
of restraint, but in the conflict with it ’. He Quincey’s Works&vol.
xii, sect, vi, note to p. 273. R. P.

CHAPTER VI

1 Maffei, Richardson, and lately Herr von Hugedorm
( Reflections on Painting , p. 37 ; Richardson, TraiU de la
Peinture , t. iii, p. 513). De Fontaines does not deserve to
be added to these men. It is true that he maintains, in
observations accompanying his translation of Virgil, that

232

LAOCOON

the poet had this group in his eye ; but he is so ignorant
that he declares it to be a work of Phidias.

2 Painting, having the eye for its organ, cannot be conceived to
imitate, but through the media of visible objects. And farther, its
mode of imitating being always motionless, there must be subtracted
from these the medium of motion. It remains, then, that colour and
figure are the only media through which painting imitates.

Music, passing to the mind through the organ of the ear, can imitate
only by sounds and motions.

Poetry, having the ear also for its organ, as far as words are con-
sidered to be no more than mere sounds, can go no farther in imitating,
than may be performed by sound and motion. But then, as these its
sounds stand by compact for the various ideas with which it is fraught,
it is enabled by this means to imitate as far as language can express ;
and that, it is evident, will, in a manner, include all things.’ Harris,
Discourses , etc., ch. i, pp. 57, 58. R. P.

3 I can cite nothing in this respect more decisive than
the poem of Sadolet. It is worthy of an old poet, and as
it may well supply the place of an engraving, I think it
right to insert it here at length.

De Laocoontis Statua Jacobi Sadolet is Carmen.

Ecce alto terrae e cumulo, ingentisque ruinae
Visceribus, iterum reducem longinqua reduxit
Laocoonta dies ; aulis regalibus olim
Qui stetit, atque tuos ornabat, Tite, penates.

Divinae simulacrum artis, nec docta vetustas
Nobilius spectabat opus, nunc celsa revisit
Exemptum tenebris redivivae moenia Romae.

Quid primum summumve loquar? miserumne parentem
Et prolem geminam ? an sinuatos flexibus angues
Terribili aspectu ? caudasque irasque draconum
Vulneraque et veros, saxo moriente, dolores ?

Horret ad haec animus, mutaque ab imagine pulsat
Pectora., non parvo pietas commixta tremori.

Prolixum bini spiris glomerantur in orbem
Ardentes colubri et sinuosis orbibus errant,

Ternaque multiplici constringunt corpora nexu.

Vix oculi sufferre valent, crudele tuendo
Exitium, casusque feros : micat alter, et ipsum
Laocoonta petit, totumque infraque supraque
Implicat et rabido tandem ferit ilia morsu.

Connexum refugit corpus, torquentia sese
Membra, latusque retro sinuatum a vulnere cernas.

Ille dolore acri, et laniatu impulsus acerbo,

Dat gemitum ingentem, crudosque evellere dentes
Connixus laevam impatiens ad terga Chelydri
Objicit : intendunt nervi, collectaque ab omni
Corpore vis frustra summis conatibus instat.

Ferre nequit rabiem, et de vulnere murmur anhelum est.

NOTES

233

At serpens lapsu crebro redeunte subintrat
Lubricus, intortoque ligat genua infima nodo.

Absistunt surae, spirisque prementibus arctum
Crus tumet, obsepto turgent vitalia pulsu,

Liventesque atro distendunt sanguine venas.

Nee minus in natos eadem vis effera saevit
Implexuque angit rapido, miserandaque membra
Dilacerat : jamque alterius depasta cruentum
Pectus, suprema genitorem voce cientis,

Circumjectu orbis, vaiidoque volumine fulcit.

Alter adhuc nullo violatus corpora morsu,

Dum parat adducta caudam divellere planta,

Horret ad aspectum miseri patris, haeret in illo
Et jam jam ingentes fletus, lacrymasque cadentes
Anceps in dubio retinet timor. Ergo perenni
Qui tantum statuistis opus jam laude nitentes,

Artifices magni (quanquam et melioribus actis
Quaeritur aeternum nomen, multoque licebat
Clarius ingenium venturae tradere famae)

Attamen ad laudem quaecunque oblata facultas
Egregium hanc rapere, et summa ad fastigia niti.

Vos rigidum lapidem vivis animare figuris
Eximii, et vivos spiranti in marmore sensus
Inserere, aspicimus motumque iramque doloremque,

Et pene audimus gemitus : vos extulit olim
Clara Rhodos, vestrae jacuerunt artis honores
Tempore ab immenso quos rursum in luce secunda
Roma videt, celebratque frequens : operisque vetusti
Gratia parta recens. Quanto praestantius ergo est
Ingenio, aut quovis extendere fata labore,

Quam fastus et opes et inanem extendere luxum.

(0 Leodagarii a Quercu farrago Poematum, t. ii, p. 63.)

Gruter also has incorporated this poem with another
of Sadolet’s in his well-known collection ( Delic . Poet.
Italorum, Parte alt., p. 582), but with many errors. Por
bini (v. 14) he reads vivi : for errant (v. 15) or am, etc.

Cardinal Jaques Sadolet was born at Modena in 1477,
and justly obtained considerable renown as a classical
scholar. He was joint secretary with Bembo to Leo X,
who made him Bishop of Carpentras in 1517. He was also
secretary to Clement VII, and created by Paul III. a
Cardinal in 1536. He died in Home, 1547. He was the
author of several works in the Latin language, and wrote
a good many Latin letters, which are still interesting.
Among his Latin poems, the Curtins and the Laocoon are
the most remarkable. His works, four volumes in quarto,
were published at Verona, 1737. Mr Hallam says (Lit.
of Europe , i, 264) , ‘ Bembo and Sadolet had bj^ common
confession reached a consummate elegance of style, in com-

234

LAOCOON

parison of which the best productions of the last age
seemed very imperfect’ ; but I venture to think Mr
Hallam errs in saying (p. 322), that ‘ except his epistles
none of Sadolet’s works are now read, or appear to have
been very conspicuous in his own age Mr Hallam
makes no reference to Sadolet’s Laocoon , or to Lessing’s
estimation of it. R. P.

4 Heyne’s opinion on the subject is not - uninteresting.
Excursus vi, ad lib. 2, Virgil, ed. Wagner : ‘ Inanis erat
disputatio omnis, utrum artifex poetam, an hie artificem
ante oculos habuerit ; restat enim tertium, quod verum est,
habuisse utrumque diversos auctores quos sequeretur ;
fuisse quoque utriusque consilium plan§ diversum, alter
enim hoc efficere voluit, ut miserationem moveret, alter
autem Maro noster, ut terrorem. Hoc si animadvertis,
ut saepe fit, omne acumen concidit : reddit res ad sum-
mam simplicitatem \ R. P. See Gothe’s Ucber Laocoon ,
B. 38, pp. 48-9.

5 De la Peinturc , tome iii, p. 516 : ‘ C’est l’horreur que
les Troiens ont con§ue contre Laocoon, qui etait necessaire
a Virgile pour la conduite de son Poeme : et cela le mene
a cette Description pathetique de la destruction de la
patrie de son heros. Aussi Virgile n’avait garde de diviser
l’attention sur la derniere nuit, pour une grande ville
entiere, * par la peinture d’un petit malheur d’un
Particulier ’.

6 With gleaming front the other serpent then
Attacks Laocoon, and. within its coils
Entwining him from neck to heel — his entrails
Tears with its rapid bites. . . .

The serpent then with quick returning glide

Creeps in and binds with twisted knot his knees. R. P.

7 Twice round his waist their winding volumes rolled,

And twice about his gasping throat they fold. R. P.

CHAPTER VII

1 Hear Sir Joshua Reynolds, in his twelfth Discourse :
* It is vain for painters or poets to endeavour to invent
without materials on which the mind may work, and from
which invention must originate — nothing can come of
nothing’ (vol. i, 389).

NOTES

235

‘ I know there are many artists of great fame who appear never to
have looked out of themselves, and who probably would think it
derogatory to their character to be supposed to borrow from any other
painter. But when we recollect and compare the works of such men
with those who took to their assistance the inventions of others, we
shall be convinced of the great advantage of this latter practice ’. He
cites in favour of this preposition Raffaello, who showed in his noblest
cartoon how much he had studied Masaccio. ‘The habit’ (he adds)
‘of contemplating and brooding over the ideas of great geniuses till
you find yourself warmed by the contact, is the true method of an
artist-like mind : it is impossible, in the presence of those great men,
to think or invent in a mean manner : a state of mind is acquired that
receives those ideas only which relish of grandeur and simplicity ’ (vol.
ii, 48, 51, 52). R. P.

2 The first edition is in 1747, the second in 1755, and is
entitled Polymetis ; or , an Enquiry Concerning the Agree-
ment betioeen the Works of the Roman Poets and the Remains
of the Ancient Artists , being an attempt to illustrate them
mutually from one another . See Preface for some notice
of this work. R. P.

3 Val. Flaccns, lib. vi, 55, 6 ; Polymetis, Dial . vi, p. 50.

4 I say it may be, though I would wager ten to one
that it is not. Juvenal is speaking of the early days of
the Republic, when nothing was known of splendour and
prodigality ; and when the soldier spent the gold and
silver which he had earned on the decoration of his horse
and his arms (Sat. xi, 100-7) :

Tunc rudis, et Graias mirari nescius artes,

Urbibus eversis, praedarum in parte reperta,

Magnorum artificum frangebat pocula miles ;

Ut phaleris gauderet equus, caelataque cassis
Romuleae simulacra ferae mansuescere jussae
Imperii fato, geminos sub rupe Quirinos,

Ac nudam effigiem clypeo fulgentis et hasta,

Pendentisque Dei perituro ostenderet hosti.

Admirably rendered by Gifford :

Then the rough soldier, yet untaught by Greece,

To hang enraptured oer a finished piece,

If haply, mid the congregated spoils,

Proofs of his power and guerdon of his toils,

Some antique vase of master hands were found,

Would dash the glittering bauble on the ground,

That in new forms the molten fragments drest,

Might blaze illustrious round his courser’s chest ;

Or, beaming from his awful helmet, show
The rise of Rome to a devoted foe. R. P.

236

LAOCOON

Lessing thinks the two last lines obscure — e Thus much
is plain, that this was a figure of the god Mars ; but what
does the adjective pendentis signify?5 He proceeds to
examine the solution offered by various authorities,
Rigault, Britannicus, and Spence, who adopts the opinion
of Addison ( Travels , p. 182). Addison says :

Juvenal here describes the simplicity of the old Roman soldiers, and
the figures that were generally engraven on their helmets. The first
of them was the wolf, giving suck to Romulus and Remus ; the second,
which is comprehended in the two last verses, is not so intelligible.
Some of the commentators tell us that the god here mentioned is Mars ;
that he comes to see his two sons sucking the wolf ; and that the old
sculptors generally drew their figures naked, that they might have the
advantage of representing the different swellings of the muscles and
the turns of the body, but they are extremely at a loss what is meant
by the word pendentis. Some fancy it expresses only the great em-
bossment of the figure ; others believe it hung off the helmet. Lubin
supposes that the god Mars was engraven on the shield ; and that he is
said to be hanging, because the shield which bore him hung on the
left shoulder. One of the old interpreters is of opinion, that by
hanging is only meant a posture of bending forward to strike the
enemy ; another will have it, that whatever is placed on the head may
be said to hang, as we call hanging gardens such as are planted on the
top of the house. Several learned men, who like none of these explica-
tions, believe there has been a fault in the transcriber ; and that
pendentis ought to be perdentis ; but they quote no manuscript in
favour of their conjecture. The true meaning of the words is certainly
as follows. The Roman soldiers, who were not a little proud of
their founder and the military genius of their republic, used to bear on
their helmets the first history of Romulus, who was begot by the gcd
of war, and suckled by a wolf. The figure of the god was made as if
descending on the priestess Ilia ; or, as others call her, Rhea Sylvia.
As he was represented descending, his figure appeared suspended in
the air over the vestal virgin ; in which sense the word pendentis is
extremely proper and poetical. Beside the antique Basso-Relievo that
made me first think of this interpretation, I have since met with the
same figures on the reverse of a couple of antient coins, which were
stamped in the reign of Antoninus Pius.

Thus far, says Spence, Mr Addison, who by a casual
hint from a Relievo, and afterwards by the plain evidence
of a medal, has at last fixed so doubtful an expression to
so clear and poetical an idea, as it may now give every-
body who reads this passage. Lessing is not at all
satisfied with this explanation ; he ends by saying, ‘ The
passage of the poet is corrupt, and must remain so. It
will remain so if twenty new explanations were paraded
before us. Such, for instance, might be that which
supposes pendentis to be used in a figurative sense, accord-
ing to which it would have the meaning of uncertain,

NOTES

237

•unresolved, and undecided. Mars pendens would then be
the same as Mars incertus or Mars communis . ‘ Dii com-

munes sunt (says Servius, ad. v, 113, 1. xii, Aen.), Mars,
Bellona, Victoria, quia hi in hello utrique parti favere
possunt’, and the whole line, ‘ Pendentisque Dei (effigiem)
ostenderet hosti’. Nevertheless, Lessing says ‘non
liquet’, but I venture to think it a very probable con-
struction. R. P.

5 Till I got acquainted with these Aurae (or Sylphs) I found myself
always at a loss in reading the well-known story of Cephalus and
Procris, in Ovid. I could never imagine how Cephalus’s crying out
Aura Venias (though in ever so languishing a manner) could give any-
one a suspicion of his being false to Procris. As I had been always
used to think that Aura meant the air in general, or a gentle breeze in
particular, I thought Procris’ jealousy less founded than the most
extravagant jealousies generally are : but when I had once found that
Aura might signify a very handsome young lady, as well as the air, the
case was entirely altered ; and the story seemed to go on in a very
reasonable manner. Spence’s Polymetis , Dialogue XIII, p. 208.

6 Juven. Sat. viii, 52-55 :

at tu

Nil nisi Cecropides ; truncoque simillimus Hermae :

Nullo quippe alio viveris discrimine, quam quod
Illi marmoreum caput est, tua vivit imago.

Gifford renders it :

While thou in mean inglorious pleasure lost
With ‘ Cecrops ! Cecrops ! ’ all thou hast to boast
Art a full brother to the crossway stone,

Which clowns have chipped the head of Hermes on. It. P.

If Spence had taken the Greek writers into his counsel,
perhaps he would, but perhaps he would not, have
lighted upon the old Aesop fable, which, out of such a
Hermes pillar, throws a much fairer, and, for the pur-
pose, a much more indispensable light than this passage
in Juvenal: ‘Mercury’, says Aesop, ‘much wished to
know in what estimation he was holden by men. He
concealed his godhead and went to a sculptor. Here he
saw a statue of Jupiter, and asked the artist what was
the price of it ! a drachma, was the answer. Mercury
laughed: and this Juno? (he added.) About the same.
At last he saw his own image, and thought to himself : I
am the messenger of the gods ; all gain comes from me ;
men must put a higher value on me. And this god here ?
(pointing to his image) how dear is he ! That one, said

238

LAOCOON

the artist. Oh ! if you buy the other two you shall have
this one “into the bargain”. Mercury took himself off’.
But the statuarist did not know him, and could not have
intended to wound his self-love, but must have formed
his opinion on the statue merely as a matter of business,
and on that ground only have set so small a value on it.
The inferior rank of the god which it represented could
have nothing to do with it, for the artist valued his work
according to the ability, industry, and labour which the
execution of it required, and not according to the rank
and worth of the being it represented. The statue of
Mercury, as it cost less, must have required less ability,
industry, and labour than would be required for a statue
of Jupiter or J uno. And so the fact was. The statues
of Jupiter and Juno exhibited the persons of these deities
at full length. The statue of Mercury on the other hand
was a bad four-cornered pillar, with a mere bust. What
marvel, then, that he was thrown into the bargain for
nothing ? Mercury overlooked this circumstance, because
he had present to him only his own supposed over-weening
merit, and therefore his humiliation was as natural as
deserved. But you would look in vain among the ex-
positors, translators, and imitators of Aesop’s fables for
the slightest trace of this explanation. But I could
mention a long list of them, if it were worth while, who
have understood this fable simply, that is, have not
understood it at all. They have either not perceived, or
at least have exaggerated, the implied absurdity of
supposing that all statues were equally difficult to execute.
What might appear a defect in this fable is the low price
which the artist puts on his Jupiter. No toymaker would
make a doll for a drachma — a drachma must be taken as
denoting generally a very low price. (Fab. Aesop. 90, ed.
Haupt. p. 70.)

7 Born b. c. 54 or 59, died young. It. P.

8 Tibull. Eleg. 4, 1. 3, 25, 32 ; Polymetis, Dial., p. 84.

9 Statius, 1. i; Sylv. 5. v. 8 ; Polym. Dial, vii, p. 81.
Statius stands in the first rank of the heroic poets of the
Silver age — of whose life very little is known. He is
mentioned by Juvenal. His extant works are Silvarum
libri v ; Thebaidos libri xii ; Achilleidos libri 10, which

NOTES

239

last he died while writing. So Dante introduces him in
Canto 21 of the Purgatorio ;

Stazio la gente ancor di la mi noma

Cantai di Tebe, e poi del grande Achille.

Ma caddi in via con la seconda soma. v. 91. 4. R. P.

10 Lucretius de R. N,9 1. v, 736-747 : —

It Ver et Venus, et Veneris praenuntius ante
Pinnatus graditur Zephyrus ; vestigia propter
Flora quibus mater praespargens ante via'i
Cuncta coloribus egregiis et odoribus opplet.

Inde loci sequitur Calor aridus, et comes una
Pulverulenta Ceres ; et Etesia flabra Aquilonum.

Inde Autumnus adit ; graditur simul Evius Evan :

Inde aliae tempestates ventique sequuntur,

Altitonans Volturnus et Auster fulmine pollens.

Tandem Bruma nives adfert, pigrumque rigorem
Reddit ; Hiems sequitur, crepitans ac dentibus Algus.

Which I venture to render i —

Then Ver, and Venus, and her certain herald
Zephyr on wings upborne, and, as they tread,

Maternal Flora scatters in their path
Odours and colours bright, which all things fill.

Next comes dry Heat, and her companion sure
Ceres, with dust begirt : then the Gales
Etesian of the North : and Autumn next,

With jolly Bacchus in her train, comes on.

Then follow Tempests and fierce Winds : Vulturnus
Thundering on high, and Auster’s lightning blast.

Bruma at last brings snows, and numbing sloth
Restores — then Hiems follows — and chill Algus
Smiting the chattering teeth. R. P.

Spence considers this passage to be one of the finest in
Lucretius — at least it is one of those on which the repu-
tation of Lucretius as a poet is founded. But in truth it
is to lessen this reputation, to take it entirely away, when
you say, 4 The whole description seems to me to have been
copied from some ancient procession of the Deities of
the several seasons and their attendants’ ; <and why?

4 because’, says the Englishman, 4 such processions of their
Deities in general were as common among the Romans of
old, as those in honour of their saints are in the same
country to this day. All the expressions used by
Lucretius come in very aptly if applied to a procession ’
(Polym. Dial. 12, p. 192) ; admirable reasons ! and how
much there is to allege against the last. The very epithets
which the poet bestows upon his abstract personages

240

LAOCOON

[Color aridus — Ceres pulverulenta — Volturnus altitonans —
fulmine pollens Auster — Algus dentibus crepitans ), demon-
strate that they derive their existence from the poet and
not the artist, who would have described them very
differently. Spence, moreover, appears to have taken
this idea of a procession from Abraham Preigern, who,
in his remarks upon the passage of the poet, says : Ordo
est quasi Pompae cnjusdam Per et Venus , Zephyrus ei Flora ,
&c. But there even Spence should let the matter rest.
The poet leads on the seasons as it were in a procession.
That is right. But he has learnt so to lead them from
a procession — that is very absurd.

11 Aeneid , viii, 725 ; Polymetis, Dial, xiv, p. 230.

12 In various passages of his Travels , and of his Discourse
on Ancient Coins.

CHAPTER VIII

1 Polymetis, Dial., ix. p. 129.

2 Metamorph ., 1. iv. 19, 20 :

Tu puer aeterims, tu formosissimus alto
Conspiceris caelo : tibi quum, etc. R. P.

3 Begeri, Thes. Brandenb. v. 3, 242. Begerus, an archae-
ologist born at Heidelberg in 1653, died at Berlin 1705,
librarian to Frederic William, Elector of Brandenburg.
Among his other publications was Thesaurus ex thesauro
selectus seu Gemmae , 1685. R. P.

4 Polymetis, Dial., vi. p. 63.

5 Valerius Flaccus. His only extant work is the
Argonautica , on the Argonautic expedition ; it is unfin-
ished. He was a friend of Martial, and is referred to by
Quintilian. R. P.

6 Polymetis, Dial., xx. p. 311 : ‘ Scarce anything can be
good in a poetical description, which would appear absurd
if represented in a statue or picture \

7 lb. p. 74. In the text Lessing does not cite the
exact words of Spence, though professing to do so ; they
are: ‘And I believe5, Spence says, ‘there is not any

NOTES

241

description of it to be found in any of the Roman poets
before those of the third age, in which Valerius Flaccus
and Statius have drawn two very terrible pictures of her\
Argon., ii. 106 ; Theb 5, 69. R. P.

8 Stolen from Virgil’s Dido,

maculisque trementes
interfusa genas, etc. Aen. iv. R. P.

9 Argonaut , lib. ii. 102-106. The preceding lines are :

Contra Veneris stat frigida semper
Ara loco : meritas postquam Dea conjugis aras
Horruit, et tacitae Martem tenuere catenae.

Quocirca struit ilia nefas, Lemnoque merenti
Exitium furiale movet. R. P.

10 Thebaid. , lib. v. 61-64 :

From Paphos, where a hundred altars smoke,

And love-sick votaries her aid invoke,

Careless of dress and ornaments she moves,'

And leaves behind her cestus and her doves.

The moon had measured half the starry frame :

Far other flames than those of love she bears,

And high in air the torch of discord rears,-—

Soon as the fiend-engender’d serpents roam,

Diffusing terrors oer each wrangling dome. Lewis. R. P.

CHAPTER IX

1 ‘'Et efcej/ 55, av'iKa M olpai T&Xsaav ravpoKepoov Qebv,
/c.t. A.. Eur. Bacch. 90. R. P.

2 Valerius Flaccus, lib. ii. Argonaut, v. 265-273 :

Serta patri, juvenisque comam vestesque Lyaei
Induit, et medium curru locat ; aeraque circum
Tympanaque et plenas tacita formidine cistas.

Ipsa sinus hederisque ligat famularibus artus:

Pampineamque quatit ventosis ictibus hastam
Respiciens ; teneat virides velatus habenas
Ut pater, et nivea tumeant ut cornua mitra.

Et sacer ut Bacchum referat scyphus.

The word tumeant in the penultimate line seems, more-
over, to show that the horns of Bacchus were not made
so small as Spence imagines.

3 The so-called Bacchus in the Medici Gardens at Rome
(Montfaucon, Suppl. aux Ant. t. i. p. 254) has little horns

242

LAOCOON

sprouting out from his forehead ; hut there are connois-
seurs who, on this very account, consider that he is a faun.
In fact, these natural horns are a disgrace to the figure of
man, and only become creatures who occupy a middle
place between man and beasts. Moreover, the attitude,
the joyous glance at the grapes held over him, is more
befitting a companion of the god of wine than the god
himself. I remember what Clemens Alexandrinus says of
Alexander the Great ( Protrept . p. 48, edit. Pott. ) : i&ovAero
5e Kal 5AA e^avfipos ^Ay-pcovos vibs elvai boiceiv, kcl\ K€pacr(p6pos
auaTrXdrrcadai rrpbs r&v ayaXparoTroLwv, rb Ka\bv avOpcoTrov
vfiplffai (n revdoov Ktpari. It was the express command of
Alexander that the statuarist should represent him with
horns : he was quite content that his manly beauty
should be disfigured with horns, if people would only
believe that his origin was divine.

4 The history of the horns ascribed to Moses is curious,
‘Cumque descenderet Moyses de Monte Sinai tenebat
duas tabulas testimonii et ignorabat quod cornuta esset
facies sua ex consortio sermonis Domini 5 ( Exod . xxxiv. 29).
So the Vulgate, and the version of Aquila ; but, in
accordance with all the other versions, our Bible reads,

‘ Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone\ etc., i. e.

‘ emitted rays \ Nevertheless, the ‘horned5 version has
been repeated on coins and paintings (Smith’s Did. of
Bible , tit. ‘Horn’), and is adopted by Michael Angelo,
who naturally followed the Vulgate in his famous statue
of Moses in San Pietro in Vincoli at Rome (Lanzi Storia
della Pitt. i. 110 : Vasari — though stilted and ridiculous
— Vita, etc., Vita di M. B. vol. x. 64, 65). ‘ Questi, e

Mos& : ben mel diceva il folto Onor del mento, e ’1 doppio
raggio in fronte5, says Zappi. Jeremy Taylor adopts the
literal meaning, 6 But as when the sun approaches towards
the gates of the morning, he first opens a little eye of
heaven, and sends away the spirits of darkness, and gives
light to a cock, and calls up the lark to Matins ; and by-
and-by gilds the fringes of a cloud, and peeps over the
eastern hills, thrusting out golden horns like those which
decked the brows of Moses , when he was forced to wear a
veil, because himself had seen the face of God 5 ; Holy
Dying , chap. i. sect. 3. The notions of strength and
honour connected with the ‘ horn 5 are frequent in Holy
Writ, and probably travelled from the East to Rome ;

NOTES

243

‘tauriformis Aufidus’, Hor. Od. iv. 14-25. <5 ravpo/uLopfpov

o/bLfjia K T)(pi(rov rrarphs , Eur. ’iwv, 1260. R. P.

5 In a former remark which I made, that the ancient
artists did not sculpture Furies, it had not escaped me
that the Furies had more than one temple, which cer-
tainly were not without statues. In the one at Cerynea,
Pausanias found some of wood, — they were neither large
nor otherwise remarkable. It appeared that the art
which these did not display was visible in the images of
the priestesses, which were in the vestibule of the Temple,
— which were of stone, and of far finer workmanship
(Pausanias, Achae. cap. xxv. 587, ed. Kuhn). Nor had I
forgotten that it was believed that their heads were to
be seen on an Abraxas , which Chiffietius had made known,
and on a lamp made by Licetus {Dissert, sur les Furies par
Bannier, Mem. de l’Acad. des Inscript, t. v. p. 48). Nor
was I ignorant of the urns of Etrurian workmanship by
Gorius (Tab. 151, Musei Etrusci), on which Orestes and
Pylades appeared attacked by two Furies with torches.
But I was speaking of works of art, from the category of
which I thought all these would be excluded. And even
if the latter could not so well be excluded as the others,
the fact from another point of view served rather to
strengthen than to oppose my opinion ; for however little
the Etruscan artists especially worked for the production
of the beautiful, they nevertheless appeared to have
pourtrayed the Furies not so much by horrible features
as by the treatment of them and their attributa. They
thrust their torches into the very eyes of Pylades and
Orestes with so tranquil a countenance that they seem as-
if they only wished to frighten them in jest. It is only
from their fright, and by no means from the figures of
the Furies themselves, that we can infer how terrible
their appearance was to Orestes and Pylades. They are
Furies and yet not Furies. They perform the office of
Furies, but not with that representation of fierceness and
wrath which we are accustomed to associate with their
name, — not with a brow which, as Catullus says, expir antis
praeportat pectoris iras. But lately Herr Winkelmann
thought that he had found upon a cornelian in the cabinet
of Herr Stoss {Bibliobt. der G. sch. TFiss., v. 30) a Fury
rushing with dishevelled hair with a dagger in her hand.
Hagedorn, on the strength of this, advises artists to make

244

LAOCOON

use of this discovery, and to represent Furies in their
pictures ( Betrachtungen uber die Mahler ey, 222) ; but
Winkelmann himself has since thrown doubt upon this
discovery, because he cannot find that the ancients ever
armed the Furies with daggers instead of torches
( Descript . des Pierres gravees, p. 84). Doubtless, there-
fore, he does not recognise as Furies the figures upon the
coins of the cities of Lyrba and Massaura, which Spann -
heim considers as such (Les Cesars de Julien , p. 44), but as
a Hecate Triformis, for otherwise here would be a Fury
with a dagger in each hand, and it is curious that this
one also appears with uncovered and dishevelled hair,,
whereas, in the other cases, they are covered with a veil.
But assuming Winkelmann’s first conjecture to be right,
it would apply to this engraved stone as w~ell as to the
Etruscan Urn ; unless, owing to the fineness of the work,
the features were undistinguishable. Besides, all en-
graved stones generally may, on account of their use as
seals, be considered to belong to an allegorical language,
and the figures on them are more frequently arbitrary
symbols, according to the fancy of the owner, than the
voluntary work of the Artist.

