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The Right Hon..*

. Cooper,

Frontispiece

SECOND CHARACTERS

THE LANGUAGE OF FORMS

BY THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
ANTHONY, EARL OF SHAFTESBURY

AUTHOR OF CHARACTERISTICS
EDITED BY

BENJAMIN RAND, PH.D.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Cambridge :

at the University Press
1914

Cambridge:

PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A.
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
ANTHONY, EARL OF SHAFTESBURY

CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION • xi

TITLE !

PREFACE 3

IDEA OF THE WORK 4

PREFATORY ANTICIPATORY THOUGHTS 12

I. A LETTER CONCERNING DESIGN ... . . 17

II. A NOTION OF THE HISTORICAL DRAUGHT OF HERCULES . 29

III. THE PICTURE OF CEBES 63

IV. PLASTICS 89

1. Characters, ist, 2d, 3d 90

2. Characters, Personages 94

3. Rise, Progress, Declension and Revival of Second

Characters 103

4. Instinct, Natural Ideas 105

5. Taste, Relish, Eye, Judgment, Criticism . . . 108

6. Discouragements in Art. . . . . . . 116

7. Encouragements, Motives 121

8. Praises, Recommendations of the Art .... 122

9. Ancient Masters and Works 124

10. Modern Masters and Works. ..... 127

n. Painters: — Character, Education, Qualification . . 131

12. Subjects of Painting 133

13. Sorts of Painters and Painting 134

x CONTENTS

14. The Five Parts in Painting 140

ist Part, viz. Invention, Story, Imagery . . 141

2nd Part, viz. Proportion, Drawing, Symmetry

particular 144

3rd Part, viz. Colouring 146

4th Part, viz. Sentiment, Movement, Passion, Soul . 151

5th Part, viz. System, Composition, Collocation,

Position, Symmetry general 152

15. Maxims of the Art 153

16. Of the Machine, Machinery, or Deity Work . . 160

17. Of the Scene, Camps, Perspective, Ornament . . 162

1 8. Of Shortenings or Fore-shortening . . . . 164

19. Of Truth, viz. Plastic 164

20. Of Freedom or the Free Manner 165

21. Of the Decorum 167

22. Common Citations and Remarks 170

23. Moral and Theological Citations and Maxims . . 173

DICTIONARY OF ART TERMS 179

INDEX OF EASE 181

" I "HE Third Earl of Shaftesbury is best known to
J_ the world as the author of the ' Characteristics.'
Another work by him was discovered by the present
editor in the Record Office in London, and printed in
1900, with the title of ' Philosophical Regimen.' At
that time a manuscript volume was also found among
the Shaftesbury Papers, containing the plan and
fourth treatise of a work intended as a complement
to the ' Characteristics,' which was entitled ' Second
Characters.' This volume was mostly written in 1712.
It appears that owing to declining health Shaftesbury
had been compelled to leave England and spend the
last year and a half of his life in Italy. On the 3rd of
July, 1711, he sailed from Dover, and proceeding
slowly through Paris, Turin, and Rome, arrived
November i5th, 1711, in Naples. In this city he
resided, seeking in vain through the aid of a mild
climate to recover his gradually failing strength, until
his death, February I5th, 1713. In spite of his
contest with disease, and brief as was the period that
remained to him of allotted life, his last months spent
in Naples were nevertheless replete with large literary
activity. Not only did he then complete for the press
a second edition of the ' Characteristics ' but he like
wise carried forward the preparation for intended
publication of an entirely new work.

The book was to consist of four treatises. These
were: I 'A Letter concerning Design'; II 'A
Notion of the Historical Draught or Tablature of
The Judgment of Hercules ' ; III 'An Appendix con
cerning the Emblem of Cebes ' ; and IV ' Plastics

R. a

xii INTRODUCTION

or the Original Progress and Power of Designatory
Art.' The ' Letter concerning Design ' was printed
for the first time in 1732, in the fifth edition of the
'Characteristics.' The 'Judgment of Hercules' was
first printed in French, in the Journal des S^avans for
November, 1712, a fact which has heretofore strangely
escaped the attention of bibliographers. An "original
translation " of this treatise appeared in English,
separately, in 1713, and was also included in the
second edition of the ' Characteristics 'in 1714. The
' Appendix concerning the Emblem of Cebes,' so far
as known, remained to be written, and the ' Tablet '
itself instead is here printed in a new translation.
' Plastics,' regarded by the author as the chief
treatise of the four, has never previously been pub
lished. The definite grouping of these various
treatises in the form of a single work, as intended
when written, is also here first made known. Just two
centuries have elapsed since Shaftesbury was forced
to lay down his pen, until the present editing, for the
first time, of his aesthetic work with the title of ' Second
Characters,' so far as it is completed.

Concerning the origin and progress of ' Second
Characters ' considerable information may be gathered
from the correspondence of Shaftesbury while in
Naples. To Thomas Micklethwayt, his young friend
who carried the second edition of the ' Characteristics '
through the press after his death, he says in a post
script to a letter of February 2nd, I7I21 : "I must add
a word to tell you that if I live and am able to proceed
in my virtuoso studies it will follow of necessity (as
you may easily conceive) that 1 shall embrace more
objects in my view than simply what I first began
upon, and was the cause of my search. Is it possible
think you for me to enlarge my conversation, engage
in speculative reading and antiquities of this kind and
not find in any way many curiosities of which without

1 An unpublished letter among the Shaftesbury Papers.

INTRODUCTION xiii

any more trouble and with the same expense of pains
and money I may make some improvement?" Here
was the inception of a new project in art, born of his
surroundings, and made in addition to the prepar
ation of the second edition of the ' Characteristics '
with its newly planned emblems. " My own designs,"
he writes, February i6th, 1712, to his intimate friend,
Sir John Cropley, " you know run all on moral
emblems and what relates to ancient Roman and
Greek history, philosophy and virtue. Of this the
modern painters have but little taste. If anything be
stirred, or any studies turned this way, it must be I
that must set the wheel a going and help to raise the

spirit My charges turn wholly, as you see, towards

the raising of art and the improvement of virtue in the
living, and in posterity to come1." Like Plato, Shaftes-
bury realized that you must surround the citizens with
an atmosphere of grace and beauty if you desire to
instil noble and true ideas in the mind. And animated
by the inspired purpose of reviving and elevating art,
particularly in England, his remaining strength was
steadfastly applied to the production of ' Second
Characters.'

To Micklethwayt in a letter of February 23rd,
1712, Shaftesbury writes: "I have a noble virtuoso
scheme before me, and design, if I get life this summer,
to apply even this great work (the history piece
bespoke, and now actually working) to the credit and
reputation of Philol....! know that by what 1 have said
I must have highly raised your curiosity, which till
next post I am unable to satisfy, and then you shall
have it all before you by the copy of the little treatise
(which Mr Crell is now actually transcribing from the
foul) written, or rather dictated, on this subject of the
great piece of history in hand, and which will come
within the compass of a sheet of paper. But it being

1 The Life, Unpublished Letters, and Philosophical Regimen of the
Third Earl of Shaftesbury, edited by Benjamin Rand, London, 1900,
p. 468-9.

xiv INTRODUCTION

written in French for the painters use, you cannot have
it in its right condition until it be thought over anew
and translated anew into its natural English. It will
be in Mr Coste's power to make this piece truly
original, as it now is, by touching it up (as the painters'
phrase is) and converting it wholly into pure language
with his masterly hand and genius. And in this
condition I would willingly consent he should carry it,
or send it over to his friend to be inserted in the very
next Bib. Chois. of his friend's friend Mons. Le Clerc1."
The historical piece, to which reference is here made,
was the Choice of Hercules, as related by Prodicus
and recorded by Xenophon in the second book of the
Memorabilia, of which Shaftesbury had undertaken to
have a painting made by Paulo de Matthaeis. In
order that the painter might have full information in
regard to the purpose of the fable and the desired
character of the work, the " little treatise " above men
tioned was written and was composed in French as he
says " from what passed in conversation with my
painters, and some other virtuosos with whom I can
converse only in that language." On the first appear
ance of the ' Judgment of Hercules ' in French, in the
Journal des Sfavans, Nov., 1712, he judged an early
translation and publication of it in English to be
necessary, as he was doubtless mindful of his previous
experience in the surreptitious issue of the ' Inquiry
concerning Virtue.' " With extreme satisfaction," he
writes to Pierre Coste, November 22nd, 1712, "I have
just now received the three exemplars of the little
dissertation in which your admirable judgment and
care has made me not a little proud, so that I am in a
manner resolved to naturalize it myself and give it to
the public Englished at first hand, rather than suffer it
to go to Grub Street by help of those Anglo-Gallish
translators, who generally understand neither the one
language nor the other2." The English publication of

1 Ibid. p. 472-3. -' Ibid. p. 523.

INTRODUCTION xv

this treatise was also deemed urgent by his friends.
" I join with you," he writes to Micklethwayt,
December 2oth, 1712, "in opinion for instantly print
ing the ' Judgment of Hercules ' as I wrote to you and
Sir John just before I fell ill, and having presently
made my plan you will receive it from Mr Crell
transcribed by the next post that Mr D — y may
instantly proceed1." And in a final letter of January
loth, 1713, to Micklethwayt he concludes : "I hope I
may soon by the posts receive from you the return of
the models of the title-pages, and perhaps the first
sheet of the 'Judgment of Hercules' if you have
resolution enough to print at least the ' Notion ' by
itself, to which singly (as I wrote you) the advertise
ment I first sent (in mine of December 27) may serve
as a preface leaving out only the last words, viz. ' in
the letter which is here prefixed'." These letters reveal
very clearly the reason and circumstances which led to
the separate publication of the ' Judgment of Hercules '
in 1712, in anticipation of the completed work of
' Second Characters.' There is, moreover, no evidence
of any intention on the part of Shaftesbury ever to
print this treatise as part of the 'Characteristics,' and
it, with the ' Letter of Design,' has been very properly
omitted by Mr J. M. Robertson in his excellent edition
of that classic work.

To Lord Somers all the treatises which comprise
the ' Characteristics ' had been dedicated by Shaftes
bury. It was only natural therefore in the gradual
development of his new literary project that ' The
Notion ' should be accompanied by a letter to his
esteemed patron. The first reference to this dedicatory
epistle is to be found in a letter of March 29th, 1712,
to Sir John Cropley. " You have here," he says,
" enclosed my letter [of Design] long promised, and (as
you see) long since written to our old Lord [Somers].
The little treatise [or ' Judgment of Hercules '] which

1 Ibid. p. 528.
R. b

xvi INTRODUCTION

accompanies it (and which I hope you will deliver or
convey carefully and handsomely sealed up with it)
I have also enclosed this post to my cousin Mick1."
On the 1 2th of April, he writes to Micklethwayt :
" And earnestly I long (as you may well believe) to
hear of the delivery, reception, and success of my
epistle [of Design] and treatise [of Hercules] thereto
belonging." Shaftesbury's first intention when he
thought of making an English translation of the
'Judgment of Hercules' was to include in its publi
cation the ' Letter of Design.' "Now pray tell me,"
he writes, November 22nd, 1712, to Sir John Cropley,
" which I had better resolve to do ? Whether leave
it ['Judgment of Hercules '] to the Grub Street trans
lators and retailers to rend in their own game, or
whether produce the original translation (if I may call
it) by itself alone without that which I count the life
and spirit of it I mean the recommendatory letter [of
Design] to my friend-lord, whose property this is, and
to whom it is my chief delight to join myself, in these
as in former thoughts and contemplations of my retired
and leisured hours. For my own part should the Lord
approve the thing I am resolute to send both ' Letter '
and ' Notion ' without more ado to Darby (suppressing
names only), to be printed in the very manner and
character as the ' Letter of Enthusiasm 'V Among his
last instructions concerning the publication contained
in an unpublished manuscript he quotes from a letter
to Mr M — t of the 3rd of January, 1713 : " If you
friends, who are judges of the affair, cannot resolve to
print the ' Letter' itself together with the ' Notion, I
hope at least you may hold the resolution of printing
the ' Notion ' to save the abuse of a Grub Street
translation." His friends Micklethwayt and Cropley
brought out the 'Judgment of Hercules' in 1712, as
we have seen, but they did not print the ' Letter of
Design.' Doubtless the inclusion of the 'Notion' in

1 Ibid. p. 781-2. 2 Ibid. p. 526-7.

INTRODUCTION xvii

the second, third, and fourth editions of the ' Charac
teristics ' aroused the desire to have all the treatises of
the author then known to exist, in this work, and led
to the printing in its fifth edition of the ' Letter of
Design ' in the incongruous position of a closing
treatise. But in the phrase in the present volume,
"Observe also if the ' Letter' and ' Notion' be first
printed and afterward the whole together under the
answerable general title of ' Second Characters '
Shaftesbury looks forward to the publication of this
completed work. For the first time therefore the
' Letter of Design ' now appears, as intended, at the
beginning as a real epistle of dedication to his friend,
Lord Somers.

Already in February of 1712 the thoughts of
Shaftesbury had turned towards 'The Tablet of Cebes '
as capable of somewhat similar artistic and literary
treatment to that he had in hand upon the ' Judgment
of Hercules.' He expresses the desire at that time
that Mr Coste be instructed "to bring with him from
Holland the best edition or two (with notes) of Cebes'
Table, with the ordinary ugly prints (such as there are)
of this beautiful socratic piece, which I shall have
time to study at leisure and fit for a companion to this
other socratic, but more simple, and (in painting) more
exact, natural, and just piece of Prodicus now carrying
on, and upon which I have composed my little treatise
in French1." An engraving had been made of the
painting of Hercules illustrating the tale of Prodicus
and there was a first vague notion that one of Cebes
might accompany it for insertion in the ' Characteristics '
(vol. n, p. 250) in connection with the reference to Cebes
and Prodicus. Later, however, the idea of its proper
place as part of a new treatise developed. " And now
Cebes," he writes in April to Sir John Cropley, "may
follow in due time, if my life goes beyond this summer,
and that I live to see the beginning of another." And

1 Ibid. p. 474.

xviii INTRODUCTION

again to Pierre Coste, who had not yet visited Naples,
he says in a letter of July 25th : " Pray if you light on
any good edition, private or particular remarks, notes or
thoughts on Cebes' Table, pick them up and bring them
improved to me by your reflections1." Shaftesbury
did not live to see another summer and probably
never wrote the ' Appendix concerning the Emblem of
Cebes.' Among his manuscripts in the Record Office,
however, there is an English translation of Cebes'
' Tablet ' with notes, that has never been published.
The translator writes in easy flowing English, unim
peded by the Greek forms of the original text. The
accuracy with which every thought of the Greek author
is reproduced indicates too that the translator like
Shaftesbury was a master of the classics. But the
translation is not in Shaftesbury's handwriting and if
it were by him must have been dictated. The Notes
to the translation might possibly also be by him, as the
language and thought bear such a close resemblance
to the contents of a letter written to Pierre Coste2.
It is this translation of the 'Tablet of Cebes' with
notes which appears in the present work in lieu of the
unwritten ' Appendix ' to it.

The fourth treatise, that on ' Plastics,' is styled
by Shaftesbury the " great one " of ' Second Char
acters.' It is to be found in a manuscript volume of
'The Shaftesbury Papers' (V. 15) in the London
Record Office. At the beginning of this volume there
is also outlined the plan and directions for the union
of the four treatises here mentioned as composing
' Second Characters.' The date of the proposed
scheme of the entire work is April 25th, 1712, which
would probably precede a direct accumulation of data
for the chief treatise. Writing to Pierre Coste at
Amsterdam, July 25th, 1712, concerning the French
copy of the 'Judgment of Hercules' he gives a reason
for its publication that bears directly upon the larger

1 Ibid. p. 525.

INTRODUCTION xix

project. " If the piece," he says, " were found
valuable I could freely commit it to you, and the
author being for the present unknown (no matter what
happened afterwards) I should be content to see it
abroad in any journal. That of Monsieur Le Clerc's
would be too high honour for it perhaps. The reason
why I wish this is because I should, from the effect of
this when it was read by people of fashion, be able to
judge whether or no it would be worth while to turn
my thoughts (as I am tempted) towards the further
study of design and plastic art, both after the ancient
and modern foundations, being able (as I myself) to
instil by this means some further thoughts of virtue
and honesty, and the love of liberty and mankind, after
a way wholly new and unthought of1." His friends
were always anxious lest these constant labours should
destroy any chance he had of recovery, and for this
reason he constantly sought to minimize the extent and
importance of his work. " As I once told my cousin
Mick," he writes, October nth, 1712, to Sir John
Cropley, " very emphatically, 'tis easier to write
Characters than Char-acks. My trifles of virtuosoship
are all I should entertain you with, and if this prove
not entertaining or profiting (I should hope) some little
moral along with them. The mighty treatises [Cebes
and Plastics] which you seem to think me intent
upon (according to report from cousin Mick) are
barely two such poor tracts as the ' Letter ' and
' Notion/ already sent through your heads to our old
Lord. Nor have I yet set pen to paper, or dictated
one word on either of these intended pieces, only
noted a few memorandums, that if I should live over
the winter I might employ myself a little during the
following summer2." Doubtless the author would not
have included in the publication of the book the
early " memorandums " which are printed in this text
under the 'Title' and 'Idea of the Work' and
' Prefatory Anticipatory Thoughts to each piece

1 Ibid.?. 503. 2 Ibid. p. 518.

xx INTRODUCTION

severally.' They throw, however, so much light upon
the relation of the ' Characteristics ' to the ' Second
Characters,' and give the reader such intimacy with
the author in his study, that it is believed their insertion
will much enhance the interest and value of the present
work.

With unflagging zeal Shaftesbury henceforward
applied himself to the completion of his literary task.
To Sir John Cropley he writes in an unpublished
letter, dated November 8th, 1712 : "I have promised
to treat him [i.e. Micklethwayt] less like a disciple, and
hope that as a friend he will not find the same un
easiness in corresponding with me, especially on the
subjects of virtuosoship and the new ornaments of my
first offspring (as I have called it) which I had never set
about with such application of labour, and time so scarce
with me at this time of day, but for his importunity
and earnest exhortation ever since I left England.
These indeed are now become my only remaining
study. Tho perhaps out of these amusements I may
raise something which may help still to recommend my
former offspring ; this being all I meant by the four
treatises with which you were so alarmed by my cousin
Mick, as taking them to be really four new philo
sophical pieces in the same strain with Philol. But
for such study as that would imply I have (God
knows), but very insufficient health and strength.
Some memoirs and transactions of affairs, which I once
acted in, and characters I well know, might possibly
employ my pen at thoughtful hours in the public.
And these might be of weight when I am dead, tho at
present you tell me men laugh at characters and
secrets, and despise what we poor writers may compose.
Be it so." One has only to read the passages in his
letters with reference to his now rapidly failing health
to discover what bravery was involved in these final
efforts. " The more painful my hours grow," he writes
near the close to Micklethwayt, January 3rd, 1713,
"and the fewer I have to expect in life, the faster you

INTRODUCTION xxi

see I ply you (and shall continue to do so) with what
alone can give me amusement, and at the same time
advance the principal good I shall leave behind me,
my brain offspring, so likely to make its way, espoused
and honoured as it now is by such judgments and
friends appearing in its behalf1." Soon after, he was
compelled to lay down his pen. His noble spirit
passed away February i5th, 1713. Two centuries
from the period of its composition his treatise on
' Plastics ' is here given to the world precisely as it
was left2. The queries in the text and the footnotes'
will indicate the various changes or additions that
would have been made in the final writing of it for the
press. These will be found to relate chiefly to appro
priate illustrations or the enlargement of certain topics.
For the most part they concern the form rather than
the content. It is therefore safe to say that the
essential thoughts of ' Plastics ' are contained in the
present publication, for the first time, of this fourth
treatise of ' Second Characters.'

From the foregoing sketch of the production of
the several treatises which compose ' Second Charac
ters ' we turn to outline briefly their content. As
already remarked the ' Letter of Design ' addressed to
Lord Somers now assumes its proper place at the
beginning of the volume instead of following as here
tofore the 'Judgment of Hercules.' Of these two
treatises Thomas Fowler in his ' Shaftesbury and
Hutcheson ' regards the ' Letter ' as perhaps the more
interesting. It contains an account from Shaftesbury's
own hand of the growth and purpose of his virtuoso
work in Italy. Its inception was due, it is said, to a
conversation with his noble patron, and its final aim is
described as the revival of art, particularly in England.
The most striking feature of it is an abiding faith in
liberty and in the artistic judgment of the people as the

1 Ibid. p. 529.

2 The necessary modernisation of the text and bracketed editorial
matter must be excepted.

xxii INTRODUCTION

true foundation of any revival in liberal arts. Persistent
efforts, he argues, must therefore be made, with the
growing freedom, to secure the best models, to seek
correct standards, and to found academies of instruction,
in order to create a cultivated taste in the general
public.

In the ' Notion of the Historical Draught or
Tablature of the Judgment of Hercules,' Shaftesbury
delineates for the benefit of his painter the scene in
which Hercules according to Prodicus made a choice
between the two goddesses virtue and vice. 'He
formulates in it the rules both of consistency and of
the unity of time for the correct representation of such
an event in a painting. The position, pose, and habit
of the principal figures, which would best maintain the
truth alike of appearance and of history in the scene,
are fully described. Harmony in the ornamentation
is emphasized. In conclusion, a comparison is made
between the task of the painter and of the poet. It
was this treatise, doubtless in its French original of
1712 as well as in the German translation1 of 1759,
that had such an important influence upon aesthetics
on the continent of Europe. According to Professor
Howard not only does Shaftesbury present here the
fullest treatment of the ' fruitful moment,' before
Lessing, but he was the first among all the writers of
art to consider "the pictorial value of the various
moments in the course of which an action takes place2."
He anticipated in it also, it is said, both Diderot and
Lessing, in important rules given by them for the
guidance of the painter, as likewise in the description
of the same subject by literary and pictorial art.

In the allegory of the ' Tablet of Cebes,' with deceit
at the gateway leading men astray by a draught of
ignorance and error, with fortune, blind, distracted,

1 In the Bibliothek der Schonen Wissenschaften und der freien
Kiinste.

2 Laokoon : Lessing, Herder, Goethe. Selections edited with an
Introduction by William Guild Howard, N. Y., 1910, p. Ixxvii.

INTRODUCTION xxiii

and deaf, upon a round stone, her gifts being neither
certain nor stable, with true learning, upon a firm
square stone as affording alone a solid foundation
against error, and with the way to true knowledge
rough, rocky, and difficult, in contrast to the opposite
path of false knowledge, alike easy and smooth, there
are presented materials which would have afforded
Shaftesbury opportunities for literary and artistic
creation that might have rivalled those he found in the
apologue of ' Hercules at the Cross-roads.' " For
here," writes Diogenes Laertius, upon whose testimony
the authorship by Cebes chiefly depends, " thou hast a
fair prospect and view of the life of man even from the
cradle to the grave. In these few sheets thou mayest
plainly perceive with what joys and trophies a religious
man is crowned ; and on the contrary with what scorn
and derision, infamy and punishment, a foolish and
wicked man is most deservedly treated." The principal
doctrines set forth in the ' Tablet ' are strictly socratic.
They embrace the identity of virtue and knowledge,
the insufficiency of sense knowledge or opinion, and
the advocacy of rigorous definition. If Shaftesbury
had lived to write ' An Appendix concerning the
Emblem of Cebes,' it undoubtedly would have had an
exposition of these socratic doctrines as he expressly
mentions "after the like moral parts have been ex
plained," and most probably would also have included
similar additional rules and observations upon art to
those set forth in the ' Notion.' " Dwell upon the
things that have been told you until they are habitual "
is an instruction in art which in more than one instance
is quoted from the ' Cebes' Tablet ' in the concluding
treatise of this book. 'A^exew /ecu aircrew (to bear and
to forbear), based upon the familiar words of Epictetus,
was the maxim chosen by him for the proposed treatise
and is here used with the discovered translation of the
'Emblem.' So constantly is the 'Tablet of Cebes'
before his mind, and so interwoven is it with the com
position of the entire work, that this unpublished

xxiv INTRODUCTION

translation of it accompanied by notes among the
' Shaftesbury Papers ' is here inserted, we hope justly,
in lieu of the unwritten ' Appendix ' as the third treatise
of ' Second Characters.'

' Plastics or the Original Progress and Power of
Designatory Art ' is the full title of the fourth and
concluding treatise of this book. " Remember still,"
writes Shaftesbury, " this the idea of the work, viz.
quasi, the vehicle of other problems, i.e. the precepts,
demonstrations etc. of real ethics. But this hid, not to
be said except darkly or pleasantly with raillery upon
self, or some such indirect way as in ' Miscellany '."
That Shaftesbury's theory of ethics may be readily
transformed into a theory of aesthetics has been
clearly pointed out by Prof. Fowler in his work on
' Shaftesbury and Hutcheson.' In the ' Characteristics '
there is presented thefGreek conception that harmony
and proportion are the ultimate foundations alike of
beauty and of morality. Man is gifted with the innate
power to recognise the beautiful alike in works of art
and in moral actions. Such a sense applied to external
objects is the sense of beauty, and applied to conduct
or disposition is the moral sense?) Beauty is never in
the matter, but solely in the art or design. Art is that
which beautifies " so that the beautifying not the
beautified is the really beautiful." In the early sections
of ' Plastics ' a transition is made from aesthetic
theory to applied art. The counterpart of ' First
Characters ' is to be found in ' Second Characters.'
The former is speculative, the latter practical. The
' Second Characters ' correspond as it were to the
underparts of a drama. And through these underparts
it is hoped to support those higher. Nevertheless, it
is added, no one may presume to criticise the ' Second
Characters ' who is not already master in the First.
' Second Characters ' as here described are also moral.
In proof thereof numerous quotations from classic
literature are made. Horace's De Arte Poetica is
most frequently cited. Painting too must be regarded

INTRODUCTION xxv

as an imitative art It presents a picture and not
reality. Truth in it is not so much a copy of reality as
of appearance. Its poetic qualities are best found in
an historic painting such as the ' Judgment of Hercules,'
where the passions and character of men are repre
sented. In every designatory work of art there is
something which answers to history in a truly poetic
work. This is its character : "The characteristic still,
the truth, the historic is all in all. The thing imitated,
the thing specified, is the whole delight, the secret
charm of the spectacle." All art thus deals with the
typical, or in other words the ideal.

There is next in ' Plastics ' a defence of the part /
played by instinct and natural sagacity as the source !
of the idea of the beautiful. The corruptions of taste '
are pointed out. In art as in real life a correct taste
must be cultivated. The absence of a classic environ
ment and the substitution of the artificial for the
natural are among the discouragements of modern art.
Art ideals must to-day be sought chiefly in nature,
and in good models found in ancient remains. Among
present encouragements to art, however, is the possible
training of the public eye owing to the invention of
prints, etching, etc. A peculiar interest attaches to
the author's criticisms upon ancient and modern
painters owing to the time and place in which this
work was written. The toil, study, and meditation
necessary in the production of a great work of art are
emphasized in his remarks upon the education of the
painter. The various kinds and subjects of painting
are also discussed at considerable length. Under
the heading of the ' Revival of Second Characters '
Shaftesbury again strikes the keynote of the entire
treatise. He says that "politeness always holds pro
portion with laws and liberty, so that where the one is
with a tolerable progress in the first species (viz. ist
Characters), the other (viz. 2nd Characters) will soon
prevail, and where it ceases and tyranny prevails, art
and 2nd Characters accordingly sink." Invention,

xxvi INTRODUCTION

symmetry, colouring, expression, and composition,
which are the five parts of painting as observed by the
ancients and followed in the more modern works of
Junius and Freart, are in turn discussed. The nature
and value of perspective in art form the underlying
theme of several important sections. Plastic truth and
decorum are deemed as with Plato the culminating
excellence of artistic production. The entire treatise
of ' Plastics ' confirms the statement which has been
based upon the ' Judgment of Hercules,' that there can
be applied to Shaftesbury what Lessing says of
Raphael, " that he would have been the greatest
artistic genius even though unfortunately he had been
born without hands."

A true virtuoso was Shaftesbury. In the ' Char
acteristics ' he himself delights to draw a parallel
between the philosophers and the virtuosi. " To
philosophize," he says, " in a just signification is but to
carry good breeding a step higher. For the accom
paniment of breeding is to learn whatever is decent
in company, or beautiful in arts ; and the sum of
philosophy. In this latter general denomination we
include the real fine gentleman, the lovers of art and
ingenuity, such as have seen the world, and informed
themselves of the manners and customs of the several
nations of Europe, searched into their antiquities and
records, considered their police laws, and constitutions,
observed the strength and ornaments of their cities,
their principal arts, studies and ornaments, their
architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and their taste
in poetry, learning, language and conversation."
What is here described as the " sum of philosophy " in
the artistic realm found an actual fulfilment in the
closing drama of Shaftesbury's life when he was engaged
in writing the 'Second Characters.' But the highest
examples of art belonged as he believed to the classical
period. The ancients best provided the consummate
models in art, suitable for any age. That is one
secret of his adverse criticism of the " Gothic " and the

INTRODUCTION xxvii

modern. The literature of the classical authors had
entered too most deeply into the warp and woof of his
life. His was no mere imitation, however, of Greek
and Roman thought, for he was thoroughly original
both in thinking and writing. Not since the days of
Plato has there been such an eloquent expression as
that in the ' Characteristics1,' of the true, the beautiful,
and the good. " What is beautiful is harmonious and
proportionable ; what is harmonious and proportionable
is true ; and what is at once both beautiful and true is
of consequence agreeable and good." Philosophy and
aesthetics nevertheless meant more to him than mere
theoretical systems. They must be carried over into
the life of the community. The knowledge and
practice of art must penetrate every province of public
activity. "Where then is beauty or harmony to be
found ? How is this symmetry to be discovered and
applied ? Is it any other art than that of philosophy,
or the study of universal numbers and proportions,
which can exhibit this in life2 ? " Through ' Second
Characters ' he would emphasize the necessity that the
subtle influence of beauty and art must pervade the
state if its citizens would possess right ideas and
exhibit noble conduct. The artistic should also per
meate the whole nature of the individual. Only in
this way can human achievement be glorified. Beauty
is in the creator and not in the created. And beautiful
products of art best serve to inspire the state of mind
which the original artist experienced in creating them.
Shaftesbury himself indeed was a great artist, for his
whole being^was permeated by the artistic tempera
ment. He embodied the classical ideals in his own
person. In outward appearance the painting of
Closterman is a true portrait of him. He is the !
greatest Greek of modern times. It is no wonder j
that he appealed to the best spirits of the eighteenth /
century. Herder speaks of him as the " virtuoso of

\ ! Vol. in, p. 182. * ibid, in, p. 184.

xxviii INTRODUCTION

humanity." Montesquieu says that "the four great
poets are Plato, Malebranche, Shaftesbury, Mon
taigne." Lessing also was a student of his works
to which he had been guided by the philosopher
Mendelssohn. Leibnitz too recognised in his doctrines
the similarity to those he promulgated1, and was
charmed by the eloquence of his utterance. In future
generations wherever there is refinement and true
culture the influence of this modern classical philo
sopher must likewise be felt. He embodied his
philosophy in a life. This philosophy finds expression
in the personal meditations of the ' Philosophical
Regimen,' in the moral and aesthetic doctrines of the
' Characteristics,' and in the support given to this chief
work by an application of its theoretical principles to
the realm of art in ' Second Characters.'

The name of Shaftesbury has been honoured in the
past by the genius and the services of three distin
guished members of this noble family. The first Earl
was a great statesman, the third Earl an eminent
philosopher, and the seventh a broad-minded philan
thropist. It is a pleasure therefore to dedicate this
work by permission to the present Earl, who also
"has proven true to his own and his family motto,

LOVE, SERVE."

1 Their relation is best set forth in Armand Bacharach's Shaftesbury's
Optimismus und sein Verhaltnis zum Leibnizschen, Thann, 1912.

BENJAMIN RAND

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
December, 1913

SECOND CHARACTERS

THE LANGUAGE OF FORMS

IN
FOUR TREATISES

viz.

I. LETTER CONCERNING DESIGN

II. A NOTION OF THE HISTORICAL

DRAUGHT OF HERCULES

III. AN APPENDIX CONCERNING THE

EMBLEM OF CEBES

IV. PLASTICS,

OR THE ORIGINAL PROGRESS AND
POWER OF DESIGNATORY ART

NAPLES, April 28, 1712

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SECOND CHARACTERS
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I. A LETTER CONCERNING
DESIGN

II. A NOTION OF THE
HISTORICAL DRAUGHT
OF HERCULES

II. APPENDIX CONCERNING
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, PLASTICS OR THE ORIGINA
PROGRESS AND POWER
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PREFACE

OF the accidental origin and general growth of
the following tracts, as well as of their corre
sponding with the general title which is given them, the
reader will soon be resolved and best informed as he
proceeds. If our author, who treated formerly of
CHARACTERS in a higher sense, should by this latter
manner appear to have lost somewhat of the rank he
had amidst the order of writers, this will be of small
concern to him. It is sufficient honour if by these
SECOND CHARACTERS, or under-parts, he can be able
in the least degree to support those higher, which he
once sustained in behalf of the chief concerns and
interests of mankind. The subjects which he here
treats are presumed (he knows) to relate no further
than to the ordinary pleasures and diversions of the
fashionable world. But however they may have been
rated ; if our author should by good fortune have been
able to render them more speculative, or in reality
more suitable to a taste and judgment than they have
hitherto passed in the world, he may have reason
perhaps to be satisfied with his attempt. He may
count it his happiness that whilst even he afforded

4 SECOND CHARACTERS

himself these entertainments for his own sake he could
even in retirement find means to share them still with
others, and serve the polite world and better sort in
those pleasures and diversions which they are some
times at a loss how to defend against the formal
censors of the age.

" That the writings to which the author refers are
perfect, or (as they ought to be) correct... is what he
no way pretends. But that he has endeavoured to
make them such by elaborate care and study he readily
professes ; far contrary to that humour so generally
affected of writing negligently and in such a manner
as might easily admit of alteration and improvement
by the same hand. And this profession ('tis plain)
gives him (a modern) the same right as ancient1 poets
and prose authors had of saying the very same things
over when occasion offered in the selfsame words2."

IDEA OF THE WORK

[A. PREFACES.] Again before the great Treatise
remember a like small preface, or preliminary lines of
introduction, To my Lord *** : that excuse may be
renewed, the ridicule again anticipated ; the moralist
or grave author vindicated and reader prepossessed ;
and that the address afterwards may be more general,
not always particular to that Lord : the piece being
too large and too formal for a letter. Accordingly
begin thus (from the first words of the Letter of
Design) : " You may remember my Lord, I began
this research by calling painting a vulgar science.
Now you see it is come so far and I have so deeply
engaged that I am about to show this to be far from a
vulgar or low science."

1 Such as Homer and Xenophon.

2 Now remember this, viz. Resolved that it would be better (after this
early apology in the Preface) on no account (except by necessary illus
tration) to refer by figures or numbers to the passages of Char-ks
rehearsed. Italic characters or guillemets will be sufficient distinction.

IDEA OF THE WORK 5

Upon mature thought, (from consideration of the
necessary repetition of the ego1 in cases of master's
hands, and what seen and observed in Italy, as also
of the easy pleasant narrative manner), resolved to
address wholly, or at least principally, and in a con
tinued strain at the head of each great division, to the
friend-Lord, My Lord * * as Letter of Enthusiasm
and that of Design (the leading treatise of this work).
And thus every new part or chapter will have a kind
of preface, or renewal of the address and epistolary2
style (My Lord, etc.). And therefore the Treatise
itself should be entitled epistolary as giving warning of
this mixed manner, viz. half-general address, but
(begging the public's pardon) more than one half to
the friend, the Lord, etc. Accordingly it will be a
new and not odd or unseemly way to begin each great
division as Book or Part (but rather Part, indeed, since
Books would be too formal to divide into and contrary
to the epistolary idea), to begin I say each Part with
the title, My Lord, set (as at the beginning of the
Letter of Enthusiasm and every other Letter) a little
way below the contents. And for the subdivisions,
and mere chapters or sections, these may begin not
directly with the title but taking it in, (as the newer
and more fashionable way is, in familiar letters), in
directly and curiously, in the first sentence or period
after a word or two, (as "Would one imagine3 My
Lord " etc.). And thus the division and subdivision
will be agreeable, distinguished, and in the composition
of the writing and style. I shall myself be thus forced
to observe a right rule, viz. : " To begin each Part
with a deeper breath, distinguishably from the sub
altern sallies or excursions in the mere sections into
which the main parts are divided."

(i) Of this explanation of Second Characters and
reasons at large see below, p. 94, in Characters, etc.

1 Infra, p. 8. 2 Supra, p. I.

3 Or, " It may be objected my Lord," etc. See such an objection as
this : fit for the beginning of a pretty early subdivision, infra, p. 15.

6 SECOND CHARACTERS

(2) Also apology1 for self-citation2, and references
so frequent to Notion, Letter, and to Characteristics.
Light and instruction being aimed at, and the shortest
way the best. This best too for inculcating the great
maxims as from certain postulates, axioms, etc.

(3) Motto or device of last treatise o TL KaXbv
cf>L\ov dei Euripides' Bacch. 88 1.

(4) Advertisement at the beginning of all, wishing
the reader (if he would read in earnest) to observe the
reference marks : as Tr. (for treatise), c (for chapter),
or p (for paragraphs). The capital figures after Tr. ;
small ones after c and p, and for the notes of the
chapters or paragraphs the Greek characters a, y8, y, §.
In this advertisement also warning of words, phrases
(see Dictionary3), and references to the indexes and
explanations at the end of the work.

(5) Running titles, viz. : The Letter concerning
Design, The Hercules of Prodicus, Emblem4 of Cebes.
And for the title of the fourth and last work (viz. the
great one) Plastic Art5.

Let it be perhaps after the idea of nodes atticae,
evening conversations, hours, virtuoso-amusement,
plastic-entertainments. Deliciae elegantiae artis.

(6) The print (when all the four together) to be
the same, but letters set a little closer than in Char-cks,
for room (much wanting) as well as beauty, if they
will be exact in setting. The text margin to have
only hands and notes and references. But the margin
of the notes to have note upon note : as Monsr Bayle.

[B. STYLE.] Remember still, this the idea of the
work, viz. : Quasi. The vehicle of other problems,
i.e. the precepts, demonstrations, etc. of real ethics.
But this hid : not to be said except darkly or pleasantly
with raillery upon self ; or some such indirect way as
in Miscellany.

Of this deviation, transfer, transition, or tralation

1 Supra, p. 4. 2 jnfra, p. 12.

3 Infra, p. 179. * Viz. Appendix. Supra, p. xviii.

5 Supra, p. xviii.

IDEA OF THE WORK 7

in favour of the TO /ca\6> of the chief species see
example below p. 142 near the end: "Accordingly
the proficient " etc.'

Continuance of manner and style of Miscellanys,
anticipation raillery1 etc.

And since dialogue-manner (whether diverse or
recitative) too ponderous and vast ; endeavour though
in the letter-style and particular private address, (as
O Theophilus ! My Lord or Reader !), to introduce
scenes and machines of this sort in many a chapter
and everywhere in general, as much as possible in way
of apostrophe and prosopope.

[C. INDEXES.] (i) After finis an index with this
previous N.B. viz. "That the words marked with an
asterisk are such as have a further explanation in the
volumes entitled Charact-cks, and may be sought in
the index belonging to those volumes."

(2) After this and the index make a column with
this title : " Places of the volumes entitled ' Character
istics ' explained or defended in this volume or ' Second
Characters.' "

(3) After this again in small print and in coarse,
according to the pages of the book, page after page,
comprise all the translations of Greek, Latin, French,
Italian, with prefatory excuse in a word or two: "as
serving either for such artists in a modern way as are
not scholars in the ancient, or for such scholars in the
learned and ancient way as are not acquainted with
the foreign modern tongues, viz. Italian or French."

(4) To have several indicatory small pointing
hands (besides asterisks, daggers, etc.) wrought and
cast by a good workman : that both for right and left
margin there may be enough to serve for the maxims
of the art, which alone are to be thus marked, as must
be explained to the reader in the advertisement already
mentioned2.

(5) Also a kind of prefatory dictionary3 of terms
of art, or new coined (with apology), after the manner

1 Infra, p. 140. 2 Supra, (4) p. 6. 3 Infra, p. 179.

8 SECOND CHARACTERS

of Monsieur Freart de Chambray1, but in the reverse
of his insolent way.

(6) An index of the names of authors cited, and
their edition, year, etc., e.g. Junius (Diet, de pictura
veterum, etc.), that in the body of the treatise, and
even in the mere notes, or margin of the notes,
(according to Mr Bayle re-iterare citations), there may
be no need of more than the word Junius.

[D. NOTES.] (i) Observe in the notes under
the text to speak always (without once failing) in the
style of we, us, and our, for /, me, and mine. Also the
author and the authors, keeping the / and me for the
text : which the epistolary address may excuse.

Yet even here remember to use it as little as
possible : and to substitute in its room, the fashionable
one, from the French on, viz. on solitude, on voudroit,
on est bien aise. The free use of the ego or / will be
best near the beginning of each head or division, part,
or chapter, where the epistolary address is renewed
and fresh in the ear.

Observe also that if the Letter and Notion be first
printed (as the case was with Char-cks), and afterwards
the whole together under the answerable general title
of Second Characters ; in this case, for better pro
portion's sake and uniformity of the print, many more
notes may be taken into the Letter, Notion, and
Emblem, and such thrown off from the last treatise,
(Plasticks) as may best ease that full page, which will
be still the more eased in double and triple proportion
by referring from thence hither.

(2) A rule, viz. : Nothing in the text but what
shall be of easy, smooth, and polite reading, without
seeming difficulty, or hard study ; so that the better
and gentler rank of painters and artists, the ladies,
beaux, courtly gentlemen, and more refined sort of
country and town wits, and notable talkers may com
prehend, or be persuaded that they comprehend, what

1 [Cf. Roland Freart, Sieur de Cambray's An idea of the Perfection of
Painting. Translated by J. Evelyn. Lond. 1668. Adv.]

IDEA OF THE WORK 9

is there written in the text. All besides, (viz. the
Greek, Latin, Italian, and French terms of art,
criticisms, and more learned remarks, or clearings, on
history, nature, philosophy, and the places of Char-cks),
to be reserved for notes, of which the easiest may be
distinguished from the rest (as Mr Coste has done the
hardest in his translated Hiero) by a particular kind of
character or form. The notes which are to have the
hands (as in paragraph .(4) just above) being to pass as
among the harder sort, fit only for the critic, the real
virtuoso, or philosopher.

(3) In the fourth and great piece (viz. after Letter
of Design, The Hercules of Prodicus, and The
Appendix, or Emblem of Cebes) remember somewhere
in the beginning of some chapter near the beginning
of the treatise to prepare and give notice of the
frequent references to the Notion, etc. : that being
practical, this speculative ; that proof and fact, this
descant and remark. So reference and recourse
thither by citation, as to axioms or postulates, demon
strations, etc.

[E. HEADS.] (i) Not too frequent in the divi
sion of heads, e.g. The five parts in general and the
five particular to be in one chapter, together with
anticipation-article and ridicule of usual parallels run
between the two arts1. All this chapter in one head.

(2) To twist, as it were, and interweave morality
with plasticks, that supreme beauty with this subaltern ;
those high and severe maxims with these curious and
severe in their kind.

Thus the Notion and Prodicus piece, in the same
original view as recited by Socrates and recorded by
Xenophon (no ill-grounded design or abuse, but the
stratagem and original) by the absolute opposition of
pleasure to virtue, and the secret anti- Epicurean view
running through the whole.

NOTE. This may be said introductorily in the
beginning of some chapter and confessed pleasantly

1 Infra, p. 140.

io SECOND CHARACTERS

and with raillery. Though with this artifice, that in
this very chapter where warning is given there should
be less doctrine, depth of morals, or learning dis
covered, only a small show or pattern of it ; which the
reader with little study may discover and applaud
himself for it, believing the rest easy. So that it is in
the next following chapters that the maxims, or deep
precepts, theorems, etc. may be couched, and so de
livered, that what surpasses the ignorant reader may
pass him by, without reproaching him his defect, or
frightening him with the supposed profoundness of the
sense or reading.

Hence maxims1 and citations2 to be employed
according to the heads.

(3) In this view examine and recollect sometimes
in seriousness the 'Acr/af/xara3, old and new, with the
chapters of the divine man, particularly what is said
in the old about the reXos, end, and in the new on
the TO KaXov. Also Sensus Communis4. Effect of
poetic (and so plastic) art, viz. and "in vocal measures
of syllables and sounds, to express the harmony and
numbers of an inward kind5." And follows next page,
viz. : "that what we most admired even in the turn
of outward features, was but a mysterious expression
of something inward6" etc. Also a little below again
of the same Treatise : " For all beauty is truth7." The
TO evcrvvoTTTov*, with all that follows in that remarkable
virtuoso-place of maxims, which must be in part or
whole copied and commented at large in Second
Characters, showing the dependency of the first on
second, i.e. of ' Characteristics ' on this new Treatise,
and vice versa.

[F. CITATIONS.] (i) Citations of moderns. This
work quatenus poetical (as plastical, pictorial), may

1 Infra, p. 153. 2 Infra, p. 170.

3 [Cf. Shaftesbury's Life, Letters, and Philosophical Regimen, edited
by Benjamin Rand, Lond. 1900, pp. 1-272.]

4 Cf. Shaftesbury's Characteristics, Lond. 1790, I.

5 Ibid. p. 137. e /£,•£ p I38-
7 Ibid. p. 142. s Ibid. p. 143.

IDEA OF THE WORK u

take in, especially in the notes, many of our best
English poets in citations, the moderns who are friends
for liberty, as Rowe, Congreve (though the latter too
immoral in his comedy), and Dryden (with the same
rebuke) for equity, and on account of his assisted
translation (by my old friend Moyle, whom he names
in his preface) of Virgil's two philosophical, theistical,
hypothesis-passages : viz. his bees in the ' Georgics,'
Esse apibus partem divinae mentis^, etc. ; and his
Sixth ' Aeneid,' Spiritus intus alit*, etc. To which if
as well done by that translator add (for equity's sake
also on the atheist's side) the song of Silenus3.

N.B. Search Mr Rowe's 'Tamerlane' for any
good moral lines. ..Also Philips'4 'Cyder,' the praises
of honesty, etc., whom we would name with praise, but
for his sottish life, gross flattery to his patrons, and
consequent slavish principles. Also Lord Landsdown
(when Mr Granville) not naming : his ecstasy on
honesty in one of Jacob Tonson's ' Miscellany Poems.'
" And what there ? Take a place at court." Betray
country. Be a Frenchman, anything. This last
abated. No personal invective. Also a rule in this
place : Not cite a prose author. Else why not preface
to Aur of Denmark and other friends.

(2) On all occasions of citations of classic authors
(the poets especially) make it a rule to consult the old
editions and best commentators to make sure of the
right text, orthography and interpretation. As also

1 Georgics, IV. 220. 2 Aeneid, vi. 726.

3 The sixth pastoral in Dryden's translation of Virgil.

4 The new Mr Philips, author of the pretty lines in the letter of the
Frost from Copenhagen, and since author of a tragedy Andromache
(which remember to look over together with Racine's and the ancients).
Also author of pastorals, whence called "The Happy Swain." The
Tragedy of Andromache is entitled "The Distress! Mother." And who
seemed taken with Char-cks in letter from Sir N to my W- of 21 March
1712.

[John Philips (1679-1709) mentioned in the text wrote the ' Cyder' in

imitation of Virgil's Georgics ; and Ambrose Philips (i675?-i749) called

The new' in the note wrote the 'Epistle to the Earl of Dorset,' dated

Copenhagen, 9 March, 1709, as also 'Pastorals' and 'The Distress!

Mother.']

12 SECOND CHARACTERS

to discover (what may sometimes prove very happy)
the parallel places of other authors.

(3) Liberty of self-citation1. The use of the ego
banished in all but the epistolary kind (viz. in the
Inquiry and in Hercules and Cebes). " For who
am I ?2" i.e. forsooth, referring to the author's name,
title, (reverend, honourable,) and picture in the front,
and title-page, with the testimonial, enconiums, verses,
prefacing self-adornments, and dressing. And even
the we, us, ours, never used but in a sense3 as it were,
taking in the reader, cooperating with the writer, and
discovering, investigating, as a party himself4.