6 Poly metis, Dial . vii. p. 81.

7 Fast. , vi. 295-8 :

Esse diu stultus Vestae simulacra putavi :

Mox didici curvo nulla subesse tholo.

Ignis inextinctus templo celatur in illo
Effigiem nullara Vesta, nec ignis habent.

Ovid speaks only of the worship of Yesta in Rome, only
of the temple which Numa himself had built for her, and
of which he had a little before said (259, 60) :

Regis opus placidi, quo non metuentius ullum
Numinis iugenium terra Sabina tulit.

8 Fast., iii. 45, 6 :

Sylvia fit mater : Vestae simulacra feruntur
Virgineas oculis opposuisse manus.

In this way Spence ought to have compared Ovid with
himself. The poet is speaking of different times. Here,
of the time before Numa, there, of the time after him.
During the former she was worshipped in Italy under a

NOTES

245

personal representation, as she had been in Troy, from
whence Aeneas had introduced her worship :

manibus vittas : Vestamque potentem
Aetemumque adytis effert penetralibus ignem,

says Virgil of the ghost of Hector after it has counselled
Aeneas to take flight. Here the eternal fire of Vesta is
expressly distinguished from Vesta herself or her image.
Spence cannot have read the Roman poets with sufficient
care for his purpose, since this passage has escaped him.

9 Lipsius, de Vestd et Vestalibus , cap. 13. Lipsius,
Justus, born 1547, published variae lectiones on some of
the Latin authors. Professor at Leyden and Louvain.
Died 1606. R. P.

10 Pausanias, Corinth ., cap. xxxv, 198, edit. Kuth.
Pausanias, lived in the time of the Antonines, author of
the Itinerary of Greece , C/EAA ados Trepiiiyriaris. When he
visited Greece the country was still rich in memorials
of art. He describes among others the works of Poly-
gnotus at Delphi, the painting in the Poecile at Athens,
and the Jupiter of Phidias in Elis. R. P.

11 Idem, Attic., cap. xviii, 41 ; Polyb. Hist., 1. xvi, § 11.

12 Plinius, lib. xxxvi, sect. 4. Scopas fecit — ‘ Vestam
sedentem laudatam in Servilianis hortis \ Lipsius must
have had this passage in his thoughts when he (de Vestd,
cap. 3) wrote, ‘ Plinius Vestam sedentem effingi soli tarn
ostendit a stabilitate ’. But what Pliny says of a single
work of Scopas must not be taken for a generally received
characteristic. He himself remarks that in the coins
Vesta appears as often standing as sitting. But he there-
by corrects not Pliny, but his own false conception.

13 Codinus, Georgius, surnamed Curopalates, lived
during the latter part of the Byzantine Empire ; died
probably after the taking of Constantinople, a.d. 1453.
He wrote a treatise, as became a Curopalates , on the
Officers of the Palace of Constantinople, and on the Offices
of the Principal Church. His Greek is said to be barbarous
(Smith’s Diet.). He also wrote the work referred to in
the text. R. P.

Excerpta ex libro Chronico de Originib. Constant, edit.
Venet. 12: yhv \*yov<riv 'Etrrlav, kcl\ tt\ixttov(tiv avr^v

yvvouKa , rv/jLiravov ^aerra^ovaav, ineiu^ robs avepovs rj yrj v<p*

246

LAOOOON

eavrrju avyicXeUi. Suidas following him, or both following
some older author, says under the word 'E aria. as follows :

4 The earth is represented under the name of Vesta as a
woman bearing a Tympanum, in which she holds the
winds enclosed ?. The reason is rather absurd : it would
have sounded better to have said that the Tympanum was
given to her because the ancients partly believed that
her figure resembled it. aurvis rv/uiravoeides elvcu,

Plutarch, de placitis Philos ., c. 10 id : de facie in orbe
Lunae. But it is possible that Codinus was mistaken in
the figure or the name, or both. He knew perhaps no
better name for what he saw Vesta carry than a Tym-
panum ; or he might have heard it called a Tympanum,
and he could think of no other instrument than what we
call a kettle-drum. But Tympana were also a kind of
wheel. ‘ Hinc radios trivere rotis, hinc tympana plaustris
agricolae’, Virg. Georg., ii, 444, and what we see borne
by Fabretti’s Vesta ( ad tabulam Iliadis , p. 334) seems to
be very like such a wheel, though this learned man takes
it for a hand-mill.

CHAPTER X

1 Polym. Dial. 8, 91.

2 Statius, Theb. viii, 551.

3 Polym. Dial, x, 137-139.

4 E is &yaX/j.a Ne/xeVecos.

*H Ne,ue(m irpoXeyei rtp 7rrjxe*, rep re
M7]t fafierpov tl 7 rotetV, fiTjP a%aA iva Xeyeiv.

On a statue of Nemesis.

With rule and bridle Nemesis should stand
To chide unbridled tongue, unruly hand. K. P.

5 In the picture which Horace draws of Necessity, and
which is perhaps the richest in attributes of any to be
found among the old poets —

Te semper anteit saeva Necessitas
Clavos trabales et euneos manu
Gestans ahenea : nec severus
Uncus abest liquidumque plumbum

NOTES

247

in this picture the nails, the cramps, the molten lead,
whether considered as means of strength in architecture,
or as instruments of punishment, belong rather to the
class of poetical than allegorical attributes. But as such
they are too much heaped up one on the other, and the
passage is one of the coldest in Horace. Sanadon says :
4 J’ose dire que ce tableau pris dans le detail serait plus
beau sur la toile que dans une ode heroique. Je ne puis
souffrir cet attirail patibulaire de clous de coins, de crocs,
et de plomb fondu. J’ai cru en devoir decharger la
traduction en substituant les id4es generates aux id^es
singulteres. C’est dommage que le poet ait eu besoin de
ce correctif ’ (a piece of French pertness I think. R. P.).
The feeling of Sanadon was line and just, but he does not
put it on the right ground. It is not because the attri-
butes made use of are an attirail -patibulaire (for he
might have adopted the other interpretation, and have
changed this apparatus of the gallows into the firmest
support of architecture), but because all these attributa
are properly addressed to the eye ; and all ideas which
ought to be obtained through the eye, if they are acquired
through the ear, require a greater effort, and are suscep-
tible of less perspicuity. The continuation of this strophe
reminds me by the way of two mistakes of Spence, which
do not produce the most favourable opinion of the accuracy
with which he has weighed the passages cited by him
from the ancient poets. He is speaking of the figure under
which the Romans represented — Fidelity or Honesty.
c The Romans 5 (says he) ‘ called her Fides ; and when
they called her sola Fides , seem to mean the same as we
do by the words “downright honesty”. She is repre-
sented with an erect, open air ; and with nothing but a
thin robe on, so fine that one might see through it.
Horace, therefore, calls her thin-draped in one of his
odes, and transparent in another ’. In this short passage
there are not less than three gross faults. First, it is
false that sola was a peculiar epithet applied by the
Romans to the goddess Fides. In both the passages of
Livy, which he cites in proof of this (1. 1. 21 ; 1. 11. 3), it
means nothing more than it always means — the exclusion
of everything else. In the first passage the word soli
appears suspicious to the critics, and is supposed to have
been introduced into the text through a fault of the

248

LAOCOON

copyist, occasioned by the solenne , which stands next to
it. In the second passage Livy is speaking not of Honesty,
but of Innocence, of not being amenable to punishment,
Innocentia. In the next place Horace, in one of his Odes
(the 35th of the 1st book, mentioned above), has bestowed
upon Fides the epithet ‘ thin-robed 5 —

Te Spes et albo rara Fides colit

Velata panno.

Earns y it is true, means also thin ; but here it simply
means 4 what is seldom met with ’ ; and the epithet is
applied to Fides herself, and not to her robe. Spence
would have been right if the poet had said raro Fides
velata panno . Thirdly, Horace in another place is said to
call Faith or Honesty 4 transparent ’ : and thereby to mean
what we in our ordinary professions of friendship are
wont to say, 4 You can see my heart 5 ; and this passage
is said to be found in the 18th Ode of the 1st book : —
Arcanique Fides prodiga, pellucidior vitro.

But how can any one suffer himself to be misled by
a mere word? Does then Fides arcani prodiga mean
Fidelity ? Does it not rather mean Infidelity ? It is of this
that Horace speaks, and not of Fidelity, when he says that
she is as transparent as glass, because she reveals to every
eye the secrets entrusted to her.

CHAPTER XI

1 Apollo delivers over the cleansed and embalmed body
of Sarpedon to Death and Sleep, that they may bring him
to his native country (II. , tc 681, 2).

TlefjLTre de puv tt o/xTroicriv apa Kpanruoiai (pepecrOcu
vTtt vcp teal davarcp didvpaaiv.

Caylus recommends this idea to the painter, but he adds :
6 II est facheux qu’Hom&re ne nous ait rien laiss4 sur les
attributs qu’on donnait de son temps au Sommeil ; nous
ne connoissons, pour caract^riser ce Dieu, que son action
meme, et nous le couronnons de pavots. Ces idees sont
modernes ; la premiere est d’un mediocre service, mais
elle ne peut etre employee dans le cas present ou meme les

NOTES

249

fleurs me paroissent deplacees, sur tout pour une figure
qui groupe avec la mort’. {Tableaux tires de Vlliade , de
VOdysee T Homer e et de VEneide de Virgile , avec des observa-
tions gMrales sur le Costume , d Paris , 1757, 8.) This is to
require of Homer one of those petty ornaments which
directly conflict with his great manner. The most in-
genious attributa which he could have given to Sleep
would not have characterised him nearly so perfectly,
would not have awakened in us nearly so lively an image
as the single trait by which he makes him the twin
brother of Death. Let the artist seek to express this,
and he may dispense with all the other attributa. The
ancient writers have, in fact, represented Death and
Sleep with that resemblance between them which we
naturally expect in twins. On a chest of cedar wood in
the Temple of Juno both rested like children in the arms
of Night ; only the one was white and the other was
black : the one slept, the other seemed to sleep ; both
had their feet crossed, for so I prefer to translate the
words of Pausanias ( Eliae ., cap. xviii, p. 422, ed. Kuh.),
cLfMpoT cpovs dt.ea’Tpa/jt.y.ei/ovs rovs 7 roSas, rather than with
‘ crooked feet or as Gedoyn has rendered it in his own
language, les pieds contrefaits . What can crooked feet
express here ? Feet crossed over one another is the usual
attitude of sleepers, and sleep in MafFei (Raccol. , PI. 151)
lies in either attitude. Modern artists have entirely
departed from this resemblance, which Sleep and Death
had in the treatment of the ancients ; and it has become
common to represent Death as a skeleton, or at the most
as a skeleton clothed in skin. Caylus was bound before
all things to advise the artist whether he ought to follow
the old or the new usage. Yet he appears to declare
himself in favour of the moderns, for he treats Death as a
figure with which another crowned with flowers would
not group well. Had he ever thought how unsuitable
this modern idea of Death would be in an Homeric
picture ? and how could the disgust arising from it have
failed to shock him ? I cannot persuade myself that the
little metal figure in the Ducal Gallery at Florence, which
represents a recumbent skeleton lying with one arm upon
a funeral urn (Spence, Polym ., tab. xli), can be a real
antique ; at least, it cannot represent Death generally
because- the ancients represent it differently. Even their

250 LAOCOON

poets have never spoken of him under this repulsive
form.

Lessing himself wrote an ingenious treatise on the
manner in which the ancients represented Death, entitled,
Wie die Alien den Tod gebildet haben. R. P„

2 So he is called by Lucian, yaWov 5e rbv dpiarovruv
ypcupecov ''OfiTjpov . . . dedeyjueda ; and after speaking of
Homer’s power of painting beauty, ravra ju.hu ovv nKaarrcav
kol\ y pacpeoov kclI TroiTjT&v tt aides epydaourai. Ef/coves, S. 8, p.
10, Rip. ed. So Cicero, speaking of Homer’s blindness
and its alleviations,

At ejus picturam non poesim, videmus. Quae regio, quae ora, qui
locus Graeciae, quae species formae, quae pugna, quae acies, quod
remigium, qui motus hominum, qui ferarum, non ita expictus est, ut,
quae ipse non viderit, nos ut videremus, effecerit. Tusc. Qu.} 1. v, 39.
R. P.

3 Betrachtmgen uber die Mahlerey. S. 159, u. f.

4 Ad Pisones, 128-30 :

And thou

Should’st rather write in acts the tale of Troy,

Than be the first to sing of things unknown,

And all as yet unsung.

Cf. Harris, Discourse on Music , Painting and Poetry , pp.
<34, 5, and note written before the Laocoon. R. P.

5 Invention in painting does not imply the invention of the subject,
for that is commonly supplied by the poet or historian : with respect
to the choice, no subject can be proper that is not generally interest-
ing—it ought to be either some eminent instance of heroic action or
heroic suffering. There must be something either in the action, or in
the object in which men are universally concerned, and which power-
fully strikes upon the public sympathy. Sir J. Reynolds, 4th Disc.,
i, 345 ; see Life and Writings of Fuseli , Third and Fourth Lecture on
Invention. R. P.

6 Lib. xxxv, sect. 36, 700.

7 Richardson appeals to this work, when he wishes to
illustrate the rule that in a picture the attention of the
beholder should not be drawn away from the principal
figure by any thing, how excellent soever in itself.
Protogenes, in his famous picture (not as Lessing cites
the passage), of Ialysus, but of the Satyr leaning against
a pedestal, on which a partridge was perching, had
painted the partridge so exquisitely well that it seemed
a living creature, and was admired by all Greece ; but

NOTES

251

that being most taken notice of, he defaced it entirely.

( Theory of Painting— of Invention, p. 32.) Richardson has
made a mistake. This picture was not in the Ialysus,
but in another picture by Protogenes, which is called the
resting or weary Satyr, 'Zarvpos avairavoperos. I should
scarcely have adverted to these errors, arising from a
misunderstanding of the passage in Pliny, were they not
also found in Meursius (Phodi, lib. i, cap. 14, p. 38) : 4 In
eadem tabula, sc. in qua Ialysus, Satyrus erat, quern
dicebant Anapa vomenon, tibias tenens’. The same is to
be found even in Herr Winkelmann ( Von der Nachahm.
der Gr. W. in der Mahl. und Bildh ., s. 56). Strabo is the
real voucher of this little story about the partridge, and
this expressly distinguishes between the Ialysus and the
Satyr leaning on the pillar on which the partridge sat
(lib. xiv, p. 750; edit. Xyl. ; ed. 1707 ; Amstel. Wolters,
lxiv, 964, 965 ; trans.). Meursius and Richardson and
Winkelmann have misunderstood the passage in Pliny,
because they did not remark that he is speaking of two
distinct pictures ; the one upon whose account Demetrius
would not vanquish the city, because he did not choose
to attack the place where it stood, and the other which
Protogenes painted during this siege. The former was
Ialysus, and the latter the Satyr.

I must observe* in vindication of Richardson, I find no
mention of Ialysus by him, in the passage cited above. I
think Lessing must have been deceived by a French trans-
lation, though in the passage from Richardson, as given
by Lessing, the name of Ialysus appears. R. P.

The passage in Strabo is remarkable : Kal at rod
Upcoroyeuovs ypacpal * 8, r TaAvtros, Kal 6 2a rupos Traperrcos
crrvAcp • e7rl 5e red crrvXcp tt cpdij; e<j)€i(rr7)K€r 7r pbs lov our cos
eKK£XVva<rLVi ioiKtv oi dvdpuiroi, veooarl avaKeipevov rod
TvivaKOS , (her t’ 4kIlvov eOavpa^ov, 6 de 'Zarvpos Trapeooparo , Kal
rot (T(f)6dpa Karoo pOcopevos. i^€Tr\rjrrou 5’ tri paWov oi irepSi-
Korpocpoi KopiCovrcs rods nOacraobs, Kal riQevres KaravriKpir
eepOeyyovro ycip nphs r^jv ypaep)]V oi tt epfiiKes, Kal oox^ayooyovv.
'Opobv 8e 6 npcoroyevrjs rb tpyov irapepyov yeyovbs, 4der)0ri roov
rod r epeuovs npoeardoroov 47rio’rpeif/ai Trape\06ura e£aAetyai
rbv 6pviv, Kal iirolri<T€. Strabo, t. 2, 1. iv, p. 965.

And the pictures by Protogenes, Ialysus and Satyrus standing by a
column. On the column a partridge at one time stood ; at which, it
appears, when the picture was first hung up, people were so amazed,

252

LAOCOON

that they kept gazing at it, while Satyrns, though wonderfully finished,
was scarcely glanced at. And the people were still more astonished
by the partridge-fanciers, who used to bring tame birds and put them
opposite ; for the tame partridges would call to the picture, to the
delight of the people. Protogenes however, seeing that the chief
subject of the picture had become an accessory, asked the keepers of
the sacred place to let him enter and paint out the bird, which he did.

See also Cic. in Verrem , 1. iv, c. 60. 4 What should we

think’, he asks, ‘of a man who took away from the
Tarentinos, “Satyrum qui apud illos in aede Vestae
est?’” Strabo lived in the reign of Augustus, and the
earlier part of the reign of Tiberius. It. P.

CHAPTER XII

1 Iliad, <h 385.

2 Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts ;

Into a thousand parts divide one man, and make
Imaginary puissance, etc. Henry V. Chorus. R. P.

3 But she retiring with strong grasp upheaved

A rugged stone, black, ponderous, from the plain,

A land mark fixed by men of ancient times.

‘Cowper’s II., xxi, 474-6. R. P.

4 Quintus Calaber, in his twelfth book (v. 158, 185) has
imitated this invisible battle of the gods with the very
plain intention of surpassing his model. For instance, it
appears that the Grammarians thought it very unbecoming
that a god should be thrown upon the earth by a stone.
It is true indeed that he makes the gods hurl great
portions of cliffs at each other, which they have torn from
Mount Ida ; but these cliffs are shattered to pieces against
the immortal limbs of the gods, and are crumbled like
sand among them :

O i 5e Ko\(avas

Xepcrlu cnropprj£ai'Tes axr’ ovdeos T tiaioio
BaAAov 67rJ aAA^Aous* at $e ipapiddoiai ojioiai
*P eta diecncldvavTO' Qs&v 7repl 5* a<r%eTa 71 ua
'PrjyvvfjLeva did Tvrda.

A subtlety which destroys the principal matter. It
elevates our idea of the bodies of the gods, and makes the
weapons which they use against each other ridiculous.
When the gods throw stones at each other, either these

NOTES

253

stones must injure the gods, or we imagine that we see
only naughty bo}^s who are pelting each other with lumps
of earth ; and so it remains that old Homer was much the
wisest, and all the blame which cold critics threw on him,
all the strife and emulation of inferior geniuses, only
served to set his wisdom in the best possible light. At
the same time I will not deny that, in the imitation of
Quintus, there are some very good passages which are his
own. Nevertheless, they are traits which would not so
well become the modest grandeur of Homer, as do honour
to the fiery vehemence of a modern poet. That the scream
of the gods which sounded high up to heaven, and low
down into the abyss, which shook the mountain, and the
city and the fleet, should not have been heard by men
appears to me to be a very significant poetical artifice.
The scream was greater than could be apprehended by
the feeble organs of human hearing.

5 With respect to strength and speed, no man who has
only read Homer cursorily once will dispute this assertion.
One may less easily remember the instances from which
it appears that the poet has also endowed his gods with a
corporeal strength far beyond all natural proportions.
Besides the passage I have adduced, in which Mars
thrown to the ground covers seven acres, I refer him to
the helmet of Minerva, Kvverju eKarov tto\4cop TrpifAeeoV
apapviav, under which as many warriors as a hundred
cities could send to battle could be concealed ; also to the
stride of Neptune (Iliad, N. 20), but especially to the
lines in the description of the Shield in which Mars and
Minerva lead the troops of the besieged city (Iliad, 5
516-19)

?H pX€ 5’ &pa (T(piv *Apir)s koX TlaWas ’A Otjptj
^A/ncpo) xPvo'€lco, xpv&*ia elfxara eadrju
KaAcb kcl\ /neydAoo crvv revx^aiv, &<tt€ 6ecv 7 rep,

5 A [A(p\s a pitfAw A aol S’ viroAi^oves ijaau.

Even the interpreters of Homer, old as well as new, do
not appear to have always borne sufficiently in mind this
marvellous stature of his gods, this appears from the
mitigating explanations which they thought themselves
obliged to give as to the helmet of Minerva (see the edition
of Homer by Clarke and Ernesti upon the passage referred
to). But we lose a very great deal of the sublime if we

254

LAOCOON

think of the Homeric gods as being always of the ordinary
stature in which we are accustomed to see them in the
company of mortals on canvass. It is indeed not per-
mitted to painting to represent them in those gigantic
proportions, though sculpture may do this in some degree ;
and I am convinced that the old masters borrowed from
Homer not only the general form of their gods, but also
the colossal form which they so often represented in
their statues (Herod. 1. 11, p. 130, ed. Wessel). I reserve
for another place observations on this colossal character,
and why in sculpture it produces so great an effect, and
in painting none at all.

6 Iliad, r 381. 7 lb., E 23. 8 lb., T 444.

9 lb., T 446. 10 lb., T 321.

11 It is true that Homer veils from time to time his
divinities in a cloud, but only when he does not want
them to be seen by other divinities, e. g., Iliad, S 282,
where Juno and Sleep, ijepa ecro-a/^eVco, fly to Ida, where it
is the greatest anxiety of the crafty goddess not to be
discovered by Venus, who, upon the pretext of a very
different expedition, had lent her girdle to Juno. In the
very same' book (333) a golden cloud is necessary to cover
the enamoured Jupiter and his wife in order to overcome
her chaste resistance.

ITcys k eoi, etris via'i Qe&v aleLyeveraoov
E vdovr dOpiia€L€.

She is not afraid of being seen by men, but by the gods ;
and if Homer makes Jupiter say, a few lines lower down

"H prj, jj.7]T€ Gecov r6 ye $€lSi6l, fi^re tlv ’ avtipoov
vO ipeaOar rolov roi eyk vecpos aixfpiKaXv^ca
Xpvcreov

that does not mean that she had need of this cloud, but
only that, in this cloud, she would be as invisible to the
gods as she always was to men. And so when Minerva
puts on the helmet of Pluto {Iliad, E 384, 5), which has
the same effect of concealment as the cloud, it is not that
she may not be seen by the Trojans, who either do not see
her at all, or as disguised as Sthenelus, but only that
Mars may not recognise her.

NOTES

255

12 The classical reader will recollect the admirable lines
in which Venus reveals to her son the enmity of the gods
to Troy :

Adspice : namque omnem, quae nunc obducta tuenti
Mortales hebetat visus tibi, et humida circum
Caligat, nubem eripiam . . .

Apparent dirae facies inimicaque Trojae
Numina magna Deum. Aen. ii. 604-623.

Now cast your eyes around, while I dissolve
The mists and fiims that mortal eyes involve ;

Purge from your sight the dross, and make you see
The shape of each avenging Deity.

. . . dreadful sounds I hear,

And the dire forms of hostile gods appear. Dryden.

Sophocles makes Minerva darken the eyes of Ajax that
he may not see Ulysses.

5E7o? (Xkotuxtoo j6A ecpapa teal dedopK^ra. Aias, 85. R. P.

CHAPTER XIII

1 Iliad, A 44-53. Tableaux tires de Vlliade , p. 70.

2 Thus he pray’d, and Phoebus heard him pray ;

And vex’d at heart, down from the tops of steep heaven stoop’d ; his
bow

And quiver cover’d round, his hands did on his shoulders throw ;

And of the angry Deity the arrows as he mov’d
Rattled about him. Like the night he rang’d the host, and rov’d
(Apart the fleet set) terribly : with his hard-loosing hand
His silver bow twang’d ; and his shafts did first the mules command
And swift hounds ; then the Greeks themselves his deadly arrows
shot.

The fires of death went never out : nine days his shafts flew hot
About the army. Chapman. R. P.

3 Iliad, A 1-4. Tableaux tirts de Vlliade, p. 30.

4 Within the fair pav’d court of Jove, he and the gods conferr’d
About the sad events of Troy : amongst whom minister’d
Bless’d Hebe, nectar. As they sat and did Troy’s tow’rs behold,
They drank and pledg’d each other round in full-crown’d cups of gold.

Chapman. R. P.

256

LAOCOON

CHAPTER XIV

1 Tableaux tires de Vlliade , Avert, p. v : On est toujours convenu,
que plus un Poeme fournissoit d’iniages et d’actions, plus il avait de
superiority en Poesie. Cette reflexion m’avait conduit a penser que le
calcul des diff6rens Tableaux, qu’offrent les Poemes, pouvait servir
a comparer le merite respectif des Poemes et des Poetes. Le nombre
et le genre des Tableaux que presentent ces grands ouvrages, auroient
ete une esp£ce de pierre de touche, ou plutot unc balance certaine du
merite de ces Poemes et du genie de leurs Auteurs.

2 So much the rather thou celestial light
Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate. Milton, Paradise Lost , bk. 3. R. P.

3 Crabbe’s admirable poem of the Lover's Journey affords
an illustration of the position in the text :

On rode Orlando, counting all the while
The miles he passed, and every coming mile ;

Like all attracted things, he quicker flies,

The place approaching where th’ attraction lies ;

When next appear’d a dam — so call the place —

Where lies a road confined in narrow space ;

A work of labour, for on either side
Is level fen, a prospect wild and wide,

With dikes on either hand by ocean’s self-supplied :

Far on the right the distant sea is seen,

And salt the springs that feed the marsh between ;

Beneath an ancient bridge, the straiten’d flood
Rolls through its sloping banks of slimy mud ;

Near it a sunken boat resists the tide,

That frets and hurries to th’ opposing side ;

The rushes sharp, that on the borders grow,

Bend their brown flow’rets to the stream below,

Impure in all its course, in all its progress slow ;

Here a grave Flora scarcely deigns to bloom,

Nor wears a rosy blush, nor sheds perfume ;

The few dull flowers that o’er the place are spread
Partake the nature of their fenny bed ;

Here on its wiry stem, in rigid bloom,

Grows the salt lavender that lacks perfume ;

Here the dwarf sallows creep, the septfoil harsh,

And the soft slimy mallow of the marsh ;

Low on the ear the distant billows sound,

And just in view appears their stony bound ;

No hedge nor tree conceals the glowing sun,

Birds, save a wat’ry tribe, the district shun,

Nor chirp among the reeds where bitter waters run.

* Various as beauteous, Nature, is thy face ’,

Exclaim’d Orlando : * all that grows has grace ;

All are appropriate— bog, and marsh, and fen,

Are only poor to undiscerning men

NOTES

257

Here may the nice and curious eye explore
How Nature’s hand adorns the rushy moor ;

Here the rare moss in secret shade is found,

Here the sweet myrtle of the shaking ground ;

Beauties are these that from the view retire,

But well repay th’ attention they require.

The Lover's Journey ; Tale X.

4 What we call poetical pictures the Ancients called
6 phantasies ’ , as we may remember in Longinus. And
what we call the Illusion , the deceit of a picture, they
called the 4 energy \ Plutarch tells us of somebody who
said (Erot. t. ii. Edit. Henr. Steph. p. 1351), 4 That
poetical “phantasies5’, on account of their energy, were
the dreams of waking men \

I much wish that modern treatises on the art of poetry
had made use of this term, and had altogether avoided
the word picture. We should have been spared a number
of half-true rules, whose principal foundation is the
analogy of a term arbitrarily employed. No man would
confine poetical ‘phantasies5 within the limits of a
material picture ; but as soon as people begun to call
4 phantasies 5 poetical pictures the foundation of the error
was laid.

Plutarch, de Placitis Philosoph. , has a short chapter on
the difference between phantasia, phantaston, phantasti-
cum, phantasma: riv\ bia<pepei, (pavrcuria, k.t. A.

Chrysippus says that these four things differ from each other. For
phantasia is an affection of the mind, presenting with itself also that
which has caused it. As when by the sense of sight we see whiteness,
there is an affection of the mind engendered by the sight. And of
this affection we can say that white underlies it, and so in like manner
of things affecting us by the sense of touch and smell. This affection
is called phantasia, from phos ‘light* : for as light shows itself, and
the several things which are surrounded by it, so does phantasia
present itself, and that which has caused it. R. P.

CHAPTER XV

1 Iliad , A 105 : —

Avtlk iavAa r 6^ov ivj-oov . . .

Kali rb pXv eif Kar46tjK€ rauvaadiiLevos, ttotI yalrj
5 A7 K\ivas . . .

A vrap 6 av \a 7rcojua (paperpTjs • in 5’ eAer’ idv

258

LAOCOON

’Aj8 A7?tci, 7r repSevra, yeXaiveccv epy oSvvaccv
Ahf/a d’ SttI j/evpfj /careKocrjuei TriKpbv oiarbv,

°E\Ke 8 ’ djuov y \v<pi8as T6 Xaficov, kcl\ vevpa &6eia.
N evpty [lev [iaC<p weA cureg, ro^cp 8e aidripov .

A vrap ineidi] KVKXorepes yey a r6^ov ireivev,

Aiy^e fiibs, vevprj 8e yey3 iax^v, <*Ato 5’ oiarbs
’Otvfi eA^s, kolO’ opuXov e'nnrecrQcu peveaivoov.

CHAPTER XVI

1 Piurima sunt Homeri loca (says Bishop Copleston) quae
in re navali fuse explicando immorantur : quando aut in
mare deducitur navis aut velis sive remigio per fluctus
agitur, aut ad terram appellitur : e quibus vero omnibus
vix unum aut alterum invenias, qui rem ita exponat ut
piduram efficiat, nisi singulos motus gestusque corporis
fideliter ac nudo sermone referre, id demum sit pictorem
agere. He cites Odyss. A 577 ; ib,, 781. Praelediones
Academicae , Prae. v, p. 66. R. P.

2 Iliad, E 722-731 :

Her golden-bridled steeds

Then Saturn’s daughter brought abroad ; and Hebe, she proceeds,

T’ address her chariot instantly ; she gives it — either wheel
Beam’d with eight spokes of sounding brass ; the axle-tree was steel,
The fell’ffs incorruptible gold, their upper bands of brass,

Their matter most unvalued, their work of wondrous grace.

The naves in which the spokes were driven, were all with silver bound ;
The chariot’s seat, two hoops of gold and silver strength’ned round ;
Edg’d with a gold and silver fringe ; the beam that look’d before,

Was massy silver ; on whose top, geres all of gold it wore,

And golden poitrils. Chapman.

I am glad to find my preference for Chapman to Pope
is in some degree supported by Mr Hallam : ‘ Chapman’s
translation with all its defects is often exceedingly
Homeric, a praise which Pope himself seldom attained’.
Lit . of Eur., vol. ii, 131. R. P.

3 Iliad, B 42-46 :

The dream gone, his voice still murmured
About the king’s ears : who sate up, put on him in his bed
His silken inner weed ; fair, new, and then in haste arose ;

Cast on his ample mantle, tied to his soft feet fair shoes ;

NOTES

259

His silver-hilted sword he hung about his shoulders, took
His father’s sceptre never stain’d ; which then abroad he shook.

Chapman. R. P.

4 Iliad , B 101-108 :

Then stood divine Atrides up, and in his hand compress’d
His sceptre, th’ elaborate work of fiery Mulciber :

Who gave it to Saturnian Jove ; Jove to his messenger ;

His messenger, Argicides, to Pelops, skill’d in horse ;

Pelops to Atreus, chief of men : he dying, gave it course
To prince Thyestes, rich in herds ; Thyestes to the hand
Of Agamemnon render’d it, and with it the command
Of many isles, and Argos all. Chapman. R. P.

s Iliad , A. 234-239 :

Yet I vow, and by a great oath swear,

Even by this sceptre, that as this never again shall bear
Green leaves or branches, nor increase with any growth his size ;
Nor did since first it left the hills, and had his faculties
And ornaments bereft with iron ; which now to other end
Judges of Greece bear, and their laws, received from Jove, defend.

Chapman. R. P.

6 Iliad , A 105-111 :

Who instantly drew forth a bow most admirably made
Of th’ antler of a jumping goat, bred in a steep up-land,

Which archer-like (as long before he took his hidden stand
The doom’d one skipping from a rock) into the breast he smote,
And headlong felled him from his cliff. The forehead of the goat
Held out a wondrous goodly palm, that sixteen branches brought,
Of all of which (join’d) an useful bow a skilful bowyer wrought,
Which piked and polished both the ends he hid with horns of gold.

Chapman. R. P.

CHAPTER XVII

1 Sir W. Hamilton speaks of the three principal orders
in which the imagination, fantasy, or fancy, represents
ideas as — 1, the Natural order; 2, the Logical order;
3, the Poetical order. ‘ Of the last he says, ‘ it consists
in seizing individual circumstances, and in grouping them
in such a manner that the imagination shall represent
them, so as they might be offered by the sense Lectures
on Metaphysics , ii, 266, 7. R. P.

3 The Alps, by Herr Von Haller.

3 Because these verses contain little more than a
botanical catalogue of flowers in a particular place —
‘quam diversa penitus sint res totum dicere et omnia 9

280

LAOCOON

(says Copleston, Praeled. Acad., 4, p. 55). You see and
smell the flowers in Shakspere.

With fairest flowers,

Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele,

I’ll sweeten thy sad grave : thou shalt not lack
The flower that’s like thy face, pale primrose ; nor
The azur’d hare-bell, like thy veins ; no, nor
The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander,

Out-sweeten’d not thy breath.

Cywheline , act iv, scene 1.

Here’s flowers for you ;

Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram ;

The marigold that goes to bed with the sun,

And with him rises weeping ; . . .

. . . Daffodils,

That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty ; violets, dim,

But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes,

Or Cytherea’s breath ; pale primroses,

That die unmarried, ere they can behold
Bright Phoebus in his strength, a malady
Most incident to maids ; bold oxlips and
The crown-imperial ; lilies of all kinds,

The flower-de-luce being one.

Winter's Tale , act iv, scene 3.

4 Brei'tinger’s Critische Dichtkunst, Th. ii, s. 807.

5 I could wish that Lessing had here referred to Du
Bos’ chapters on Des Differens Genres de Poesie et de leur
Caradere (vol. i, s. viii : Reflexions Critiques sur la Poesie
et sur la Peinture), and (s. ix.), ‘Comment on rend les
sujets dogmatiques interessans ’, (p. 63) 4 chaque genre (de
Poesie) nous touche & proportion que l’objet lequel il est
de son essence de peindre et d’imiter est capable de nous
cmouvoir. Voila pourquoi le genre Elegiaque et le genre
Bucolique ont plus d’attrait pour nous que le genre
Dogmatique. . . . (p. 65) Quand Virgile composa ses
Georgiques qui sont on Poeme dogmatique dont le titre
nous promet des instructions sur l’agriculture et sur les
occupations de la vie champetre il eut attention a le
remplir d’imitations faites d’apres les objets qui nous
auroient attaches dans la nature. Yirgile ne s’ est pas
meme contente de ces images repandues avec un art infini
dans tout l’ouvrage etc. R. P.

6 The mother cow must wear a lowering look,

Sour-headed, strongly-neck’d to bear the yoke ;

NOTES

261

Her double dewlap from her chin descends,

And at her thighs the ponderous burden ends.

Long as her sides and large, her limbs are great ;

Rough are her ears, and broad her horny feet.

Her colour shining black, but fleck’d with white ;

She tosses from the yoke : provokes the fight.

She rises in her gait, is free from fears,

And in her face a bull’s resemblance bears :

Her ample forehead with a star is crown’d
And with her length of tail she sweeps the ground.

7 Lofty-neck’d ;

Sharp-headed, barrel-belly’ d, broadly back’d,

Brawny his chest and deep .

Dryden’s Virgil, Georgies, book iii. R. P.

8 Georg., iii, 51 and 79.

9 Christn. Ewald v. Kleist, born at Zeblin in Pomerania,
1715 ; killed in battle 1759 ; a Danish officer, author of
several works, among them Der Fruhling , published at
Berlin 1749, to which Lessing here refers. R. P.

]0 De Art. Poet., 16.

11 Prologue to the Satires, 340 :

That not in Fancy’s maze he wandered long,

But stoop’d to Truth, and moraliz’d his song.

Ibid. 148 :

Who could take offence,

While pure description held the place of Sense ?

The observation which War burton makes upon this last
passage may be taken for an authentic explanation of the
poet. He uses Pure equivocally, to signify either chaste
or empty ; and has given in this line what he esteemed
the true character of descriptive poetry, as it is called.
A composition, in his opinion, as absurd as a feast made
up of sauces. The use of a picturesque imagination is to
brighten and adorn good sense : so that to employ it only
in description is like children’s delighting in a prism for
the sake of its gaudy colours ; which when frugally
managed, and artfully disposed, might be made to repre-
sent and illustrate the noblest objects in nature.

It is true that the poet, as a commentator, appears to
have regarded the thing rather from its relation to
morality than to art, but so much the better that it
appears both from the one side and the other to be of no
value.

262

LAOCOON

12 Poetique Franqaise, t. ii, p. 501 :

J’6crivais ces reflexions avant que les essais des Allemands dans ce
genre (l’Eclogue) fnssent connus parmi nous. I Is ont execute ce que
j’avois congu ; et s’ils parviennent a donner plus au moral et moins au
detail des pemtures physiques, ils excelleront dans ce genre, plus riche,
plus vaste, plus fdcond et infiniment plus naturel et plus moral que
celui de la galanterie champetre.

Marmontel, Jean Fran§ois, French writer of Poems,
Romances, and Criticisms ; born 1723, died 1799. His
most successful work was Les Contes Moraux . R. P.

CHAPTER XVIII

1 Mazzuoli, Francesco, called also Parmegiano or Parme-
gianino. Pilkington says, 4 He had a peculiar talent in
giving beauty, elegance, grace, and sweetness to his fea-
tures. He excelled in portrait as much as in his history
. . . his outline is true and firm, and the light, easy flow of
his draperies gives an inexpressible beauty to his picture ’.
In the well-known verses of Agostino Caracci, the young
painter is told to acquire

Un po di grazia del Parmegianino.

Born at Parma 1503, died in 1540. R. P.

2 Hogarth wisely told his story of the Mariage k la
Mode in a succession of pictures. R. P.

3 Comme le tableau qui represente une action, ne nous fait voir qu’un
instant de sa duree, le Peintre ne sgauroit atteindre au sublime que les
choses qui ont precede la situation pr6sente, jettent quelquefois dans
un sentiment ordinaire. Au contraire la Poesie nous decrit tous les
incidens remarquables de Taction qu’elle traite, etc. Du Bos, i, 87 :
Reflexions Critiques sur la Poesie et sur la Peinture. R. P.

4 The art of disposing the foldings of the drapery makes a very con-
siderable part of the painter’s study. To make it merely natural is a
mechanical operation to which neither genius nor taste are required :
whereas it requires the nicest judgment to dispose the drapery so that
the folds shall have an easy communication, and gracefully follow each
other with such natural negligence as to look like the effect of chance,
and at the same time show the figure under it to the utmost advantage.
Sir J. Reynolds’ 4 th Disc., i, 350. R. P.

5 Gedanken uber die Schonheit und uber den Geschmack
in der Mahlerei , s. 69.

NOTES 263

6 Compare Du Bos, i. s. xxv. 312 ; De la Mtcanique cle
la Poesie , etc. R. P.

7 See Da Bos, ib. 327 : La construction Latine permet de renverter
1’ordre natural des mots et de les transposer jusqu’ a ce qu’on ait
rencontre un arrangement dans lequel ils se prononcent sans peine et
rendent meme une melodie agreable, etc. ; an advantage of Classical
Languages not mentioned here. R. P.

8 Dionysius Halicarnass. in Vita Homeri apud Th. Gale
in Opusc. Mythol p. 491.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, where he was a teacher of
Rhetoric ; born between B.c. 78 and 54 ; generally called
Dionyinus by the ancients. He lived at Rome for the
greater part of his life ; was a very successful and volu-
minous author on rhetoric, criticism, and history. His
great work was on the History of Rome 5 ApxaioAoyla , nine
of the twenty books in which it is written we have
complete. R. P.

9 I find that Servius offers another excuse for Virgil.
For Servius too has remarked the difference between the
two shields : 4 Sane interest inter hunc et Homeri clypeum :
file enim singula dum fiunt narrantur : hie vero perfecto
opere nascuntur : nam et hie arma prius accipit Aeneas
quam spectaret ; ibi postquam omnia narrata sunt, sic a
Thelide deferuntur ad Achillem’ ( Od . 625, 1. viii. Aen.).
And why this? ‘because’, says Servius, 4 there were imaged
upon the shield of Aeneas not merely the few events which
the poet mentions, but

genus omne futurae

Stirpis ab Ascanio pugnataque in ordine bella’.

How could it have been possible that, even taking into
account the speed with which Vulcan is obliged to prepare
the shield, the poet could have mentioned by name the
long series of posterity, and have described in the order
of time all the wars which they would wage? This is
the meaning of the somewhat obscure words of Servius :
4 opportune ergo Virgilius quia non videtur simul et narra-
tionis celeritas potuisse connecti et opus jam veiociter
expediri ut ad versum posset occurrere ’. For as Virgil
could only bring forward a little of the 4 non enarrabile
texto clypei’, so also he could not do this whilst Vulcan
himself was working at it, but must wait till all was
completed. I wish very much for Virgil’s sake that this

264

LAOCOON

reasoning of Servius was groundless ; my defence of him
would be much more creditable. For what was the
necessity of bringing the whole Roman history into the
shield? By a few pictures Homer made his shield an
epitome of all that happens in the world. Does it not
seem as if Virgil, seeing that he could not surpass the
Greek in the design and execution of his pictures, tried
at least to surpass him in the number of them ? and what
could be more childish ?

Servius, Maurus or Marius Honoratus, a celebrated
grammarian ; his great work a Commentary on Virgil, a
contemporary of Macrobius, who refers to him in the
Saturnalia, probably lived about the beginning of the
fifth century. R. P.

De Quincey remarks on this passage :

In the three last sentences there is a false thought, unworthy of
Lessing’s acuteness. The vulgar conception of didactic poetry is, that
the adjunct didactic expresses the primary function (or in logical phrase
the difference of that class of poetry), as though the business were first
of all to teach something, and secondly to convert this into poetry by
some process of embellishment. But such a conception contains a con-
tradictio in adjecto , and is in effect equivalent to demanding of a species
that it shall forgo, or falsify, the distinctions which belong to it, in
virtue of its genus. As a term of convenience didactic may serve to
discriminate one class of poetry ; but didactic it cannot be in philo-
sophic rigour without ceasing to be poetry. Indirectly, it is true, that
a poet in the highest departments of his art may, and often does, com-
municate mere knowledge, but never as a direct purpose, unless by
forgetting his proper duty.

He then suggests various mean and domestic occupa-
tions which might be so treated by the poet as to affect
us with pleasure, and he proceeds :

Now Virgil, in his ideal of a cow, and the description of her meri-
torious points, is nearly upon as low ground as any that is here sug-
gested. And this it is which has misled Lessing. Treating a mean
subject, Virgil must (he concludes) have adapted his description to
some purpose of utility : for, if his purpose had been beauty, why lavish
his power upon so poor an occasion, since the course of his subject did
not in this instance oblige him to any detail ? But if this construction
of the case were a just one, and that Virgil really had framed his descrip-
tions merely as a guide to the practical judgment, this passage would
certainly deserve to be transferred from its present station in the
Georgia to the Grazier’s Pocket-Book, as being (what Lessing in effect
represents it to be) a plain bond fide account of a Smithfield prize cow.
But though the object here described is one which is seldom regarded
in any other light than that of utility, and on that account is of neces-
sity a mean one, yet the question still remains, in what spirit, and for
what purpose, Virgil has described this mean object ? For meanness

NOTES

265

and deformity even, as was said before, have their modes of beauty.
Now, there are four reasons which might justify Virgil in his descrip-
tion, and not one of them having any reference to the plain prosaic
purpose which Lessing ascribes to him. He may have described the
cow —

I. As a difficult and intractable subject, by way of a bravura or pas-
sage of execution. To describe well is not easy ; and in one ‘class of
didactic poems, of which there are several, both in Latin, English, and
French, viz., those which treat of the mechanic parts of the critical
art, the chief stress of the merit is thrown upon the skill with which
thoughts, not naturally susceptible of elegance, or even of a metrical
expression, are modulated into the proper key for the style and orna-
ments of verse. This is not a very elevated form of the poetic art, and
too much like rope-dancing. But to aim humbly is better than to aim
awry, as Virgil would have done if interpreted under Lessing’s idea of
didactic poetry.

II. As a familiar subject. Such subjects, even though positively
disgusting, have a fascinating interest when reproduced by the painter
or the poet ; upon what principle has possibly not been sufficiently
explained. Even transient notices of objects and actions, which are
too indifferent to the mind to be more than half consciously perceived,
become highly interesting when detained and reanimated, and the full
light of the consciousness thrown powerfully upon them by apicturesque
description. A street in London, with its usual furniture of causeway,
gutter, lamp-posts, etc., is viewed with little interest ; but exhibited in
a scene at Drury Lane, according to the style of its execution, becomes,
very impressive.

As to Lessing’s objection about the difficulty of collecting the suc-
cessive parts of a description into the unity of a co-existence, that
difficulty does not exist to those who are familiar with the subject of
the description, and at any rate is not peculiar to this case.

III. As an ideal. Virgil’s cow is an ideal in her class. Now every
ideal, or maximum perfectionis (as the old metaphysicians called it) in
natural objects, necessarily expresses the dark power of nature, which is
at the root of all things under one of its infinite manifestations in
the most impressive way ; that which elsewhere exists by parts and
fractions dispersed amongst the species and in tendency, here exists as
a whole, and in consummation. A Pandora who should be furnished
for all the functions of her nature in a luxury of perfection, even
though it were possible that the ideal beauty should be disjoined from
this ideal organization, would be regarded with the deepest interest.
Such a Pandora in her species, or an approximation to one, is the cow
of Virgil, and he is warranted by this consideration in describing her
without the meanness of a didactic purpose.

IV. As a beautiful object. In those objects which are referred
wholly to a purpose of utility, as a kitchen-garden for instance, utility
becomes the law of their beauty. With regard to the cow in particular,
which is referred to no variety of purpose, as the horse or the dog, the
external structure will express more absolutely and unequivocally the
degree in which the purposes of her species are accomplished ; and her
beauty will be a more determinate subject for the judgment than
where the animal structure is referred to a multitude of separate ends
incapable of co-existing. Describing in this view, however, it will be
said that Virgil presupposes in his reader some knowledge of the
subject; for the description will be a dead letter to him, unless it
awakens and brightens some previous notices of his own. I answer.

266

LAOCOON

that with regard to all the common and familiar appearances of nature,
a poet is entitled to postulate some knowledge in his readers : and the
fact is, that he has not postulated so much as Shakspere in his line
description of the hounds of Theseus in the Midsummer Night's Dream ,
or of the horse of Arcitei : and Shakspere, it will not be pretended,
had any didactic purpose in those passages.

This is my correction applied to the common idea of didactic poetry ;
and I have thought it right to connect it with the error of so distin-
guished a critic as Lessing. If he is right in his construction of
Virgil’s purpose that would£prove only that, in this instance, Virgil was
wrong.

10 Aeneid , viii. 447-54 :

Their artful hands a shield prepare.

One stirs the fire, and one the bellows blows ;

The hissing steel is in the smithy drowned ;

The grot with beaten anvils groans around.

By turns their arms advance in equal time,

By turns their hands descend and hammers chime ;

They turn the glowing mass with crooked tongs.

Dryden. R. P.

CHAPTER XIX

1 Scaliger (the elder), Julius Caesar, critic, poet, phy-
sician, philosopher ; born in Italy, educated in Germany,
lived in France ; born 1484, died 1558. His son was
Justus Josephus, born 1540, died 1609, an accomplished
classical scholar. R. P.

2 Perrault, Charles, rather a voluminous French writer.
Amongst other works he wrote a poem on painting, be-
came a member of the Academie Frangaise in 1671, to the
prosperity of which he largely contributed ; born 1628,
died 1703. R. P.

3 Terrasson, Jean, a French litterateur of some celebrity
in his day, a Professqr of Greek and Latin at the College
de France ; more esteemed for his knowledge than his
taste. Wrote a criticism on the Iliad , and was vehe-
mently attacked by Madame Dacier. He was born 1670,
and died 1750. R. P.

1 In the Two Noble Kinsmen [Beaumont and Fletcher]. The first
act has been often and justly attributed to Shakspere ; but the last act
is no less indisputably his, and in his very finest style. (I doubt this
very much. R. P.)

NOTES

267

4 Dacier, Anne Lefevre ; born 1654, died 1720 ; a French
lady acquainted with, but not deeply read in, the classical
authors of Greece and Rome, and employed as an assist-
ant by the editors of the classics in usum Delyliini. She
translated several classical authors not perfectly under-
stood by her. Her translation of Homer was the work
which pleased her countrymen most ; but it was never
esteemed by real scholars, and had many of the defects of
the French school. R. P.

5 ‘ Scuto ejus, in quo amazonum praelium caelavit in
intumeseente ambitu parmae : ejusdem concava parte
Deorum et Gigantum dimicationem \ Plinius, 1. xxxvi.
5. 40.

6 Iliad , 2 497-508 : —

Otherwhere

A solemn court of law was kept, where throngs of people were :

The case in question was a fine imposed on one that slew
The friend of him that follow’d it, and for the fine did sue,

Which th’ other pleaded he had paid. The adverse part denied,

And openly affirm’d he had no penny satisfied.

Both put it to arbiterment ; the people cried ’twas best
For both parts, and th’ assistants too gave their dooms like the rest.
The heralds made the people peace : the seniors then did bear
The voiceful heralds’ sceptres ; sate within a sacred sphere,

On polish’d stones ; and gave by turns their sentence. In the court
Two talents of gold were cast, for him that judg’d in justest sort.

Chapman. It. P.

7 Boivin, Louis, a learned Frenchman, born 1649, died
1724, appears to have been considered a great authority
by the Academie des Inscriptions, of which he became a
member in 1701, R. P.

8 ‘ On it he wrought ’, ‘ on it he formed ’, ‘ on it he
placed’, ‘on it Vulcan variously fashioned ’. The first
begins with line 483, and goes down to 489 ; the second,
from 490 to 509 ; the third, 510 to 540 ; the fourth, 541
to 549 ; the fifth, 550 to 560 ; the sixth, 561 to 572 ; the
seventh, 573 to 586 ; the eighth, 587 to 589 ; the ninth,
590 to 605 ; the tenth, 606 to 608. The third picture is
the only one without the introductory words. It is, how-
ever, clear enough from the second, eV 8e Sucowo^o-e irSAeis,
and from the reason of the thing itself, that it must be a
distinct picture.

268 LAOCOON

9 Phocis, cap. 25. 31. Vide ante as to the itinerary of
Pausanias. R. P.

10 In order to show that I have not spoken too strongly
about Pope, I will refer in his own language to the begin-
ning of the passage which I am about to quote : 4 That
Homer was no stranger to aerial perspective appears in his
expressly marking the distance from object to object ; he
tells us ’, etc. I say that Pope has here made an entirely
wrong use of the words aerial perspective (perspective
aerienne), for it has nothing to do with the lessening of
size in proportion to distance, but merely expresses the
faintness and change of colour according to the condition
of the air or medium through which it is seen. Any one
who could make such a blunder as this may well have
been ignorant of the whole matter.

In 1755, Lessing had written, in conjunction with Men-
delssohn, an essay, entitled, 4 Pope ein Metaphysiker ! J
The irony of his comparison between Pope’s positions as
philosophical and Leibnitz’s positions as poetical is com-
mented on by Danzel, i, 278, 9. Lessing’s Leben und
WerJce. R. P.

11 Sophocles, Aristotle remarks, introduced three actors
on the stage and scene-painting, rpeis 5e kcu (TKrivoypoupiav
2 ',o(poK\rjs : Trepl YIoljjt. i, p. 14. Sophocles, who carried
Greek drama to its perfection, was born at Colonus, which
he immortalised in his last and perhaps greatest drama,
b.c. 496, and died in his 90th year. R. P.

12 Betracht uber die M abler ei, s. 185.

Written in the year 1763. Lessing’s loyalty to Winkel-
mann is very remarkable ; it has been referred to in the
Preface, and will be mentioned again. R. P.

CHAPTER XX

i She was a very beautiful woman, with lovely eyebrows and com-
plexion,

With beautiful cheeks and face, ox-eyes, snow-white skin ;

Dark (or round) eyed, tender, a grove full of charms,

White armed, delicate breathing, beauty undisguised ;

The complexion fair, the cheek rosy,

The countenance pleasing, the eye beautiful.

Inartificial loveliness undyed, natural ;

NOTES

269

A rose-coloured fruit tinged her whiteness,

As if one should dye ivory with splendid purple.

Long-necked, dazzling white, whence she was often called —
Swan-born lovely Helen.

It seems like a bad translation of a Persian poem, or
Chinese novel. R. P.