PREFATORY ANTICIPATORY THOUGHTS,

BELONGING TO EACH PIECE SEVERALLY

(i) In some of the early divisions raise the
objection of luxury and expense encouraged in the
great and consequently too in the little according to
Esop's and Horace's Fables so unto themselves.
But first a compromise, a compounding, a less for a
greater and worse. A taking off from play, equipage,
riot and feast, nay even from building ; and in the
next place when the extravagance is committed, and
the res, the patrimony hurt, (of which speak seriously
as the way to knavery, court dependence, etc. in the
gentlemen), all may be retrieved, and upon a new turn
of business with a good air disposed of, and with good
advantage and increase of the principal, if such rules

1 So in particular and principally in respect of the new volume of
Second Characters. See Char-cks, Vol. I, viz. in Soliloquy, p. 333.
Apology for present recourse to the rules of artists, painters, statuaries,
the best masters, etc.

2 This mentioned for the sake of other future authors, who may write
on other kinds, and greater compositions (poem and discourse), improving
still our language, and raising our ear, taste, correctness, etc.

3 Otherwise the repeated use of we makes the selfishness more
ridiculously, as may be easily observed in Dr Davenant, and exalts the
author to the style and language of royalty.

4 This may, in one of the after-appendices, advertisements, indexes,
mentioned above, p. 7, be inserted as a remark on style, together with
the other laws of correctness imposed by the author on himself.

as these are followed and not fancy. For this is
worthy observation that though we scarce see a man
whose fancy agrees with another in the many hands
and paintings ; yet in general when the Cabal is over,
for this must be excepted (as in Poussin's case in
France and Domenichino at Naples), the public always
judges right, and the pieces esteemed or disesteemed
after a time and a course of some years are always
exactly esteemed according to their proportion of
worth by these rules and studies, so that the gentleman
who follows lies and caprice may undo himself. But
he who either fixes his taste or brief according to the
universal judgment and public taste and confession of
painters in works of the deceased will never be abused
or come off a sufferer when he parts with his effects.

In one of the exordiums or preface-addresses to
my Lord *** of the earliest chapters must be repre
sented by way of apology at being led hither insensibly
by his Lordship's desire1, the time, (the times), place,
conversation, circumstance of health, and the amuse
ments of Hercules, Cebes, etc. in paint (and thence
Letter, Notion) ; that having formerly and at first
applied only as others by mere taste not judgment or
speculation, resolved (being invited to the exercise) to
dissect the/£ ne sais quoi, etc.

(2) " He and he only," (upon the tone of the
Moralists near the end), the undique tutus [everywhere
secure] and recalcitrator ; " He only can ridicule," and
without ridicule greater on himself (as in Essay on
Raillery, etc.) can despise and rally virtuosos, who is
himself the great virtuoso, sage, philosopher, self-
measurer, self-examiner, critic, student and pursuer of
beauty, architect (as in The Moralists), plastic, in
amorato, etc. (as in Moralists, not so near the end,
viz. Enthusiasm vindicated) of the highest order and
in the first species and primary characters. None
presume to laugh at Second Characters, being not

1 Infra, p. 23.

i4 SECOND CHARACTERS

masters in first. This in answer to the pretended
moralist, philosopher, grave censurer, and affected
ignorant despiser of these studies.

(3) He who studies and breaks through the shell
must see some way into the kernel. Other rules of
physiognomy false ; but motion of the passions and
the traces which they make and leave, this true. And
hence the solution of the truth whatever there is in
physiognomy, except merely imbecility, idiotism, de
formed organs and consequent obstructions, etc.

(4) Remember somewhere early in the explan
atory parts to apologise for using painter's vulgar
terms, though coarsely and improperly : but to this
Horace's usus.

(5) And that as to painters, though not so abso
lutely the chief artists, not raised above statuarys,
(were there any truly worthy of that name in this age,
or since the ancients), yet their name always for short
ness and clearness made use of for all plastic artists
and their art, for all plastic art and architecture itself,
as far as architecture relates to drawing and design on
which indeed it fundamentally relies.

(6) Also at the very entrance apology to my
Lord ** * for the poetic style, alluding to what said to
him in the correspondent first Letter of Enthusiasm at
the beginning.

(7) Also, early, or at least in some of the first
heads, declarations and raillery against affected French
and Italian terms ; as far as possible without affectation
on the other side against what is established and has
already gained1.

(8) Also a kind of playing on the word Second
Characters, as second parts in drama, secondary under-
parts. The author reduced to this, excluded the
higher : content in lower, always something towards,
etc., Ka\6v, $l\ov, etc. This according to the tone of
the Letter of Design2.

1 Dictionary, infra, p. 179 2 Infra, p. 18.

PREFATORY THOUGHTS 15

Premise and distinguish between the worthy to be
criticised, and the unworthy to be named. Of the
former sort, (among authors), Fontenel1, (among
painters), Rubens, Le Brun, scarce a French painter
besides, not reckoning Poussin2, a naturalized Roman,
really naturalized, after having been bred up there and
being invited back to France and caballed against fled
to Rome with detestation of his country, which made
him and Salvator Rosa (as I have been assured by
the old virtuosos and painters there) so good friends :
the latter being a malcontent Neapolitan dissatisfied
with his countrymen as his satires show. Both these
by the way were honest moral men, the latter over-
soured and mortal enemy of the priests, who had
nothing to take advantage of against him besides the
supposed familiarity he had with his woman-servant,
on which account he married her.

Also Pietro da Cortona, Jordano3, Spaniolet4
hardly : a villain and like his work, ill usage of poor
Domenichino.

Remember as a principal and pretty early apology
this viz. : objection against a great man's or a philo
sopher's waiting upon such slight subjects as statues,
pictures, etc. " For no such precedent of old."
Answer : " though Plutarch, etc., not directly ; or
though Pliny and Pausanias, etc., who have not written
direct, were to pass as nothing ; let this be con
sidered that the great artists (like the great generals :
Xenophon, Caesar,) could write and did so for them
selves*." But now on the contrary, illiterate, vulgar,

1 Infra, p. 159.

2 Such is the excellent Nicolo Poussin in both parts of history and
perspective, and such in the latter is his Italian brother-in-law and
disciple Caspar, who borrowed of him his surname, that they are harder
to be censured in their best works than even a Raphael, a Titian, or a
Carache. And had the times or his own nation given encouragement to
Nicolo to pursue the great, full, and true manner (not the little and false
for cabinets, and to please the delicate) he had been perhaps the greatest
of moderns by far.

3 Infra, p. 132. 4 Infra, p. 133.

6 And so needed not that other philosophers and wits should take the
province.

16 SECOND CHARACTERS

scarce sober, and in their wits. No liberal education,
philosophy, or learning. Mere mechanics. If hit
right, by example, by rote : no reason to give for it.
Hear their common talk ! " Give me nature, " says
one ; " nothing like nature." Then porters and whores
called to sit, or wives (as Rubens') painted over and
over, dully and insipidly. Here the Academy-genius,
and mere Academicists as now called according to
modern institution. At this the ablest and noblest
genius of a painter laughs or spurns, and justly. But
what says he for himself? " Nature is out." " Nature
must be mended." " Nature is poor, imperfect, short."
And what says the pedant author (Freart1), and the
other writer Bosse, etc. Forsooth : " We must not
design in perspective as we see things, but as we ought
to see them." This is a weak aim at good sense, but
by them made mere nonsense.

Memorandum. To premise, as an observation on
the usefulness of the treatise (modestly insinuated) the
knowledge of men and manners even in the vulgar
characters and lives of the plastics or artists, modern
as well as ancient, chiefly modern, so well remem
bered and told in stories, fresh and attested without
interest or design to vary, add, or impose. And in
this respect observe "how the works and characters
of the masters correspond to their own proper and
personal characters, legible from their artificial second
characters, i.e. their works."

1 Concerning Monr Freart de Chambray, see also and note there what
he says of Raphael, in his 'Massacre of the Innocents,' infra, p. 132
and p. 167.

TREATISE I
A

LETTER

CONCERNING THE

ART, OR SCIENCE

DESIGN

To MY LORD * * * *

Ante omnia Mus<e.

Virg. Georg. Lib. ii.

Printed first in the Year M.DCC.XXXII.

LETTER 1

CONCERNING

DESIGN j

MY LORD,
HIS letter comes to your Lordship, accompanied

with a small writing intitled A Notion: for such

alone can that piece deservedly be called, which aspires
no higher than to the forming of a project, and that too
in so vulgar a science as painting. But whatever the
subject 'be, if it can prove any way entertaining to you,
it will sufficiently answer my design. And if possibly
it may have that good success, I should have no ordinary
opinion of my project; since I know how hard it would
be to give your Lordship a real entertainment of any
thing which was not in some respect worthy and useful.
On this account I must, by way of prevention,
inform your Lordship, that after I had conceived my
Notion such as you see it upon paper, I was not con
tented with this, but fell directly to work; and by the
hand of a master-painter brought it into practice, and
formed a real design. This was not enough. I resolved
afterwards to see what effect it would have, when taken
out of mere black-and-white, into colours: and thus a
sketch was afterwards drawn. This pleased so well,
that being encouraged by the virtuosi, who are so
eminent in this part of the world, I resolved at last to
engage my painter in the great work. Immediately a
cloth was bespoke of a suitable dimension, and the
figures taken as big or bigger than the common life;

LETTER CONCERNING DESIGN 19

the subject being of the heroic kind, and requiring
rather such figures as should appear above ordinary
human stature.

Thus my Notion, as light as it may prove in the
treatise, is become very substantial in the workmanship.
The piece is still in hand; and like to continue so for
some time. Otherwise the first draught or design
should have accompanied the treatise; as the treatise
does this letter/ But the design having grown thus
into a sketch, and the sketch afterwards into a picture;
I thought it fit your Lordship should either see the
several pieces together, or be troubled only with that
which was the best ; as undoubtedly the great one must
prove, if the master I employ sinks not very much
below himself, in this performance.

Far surely should I be, my Lord, from conceiving
any vanity or pride in amusements of such an inferior
kind as these; especially were they such as they may
naturally at first sight appear. I pretend not here to
apologize either for them, or for myself. Your Lordship
however knows, I have naturally ambition enough to
make me desirous of employing myself in business of
a higher order: since it has been my fortune in public
affairs to act often in concert with you, and in the same
views, on the interest of Europe and mankind. There
was a time, and that a very early one of my life, when
I was not wanting to my country, in this respect. But
after some years of hearty labour and pains in this kind
of workmanship, an unhappy breach in my health drove
me not only from the seat of business, but forced me
to seek these foreign climates; where, as mild as the
winters generally are, I have with much ado lived out
this latter one; and am now, as your Lordship finds,
employing myself in such easy studies as are most
suitable to my state of health, and to the genius of the
country where I am confined.

This in the meantime I can, with some assurance
say to your Lordship in a kind of spirit of prophecy,
from what I have observed of the rising genius of our

2 — 2

20 SECOND CHARACTERS

nation, That if we live to see a peace any way answer
able to that generous spirit with which this war was
begun, and carried on, for our own liberty and that of
Europe; the figure we are like to make abroad, and
the increase of knowledge, industry and sense at home,
will render united Britain the principal seat of arts;
and by her politeness and advantages in this kind, will
shew evidently, how much she owes to those counsels,
which taught her to exert herself so resolutely on behalf
of the common cause, and that of her own liberty, and
happy constitution, necessarily included.

I can myself remember the time, when, in respect
of music, our reigning taste was in many degrees inferior
to the French. The long reign of luxury and pleasure
under King Charles the Second, and the foreign helps
and studied advantages given to music in a following
reign, could not raise our genius the least in this respect.
But when the spirit of the nation was grown more free,
though engaged at that time in the fiercest war, and with
the most doubtful success, we no sooner began to turn
ourselves towards music, and enquire what Italy in
particular produced, than in an instant we outstripped
our neighbours the French, entered into a genius far
beyond theirs, and raised ourselves an ear, and judgment,
not inferior to the best now in the world.

In the same- manner, as to painting. Though we
have as yet nothing of our own native growth in this
kind worthy of being mentioned; yet since the public
has of late begun to express a relish for engravings,
drawings, copyings, and for the original paintings of
the chief Italian schools (so contrary to the modern
French), I doubt not that, in very few years we shall
make an equal progress in this other science. And
when our humour turns us to cultivate these designing
arts, our genius, I am persuaded, will naturally carry
us over the slighter amusements, and lead us to that
higher, more serious, and noble part of imitation, which
relates to history, human nature, and the chief degree
or order of beauty; I mean that of the rational life,

LETTER CONCERNING DESIGN 21

distinct from the merely vegetable and sensible, as in
animals, or plants; according to those several degrees
or orders of painting, which your Lordship will find
suggested in this extemporary Notion I have sent you.

As for architecture, it is no wonder if so many
noble designs of this kind have miscarried amongst us;
since the genius of our nation has hitherto been so little
turned this way, that through several reigns we have
patiently seen the noblest public buildings perish (if
I may say so) under the hand of one single court-
architect; who, if he had been able to profit by experi
ence, would long since, at our expense, have proved
the greatest master in the world. But I question
whether our patience is like to hold much longer.
The devastation so long committed in this kind, has
made us begin to grow rude and clamorous at the
hearing of a new palace spoilt, or a new design com
mitted to some rash or impotent pretender.

It is the good fate of our nation in this particular,
that there remain yet two of the noblest subjects for
architecture; our Prince's Palace and our House of
Parliament. For I cannot but fancy that when
Whitehall is thought of, the neighbouring Lords and
Commons will at the same time be placed in better
chambers and apartments, than at present; were it
only for majesty's sake, and as a magnificence becoming
the person of the Prince, who here appears in full
solemnity. Nor do I fear that when these new subjects
are attempted, we should miscarry as grossly as we have
done in others before. Our State, in this respect, may
prove perhaps more fortunate than our Church, in having
waited till a national taste was formed, before these
edifices were undertaken. But the zeal of the nation
could not, it seems, admit so long a delay in their
ecclesiastical structures, particularly their metropolitan.
And since a zeal of this sort has been newly kindled
amongst us, it is like we shall see from afar the many
spires arising in our great city, with such hasty and
sudden growth, as may be the occasion perhaps that

22 SECOND CHARACTERS

our immediate relish shall be hereafter censured, as
retaining much of what artists call the Gothic kind.

Hardly, indeed, as the public now stands, should
we bear to see a Whitehall treated like a Hampton
Court, or even a new cathedral like St Paul's. Almost
every one now becomes concerned, and interests himself
in such public structures. Even those pieces too are
brought under the common censure, which, though
raised by private men, are of such a grandeur and
magnificence, as to become national ornaments. The
ordinary man may build his cottage, or the plain
gentleman his country house according as he fancies:
but when a great man builds, he will find little quarter
from the public, if instead of a beautiful pile, he raises,
at a vast expense, such a false and counterfeit piece of
magnificence, as can be justly arraigned for its deformity
by so many knowing men in art, and by the whole
people, who, in such a conjuncture readily follow their
opinion.

In reality the people are no small parties in this
cause. Nothing moves successfully without them.
There can be no public, but where they are included.
And without a public voice, knowingly guided and
directed, there is nothing which can raise a true
ambition in the artist; nothing which can exalt the
genius of the workman, or make him emulous of after
fame, and of the approbation of his country, and of
posterity. For with these he naturally, as a freeman,
must take part: in these he has a passionate concern,
and interest, raised in him by the same genius of liberty,
the same laws and government, by which his property
and the rewards of his pains and industry, are secured
to him, and to his generation after him.

Everything co-operates, in such a State, towards
the improvement of art and science. And for the
designing arts in particular, such as architecture,
painting, and statuary, they are in a manner linked
together. The taste of one kind brings necessarily
that of the others along with it. When the free spirit

LETTER CONCERNING DESIGN 23

of a nation turns itself this way, judgments are formed;
critics arise; the public eye and ear improve; a right
taste prevails, and in a manner forces its way. Nothing
is so improving, nothing so natural, so congenial to the
liberal arts, as that reigning liberty and high spirit of
a people, which from the habit of judging in the highest
matters for themselves, makes them freely judge of
other subjects, and enter thoroughly into the characters
as well of men and manners, as of the products or
works of men, in art and science. So much, my Lord,
do we owe to the excellence of our national constitution,
and legal monarchy; happily fitted for us, and which
alone could hold together so mighty a people; all sharers
(though at so far a distance from each other) in the
government of themselves; and meeting under one
head in one vast metropolis; whose enormous growth,
however censurable in other respects, is actually a cause
that workmanship and arts of so many kinds arise to
such perfection.

What encouragement our higher powers may think
fit to give these growing arts, I will not pretend to
guess. This I know, that it is so much for their
advantage and interest to make themselves the chief
parties in the cause, that I wish no court or ministry,
besides a truly virtuous and wise one, may ever concern
themselves in the affair. For should they do so, they
would in reality do more harm than good; since it is
not the nature of a court (such as courts generally are)
to improve, but rather corrupt a taste. And what is
in the beginning set wrong by their example, is hardly
ever afterwards recoverable in the genius of a nation.

Content therefore I am, my Lord, that Britain
stands in this respect as she now does. Nor can one,
methinks, with just reason regret her having hitherto
made no greater advancement in these affairs of art.
As her constitution has grown, and been established,
she has in proportion fitted herself for other improve
ments. There has been no anticipation in the case.
And in this surely she must be esteemed wise, as well

24 SECOND CHARACTERS

as happy; that ere she attempted to raise herself any
other taste or relish, she secured herself a right one in
government. She has now the advantage of beginning
in other matters on a new foot. She has her models
yet to seek, her scale and standard to form, with de
liberation and good choice. Able enough she is at
present to shift for herself; however abandoned or
helpless she has been left by those whom it became to
assist her. Hardly, indeed, could she procure a single
academy for the training of her youth in exercises. As
good soldiers as we are, and as good horses as our
climate affords, our Princes, rather than expend their
treasure this way, have suffered our youth to pass into
a foreign nation, to learn to ride. As for other
academies, such as those for painting, sculpture, or
architecture, we have not so much as heard of the
proposal; whilst the Prince of our rival nation raises
academies, breeds youth, and sends rewards and
pensions into foreign countries, to advance the interest
and credit of his own. Now if, notwithstanding the
industry and pains of this foreign court, and the supine
unconcernedness of our own, the national taste however
rises, and already shews itself in many respects beyond
that of our so highly assisted neighbours ; what greater
proof can there be of the superiority of genius in one
of these nations above the other?

It is but this moment that I chance to read in an
article of one of the gazettes from Paris, that it is
resolved at court to establish a new academy for
political affairs. "In it the present chief minister is
to preside; having under him six academists, douez
des talens n&cessaires. — No person to be received
under the age of twenty-five. A thousand livres
pension for each scholar. — Able masters to be ap
pointed for teaching them the necessary sciences,
and instructing them in the Treaties of Peace and
Alliances, which have been formerly made. — The
members to assemble three times a week. — Cest de ce
Seminaire (says the writer) quon tirera les secretaires

LETTER CONCERNING DESIGN 25

d1 Ambassade ; qui par degrez pourront monter h de
plus hauts emplois"

I must confess, my Lord, as great an admirer as
I am of these regular institutions, I cannot but look
upon an academy for ministers as a very extraordinary
establishment; especially in such a monarchy as France,
and at such a conjuncture as the present. It looks as
if the ministers of that court had discovered lately some
new methods of negotiation, such as their predecessors
Richelieu and Mazarine never thought of; or that, on
the contrary, they have found themselves so declined,
and at such a loss in the management of this present
treaty, as to be forced to take their lesson from some
of those ministers with whom they treat: a reproach,
of which, no doubt, they must be highly sensible.

But it is not my design here, to entertain your
Lordship with any reflections upon politics, or the
methods which the French may take to raise them
selves new ministers, or new generals; who may prove
a better match for us than hitherto, whilst we held our
old. I will only say to your Lordship on this subject
of academies; that indeed I have less concern for the
deficiency of such a one as this, than of any other which
could be thought of, for England; and that as for a
seminary of statesmen, I doubt not but, without this
extraordinary help, we shall be able, out of our old
stock, and the common course of business, constantly
to furnish a sufficient number of well qualified persons
to serve upon occasion, either at home, or in our foreign
treaties; as often as such persons accordingly qualified
shall duly, honestly, and bona fide be required to serve.

I return therefore to my virtuoso science; which
being my chief amusement in this place and circum
stance, your Lordship has by it a fresh instance that
I can never employ my thoughts with satisfaction on
any subject, without making you a party. For even
this very notion had its rise chiefly from the conversa
tion of a certain day, which I had the happiness to pass
a few years since in the country with your Lordship.

26 SECOND CHARACTERS

It was there you shewed me some engravings, which
had been sent you from Italy. One in particular I well
remember; of which the subject was the very same
with that of my written Notion enclosed. But by what
hand it was done, or after what master, or how executed,
I have quite forgot. It was the summer season, when
you had recess from business. And I have accordingly
calculated this epistle and project for the same recess
and leisure. For by the time this can reach England,
the spring will be far advanced, and the national affairs
in a manner over, with those who are not in the
immediate administration.

Were that indeed your Lordship's lot, at present;
I know not whether in regard to my country I should
dare throw such amusements as these in your way.
Yet even in this case, I would venture to say however,
in defence of my project, and of the cause of painting;
that could my young hero come to your Lordship as
well represented as he might have been, either by the
hand of a Marat1 or a Jordano (the masters who were
in being, and in repute, when I first travelled here in
Italy), the picture itself, whatever the treatise proved,
would have been worth notice, and might have become
a present worthy of our court • and Prince's palace ;
especially were it so blessed as to lodge within it a
royal issue of her Majesty's. Such a piece of furniture
might well fit the gallery, or hall of exercises, where
our young Princes should learn their usual lessons.
And to see virtue in this garb and action, might perhaps
be no slight memorandum hereafter to a royal youth,
who should one day come to undergo this trial himself;
on which his own happiness, as well as the fate of
Europe and of the world, would in so great a measure
depend.

This, my Lord, is making (as you see) the most
I can of my project, and setting off my amusements

1 Carlo Marat was yet alive at the time when this letter was written ;
but had long been superannuated, and incapable of any considerable
performance.

LETTER CONCERNING DESIGN 27

with the best colour I am able; that I may be the
more excusable in communicating them to your
Lordship, and expressing thus, with what zeal I am,

My Lord,

Your Lordship's

most faithful humble Servant,
SHAFTESBURY.

NAPLES, March 6.

N. S. 1712.

TREATISE II

A NOTION of the Historical
Draught or 'Tablature

OF THE

JUDGMENT of HERCULES

According to PRODICUS, Lib. II. Xen. de Mem. Soc.

-Potiores

HERCULIS asrumnas credat, saevosque labores,
Et Venere, et coenis, et pluma SARDANAPALI.

Juv. Sat. 10.

Printed first in English in the Year M.DCC.XIII.

7>aul

J'culps.-

A NOTION

OF THE

HISTORICAL DRAUGHT

HERCULES1

INTRODUCTION

(i) BEFORE we enter on the examination of our
historical sketch, it may be proper to remark, that by
the word Tablature (for which we have yet no name
in English, besides the general one of picture) we

1 [In order that the reader may better understand this discussion it is
necessary to have before the mind the principal circumstances of the
choice of Hercules as uttered by the Sophist Prodicus and related by
Xenophon in the Memorabilia, II. i. 21. " Prodicus the sophist, also, in his

THE HERCULES OF PRODICUS 31

denote, according- to the original word Tabula, a work
not only distinct from a mere portraiture, but from all
those wilder sorts of painting which are in a manner

narrative concerning Hercules, which he indeed declaims to most people
as a specimen of his ability, expresses a similar notion respecting virtue,
speaking, as far as I remember, to the following effect : For he says that
Hercules, when he was advancing from boyhood to manhood, a period at
which the young, becoming their own masters, begin to give intimations
whether they will enter on life by the path of virtue or that of vice, went
forth into a solitary place, and sat down, perplexed as to which of these
two paths he should pursue ; 22. and that two female figures, of lofty
stature, seemed to advance toward him, the one of an engaging and
graceful mien, gifted by nature with elegance of form, modesty of look,
and sobriety of demeanour, and clad in a white robe ; the other fed to
plumpness and softness, but assisted by art both in her complexion, so as
to seem fairer and rosier than she really was, and in her gesture, so as to
seem taller than her natural height ; she had her eyes wide open, and a
robe through which her beauty would readily show itself; she frequently
contemplated her figure, and looked about to see if any one else was
observing her ; and she frequently glanced back at her own shadow.
23. As they approached near to Hercules, she, whom I first described,
came forward at the same pace, but the other, eager to get before her,
ran up to Hercules, and exclaimed, " I see that you are hesitating,
Hercules, by what path you shall enter upon life ; if then you make a
friend of me, I will conduct you by the most delightful and easy road,
you shall taste of every species of pleasure, and lead a life free from every
sort of trouble..."

26. Hercules, on hearing this address, said, "And what, O woman, is
your name?" "My friends," she replied, "call me Happiness, but those
who hate me, give me, to my disparagement, the name of Vice."

27. In the meantime the other female approached, and said, " I also
am come to address you, Hercules, because I know your parents, and
have observed your disposition in the training of your childhood, from
which I entertain hopes, that if you direct your steps along the path that
leads to my dwelling, you will become an excellent performer of whatever
is honourable and noble, and that I shall appear more honourable and
attractive through your illustrious deeds. 1 will not deceive you, how
ever, with promises of pleasure, but will set before you things as they
really are, and as the gods have appointed them ; 28. for of what is
valuable and excellent the gods grant nothing to mankind without labour
and care ; and if you wish the gods, therefore, to be propitious to you,
you must worship the gods ; if you seek to be loved by your friends, you
must serve your friends ; if you desire to be honoured by any city, you
must benefit that city ; if you long to be admired by all Greece for your
merit, you must endeavour to be of advantage to all Greece ; if you are
anxious that the earth should yield you abundance of fruit, you must
cultivate the earth; if you think that you should enrich yourself from
herds of cattle, you must bestow care upon herds of cattle ; if you are
eager to increase your means by war, and to secure freedom to your
friends and subdue your enemies, you must learn the arts of war, and
learn them from such as understand them, and practice how to use them
with advantage ; if you wish to be vigorous in body, you must accustom
your body to obey your mind, and exercise it with toil and exertion."

Here Vice, interrupting her speech, said, (as Prodicus relates,) " Do

32 SECOND CHARACTERS

absolute, and independent; such as the paintings in
fresco upon the walls, the ceilings, the staircases, the
cupola's, and other remarkable places either of churches
or palaces.

(2) Accordingly we are to understand, that it is
not merely the shape or dimension of a cloth, or board,
which denominates the piece or tablature; since a work
of this kind may be composed of any coloured substance,
as it may of any form ; whether square, oval or round.
But it is then that in painting we may give to any
particular work the name of Tablature, when the work
is in reality "a single piece, comprehended in one view,
and formed according to one single intelligence, mean
ing, or design; which constitutes a real whole, by a
mutual and necessary relation of its parts, the same as
of the members in a natural body." So that one may
say of a picture composed of any number of figures
differently ranged, and without any regard to this
correspondency or union described, that it is no more
a real piece or tablature than a picture would be a
man's picture, or proper portraiture, which represented

you see Hercules, by how difficult and tedious a road this woman conducts
you to gratification, while I shall lead you by an easy and short path to
perfect happiness?"

"Wretched being," rejoined Virtue, "of what good are you in posses
sion? Or what real pleasure do you experience, when you are unwilling
to do anything for the attainment of it?". ..32. But I am the companion
of the gods ; I associate with virtuous men ; no honourable deed, divine
or human, is done without me ; I am honoured most of all by the deities,
and by those among men to whom it belongs to honour me, being a
welcome co-operator with artisans, a faithful household guardian to
masters, a benevolent assistant to servants, a benign promoter of the
labours of peace, a constant auxiliary to the efforts of war, an excellent
sharer in friendship. 33. My friends have a sweet and untroubled
enjoyment of meat and drink, for they refrain from them till they feel an
appetite. They have also sweeter sleep than the idle ; and are neither
annoyed if they lose a portion of it, nor neglect to do their duties for the
sake of it. The young are pleased with praise3 frcm the old ; the old are
delighted with honours from the young. They remember their former
acts with pleasure, and rejoice to perform their present occupations with
success ; being through my influence, dear to the gods, beloved by their
friends, and honoured by their country. And when the destined end of
life comes, they do not lie in oblivion and dishonour, but, celebrated with
songs and praise, flourish for ever in the memory of mankind. By such
a course of conduct, O Hercules, son of noble parents, you may secure
the most exalted happiness." Bohn's ed.]

THE HERCULES OF PRODICUS 33

on the same cloth, in different places, the legs, arms,
nose, and eyes of such a person, without adjusting
them according to the true proportion, air, and character
which belonged to him.

(3) This regulation has place even in the inferior
degrees of painting; since the mere flower-painter is,
we see, obliged to study the form of festoons and to
make use of a peculiar order, or architecture of vases,
jars, cannisters, pedestals, and other inventions, which
serve as machines, to frame a certain proportionate
assemblage, or united mass, according to the rules of
perspective; and with regard as well to the different
shapes and sizes of his several flowers, as to the
harmony of colours resulting from the whole: this
being the only thing capable of rendering his work
worthy the name of a composition or real piece.

(4) So much the more, therefore, is this regulation
applicable to history-painting, where not only men, but
manners, and human passions are represented. Here
the unity of design must with more particular exactness
be preserved, according to the just rules of poetic art;
that in the representation of any event, or remarkable
fact, the probability, or seeming truth (which is the
real truth of art) may with the highest advantage be
supported and advanced : as we shall better understand
in the argument which follows on the historical tablature
of the Judgment of Hercules; who being young, and
retired to a solitary place in order to deliberate on the
choice he was to make of the different ways of life, was
accosted (as our historian relates) by the two goddesses,
Virtue and Pleasure. It is on the issue of the contro
versy between these two, that the character of Hercules
depends. So that we may naturally give to this piece
and history, as well the title of The Education, as the
Choice or Judgment of Hercules.

CHAPTER I

OF THE GENERAL CONSTITUTION OR ORDINANCE
OF THE TABLATURE

(1) THIS fable or history may be variously repre
sented, according to the order of time:

Either in the instant when the two goddesses
(Virtue and Pleasure) accost Hercules;

Or when they are entered on their dispute ;

Or when their dispute is already far advanced, and
Virtue seems to gain her cause.

(2) According to the first notion, Hercules must
of necessity seem surprized on the first appearance of
such miraculous forms. He admires, he contemplates;
but is not yet engaged or interested. According to
the second notion, he is interested, divided, and in
doubt. According to the third, he is wrought, agi
tated, and torn by contrary passions. It is the last
effort of the virtuous one, striving for possession over
him. He agonizes, and with all his strength of reason
endeavours to overcome himself :

Et premitur ratione animus, vincique laborat.

(3) Of these different periods of time, the latter
has been chosen; as being the only one of the three,
which can well serve to express the grand event, or
consequent resolution of Hercules, and the choice he
actually made of a life full of toil and hardship, under
the conduct of Virtue, for the deliverance of mankind
from tyranny and oppression. And it is to such a
piece, or tablature, as represents this issue of the

THE HERCULES OF PRODICUS 35

balance, in our pondering hero, that we may justly
give the title of the Decision or Judgment of Hercules.

(4) The same history may be represented yet
according to a fourth date or period: as at the time
when Hercules is entirely won by Virtue. But then
the signs of this resolute determination reigning abso
lutely in the attitude, and air of our young hero; there
would be no room left to represent his agony, or inward
conflict, which indeed makes the principal action here;
as it would do in a poem, were this subject to be treated
by a good poet. Nor would there be any more room
left in this case, either for the persuasive rhetoric of
Virtue (who must have already ended her discourse)
or for the insinuating address of Pleasure, who having
lost her cause, must necessarily appear displeased, or
out of humour: a circumstance which would no way
suit her character.

(5) In the original story or fable of this adventure
of our young Hercules, it is particularly noted, that
Pleasure, advancing hastily before Virtue, began her
plea, and was heard with prevention ; as being first in
turn. And as this fable is wholly philosophical and
moral, this circumstance in particular is to be considered
as essential.

(6) In this third period therefore of our history
(dividing it, as we have done, into four successive
dates or points of time) Hercules being auditor, and
attentive, speaks not. Pleasure has spoken. Virtue
is still speaking. She is about the middle, or towards
the end of her discourse ; in the place where, according
to just rhetoric, the highest tone of voice and strongest
action are employed.

(7) It is evident, that every master in painting,
when he has made choice of the determinate date or
point of time, according to which he would represent
his history, is afterwards debarred the taking advantage
from any other action than what is immediately present,
and belonging to that single instant he describes. For
if he passes the present only for a moment, he may as

3—2

36 SECOND CHARACTERS

well pass it for many years. And by this reckoning
he may with as good right repeat the same figure
several times over, and in one and the same picture
represent Hercules in his cradle, struggling with the
serpents; and the same Hercules of full age, fighting
with the Hydra, with Anteus, and with Cerberus:
which would prove a mere confused heap, or knot of
pieces, and not a single entire piece, or tablature, of the
historical kind.

(8) It may however be allowable, on some
occasions, to make use of certain enigmatical or
emblematical devices, to represent a future time: as
when Hercules, yet a mere boy, is seen holding a
small club, or wearing the skin of a young lion. For
so we often find him in the best antiques. And though
history had never related of Hercules, that being yet
very young, he killed a lion with his own hand; this
representation of him would nevertheless be entirely
conformable to poetic truth; which not only admits,
but necessarily presupposes prophecy or prognostica
tion, with regard to the actions, and lives of heroes
and great men. Besides that as to our subject, in
particular, the natural genius of Hercules, even in his
tenderest youth, might alone answer for his handling
such arms as these, and bearing, as it were in play,
these early tokens of the future hero.

(9) To preserve therefore a just conformity with
historical truth, and with the unity of time and action,
there remains no other way by which we can possibly
give a hint of any thing future, or call to mind any thing
past, than by setting in view such passages or events
as have actually subsisted, or according to nature might
well subsist, or happen together in one and the same
instant. And this is what we may properly call the
rule of consistency.

(10) How is it therefore possible, says one, to
express a change of passion in any subject, since this
change is made by succession; and that in this case
the passion which is understood as present, will require

THE HERCULES OF PRODICUS 37

a disposition of body and features wholly different
from the passion which is over, and past? To this
we answer, That notwithstanding the ascendency or
reign of the principal and immediate passion, the artist
has power to leave still in his subject the tracts or
footsteps of its predecessor: so as to let us behold not
only a rising passion together with a declining one;
but, what is more, a strong and determinate passion,
with its contrary already discharged and banished.
As for instance, when the plain tracts of tears new
fallen, with other fresh tokens of mourning and
dejection, remain still in a person newly transported
with joy at the sight of a relation or friend, who the
moment before had been lamented as one deceased or
lost.

(n) Again, by the same means which are em
ployed to call to mind the past, we may anticipate the
future: as would be seen in the case of an able painter,
who should undertake to paint this history of Hercules
according to the third date or period of time proposed
for our historical tablature. For in this momentary
turn of action, Hercules remaining still in a situation
expressive of suspense and doubt, would discover
nevertheless that the strength of this inward conflict
was over, and that victory began now to declare herself
in favour of virtue. This transition, which seems at
first so mysterious a performance, will be easily com
prehended, if one considers, that the body, which moves
much slower than the mind, is easily outstripped by
this latter; and that the mind on a sudden turning itself
some new way, the nearer situated and more sprightly
parts of the body (such as the eyes, and muscles about
the mouth and forehead) taking the alarm, and moving
in an instant, may leave the heavier and more distant
parts to adjust themselves, and change their attitude
some moments after.

(12) This different operation may be distinguished
by the names of anticipation and repeal.

(13) If by any other method an artist should

S8 SECOND CHARACTERS

pretend to introduce into this piece any portion of
time, future or past, he must either sin directly against
the law of truth and credibility, in representing things
contrary and incompatible; or against that law of unity
and simplicity of design, which constitutes the very
being of his work. This particularly shews itself in
a picture, when one is necessarily left in doubt, and
unable to determine readily, which of the distinct
successive parts of the history or action is that very
one represented in the design. For even here the
case is the same as in the other circumstances of
poetry and painting: "That what is principal or chief,
should immediately shew itself, without leaving the
mind in any uncertainty."

(14) According to this rule of the unity of time,
if one should ask an artist, who had painted this
history of the Judgment of Hercules, " Which of these
four periods or dates of time above proposed he in
tended in his picture to represent1?" and it should
happen that he could not readily answer, It was this,
or that: it would appear plainly he had never formed
a real notion of his workmanship, or of the history
he intended to represent. So that when he had
executed even to a miracle all those other beauties
requisite in a piece, and had failed in this single one,
he would from hence alone be proved to be in truth
no history-painter, or artist in the kind, who under
stood not so much as how to form the real design of
a historical piece.

1 If the same question concerning the instantaneous action, or present
moment of time, were applied to many famous historical paintings much
admired in the world, they would be found very defective : as we may
learn by the instance of that single subject of Acteon, one of the commonest
in painting. Hardly is there anywhere seen a design of this poetical
history, without a ridiculous anticipation of the metamorphosis. The
horns of Acteon, which are the effect of a charm, should naturally wait the
execution of that act in which the charm consists. Till the goddess
therefore has thrown her cast, the hero's person suffers not any change.
Even while the water flies, his forehead is still found. But in the usual
design we see it otherwise. The horns are already sprouted, if not full
grown : and the goddess is seen watering the sprouts.

CHAPTER II

OF THE FIRST OR PRINCIPAL FIGURE

(1) To apply therefore what has been said above
to our immediate design or tablature in hand; we may
observe, in the first place, with regard to Hercules
(the first or principal figure of our piece) that being-
placed in the middle, between the two goddesses, he
should by a skilful master be so drawn, as even setting
aside the air and features of the face, it should appear
by the very turn or position of the body alone, that
this young hero had not wholly quitted the balancing
or pondering part. For in the manner of his turn
towards the worthier of these goddesses, he should by
no means appear so averse or separate from the other,
as not to surfer it to be conceived of him, that he had
ever any inclination for her, or had ever hearkened to
her voice. On the contrary, there ought to be some
hopes yet remaining for this latter goddess Pleasure,
and some regret apparent in Hercules. Otherwise we
should pass immediately from the third to the fourth
period; or at least confound one with the other.

(2) Hercules, in this agony described, may appear
either sitting, or standing: though it be more according
to probability for him to appear standing, in regard to
the presence of the two goddesses, and by reason the
case is far from being the same here as in the Judgment
of Paris, where the interested goddesses plead their
cause before their judge. Here the interest of Hercules
himself is at stake. It is his own cause which is trying.
He is in this respect not so much the judge, as he is
in reality the party judged.

40 SECOND CHARACTERS

(3) The superior and commanding passion of
Hercules may be expressed either by a strong admira
tion, or by an admiration which holds chiefly of love.

— Ingenti perculsus amore.

(4) If the latter be used, then the reluctant passion,
which is not yet wholly overcome, may shew itself in
pity and tenderness, moved in our hero by the thought
of those pleasures and companions of his youth, which
he is going for ever to abandon. And in this sense
Hercules may look either on the one or the other of
the goddesses, with this difference; that if he looks on
Pleasure, it should be faintly, and as turning his eyes
back with pity; having still his action and gesture
turned the other way towards Virtue. If, on the
contrary, he looks on Virtue ; it ought to be earnestly,
and with extreme attention, having some part of the
action of his body inclining still towards Pleasure, and
discovering by certain features of concern and pity,
intermixed with the commanding or conquering passion,
that the decision he is about to make in favour of
Virtue, cost him not a little.

(5) If it be thought fit rather to make use of
admiration, merely to express the commanding passion
of Hercules: then the reluctant one may discover itself
in a kind of horror, at the thought of the toil and
labour, to be sustained in the rough rocky way apparent
on the side of Virtue.

(6) Again, Hercules may be represented as looking
neither towards Virtue nor Pleasure, but as turning his
eyes either towards the mountainous rocky way pointed
out to him by Virtue, or towards the flowery way of the
vale and meadows, recommended to him by Pleasure.
And to these different attitudes for the expression of
the turn or balance of judgment in our pensive hero.

(7) Whatever may be the manner chosen for the
designing of this figure of Hercules, according to that
part of the history in which we have taken him; it is
certain he should be so drawn, as neither by the opening

THE HERCULES OF PRODICUS 41

of his mouth, or by any other sign, to leave it in the
least dubious whether he is speaking or silent. For it
is absolutely requisite that silence should be distinctly
characterised in Hercules, not only as the natural effect
of his strict attention, and the little leisure he has from
what passes at this time within his breast; but in order
withal to give that appearance of majesty and superiority
becoming the person and character of pleading Virtue ;
who by her eloquence and other charms has ere this
made herself mistress of the heart of our enamoured
hero:

— Pendetque iterum narrantis ab ore1.

This image of the sublime in the discourse and manner
of Virtue, would be utterly lost, if in the instant that
she employed the greatest force of action, she should
appear to be interrupted by the ill-timed speech, reply,
or utterance of her auditor. Such a design or repre
sentation as this, would prove contrary to order, contrary
to the history, and to the decorum, or decency of
manners. Nor can one well avoid taking notice here
of that general absurdity committed by many of the
esteemed great masters in painting; who in one and
the same company, or assembly of persons jointly
employed, and united according to the history, in one
single or common action, represent to us not only two
or three, but several, and sometimes all speaking at
once : which must naturally have the same effect on
the eye, as such a conversation would have upon the
ear were we in reality to hear it.

1 Virg. Aen. Lib. 4, ver. 79.

CHAPTER III

OF THE SECOND FIGURE

(1) AFTER what has been said on the subject of
Hercules, it appears plainly what the attitude must be
of our second figure, Virtue; who, as we have taken
her in this particular period of our history, must of
necessity be speaking with all the force of action, such
as would appear in an excellent orator, when at the
height, and in the most affecting part of his discourse.

(2) She ought therefore to be drawn standing;
since it is contrary to all probable appearance, and
even to nature itself, that in the very heat and highest
transport of speech, the speaker should be seen sitting,
or in any posture which might express repose.

(3) She may be habited either as an Amazon, with
the helmet, lance, and in the robe or vest of Pallas; or
as any other of the virtues, goddesses, or heroines, with
the plain original crown, without rays, according to
genuine antiquity. Our history makes no mention of
a helmet, or any other armour of Virtue. It gives us
only to understand that she was dressed neither negli
gently, nor with much study or ornament. If we follow
this latter method, we need give her only in her hand
the imperial or magisterial sword1; which is her true
characteristic mark, and would sufficiently distinguish
her, without the helmet, lance, or other military habit.
And in this manner the opposition between herself
and her rival would be still more beautiful and regular.

—"But this beauty," says one, "would be discoverable
only by the learned." — Perhaps so. But then again

1 Parazonium.

THE HERCULES OF PRODICUS 43

there would be no loss for others: since no one would
find this piece the less intelligible on the account of
this regulation. On the contrary, one who chanced
to know little of antiquity in general, or of this history
in particular, would be still further to seek, if upon
seeing an armed woman in the piece, he should
represent to himself either a Pallas, a Bellona, or any
other warlike form, or deity of the female kind.

(4) As for the shape, countenance, or person of
Virtue; that which is usually given to Pallas may fitly
serve as a model for this dame; as on the other side,
that which is given to Venus may serve in the same
manner for her rival. The historian whom we follow,
represents Virtue to us as a lady of a goodly form, tall
and majestic. And by what he relates of her, he gives
us sufficiently to understand, that though she was
neither lean, nor of a tanned complexion, she must
have discovered however, by the substance and colour
of her flesh, that she was sufficiently accustomed to
exercise. Pleasure, on the other hand, by an exact
opposition, is represented in better case, and of a
softness of complexion ; which speaks her manners,
and gives her a middle character between the person
of a Venus, and that of a Bacchinal nymph.

(5) As for the position, or attitude of Virtue;
though in a historical piece, such as ours is designed,
it would on no account be proper to have immediate
recourse to the way of emblem ; one might, on this
occasion, endeavour nevertheless by some artifice, to
give our figure, as much as possible, the resemblance
of the same goddess, as she is seen on medals, and
other ancient emblematic pieces of like nature. In
this view, she should be so designed, as to stand firm
with her full poise upon one foot, having the other a
little advanced, and raised on a broken piece of ground
or rock, instead of the helmet or little globe on which
we see her usually setting her foot, as triumphant, in
those pieces of the emblematic kind. A particular
advantage of this attitude, so judiciously assigned to

44 SECOND CHARACTERS

Virtue by ancient masters, is, that it expresses as well
her aspiring effort, or ascent towards the Stars and
Heaven, as her victory and superiority over fortune
and the world. For so the poets have of old described
her.

— Negata tentat iter via1.
Virtutisque viam deserit arduae".

And in our piece particularly, where the arduous and
rocky way of Virtue requires to be emphatically repre
sented; the ascending posture of this figure, with one
foot advanced, in a sort of climbing action, over the
rough and thorny ground, must of necessity, if well
executed, create a due effect, and add to the sublime
of this ancient poetic work3.

(6) As for the hands or arms, which in real oratory,
and during the strength of elocution, must of necessity
be active; it is plain in respect of our goddess, that the
arm in particular which she has free to herself, and is
neither encumbered with lance or sword, should be
employed another way, and come in, to second the
discourse, and accompany it, with a just emphasis and
action. Accordingly, Virtue would then be seen with
this hand, turned either upwards to the rocky way
marked out by her with approbation ; or to the sky,
or stars, in the same sublime sense; or downwards to
the flowery way and vale, as in a detesting manner,
and with abhorrence of what passes there; or last of
all (in a disdainful sense, and with the same appearance
of detestation) against Pleasure herself. Each manner
would have its peculiar advantage. And the best profit

1 Horat. Lib. 3, Od. 2. a Idem ibid. Od. 24.

3 As ancient as the poet Hesiod, which appears by the following
verses, cited by our historian, as the foundation, or first draught of this
Herculean tablature.

rf)i> p.ft> yap KaKorrjra (cat tXaSdv fcrnv f\ftrdai
pT)i8ia>s. Xet'i; fjLtv 68bst /x<iXa 8' (yyvdi vaifij
rrjs 8' aper?)r tSpaira 6fO\ irpoirdpoiOfv f&i
adavarot ' fj.au pos 8t (cat opdios olp.os fir'
Kat rprjvvs TO irp&Tov ' eV^i/ 8' (Is aKpov
8 fJTrtiTa TreXft, ^aXeTDj irep fov<ra.

THE HERCULES OF PRODICUS 45

should be made of this arm and hand at liberty to
express either the disapprobation or the applause
proposed. It might prove, however, a considerable
advantage to our figure of Virtue, if holding the lance,
or imperial sword, slightly, with one of her hands
stretched downwards, she could, by that very hand
and action, be made to express the latter meaning;
opening for that purpose some of the lower fingers of
this hand, in a refusing or repelling manner; whilst
with the other arm and hand at liberty, she should
express as well the former meaning, and point out to
Hercules the way which leads to honour, and the just
glory of heroic actions.

(7) From all these circumstances of history, and
action, accompanying this important figure, the difficulty
of the design will sufficiently appear, to those who
carry their judgment beyond the mere form, and are
able to consider the character of the passion to which
it is subjected. For where a real character is marked,
and the inward form peculiarly described, it is necessary
the outward should give place. Whoever should
expect to see our figure of Virtue, in the exact mein
of a fine talker, curious in her choice of action, and
forming it according to the usual decorum, and regular
movement of one of the fair ladies of our age, would
certainly be far wide of the thought and genius of this
piece. Such studied action and artificial gesture may
be allowed to the actors and actresses of the stage.
But the good painter must come a little nearer to
truth, and take care that his action be not theatrical,
or at second hand ; but original, and drawn from nature
herself. Now although in the ordinary tenour of dis
course, the action of the party might be allowed to
appear so far governed and composed by art, as to
retain that regular contrast and nice balance of move
ment which painters are apt to admire as the chief
grace of figures; yet in this particular case, where the
natural eagerness of debate, supported by a thorough
antipathy and animosity, is joined to a sort of

46 SECOND CHARACTERS

enthusiastic agitation incident to our prophetic dame,
there can be little of that fashionable mien, or genteel
air admitted. The painter who, in such a piece as we
describe, is bound to preserve the heroic style, will
doubtless beware of representing his heroine as a mere
scold. Yet this is certain, that it were better for him
to expose himself to the meanness of such a fancy,
and paint his lady in a high rant, according to the
common weakness of the sex, than to engage in the
embellishment of the mere form; and forgetting the
character of severity and reprimand belonging to the
illustrious rival, present her to us a fair specious
personage, free of emotion, and without the least bent
or movement which should express the real pathetic of
the kind.

CHAPTER IV

OF THE THIRD FIGURE

(1) CONCERNING Pleasure there needs little to be
said, after what has been already remarked in relation
to the two preceding figures. The truth of appearance,
that of history, and even the decorum itself (according
to what has been explained above) require evidently,
that in this period or instant described, Pleasure should
be found silent. She can have no other language
allowed her than that merely of the eyes. And it
would be a happy management for her in the design,
if in turning her eyes to meet those of Hercules, she
should find his head and face already turned so much
on the contrary side, as to shew it impossible for her
as yet to discover the growing passion of this hero in
favour of her rival. By this means she might still with
good right retain her fond airs of dalliance and court
ship ; as having yet discovered no reason she has to be
dissatisfied.