2 Lessing’s English translators have not, I think, quite
understood these words. Constantinus Manasses lived in
the middle of the twelfth century, in the reign of Manuel
Comnenus. He wrote a sort of Chronicle of the World,
2vvoil/(ri$ icrropiK^f in a kind of irregular verse, called by
later writers versus politici , which was in fact rhythmical
prose. Smith’s Biog. Diet. ‘Manasses’, but see also Du
Cange, title politici versus ; the origin of ‘ politici 5 is very
doubtful. Perhaps Cicero’s account is correct: ‘Nam
cum sic hominis natura generata sit, ut habeat quiddam
innatum quasi civile atque populare , quod Graeci tto\itlk})v
vocant ’, etc. De Fin. v. 23.

For a time these ‘ versus politici ’ seem to have been
very popular. It is remarkable that Meursius dedicates
his edition of this work of Constantinus Manasses to
Gustavus Adolphus. R. P.

3 Her matchless person every charm combined
Form’d in th’ idea of a painter’s mind.

Bound in a knot behind, her ringlets roll'd
Down her soft neck, and seem’d like waving gold.

Her cheeks with lilies mix the blushing rose :

Her forehead high, like polish’d iv’ry shows.

Beneath two arching brows with splendor shone
Her sparkling eyes, each eye a radiant sun !

Here artful glances, winning locks appear,

And wanton Cupid lies in ambush here :

'Tis hence he bends his bow, he points his dart,

’Tis hence he steals th’ unwary gazer’s heart.

Her nose so truly shap’d, the faultless frame
Not envy can deface, nor art can blame.

Her lips beneath, with pure vermilion bright,

Present two rows of orient pearl to sight :

H ere those soft words are form’d whose power detains
Th’ obdurate soul in love’s alluring chains ;

And here the smiles receive their infant birth,

Whose sweets reveal a paradise on earth.

Her neck and breast were white as falling snows,

Round was her neck and full her bosom rose.

Firm as the budding fruit with gentle swell
Each lovely breast alternate rose and fell.

Thus on the margin of the peaceful seas
The waters heave before the fanning breeze.

270

LAOCOON

Her arms well turn’d, and of a dazzling hue,

With perfect beauty gratified the view.

Her taper fingers long and fair to see
From every rising vein and swelling free ;

And from her vest below, with new delight,

Iter slender foot attracts the lover’s sight.

Not Argus’ self her other charms could spy,

So closely veiled from every longing eye.

Yet may we judge the graces she revealed,

Surpassed not those her modest garb concealed
Which strive in vain from fancy’s eye to hide
Each angel charm that seemed to heaven allied.

Hoole’s Transl. of Ariosto. R. P.

4 The hasty multitude

Admiring enter’d, and the work some praise,

And some the architect. Par. Lost, I. 730. R. P.

5 Dialogo della Pittura intitolato VAretino , Firenze 1735,
p. 178 : ‘ Se vogliono i Pittori senza fatica trovare un
perfetto esempio di bella Donna, leggano quelle Stanze
dell’ Ariosto, nelle quali egli discrive mirabilmente le
bellezze della Fata Alcina : e vedranno parimente, quanto
i buoni Poeti siano ancora essi Pittori \

Dolce Luigi, an Italian litterateur. Tiraboschi says he
was historian, grammarian, rhetorician, philosopher, poet.
He was' also editor, translator, collector of memoirs ; and
among his more important works was Dialogo , referred to
above. Born at Venice 1508, died 1568. R. P.

6 Me’ for (meglio). R. P.

7 Ibid.: ‘Ecco, che quanto alia proportione, P ingenio-
sissimo Ariosto assegna la migliore, che sappiano formar le
mani de’ piu eecellenti Pittori, usando questa voce industri,
per dinotar la diligenza, che conviene al buono artefice’.

8 Ibid. p. 182 : 4 Qui P Ariosto colorisce, e in questo suo
colorire dimostra esse, re un Titiano

9 Ibid. p. 180: ‘Poteva P Ariosto nella guisa, che ha
detto chioma bionda, dir chioma d’ oro : ma gli parve
forse, che havrebbe havuto troppo del Poetico. Da che si
puo ritrar, che’ 1 Pittore dee imitar P oro, e non metterlo
(come fanno i Miniatori) nelle sue Pitture, in modo, che si
possa dire, que5 capelli non sono d’ oro ma par che risplen-
dano, come l5 oro \ What Dolce in the following passage
takes from Athenaeus is remarkable, only it is not accurate.
I will speak of this by and bye.

NOTES

271

10 Ibid. p. 182 : 4 II naso, che discende giu, havendo
peraventura la considerazione a quelle forme de’ nasi, che
si veggono ne5 ritratti delle belle Romane antiche \

11 Aeneid, iv. 136 :

A flowered cymar with golden fringe she wore,

And at her hack a golden quiver bore ;

Her flowing hair a golden caul restrains,

A golden clasp the Tyrian robe sustains. Dryben. R. P.

12 Odes xxviii, xxix.

13 EtWres, §3, t. 11, p. 461, ed. Reitz. Lucian, a Syrian
by birth, probably lived a.d. 120 to the end of the cen-
tury ; a very voluminous and licentious Greek writer upon
a variety of subjects, but he is best known and most read
as the author of Dialogues. The et/cJres or imagines, (a
sort of picture gallery), can hardly be classed under this
head.

Walter Scott, in his description of the first appearance
of the Lady of the Lake, happily blends the ideas of the
poet and the sculptor :

The maiden paused, as if again

She thought to catch the distant strain.

With head up-raised, and look intent.

And eye and ear attentive bent,

And locks flung back, and lips apart,

Like monument of Grecian art ;

In listening mood, she seemed to stand,

The guardian Naiad of the strand.

And ne’er did Grecian chisel trace
A Nymph, a Naiad, or a Grace,

Of finer form or lovelier face !

Lady of the Lake , Canto i. xvii. xviii. R. P*

CHAPTER XXI

1 Iliad , r 121.

2 lb. 319.

3 lb. 156-8.

These wise and almost wither d men, found this heat in their years
That they were forced (tho’ whispering) to say : what man can blame
The Greeks and Trojans to endure for so admir’d a dame,

So many miseries and so long? in her sweet countenance shine
Looks like the goddesses, etc. Chapman. R. P.

272

LAOCOON

4 Let us remember also the meeting of Ulysses and
Nausicaa, and the exquisite manner in which her beauty
is painted by its effect on Ulysses, who, doubting whether
vshe be immortal or mortal, compares her first to Diana,
and then to the Palm-tree, which grew up in perfect
symmetry by the altar of the Delian Apollo ; and dwells
upon the happiness which such a creature of beauty must
shed over parents, family, and bridegroom.

Ov yap ttco tqlovtov Xbov fiporbv 6(pQa\/uL0icriv,

Our5 tii/dp’ ovt€ yvmiKa * (re pas pi €X6t eleropoavra.
Ar)\cp §77 7 rore roiov 5A7roAAcovos tt apa j3 oo/acp
$oivikos v4ov ipvos avepx6pevov ivorjaa' k.t.A.

Odyss. Z 160-163. R. P.

5 Et vera incessu patuit Dea. Aen. i. 408.

Milton’s Eve.

Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye,

In every gesture dignity and love.

Par . Lost, viii. 488, 9. It. P.

CHAPTER XXII

1 Zeuxis, the most renowned of ancient painters, who
-excelled all his contemporaries but Parrhasius, appears
to have flourished about b.c. 424.

2 Yal. Max. lib. iii, cap. 7. Valerius Maximus, some-
times with the praenomen of Marcus, a great compiler of
historical anecdotes — De Factis Diciisque Memorabilibus ,
lib. ix. — referred to by the elder Pliny, Plutarch, and
Aulus Gellius. Wrote on a variety of miscellaneous
subjects. He lived in the time of the first Roman
Emperors, but of his personal history very little, if
anything, is known. Dion. Halycar. Art. Rhet. cap. 12.
7 repl A oyoov i£era (Tews. R. P.

3 4 G-icrigen Blicke 5 is the expression in the original ; it
means something more than ‘ eager ’, as it is usually
translated

You would have thought the very windows spake,

So many greedy looks of young and old ;

Thro’ casements darted their desiring eyes
Upon his visage. Rich. II. act v, sc. 1. K. P.

NOTES

273

4 And yet (tho* never so divine)

Before we boast, unjustly still, of her enforced prize,

And justly suffer for her sake with all our progenies
Labour and ruin, let her co : the profit of our land
Must pass the beauty. Chapman. R. P.

5 Which stirred a sweet desire in her ; to serve the which she hied,
Shadow’d her graces with white veils, etc.

Chapman. R. P.

6 This remark is happily inapplicable to England.
Homer has always been taught in her Public Schools,
especially at Westminster. Witness also the Grenville
Homer, the translations of Chapman, Pope, Cowper,
Sotheby, Lord Derby, and Mr Gladstone’s more recent
and well-known works. In France Homer has never been
much read or much understood, and I am afraid the same
remark applies to Italy and Spain. R. P.

7 Fabricii Biblioth. Grae. lib. ii, cap. 6, p. 345.
Fabricius Joannes Albertus, born at Leipsig 1667. Pro-
fessor at Hamburg, where he spent his life ; the author
of many learned works, the principal being the Bibliotheca
Graeco, , containing notices of the Greek authors down to
those who flourished at the close of the Byzantine Empire.
He died in 1736. R. P.

8 Plinius says of Apelles (lib. xxxv, cap. 10) : 4 Fecit et
Dianam sacrificantium virginum choro mixtam : quibus
vicisse Homeri versus videtur idipsum describentis \
Nothing can be truer than this panegyric. Beautiful
nymphs round a beautiful goddess, who towers above
them all with her majestic forehead, is certainly a design
fitter for painting than poetry — only the sacrificantium is
to me very doubtful. What has the goddess to do with
sacrificing virgins ? and is this the occupation which
Homer furnishes to the companions of Diana ? Surely
not. They wander with her through mountains and
woods ; they hunt, they sport, they dance ( Odyss . Z 102-
106).

O'lr] 5’ VA prepus eioi /cap oopeos lox^oupa^

''H Kara T rjuyerou Tvepifx^Kerov^ t) jE pv/xavQov,
T€pirofjLev7) KaTTpouri Kal wKelys e\d<poi(ri’

Trj 5e 6 * cfyta N v/upai, Kovpai A ibs alyioxoio,
’Aypovd/ioi 7r ai^ovart.

Pliny would not have written of c sacrificantium but of

274

LAOCOON

4 venantium J ; perhaps 4 sylvis vagantium ’, an alteration
which would give about the same number of letters :

4 saltantium * would come nearest to Trai(ovcri , and Virgil,
in his imitation of this passage, makes Diana dance with
her nymphs ( Aeneid , i. 497-98) : —

Qualis in Eurotae ripis aut per juga Cynthi

Exercet Diana clioros.

Spence has a strange idea on this head. 4 This Diana
(says he) both in the picture and in the descriptions, was
the Diana Venatrix, though she was not represented
either by Virgil, or Apelles, or Homer, as hunting with
her nymphs, but as employed with them in that sort of
dances, which of old were regarded as very solemn acts of
devotion ’. He adds the observation : 4 The expression of
7r ai(eiv, used by Homer on this occasion, is scarce proper
for hunting, as that of 44 choros exercere ” in Virgil should
be understood of the religious dances of old, because
dancing, in the old Roman idea of it, was indecent, even
for men, in public ; unless it were the sort of (lances
used in honour of Mars, or Bacchus, or some other of
their gods \ Spence chooses to understand by the word
those solemn dances which the ancients considered part
of the acts of worship. 4 And Pliny ’, he says, 4 uses the
word 4 4 sacrificare ” in that sense. It is in consequence
of this that Pliny, in speaking of Diana’s nymphs on this
very occasion, uses the word 4 4 sacrificare ” of them ;
which quite determines these dances of theirs to have
been of the religious kind \ He forgets that in Virgil,
Diana herself dances, 4 exercet Diana choros ’. If this
dance were a religious dance, in whose honour did Diana
dance ? in her own ? or in honour of another deity ?
Both are absurd ; and if the old Romans considered
dancing as unbecoming a serious man, must on that
account their poets transplant the gravity of their people
into the manners of their gods, which manners were
altogether different from those described by the ancient
Greek poet ? Horace says of Venus ( Od . iv.)

Jam Cytherea choros ducit Venus, imminente Luna

Junctaeque Nymphis Gratiae decentes

Alterno terram quatiunt pede.

Was this a holy religious dance ? but I spend too many
words on such whims.

NOTES

275

9 Iliad , A 528. Valerius Maximus, lib. iii. cap. 7.

He said : and his black eyebrows bent ; above his deathless head

Tli’ ambrosian curls flow’d : great heaven shook.

Chapman. R. P.

10 Plinius, lib. xi, cap. 37.

11 Idem , lib. xxxiv, cap. 8 :

Ipse tamen corpornm tenus curiosus animi sensus non expressisso
videtur, capillum quoque et pubem non emendatius fecisse, qu&mrudis.
antiquitas instituisset.

12 Ibid. : ‘ Hie primus nervos et venas expressit

capillumque diligentius ’.

13 Analysis of Beauty , chapter xi. on Proportion, p. 149.
William Hogarth, born 1697 or 1698, died 1764. In 1733
his genius began to be generally recognised. His series of
pictures in the Mariage d la mode , now in our Gallery,
contributed greatly to his reputation. In his work on the
Analysis of Beauty , Hogarth maintained that the curve
was the line of beauty. Lessing reviewed a translation of
this work by C. Mylius. Berl. 1754. R. P.

14 Iliad , r 210-11.

CHAPTER XXIII

1 Philos. Schriften des Herrn Moses Mendelssohn , t. ii, s.
23. Moses Mendelssohn, born at Dessau 1729, the son of
a Jew, a schoolmaster, the friend of Lessing and Nicolai.
To Lessing’s friendship for him we owe the play of Nathan
der Weise , mentioned in the Preface. He was a volumin-
ous writer, and his writings produced a considerable
effect upon German literature. R. P.

2 Plutarchus, Quomodo adolescens Poetas audire debeat ,
ed. Reiske ; vol. vi. p. 61-2 : rirrov yap us €i$6<ri tl tt epl

TOVTUV TTpO(T€^OV(Tl T ois TTOITITCUS, £v oTs TOVS <t)L\00'6(p0VS lAiy-

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-276

LAQCOOX

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Ka\bv yevecrOat rb al(TXP^v‘ n 5e /ul/htjo-ls, 3av re tt epl (pavXov ,
&v re 7 rep! xpTIVT^v e(pLK7jrai r^s ojuoiorrjros, i'rraive'irai • real
rovvavriov clv alffxpov aco/uaros eiKova KaXrju irapa^xVi T ^
TTpenov Kal rb elfcbs ovk arredooKev.

Still less will they pay heed to poets as knowing anything about
matters in which they see philosophers have grown dizzy.

We shall render him still more careful if at the same time as we
introduce him to poems, we describe to him what poetry is— that it is
an imitative art and faculty correlative to painting ; and not let him
•only hear that hackneyed saying that poetry is speaking painting, and
painting is silent poetry, but teach him too that we take pleasure and-
ndmire when we see in a painting a lizard or an ape, or the face of
Thersites, not for its beauty, but for its likeness. For ugly things
■cannot in their real existence become beautiful ; but an imitation,
whether it be in a bad or good thing, if it attains to likeness, is praised ;
while contrariwise an imitation, which would give a lovely image of an
ugly form, would not represent what was suitable or fitting.

3 The fault must not be destructive. De Poetica , c. v.
vide Note 5, ch. xxiv.

4 Philos Schriften des Herrn Moses Mendelssohn , t. ii, s.
23.

5 Paralipom. 1. i. 720-775.

6 One touch of Nature makes the whole world kin.

Tr. and Cressida , act iii. sc. 3.

Homo sum humanum nihil a me alienum puto.

Terent. Beaut, i. 1-25. R. P.

7 King Lear , act i, sc. 2.

8 Richard III. act i, sc. 1.

CHAPTER XXIY

1 Brieje die neueste Liter atur betreffend, t. v, s. 102.
These were published at Berlin 1759-1765, under the
superintendence of Lessing’s friend, F. Nicolai. Those
signed F 11 and Gr are by Lessing, the rest chiefly by
Abbt, Mendelssohn, and Resewitz. See also Preface to
this work. R. P.

2 De Poetica, cap. iv, 5.

NOTES

277'

3 At a subsequent period (1769, Berlin) Lessing wrote
an essay on the way the ancients represented death, Wie
die Alten den Tod gebildet haben , Berlin, 1769. It was-
illustrated with engravings. (Gurauer, i, 37-40, 303.)
Lessing protested against the introduction of the skeleton
which Caylus and Winkelmann seem to have thought
was according to the usage of the ancients, though Homer
makes Apollo give the cleansed and perfumed body of
Sarpedon to the twins Death and Sleep. ("Yttz/^ koI Qauar cp
bLdvfidoaiv, II. n 672.) The proper emblems, according to
Lessing, were Death and his brother Sleep, and both
geniuses with an inverted torch. So Schiller in his Gotten
Griechenlands

Damals trat kein grassliches Gerippe
Vor das Bett der Sterbenden. Ein Kuss
Nahm das Leben von der Lippe ;

Seine Fackel senkt der Genius.

No ghastly skeleton at the bed of death
Scared the departing soul — no dismal cry —

One kiss alone received life’s latest breath,

Genius with torch reversed stood silent by. R. P.

4 Klotzii Eyistolae Homericae , p. 23, et seq. Christian
Adolph Klotz, a Privy Councillor, in Prussia ; Professor
of Philosophy and Eloquence at the University of Halle,
died in the year 1771, before he had completed his thirty-
second year. He seems to have been a superficial scholar,
at one time much over-estimated — acta litteraria 4 gelehr-
ten Zeitungen 5 at Halle. After the date of the publica-
tion of the Laocoon, about the year 1768, he made a literary
attack on Lessing’s dear friend Nicolai, and afterwards
assailed some of Lessing’s positions in the Laocoon. Klotz
published about this time his treatise, uberdie Ahnenbilder
der alten Romer. In a criticism upon this Lessing began
that series of attacks which demolished Klotz’s literary
reputation. A full account of this will be found in
Gurauer’s Lessings Leben und WerJce, II. 2, 9 kap. Briefe
des Herrn Lessing und des Herrn Klotz betreffend des
ersteren Laocoon und des letzteren Werk von den
geschnittenen Steinen, Leips. 1768. R. P.

6 There are three passages in Aristotle upon the curious
subject of our alleged liking to see the imitation of even
an ugly thing. The first is in his Poetics , cap. 4, § 6, the

278

LAOCOON

passage here referred to : T 6 re yap pufieiaQai crvjxQvrov rois
avQp&nois €K naiScov earl, Kal rovrcp biacpepovaL rcov &AAgov
£a>oov ftn fiLp.T]riK(i)Tar6v ian Kal ras fiaOnaeis noieirai 8id
fUfJL7](T6(i)s ras npdras, Kal rb %a ipeiv rois pu)xi]fxaaL n auras.

5e rovrov rb av/ifSaivov tirl rwv epyoo v & yap avrct
AvTrrjpcios opoo/aev, rovroov ras elKovas ras yaAcara rjKpL^ca/jievas
Xaipojxev Oecapovvres, oTov OrjpLccv re /aoptyas roov drifiordr gov
Kal veKpcov. Atriov 8e Kal rovrov, on fiavdaveiv ov uovov rois
<piAoa6(pois r)8iarov aAAa Kal rois dAAois 6/jlolcos * aAA’ ini
fipaxv Koivcovovaiv avrov. Aia yap rovro x^povai ras eiKovas
Spcovres, on avy^aiveL decopovvras yavQdveiv Kal avAAoyl(eaOai
rl eKaarov, olov on ovros eKeivos , e7rel eav pur) rvxv npoecopa-
kgos, ov 8ia fjLLfirjiJia noii\aei rrjv ydov^v aAAa 5m r)]V dnepya-
aiav f) r7]V xpota^ '/) 5m r oiavrrjv nva aAArjv airiav.

This is fairly translated by Twining, p. 107, v. (Aris-
totle’s Treatise on Poetry, by Daniel Twining, 2nd ed.
1812):

To imitate is instinctive in man from his infancy. By this he is dis-
tinguished from other animals, that he is, of all, the most imitative,
and through this instinct receives his earliest education. All men
likewise naturally receive pleasure from imitation. This is evident
from what we experience in viewing the works of imitative art ; for in
them, we contemplate with pleasure, and with the more pleasure, the
more exactly they are imitated, such objects as, if real, we could not
see without pain ; as, the figures of the meanest and most disgusting
animals, dead bodies and the like. And the reason of this is, that to
learn is a natural pleasure, not confined to philosophers, but common
to all men ; with this difference only, that the multitude partake of it
in a more transient and compendious manner. Hence the pleasure they
receive from a picture : in viewing it they learn , they infer , they dis-
cover, what every object is : that this, for instance, is such a particular
man, etc. For if we suppose the object represented to be something
which the spectator had never seen, his pleasure, in that case, will not
arise from the imitation, but from the workmanship, the colours, or
s ome such cause.

The second passage is a little farther on in the same
work : 'H 5e KGo/ucpbia earlv, &anep etn oyev, /al/arjaLs <pavAo-
ripwv fiev, ov [xevroi Kara naaav KaKiav, aAAa rov aiaxpov
earl rb 7eAotov fiopiov. rb yap yeAoiov eanv a^apr^/ia n Kal
ai(rxos dvcvbvvov Kal ov (pOapriKbv , olov evQvs rb yeAoiov npo-
aconov alaxpov n Kal bLear papLjaevov avev obvvrjs.

Thus translated by Twining

Comedy, as was said before, is an imitation of bad characters ; bad,
not with respect to every sort of vice, but to the ridiculous only, as
being a species of turpitude or deformity ; since it may be defined to

NOTES

279

be & fault or deformity of such a sorb as is neither painful nor destruc-
tive. A ridiculous face, for example, is something ugly and distorted,
but not so as to cause pain.

The third and, I think, the most remarkable passage is
in his Rhetoric ; ’Eire} de rb pavQaveiv re rjbv Kal rb Oavjud-
{eiv, /cal ra roidSe avayKp pfiea elvai oiov t6 re fxep.ipipfj.hov,
Sbcnrep ypacpiK ^ Kal avbpiavToiroua Kal iroipriK^], Kal tcclv % tiv
ev pepippvevov p, kolv p prj pbb avro rb pepippphov ov yap
h ri rovrcp xa'LPeii aWh <rv\\oyi(rp6s effnv oti rovro e/ceiVo,
facrre pavQaveiv rt crvpfialvei. Rhet. 1. 1, 11, 23,

But since learning and admiration and such things are pleasant, so
must also be pleasant both a work of imitation, as in painting, sculp-
ture, and poetry, and everything which is a good imitation, even if the
object imitated be not pleasant : for the pleasure does not arise on this
account, but there is a process of reasoning, ‘ this represents that ’, so
that some knowledge is acquired.

The inference from all these passages taken together is
not so hostile to Lessing’s position as at first sight might
appear. R. P.

CHAPTER XXV

i A strong confirmation of the doctrine, that all pleasure is a reflex
of activity, and that the free energy of every power is pleasurable, is
derived from the phaenomena presented by those affections which we
emphatically denominate the painful. . . . Take, for example, in the
first place, the affection of grief — the sorrow we feel in the loss of a
beloved object. Is the affection unaccompanied with pleasure? So
far is this from being the case, that the pleasure so greatly pre-
dominates over the pain as to produce a mixed emotion, which is far
more pleasurable than any other of which the wounded heart is sus-
ceptible. It is expressly stated by the younger Pliny, in a pissage
which commences with these words: ‘Est quaedam etiam dolendi
voluptas ’, etc. ‘ This has also been frequently signalised by the poets
— of whom the author cites several. Sir William Hamilton’s Lectures
on Metaphysics , vol. ii. pp. 481, 482. R. P.

Dante expresses an exactly opposite opinion

Nessun raaggior dolore
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria. Inf v. 121-3.

Petrarch has the same thought

Con dolor rimembrando il tempo lieto.

Sonetti , etc, In Morte di Laura Sestina. Cant. 46.

280

LAOCOON

The converse may also be true

Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit. R. P.

2 Ne<£>eA<u, 169-173

M. But lately of a thought magnificent

A Lizard robbed him. St. How? I pray thee, tell me.

M. As he was contemplating with open mouth
The ways and changes of the varying moon,

A Lizard from the roof dropped filth upon him.

St. Oh clever Lizard that could foul the mouth
Of Socrates.

The classical reader will remember the misfortune which
befell Gorgias, and his remarkable expostulation with the
swallow or nightingale which caused it, in the third book
of Aristotle’s Rhetoric, c. 4, § 3. R. P.

3 The Connoisseur, vol. i. No. 21. The whole passage is
copied from the English into the notes by the author ;
but as, in my opinion, the disgusting entirely absorbs the
ridiculous, I will not inflict a repetition and expansion
of the description in the text upon my readers. The
Connoisseur ‘by Mr. Town’, consisting of 140 numbers,
was written almost entirely by Colman and Thornton —
four volumes, published in 1761. I do not believe Lord
Chesterfield wrote in it ; he died a.d. 1773. R.P.

4 Scut. Hercul. 266. Achlys, ’AxAvs, Caligo, is the
name in Hesiod of the personification of wretchedness, as
represented on the shield of Hercules. Hesiod, one
of the earliest Greek poets, is supposed to have lived
at least one hundred years later than Homer, about B.c.
850. His greatest work was vEp7a kol\ 'Hpiepcu. The 5 A(nrls
'HpaitXtovs, scutum Herculis, referred to in the text, is
thought to have been part of a larger work. There is a
translation of The Remains of Hesiod into English verse,
by C. A. Elton, 1812. R. P.

5 n epl "Tif/ovs, riirifia -t) , p. 15, ed. T. Fabri. — Longinus,
Dionysius Cassius, a Greek philosopher of great reputa-
tion, who flourished in the third century of the Christian
Era; born about a.d. 213, died a.d. 273. He spent a
considerable part of his life at Athens, where his lectures
were celebrated, and his best works written. His thorough
knowledge of Palmyra and his ardent admiration for Plato,
led him, when he went to the East and became the trusted
adviser of Queen Zenobia of Palmyra, to exhort her to

NOTES

281

shake off the Roman yoke, which she vainly tried to do.
Aurelian destroyed Palmyra, and put to death Longinus.
Longinus is (Homerically speaking) a head and shoulders
higher than the philosophers of his time. His work on
the sublime, FTepl "Yi/zous, referred to in the text, is ex-
tremely eloquent and beautiful. R. P. ■

Shakspere gives them to his monster Caliban.

And I with my long nails will dig thee pig nuts.

Tempest , act ii, sc. 2.

Philoct. 31-39 :

NE. I see no trace of human creature here.

OD. Nor foo£, nor household implements to cook it.
NE. A mass of leaves heaped up to form a couch.

OD. All bare besides. NauKht else beneath the roof.
NE. A bowl made all of wood, the workmanship
Of some rude hand ; see too some firewood.

OD. And this is all the treasure that he hath.

NE. Alas ! alas! these reeking rags behold,

The solace of his wounds, laid here to dry. R P.

8 Aeneid, ii, 277.

R. P.

9 Metamor'ph. vi, 387

The skin was rent from off the shrieking wretch,

And he was all one wound.* The blood

Flowed all around, while the discovered nerves

Lay open and the palpitating veins

Quivered without their covering, you might see

Bowels protruding from their place, — the fibres

Transparent in his breast you might have counted. R. P„

10 Ibid. viii. 810

To her far off,

To her the goddess’s commands he bears ;

A while delaying, and while distant still,

But now arrived, she seemed at once to feel
The pangs of hunger. R. P.

11 Hym. in Cererem. 111-116.

12 Argonaut, ii. 228-33. Apollonius Rhodius, bom
about B.c. 235, flourished under Ptolemy Philopetor (b.c.
224-221), and Ptolemy Epiphanes (b.c. 204-181). He
lived at first in Alexandria, which he deserted for Rhodes ;
but he afterwards returned to Alexandria, where he died

* But Shakspere excites no disgust when he says of Coriolanus
from face to foot,

He was a thing of blood. Act ii, sc. 2. R. P.

282

LAOCOON

chief librarian of the Museum. His Argonautica , ‘ The
Expedition of the Argonauts’, consists of four books.
Valerius Flaccus was his Homan imitator.

Even from the trifling food that they may leave
Rises a foul intolerable smell,

Such as no mortal could endure to face.

Not had he heart of beaten adamant,

But bitter need of food compelleth me

To stay, and staying fill my wretched maw. R. P.

is Tu dei saper ch’ io fui T conte Ugolino,

E questi 1’ arcivescovo Ruggieri.

Or ti dir6 perch’ i son tal vicino.

Che per 1’ effetto de’ suoi ma’ pensieri,

Fidandomi di lui, io fossi preso
E poscia morto, dir non e mestieri.

Perd quel che non puoi avere inteso,

Ciod come la morte mia fu cruda,

Udirai ; e saprai se m’ ha offeso.

Breve pertugio dentro dalla muda,

La qual per me ha ’1 titol della fame,

E ’n che conviene ancor ch’ altri si chiuda,

M’ avea mostrato per lo suo forame
Piu lune gia ; quand’ io feci T inal sonno,

Che del futuro mi squarcid ’1 velame.

Questi pareva a me maestro e donno,

Cacciando ’1 lupo e i lupieini al monte,

Per che i Pisan veder Lucca non ponno.

Con cagne magre, studiose e conte,

Gualandi con Sismondi e con Lanfranchi
S’ avea messi dinanzi dalla fronte.

In picciol corso mi pareano stanchi
Lo padre e i figli ; e con 1’ agute sane
Mi parea lor veder fender li fianchi.

Quando fui desto innanzi la dimane,

Pianger senti’ fra ’1 sonno i miei figluoli,

Ch’ eran meco, e dimandar del pane.

Ben sei crudel, se tu gia non ti duoli,

Pensando ci6 che ’1 mio cor s’ annunziava ;

E se non piangi, di che pianger suoli?

Gia eran desti ; e 1’ ora s’ appressava
Che ’1 cibo ne soleva essere addotto,

E per suo sogno ciascun dubitava ;

Ed io senti’ chiovar 1’ uscio di sotto
All’ orribile torre ; ond’ io guardai
Nel viso a’ miei figliuoi senza far motto.

Io non piangeva ; si dentro impietrai.

Piangevan elli ; ed Anselmuccio mio
Disse : Tu guardi si padre : che hai?

Pereid non lacrimai, ne rispos’ io
Tutto quel giorno, ne la notte appresso,

Infin che 1’ altro sol nel mondo uscio.

Com’ un poco di raggio si fu messo
Nel doloroso carcere, ed io scorsi

NOTES

283

Per quattro visi lo mio aspetto stesso ;

Ambo le mani per dolor mi morsi.

E quei, pensando ch’ io ’1 fessi per voglia
Di manicar, di subito levorsi,

E disser : Padre, assai ci lia men doglia,

Se tu mangi di noi : tu ne vestisti
Queste mi sere carni, e tu ne spoglia.

Quetaimi allor, per non fargli pm tristi :

Quel di e 1’ altro stemmo tutti muti.

Ahi dura terra, perch6 non t’ apristi ?

Posciache fummo al quarto di venuti,

Gaddo mi si gett6 disteso a’ piedi,

Dicendo : Padre mio, che non nr aiuti?

Quivi mori. E come tu me vedi

Yid’ io li tre cascar ad uno ad uno

Tra 1 quinto di e 1 sesto : ond’ io mi diedi

Gia cieeo a brancolar sopra ciascuno,

E tre di gli chiamai, poiche e’ fur morti ;

Poscia, phi che il dolor, pot6 il digiuno.

Quand’ ebbe detto cid, con gli occhi torti
Riprese 1 teschio misero co’ denti,

Che furo all’ osso, come d’ un can, forti.

Dante, La Divina Commedia, Inf. xxxiii. 13-78.

„ . . ‘ Know I was on earth

Count Ugolino, and the Archbishop he
Ruggieri. Why I neighbour him so close,

Now list. That through effect of his ill thoughts
In him my trust reposing, I was ta’en
And after murder’d, need is not I tell.

What therefore thou canst not have heard, that is,
How cruel was the murder, shalt thou hear,

And know if he have wrong’d me. A small grate
Within that mew, which for my sake the name
Of famine bears, where others yet must pine,
Already through its opening several moons
Had shown me, when I slept the evil sleep
That from the future tore the curtain off.

This one methought, as master of the sport,

Rode forth to chase the gaunt wolf and his whelps
Unto the mountain which forbids the sight
Of Lucca to the Pisan. With lean brachs
Inquisitive and keen, before him ranged
Lanfranchi with Sismondi and Gualandi.

After short course the father and the sons
Seem’d tired and lagging, and methought I saw
The sharp tusks gore their sides. When I awoke
Before the dawn, amid their sleep I heard
My sons (for they were with me) weep and ask
For bread. Right cruel art thou, if no pang
Thou feel at thinking what my heart foretold ;
And if not now, why use thy tears to flow ?

Now had they waken’d ; and the hour drew near
When they were wont to bring us food ; the mind
Of each misgave him through his dream, and I

284

LAOCOON

Heard at its outlet underneath lock’d up

The horrible tower : whence, uttering not a word,

I look’d upon the visage of my sons.

I wept not : so all stone I felt within.

They wept : and one, my little Anselm, cried,

“ Thou lookest so ! Father, what ails thee ? ” Yet
I shed no tear nor answer’d all that day
Nor the next night, until another sun
Came out upon the world. When a faint beam
Had to our doleful prison made its way,

And in four countenances I descried

The image of my own, on either hand

Through agony I bit ; and they, who thought

I did it through desire of feeding, rose

O’ the sudden, and cried, “Father, we should grieve

Far less, if thou wouldst eat of us : thou gav’st

These weeds of miserable flesh we wear ;

And do thou strip them off from us again ”.

Tuen, not to make them sadder I kept down
My spirit in stillness. That day and the next
We all were silent. Ah, obdurate earth !

Why open’dsr not upon us ? When we came
To the fourth day, then Gaddo at my feet
Outstretch'd did fling him, crying, “Hast no help
For me, my father?” There he died ; and e’en
Plainly as thou seest me, saw I the three
Fall one by one 'twixt the fifth day and sixth :

Whence I betook me now grown blind, to grope
Over them all, and for three days aloud
' Call’d on them who were dead. Then, fasting got
The mastery of grief ! ’ Thus having spoke,

Once more upon the wretched skull his teeth
He fastened like a mastiff’s ’gainst the bone,

Firm and unyielding. Inf. xxxiii. Cary’s Translation.

14 The Sea Voyage, act iii, sc. 1. A French pirate is
wrecked with his ship upon a desert island. Avarice
and envy separate his crew, and give an opportunity to a
miserable couple, who for a long time in this island had
been exposed to the extremities of famine, to run off with
the ship. The wrecked men, without any means of
sustaining life, see the most miserable of deaths before
their eyes, and they express, one to the other, their
hunger and despair as follows. [Here Lessing cites a
long passage from the play, beginning —

Lamure. Oh what a tempest have I in my stomach !

and ending —

Lamure. A most unprovident villain.

The details are very disgusting ; I abstain from stating
them. It. P.]

NOTES 285

15 Richardson, Essay on the Theory of Painting, ed. 1773,
p. 51. [The passage is

Every figure and animal must be affected in the picture as one
shou-d suppose they would, or ought to be. And a;l the expressions
of the several passions and sentiments must be made wit i regard to
the characters of the persons moved by them. At the raising of
Lazarus, some may be allowed to be made to hold something before
their noses, and this would be very just, to denote that eiruumstance
in the story, the time he had been dead; but this is exceedingly im-
proper in the laying our Lord in the sepulchre, although he had been
dead much longer than he was ; however, Pordenone has done it.
R. P.]

CHAPTER XXVI

1 If Lessing had ever accomplished the full design of
his work, and had finished the other parts of it of which
we have but fragments, he would doubtless have included
music in its modern sense in this bond : 2 3 4 etenim omnes
artes, quae ad humanitatem pertinent, habent quoddam
commune vinculum et quasi cognatione quadam inter se
continentur \ Lessing knew well the speaker and the
sentiment. R. P.

2 Gurauer remarks that this passage, which for ever
united the kindred geniuses of Lessing and Winkelmann,
was expected by Herder and others to be followed
immediately by a searching and thorough examination
of Winkelmann’s work. 4 This expectation was however
not then, nor ever afterwards fulfilled’. Nicolai and
other friends of Lessing also expected a quarrel between
Winkelmann and Lessing ; the latter being reported to
have said that the antiquarian part of the GescJu elite der
Kunst rested on a rotten foundation. That no quarrel
took place was mainly due to Lessing’s forbearance,
though partly to a somewhat reluctant perception by
Winkelmann of Lessing’s merit. Leben und W erke von
Lessing , pp. 11, 88-9. R. P.

3 Geschichte der Kunst , 347.

4 Not Apollodorus, but Polydorus. Pliny alone mentions
these artists, and I am not aware that the manuscripts
differ from one another as to this name. Hardouin would
certainly have remarked it. All the ancient editions

286

LAOCOON

read Polydorus. Herr Winkelmann must in this little
matter have made a slip in writing.

5 ’AdrjvdScopos 5e kcl\ Aa/xlas. Ovroi de 'Ap/caties elaiv 4k
KAeiT opos. Phoc., cap. 9, 819, edit. Kuh.

6 Plinius, lib. xxxiv, cap. 8 : 6 Propriae hujus (i. e.
Lysippi) videntur esse argutiae operum, custoditae in
minimis quoque rebus’. But see lib. xxxv, cap. 10, where
Pliny says, ‘ Parasius Ephesi natus et ipse multa consti-
tuit. Primus symmetriam picturae dedit, primus argutias
vultus elegantiam capilli5, etc. The reference of Lessing
to Pliny is here, as elsewhere, incorrect. B. P.

7 Lib. xxxvi, cap. 5.

Beyond these, there are not many sculptors of high repute, for in
the case of several works of very great excellence, the number of
artists that have been engaged upon them has proved a considerable
obstacle to the fame of each, no individual being able to engross the
whole of the credit, and it being impossible to award it in due
proportion to the names of the several artists combined. Such is the
case of the Laocoon, for example, in the palace of the Emperor Titus,
a work that may be looked upon as preferable to any other production
of the art of painting or of statuary. It is sculptured from a single
block, both the main figure as well as the children, and the serpents
with their marvellous folds. This group was made in concert by three
most eminent artists, Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus, natives
of Rhodes. In similar manner also the palaces of the Caesars, in the
Palatium have been filled with most splendid statuary, the work of
Craterus, in conjunction with Pythodorus, of Poly deuces and
Hermolaus, and of another Pythodorus with Artemon : some of
the statues, also, are by Aphrodisius of Tralles, who worked alone.
The Pantheon of Agrippa has been decorated by Diogenes of Athens,
and the Caryatides, by him, which form the columns of that temple,
are looked upon as masterpieces of excellence : the same, too, with
the statues that are placed upon the roof, though, in consequence of
the height, they have not had an opportunity of being so well
appreciated. R. P.

8 Boeotie, cap. xxxiv, p. 778, edit. Kuhn.

9 Plinius, lib. xxxvi, cap. 5.

10 Geschichte der Kunst, t. 11, s. 331.

11 Plinius, lib. xxxvi, cap. 5.

12 Ad ver. 7, lib. 11, Aeneid, and especially at verse
183, lib. xi. It would be right to add such a work as
this to the catalogue of the lost writings of this man.

13 Plinius, lib. xxxvi, cap. 5.

NOTES

287

CHAPTER XXYII

1 Geschichte der Kunst, t. 11, s. 347.

2 Lib. xxxvi, cap. v.

3 Consult the catalogue of superscriptions upon ancient
works of art (Ad Phaedri,fab. 5, lib. 1), and take at the same
time into council the corrections of them from Gronovius,
Praef. ad tom. ix. Thesauri Antiqu. Graec.

4 Prae/atio.

Yet lest I should seem to be altogether attacking the Greeks, I
would choose that I should be understood as being of the class of those
first masters of painting and modelling, whom you will find in these
books writing on their completed works (works which we are never
tired of admiring), an inscription denoting incompleteness, as ‘Apelles
was making’ or ‘Polycletus ’, as if the work was ever inchoate and
imperfect ; so that from the varieties of criticism the artist might have
a way of escape towards pardon, as being ready to correct whatever was
desired, if he had not been cut off. How modest it was in them to
inscribe all their works as if they were their last, and as if in each case
they had been during them cut off by fate. Three works and no more,
I believe, which I shall describe in their turn, are said to have been in-
scribed, as if finished, ‘ He made’, by which it appeared that the artist
had the greatest confidence in his work, and for this reason all these
were the subjects of great jealousy, ft. P.

CHAPTER XXVIII

1 Gesch . der Kunst , t. 11, s. 394.

2 Cap. xii.

3 On this passage (Fuseli remarks) simple and unperplexed, if we
except the words ‘Caeterique artifices’, where something is evidently
dropped or changed, there can I trust be but one opinion — that the
manoeuvre of Chabrias was defensive, and consisted in giving the
phalanx a stationary, and at the same time impenetrable posture, to
check the progress of the enemy ; a repulse, not a victory was ob-
tained ; the Thebans were content to maintain their ground, and not a
word is said by the historian of a pursuit, when Agesilaus, startled at
the contrivance, called off his troops : but the warrior of Agasias rushes
forward in an assailing attitude, whilst with his head and shield turned
upwards he seems to guard himself from some attack above him.
Lessing, aware of this, to make the passage square with his conjecture,
is reduced to a change of punctuation, and accordingly transposes the
decisive comma after ‘scuto’, to ‘genu’, and reads ‘ obnixogenu, scuto
project&que hastd— docuit’. This alone might warrant us to dismiss

LAOCOON

288

his conjecture as less solid than daring and acute. Fuseli, Life and
Writings , vol. ii. p. 148, note, lecture 111.

Lessing became aware of his mistake, and retracted it
in his Antiquarische Briefe. 0. Muller ( Handbuch , 163)
observes that it is probably a foot-soldier defending him-
self with shield and lance against a soldier on horseback —
the figure being taken by Agasias from a larger group.
Gurauer (2), 89-90, note. R. P.

CHAPTER XXIX

1 Tlepl "Yif/ovs, T/j.?ifjLa t5', edit. F. Fabri, p. 36-39.

[And bow the rhetorical imagination requires one thing and that of
poets another, you wiil not fail to perceive, nor that the end of that in
poetry is to astonish, and of that in oratory to make clear. Assuredly
the language used by the poets has an extravagance more' fabulous, and
every way transcending what is credible ; but the best part of the rhe-
torical imagination is ever that which is practicable and true. R. P.]

2 De Pidura Vet. lib. i. cap. 4, p. 33.

[Especially when the end of the poetical imagination is to astonish,
but of that of painting to make clear. And among the poets, as the
same Longinus says. R. P.]

3 Von der Nachahmung der Griech. Verse, s. 23.

4 T /arj/ua

[Next to this is a third sort of deformity in pathetic writing, which
Theodorus calls Parenthyrsus. It is an unseasonable and empty grief
where none is needed, or an uncontrolled one where one under control
is required. R. P.]

5 Geschichte der Kunst, t. i. s. 23.

6 Sat. xii. 43, etc.

‘ Away with all that’s mine he cries, 1 away ! ’

And^plunges in the deep, without delay,

Purples, etc.

W th these, neat baskets from the Britons bought,

Rich silver chargers by Parthenius wrought,

Ahu.e two-handed goblet, which might strain
A Pholus, or a Fuscus’ wife, to drain ;

Follow’d by numerous dishes, heaps of plate
Plain and enchased, which served, of ancient date,

The wily chapman of the Olynthian State.

Gifford. R. P.

NOTES

289

7 Herodotus de Vita Homeri , p, 756, edit. Wessel.

It should be observed that in MSS. and early editions the name of
Herodotus is frequently confounded with Herodorus and Heliodorus.
Whether the work Ilepi rrj? *0 wpov jSiorjfc, is the production of a
grammarian of the name of Herodotus, or whether the author’s name
is a mere invention, it is impossible to say ; thus much only we know,
that some of the ancients themselves attributed it to Herodotus the
historian. Steph. Byz. s. v. NeW reixos ; Suid. s. v/O^pos ; Eustath.
ad Horn. II. p. 876. Smith’s Diet. v. 2, p. 436. R. P.]

8 Iliad, H 219 : —

Ajax came near : and like a tow’r his shield his bosom barr’d ;

The right side brass, and seven ox-hides within it quilted hard :

Old Tychius, the best currier that did in Hyla dwell,

Did frame it for exceeding proof, and wrought it wondrous well.

Chapman. R. P.

9 Gesch. der Kunst, t. 1, s. 176 ; Plinius, lib. xxxv. sect.
36 ; Athenaeus, lib. xii. p. 543.

Athenaeus, born in Egypt ; a man of letters, a y pa/ajaa-
tikos. His date is uncertain, probably between a.d. 200
and 300. His surviving work is Aenruoo-ocpLaral, usually
rendered a banquet of the learned ; in it he gives extracts
from authors whose works are lost. R. P.

10 Gesch. der Kunst , t. 11, s. 353 ; Plinius, lib. xxxvi.
sect. 4, p. 739, 1-17.

11 Gesch. der Kunst , t. 11, s. 328.

12 KpoKv\€y/bibs is ‘ a picking off, twitching at the flocks
of wool ’, applied to delirious people in medicine : hence
metaphorically it means ‘ a dealing in trifles, a trifling ’,
from KpoKvs or kpoktj, the flock or nap of wool. Kleinig-
keitskramerei Gurauer paraphrases it, i.e. giving one’s
mind to trifles. Lessing's Leben 'and Werke , ii. 89. R. P.

APPENDIX

Certain Notes prepared by Lessing for a Second and Third

Part of the ‘ Laocoon , ’ and perhaps for a new edition of

the First Part.

§ 1

i. Laocoon : Repetition of Winkelmann’s observation
— True cause from the law of Beauty — Proof that Beauty
was the highest law of ancient Art.

II. Second cause : From the change of the Transitory
into the Stationary — The extremest moment is the least
fruitful.

hi. Nature to be further compared with the picture of
the Poet — Wherein and wherefore both stood apart from
each other.

iv. Agreement of both : Probable presumption arising
out of this agreement that one had the other before his
eyes. The Greeks tell the story very differently ; hence
the probability that the artists imitated Virgil.

v. A Spence can scarcely be of my opinion — His strange
system according to which all merit of the Poet is lost —
Proof how little he understood the distinct domains of
Painting and Poetry, (1) The infuriated Venus, (2) Alle-
gorical beings.

vi. A Caylus has done more justice to the Poets. He
acknowledges that the artists are much indebted to the
Poets and might be still more indebted. His pictures
from Homer — Objection to the combined results of them,
from the invisible scenes of the Poet.

vii. False explanation, affecting the order of rank
which Caylus assigns to Poets according to the number
of their pictures. He has not discriminated between the
picture of which the Poet, and the picture of which the
Painter may avail himself. He always takes the latter :
and the other is left out, wherefore the order of rank can
only be one-sided — Proofs from the fourth book of the
Iliad.

290

APPENDIX

291

yin. Reasons why the picture of the Poet can seldom
be the picture of the Painter. The former paints pro-
gressive action, and the latter beings subsisting by them-
selves on their own account. Examples how Homer
knows how to change these beings into actions.

ix. Answer to the objection to the Homeric shield,
from this point of view — The Poet paints expressly that
which the artist had intended, and will not allow himself
to be confined within the limits of material art.

§ 2

i. Winkelmann ’s history of Art has in the meantime
appeared — Praise of it. How he deals with the epoch of
Laocoon. He has not the slightest historical grounds in
his favour : his judgment is entirely founded on the Art
- — Pliny appears, when he mentions Laocoon, to be speak-
ing only of modern artists. Refutation of Maffei’s opinion
which Winkelmann did not choose entirely to expose :
and why.

ii. Proof from the £tt oUl and £ttol7](T€ that Laocoon is
not so old a work — Detailed explanation of certain
passages in Pliny.

hi. But if he does not belong to the epoch which
Winkelmann assigns to him : at least he deserves to
belong to it, and that suffices for a history of the Art
which is to form our taste — Moreover, Winkelmann has
spoken with greater precision as to the repose of the
Laocoon, and he is of my opinion that beauty is the
cause of this repose.

iv. His declaration that the modern poets have more
pictures than the ancient, and furnish fewer — a comment-
ary on these words to be desired — Whence the difference
between poetical and material pictures springs — On the
difference of the signs which Poetry and Painting make
use of.

v. In Space and in Time — consequences— to the former
bodies, to the latter motion — this motion made significant
through the media of bodies. These bodies made signifi-
cant through the media of motion — Express Painting of
bodies therefore forbidden to Poetry — And when it does
paint such, it does it not as an imitative Art, but as a

292

LAOCOON

medium of illustration — So Painting is not an imitative
Art, but a mere medium of illustration when it repre-
sents different epochs in one space.

vi. Beauty in particular is not the subject of Poetry,
but of all creative Arts. Homer has not painted Helen —
But the old painters have made use of all his indications
of her beauty. The Helen of Zeuxis.

vn. Of Ugliness — defence of Thersites : in a poem —
Rejection of him in a picture. Caylus was right in leav-
ing him out. La Motte not. Introduction of Thersites
into the Epigoniad. Nireus was not the most beautiful
of the Greeks — therefore Clarke’s remark is false in his
letters on Literature, vii, p. 1251. N.B. of Disgust —
The Discordia in Petronius.

viii. Beauty — pictorial value of Bodies — This of itself
leads us to the rule of the ancients : that expression must
be subordinated to Beauty — The Ideal of Beauty in Paint-
ing has perhaps caused the Ideal of moral perfection in
Poetry — From it also the Ideal in actions has been
imagined. The Ideal of actions consists (1) in the abridg-
ment of Time, (2) in the elevation of motives and the
exclusion of accident, (3) in the excitement of the
passions.

ix. Still more are inanimate beauties forbidden to the
Poet. Condemnation of Thomson’s pictures — of Land-
scape painting, whether there is an ideal of beauty in
Landscapes. It is denied — Hence the inferior work of
Landscapes — The Greeks and Italians had none. Proof
from the reversed horses of Pausanias that they never
painted subordinate landscapes — Presumption that all
perspective painting arose out of scene painting.

x. Poetry paints bodies only by the significance of
motion. Artifice of the Poets to reveal visible qualities
by means of motion — Examples — Height of a tree — Size
of a serpent — Of motion in Painting — Why men only and
not wild beasts are there — Of Speed.

xi. Therefore Poetry paints bodies with only one or
two traits — Difficulty in which Painting is often placed in
painting these traits — Distinction — Poetical pictures in
which these traits can be easily and well painted, and in
which they cannot. The former are Homeric, the latter
Miltonic and Klopstockian.

xii. Presumption — that the blindness of Milton in-

APPENDIX 293

fluenced his style of painting — Proof, e. g. from darkness
visible.

xiii. The first cause was the Oriental style. Moses.
Conjecture : from the lack of painting. That what is
Biblical is not necessarily beautiful — Grammarians find
faults of language in the Bible : artists may find faults in
the pictures it gives. The Holy Ghost has in both
instances operated Secundum subjedam matericm — and if
the Revelation had happened in a Northern Country
there might have been a totally different style and different
pictures.

xiy. Homer has very few Miltonic pictures — They are
striking — but do not abstract you, and for this reason
Homer was the greater painter. He has put his whole
picture clear and clean — and has shown a painter’s eye —
Remark on the groups — never more than three persons.

xv. Of collective actions, such as are common to Poetry
and Painting.

§3

i. On the distinction between natural and arbitrary
signs. The signs of Painting are not all natural, and the
natural characteristics of arbitrary signs cannot be so
natural as the natural characteristics of natural things.
There is much that is conventional on the subject —
Example of the clouds.

ii. They also cease to be natural by change of dimen-
sions. Necessity of the Painter to make use of those as
large as life — Failure of the Art in mountainous scenery.
Poetry can produce vertigo but not Painting.

in. The signs of Poetry are not purely arbitrary. Its
words considered as tones can naturally imitate no objects.
This admitted. But its words are susceptible of being
differently placed with relation to each other : can there-
fore paint different series of things, both following on and
by the side of each other — Example of this. So the
motion of organs can express the motion of things —
Example of this.

IV. Introduction of divers arbitrary signs through
allegory. Good use of allegory in so far as Art by it is
brought back to the perception of Beauty and is kept
aloof from wild expression.

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LAOCOON

v. Ill use of widely discursive allegories, which are
always dark. Illustration from Raffaello’s school of
Athens ; and especially from the deification by Homer.

VI. Use of arbitrary signs in the art of dancing — That
on this very account the art of dancing of the ancients so
far surpassed that of the moderns.

vn. The use of arbitrary signs in Music — Attempt to
explain thereby the marvel and the value of ancient music
— Of the influence which the legislator derived from it.

viii. Necessity of observing limits in all the fine arts,
and not indulging in all possible extensions and supposed
improvements. Because through these extensions they
are led astray from their true end and lose their impression.
Euler’s discoveries in Music.

ix. On this extension of modern times in painting—
Whereby the Art has become infinitely difficult : and it is
very probable that all our artists will remain in mediocrity.
Influence which faults in the adjoining parts of a subject,
e.g. in light and shadow and perspective, have on the
whole, whereas on the other head the entire abstinence
from all these parts would not be repulsive to us.

x. Encouragement to call back educated artists from
the old times, and to occupy themselves with the events
of our own time. Aristotle’s advice to paint the exploits
of Alexander.

Additional Notes to § 3

A. 1. Scattered remarks on certain passages of Winkel-
mann’s history : where he has not been sufficiently
accurate. The Antigone of Sophocles. The chalices of
Parthenius. The artist of the shield of Ajax.

ii. Of the Borghese gladiators.

in. Of the Cupido of Praxiteles.

iv. Of the art of casting in bronze : that it was not
lost in the time of Nero.

v. Conjecture as to the Net, p. 203 [Winkelmann],

vi. Of the schools of the old painting, and of the Asiatic
artists.

B . Gerard believes, contrary to my opinion, that Painting
is able to express that kind of the sublime which is con-
nected with magnitude of dimensions, for, says he, if it
cannot preserve these very dimensions, at least it can

APPENDIX

285

leave to them their comparative greatness, and this is
sufficient to produce the sublime. He is mistaken. It is
sufficient to show me that these comparatively great
objects must be sublime in nature, but not sufficient to
produce the feelings which they awaken in nature. A
great majestic temple which I can scarcely take in at a
single glance is on this very account sublime, because I
can let my eye wander round it, and wherever it rests I
observe the harmonious proportions of its grandeur, solid-
ity, and simplicity. But this very temple transferred to
the narrow space of a copper-plate ceases to be sublime,
that is, to excite my astonishment, for the very reason
that I can at once cast my eye over it all. If I think of
it as executed in all its proper dimensions, I only feel that
I should be astonished to see it so executed ; but at
present I do not wonder at it. It is true that I can
wonder at its design, at its noble simplicity ; but this is a
wonder which arises from the sight of the skill of the
artist not from the sight of the dimensions. Cibber’s
criticism on a passage of Nat. Lee, which he declares to
be nonsense, because no picture could be made from it.
And what Warburton on the contrary remarks (on Pope’s
Prologue to the Satires , v. 121). I hold with Warburton
that the passage has beauty. But Cibber is also right that
it would not bear being painted. What is the inference ?
that the criterion is false, and that certainly there are
poetical pictures which cannot be painted.