(2) She may be drawn either standing, leaning,
sitting, or lying; without a crown, or crowned either
with roses, or with myrtle; according to the painter's
fancy. And since in this third figure the painter has
so great a liberty left him, he may make good advantage
of it for the other two, to which this latter may be
subjected, as the last in order, and of least consequence.

(3) That which makes the greatest difficulty in
the disposition or ordinance of this figure Pleasure,
is, that notwithstanding the supine air and character of
ease and indolence, which should be given her, she
must retain still so much life and action, as is sufficient

48 SECOND CHARACTERS

to express her persuasive effort, and manner of indica
tion towards her proper paths; those of the flowery
kind, and vale below, whither she would willingly guide
our hero's steps. Now should this effort be over-
strongly expressed; not only the supine character and
air of indolence would be lost in this figure of Pleasure ;
but, what is worse, the figure would seem to speak, or
at least appear so, as to create a double meaning, or
equivocal sense in painting; which would destroy what
we have established as fundamental, concerning the
absolute reign of silence throughout the rest of the
piece, in favour of Virtue, the sole speaking party at
this instant, or third period of our history.

(4) According to a computation, which in this
way of reasoning might be made, of the whole motion
or action to be given to our figure of Pleasure ; she
should scarce have one-fifth reserved for that which
we may properly call active in her, and have already
termed her persuasive or indicative effort. All besides
should be employed to express (if one may say so) her
inaction, her supineness, effeminacy, and indulgent ease.
The head and body might entirely favour this latter
passion. One hand might be absolutely resigned to it;
serving only to support, with much ado, the lolling lazy
body. And if the other hand be required to express
some kind of gesture or action toward the road of
pleasures recommended by this dame; the gesture
ought however to be slight and negligent, in the manner
of one who has given over speaking, and appears weary
and spent.

(5) For the shape, the person, the complexion,
and what else may be further remarked as to the air
and manner of Pleasure; all this is naturally compre
hended in the opposition, as above stated, between
herself and Virtue.

CHAPTER V

OF THE ORNAMENTS OF THE PIECE ; AND CHIEFLY
OF THE DRAPERY, AND PERSPECTIVE

(i) IT is sufficiently known, how great a liberty
painters are used to take, in the colouring of their
habits, and of other draperies belonging to their
historical pieces. If they are to paint a Roman people,
they represent them in different dresses; though it be
certain the common people among them were habited
very near alike, and much after the same colour. In
like manner, the Egyptians, Jews, and other ancient
nations, as we may well suppose, bore in this particular
their respective likeness or resemblance one to another,
as at present the Spaniards, Italians, and several other
people of Europe. But such a resemblance as this
would, in the way of painting, produce a very untoward
effect; as may easily be conceived. For this reason
the painter makes no scruple to introduce philosophers,
and even apostles, in various colours, after a very
extraordinary manner. It is here that the historical
truth must of necessity indeed give way to that which
we call poetical, as being governed not so much by
reality, as by probability, or plausible appearance. So
that a painter, who uses his privilege or prerogative in
this respect, ought however to do it cautiously, and
with discretion. And when occasion requires that he
should present us his philosophers or apostles thus
variously coloured, he must take care at least so to
mortify his colours, that these plain poor men may not
appear, in his piece, adorned like so many lords or
princes of the modern garb.

50 SECOND CHARACTERS

(2) If, on the other hand, the painter should
happen to take for his subject some solemn entry or
triumph, where, according to the truth of fact, all manner
of magnificence had without doubt been actually dis
played, and all sorts of bright and dazzling colours
heaped together and advanced, in emulation, one
against another; he ought on this occasion, in breach
of the historical truth, or truth of fact, to do his
utmost to diminish and reduce the excessive gaiety
and splendour of those objects, which would otherwise
raise such a confusion, oppugnancy, and riot of colours,
as would to any judicious eye appear absolutely in
tolerable.

(3) It becomes therefore an able painter in this,
as well as in the other parts of his workmanship, to
have regard principally, and above all, to the agree
ment or correspondency of things. And to that end
it is necessary he should form in his mind a certain
note or character of unity, which being happily taken,
would, out of the many colours of his piece, produce
(if one may say so) a particular distinct species of an
original kind: like those compositions in music, where
among the different airs (such as sonatas, entries, or
sarabands) there are different and distinct species ; of
which we may say in particular, as to each, "that it
has its own proper character or genius, peculiar to
itself."

(4) Thus the harmony of painting requires, "that
in whatever key the painter begins his piece, he should
be sure to finish it in the same."

(5) This regulation turns on the principal figure,
or on the two or three which are eminent, in a tablature
composed of many. For if the painter happens to give
a certain height or richness of colouring to his principal
figure ; the rest must in proportion necessarily partake
this genius. But if, on the contrary, the painter should
have chanced to give a softer air, with more gentleness
and simplicity of colouring, to his principal figure; the
rest must bear a character proportionable, and appear

THE HERCULES OF PRODICUS 51

in an extraordinary simplicity; that one and the same
spirit may, without contest, reign through the whole of
his design.

(6) Our historical draught of Hercules will afford
us a very clear example in the case. For considering
that the hero is to appear on this occasion retired and
gloomy; being withal in a manner naked, and without
any other covering than a lion's skin, which is itself
of a yellow and dusky colour; it would be really im
practicable for a painter to represent this principal
figure in any extraordinary brightness or lustre. From
whence it follows, that in the other inferior figures
or subordinate parts of the work, the painter must
necessarily make use of such still quiet colours, as
may give to the whole piece a character of solemnity
and simplicity, agreeable with itself. Now should our
painter honestly go about to follow his historian, accord
ing to the literal sense of the history, which represents
Virtue to us in a resplendent robe of the purest and
most glossy white, it is evident he must after this
manner destroy his piece. The good painter in this,
as in all other occasions of like nature, must do as the
good poet; who undertaking to treat some common
and known subject, refuses however to follow strictly,
like a mere copyist or translator, any preceding poet
or historian; but so orders it, that his work in itself
becomes really new and original.

Publica materies privati juris erit, si

Nee circa vilem patulumque moraberis orbem;

Nee verbum verbo curabis redder e fidus

Interpres^.

(7) As for what relates to the perspective or scene
of our historical piece, it ought so to present itself, as
to make us instantly conceive that it is in the country,
and in a place of retirement, near some wood or forest,
that this whole action passes. For it would be

1 Horat. de Art. Poet. 11. 131-4.

4—2

52 SECOND CHARACTERS

impertinent to bring architecture or buildings of what
ever kind in view, as tokens of company, diversion,
or affairs, in a place purposely chosen to denote
solitude, thoughtfulness, and premeditated retreat.
Besides, that according to the poets (our guides and
masters in this art) neither the goddesses, nor other
divine forms of whatever kind, cared ever to present
themselves to human sight, elsewhere than in these
deep recesses. And it is worth observing here, how
particularly our philosophical historian affects to speak,
by way of prevention, of the solitary place where
Hercules was retired, and of his thoughtfulness pre
ceding this apparition : which from these circumstances
may be construed henceforward as a mere dream ; but
as such, a truly rational, and divine one.

(8) As to the fortress, temple, or palace, of Virtue,
situated on a mountain, after the emblematical way,
as we see represented in some pieces formed upon this
subject; there is nothing of this kind expressed by our
historian. And should this or any thing of a like nature
present itself in our design, it would fill the mind with
foreign fancies, and mysterious views, no way agree
able to the taste and genius of this piece. Nor is there
any thing, at the same time, on Pleasure's side, to
answer, by way of opposition, to this palace of Virtue;
which, if expressed, would on this account destroy the
just simplicity and correspondency of our work.

(9) Another reason against the perspective part,
the architecture, or other studied ornaments of the
landscape kind, in this particular piece of ours, is, that
in reality there being no occasion for these appearances,
they would prove a mere incumbrance to the eye, and
would of necessity disturb the sight, by diverting it
from that which is principal, the history and fact.
Whatsoever appears in a historical design, which is
not essential to the action, serves only to confound
the representation, and perplex the mind: more par
ticularly, if these episodic parts are so lively wrought,
as to vie with the principal subject, and contend for

THE HERCULES OF PRODICUS 53

precedency with the figures and human life. A just
design, or tablature, should, at first view, discover,
what nature it is designed to imitate; what life, whether
of the higher or lower kind, it aims chiefly to represent.
The piece must by no means be equivocal or dubious;
but must with ease distinguish itself, either as historical
and moral, or as perspective and merely natural. If
it be the latter of these beauties, which we desire to
see delineated according to its perfection, then the
former must give place. The higher life must be
allayed, and in a manner discountenanced and obscured;
whilst the lower displays itself, and is exhibited as
principal. Even that which according to a term of
art we commonly call still-life, and is in reality of the
last and lowest degree of painting, must have its
superiority and just preference in a tablature of its
own species. It is the same in animal pieces, where
beasts or fowl are represented. I n landscape, inanimates
are principal: it is the earth, the water, the stones and
rocks which live. All other life becomes subordinate.
Humanity, sense, manners, must in this place yield, and
become inferior. It would be a fault even to aim at the
expression of any real beauty in this kind, or go about
to animate or heighten in any considerable degree the
accompanying figures of men, or deities which are acci
dentally introduced, as appendices, or ornaments, in
such a piece. But if, on the contrary, the human species
be that which first presents itself in a picture ; if it be
the intelligent life, which is set to view; it is the other
species, the other life, which must then surrender and
become subservient. The merely natural must pay
homage to the historical or moral. Every beauty,
every grace must be sacrificed to the real beauty of
this first and highest order. For nothing can be more
deformed than a confusion of many beauties: and the
confusion becomes inevitable, where the subjection is
not complete.

(10) By the word moral are understood, in this
place, all sorts of judicious representations of the human

54 SECOND CHARACTERS

passions; as we see even in battle pieces; excepting
those of distant figures, and the diminutive kind; which
may rather be considered as a sort of landscape. In all
other martial pieces, we see expressed in lively action,
the several degrees of valour, magnanimity, cowardice,
terror, anger, according to the several characters of
nations, and particular men. It is here that we may
see heroes and chiefs (such as the Alexanders or
Constantines) appear, even in the hottest of the action,
with a tranquillity and sedateness of mind peculiar to
themselves : which is, indeed, in a direct and proper
sense, profoundly moral.

(n) But as the moral part is differently treated
in a poem, from what it is in history, or in a philo
sophical work; so must it, of right, in painting be far
differently treated, from what it naturally is, either in
the history, or poem. For want of a right under
standing of this maxim, it often happens that by
endeavouring to render a piece highly moral and
learned, it becomes thoroughly ridiculous and im
pertinent.

(12) For the ordinary works of sculpture, such as
the low-relieves, and ornaments of columns and edifices,
great allowance is made. The very rules of perspective
are here wholly reversed, as necessity requires, and are
accommodated to the circumstance and genius of the
place or building, according to a certain oeconomy or
order of a particular and distinct kind; as will easily
be observed by those who have thoroughly studied the
Trajan and Antoninus pillars, and other relieve-works
of the ancients. In the same manner, as to pieces of
engraved work, medals, or whatever shews itself in
one substance (as brass or stone), or only by shade
and light (as in ordinary drawings, or stamps), much
also is allowed, and many things admitted, of the
fantastic, miraculous, or hyperbolical kind. It is here
that we have free scope, withal, for whatever is learned,
emblematical, or enigmatic. But for the completely
imitative and illusive art of painting, whose character

THE HERCULES OF PRODICUS 55

it is to employ in her works the united force of different
colours; and, who surpassing by so many degrees, and
in so many privileges, all other human fiction, or
imitative art, aspires in a directer manner towards
deceit, and a command over our very sense; she must of
necessity abandon whatever is over-learned, humorous,
or witty; to maintain herself in what is natural, credible,
and winning of our assent: that she may thus acquit
herself of what is her chief province, the specious
appearance of the object she represents. Otherwise
we shall naturally bring against her the just criticism
of Horace, on the scenical representation so nearly
allied to her:

Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic, incredulus odi.

(13) We are therefore to consider this as a sure
maxim or observation in painting, "that a historical
and moral piece must of necessity lose much of its
natural simplicity and grace, if any thing of the emble
matical or enigmatic kind be visibly and directly inter
mixed." As if, for instance, the circle of the Zodiac1,
with its twelve signs, were introduced. Now this being
an appearance which carries not any matter of similitude
or colourable resemblance to any thing extant in real
nature; it cannot possibly pretend to win the sense, or
gain belief, by the help of any poetical enthusiasm,
religious history, or faith. For by means of these,
indeed, we are easily induced to contemplate as realities
those divine personages and miraculous forms, which
the leading painters, ancient and modern, have speciously
designed, according to the particular doctrine or theo
logy of their several religious and national beliefs. But
for our tablature in particular, it carries nothing with
it of the mere emblematical or enigmatic kind: since
for what relates to the double way of the vale and

1 This is what Raphael himself has done, in his famous design of The
Judgment of Paris. But this piece having never been painted, but
designed only for Marc Antonio's engraving, it comes not within our
censure ; as appears by what is said in the paragraph just preceding.

56 SECOND CHARACTERS

mountain, this may naturally and with colourable
appearance be represented at the mountain's foot.
But if on the summit or highest point of it, we should
place the fortress, or palace of virtue, rising above the
clouds, this would immediately give the enigmatical
mysterious air to our picture, and of necessity destroy
its persuasive simplicity, and natural appearance.

(14) In short, we are to carry this remembrance
still along with us, "that the fewer the objects are,
besides those which are absolutely necessary in a piece,
the easier it is for the eye, by one simple act and in
one view, to comprehend the sum or whole." The
multiplication of subjects, though subaltern, renders
the subordination more difficult to execute in the
ordinance or composition of a work. And if the
subordination be not perfect, the order (which makes
the beauty) remains imperfect. Now the subordination
can never be perfect, except "when the ordinance
is such, that the eye not only runs over with ease the
several parts of the design (reducing still its view each
moment on the principal subject on which all turns),
but when the same eye, without the least detainment
in any of the particular parts, and resting, as it were,
immovable in the middle, or centre of the tablature,
may see at once, in an agreeable and perfect corre
spondency, all which is there exhibited to the sight1."

1 This is what the Grecian masters so happily expressed, by the single
word (va-iivoirTov. See 'Characteristics' vol. I. pp. 143, etc.

CHAPTER VI

OF THE CASUAL OR INDEPENDENT ORNAMENTS

(1) THERE remains for us now to consider only
of the separate ornaments, independent both of figures
and perspective ; such as the machine-work1 or divinities
in the sky, the winds, cupids, birds, animals, dogs,
or other loose pieces which are introduced without any
absolute necessity, and in a way of humour. But as
these belong chiefly to the ordinary life, and to the
comic or mixed kind; our tablature, which on the
contrary is wholly epic, heroic, and in the tragic style,
would not so easily admit of anything in this light way.

(2) We may besides consider, that whereas the
mind is naturally led to fancy mystery in a work of
such a genius or style of painting as ours, and to con
found with each other the two distinct kinds of the
emblematic and merely historical or poetic ; we should
take care not to afford it this occasion of error and
deviation, by introducing into a piece of so uniform
a design, such appendices, or supplementary parts, as,
under pretext of giving light to the history, or character
izing the figures, should serve only to distract or dissi
pate the sight, and confound the judgment of the more
intelligent spectators.

(3) "Will it then, says one, be possible to make
out the story of these two dames in company with
Hercules, without otherwise distinguishing them than
as above described ? " —We answer, it is possible; and

1 This is understood of the machine-work, when it is merely orna
mental, and not essential in the piece ; by making part of the history, or
fable itself.

58 SECOND CHARACTERS

not that only, but certain and infallible, in the case of
one who has the least genius, or has ever heard in
general concerning Hercules, without so much as
having ever heard this history in particular. But if
notwithstanding this, we would needs add some exterior
marks, more declaratory and determinative of these
two personages, Virtue and Pleasure; it may be per
formed, however, without any necessary recourse to
what is absolutely of the emblem-kind. The manner
of this may be explained as follows.

(4) The energy or natural force of Virtue, according
to the moral philosophy of highest note among the
ancients, was expressed in the double effect of for
bearance1 and endurance, or what we may otherwise
call refrainment and support. For the former, the bit
or bridle, placed somewhere on the side of Virtue, may
serve as emblem sufficient; and for the second, the
helmet may serve in the same manner; especially since
they are each of them appurtenances essential to heroes
(who, in the quality of warriors, were also subduers or
managers of horses2) and that at the same time these
are really portable instruments, such as the martial
dame; who represents virtue, may be well supposed
to have brought along with her.

(5) On the side of Pleasure, certain vases, and
other pieces of embossed plate, wrought in the figures
of satyrs, fauns, and bacchanals, may serve to express
the debauches of the table-kind. And certain draperies
thrown carelessly on the ground, and hung upon a neigh
bouring tree, forming a kind of bower and couch for
this luxurious dame, may serve sufficiently to suggest
the thought of other indulgences, and to support the
image of the effeminate, indolent, and amorous passions.
Besides that for this latter kind, we may rest satisfied,
it is what the painter will hardly fail of representing

a, 'E-yKpareia : they were described as sisters in the emblem
atic moral philosophy of the ancients. Whence that known precept,
'exov teal 'Antxov, Sustine et Abstine.

2 Castor, Pollux; all the heroes of Homer; Alexander the Great, etc.

THE HERCULES OF PRODICUS 59

to the full. The fear is, lest he should overdo this
part, and express the affection too much to the life.
The appearance will, no doubt, be strongly wrought in
all the features and proportions of this third figure;
which is of a relish far more popular, and vulgarly
engaging, than that other opposed to it, in our historical
design.

CONCLUSION

(1) WE may conclude this argument with a general
reflection, which seems to arise naturally from what has
been said on this subject in particular: "that in a real
history-painter, the same knowledge, the same study,
and views, are required, as in a real poet." Never can
the poet (whilst he justly holds that name) become a
relator, or historian at large. He is allowed only to
describe a single action; not the actions of a single
man, or people. The painter is a historian at the same
rate, but still more narrowly confined, as in fact appears ;
since it would certainly prove a more ridiculous attempt
to comprehend two or three distinct actions or parts of
history in one picture, than to comprehend ten times
the number in one and the same poem.

(2) It is well known, that to each species of poetry,
there are natural proportions and limits assigned. And
it would be a gross absurdity indeed to imagine, that
in a poem there was nothing which we could call
measure or number, except merely in the verse. An
elegy, and an epigram have each of them their measure,
and proportion, as well as a tragedy, or epic poem.
In the same manner, as to painting, sculpture, or
statuary, there are particular measures which form
what we call a piece: as for instance, in mere por
traiture, a head, or bust: the former of which must
retain always the whole, or at least a certain part of
the neck; as the latter the shoulders, and a certain
part of the breast. If any thing be added or retrenched,

60 SECOND CHARACTERS

the piece is destroyed. It is then a mangled trunk,
or dismembered body, which presents itself to our
imagination; and this too not through use merely, or
on the account of custom, but of necessity, and by the
nature of the appearance: since there are such and
such parts of the human body, which are naturally
matched, and must appear in company: the section,
if unskilfully made, being in reality horrid, and repre
senting rather an amputation in surgery, than a seemly
division or separation to art. And thus it is, that in
general, through all the plastic arts, or works of imita
tion, "whatsoever is drawn from nature, with the
intention of raising in us the imagination of natural
species or object, according to real beauty and truth,
should be comprised in certain complete portions, or
districts, which represent the correspondency or union
of each part of nature with entire nature herself." And
it is this natural apprehension, or anticipating sense of
unity, which makes us give even to the works of our
inferior artisans, the name of pieces by way of excellence,
and as denoting the justness and truth of work.

(3) In order therefore to succeed rightly in the
formation of any thing truly beautiful in this higher
order of design; it were to be wished that the artist,
who had understanding enough to comprehend what
a real piece or tablature imported, and who, in order
to this, had acquired the knowledge of a whole and
parts, would afterwards apply himself to the study of
moral and poetic truth : that by this means the thoughts,
sentiments, or manners, which hold the first rank in
his historical work, might appear suitable to the higher
and nobler species of humanity in which he practised,
to the genius of the age which he described, and to the
principal or main action which he chose to represent.
He would then naturally learn to reject those false
ornaments of affected graces, exaggerated passions,
hyperbolical and prodigious forms ; which equally with
the mere capricious and grotesque, destroy the just
simplicity and unity, essential in a piece. And for his

THE HERCULES OF PRODICUS 61

colouring; he would then soon find how much it became
him to be reserved, severe, and chaste, in this particular
of this art; where luxury and libertinism are, by the
power of fashion and the modern taste, become so
universally established.

(4) It is evident however from reason itself, as
well as from history1 and experience, that nothing is
more fatal, either to painting, architecture, or the
other arts, than this false relish, which is governed
rather by what immediately strikes the sense, than by
what consequentially and by reflection pleases the mind,
and satisfies the thought and reason. So that whilst
we look on painting with the same eye, as we view
commonly the rich stuffs, and coloured silks worn by
our ladies, and admired in dress, equipage, or furni
ture; we must of necessity be effeminate in our taste,
and utterly set wrong as to all judgment and knowMJpe
in the kind. For of this imitative art we may justly
say; "that though it borrows help indeed from colours,
and uses them, as means, to execute its designs; it has
nothing, however, more wide of its real aim, or more
remote from its intention, than to make a shew of
colours, or from their mixture, to raise a separate2 and
flattering pleasure to the sense."

1 See Vitruvius and Pliny.

2 The pleasure is plainly foreign and separate, as having no concern
or share in the proper delight or entertainment which naturally arises
from the subject, and workmanship itself. For the subject, in respect of
pleasure, as well as science, is absolutely completed, when the design is
executed, and the proposed imitation once accomplished. And thus it
always is the best, when the colours are most subdued, and made
subservient.

TREATISE III

THE PICTURE OF CEBES

DISCIPLE OF

SOCRATES

TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK

AND ACCOMPANIED WITH NOTES

/ecu

Printed in lieu of the unwritten ' Appendix concerning
the Emblem of Cebes '

THE PICTURE OF CEBES

DISCIPLE OF

SOCRATES'

TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK2

WE were walking in the temple of Saturn, where
we took a view of a great many other presents that
were there. But there was placed before the temple
a picture, in which there were certain drawings that
were foreign and strange, and it contained certain
particular fictions, that we were not able to guess what
they were, nor whence they were taken. For the
thing described seemed to us two neither a city nor a
camp, but an enclosure that contained within it other
enclosures, one greater, and one less. There was a
gate in the first enclosure, and at the gate there seemed
to stand a great crowd of people, and within the
enclosure there appeared a multitude of women. At
the entrance of the first gate and enclosure there stood
an old man, who by his manner expressed his giving
certain directions to the crowd* that was entering3.
When we had been long in doubt amongst ourselves,
about the meaning and explication of these fictions, an
elderly man accosting us said :

It is no wonder at all strangers, that you are at a
loss about this picture ; for there are not many of the

1 [Cf. Prefatory Introduction, supra, p. xviii.]

2 From K.ffir)Tos IItVa£.

3 It is the entrance into the moral life, and not the natural that is here
described. Of consequence the crowd here are of years to begin their
rational faculties and to have a sense of their own in moral concerns.

PICTURE OF CEDES 65

country that understand what the fiction imparts. For
it is not a present made by any citizen, but a long time
ago, there came hither a certain stranger, a man of
great prudence and wisdom, one who both in his
words and action pursued that method of life, that was
followed by Pythagoras and Parmenides1, and this
man erected this temple and dedicated this picture to
Saturn.

Did you know this man then, said I, and have you
seen him ?

Yes, said he, and long admired him, for when I
was a young man I have heard him discourse upon
many noble subjects, and have often heard him explain
the meaning of this fiction.

Pray then, said I, unless you have some urgent
business on your hands relate it to us for we are mighty
desirous to hear what this fiction means.

Strangers said he, I do not at all grudge you that
satisfaction, but this you must understand, that the
relation carries something of danger with it.
And what is that ? said I.