The artist must keep before his eyes not only the power
but especially the end of art. He must not do all that
Art can do. It is only because we forget this principle
that our arts are more discursive and more difficult, and
for this reason less effective.

Observations sur Vltalie , tom. ii, p. 30. In the days of
Saint Rochus, the Venetian Painters had a public exhi-
bition of their works in la scuola di S. Rocco.

Cette Scuola, l’une des premieres de Venise, estremplie de sujets du
N. T. de la main di Tintoret de la plus grande force de ce Maitre. Je
fus singuli^rement frapp6 de celui qui represente l’Annonciation.
Le mur qui ferine la chambre de la Vierge du cotd de la campagne,
s’6eroule, et l’ange entre de plein vol par la br6che

This observation is excellent. As the Painter cannot

296

LAOCOON

express the spiritual essence of the Angel, which can
penetrate all bodies without destroying them, he expresses
his power. In the end he excites the same idea, namely,
that such a being cannot be excluded by anything, or
restrained by anything, it may be on account of his
spirituality or of his power.

Plinius, lib. 35, cap 10 of Arellius : Flagitio insigni cor-
rupisset arterri , . . . Peas pingens , sed Dilectarum imagine.
He made portraits of these instead of painting them
according to an Ideal. Several modern painters have
done the same thing with respect to the Blessed Virgin,
e. g. Carlo Maratti, who took the portrait of her from his
own wife.

In the Anthology of the younger Burmann (p. 20) there
is an Epigram on Laocoon in which the line

Hinc tolerasse ferunt saeva venena virum

is suspicious on account of the tolerasse. If this Epi-
gram is, as appears, made on the statue, it would be
necessary to change the tolerasse ; but the Poet may here
also and at the same time intended to have regard to the
patience with which Laocoon endured his own grief.

Richardson * [Theory of Painting ), p. 6 : ‘ After having
read Milton one sees Nature with better eyes than before,
beauties appear which else had been unregarded ’.

And this, moreover, is the only real use which the artist
can extract from the Poet. Poems ought to be like per-
petual eyes to them and a sort of magnifying glasses
through which they can observe things which they could
not discriminate with their naked eyes.

Page 8. Richardson considers the imitative Arts from
a politico- econo mical point of view, in so far as they
increase the wealth of a state. It is true that the artist

* Lessing cites Richardson, Traite de la Peinture, t. i, p. 9, and the
whole passage in Freuch. Probably he was only acquainted with a
French translation bearing this title. But Richardson wrote—

1. The Theory of Painting.

2. Essay on the Art of Criticism so far as it relates to Painting.

4. The Science of a Connoisseur.

These are all to be found in one volume (1773), and Lessing seems to
have confounded them together, or probably the French translation did
so, and the reference to the pages is generally wrong. R. P.

APPENDIX 297

employs few and not very costly materials and out of them
creates something which is infinitely more valuable.

But if the Administrative Government were to undertake
the supervision and protection of Painting, as if it were a
public manufactory ; the destruction of Art and the cor-
ruption of Taste would not only be inevitable but at last
the labour expended would not be worth as much as the
materials worked up in it.

Page 27 ( Theory of P. of Invention) Example— Instance
in which Raffaello has departed as much from natural as
from historical truth. From the former in his cartoons
at Hampton Court, where he represents the miraculous
draught of fishes : and makes the boat much too small for
the persons in it. From the latter, in the cartoon of the
healing by Peter and John of the cripple at the Beautiful
Gate of the Temple, where he has introduced columns
inlaid with figures.

But there is a great difference between these two
departures, the latter increases the good effect, the former
diminishes it. To the natural eye I mean. The former is
repellent to all men, the latter only to the learned.

Page 31. There have been great painters who have
endeavoured to bring into one picture the consecutive
events of a history, e. g. Titian himself ; the whole history
of the Prodigal Son, from the time of his quitting his
father’s house to the time of his great misery. Richard-
son says this incongruity is like the faults which bad
dramatists commit when they overstep the unity of time,
and make a single piece last a whole year. But the fault
of the painter is infinitely more incongruous. For,

(1.) The painter had not the means which the poet had
to assist our imagination with respect to the violation of
the unity of time and place. Perspective is an insufficient
means for this end.

(2. ) The fault of the poet maintains a certain proportion
with truth. When we are in the first act in Rome, and
in the second in Egypt, we are nevertheless in both these
places by degrees : when the Hero marries in the first act,
and in the second has grown up children, there is still an
interval between the two ; whereas with the painter all
the different places are necessarily in one place, all the
different periods of time flow together into one point of

298 LAOCOON

time, because we at once look over everything in the work
of the painter.

(3. ) The poet keeps in view the principal thing : but in
the picture the unity of the Hero is lost. For, as I at
once look over everything, I see the Hero at the same
time more than once, which produces a most unnatural
impression.

Page 26 of Invention. Raffaello has made use of a three-
fold light in one of his pictures in the Vatican, which
represents the miraculous delivery of St. Peter from
prison. The first is the emanation of light from Jthe
angel, the second is the effect of the torch, and the third
is the light of the moon. All these three lights have each
their own peculiar light and reflective light, and taken
all together produce a wonderful effect.

This beauty is, presumably, one of those upon which
Raffaello came by accident. As such it deserves all praise.
It was not his principal design : and it is neither the first
nor the only beauty in his piece.

Page 34. Annibale Caracci never put more than twelve
figures into his pictures.

Rubens in his resurrection of Lazarus at Sans Souci has
chosen the moment when Lazarus comes forth already
alive from the grave. I believe that this is the proper
moment ; it obviates the necessity of holding the nose,
for the stench could not have continued with the living
Lazarus.

Page 61. Raffaello and Annibale Caracci could not alto-
gether dispense with writing in their pictures. For
example — however much Painting must keep clear of all
composition which is not intelligible of itself — there is
nevertheless a great difference when Raffaello or Caracci
write, and when any other painter does so. Without the
writing, it is true, the particular history represented by
Raffaello would not be intelligible, but his picture, as a
picture, would always produce an excellent effect. While
most other historical painters have only the merit of
having represented history.

Page 63. Michael Angelo took his Charon from a
passage in Dante —

APPENDIX 299

Caron, dimonio con occhi di bragia
Batte col remo qualunque s’ adagia.

In the engraving of the Last Judgment you only recognise
the action expressed in the last verse. Did Angelo also
represent the eyes of glowing coal?

Page 64. Of Composition . On the effect which a picture
shall produce upon the eye at a distance, before the
separate objects can be distinguished. This is what
Coppel compares with the exordium of a speech.

Page 66. In the Notte del Corregio in which ail the light
is shed abroad from the newborn Saviour. I cannot agree
with Richardson that on this account the painter ought
to have dispensed with the full moon, inasmuch as it
would give no light. This very no-light is here a very
frequent thought of the painter, founded upon the notion
that the great light must obscure the lesser. This
thought is more valuable than the little shock which the
eye receives is injurious, which shock makes us more
attentive than we should otherwise be to the thing itself.

What Richardson (p. 120, &c., 82, 83, Design on Draw-
ing) says of the excellence of drawing is very useful in
enabling us to define the merit of colourists. If it is true
that the artist, when the difficulties of colouring do not
distract him, can advance, with all freedom of thought,
straight to his end : if it be true that in the drawings of
the best painters we find a spirit, a life, a freedom, a
delicacy which we do not find in their paintings : if it be
true that the pen and the pencil can make things which
the brush cannot make — if it be true that the brush with
a single liguido in thin liquid can execute things to which,
he who has to manage many colours, especially in oil,
cannot attain — then I ask, whether the most wonderful
colouring can compensate us for all this loss ? Indeed I
might ask whether it were not to be desired that the art
of painting in oil had never been discovered ?

Page 212. Is it very probable that the hope which
Richardson here expresses can ever be fulfilled ? That a
painter should arise who would surpass Raffaello, because
lie would combine the Contour of the ancient masters with

300

LAOCOON

best colouring of the modern masters. It is true that I
see no impossibility to prevent this combination taking
place. It is, however, another question whether the age
and industry of any mortal man are sufficient to bring
this combination to perfection. The remarks which have
been made upon drawing appear to answer this question in
the negative. But if this were all, each artist, the greater
advance he had made in one part, the more he would
necessarily lag behind in the other. The question there-
fore remains in which part we should wish him to excel ?
On the subject of excellence in drawing there is a good
passage p. 26, Sur Vart de critiquer en fait de peinture.

C. Allegory

One of the most concise and beautiful of allegorical
fictions is to be found in Milton, where Satan deceives
Uriel {Paradise Lost , bk. iii. 685)

Oft though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps
At wisdom’s gate, and to simplicity
• Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill
Where no ill seems.

It is in this way that allegorical fictions please me, but to
pursue them discursively, to describe with all the attri-
butes of painting these imaginary beings, and to found
upon them a whole series of manifold events, seems to be
a childish, gothic, monkish kind of wit. The only way
to render a discursive allegorical fiction at all tolerable is
that which Cebes has made use of ; he does not narrate a
mere fiction, but tells us how it would have been treated
by a painter.

The Blindness of Milton

I am of opinion that the blindness of Milton had an
influence upon his manner of painting and of describing
visible objects.

Besides the example to which I have already adverted,
of the flames which radiate darkness from themselves, I
find one ( Paradise Lost , bk. iii. 722) which perhaps may
also be adduced in this place — Uriel wishes to show the

APPENDIX

301

earth, the dwelling of man, to Satan, transformed into an
angel of light, and says

Look downward on that globe, whose hither side
With light from hence though but reflected, shines.

You will remark that both of them were looking from the
sun, from which they could only see that side of the
earth which was turned towards it. But from the words
of the poet it would appear as if they could have seen the
other hemisphere upon which no light fell, which was
impossible. It is true that we can often see both the
illumined and the unillumined half of the moon ; but that
is because we are situated in a third place, and not on
the spot from which the illuitdnation goes forth. But
the general effect of his blindness appears in his indus-
trious painting of visible objects. Homer seldom paints
them by more than a single epithet because a single
quality of visible objects suffices at once to remind us of
the others which we every day see combined with it
before our eyes. A blind man, on the contrary, upon
whom the impression of visible objects becomes from time
to time weaker and weaker, with whom one single quality
of a thing cannot with so much speed and liveliness
present to his mind the images of the rest, because he
has lost the opportunity of seeing them so often in union :
a blind man must therefore naturally have recourse to
the device of heaping up qualities, in order to make, by
recalling various characteristics, a more lively impression
of the image of the whole. When Moses, for example,
represents God as saying, 4 Let there be light, and there
was light Moses expresses himself as one seeing man
would to another seeing man. It is the blind man only
who would think of describing this light, because the
recollection of the impression which the light had made
upon him having become very weak, he endeavours to
strengthen it by all that he has ever thought or felt with
respect to light {Paradise Lost , bk. vii. 243)

Let there be light, said God, and forthwith light
Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure,

Sprung from the deep, and from her native east
To journey through the airy glooms began.

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LAOCOON

Pictures from Milton

i. Of those progressive pictures, of which Homer gives
us such excellent examples, there are some very fine ones
to be found in Milton, as

i. Satan lifting himself above the burning pool. Par.
Lost , bk. i. 221-228.

ii. The first opening of the gates of Hell by sin. Bk. ii.
871-883.

iii. The creation of the world. Bk. iii. 708-718.

iv. The descent of Satan into Paradise. Bk. iii. 561,
&c., 740-2.*

v. The flight of Raphael to the earth. Bk. v. 246-

277.

vi. The first march of the heavenly host against. Bk.
vi. 56-78.

vii. The approach of the Serpent to Eve. Bk. ix.
509.

viii. The building of the bridge from hell to earth by
sin and death. Bk. x. 285.

ix. Satan returns to hell and mounts invisibly his
throne.

x The change of Satan into a serpent. Bk. x. 510.

Milton has painted beauty of form, after the manner
of Homer, not so much by its ingredients as by its
effects. See the passage which describes the effect which
the beautv of Eve produced upon Satan. Bk. ix. 455-
466.

ii. Even in those pictures which can be the subject of
painting, Milton is far richer than Caylus and Wink el -
mann suppose ; although Richardson, who intended to
point them out, has been very often unhappy and
unintelligent in his attempt, e. g. :

i. Richardson considers Raphael, with his three pair of
wings, to be a beautiful subject for painting ; and it is

* and without longer pause

Down right into the world’s first region throws
His flight precipitant {l. 560).

Throws his steep flight in many an aery wheel,

Nor stayed till on Niphates’ top he lights (l. 740).

The references in the original seem to be wrong. R. P.

APPENDIX

303

manifest that it is on account of these six wings that the
painter cannot avail himself of this subject. Although
the picture is taken from Isaiah, it is not on this account
the less capable of being painted. The form of the
Cherubim is just as incapable of being painted. Par. Lost,
bk. xi. 128.

ii. The same may be predicated of the serpent advancing
in a perpendicular line [Par. Lost , bk. ix. 496), which in
painting would be contrary to all laws of equilibrium,
though, as described by the poet, it has a very pleasing
effect.

Of Necessary Faults

This chapter in the Poetics of Aristotle has been as yet
the least commented upon.

I call necessary faults those without which there could
be no especial beauties, and which could be got rid of
only by the loss of these beauties.

Thus, in Milton, the use of speech in its widest extent,
which presumes the possession of knowledge which Adam
could not have possessed, is a necessary fault. It is true
that Adam could not say this or that, and could not be
spoken with in this or that language ; but let him speak
as he must have spoken, and the grand and admirable
picture which the poet presented to his readers is lost.
And certainly the poet pursues a higher end in filling the
imagination of his reader with grand and beautiful images,
than in aiming at a general correctness, e.g., (bk. v. 508),
the flags and ensigns of the angels.

The theological faults of Milton are of the like kind ;
or that fault which appears to be in conflict with the more
intimate notions which we entertain of the mysteries of
religion, but without which he could not have narrated or
rendered present in time to us that which happened before
time began, e.g., when he makes the Almighty say to His
angel (bk. v. 604)

This day have I begot whom I declare
My only son, and on this holy hill
Him have anointed, whom ye now behold
At my right hand : your head, 1 him appoint.

* This day 5 must here mean from all eternity ; God has

304

LAOCOON

begotten His Son in all eternity : but this Son was not
from all eternity what He was to be, or at least was not
recognised as such. There was a time when the angels
knew nothing of Him, when they saw Him not at the
right hand of His Father, when He had not as yet been
declared their Lord ; and that, according to our ortho-
doxy, is false. Will it be said that God had, up to that
time, left His angels in ignorance of the mysteries of the
Trinity? Numberless absurdities would be the conse-
quence of such a position. The true defence of Milton
is this, that he was necessarily obliged to commit these
faults, that they were unavoidable the moment he under-
took to narrate to us in an intelligible succession of time
that which did not happen in any such succession of time.
If the envy that the evil angels felt of the higher dignity
of the Son was the cause of their fall, then it must be
supposed that this envy was as much from all eternity as
the birth of the Son, &c. But I think that Milton ought
to have imagined a better course than this, which is not
founded on Holy Writ, but only on the notions of some
fathers of the Church.

§4

The true end of a fine art can only be that which it is
capable of arriving at without the help of any other.*

In Painting this is corporeal beauty. In order to be able
to bring together corporeal beauties of more than one
kind, historical painting was invented.

The expression, the representation of history, was not
the ultimate object of the painter. History was only a
means of attaining his ultimate object, manifold beauty.

Modern painters undisguisedly make the means their
end. They paint history for the sake of painting history,
and do not reflect that they thereby make their art merely
an assistant of other arts and sciences. Or, at least, they
make the assistance of other arts and sciences so indispens-
able to it that their art thereby loses altogether the value
of a primitive art..

The expression of corporeal beauty is the end of
painting.

* Pref. p. 24.

APPENDIX

305

The highest corporeal beauty is its highest end.

The highest corporeal beauty exists only in men, and
only in them by reason of an ideal.

This ideal is more rarely found in wild beasts ; in
vegetable and inanimate nature it has no place at all.

This it is which points out his rank to the painter of
flowers and landscapes.

He imitates beauties which are incapable of any ideal ;
and he labours only with the eye and with the hand ; and
genius has very little or altogether no part in his work.

Yet I always prefer to the landscape painter that
historical painter, who, without making beauty his prin-
cipal object, paints only groups of persons, in order to
show his facility in executing expression alone , and not
expression which is made subordinate to beauty.

§5

A. The resemblance and harmony of Poetry and Paint-
ing has been often sufficiently mooted and discussed, but
not, as it appears to me, with sufficient accuracy to pre-
vent all evil influences of the one upon the other. These
evil influences have manifested themselves in Poetry by a
mania for descriptive painting, and in Painting by a mania
for allegory. * While we like to speak of the former as of
a speaking picture, without really knowing what it can
and ought to paint ; and of the latter as a mute picture
without having considered in what degree it can excite
distinct ideas, f without departing from its proper end,
and becoming an arbitrary kind of writing.

Apart from these improper influences of poets and
artists, feeble parallels of Poetry and Painting have often
misled the critic into unfounded judgments, when in the

* Hear, however, Sir J. Reynolds : ‘ What has been often said to the
disadvantage of allegorical poetry — that it is tedious and uninteresting
— cannot with the same propriety be applied to painting, where
the interest is of a different kind. If allegorical painting produces a
greater variety of ideal beauty, a richer, a more various and delightful
composition, and gives to the artist a greater opportunity of exhibiting
his skill, all the interest he wishes for is accomplished ; such a picture
not only attracts, but fixes the attention'. 7th Discourse, pp. 420-1,
Dec. 10, 1776. R. P.

t General ; for all ideas of painting are distinct. Moses Mendelssohn.

On the margin of the MS. ]

306

LAOCOON

works of poets and painters upon one and the same sub-
ject, they choose to consider as false the mutual depart-
ures from each other observed therein, for which they
blame the one or the other accordingly as they have more
taste for Poetry or for Painting.

In order to correct these unfounded prejudices, it is
worth while for once to reverse the medal, and to con-
sider the difference which exists between Poetry and
Painting, in order to see whether this difference is not
the consequence of laws which are peculiar to the one or
the other, and which often compel one to tread a different
path from that which the sister has trodden, if it really
means to maintain the name of sister, and is not to
resemble a jealous imitating rival.*

Whether the virtuoso himself can derive any advantage
from these enquiries which only teach him to consider
clearly whither his mere feeling, uninformed by practice,
would lead him, I will not decide. We are agreed that
criticism of itself is a science which subserves all culture,
although it be granted that it gives no aid to genius, f

B. Poetry and Painting are both imitating arts ; the
end of both is to awaken within us the most lively
sensible representations of their subjects. They have all

* Du Fresnoy begins his Poem De Arte Graphica, by a partial
plagiarism from Horace, De A. P. 361 1

Ut pictura poesis erit : similisque poesi
Sit pictura : refert pars aemula quaeque sororem
Alternantque vices et nomina ; muta poesis
Dicitur haec, pictura loquens solet ilia vocari.

Dryden translates

True poetry the painter’s power displays ;

True paintipg emulates the poet’s lays.

The rival sisters, fond of equal fame,

Alternate change their office and their name.

Bid silent poetry the canvas warm,

The tuneful page with speaking picture charm. R. P.

t * The boundaries of arts can, without any detriment to the fire of
genius, be separated from a very clear perception of the arts, for
they only indicate to the Virtuoso from what he has to abstract.
They are only negative rules, which can well be the work of an art ’.
Mendelssohn.

1 The Horatian lines are

Ut pictura poesis : erit quae si propius stes
Te capiat magis : et quaedam si longius abstes R. P.

APPENDIX

307

the following rules in common which flow from the idea
of imitation and from this end. But they make use of very
different means of imitation ; and from this difference of
means certain rules for each of them must be deduced.

Painting makes use of figures and colours in space.

Poetry of articulate sounds in time.

The signs of the former are natural ; those of the latter
are arbitrary.* * * §

C. Imitative co-existent f signs can only express objects
which co-exist, or the parts of which co-exist. Such objects
are bodies. It follows that bodies, with their visible
properties, are the proper objects of Painting.

Imitative successive signs can only express objects
which are successive, or the parts of which follow in
succession. X Such objects are more especially designated
actions. § It follows that actions are the proper objects
of Poetry.

Nevertheless, all bodies exist not only in space , but
also in time. They endure, and in each moment of their
endurance can take a different appearance and be in a
different combination. Each of these momentary appear-
ances and combinations is the result of a foregoing one,
and can be the cause of a following one, and so each may
be the centrum of an action. Consequently, Painting can
imitate actions, but only suggestively, through the media
of bodies.

* * This opposition is more clearly seen in regard to music and paint-
ing. Thie former makes use equally with the latter of natural signs,
but it imitates them only by motion. Poetry has some properties in
common with music, and some with painting. Its signs are of
arbitrary signification, therefore they sometimes express co-existent
things without on that account invading the province of painting’.
Mendelssohn.

t ‘ Natural ’. Mendelssohn.

t ‘No! they express co-existent things if this signification be
arbitrary ’. Mendelssohn.

§ ‘They are more properly motions, for there are actions which
consist of co-existent parts, and these are picturesque. But motion
consists only of successive parts. We have motions and actions.
Music expresses action through motion, and painting motion through
action. The former by means of natural sounds, the latter by means
of space. Poetry has motion and action by means of arbitrary signs.
But poetry has also immovable actions ; these are perfectly pictur
esque, e. g. the Homeric similitude, when the goat herds stand before
the hearth, and brandish burning torches against the savage lions.
The dying Adonis, the rape of Europa, are a series of pictures in which
stationary and movable pictures are interchanged ’. Mendelssohn.

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LAOCOON

On the other hand, actions cannot exist by themselves,
but must belong to certain beings. In so far now as
these beings are bodies, Poetry also paints bodies, but
only suggestively through the media of actions .*

D. Painting in its co-existing compositions can only
make use of one moment of action, and must therefore
choose the most pregnant one, by which the past and the
future may be rendered most intelligible.

Even so Poetry, in its successive imitations, can only-
make use of a single property of bodies, and must choose
that one which awakens the most sensible image of the
body relatively to the purpose for which he uses it.f

From hence is derived the rule of unity in the use of
pictorial epithets and of severe frugality in the painting
of corporeal objects. In this consists the grand manner
of Homer : and the opposite fault is the weakness of many
moderns, especially of Thomsonian poets, who will attempt
to rival the painter in a field in which they are certain to
be vanquished.

E. Homer has only one trait for one thing. A ship is
with him at one time a dark ship, at another a hollow
ship, at another a swift ship, at the most a well-rowed
dark ship. Further in the painting of a ship he will not
go. But of the embarking in, the sailing of, the dis-
embarking from the ship he makes a detailed picture, a
picture from which the painter, &c.

F. After considering what we agreed upon in our oral
communications, I will improve my division of the objects

* ‘Poetry may very well paint bodies, but it must not overleap the
following boundaries. If we desire clearly to represent to ourselves a
whole contained in space, then we consider — 1. the individual parts ;
2. their connection ; 3. the whole. Our senses accomplish this with
such wonderful speed that we believe we perform all these operations
at the same time. If, however, all the separate parts of an object
contained in space were indicated to us by arbitrary signs, then the
third operation, the putting together all the parts, is a work of great
difficulty. We are obliged to strain our powers of imagination if we
strive to put together such separated parts into a space-filling whole ’.
Mendelssohn.

t ‘ The poet seeks to bind together for ever Action and Movement ;
therefore he seldom tarries long on any moment of time. Inasmuch
as a more manifold variety is at his command, he does not willingly
confine himself to a less. Therefore he avoids stationary actions
wherever he can change them into movable. The following well-
chosen examples are perfectly adapted to this theory, but they do not
show an entire exclusion of all stationary actions ’. Mendelssohn.

APPENDIX 309

of poetical painting, and of painting proper, in the following
manner : —

Painting paints bodies , and suggestively through bodies,
movements.

Poetry paints movements , and suggestively through
movements, bodies.

A series of movements which aim at one end are
designated an action.

This series of movements is either in the same bodies
or divided into separate bodies. If it is in the same
bodies I will call it a simple action , and wdien it is divided
into more bodies a collective action.

As a series of movements in even the same bodies must
be seen by repeated glances in time , so it is clear that
Painting can make no claim upon simple actions. They
belong to Poetry simply and alone.

As, on the other hand, the different bodies into which
the series of movements is distributed must co-exist in
space ; but space is the proper domain of Painting, so
collective actions necessarily belong to the subjects of it.

But must these collective actions , because they follow in
space, be excluded from the subjects of poetical painting ?

No ; for although these collective actions happen in space ,
yet their effect ensues upon the spectator in time. That
is, the space which we can overlook at once has its limits ;
for as amid manifold co-existing parts we can only be
vividly conscious of the least at once, so time is required
to go through and to become conscious by slow degrees
of this manifold wealth. It follows that the poet can as
well describe by slow degrees what I can observe by slow
degrees in the painter ; so that collective actions are the
common domain of Painting and Poetry. They are, I
say, their common domain, but so that they cannot build
upon it in the same way.

Let it be granted that the contemplation of isolated
parts in Poetry may take place as speedily as in Painting
still their combination in the former is much more
difficult than in the latter, and the whole cannot there
fore have the same effect in Poetry as in Painting.

What it loses in the whole it must seek to win in the
parts, and not carelessly paint a collective action in which
each part, considered by itself, is not beautiful.

Painting does not need this rule ; for in it the combina-

310

LAOCOON

tion of the parts first contemplated can so quickly
disappear that we really believe that we at once over-
look the whole. Negligence in the parts is preferable to
negligence in the whole ; and it is permissible and useful
to mingle with these parts less beautiful and indifferent
parts, so long as they contribute something to the effect
of the whole.

This double rule, — namely, that the painter, in his
representation of collective actions, must be more con-
cerned with the beauty of the whole ; while the poet,
on the other hand, must be more concerned with taking
care, so far as possible, that each individual part is
beautiful, — this double rule condemns a multitude of
pictures by artists and poets, and is a safe guide to both
in the choice of their subjects.

For example, Angelo painted on these principles his
‘Last Judgment5. Without considering how much .this
picture must lose of the sublime on account of its reduced
dimensions, for the very greatest picture must always be
a ‘ Last Judgment ’ en miniature , it is not susceptible of
any beautiful composition which can strike the eye at
once ; and the too great number of figures, whatever high
degrees of learning and art each may indicate, confuse
and weary the eye.

The ‘ Dying Adonis 5 is an excellent picture by Bion ;
but it is susceptible of a beautiful composition under the
hand of the artist, because he has retained, I will not say
all, but most of the traits of the poet. The dogs howling
around him, that affecting trait of the poet, would, it
appears to me, have produced a bad effect amid cupids
and nymphs.