Why, said he, that if you give attention and under
stand the things that are told you, you will become
wise and happy ; but if you do not you will become
fools and unhappy, vicious and ignorant, and will pass
your days wretchedly. For this relation is like the
riddle that the sphinx used to propose to men. If a
man understood it he came off with safety, but if he
understood it not he was destroyed by the sphinx. It
is the same with this relation, for folly is a sphinx in
men. She makes dark representations to man of what
is good, and of what is ill, and of what is neither good
nor ill in life. And if a man do not attain to the
knowledge of these things he perishes under her hands,
and not all at once, as he who dies devoured by the
sphinx, but he wastes away and perishes little by little
during the whole course of his life, like those that are

1 See Note (2) infra, p. 87.
R. 5

66 SECOND CHARACTERS

delivered over to torture. But if a man attain to this
knowledge then folly on the other hand perishes, the
man is saved, and he becomes blessed and happy in
the whole course of his life. Do you therefore give
attention, and do not lend an idle ear.

0 Hercules, if this be the case what a vast desire
have you inspired us with.

Indeed, said he, this is the case.

Haste then and give us the relation as being men
that will give attention, and that not slightly, since the
consequences both ways are of great importance.
Taking a wand therefore into his hand, and holding it
up to the picture,

You see, said he, this enclosure.

We see it.

This in the first place you must know that this is
called life, and that mighty crowd that stands at the
gate, these are they that are upon their entrance into
life. The old man that stands above holding a paper
in one hand, and seems to be showing something with
the other, is called the divine genius. He directs those
that are going in, what they ought to do when they
are entered into life, and shows them the way they
ought to take, if they would obtain safety in life.

And what is the way therefore, said I, that he
leads them to take, or how are they to proceed ?

You see near the gate, said he, a seat that stands at
that place where the crowd enters ; and upon it sits a
woman whose form is artfully composed, and her ap
pearance engaging, holding a kind of cup in her hand.

1 see her, said I, but who is she ?

She is called deceit, said he, and leads all men
astray.

And what is it that she does ?

She gives a draught of her own power and nature
to those that are entering into life.

And what is this draught ?

Error, said he, and ignorance.

What follows upon this ?

PICTURE OF CEBES 67

When they have taken this draught, they enter into
life.

Do all drink of error, or do they not ?

All drink of it, said he, but some more and some
less. — Now don't you see besides within the gate a
multitude of courtesans of all kinds of shapes and
figures ?

I do.

These are called opinions, desires, and pleasures,
and when the crowd enters these run to them, and
severally engage themselves to every one, and lead
them away.

And whither do they lead them ?

Some to safety, and others to destruction, by means
of deceit.

0 unfortunate man, how sad a draught is this that
you speak of!

And yet they all give assurance that they will
conduct them to what is blest and to a life that is
happy and advantageous. Some by means of ignorance
and error that they drank from the cup of deceit, do not
find the true way in life, but wander about at random
as you see. And you see how they that first entered
rove about wherever these courtesans direct them.

1 see it, said I, but what is that woman that seems
to be a blind distracted creature, and stands upon a
round stone ?

She is called fortune, said he, and she is not only
blind but distracted and deaf.

And what is her business ?

Why she rambles about everywhere, said he, some
she robs of what they possess and gives it to others,
then she immediately takes from these very persons
the things that she gave them, and gives them to
others again, immediately and as chance directs, so
that her ensign very well explains her nature.

What is the ensign, said I ?

Her standing upon a round stone.

And what does this import ?

68 SECOND CHARACTERS

Why that her gifts are neither secure nor stable.
For the losses and disappointments are very great and
very severe, when anyone reposes any trust in her.

And that mighty crowd that stands about her, what
would they have and what are they called ?

These are called the inconsiderate, and all beg for
the things that she throws about.

And how comes it to pass then that they do not all
carry countenances alike, but that some seem to rejoice,
and others are in dejection and have their arms
extended ?

Those of them that seem to rejoice and laugh are
such as have received something at the hands of
fortune, and these call her good fortune, they that seem
to be in tears and have their arms extended, are those
from whom she has taken the things she had before
given them, and these on the other hand call her ill
fortune.

But what are the things she gives them that the
receivers are so rejoiced at, and they that part with
them lament for with tears ?

These, said he, are such things as by the multitude
are accounted good.

But what are they ?

They are smiles, honour, noble birth, children,
tyrannies, kingships, and other things like these.

And how comes it to pass then that these things
are not good ?

Concerning these matters, said he, we will discourse
at another time. But now let us mind the explication
of the fiction.

Be it so.

You see therefore, when you have passed this gate,
another enclosure that stands higher, and certain
women that stand without the enclosure, and are
adorned as courtesans used to be.

Yes, I do.

These are called intemperance, prodigality, insa-
tiableness, and flattery.

PICTURE OF CEBES 69

And why do they stand there ?

They keep a watch upon those that have received
anything from fortune.

And what then ?

They run to them and engage themselves with
them, and flatter them, and tell them that they shall
enjoy a life of pleasure, without trouble, and without
misfortune. If anyone therefore happens to be per
suaded by them into luxury, then as far as certain
bounds go, his commerce with her appears agreeable
and pleasant, while she tickles the man, but afterwards
it continues so no longer ; for when he recovers his
senses he perceives that it is not he that has fed, but
that he has been fed upon and abused by her. And
when she has wasted all that he has received from
fortune, he is forced to be a slave to these women, to
suffer everything, to act a vile indecent part, and for
their sake to do everything that is pernicious ; such as
to defraud, to plunder places that are sacred, to swear
falsely, to betray, to rob, and all things that are of the
like kind. Then when everything fails them, they are
delivered over to torture.

And what is she ?

A little behind these women you see, said he, a
kind of little door and a place that's narrow and dark ?

I do.

And certain vile filthy women clothed in rags seem
to be there assembled ?

It is so.

Of these therefore, said he, she that holds a scourge
is called torture ; she that holds her head between her
knees is called grief ; she that is tearing her hair
vexation.

But he that stands by these women is of ugly
aspect, lank in shape and naked, and she that is also
like him, lank and ugly, who are they ?

He, said he, is called anguish, and she his sister
despair. To these therefore is the man delivered ;
with these he passes his days in torment ; then again

70 SECOND CHARACTERS

he is thrown into another apartment to misery ; and
thus he passes the remainder of his life in all kind of
misery, unless by fortune's means repentance meet
with him.

Then what happens, if repentance meets with him ?

She takes him out of these evils and gives him
another opinion, and another desire that conducts him
towards true learning, but likewise towards her, who
is called false learning.

And what happens upon this ?

If he admits, said he, of that opinion that conducts
him towards true learning, he is by her purified and
saved and becomes blessed and happy in the whole
course of his life. If he does not admit of her, he is
again led astray by false opinion.

0 Hercules how great is this other danger ! But
what is false learning ? said I.

Do not you see that other enclosure ?

1 do, said I.

And without the enclosure does not there stand a
woman, who appears extremely clean and decent ?

There does.

This woman the generality of man and the incon
siderate call learning, yet she is not so but she is the
false learning, said he, and they who at last obtain
safety when they have a mind to proceed to true
learning first touch here.

Is there not another way therefore that leads to
true learning ?

There is, said he.

But those men who walk to and fro, within the
enclosure, who are they ?

These are the lovers of false learning, but are
deceived and think that they are conversing with true
learning.

And what are these called ?

These are some of their poets, said he, some skilled
in rhetoric, some in the art of discoursing, some in
music, some in arithmetic, some in geometry, some in

PICTURE OF CEBES 71

astronomy, some are patrons of pleasure, some Peri
patetics1, some critics, and people of the like kind.

But those women that seem to be running about,
and that resemble those others among whom you said
that intemperance and her attendants were, who are
they?

These are the very same persons, said he.

And have they therefore entrance here ?

Yes indeed they have but it is but sparingly, and
not as within the first enclosure.

And have opinions too access hither ?

They have, said he, for the draught these men took
from the cup of deceit, ignorance, too, and together
with her, even folly, remains still with them. Nor does
opinion quit them, nor the rest of the vicious train, till
renouncing false learning they enter into the true way,
and take a draught that has the power of cleansing
them from the taint of the former, till they throw off
all the vices they retain, till they throw off opinion,
ignorance, and every other vice ; and thus they will be
saved. But while they continue with false learning
they will never be set free ; nor will they get rid of
any vice by means of these sciences.

Which is the way then that leads to true learning ?

Do you see that place above where nobody inhabits,
but that seems deserted ?

I see it.

You see then a certain little gate, and a way that
leads to that gate that is not much crowded and where
very few are passing, it appears to be very rough and
rocky, and passable with great difficulty.

I do, said I.

Then there appears to be a high hill, whose ascent
is extremely narrow with deep precipices on both sides
of it.

I see it.

This therefore, said he, is the way that leads to
true learning.

1 See Note (3), infra, p. 87.

72 SECOND CHARACTERS

Truly 'tis trouble even to look at.

Then don't you see above, round the hill, a rock
that is of great extent, high and a precipice all round ?

I see it, said I.

You see then two women standing upon this rock,
who are in good plight, robust and healthy, and hold
out their hands with great earnestness.

I see them, but what are they called ? said I.

The one is called abstinence, and the other patience,
and they are sisters.

And why do they hold out their hands with such
earnestness ?

They exhort those that approach the place, said he,
to take courage and not to sink under their difficulties,
telling them they ought to bear up yet a little while,
and that then they will get into a very fair and
beautiful way.

And when they get up to the rock how do they
mount it ? For I see no way that leads up to it.

These women descend from the rocks toward
them, and draw them up to themselves. Then they
bid them rest themselves, and after a little time they
give them strength and courage, they promise to place
them with true learning, and they show them the way,
how fair it is, how smooth, how easily passable, and
how clean and free from all defects, as you see.

Indeed it appears so.

And then do you see above that grove a certain
place that appears to be very beautiful, is like a
meadow, and has a great deal of light upon it ?

I do.

And do you observe in the middle of that meadow
another enclosure, and another gate ?

It is so. But what is this place called ?

The habitation of the happy, said he, for here
dwell all the virtues and happiness herself.

I allow, said I, that it is indeed a very beautiful
place.

You see then, said he, that by the gate there is

PICTURE OF CEBES 73

a beautiful woman, her countenance sedate, having
already attained to the middle and most judicious part
of her age, in a plain dress, and without any affected
ornaments, and she stands not upon a round stone,
but upon a square one, that rests upon the ground
with great firmness, and that with her there are two
others that seem to be her daughters.

It appears so.

Of these she that is in the middle is called learning ;
one is called truth, and the other persuasion.

And why does she stand upon a square stone ?

It is her ensign, said he, and imports that the way
to her is firm and secure to those that receive them.

And what are the things she gives ?

Courage and intrepidity, said he.

And what are these ?

They consist in knowing how never to suffer
anything severe or ill in life.

O Hercules, said I, what noble gifts! But for
what reason does she stand so without the enclosure ?

That she may attend the cure of those that come
up to her, and give them a draught of her own cleansing
nature. When they are cleansed, she introduces them
to the virtues.

How is this, said I, for I do not understand it ?

But, said he, you will understand, that if a man
happens to be extremely sick, and applying himself to
a physician, shall discharge all the causes of his
distemper by purging medicines, the physician then
presents him to recovery and health. But that if he
do not submit to the things the physician ordered him,
he is then justly rejected and perishes under his
distemper.

This I understand, said I.

In the same manner therefore, when anyone comes
to learning, she takes care of his cure and gives him a
draught of her own nature and power, that she may
first cleanse away and discharge all the ills he came
with.

74 SECOND CHARACTERS

And what are these ?

Ignorance and error that he drank from the cup of
deceit ; arrogance, desire, intemperance, wrath, love of
money, and all those things that he was filled with in
the first enclosure.

When he is cleansed therefore, whither does she
send him ?

She sends him in, said he, to knowledge, and to
the other virtues.

And what are these ?

Do not you see, said he, without the gate, a set of
women, how handsome they appear to be, and how
decent in plain habits, no way effeminate and nice ?
And besides how artless they are, and without any of
these affected ornaments that the others have ?

I see them, said I. But what are they called ?

The first of them, said he, is called knowledge ; and
the others are her sisters, fortitude, justice, integrity,
modesty, decency, freedom, abstinence and gentleness.

0 the beautiful personages! said I, how great are
the hopes we have ?

Yes, said he, if you understand the things that you
hear, and make them habitual to you.

We will use our utmost care in it, said I.

Then, said he, you will be saved.

But then when these women have received him,
whither do they conduct him ?

To their mother, said he.

Who is she ?

Happiness, said he.

And what is she ?

You see a road that leads to that building that
stands aloft, and is the summit of all the enclosure ?

1 see it.

And at the porch there sits a sedate comely woman,
upon a lofty seat, in a liberal but plain and unaffected
dress, and crowned with a flourishing crown, in a very
beautiful manner.

So it appears to be.

PICTURE OF CEBES 75

This therefore is happiness, said he.

When therefore anyone gets thither, what does
he do ?

Happiness crowns him with her own nature and
power, and so do all the other virtues, as those are
crowned who have gained a victory in the greatest
conflicts.

And what are these conflicts he has conquered in ?
said I.

In the greatest, said he, and he has subdued wild
beasts of the greatest size ; and such as before de
voured, tortured and enslaved him. All these he has
conquered and thrown from him, and he is become
master of himself, so as that they are now slaves to
him as he was before to them.

And what are these beasts you speak of ? for I am
very desirous to be informed of it.

In the first place, said he, ignorance and error, and
do you not take these to be beasts ?

Yes, said I, and very mischievous ones.

Then grief, anguish, love of money, intemperance,
and the rest of the vicious train, all these he has
subdued, and is no longer subdued by them as before.

O the noble acts, said I, and the noble victory !
But pray tell me this too, what is the power of that
crown, that you said he was crowned with ?

A power, young man, that makes him happy. For
he that is crowned with this power becomes blessed
and happy, and places his hopes of happiness no longer
in other things but himself.

O how noble a conquest is that you speak of!
But when he is crowned, what does he do or whither
does he go ?

The virtues take him and conduct him to that place,
from whence he came before ; and show him the
people that pass their time there, how ill and how
wretched they live, how they make shipwreck in life,
wander and are led about in subjection, as if subdued
by enemies, some by intemperance, some by arrogance,

76 SECOND CHARACTERS

some by love of money, some by vanity, and others by
other vices. And of these evils, that they are hampered
with, they are not able to extricate themselves, so as
to be saved and to reach this place, but they pass their
days in hurry and disorder ; and this they undergo
because they are not able to find their way to this
place, for they have forgot the commands of the
divinity.

I think you say very right, but then this again, I
am at a loss about, why the virtues should show him
the place from whence he came before.

He was not exactly apprized, nor did he under
stand, said he, any of the things that passed there ;
but was at a loss, and by reason of ignorance and
error, that he had sucked in, he took things that were
not good to be good, and things that were not ill to
be ill ; by which means he lived wretchedly as others
do who inhabit there. But now having attained to
the knowledge of things profitable and advantageous,
he lives handsomely and views how wretchedly those
others fare.

When therefore he has viewed all these things,
what does he do and whither does he go ?

Wherever he pleases, said he, for he has security
everywhere, as much as if he were possessed of the
Corycian cavern1. And wherever he comes he will
take every step in life handsomely and well, and with
all manner of security. For all men will receive him
joyfully, as patients do their physician.

And is he not at all afraid of suffering at the hands
of those women that you called beasts ?

Not at all, for he is not to be disordered, either by
vexation or grief, or intemperance, or love of money,
or fear of poverty, or by any other ill ; for he is master

1 In the ascent of the mountain Parnassus, from Delphi, there is a
cavern called Corycian from a nymph Corygia. It is said tc have been
sacred to the nymphs and to Pan. The ascent to it from Delphi is passable
for a mule or horse ; but from the cavern to the summit of the mountain
the ascent is difficult even for a man.

PICTURE OF CEBES 77

of them all, and is above all these things that afflicted
him before, like those that deal in vipers. For these
animals that do all others mischief, even to death, give
them no pain because they have an antidote ; so nothing
affects this man because he has an antidote.

I think you say right, but tell me this further ; who
are those that seem to be coming from thence down
the hill, some of them crowned and giving signs of
satisfaction, some without crowns in an abject con
dition, who seem to have their legs and their heads
bruised, and are held by a certain woman ?

They that are crowned are such as have safely
attained to learning, and are in joy upon their having
gained her. They that are without crowns are such
as have been rejected by learning, and are returning
back in a vile and wretched condition ; and such as
losing all courage, after having mounted as far as
patience, do again turn back and rave about without
pursuing any certain way.

But those women that attend them, who are they ?

Grief, said he, and vexations, despair, ignominy
and ignorance.

All manner of evils you then say attend them.

All manner of evils, said he, do indeed attend
them, and when they come into the first enclosure to
luxury and intemperance, they do not blame them
selves, but they presently fall to defame learning.
And they tell how calamitous, wretched, and unhappy,
they are who direct their course thither, who quitting
that method of life, which they themselves pursue, pass
their days in misery, and do not enjoy the good
and valuable things that they themselves are possessed
of.

What are the things that they call good ?

Dissolution and intemperance, as one may in short
express it. For to be cramming themselves like beasts
they take to be the enjoyment of the greatest good
in the world.

But those other women, that are coming from

78 SECOND CHARACTERS

thence, who are cheerful and laughing, what are they
called ?

Opinions, said he, who having conducted to learn
ing, those, that are introduced to the virtues, turn back
again in order to fetch more. And they relate how
happy those already are, that they before conducted.

And have these then, said I, entrance to the virtues ?

No, said he, for it is not allowed that opinions
should have entrance to knowledge. But opinions
deliver men to learning, and when learning has re
ceived them, they then turn back again, and freight
anew with other effects.

These things I think you have related very well ;
but you have not yet discovered to us what it is that
diyinity directs those to do that are entering into life.

He bids them to courage, said he. And do you
therefore take courage for I will relate all to you and
not omit anything.

You speak very kindly and handsomely, said I.

Therefore holding out his hand again, you see,
said he, that woman, that seems to be blind, and to
stand upon a round stone, and that I lately told you
was called fortune.

We see her.

He bids them put no trust in her, and not to believe
that they have firm and secure possession of anything
whatever, that any of them receive from her, not to
account it their own ; for nothing hinders her from
taking those things away and giving them to others.
For this she is frequently accustomed to do ; and for
this reason, he bids them not to subject themselves to
her for the presents that she makes them, and neither
to rejoice when she gives, nor to be dejected when
she takes away ; and neither to reproach her nor com
mend her. For she does nothing with reason, but
at random, and as things fall out, as I told you before.
For this reason therefore the divinity orders, that
men should wonder at nothing that she does, and
they should not resemble corrupt bankers, for these

PICTURE OF CEDES 79

people when they receive money from men, are de
lighted and reckon it their own, but when they are
called upon to return it they take offence, and think
that they suffer great hardship, not remembering that
they received these deposits to this very end, that the
person depositing them may take them away again
without any hinderance. The divinity therefore orders
that men should be just so disposed with respect to
the presents of fortune, and should remember that she
is of such a nature, as to take away the things she
has given, and again immediately to bestow abundance
more, then presently to take away the things she so
gives, and not only those, but what men were pos
sessed of before. He orders therefore that they
should receive the things that she gives, and with
them go their way quietly to obtain a stable and
secure gift.

And what is this ? said I.

The gift that they will receive from learning, if
they safely attain to her.

And what is that ?

The true knowledge, said he, of things profitable,
and this is a secure gift, stable and unchangeable.
Therefore he orders men to fly quickly to her, and
when they are come to these women that I said
were called intemperance and luxury, he bids them
quickly depart thence and to trust to none of those
neither in anything till they come to false learning,
and here he bids them pass sometimes, take what
they think fit from her, as provision upon their journey,
and then quickly to pass on to true learning. These
are the things that the divinity enjoins. Whoever
therefore acts contrary to these in anything, or gives
but slight attention to them, is a wretch and perishes
wretchedly. And now strangers, the fiction that is
contained in the picture is such as I have related.
But if you would make any further inquiry concerning
any of the particulars, I grudge you not the satis
faction of knowing for I will tell it you.

8o SECOND CHARACTERS

What you say, said I, is very kind and handsome.
What is it then that the divinity bids them take from
false learning ?

The things that seem to be of use.

And what are these ?

Letters, said he, and some part of other sciences,
that like a kind of bridle as Plato says1, have a power
to hinder young men from being drawn away to other
things.

And is it necessary for anyone that is to attain to
the true learning to take these things or not ?

There is no necessity for it, said he. They are
of use, indeed, but they contribute nothing of them
selves to the constituting men better.

Do you say that these things are of no use to the
making men better ?

Men may become better without them, yet they
are not without their uses2. For as we sometimes
understand what is said by an interpreter, yet it is not
a useless thing for us to gain a more exact knowledge,
though we made shift to understand something of it
before. So that nothing hinders but that we may be
very well without these sciences.

And have these men of science no advantage
above the rest of men with respect to their being
better ?

How can they have any such advantage when they
appear to be deceived both with respect to things that
are good and things that are ill, and are still hampered
by vices of all kinds ? For there is no inconsistency
for a man to have skill in letters and to be master of
all the sciences, and yet at the same time to be a
drunkard, to be intemperate, to love money, to be
unjust, treacherous and to conclude to be a fool.

Indeed there are many such to be seen.

Wherefore, how can these men, said he, have the

1 The Laws, Bk. vn, 808.

2 There seems to be some defect that has occasioned the sense to be
not perfectly clear.

PICTURE OF CEDES 81

advantage with respect to their being better than others
upon the account of these sciences ?

From this discourse it does not appear by any
means that they can. But what is the reason, said I,
that they pass their time within the second enclosure
as if they were neighbours to true learning ?

What advantage is this to them, said he, when it is
frequently to be seen, that there are those who come
out of the first enclosure, from intemperance and the
rest of the vicious train, even up to the third enclosure,
to true learning, and yet quit these men of science ?
So that still how have these men the advantage ?
They are then less industrious, or have a sort of
science that makes them worse than others.

How so ? said I.

Because being within the second enclosure, if there
be nothing else in the case, they fancy that they know
things, that they really do not know ; and while they
are possessed with this opinion they must of necessity
be less industrious with respect to any inclination to
attain true learning. But then do not you see another
thing, that opinions from out of the first enclosure
have entrance to them here likewise ? So that these
men are not at all better than the others, unless re
pentance meet with them, and they become convinced
that they are not possessed of learning but of the false
learning that leads them astray,^ and that while they
are in this disposition they can never be saved. Do
you therefore strangers, said he, act in this manner.
Dwell upon the things that have been told you, till
you have made them habitual. You must frequently
consider them and not give them over, and must
reckon all other things but slight and occasional. If
you do otherwise you will reap no benefit by the things
you hear.

We will do it. But then relate to us how it comes
to pass, that those things are not good, that men
receive from fortune, such as life, health, riches and
honour, children, conquests, and things of the like

82 SECOND CHARACTERS

kind, and on the other hand how the contraries to
these come not to be ill. For the assertion seems to
us to be very strange and incredible.

Well then, said he, do you do your endeavour, in
reply to me, to tell me how matters appear in such
things as I shall ask you.

I will do it, said I.

If anyone then live wretched and ill, is life a good
to him ?

I think it is said but an ill.

How comes living then to be a good since to him
it is an ill.

Because, to those that live wretchedly and ill, life
I think is an ill, but to those that live handsomely and
well, I think it is a good.

You say then that life is both good and ill.

I do.

Do not talk absurdly, for it is impossible that the
same thing should be both good and ill. For by this
means it would be both advantageous and hurtful at
the same time.

Of a truth this is absurd. But how comes it to
pass that, if living ill be an ill, to him that it may
happen to, that life itself should be an ill ?

For to live and live ill, said he, is not the same
thing. Does it not appear so to you ?

Truly it does not appear to me to be the same
thing.

Therefore to live is not an ill ; since if it were an
ill, it would be an ill to those that live well, because
they have life which is an ill.

I think you say true.

Therefore since living belongs both to those that
live ill, and to those that live well, to live is neither
good nor ill. So1 cutting and burning in the case of
distempered people, are not both noxious and salutary.
Thus do matters stand with respect to life. Consider

1 Here as well as in other pieces in the course for this reasoning
there seem to be defects that have lost us the full strength of it.

PICTURE OF CEDES 83

then this. Would you choose to live wretchedly and
ill, or to die handsomely and bravely ?

I would choose to die handsomely.

Then neither is death an ill, since it is frequently
more eligible than life.

These things are as you say.

The reason is the same with respect to health and
sickness, for health frequently may not be of advantage,
but the contrary when circumstances so fall out.

You say true.

Well then, let us examine in the same manner
concerning riches, may we not take it for granted as
a thing frequently to be seen, that riches are in a
man's possession and yet that the man passes his
days in wretchedness and misery ?

Yes indeed one may see many such.

Riches then do not give any help to these men
towards living handsomely and well.

It does not appear that they do, for they are vile
unworthy men.

Therefore it is not riches that makes men deserving,
but learning.