G. It is a consequence of the limits imposed upon the
imitative arts that all the figures are immovable. The
life of motion which they appear to have is the addition
of our imagination : Art does no more than put our
imagination in motion. Zeuxis, it is said, painted a boy
who carried grapes, and in this picture Art had come so
near Nature that the birds flew at it. But this made
Zeuxis discontented with himself. I have painted, he
said, the grapes better than the boy ; for had I painted
him properly the birds would have been afraid of him,
and kept away. How often a modest man is the victim
of his own chicane ! I must invoke Zeuxis against

APPENDIX

311

Zeuxis. And had’st thou, dear master, made the boy
ever so perfect, the birds would not have been scared
from flying at the fruit. The eyes of beasts are more
difficult to deceive than the eyes of men : they see nothing
but what they actually do see : but, on the other hand,
we are deceived by imagination into believing we see that
which we do not see.

H. Speed is a phenomenon which relates at the same
time to space and to time. It is the product of the
length of the first, and the shortness of the last.

It cannot of itself be the object of Painting : and when
Caylus carefully enjoins the artist whenever there is a
question of swift steeds, to apply all his art to express
this speed : one easily perceives that he can only show
us the cause of it, in the efforts of the horses and the
beginning of it in the first spring of the horses.

On the other hand the poets can in many ways express,
so as to make generally sensible, this speed — inasmuch as
(1) if the length of the space is known they can either
confine our imagination to the shortness of the time : (2)
or can adopt' an extraordinary and enormous measure of
space : (3) make no mention of space or time, but merely
allow the inference of speed to be drawn from the traces
which bodies put in motion leave upon their path.

(1.) When the wounded Venus retires in the chariot of
Mars from the battle-field to Olympus : Iris seizes the
reins, urges on the horses, the horses set off and arrive
almost directly : *

IIap 8e oi T pts ifiaivev rjvia Aafe-ro xePffLV'

Matm£ep 5 ’ eAaar, tod 8} ovk &kov re tt ereo'drjv
A hf/a S’ €7 rei0’ 'Lkovto Qeoov edos, alnvv ov.

The time in which the horses traverse the space from
the battle-field to Olympus does not appear to be longer
than the time which fills the interval between the mount-
ing of the chariot and the seizure of the reins by Iris :
between her seizing the reins and the driving off the
spirited steeds. Another Greek Poet makes the time, so

* Iliad , E 365

She mounted, and her waggoness was she that paints the air ;

The horse she reined, and with a scourge importuned their repair,

That of themselves out-flew the wind, and quickly they ascend

Olympus, higli seat of the gods. Chapman.

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LAOCOON

to speak, yet more visibly disappear. Antipater says of
Arias the prize runner in a foot race *

*H yap iq >’ xxnrX^yycov , rj r ep/uaros e£8e ns &Kpov
TlLdeov, /aecrcrcj) S’ ovttot * ivl (TTadicp

one sees the youth, either in the starting place or at the
goal, in mid course one does not see him.

(2.) When Juno descends with Minerva, to staunch the
outpouring of blood from the wounded Mars f

r/0 (T(Tov 51 yepoeides av)]p fSep btyQaXfiOLGiv,

C/H fj,evos iv (TKOTrirj, Kevcracav eirl oivoira ttSi'toy,

T 6cr(Tov iTTLOpibcncovai Oecov inj/rjxees Ittitoi.

What a space, and this space but one bound ! and it is
only an ell of the whole way, at the end of which the
goddesses have arrived in the lines which follow — Scipio
Gentili in his observations upon Tasso, speaks of a great
contemporary critic who had blamed Virgil, for allowing
Mercury during his flight from Olympus to Carthage, to
rest on Mount Atlas : quasi che non si convemga ad uno
Dio lo stancarsi. But, he continues, I do not understand
this reproof : and certainly Tasso who had no scruple in
imitating Virgil in this matter, understood it as little.
For Tasso makes Gabriel, when he was sent down by
God to Godfrey, to rest upon Lebanon : J as Tasso has
imitated Virgil, so Virgil has followed Homer, who causes
Mercury, when sent by Jupiter to Calypso, to halt upon
Mount Pierius.§ In my opinion Gentili should have said
to the critic as follows : ‘You must not consider this
halting upon Mount Atlas as a sign of the weariness of
the God. That would be altogether unbecoming. The
intention of the poet is this : he wishes to give you a
livelier idea of the length of the way, and therefore

* Anthol. lib. i.

Either at the starting ropes or at the goal ; at either end
Visible ; but never in the course between. R. P.

t Iliad, E 770

And how far at a view

A man into the purple sea may from a hill descry

So far a high-neighing horse of heaven at every jump would fly.

Chapman. R. P.

I Canto i, stanza 14.

APPENDIX

313

divides it into two parts, and leads you to conclude from
the acknowledged length of the smaller half what must
be the unknown length of the other half’. From the
innermost recesses of Mount Olympus to Pierius or Atlas,
or from these mountains to the Island of Ogygia, or to
Carthage : and thus the length of the way becomes more
sensibly present to me, than if it had been merely said
from Olympus to Ogygia or Carthage. Tasso only lags a
little behind the old poets, inasmuch as he chooses a
mountain, too near the place to which the angel is sent.
From Tortosa to Lebanon is too short a journey to enable
me to conceive that the distance from Lebanon to Heaven
is extremely long.

(3.) Of this third kind is the description by Homer of
the mares of Erichthonius *

A i 55 ore fikv GKiprcpev iirl (e'idwpav dpovpuv,

"Aicpov 6?r’ avOepiKoov Kapirbu Oeov ovdk kolt €k\ccu'

’AAA’ ore 5^ o'xipryev e7r’ evpea v&ra 6a\d(r<n)st
VA Kpov 67T \ prjyfjuuos d\bs tvoXiolo 0ee(TKOv.

4 They ran over the ears of corn, without bending them
down, and they ran over the billowy foam of the sea It
is philosophically true that bodies moved with extreme
speed, leave no time to the bodies, over which they pass,
to receive any impression. The moment when the pres-
sure affects the corn is also the moment when it ceases :
and the corn must in the same moment bend and recover

* Iliad , Y 226

These twice six colts had pace so swift, they ran
Upon the top-a> les of corn-ears, nor bent them any whit ;

And when the broad back of the sea their pleasure was to sit,
The superficies of his waves they slid upon, their hoves
Not dipped in dank sweat of his brows. Chapman. R. P.

Ilia vel intactae segetis per summa volaret
Gramina, nec teneras cursu laesisset aristas ;

Vel mare per medium, fluctu suspensa tumenti,

Ferret iter, celeres nec tingueret aequore plantas.

Virgil (says of Camilla), Jen. rii, 808.

Outstripped the winds in speed upon the plain,

Flew o’er the field, nor hurt the bearded grain :

She swept the seas, and, as she skimmed along,

Her flying feet unbathed in billows hung. Dryden.

Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,

Flies oer the unbending corn and skims along the main.

Pope, Essay on Criticism, 372-8. R. P.

314

LAOCOON

itself, that is, it must not bend at all, Madame Dacier,
who translates the first diov by marchoient , doubtless
from some petty unworthy cause, did not dare to say
couroient twice, but she thereby mars the whole beauty of
the passage. For this marchoient involves a certain slow-
ness which cannot possibly consist with the phenomenon
described by Homer.

In the mean time, it may be said, this rapid uprising
of the body underneath must make the motion somewhat
slower, however infinitesimally, however imperceptibly.
And therefore,* Homer does not allow his Goddesses,
when he wishes to give them all possible speed, to rise up
at all, to touch the earth at all, but makes them pass away
over it, and indeed without any successive movements of
the feet, with legs closely joined to each other, because
the alternate movement of them appears to require delay
and impediment. This peculiar movement of his God-
desses, the poet likens to the flight of doves, as where he
says of Juno and Minerva (Iliad, E 778)

At 5e (3d rrjv, rp^pcoai TreXeidaLV 6juo7ai,

for the flight of doves is most rapid when they dart
forward with motionless pinions as Virgil says
Radit iter liquidum celeres neque commovet alas.

Eustathius indeed thinks that the comparison of the
doves is instituted because the ancients believed that
the footsteps of doves could not be seen. By his move-
ment with feet close together Neptune also was recognised
by Ajax, Iliad , A 71, according to the explanation of
Heliodorus, Anath. lib. iii, p. 147, edit. Commel.

And Heliodorus remarks that because this position
with legs closed together is an image of speed the
Egyptians have so represented the figures of their Gods.

It occurs to me that this inference of speed might also
be drawn from the hanging down of the arm in the
Egyptian figures : for dimissis manibus fugere , said the
ancients, is to fly with the utmost possible speed, and
Aristotle expressly remarks, on eft deovres Oarrov deovai
7rapao’eiovT6S ras xelpas. f

* De gressu Deorum v, Comment, in Virgil v, lib. 1, Aeneid: et vera
incessu patuit Dea — et Woverius, cap. 1, de Umbra.

t Aristot. de Incessu Animantium et Erasmi Adagia , p. 660, edit.
Francof. 1646.

APPENDIX

315

Though this hanging down of the arms, this closed
position of the legs was not peculiar to the Egyptian
Divinities, but is generally common to their human
figures. Why should this be so? It is certainly not
the natural attitude, for though it appears to be the
most simple, it is clear that it is the one most seldom
used by men : for which reason I cannot understand why,
according to Herr W. (p. 8) the beginning of art itself is
to be traced to the Egyptian forms.

Perhaps it will be said it is the attitude of complete
repose, and the Egyptian artists considered this attitude
only as becoming and expedient in their immovable
figures. But in these early days artists did not reason
in this way, and the destination of art was shaped more
by outward causes than by deliberate purpose.

Moreover this is my opinion : the Egyptian figures
stood with their arms straight down, and their feet close
together : add a third characteristic, with their eyes
shut, and you have clearly the attitude of a corpse.
Now let us remember what care the ancient Egyptians
bestowed on their corpses, how much art and cost they
expended in order to preserve them from corruption, and
it is natural that they should also have endeavoured
to maintain the dignified appearance of the dead man.
This they especially introduced in painting and the
imitative arts. They placed over the face of the corpse,
a sort of mask on which they expressed a resemblance of
the features of the dead person. Such a mask is the
Persona Aegyptiaca to be found in Beger, t. iii, p. 402,
which Herr Winkelmann incorrectly calls a mummy (p.
32, n. 2). Not only the face but the whole body was
shut up in a kind of wooden mask which expressed the
figure of the person, and which Herodotus expressly
designates as tuou tvtvov avOpcvnois.*

Herr Winkelmann indeed denies that the oldest
Egyptian figures had their eyes closed, and explains
the word yeyv^ra in Diodorus by nictantia (see 8 Ann.
3, and so Marsham has translated it, Can. Chron. p. 292
edit. Lips.). But the principal reason why he gives this
explanation fails if you look closely into Diodorus.
Diodorus does not say that the statues of Daedalus had
their eyes closed. Herr Winkelmann maintains it, but

* L. ii, p. 143, ed. Wesseling.

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LAOCOON

he says the exact contrary : the statues before Daedalus
had their eyes shut, but Daedalus opened them, as he
separated their legs and raised their arms.

My explanation of the origin of Egyptian art also
explains why the Egyptian figures are with their backs
against a pillar. It was the custom of the Egyptians to
lean against a wall the coffins made in imitation of the
figure of the corpse, and the first wooden or stone figure
was nothing but a coarse imitation of such a coffin.

That which before the time of Daedalus was in Egypt
nothing else than a religious custom, a mere aid to
memory, was elevated by Daedalus to the rank of an Art,
inasmuch as he made the imitations of living bodies take
the place of the imitation of dead bodies : and from hence
came all the fabulous stories that were invented of his
works.

Moreover the Egyptian artists themselves must soon
have followed this step in advance taken by Daedalus.
For according to Diodorus (lib. 1), Daedalus himself had
been in Egypt, and had there, by his Art, won immortal
fame/ ‘No single Egyptian figure (says Herr W.) has
been preserved which has the parallel of feet closely joined
together according to the representation of some old
writers ’ (p. 39). I do not wish to cast suspicion upon the
statement of these old writers, which is too unanimous
and express to deserve it. But we should consider that
the most ancient works of sculpture, especially of the
Egyptians, but also of the Greeks were made of wood :
(Pausanias Corinth, cap. xix, p. 152, edit. Kuh.) so that
our surprise at having no such figures ceases. It is enough
that we may still see the parallel position of the feet in
other works of the ancient Egyptian Art, as upon the
Tabula Isiaca.

The Egyptians went no further than the first improve-
ments of Daedalus : the Greeks advanced onwards to
perfection.

J. From the difference of signs which the fine arts use
is derived the possibility and facility of binding together
several of them with each other in order to produce a
common effect.

The difference, it is true, according to which one division
of the fine arts employs arbitrary and another natural
signs, cannot in this combination be taken into special

APPENDIX

317

account. As arbitrary signs, for the very reason that they
are arbitrary, can express all possible things in all their
possible combinations, so considered from this point of
view, their combination with natural signs is without
exception possible.

Since, however, these arbitrary signs are at the same
time signs which are successive, but natural signs are not
all successive, for a kind of them must be co-existent ; it
is therefore a natural consequence that the arbitrary signs
cannot as easily and as intimately be combined with both
these kinds of natural signs.

It is clear that arbitrary signs successive in time can
more easily and more intimately unite themselves with
natural signs successive in time, than with natural signs-
co-existent in space. But as on both sides there may be
a subdivision, accordingly as the signs address themselves
to one or other of the senses, even this intimate union has
its degrees.

(1.) The union of arbitrary successive signs addressed
to the ear with natural successive signs addressed to the
ear, is unquestionably the most perfect of all possible
unions, especially when this be added, that both signs are
not only addressed to one sense, but also are produced at
the same time by the same organ.

Of this kind is the union of Poetry and Music ; * it is
such that Nature herself seems to have intended not so
much a union of two arts, but rather one and the same
art.

There has indeed been a time when both together made
but one art. I will not deny that their separation has
been natural, still less will I blame the use of the one
without the other : but I must lament that on account of
this separation the former union is no more remembered,
or, if it be remembered, it is only for the purpose of
making one art an accessory help to the other, and that
no one knows how so to employ them equally as to produce
a common effect. Moreover, it is to be recollected that
there is practically only one kind of union in which Poetry
is the auxiliary art, namely, in the opera ; but the union
in which Music is the auxiliary art is yet to be invented :
or shall I say that in the operas the union of both has to
be considered : namely, the union in which Poetry is the
* On this subject see some remarks in Preface. R. P.

318

LAOCOON

auxiliary art, by the Air ; and the union in which Music
is the auxiliary art, by the Recitative ? It appears so ;
only then the question arises whether this mixed union,
where in its turn each art becomes subservient to the
other, is naturally in one and the same whole, and whether
the more voluptuous part, which is indisputably that in
which the Poetry subserves the music, does not injure the
other, and does not so delight our ear as to render the
pleasure derived from the other too weak and too drowsy
to satisfy us.

The subserviency in the two arts consists in this, that
one is made the principal object before the other ; but not
in this, that the one directs itself only in obedience to the
other, and that when their different rules come into
collision, the one gives way as much as possible to the
other. For this was the case in the ancient union of
Poetry and Music.

But wherefore these different rules, when it is true
that the signs of both arts are capable of so intimate an
union ? Because the signs of both operate, it is true, in
the succession of time, but the measure of time which
corresponds with the signs of the one and the signs of the
other is not one and the same. In music the single
isolated tones are not signs : they signify and express
nothing : but its signs are the succession of tones which
excite and express the passions. The arbitrary signs of
words, on the other hand, have their signification in
themselves : and a single sound, considered as an arbitrary
sign, can express as much as music in a long succession of
tones can render sensible. From hence comes the rule
that Poetry which is combined with Music must not be of
a constrained character ; that it is no merit in her to
express the best thoughts in the fewest possible words,
but rather she must employ the longest and most flexible
words for the expression of each thought, in order to give
to each thought as much extension as Music requires, for
the purpose of expressing something approaching to it.
It has been made a reproach against compositors that
the worst Poetry is the best for them, and it has been
endeavoured to make them on this account ridiculous.
But it is not that they like this kind of Poetry best
Because it is bad, but because it is not compressed and
constrained. Now all Poetry which is not compressed

APPENDIX

319

and constrained is not bad : it may, on the contrary, be
very good, although considered simply as Poetry it might
be susceptible of more energy and beauty. But in the
case of which we are speaking, it should not be considered
simply as Poetry.

That one language is more adapted for music than
another is clearly indisputable ; only no nation will
consent to allow the inferiority of its language in this
respect. The unfitness, however, does not consist only
in the rudeness and harshness of pronunciation, but also,
as follows from the remark already made, in the brevity
of the words ; and this is not because the short words
are for the most part harsh and difficult to combine with
each other, but simply on this account, that they are
short, that they take up too little time, so that the music
with its signs cannot keep equal pace with them.

Moreover, no language can be constructed so that its
signs require as much time as the signs of music, and
that is, I believe, the natural reason why whole passages
are rested upon one syllable.

(2.) After this union of Poetry and Music, which is the
most perfect of all, comes the arbitrary union of signs
which are successive, addressed to the ear with arbitrary
successive signs addressed to the eye, that is the union of
Music with the Art of Dancing, and of Music and Poetry
united with the Art of Dancing.

Of these three kinds of union, of which we find
examples in the Ancients, the union of Music with the
Art of Dancing is the more perfect. For although audible
may be combined with visible signs, yet, on thev other
hand, the distinguishing measure of time, which these
signs require, is wanting, which in the combination of
Poetry with the Art of Dancing, or of Poetry and Music
combined with the Art of Dancing, remains.

(3. ) As there is a union of audible signs arbitrary and
successive with audible signs natural and successive : may
there not also be a union of visible signs arbitrary and
successive with visible signs natural and successive?*

This I believe was the Pantomime of the Ancients
considered independently of its connection with Music.
For it is certain that the Pantomime did not consist only

* The only art which makes use of visible signs arbitrary and
successive would be the language of the dumb

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LAOCOON

of natural movements and attitudes, but that it was aided
also by arbitrary signs, the signification of which depended
upon convention.

This must be presumed in order to render probable
the perfection of the old Pantomime, to which its union
with Poetry greatly contributed. But this was a union
of a peculiar kind, inasmuch as signs were not mutually
united with signs, for only the succession of the one was
directed according to the succession of the other, but in
the execution this last was repressed.

Such were the unions which may be considered as
perfect ; the imperfect ones are those in which arbitrary
successive signs were combined with natural co-existing
signs, the principal of which is the union of Painting with
Poetry.

It is clear that on account of the difference, namely,
that the signs of the one are successive in Space, and
the signs of the other are successive in Time, there
can be no perfect union out of which a common action
and effect can arise, but only a union in which one is
subordinated to the other.

In the first place there is the union in which Painting
is subordinated to Poetry. In this category is the
custom of singers at a fair, who cause the subjects of
their songs to be painted, and show the painting while
they sing.

The union which Caylus speaks of has more resem-
blance to the kind in which the old Pantomime was
combined with Poetry. That consisted in determining
the succession of signs of the one by the succession of
signs of the other.

The fact that Painting makes use of natural signs must
always give her a great advantage over Poetry, which can
only make use of arbitrary signs.

Nevertheless, the two are in this respect not so far
apart from each other as at first sight might appear,
and Poetry has indeed not only natural signs, but also
the means of elevating its arbitrary signs to the dignity
and vigour of natural signs.

In the first place, it is certain that the earliest lan-
guages arose out of onomatopoeia , and that the first invented
words had a certain resemblance to the things which

APPENDIX

321

they expressed. Such words are to be found still in all
languages, more or less, according as the language itself
is more or less removed from its origin. From the in-
telligent use of these words there arises what we call a
musical expression in Poetry, of which there are frequent
and manifold examples.

On the other hand, widely as the various languages
differ from each other, for the most part in single words,
yet they have still much resemblance in that class of
sounds which in all probability were the first which the
first men uttered. I mean which are prompted by
the passions. The little words, with which we express
our joy and our sorrow, in one word, the Interjections,
are pretty much the same in all languages, and deserve,
therefore, to be considered as natural signs. A great
abundance of such particles is certainly a perfection
in a language, and although I well know what an abuse
bad writers can make of them, yet I am not satisfied with
the cold decorum which would banish them altogether.
Let any one observe by what a multitude and variety of
Interjections The Philoctetes of Sophocles expresses his
pain. A translator into a modern language must be sorely
perplexed in finding a substitute for them.

Poetry, moreover, employs not only single words, but
these words in a certain connection and succession.
Although these single words are not natural signs, yet,
taken in connection and succession, they may have the
force of natural signs. For instance, when the words
follow in the same order and succession as the things
themselves which they express. This is another poetical
artifice which has not been sufficiently investigated, and
which deserves to be illustrated by examples.

What has been said proves that Poetry is not alto-
gether deficient in natural signs. But she has a means
of elevating her arbitrary signs to the dignity of natural
signs, namely, Metaphor. For as the force of natural
signs consists in their resemblance to the things which
they represent, so Poetry, instead of this resemblance
which she has not, introduces another resemblance which
the designated thing has with another thing, the idea
of which can be more easily and more vividly awakened
in us.

To this category of employment of metaphors similes

322

LAOCOON

also belong. For a simile is in reality nothing more than
an extended metaphor, or, in other words, a metaphor is
nothing more than a contracted simile. The impossi-
bility in which Painting finds herself of employing this
means, gives a great advantage to Poetry, inasmuch as
she possesses a kind of signs which have the force of
natural signs, though she is obliged to express them
through arbitrary signs.

Not every use of arbitrary, successive, audible signs is
poetry. Why should every use of natural, successive,
visible signs be painting, seeing that Painting is recognised
as the sister of Poetry ?

As there is a use of words which has not illusion for
its proper object, which seeks rather to inform than to
please, rather to make itself intelligible than to carry
you along with it ; that is, as language has its prose, so
must Painting have it also.

There are poetical and prosaic painters.

Prosaic painters are those which do not paint the
objects they imitate in their natural relation with their
signs.

(1.) Their signs are co-existent in space; those who
paint signs which are successive in time.

(2. ) Their signs are natural ; those who mingle them
with arbitrary signs, the allegorists.

(3. ) Their signs are visible ; those who will not represent
the visible through the visible, but represent what is
addressed to the ear or the objects of other senses : illus-
tration, The Enraged Musician of Hogarth.

Painting, we say, makes use of natural signs. This is
true, in general. Only you must not represent that she
makes use of no arbitrary signs. We will speak of this
in another place.

And in the next place we should observe that her
natural signs in certain circumstances cease altogether
to be so.

I mean to say this : Of these natural signs the principal
are lines, and figures composed from them. Now, it is
not enough that these lines should have the same rela-
tions with each other which they have in Nature ; each
one of them must have the same, and not merely a
reduced, dimension which they have in Nature, or which

APPENDIX 323

they would have from that point of view in which the
painting should be regarded.

The painter, moreover, who wishes to employ perfectly
natural signs must paint objects as large as life or not
much less than as large. The painter who remains far
below this standard, who paints little cabinet pieces, —
the miniature painter may indeed be in this line a great
artist : only he must not desire that his w’orks should
have the truth or produce the effect which the works of
the other artist have and produce.

A human figure of half a foot or an inch is indeed the
image of a man, but it is in some sort a symbolical image.
It makes me more conscious of the sign than of the thing
signified. My imagination must first elevate to its real
size the reduced figure, and this intellectual operation,
however rapid and easy, always prevents the intuition of
the thing signified from following immediately the
intuition of the sign.

It may be objected, that ‘the dimensions of visible
things, so far as they are perceived by us, are variable ;
they depend upon distance, and there are distances at
which the human figure appears only half a foot or an
inch high, and therefore we have but to suppose that this
reduced figure was taken from a distance in order that
these signs may appear perfectly natural ’.

But I answer : At that distance at which a human
figure appears to be only of the size of half a foot or of an
inch, it appears indistinctly ; but it is not so that we see
reduced figures in the foreground of small pictures, and
the distinctness of their parts contradicts the idea of
distance, but forcibly reminds us that the figures are
reduced and not taken from a distance.

In the next place, it is well known how much the
grandeur of dimensions contributes to the sublime. This
sublime is entirely lost by the process of reduction in
pictures. The lofty towers, the sternest and rudest
precipices, the overhanging cliffs, will not cause a shadow
of the terror and giddiness which they produce in nature,
and which in some degree is also produced in Poetry.
What a picture that is in Shakspere when Edgar leads
Gloster to the outermost edge of the cliff, from which he
wishes to throw himself down.*

King Lear, iv, 5.

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LAOCOON

Come on, sir !

Here ’s the place ; stand still. How fearful
And dizzy ’tis to cast one’s eyes so low.

The crows and choughs, that wing the midway air,

Show scarce so gross as beetles. Half-way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire ; dreadful trade !

Methinks he seems no bigger than his head :

The fishermen that walk upon the beach
Appear like mice ; and yon tall anchoring bark
Diminish’d to her cock ; her cock a buoy
Almost too small for sight. The murmuring surge
That on the unnumber’d idle pebbles chafes
Cannot be heard so high. I’ll look no more,

Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight !

Topple down headlong.

Compare with this passage of Shakspere the passage in
Milton (bk. vii, v. 210), where the Son of God looks down
into the bottomless abyss of chaos. The depth in this
passage is much grander, and yet the description of it !
produces no effect, because there is nothing to render us
sensible of it : the effect which Shakspere so excellently
produced by means of the gradual diminution of the
objects.

K. Reduced dimensions weaken the effect in Painting.

A beautiful image in miniature cannot possibly excite ;
the same pleasure which the image in its true dimensions
would excite. But in cases where the dimensions cannot !
be preserved, the spectator will at least expect to be
placed in a position to judge of them from a comparison
with certain recognised and determined dimensions.

The best known and best determined standard of
dimensions is the human figure. Therefore almost all
measures of length are taken from the human figure or
particular parts of it : a yard, a foot, arm’s length, a step,
an ell, man’s height, &c.

So I believe that the human figures of the landscape
painter, besides the effect of introducing a higher life into
his picture, render also the important service of furnishing
a standard whereby to measure all other objects, and
their distances from each other.

Deprived of this standard, he is obliged to supply the j
want of a certain measure by the introduction of other
things which man employs for his use or convenience, and
for this object has proportioned to his size — a house, a
hedge, a bridge, a path, can do this office, &c.

And if the artist wishes to paint a wholly uncultivated j

APPENDIX

325

desert, a forlorn region without men, or the trace of men,
he must at least introduce wild beasts of a known size,
and from the proportion they bear to the other objects
must form a judgment as to their proper dimensions.

The want of an ascertained and known standard may
have an evil effect in historical pictures as well as in
landscapes. ‘The poetical invention’, says Herr von
Hagedorn,* ‘ as soon as it is given up to mere imagination
suffers dwarfs and giants side by side : but the pictorial
invention is not so good-natured and flexible’. He illus-
trates his meaning by a famous picture of antiquity, the
sleeping Cyclops of Timanthes. In order to express the
enormous size of this giant, the artist has caused a satyr
close to him to measure his thumb with a thyrsus. Herr
von Hagedorn thinks the device ingenious, but that in a
pictorial combination it is at variance with the first prin-
ciples of the art of grouping, with our modern ideas of
chiaro oscuro , and that it is injurious to the natural equil-
ibrium of the picture. We can rely upon the word of
Herr von Hagedorn that this object has all the incon-
veniences which he has noticed. But these are only
inconveniences to the eye of a practised connoisseur : I
add another, which is taken from my former remarks on
dimensions, which are obvious to every eye, and especially
to the unpractised eye.