Probably it is so from this reasoning.

Then how can riches be a good if they do not help
those that have them to be better men ?

It appears to be as you say.

So neither is it of advantage or profit for some
people to be rich, when they know not how to make
use of riches.

So I think.

Therefore how can one judge that to be a good,
that is often of no profit or advantage to have. ?

One cannot do it by any means.

Therefore if a man know how to make a skilful
and handsome use of riches, he will live well, if not
he will live ill.

I think you say very true in this.

And on the whole to pay a veneration to those
things as being good, or to hold them in disgrace, as

6—2

84 SECOND CHARACTERS

being ill, this is the thing that disorders men and does
them mischief, while they put a mighty value on these
things, and think to obtain happiness by means of
them alone. They of consequence put all in practice
in order to obtain them, even things that appear to be
most impious. And all this they suffer by ignorance
of good.

NOTES1 ON THE PICTURE OF CEBES

(i) Diogenes Laertius in his preface ascribes the
rise of philosophy to the Greeks, but he mentions several
others to give it to the barbarians. This difference
seems to be a matter that can never be composed.
For where a rich and regular language was once
formed, and the complete use of letters attained to, in
that place the foundation of all science laid ; but
language and letters can hardly be supposed to be per
fected but in a course of many ages. And letters can
record nothing till they are perfected.

The birth, the infancy, and growth of letters there
fore can never be known. But this much may be said
in this matter, that it is letters, arts sciences, philosophy,
that must establish the distinction between Greek and
Barbarian. And a time there was before letters had
their birth. Before that time then, all the several
herds of men were equally barbarian, and if this infant
production arose amongst the Greeks it still arose in a
notion that was barbarian. And perhaps many nations
may have nursed up this infant to a certain degree,
but by means of distemper in government and by
tyranny they have dropped it, and still kept in bar
barism. It does not seem impossible, but that Egypt
may have been the birthplace of Greek letters. From
Egypt these people may have united themselves in
Crete and in the isles of the Aegean sea, and may
have settled colonies upon the continent in many

1 [Cf. Prefatory Introduction, supra^ p. xviii.]

PICTURE OF CEBES 85

places, and upon disorders in their mother-country and
upon the erecting some mighty tyranny there these
colonies may have preserved independency, liberty
and letters. The Greeks in their several, free and
independent states certainly nursed up learning- to a
prodigious perfection, and to the Greeks is the present
world indebted for what they have of it.

The turn that was given to learning amongst the
Gymnosophists, Druides, Chaldaeans and Mages, that
were the wise men of the Indians, Gauls, Assyrians,
and Persians, and the turn given to it by the Egyptians,
as Laertius and others have described it, seem to imply
that it was wrapped up in a mystery amongst them,
kept within a few hands and communicated in ways
not very intelligible, the professors of it more highly
interested in the state and used their learning to serve
political ends and to manage the multitude to their
own purposes. And these are rather arguments of
their imposture that was pretty apparent than of their
learning that they in a great measure concealed. The
antiquity of the Mages is reported to have been very
great. Zoroaster, the first of them, is by some placed
six thousand years before the taking of Troy, which
exceeds the time that we set for the creation of the
world. And Ephesus or Vulcan the son of Nile, to
whom the Egyptians ascribe the original of learning,
is reported by them to have lived forty-eight thousand
eight hundred and sixty years before the time of
Alexander the Great. Laertius mentions Musaeus,
the son of Eumolpus, of the Athenian race; and
Linus, the son of Hermes, or Mercury, and of the
Muse Ouranie, a Theban, as men from whom learning
is derived, but he is not particular as to the age they
lived in.

The birth of the word Philosophy may perhaps
be justly enough limited to the age of Thales and
Pythagoras. For what before was called sophia or
wisdom Pythagoras termed philosophy or love of
wisdom ; and its followers, instead of wise men and

86 SECOND CHARACTERS

sophists that they were called before, he named philo
sophers or lovers of wisdom, declaring that no man
was wise, but that God only was so. But then one
must have a very wrong notion of learning to think
that it did not require a vast extent of time to arrive
at the great perfection it had attained in that age and
long before.

Can one believe that the poems of Homer were
the product of letters in their infancy ? Or can one
imagine that the Spartan institution of Lycurgus was
the product of an age when the first rudiments of
letters and science were just appearing ? Yet some
place the birth of Homer an hundred and twelve years
after the taking of Troy, and this is reckoned about
four hundred and thirty years before the birth of
Thales. Others make Homer contemporaneous with
Lycurgus, who gave laws to Sparta about two hundred
and fifty-eight years after the taking of Troy, which
is about two hundred and eighty-six years before the
birth of Thales. And Thales' birth preceded that of
Socrates by about 170 years, and that of our Saviour
Christ by about 637 years.

Laertius makes mention of schools of philosophy.
One he calls the Ionic from Thales who was an Ionian,
the other he calls Italic from Pythagoras, who passed
most of his time in Italy. He divides philosophy into
three parts : the natural from enquiring into the nature
of the world, and things in it ; the moral from the
study of life and manners and of things that relate to
ourselves ; the dialectic from the study of the art of
reasoning. And Socrates introduces the moral. And
this may be truly said of Socrates, if no more be
understood by it, than that he censured the vain
philosophy of the naturalists, and endeavoured to turn
men more to the study and knowledge of themselves.
But that Socrates was the first father of the moral
science seems to be an idle imagination. Diogenes
Laertius then ranks the philosophers under several
names, and mentions ten sorts of moral philosophy.

PICTURE OF CEDES 87

But notwithstanding that variety one may divide the
moral philosophy into three sorts ; one that establishes
a Providence disposing all things in the most beautiful
order, and giving to man a capacity to attend to its
laws and to follow them ; another that attributes the
disposition of things to atoms and chance and that
makes the pursuit of pleasure its end ; and the third
that takes part neither way, but judges things not to
be at all comprehensible, and therefore suspends opinion
entirely. Socrates and the branch derived from Chry-
sippus were of the first sort, Aristippus and Epicurus
of the second, and Pyrrho of the third. Other sects
seem necessarily to fall within compass of these three,
and to consist of various mixtures of them. The
picture writ by Cebes and the manual of Epictetus
are two little pieces that apparently belong to the
divine system of philosophy, and Cebes was one of
those who knew and conversed with Socrates.

(2) Parmenides was of the school of Pythagoras.
The succession in this school was thus Pherecydes,
Pythagoras, his son Telauges, Xenophanes, Parmen
ides, Zeno the Eleatic, Leucippus, Democritus, who is
said to have been one year older than Socrates,
Nausiphanes, and Naucydes ; and from the two last,
Epicurus, Diog. Laertius, Proceus, Segment.

(3) The mention of the Peripatetics here and of
Plato afterward is used as an argument that Cebes
who conversed with Socrates was never the author of
this piece. But supposing that the name of Peripatetic
was not applied to any sort of men before Aristotle,
yet Cebes may very well have lived beyond the time
that this name was given to Aristotle and his followers.
For Aristotle was thirty-five years of age when Plato
died, and Cebes may have lived yet longer than Plato,
though Plato is reckoned to have been but 28 years
of age when Socrates died, and lived 80 years.

TREATISE IV

PLASTICS

THE ORIGINAL PROGRESS

AND

POWER OF DESIGNATORY ART

o n KoXov <f>i\ov diet.

Eurip. Bacch. 88 1.

Written in Italy in the year M.DCC.XII ; and edited
in the year M.DCCCC.XII.

PLASTICS

AN EPISTOLARY EXCURSION

THE ORIGINAL PROGRESS

AND

POWER OF DESIGNATORY ART

I. CHARACTERS1, ISt, 2d, 3d.

Distinction of characters, viz. first; second; third:
viz. middle or mixed.

(1) FIRST. Notes. Marks of sounds, syllables,
words, speech, and of sentiments, senses, meanings
by that medium, viz. of sounds and speech. Thus
ciphers, shorthand, Cicero's invention.

(2) SECOND. Signs. Signa. Sigilla. Imitation
of real forms and natural beings, plastically (convex
or concave), or lineally and graphically by lines and
colours, from the superficies and extremities of the
bodies, according to optics.

(3) A THIRD and middle sort, emblematic. As
when the latter signa are used as mediums (speech
being passed over) to convey sentiments, senses,
meanings, etc. (but not sentences, diction, etc.) For
when the figure of an animal stands as a mark,

1 In the notes below for memory sake and order (all being smooth
and polite above) place this table :

PLASTIC ART 91

Ill lp S PS Jf

111 i£l i Ifln

S-St sTS-a E „-"•" •=

<D r-, **H r i O ^ 7; TO

ill -i* § §rs

^ ,__ _, »* t^^ ^ • .J _H *^*

«W0 § = '" S^^rt-a

u« |S5: ^^.Sel^JfS*-!

OH 4j'J5

£3 ^ 3 u rt fc -•§ 00^' w rtj

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c u. ^o oT oo^-^; H o o
boM = yo3-r; o ^Tb ° •« S « 2 u o -a

/-i 03 ^ ji u ^D Ur^^o3yo ^^
.S. inremOS(DOo^i y tX-r- o! ^ C

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-- £ ^« b.2

vH „

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| . t3 s^^.a rt^-gT: «.§•« bl2-5^ §<« £

•^ i*gll 8 1 S «r.§ J-w hi^S « s.S "

* I make no scruple to place the emblematic and enigmatic kind
(which is a middle sort, holding something of each) as the third or last
n order, even in respect of time, history, and progress of the arts.
Since hardly will anyone imagine by reason and experience of all other
nations, barbarians and Gothic as well as Greek, but that letters next
follow upon speech, and the copy of forms afterward as a work of leisure.
This second way of description or characters may indeed whilst yet rude

92 SECOND CHARACTERS

arbitrarily and without relation to his form, nature,
passion, history, then is this no more than an ordinary
first character (as a, /3, y). But if natural history,
passion, habit, form, be taken in, then ought this to
be fine and beautiful and just : else it is lame and
imperfect in its kind.

Of this latter sort, the true, therefore, is emble
matic and graceful without mixture; the. false enigmatic
merely, mixt and barbarous : as the Egyptian hiero
glyphics1. Nor can the mixture of middle characters
with first, as in the Egyptian way of obelisks, be any
other than monstrous upon examination, as it appears
prima facie to the slightest examiner or novice : how
ever this hieroglyphic may have been extolled by
travelling philosophers and admirers of the wonders
of Egypt.

That our particular science therefore, of design or
signature may emerge from this chaos of barbarity, we
distinguish first characters from barbarous forms con
joined with those first (as in Egyptian hieroglyphics2),
leaving only the beautiful anaglyphies (relief-works

in use — in 1000 — have been employed to the use of First characters and
barbarously mixed with those (as by the Egytians). But scarcely without
design of mystery, a priesthood, and (as is notorious in that case) magic,
etc. And even by the hieroglyphics [of the Egyptians] it appears in
their mixture with other notes and characters (which are of no imitation,
after life, or natural shapes, but purely characters of the first kind as
Arabic, Chinese, etc.) that the way of first characters was known to them,
and that the other so much boasted way was but an abridgment or
concealment of these : an art superinduced, and afterwards regulated,
prescribed, and maintained ceremoniously, rationally, orthodoxly, and
specifically, as said below p. 125 latter part.

1 Of which the cause see below, p. 125.

2 After the middle or third sort of characters and hieroglyphics thus
fully discussed (with account in passing of Egyptian priesthood, mystery,
as here and p. 125), subjoin Oxford Almanac as among examples, "which
for ugliness of figures etc., might pass as truly mystic, priestly and hiero
glyphic ; but otherwise emblematic, or at least so aimed, and the third
or middle order intended." Appellation, viz. " Those famous academical
anaglyphies, of annual edition — emblematic nostradamus's of the age
of Christian church renowned for prophecies in church and state.

So many pretty cubs of mice and moles handed about, penny-books,
together with almanac and prayer-books; cried in the street by the fat
man with strutting body and big voice.

Orthodox forms (as the Egyptians above), so these Oxford, awkward
figures. So the originals, viz. doctors, college men, etc." Raillery.

PLASTIC ART

and inwrought of the polite ancients) as a true species
of art and workmanship : in the emblematic way. But
this also being slightly touched and explained, we pass
over to the unmixed, the simple and pure, viz. "design,
plastic art ; second, poetry, imagery, iconography,
typography (improperly applied to printing characters),
by type, prototype and ectype ; and the just imitation
of nature according to natural history and the ideas
or species of the several forms, animal or vegetative,
to some end and with some intent." E.g. In a single
figure of a human body: "A man. Why? What
man?" Answer: "A strong man." Therefore here
something learnt. — "A beautiful well-made man."
Again something learnt. — "An ugly, cruel, dangerous
man." Therefore caution, discernment1 taught ; the
mind profited, advanced ; and fancy, judgment im
proved ; knowledge of the species, of our own species,
of ourselves, the best and chief knowledge, a step
hither. So all imitation of natural things according
to the great master in his Poetics.

Nothing being more pleasant to human nature
from the beginning as this learning, viz. This is this2 :
distinguishing into species and classes (the way to
record, remember, lay up, draw consequences), and
helping society, and communion of thought and
sense ; information mutual, delightful. Mimicry of
the better sort. All men mimic, else no speech, no
manners. And hence the Egyptians made a monkey

1 Physiognomy and penetration into tempers, manners, designs (the
dark cabinet), as far as natural and true is learnt also by this art from
the ideas of the great masters. See below, p. 100.

2 Hie ille est. 6 avrov, Demosthenes. Digito monstrari et dicier hie est.
Pers. Sat. I, 28. Who is the ille ? Some pre-science, else nothing learnt. :
Thus in the imitative poetic part of painting and plastic art, reference
(in the higher sense) to the innate idea of forms as explained above,
viz....; and (in the lower sense) to the early learnt species or general
classes, the natural sort, into which nature has actually and necessarily
cast, as into moulds, the severally organised creatures and their genera
tions successive. As, "This is a horse!" How like! "This a dog, a
water-dog, a land-spaniel, a hound ! " etc. So a child delighted (accord
ing to Aristotle's Poetics, IV.). Something learnt.

94 SECOND CHARACTERS

the hieroglyphic of learning, and modern painters use
it for universities1.

2. CHARACTERS, PERSONAGES.
Second Characters (viz. with regard to the title2)

morn/ Personal

mUl CM, personages-
See the chief verse and hinge of Horace's poetic
art (vers. 86) Descriptas servare vices, operumque
colores, i.e. xaPaKT^Pa^ et mores m dramatico ["To
observe the distinctions described and the complexion of
works," i.e. characters and the customs in the dramatic].
I.e. Actionum affectuum humanorum in scenis ubi res
agitur (ut Hor. de arte poet. vers. 179) in satyra
refertur tantum quare. [Of the affects of human
actions on the stage where the affair is acted out

only so much is related in satire as ] Sic Isocrates

ad Demonicum, -^apaKTrjpa rots epyots e7n/3aAA.eiz' [to
stamp characters upon deeds]. Et Demosth. eV Se
rats OjU-iXiats 6 TTJ? i//v^9 ^apaKTrjp ySXeVerat [but in
intercourse the character of the soul is seen]. Sic
rursus infra de comedia Hor. De arte poet. v. 156
Aetatis cujusque etc. Mobilibusque decor naturis [of
every age etc. and to changing tempers a proper
decorum]. Vide Hor. Sat. lib. i. vers. 12 Defendente
vicem modo rhetoris, atque poetae [" maintaining the
character now of the orator, and now of the poet "].
Et infra, De arte poet. vers. 193, Officiumque virile
defendat [and perform the duty manfully]. Partes
defendere idem quod hie servare vices [to perform

1 See "Iconologia" di Cesare Ripa upon the word accademia: "II
cinocefalo ovvero babbuino lo faciamo assistente dell' accademia per
essere egli stato tenuto dagli egitu ieroglifico de le lettere, e pero lo con-
secrauano a mercurio repartato, inventore et autore di tutte le lettere si
come riferisce." Pierio Valeriano, 'Hieroglyphica,' Venet. 1604 lib. VI, p. 38.

All this premised that the following chapters, phrases, terms, etc. may
be easy, viz. Second characters. Signature. Designation. Inwroughts.
Typography etc., the fixed and settled terms or expressions for notions
as just above. So much therefore as to this, now proceed.

2 Supra, p. i.

PLASTIC ART 95

the parts as likewise to preserve here the changes].
Sic Hor. Epist. i. lib. 2, vers. 171, Partes tutetur
[supports the character].

Quisquis erit vitae, scribam, color.

Horace. Sat. I. lib. n. v. 60.

[Whatever be the colour of my life, I will write.]
Again Horace, de arte poetica, vers. 101-113

Ut ridentibus arrident, ita flentibus adsunt
Human! vultus...

male si mandata loqueris,

Aut dormitabo, aut ridebo. Tristia maestum
Vultum verba decent...

Format enim natura prius non intus ad omnem
Fortunarum habitum:...
Si dicentis erunt fortunis absona dicta,
Romani tollent equites peditesque cachinnum.

["As the human countenance smiles on those that

smile, so does it sympathize with those that weep

.;£ If you pronounce the parts assigned you ill, I shall
either fall asleep or laugh.

Pathetic accents suit a melancholy countenance —

For nature forms us first to every modification of
fortune...

If the words be discordant to the station of the
speaker, the Roman knights and plebeians will raise an
immoderate laugh." Smart.]

The same ridicule as when even a Guido makes
his Andromeda dance (Lord Devon's picture) though
chained and in sight of the monster.

The truth of the affections :

Aetatis cujusque notandi sunt tibi mores,
Mobilibusque decor naturis dandus et annis.

HOR. de arte poet. v. 156.

["The manners of every age must be marked by
you, and a proper decorum assigned to men's varying
dispositions and years."]

96 SECOND CHARACTERS

Imberbis juvenis v. 161 ["the beardless youth"].

Semper in adjunctis, aevoque morabimur aptis.

v. 178.

["We must dwell always upon those qualities which
are joined and adapted to each person's age."]

Thus also the painter's science and wisdom, know
ledge of men and things, moral characters, etc.

...ille profecto

Reddere personae scit convenientia cuique,
Respicere exemplar1 vitae morumque jubebo
Doctum imitatorem, et veras hinc ducere voces.

...morataque recte
Fabula... v. 315 — 319.

["He certainly knows how to give suitable attributes
to every character. I should direct the learned imitator
to have a regard to the mode of nature and manners,
and thence draw his expressions to the life... A play
where the manners are well marked."]

Ficta voluptatis causa sint proxima veris,
Nee quodcunque volet, poscat sibi fabula credi.

v- 338-9-

[" Let whatever is imagined for the sake of enter
tainment, have as much likeness to truth as possible ; but
whatever it chooses, let not your play demand belief."]
Which is the same as the incredulous ode2 (v. 188)
cited already in the Notion.

Hence metamorphoses dangerous subjects, though
so common with moderns.

Quere. Whether any subject, and how managed
by the ancients. Just painters. Answer...3

1 Good in Socraticis chartis habet (ut supra, v. 310) ubi person et
characteres, moras nimiarum quia dialog! erant. Vide Aristot. Poet.,
cap. i (2co<cpariKoy Xo-yot), Athenaeum, lib. 1 1.

2 Refer hence to Charac-cks, vol. ill, p. 181. Note Vitruvius.

3 Note. Remember in this place dialogue writing, imitative,
political, dramatic, active. Drawing and design as in Moralists, II, 187 :
" To lay colours," etc. and moral painting (all true painting being moral)
in the following page, viz. 188.

Also what is said at length of dialogue 'drawing and design etc. in
Miscellany etc. See Index there and particularly vol. I, pp. 201, 202.

PLASTIC ART 97

...Sibi convenientia finge. v. 119.

["Frame new characters which with themselves shall
well accord."]

The Characters which in poetry are included in the
5th and last part (according to Horace's concealed
division in his Ars Poet.} answer, in painting to the
symmetry and proportion of the figures. Because
suppose a hand or head given, the rest of the figure
must answer this species. For there are such and
such: and these the painter must investigate from
observation and instinct. A Moor in the East and
a West- Indian, not only different in colours, hair,
feature, but whole proportion. And even among
Europeans : a Swede, Dane, Briton, how different
even from Flemish, and High-German, much more
from Spaniard, Gascon, or South Frenchman. The
Huns, (Gothic invaders from the East and North-East
parts of Europe) how described1, resembling the
present Tartars, short-necked, squat, square, and some
thing peculiar about the head and nose.

Thus particular symmetry (viz. the figures and
forms) are in the Characters ; since these in poetry
are included in the moral part, or manners. For
manners are here properly exhibited by characters
only, their opposition, contrast, foil, operation : whence
the purgation spoken of by Aristotle and explained
in Char-cks2.

The clidactive or preceptive way being un-artificial,
un-masterly, and un-poetic : not Homerical, though
Virgilian. This the province of the philosopher, the
rhetorician, the historian : not the bard, the vates, the
enthusiast. Thus Sophocles more poetical than even
Euripides, though the latter refined beyond him and
excelled in style and other parts ; particularly in sen
tences in which this moral irregularity and encroach
ment on the philosophers or rhetoricians part so much
the better afforded him scope.

1 Quere. Where find it ?

2 Vol. ill, p. 262. Notes, line 17.

98 SECOND CHARACTERS

Corollarily. That particular division of the five
in painting called symmetry (viz. of the figures with
respect to themselves) is separate and abstract from
the moral part and manners; which in poetry includes
characters and mental forms. On the other hand, the
moral part in painting lies but little in the forms (for
Socrates, a Silenus whom he resembled, a triton, the
centaur Chiron, or any other less specious form cor
poreal may be principally moral), but is expressed in
the air, feature, attitude, action, motion ; and is there
fore wholly lodged in that part of painting called the
movements, where action, passion, the affections are
shown. Thus Characters which in painting are mere
forms are not moral, though in poetry always moral
and belonging to ethics in that division1.

Again. " What is it we see ? A boy — therefore,
sweet, pretty, innocent: But a cupid. A new case. A
boy and beautiful boy, the most that is possible; but
not innocent, not harmless, not wholly sweet, gentle,
loving: but mischievous, treacherous, mocking, subtle.
An urchin, half civil, demon, cruel, spiteful, proud, dis
dainful, tyrannical, capricious, imperious2." Here a new
story, a new lesson, an instruction3, something learnt.
For wretched would be that painter, who being to paint
a cupid, or several cupids, should lose this essential
moral part. No history, no true form, no cupid4, if
this be lost: if this visibly appear not and the manners,
character preserved according to the poetic idea and
hypothesis. This is plastic truth. And this in As-
canius (when truly Ascanius) very different from a
cupid, when the habit and form of Ascanius, but

1 At this place under the black line begins the division of this head
(occasioned by the equivocal word Characters) : viz. into Characters ist,
2d, 3d (as hitherto above ever since, p. 90) and into characters of life,
manners etc., which begins at this paragraph occasionally drawn from
what preceded.

2 Compare place with Char-cks, vol. Ill, p. 319.

3 So again below, p. 101.

4 Memd. Here in Sign Porchinaro's collection at Naples, his two
cupids, the one of Jacint Prandi, the other Sign Parli ; the first good
style, but character lost ; the latter French style and air, but character kept.
The former, however, preferred (is bought because of the practise etc.).

PLASTIC ART

carrying his own true manner and character ; which it
would be curious in an able painter to preserve in this
history, if it were to be represented by a great hand.
Quite otherwise as to cupid when he is out of his
natural character and form, as in the story of Psyche,
where not only his size is manly and form different,
but history and manner altered, character changed :
a party and concerned himself; a sufferer under his
other self ; a patient, an actor ; not a god or demon,
or genius, in the machine part and superior roll of a
deity invested in his proper powers and habits, arts,
practices, etc. See Raphael (so judicious !) on this
subject, in the Vatican1.

Explanation, viz. the 5th part in painting called
"symmetry is abstract from the moral part, which lies
chiefly in the air, feature &c. and in the movements2,
where action, passion, and the affections." Add "in
some measure also in the custom3, habit, dress, helping
the air and describing the manners."

And here insert "the different describers (poets
and painters) of the better and worse humanity, ac
cording to Aristotle's Poetics... where such and such

a one (viz ) described them better; such and such

a one (viz ) worse."

And here dividing and distinguishing between the
heroic and lower, or 3rd comic (to which the ryparo-
graphers4 answer) a word or two of these latter in as
far only as they are characteristical, therefore pleasing
by a je ne sais quoi, which is easily explained. As
among other5 instances remember the modern common

1 If not there, on the walls. 2 Viz. of 4th part.

3 Viz. of ist part. 4 Infra, p. 136.

5 La Bruyere (after Theophraste) the chief. And here remember not
only to cite and comment on a few principal characters, but (in the notes
still) transcribe his whole passage of ancient and modern manners in his
preface. And remember his French court at mass, their backs to the
God they worship (their altar and god-wafer), and faces to the tribunal,
i.e. the king. Long perukes, etc.