When the poet speaks of the giant and the dwarf, I
know from his language that he is speaking of the two
extrema to which the human figure can vary from its
usual size. But when the painter combines a great and
a little figure, how do I know that these are the two
extrema ? It is competent to me to take the little or the
great figure as the standard of ordinary size. If I take
the little figure for it, then the great one becomes a
Colossus ; if I take the great one for it the little one
becomes a Lilliputian. In the one case I can imagine a
yet greater, in the other case a yet smaller standard. It,
moreover, remains undecided whether the painter meant
to represent a dwarf ora giant, or both : Julio Romano is
not the only painter who has imitated the device of
Timanthes. f Francis FlorisJ has also employed it in his

* Von der Mahlerey, p. 169. t Richardson, i. p. 84.

J Francis Floris was born at Antwerp in 1520 ; lie died in 1570. His
works were at one time held in great esteem.

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LAOCOON

picture of Hercules among the Pigmies, which Herr Cock
has engraven in 1563. I doubt whether he has been very
happy in his imitation, inasmuch as he has represented
the Pigmies, not as misshapen and hump-backed dwarfs,
but as little men formed in due proportions, so that I
should not know whether they are not men of ordinary
size, and the Hercules sleeping under the oak a giant, did
I not recognise Hercules by his club and lion’s skin, and
did I not know that antiquity had represented Hercules
as a man of great stature indeed, but not as a monster.
Timanthes makes a Satyr measure with a thyrsus the
thumb of the Cyclops ; Floris makes a Pigmy measure
the footsteps of Hercules with a staff. It is true that the
Hercules is in the contemplation of the Pigmy as good a
giant as the Cyclops in the contemplation of the Satyr.
Nevertheless, the like measurement does not produce the
like effect. The Satyrs might be recognised by their
form, and their size was the ordinary human stature.
When they measure the thumb of the Cyclops they make
me clearly understand how much the greater the Cyclops
is than the Satyr. So it is with the Pigmies ; the
measuring by the Pigmies awakens an idea of the great
size of Hercules, but the question is not here as to the
grandeur of Hercules, but as to the littleness of the
Pigmies, and this idea Floris has represented in the
most vivid manner. But this could not well be other-
wise done than by giving the dwarfs, besides their
littleness, other qualities which we are in the habit of
associating with them ; as for instance, deformity or the
disproportioned relation of their breadth to their length.
He should have made them more like to the figures in
convex or concave mirrors with which Aristotle compares
them. * *

L. One of the most perspective similes is that in which
Homer likens the shield of Achilles, or rather the gleam-
ing of it, with the gleaming of fire which gives its light
from a solitary height to the sea-faring man caught in a
storm. Yet here th e places rather than the successions of
time are placed one after the other

Jerome Cock, or Kock, was a painter and engraver at Antwerp ; he
died about 1570. R. P.

* Aristoteles Probl. sect. x. according to the emendation of Vossius ad
Pompon. Melam. lib. iii. c. 8. p. 587.

APPENDIX

327

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cQ,s 8’ 6r 5 cir e/c tt ovroio ffeAas vavrrjcri cpaverir]

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'ZraQfjuQ sv oioirbAcp' robs 8’ ovk edeA ovras cteAAat
IT(Wop €7 r5 IxOvoevra <pi\ccu airauevOe (pepovcru '/.*

The gleaming of the shield, the foreground ; the gleam-
ing which the sailors see, the second ; the fire on the
heights which causes this gleaming, the third ; the friends,
from wdiom they are driven away far over the sea, the
fourth.

M. ‘Pliny5, says Herr Wink elmann,f ‘tells us that in
the reign of Nero the art of dasting in bronze was lost,
and he invokes the colossal statue of this Emperor by
Zenodorus, who, notwithstanding all his art, failed in
this work. But we must not conclude with Donat i and
Nardini that this statue was of marble \

It is certain that Donati and Nardini misunderstood
and have drawn a false conclusion from this passage of
Pliny. But Herr Winkelmann also cannot have ex-
amined it with his usual acuteness or he would have
expressed himself otherwise. Did Zenodorus not succeed
in this statue ? Where does Pliny say so ? Bather does
he report of him tnat he was second to none in the exercise
of his art, that his work bore an uncommon resemblance,
that he had already given proofs of his skill in the casting
of a colossal Mercury. And the eagerness of succeeding
Emperors to leave Nero no share in the honours of this
statue, to dedicate it to the Sun, to change the head of
Nero for a head of their own, the incredible pains which
they took to carry it away and put it up in some other
place : what conclusion can we draw from all this but that
it must have been a work of very peculiar merit ? Pliny
says it is true : ea statua indicavit interiisse fundendi aeris
scientiam. But these are the very words which have
* Iliad , T 373, etc.

And as from sea sailors discern a harmful fire, let run
By herdsmen’s faults, till all their stall Hies up in wrastling flame,
Which being on hills is seen far off, but being alone, none came
To give it quench ; at shore no neighbours, and at sea their friends
Driven off with tempests ; such a fire from his bright shield extends
His ominous radiance ; and in heaven impressed his fervent blaze.

Chapman. R. P.

t In his Geschichte der Kunst.

328

LAOCOON

been misinterpreted. It has been supposed that they
reveal the loss of the art to east in metal, whereas all
they assert is the loss of the art to give to this metal a cer-
tain alloy {temper atur am aeris) which was believed to have
existed in the old works of art of this kind. Zenodorus
was wanting in a knowledge of the chemical mystery, not
in plastic skill. And really this chemical mystery consisted
herein, that the ancients must have mixed gold and silver
with the copper out of which they used in the casting of
their statues, quondam aes confusum auro argentoque
miscebatur .* The secret was entirely lost, and in the
mingling of metals which the artists of that day used,
there was nothing but lead, as Pliny himself clearly
explains. + Now let the whole passage be read: ‘ea

statua indicavit interiisse fundendi aeris scientiam, cum
et Nero largiri aurum argentumque paratus esset, et
Zenodorus scientia fingendi caelandique nulli veterum
postponeretur J

In vain did the squandering Nero bestow his silver and
gold : the artist could not use it : he understood only a
very inferior alloy : but the inferior metal which he em-
ployed had no influence on his art, in which he was equal
to any ancient artist : Pliny says so : Pliny had seen his
work, we must believe him.

‘ The beautiful Seneca in bronze’, says Herr Winkel-
mann in a later work,§ c which has been recently dis-
covered in Herculaneum, is sufficient alone to bear testi-
mony against Pliny, who declares, that in the reign of
Nero nobody knew how to cast in bronze \ Whom can we
more truly trust as to the beauty of this work than Herr
Winkelmann ? But, as I have shown, he is fighting with
a shadow ; Pliny does not say what he makes him say ; I
know the passage upon which Herr Winkelmann relies :
namely, where Pliny speaks of the costly alloy of the old
bronze, and adds, ‘ et tamen ars pretiosior erat : nunc
incertum est pejor haec sit an materia But he is
speaking comparatively, and must be understood to be
speaking of most but not of all the works of his time :
because he himself gives very different testimony about
Zenodorus, and undoubtedly the artist of the Seneca,
which has been referred to, deserved it.

* Plin. lib. xxxiv. cap. 7. t L. xxxiv. J L. xxxiv.

§ Nachrichten von den neuesten Herculanischen Entdeclcungen s. 35.

APPENDIX

329

N. * Some thoughts on the continuation of my Laocoon :
I maintain that the true end of an art can only be that
for which it is peculiarly and alone fit, and not that
which other arts can attain as well if not better than it.
I find in Plutarch a comparison which well illustrates
this position. 4 Who says he (de Audit, p. 43, ed. Xyl.),

4 will split wood with a key and open a door with an axe,
does not so much destroy his instruments, as deprive
himself of the use of both’.

According to Petit, this work of art must necessarily
have been later than Virgil’s description of it : for he
insists that the whole episode of the Laocoon is an
invention of Virgil’s (Miscell. Observ. lib. iv. cap. xiii. p.
294). 4Tametsi Servius revera hoc Laocoonti accidisse
ex Euphorione refert : quod piaculum contraxisset co-
eundo cum uxore ante simulacrum numinis. Verosimilius
tamen est, a Marone hoc totum fuisse inventum, ac pro
machina inductum qua dignum vindice nodum explicaret,
quomodo videlicet ausi sint Trojani tarn enormem et
concavam simulacri compagem transferre in urbem, etc.’
But it is easy to overthrow this opinion of Petit : inas-
much as the traces of the same history of Laocoon in
earlier and in Greek writers are both many and clear.

O. (Cap. xxx.) Herr Winkelmann has explained him-
self more definitely in his history of Art. He also
acknowledges that repose is a consequence of beauty.

Necessity of expressing yourself as precisely as possible
upon this kind of thing. A false ground is worse than
no ground.

(xxxi.) Herr Winkelmann appears to have derived this
highest law of beauty entirely from the ancient works of
Art. But one may arrive with equal certainty at the
same conclusion from principles of reason. For as the
plastic arts are alone sufficient to produce the form of
beauty : as they need no help from any other Art for this
purpose : as other arts are incapable in this respect : so it
is quite indisputable that this beauty is their peculiar and
proper end.

(xxxn.) But corporeal beauty requires more than
beauty of form. It requires beauty of colour and beauty
of expression.

This section is not to be found in the papers of Herr Friedland.

330

LAOCOON

The difference in respect to beauty of colours between
carnation and colouring. Carnation is the colouring of
such objects as have a distinct beauty of form, and
especially of the human body. Colouring is especially
the use of local colours.

Difference with respect to matter of expression between
the transitory and the permanent. The first is violent,
and consequently not beautiful. The second is the con-
sequence of the frequent repetition of the first, not only
does it ally itself with beauty, but it gives more variety
to the beauty.

(xxxiii.) Ideal of corporeal beauty. What is it? It
consists especially in the ideal of form: but also in the
ideal of carnation and permanent expression.

The mere colouring and the transitory expression have
no ideal : because nature herself has given no determined
character to them.

(xxxiv.) The transporting of the pictorial ideal into
poetry is false. In the former is an ideal of bodies, in the
latter an ideal of actions. Dryden in his Preface to
Fresnoy. Bacon in Lowth.

(xxxv. ) Still more extravagant it would be to expect
and require from the poet not only perfect moral beings,
but also perfectly beautiful corporeal beings. Neverthe-
less it is what Herr Winkelmann does in his criticism on
Milton ( Geschichte der Kunst , p. 28). Winkelmann seems
to have a slight acquaintance with Milton, otherwise he
would know, what has been long ago remarked, that he
alone knew how to paint the devil without having
recourse to physical ugliness.

Some such refined form of devilish ugliness, Guido had,
perhaps, in his head (v. Dryden’s Preface to the Art of
Painting , p. 9). But neither he nor any one else has
executed the idea. But Milton’s ugly forms, such as sin
and death, do not belong to his principal action, but only
serve to fill up his episodes.

Milton’s conception of separating in the devil the
tormentor from the tormented, which in vulgar opinion
are combined.

(xxxvi.) But very few pictures can be painted from
the principal action of Milton’s Poem. True ; but it
does not follow that they could not be painted by
Milton.

APPENDIX

331

Poetry paints by a single trait : Painting must add all
the rest. In the former there may be something very
picturesque which in the latter cannot be executed.

(xxxvn.) Consequently it is not on account of the
preeminent genius of Homer that everything with him
is capable of being painted : but this is solely on account
of his choice of subject.

Proof of this : — First Proof — from the various invisible
objects which Homer has treated as unpicturesquely as
Milton — example, Discord.

(xxxviii.) Second Proof — from the visible objects
which Milton has admirably treated, — Love in Paradise
— the simplicity and poverty of the Painter on this
subject. On the contrary, the riches of Milton.

(xxxix.) Strength of Milton in successive pictures, —
examples of this in all the books of Paradise Lost .

(xl.) Milton’s painting of individual sensible objects.
In this he would have surpassed Homer, if we had not
already demonstrated that it does not belong to Poetry.

My opinion that this painting is a consequence of his
blindness. Traces of this blindness in several distinct
passages. Proof conversely that Homer was not blind.

(xli. ) Fresh confirmation that Homer only permitted
himself to use successive pictures, by contradicting cer-
tain objections taken from his description of Pallastes in
the Iliad. He wished only to awaken the idea of great-
ness,— description of the garden of Alcinous, even in
this he does not describe as beautiful objects which
on a sudden appear to the eye, while in nature they
are not so.

(xlii. ) In Ovid the successive pictures are most fre-
quent and most beautiful : and precisely for this reason,
because they have not been painted and cannot be
painted.

(xliii. ) Among pictures of action there is a kind in
which the action does not gradually express itself in a
single body, but is distributed in various successive
bodies. These I call collective actions, and they are
those which are common to Painting and Poetry, though
with different limitations.

(xliv. ) As the poet paints bodies only indicatively by
motion — so he endeavours to detach the visible properties
of bodies in their motion — as for instance, great size.

332

LAOCOON

Example, from the height of a tree — from the breadth of
a pyramid — from the great size of a serpent.

(xlv. ) Of motion in painting : why only men and no
beasts are susceptible of it ?

(xlvi, ) Of speed : and the various ways the poet has
of expressing it.

The passage in Milton, bk. x, v. 90. The general
reflection on the speed of the Gods has by no means the
effect that the picture, which Homer would in one way or
the other have made of it for us, would have had. Per-
haps he would have said instead of 4 down he descended
straight 5 * (er stieg sogleich herab), he had descended (er
war herabgestiegen).

* and all the coast in prospect lay.

Down he descended straight : the speed of Gods

Time counts not tho’ with swiftest minutes wing’d. Par. Lost , x.

THE END

INDEX

AUTHORS AND ARTISTS MENTIONED

Abbt, 5, 276.

Addison, 46, 99, 236.

Aelian, 47.

Aesop, 176, 237-8.

Agesander, 192, 193, 196, 197, 199, 200,
223, 286.

Alboni, Cardinal, 199.

Allatius, Leo, 31.

Anacreon, 163, 167.

Angelo, Michael, 242, 298.

Antiochus (Anthologia), 212.

Antipater, 312.

Apelles, 43, 56, 171, 172, 201, 202, 225,273,
274.

Aphrodisius Trallianus, 194.
Apollodorus, 192, 199, 285.

Apollonius, 200, 219, 281.

Athanodorus, see Athenodorus.
Athenaeus, 270, 289.

Athenodorus, 192, 193, 196, 197, 199, 200,
201, 202, 223, 286.

Arcesilaus, 193.

Archelaus, 202.

Aretinus, 224.

Ariosto, 3, 159,160, 161, 167.

Aristides, Quintilian, 35.

Aristophanes, 185, 213.

Aristotle, 12, 35, 38, 56, 176, 180, 213,222,
268, 270, 277, 280, 294, 303, 314, 326.
Arnold, Matthew, 40.

Artemon, 195.

Arundel and Surrey, Earl of, 12.
Augustine, St, 35.

Aulus Gellius, 272.

Bacon, 23, 35, 330.

Bartolinus, 212.

Baumgarten, 57.

Beasley, Mr, 29.

Beattie, 39.

Beaumont, 189, 266.

Beger, 315.

Begerus, 240.

Bellori, 12, 215, 217.

Bembo, 233.

Berengarius, 2.

Boccaccio, 4.

Boden, 213.

Bodmer, 3.

Boivin, 152, 154, 155, 267.

Bos, Abbe Du, 15, 16, 35, 37, 260,

263.

Breitinger, 39, 260.

Britannicus, 236.

Brumoy, 211.

Buchheim, 4, 41.

Burke, E., 24.

Burmann, 296.

Callimachus, 188.

Camoens, 49.

Cange, Du, 269.

Caracci, Agostino, 262.

,, Annibale, 298.

Cary, 284.

Catullus, 208, 243.

Caylus, Count, 9, 14, 19, 114, 117. 119,121,
123, 126, 127, 130, 132, 169, 170, 171, 182,
248, 277, 290, 292, 302, 311.

Cebes, 300.

Chapman, 43, 44, 255, 258, 259 '271, -273,
275, 289, 311, 312.

Chateaubrun, 77, 78, 212.

Chesterfield, Lord, 185, 280.

Chrysippus, 257.

Cibber, 295.

Cicero, 10, 35, 48, 56, 81, 217, 250/252. 269
Clarke, 253, 292.

Claude, 43.

Cleomenes, 202.

Cleyn, 89.

Cock, Herr, 326, 330.

Colman, 280.

Columbus, 44.

Copleston. Bp., 27, 42, 258, 260.

Coppel, 299.

Corneille, 31.

Correggio, 7.

Cowper, 252, 273.

Crabbe, 256.

Craterus, 194, 195, 286.

Ctesias, 82, 222.

Dacier, Mme, 62, 148, 152, 266, 267, 314.
Daedalus, 316.

Dante. 189, 239, 279, 283, 298.

Danzel, l, 3.

Derby, Lord, 273.

Diodorus, 315, 316.

Diogenes Atheniensis, 194, 286.
Dionysius, 10, 213, 263, 272, 280.

Dolce, 160, 161, 270.

Donati, 327.

262, Donatus, 88, 228, 229.

Doni, 34.

333

334

LAOCOON

Dryden, 11, 12, 31, 35, 44, 47, 129, 215,
21V, 226, 227, 229, 230, 255, 261, 266, 271,
306, 313, 330.

Edgeworth, Miss, 4.

Elton, C. A., 280.

Ernesti, 253.

Euler, 294.

Eumolpus, 225, 226.

Euphorion, 10.

Euripides, 47.

Eustathius, 314.

Eabricius, Joannes Albertus, 273.
Ealconet, 216.

Eletcher, 189, 266.

Eloris, Francis, 325, 326, 330.

Fontaines, De, 231.

Eranklin, 220, 221.

Eriedland, Herr, 329.

Eresnoy, Du, 12, 230, 306, 330.
Erothingham, Miss, 29.

Fuseli, 6, 8, 25, 27, 218, 287, 288.

Gainsborough, 14.

Garrick, 84, 222.

Garth, 215.

Gellius, see Aulus.

Gentili, Scipio, 312.

Gerard, 294.

Gervinus, 2, 4, 31, 39, 52.

Gesner, 57.

Ghezzi, 65, 214.

Gifford, 46, 235, 237, 288.

Ginguene, 36.

Gladstone, W. E., 273.

Goedeke, 2, 3, 5, 21, 31.

Goethe, 4, 8, 21, 29, 234.

Gostwick, 1.

Gottsched, 3.

Grangaeus, 209.

Gray, 212.

Gregory the Great, 41.

Grenville, Lord, 273.

Grotius, 12.

Gruter, 233.

Guido, 330.

Gurauer, 2, 10, 16, 23, 32, 33, 40, 277, 285,
288, 289.

Hagedorn, Herr Von, 3, 325.

Hallam, 37, 233, 234, 258.

Haller, Von, 3, 259.

Hamilton, Sir W., 17, 47, 259, 279.
Handel, 38.

Hardouin, 195, 285.

Harris, 16, 35, 37, 218, 232, 250.

Harrison, 1.

Haweis, Rev. H. R., 34.

Heliodorus, 289, 314.

Herder, 8, 33, 40, 284.

Hermolaus, 195, 196.

Herodotus, 209, 254, 259, 315.

Hesiod, 186.

Heyne, 10, 234.

Hogarth, W., 14, 173, 262, 275, 322.

Homer, 8, 19, 32, 33, 42, 44, 45, 61, 114,
117, 119, 120, 121, 122, 124, 126, 127, 129,
132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 145,
147, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156,
157, 158, 159, 162, 165, 171, 172, 173, 174,
175, 182, 187, 200, 209, 249, 250, 253, 254,
263, 264, 267, 268, 273, 274, 277, 289, 290,
291, 292, 293, 294, 301, 302, 308, 312.

Hood, 45.

Hoole, 270.

Horace, 12, 19, 37, 56, ]42, 243, 246, 248,
274.

Hugendorm, Von, 231.

Humboldt, 20, 41, 47, 49.

Huysen, Van, 142.

Hyginus, 10.

J ohn of Bologna, 42.

Johnson, Dr, 22, 24.

Junius, 12, 65, 206, 207, 208, 213.

Justinus Martyr, 214.

Juvenal, 46, 99, 208, 235, 236, 237, 238.

Kalliteles, 196.

Kastners, 3.

Kleist, Von, 144, 261.

Klopstock, 3.

Klotz, 277.

La Motte, 292.

Lee, N., 295.

Leibnitz, 3, 268.

Lesches, 224.

Lewes, 21, 28.

Liscow, 3.

Longinus, 121, 186, 206, 207, 257, 280, 288
Lowth, 330.

Lubin, 236.

Lucian, 42, 164, 250, 271.

Lucretius, 37, 45, 48, 101, 239.
Lycophron 10, 86, 224.

Lysimachus, 10.

Lysippus, 193, 201, 236.

Macaulay, Lord, 29.

Mackintosh, 41.

Macrobius, 85, 224, 264.

Maffei, 192, 193, 231, 249, 291.
Manasses, Constantine, 5, 158, 269.
Manzoni, 31.

Maratti, Carlo, 296.

Marliani, 85, 86, 87, 223.
Marmontel, 261.

Marsham, 315.

Martial, 240.

Martini, 35.

Masaccio, 235.

Mason, 12.

INDEX

335

Mazzuoli, Francesco, 145, 262.
Mendelssohn, 4, 5, 176, 265, 275, 276, 305,
306, 307, 308.

Mengs, Raphael, 7, 16, 35, 146.
Metrodorus, 59.

Milton,U|j 8? 36, 40, 49, 127, 160, 256, 272,
290, 300, 302, 303, 304, 324, 330, 331, 332.
Montfaucon, 68, 85, 86, 87, 215, 216, 223,
241.

Muller, 288.

Myron, 173.

Nardini, 327.

Nepos, Cornelius, 204.
Nicias, 201.

Nicolai, 5, 275, 276, 277, 284.

Oeser, 21.

Onatas, 196.

Opie, John, 26, 27

Ovid, 48, 48, 102, 108, 118, 166, 187, 188,
215, 244, 331.

Parmegiano, see Mazzuoli.

Parrhasius, 209, 272, 286.

Parthenius, 208, 294.

Pasiteles, 193.

Pasquilini, 173.

Pausanias, 156, 193, 195, 197, 214, 243,
245, 249, 268, 292.

Pauson, 64, 213.

Perrault, 152, 266.

Petit, 329.

Petrarch, 279.

Petronius, 225, 227, 228, 292.

Phidias, 43, 152, 172, 173, 194, 195, 231,
232.

Philippus, 219.

Phillips, Professor, 27, 29.

Philostratus, 73, 219.

Piles, De, 230.

Pilkington, 14, 262.

Pindar, 34.

Pisander, 85, 86.

Plato, 35, 48, 280.

Pliny, 9, 48, 69, 109, 118, 156, 171, 173, 192,
193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201,
209, 211, 213, 214, 216, 217, 218, 245, 251,
267, 272, 273, 274, 285, 286, 289, 291, 296,
327.

Pliny the Younger, 279.

Plutarch, 9, 12, 27, 211, 222, 246, 257, 272,
275, 329.

Pollio, Asinius, 198.

Polycletus, 192, 201, 202.

Polydectes, 194, 195.

Polydorus, 194, 196, 197, 199, 223,285,286.
Polygnotus, 156, 213.

Pope, 42, 144, 152, 155, 156, 176, 258, 268,
273, 295, 313.

Pordenonc, 189, 256.

Posidonius, 193.

Praxiteles, 194, 195, 294.

Preigern, Abraham, 240.
Protogenes, 56, 118, 225, 250, 251.
Pyreicus, 64.

Pythagoras Leontinus, 69, 173.
Pythodectes, 195.

Pythodorus, 194, 195, 286.

Quadrio, 36.

Quincey, De, 22, 29, 218, 219, 223, 231,
240, 264.

Quintilian, 10, 35, 56, 217.

Quintus Calaber, 10,’ 86, 177, '224, 227,
252, 253.

Quixote, Don, 30.

Rabener, 3.

Raffaello, 7, 117, 146, 229, 235, 294, 296,
298, 299, 301.

Resewitz, 5, 276.

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 8, 12, 14, 24, 39,
47, 216, 2i7, 218, 231, 234, 250, 262, 305.
Richardson, 14, 94, 192, 231, 250, 251, 285,
296, 297, 299, 302.

Rigault, 236.

Romano, Julio, 325.

Ross, Mr, 29.

Rubens, 298.

Sacchi, Andrea, 173.

Sadolet, 11, 59, 95, 211, 232, 233, 234.
Salmasius, 12.

Salpion, 202.

Sappho, 166.

Scaliger, 152, 224, 266.

Schiller, 8, 40, 277.

Schlegel, F., 22.

Scopas, 109, 194, 197.

Scott, Sir Walter, 50, 51, 271.

Seneca, 82.

Servius, 198, 237, 263, 264.

Shaftesbury, 22.

Shakspere, 3, 16, 31, 33, 36, 40, 45, 49,
178, 229, 260, 266, 281, 323.

Simonides, 9, 12, 27, 56.

Smith, 221.

Smith, Adam, 17.

Smith, W., 224, 225, 242, 264.

Socrates, 48.

Sophocles, 8, 10, 33. 47, 59, 60, 63, 69, 76,
81, 82, 83, 209, 217, 221, 222, 255, 268,
294, 321.

Sotheby, 273.

Spanhoim, 214, 244.

Spence, 9, 13, 19,99, 101, 102, 103, 108, 111,
112, 205, 214, 215.

Spenser, 41.

Stahl*, 31. 33, 41.

Statius, 103, 105, 238, 241, 246.

Stephen, 223.

Stewart, 214.

Stosch, Von, 203.

Strougylion, 193.

336

LAOCOON

Tacitus, 225.

Tasso, 3, 312, 313.

Tauriscus, 200, 209.

Taylor, J eremy, 4, 230, 242.
Terentius, 276.

Terrasson, 152, 266.

Theocritus, 47.

Theodoras, 207, 288.

Thomson, 20, 41, 220, 292.

Thornton, 280.

Thucydides, 221.

Tibullus, 100, 238.

Timanthes, 67, 69, 325.
Timarchides, 196.

Timocles, 196.

Timomachus, 72.

Tintoretto, 295.

Tiraboschi, 34, 270.

Titian, 7, 16, 145, 161, 270, 297.
Town, Mr, ^80.

Twining, Daniel, 37, 38, 42, 278.

Usher, Archbishop, 12.

Valerius Flaccus, 69, 99, 103, 105,
240, 241, 282.

Valerius Maximus, 216, 272, 275.
Vanderbourg, 22.

Virgil, 10, 19, 43, 44, 48, 59, 60 , 74, 75, 85,
86, 87, 90, 92, 93, 95, 96, 98, 101, 118, 143,
149, 150, 151, 162, 187, 189, 191, 197, 223,
224, 225, 227, 228, 231, 241, 245, 246, 249,
260, 263, 264, 265, 266, 274, 290, 312, 313,
329.

Voltaire, 15.

Vossius, 12, 326.

Warburton, 261, 295.

Webb, 16, 35.

Wicherley, 176.

Winkelmann, 3, 6, 7, 8, 21, 40, 59, 60, 157
191, 192, 193, 194, 196, 197, 199, 200, 201,
202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210,
243, 244, 251, 268, 277, 284, 286, 290, 291,
294, 302, 315, 316, 327, 328, 329.

Wolff, 3.

Wordsworth, 218.

Woverius, 314.

235, Zenodorus, 327, 328.

Zeuxis, 169, 171, 225, 272, 292, 310, 311

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(

PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE
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UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY

64
L613
1905
cop. 3

Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim
Loacoon

D RANGE BAY SHLF POS ITEM C
39 13 14 05 04 002 1

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