See also what may be inserted here in the text itself (without scruple
of self-citation, as resolved above, p. 4) concerning Characteristics
from vol. I, p. 201 etc., viz. "Such or such a face, etc. Every face must
be a certain man's."

7—2

ioo SECOND CHARACTERS

author, our guest Monr St Evremond, one of his
best things (slighting the rest) is his exact copy

after the life of the old French Marshall de and

the Jesuit. So an Italian, or Spaniard, an odd figure
wrapt in a ragged cloak, but with formal mien,
the shrug, or strut. So a country peasant, or boor,
a Jew. One of Salvator Rosa's cut-throat figures,
shaberoons, ragamuffins, moss-troopers, knights of the
post, jilts, drabs, eavesdroppers, gamesters, sharks,
players, musicians, mountebanks, quack doctors,
sharpers, ambubaiarum collegia.

All these the more pleasing as more secret,
mysterious, difficult and withal instructive in manners,
and of real use in life, and towards the knowledge of
mankind and the world. And upon this found this
maxim or rule, viz. : " That in all such satirical charac
teristics, as the finer and better subjects of imitation,
are the more concealed and not the obvious, staring,
notorious faults in manners. So the finer and more
delicate imitation is the more tender, and by nicest
slightest touches in poetry as in painting, and not by
exaggeration, amplification, straining, tightening, over
charging." (Caricature, burlesque in one kind, bom
bast and gigantic in the other.) On which very thing
depends the difference between Horace and Juvenal.
Sordidus et luscus qui possit dicere lusce. [Sordid and
half blind the man who can speak blindly.] So a
sordid painter first chooses a mean blemish and not a
true one in manners : and then withal exaggerates.
A blind fiddler instead of Tigellinus, a king's chapel... :
debaucher of youth, rake, dissolute and gamester, etc.

Remember also our Shakespeare's Jack Falstaff;
a character. And here indeed the form itself helps
the manners. But overdone and spoilt both by poet
and players. The painter (a Salvator Rosa and
tolerable good satirist in poetry) would not hyperbole1

1 Not in his little perspective figures, though in heroic often guilty, and
even in perspective for horror's sake.

PLASTIC ART 101

so ; but moderate the hyperbole1 and strike the
imagination far better.

Remember also Voiture's delight in his letters from
Spain of the scenes of Don Quixote where he was
travelling. Strange impression of character.

Something therefore there is in every design, or
designatory work of imitation, and copy after nature
(be it even in animals, fruit, or flower-pieces), which
answers to the history in a truly epic or poetic work.
This is in truth and strictness historical, moral, char
acteristic. The note or character of nature, the form,
natural habit, constitution, reason of the thing, its
energy, operation, place, use or effect in nature : if ill
and mischievous to us, that we may record and avoid ;
if salutary, record and improve. This is the moral,
the intelligence of the fable. " Such a one he is ! You
see him in his true colours ! This is the man ! Such
he is — Sic, Crito est hie ! As in the Roman comic
poet2, so in the animal, beast or fowl. This is the
creature ! Such he is ! Be it a lion. See how like !
Such is his easy march, his unconcernedness, his want
of fear, his consciousness of mastery, superiority, and
his contempt of other creatures. Such his slowness
and largeness, though ready for activity and agility,
when roused by any assault or called by hunger to his
prey. — Is it a bull3 ? See the same grum indifference,

1 Of the hyperbole see below, p. 154.

2 Andrea, Act v, Sc. 4, supra, p. 93.

3 Thus the animal, but chiefly the cattle-painter, not so easily the
bird-man. The horse belonging to humanity and history, to be studied
by the great master, so noble a creature he is and so near human nature
in the expression of passion, etc., so fitted to man. Thus I say, the
animal painters of the comic order (as cock and dung-hill) become
historian, poetic.

A whole, (i) Unity of spirit in the kind, harmony of the sexes,
economy, the young, the old, the bell-wether, the master, reverend, long-
bearded, longsbard goat, the ram.

The seraglio, grand-seignior, and concubines of the place. (2) Unity
of the group or groups, a principal figure, etc., with all the other rules.

On the contrary, an unable artist or one guided by the bespeaker
(these being a poor mean race), and turned out of his way (which though
unable to give the reason, he would and often does naturally and by taste
alone pursue) when the group is finished the animal nature, action,

102 SECOND CHARACTERS

sullen security and ease, trust to his strength, the
jealousy of his eye over his females on the approach
of anything injurious to them, or any rivalship from
his own kind. — Is it a bird ? A tame one merely, and
of the household kind ? A cock ? See his walk, his
demarche, his carriage amongst his ladies ; his gene
rosity, even to the starving himself and neglect of his
own sustenance ! "

The courage of all these creatures, their ready
exposing of their lives in the defence of their kind !
The tractableness and tameness of these ! The un-
subduable, indomitable fierceness, and love of liberty
in the others ! The tenderness and innocence of
some ! the savageness and cruelty of others ! — The
characteristic still, the truth, the historic is all in all,

and the TO <$>V<TIKOV, the TO The thing imitated, the

thing specified (reduced to its true form and species)
is all in all, the whole delight, pleasure of the work,
the secret charm of the spectacle. This accomplished
and all is done. Instruction, moral description, truth.

The meaning, the intelligence, humour, thought.
A sense. A thought. Even in portraiture1, as a
statue of a senator (nature concurring, and the person
being in shape and feature adapted). This is a sense,
a thought. Even an indifferent person, etc. So a
promising youth, hero, prince, etc. Quantum instar
ipso est /2 [Whatever the form exactly is.]

humour shown in its simplicity and agreeable truth. He unhappily
introduces a man (humanity spoiling all), or else an inferior or foreign
nature, or some way incoherent, as a peacock with the cock and hens,
and something like this in a beautiful group of cattle by the heat under a
shade by a pool's side, and casting the spectator into an agreeable
revery t.

t Remember in this place to improve this description of the summer
heat and cattle attempted, as in a forest or wild common, to a shade of
trees and water, the flies fled from, and cattle for coolness in the water,
tails playing. Nothing of this view (if broken by foreign figures) capable
of bestowing that sweet revery.

1 Portraiture, infra, p. 134. 2 Virgil's Aeneid, VI, 865.

PLASTIC ART 103

3. RISE, PROGRESS, DECLENSION AND REVIVAL OF
SECOND CHARACTERS1.

Politeness in figures helped still to polish grace.
So music. But Plato and other philosophers and sages
look wistfully towards the Egyptian laws (as lovers of
rarities for such the Athenians, such the Greeks in
general, and so humoured even by a Xenophon)
admiring mystery, hiding secrets from the vulgar.
This, as being frighted by the popular spirit, felt so
severely in the person of their master Socrates.
Besides Plato's and Pythagoras' affectation of legis-
latourship and pulse beating towards that noble
ambition, to which the first a sacrifice and the second
often tempted, and in state affairs under Dion brought
in considerable danger. Hence his emulation with
Homer, envious and somewhat detracting way, too
truly objected by Dionysius Halicarnassus.

True indeed that by this ungenerous and hierar
chical polity the state of longer duration2. For of
what duration Egypt ? But then what a state ! What
barbarity ! Superstition ! And when enervated once :
how perpetual a slavery, from Mede and Persian, to
Marmaluke and Turk.

Insinuation from hence, as to the last and present
grand hierarchy of Romish Church. Whether not

1 Quere from Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus... : Marsham, etc., about
the records of the Egyptians: how far back. Hierarcho-political reason,
as below, p. 125 for retaining the first ancient and hieroglyphic forms and
statues of the gods, etc.

2 Proof of this from the hierarchical policy and hope always to engage
sovereign and bring over and reconcile even the conqueror partly by
superstition (sin and pleasure), partly by policy as assistant to him.
Hence easy betrayer of their national form, prince and people. Trust to
spiritual weapons for their own preservation at least (come what will of
nobles, prince or people), as when Attila was met and Alexander by the
Jewish priests (see Arrianus). Hence the oracles (though a Grecian and
much limited priesthood) after they had stood steady all along, yet when
things desperate and almost all Greece conquered, (Athens not resisting
but driven to sea), began to faint and preach submission. This Herodotus
saw and honestly noted. Though for this and other freedoms, i.e. poetic
liberty as complaining of the gods, lashed by honest Plutarch, himself a
priest.

io4 SECOND CHARACTERS

better to have followed the Egyptian in this (as in
many other things) and keep the orthodox forms
horrid, savage, and consequently inspiring superstition,
as in reality their first were from the Gothic times or
last feces of the Empire and of Arts, when images,
etc., were introduced.

And though Protestants take the contrary weapon
(and very justly from the present period), yet for the
larger and more extensive period of time. Quere.
Whether this may not weaken and supplant, as it
polishes and refines, emollit mores. Nothing more
true in nature can be said. So chiefly a fine picture
or statue frontispiece, a fine piece of music, effeminacy
indeed, an evil consequent : but not necessarily so, if
the magistrate provides, without totally banishing (as
Lycurgus some sorts of music and most arts, because
of his local and specific commonwealth), or prohibiting
as Plato in the case of Homer.

Therefore as beauteous forms polish (taking
politeness with its consequences), so ugly barbarise1.
None impossible ; or if practicable, still equally
barbarous.

Moses (non obstante 2d commandment) raised a
serpent, and after him the arch and sanctus sanctorum,
their cherubs, etc., the brazen tree, its buds, etc.

Prohibition therefore such as Egyptian, Jewish,
(or suppose Scythian or Persian), and absolute ab
horrence of figure or temple, a savage and barbarising
enthusiasm.

Apology and protestation against entering into the
decision of the Egyptian and Chinese pretensions to
antiquity (so far beyond Moses') in their records2,
though recite the authorities. But this assert : that
neither Jew, Egyptian, nor Chinese polite.

This a judgment of politeness. If polite : show
me a picture, a statue, coin, proportion, nature. But
arabesque! Japan! Indian! Savage. Monstrous.

1 Infra, p. 123. 2 Supra, p. 103.

PLASTIC ART 105

Even in their portraiture, pleasure-pieces, wanton
pieces. Also gods monstrous, frightful according to
Egyptian1 and Syrian models ; or Turkish mosques,
no architecture, or statuary, or figures : or as bad as
none.

Frightful, horrid, cruel ideas entertained, advanced
by such divine forms ; soft, gentle, humane ideas, by
truly human forms, and divinity represented after the
best, sweetest, and perfectest idea of humanity to the
vulgar. But without application to divinities, and
simply viewed and contemplated in cities, groves,
high- ways, places, gardens, forums, etc., emollit mores,

" Bad figures : bad minds." " Crooked designs :
crooked fancies." " No designs : no thought." So
Turks, etc. " No imitation : no poetry." No arts of
this kind : no letters, or at least in a poor degree. So
politeness always holds proportion with laws and
liberty. So that where the one is with a tolerable
progress in the first species (viz. ist Characters), the
other (viz. 2d Characters) will soon prevail. And
where it ceases and tyranny (such as the Eastern
monarchies, ancient and modern) prevails, art and
2d Characters accordingly sink. See Japan ! Mogul !
China ! Turk and Tartar ! Show me amongst their
infinite delicacy of other work a single 2d Character,
diform, even but a single figure a perspective, a statue,
coin, palace, architecture — that is not worse than
Gothic. Show but so much as a vase ! till in China
taught by us and the Dutch.

4. INSTINCT, NATURAL IDEAS, ETC.

Those philosophers (modern) the poorest and most
shifting, for the sake of a system, hypothesis, who,
surpassing all ancient conceits and extravagances of
the kind, deny ideas, sense, perception, (i.e. life) to
animals. But those yet poorer and more shifting, who
impugn natural ideas and ridicule instinct and innate

1 Infra, p. 125.

io6 SECOND CHARACTERS

ideas, because perhaps abused, misapplied, carried too
far by some modern preceding writers, or by Plato.

The same philosophers would confound the very
notion of species, specific ideas (sad virtuosos!)1. But
had not the creatrix or sovereign plastic nature set the
boundaries, the caprice (i.e. wantonness and bestiality)
of corrupt man would long since have gone beyond
any of the worst painters, grotesque pvirapoypd^oi, etc.
as well beyond any of the poets in composing new
complicated forms of satires, etc., with which the breed
would have run out and been lost. But now even in
the inward, several species (within the genus) as in
dogs and fowls, which breed with one another, a natural
propensity for like joining with like ; so that the breed
when mixed and blended, in time and after several
consequent generations displays and opens itself, and
the orders return to their first natural secretions, purity
and simplicity of form2.

An ingenious author and notable metaphysician3
about twenty years ago took such an advantage from
the affected fulsome and common use of instinct and
innate ideas, that being extremely well received and
heard on account of his excellent genius and capacity
in other writings, these words grew so out of fashion
that a man of sense durst hardly use them on the most
proper and most obvious occasion. And it was safer
for a gentleman who was a lover of sports to say
seriously upon the subject of his chase, that his dog,
jowler, or tomboy reasoned or meditated, than that he
had natural sagacity or instinct. We were allowed,
indeed, to say that the poor turner's pot had sense and
feeling above the iron-jack which supplied his room,

1 See MCC.

2 Memorandum. Room here for demonstration of the young swallow.
First flight precipitated, viz. from a rock over the sea, or an eminence
over a paved court, or place fatal to fall. Yet the equilibrium instantly
found and the art known, not learnt. Strength only failing when sup
ported by the old ones, not art wanting. To the birds' nest, as well or
better, more exact the first than afterwards as in Charac-ks, vol. II,
pp. 307, 411, 412, etc.

3 The same as above.

PLASTIC ART 107

(for Cartesianism was not admitted in its strict sense).
But it was dangerous to talk of breeds, either of dogs,
or hogs, or horses, lest we should betray our ignorance
in imagining according to the vulgar error, that
passions, affections, instincts, inclinations, impressions,
impulses, ideas, imaginations (ready for the object
when prescribed, and even raising or calling up a feigned
and false object when the season or ripeness came)
should possibly be delivered down in descent and
extract to particular species. Nay even the species
themselves were called in question, and more than
called in question, flatly denied.

As thus poor Horace and other poets, even in their
epicurean and least theological fits, were very credulous
and superstitious and foolish, when they said for
instance :

Est in juvencis...patrum virtus1.

[The merit of the sire survives in the offspring.]

The rictus and gapings of noxious creatures, bears,
lions, wolves, crocodiles, dragons, even small serpents
and insects (as vipers) imprinted, previous mould or
sockets to speak by analogy (as no other way in cases
of sensation, intelligence, perception, egoity, not con
fined to place or determined by it).

So on the other hand who can doubt the contraries,
viz. beauteous faces (especially in the same kind) to
be equally imprinted by innate characters, moulds,
preparatory sockets for reception and recognition
of such joyous forms, as in the passion between the
sexes.

Who would charge human nature with this dullness
and so readily clear and acquit the bestial ? unless
perhaps the senseless modern philosophy and fool
hypothesis of insensibility be brought in play for
cavil's sake.

What more certain than that the poorest ignoramus
of our species, being kept from seeing anything but

1 Horace's Carmina, Lib. iv, Ode IV, 1. 30.

io8 SECOND CHARACTERS

old males, and clothed bodies (as in monkish cloister,
or barbarous hermitage) would in a clear light, when
brought to see nudities, distinguish between the true
and natural, and the unnatural deformed kind.

Thus the species of horses and other animals, the
kind being once seen and nature helped (changes not
seen in perfection, but far off), the idea of beauty and
perfection is raised, and when reduced to this idea of
instinct by the able artist, recognised presently by the
good eye of every spectator.

If a female of our own species (to pass by the love
of babies and that shrewd propensity) should after a
great belly got she scarce knew how, not find herself
inclined to pick straws, or make a nest : no wonder,
because of the second string to the bow, reason,
discourse, community, the reserve1. Nor is it a
wonder any more, that coming to lose the same great
belly, and the season at hand for suckling, etc., that
she has not the conatus or effort, that she calls not for
the babies newly left off, nor does what is answerable
to the hen, bustling about, swelling her wings, stretching
her legs, picking and scraping like a thing mad and in
fury.

5. TASTE, RELISH, EYE, JUDGMENT, CRITICISM.

1. Pedantry in painting, as in scholarship, mere'
scholar, mere painter ; colleges of scholars, academies
of painters.

Seldom a thorough, practising, labouring scholar,
not a pedant. Seldom an orator, a poet; but seldomer,
hardly ever a painter. Yet sometimes a Homer (if
we may judge by a guess), sometimes a Horace, a
Xenophon, a Demosthenes, a Socrates, an Apelles, a
Raphael.

2. First corruption of taste, from bad sculptures,
prints, etc., arid drawing without masters. For so in
all other exercises, as fencing, dancing, etc. Better

1 As in ' Moralists,' p. 307.

PLASTIC ART 109

never have learnt. Ask all masters. Appeal to all
able. For habits not to be broken. Besides conceit
gains, and stiffness ; or surfeit contracted, and aversion
to the study and science. Ungrateful because unsuc
cessful. Hence pedantry in petty virtuosos. Gentry
lose their taste and exchange for a worse than mere
painters.

Second corruption. Haste, hurry. Therefore arts
contemplatory require otium ; thrive only (as letters
and philosophy) where much of this recess from public.
Yet a public and activity, i.e. action carrying on,
debates, freedom, liberty, etc. Soliloquy1 necessary
here as in philosophy'2.

1 See ' Soliloquy ' in ' Characteristics.'

, 2 Second Corruption. See Junius' de pictura veterum, Lib. I. c. 5,
p. 34. In pursuance of soliloquy referred to1.

"Nihil est curiosius otiosis." Plinius Jun. Epist. 32, Lib. IX.
" Frequentia et obambulatio hominum conturbat et infirmat imaginum
notas : solitudo conservat integras simulacrorum figuras." Cornificius,
Rhet. ad Herenn. Lib. ill, xix. Ouamobrem etiam recte Plinius, agens
de ea tranquillitate animi et securitate otii quae debetur harum
artium consideration!. Magni officiorum negotiorumque acervi inquit
abducunt omnes a contemplatione talium ; quoniam otiosorum et in magno
loci silentio apta admiratio talis est. In promptu est ratio: phantasiam
enim, cujus in diligenti artis inspectione praecipuae partes sunt, vacuus
animus et sola tacentiaque loca mirifice excitant atque alunt. Quumque
perfectum, accuratumque picturarum admiratorem veras omnium rerum
species animo concipere, conceptasque ad examinanda pulcherrimae artis
experimenta advocare oporteat, manifestum etiam est neutrum horum
sine virtute imaginativa effici posse ; ac ne ipsam quidem imaginum
conformationem2, .quotidianis negotiis et discurrentium tumultu inter-
pellatam, bene procedere. Videas itaque cultores artis minime vanos, si
forte aliquando liberiores et magis vacuos ab interventoribus dies nacti
sunt, nunquam non per otium adsuefacere animos absolutissimis qui-
busque rerum imaginibus colligendis atque in animum congerendis.
Atque hoc est illud quod ait Apollonius apud Philostratum, Lib. n,
cap. XXII. Tovs 6pa>vTas TO. TTJS ypcHpiKTJs (pya, fjufJiTjTiKris ftdcrdai ov yap uv
tirtuvfotll Tts TQV yfypa/Jifjievov Imrov r/ ravpov, p.r] TO £<aov evdvfJLrjdfis, at
fluavrai. Eos, qui pictoriae artis opera inspiciunt, indigere imaginativa
facultate. Nemo enim recte laudaverit pictum equum, nisi qui animal
illud animo concipiat, cujas similitudinem pictura exprimit ; vide locum.
Inspice quoque Platonem Lib. II, de Legibus. Quamvis autem ratio
haec, quam attulimus, solitudinem satis commendet artificum opera di-
judicaturis ; praesto tamen est et alia non minus praegnans, quae
idem suadeat. Quemadmodum enim medicis non apparentia modo

1 Nat. Hist. Lib. xxxvi, cap. v.

1 Compare this contemplative habit with the truly contemplative and mental to which this
leads, and of which it borrows when refined and improved in right virtuosoship, etc. Compare I
say with Maximus Tyrius (as in little black paper book, p. 8).

no SECOND CHARACTERS

Third corruption. Vice, corruption itself, prosti
tution. Worse sort of pvTrdpoypd^oi, viz. obscene acts,
very deformity. Hence in a second degree not quite
so lewd, effeminacy (as expressed in the last paragraph
of the Notion), the licked manner, lechd in French ;
the enamelled, the very paint (as Flemish phrase), just
as if it were painted.

Fourth corruption (or rather prevention, depri
vation). Want of nudity, statuary, distortion of bodies1,
etc.

Painter's taste like dancing masters2 in carriage.
All towards the affectation. Quite contrary to the
ancient. All modern. No ancient (not of the worst
workmen) guilty of this, because of the many models
extant, which though ill copied, yet no new designed
after the affected way (the sweer as they call it).
Raphael never guilty of this ; nor Poussin, though a
Frenchman.

Quere. About Raphael's admired figure of the

vitia notanda sunt, verum etiam invenienda qua latent ; saepe ipsis, qui
sanandi sunt, ea occulentibus : ita ad inspiciendas picturas admissus,
plura, quam prima facie ostendi videntur, rimabitur ; cujus rei in soli-
tudine certius judicium ; quod in turba spectantibus frequenter aut
suus cuique favor, aut ille laudantium clamor extorquet. Pudet enim
dissentire, et velut tacita quadam verecundia inhibemur plus nobis
credere ; cum interim et vitiosa pluribus placeant, et ab adulantibus
laudentur etiam quae non placent ; cum denique optime pictis gratiam
pravia judicia non referant.

Quotquot igitur huic curae sedulo incumbere in animum inducunt, de
industria quandoque sumunt certas quasdam imagines, quas quam
numerosissime versent, velut eadem cera aliae atque aliae formae duci
solent. Plastae certe atque ii qui coloribus utuntur, ex ipsis rebus
capessunt notiones quibus lineamenta, lucem, umbram, eminentias, re-
cessus imitentur. In singulis corporibus praestantissimas quasque verae
pulchritudinis notas observant, easque in unum aliquod opus conferunt ;
ut non tarn didicisse a natura, quam cum ea certasse, aut potius illi legem
dedisse videantur. Quis enim putet ullam unquam talem fuisse foeminae
cujusquam pulchritudinem, in qua nihil desideraret non vulgaris judex?
Nam tametsi in ipsis naturae normis atque dimensionibus universa
perfectio est ; tamen utriusque parentis mistio, tempus, coeluin, locus,
improvisus aliquis casus, et vaga quaevis cogitatio natural! formae non
nihil possunt detrahere similitudinum quidem in mente reputatio est,
inquit Plinius Nat. Hist. Lib. VH, cap. 12. et in qua credantur multa
fortuita pollere ; visus, auditus, memoria, haustaeque imagines sub ipso
conceptu, etc.

1 See below, p. 117. 2 Infra, p. 128.

PLASTIC ART in

sitting woman (Justice) and the ostrige ? Esteemed
the finest (by painters), to me seems the most modern
and ergo...

Criticism. How necessary here ; as in other arts
according to Char-cks.

Horace's reason :

Ut pictura poesis erit ; quae, si...

—volet haec sub luce videri,
Judicis argutum quae non formidat acumen.
Haec placuit semel : haec decies repetita placebit1.

["As with a painting so with a poem; one... another
will prefer to brave the open light, dreading not the
critics keenest skill : this pleases once ; this viewed ten
times will please."]

If this were true in nature (as I would not give
credit, because of founding no argument on hypo
thetical, or dubious foundation, but on fact and truth)
here would be a high commendation indeed of ideas,
imagery, and the force of the ^a^racruxi, fleeting forms2,
etc. Not only our painters but our women should
imagery, etc. (treat this in raillery) for fear of the breed.

Caution against prejudice, prevention, prepos
session from artificial and half-taste, gathered from
painters or empirical and practical science (the worst
imaginable) in gentlemen.

As thus :

A parallel, since such are fashionable, between
painting and eloquence, rhetoric, etc. (as often between
that and poetry). " O pulchrum prosopopeiam " (as in
Petronius) so here. " O the fine fore-shortening ! "

Thus in pulpit rhetoric and priest-oratory, at a
country church especially, or in a college among the
bearded boys and pedants. " O the excellent turn,
application of the Greek sentence ! O the division !
quotation ! " So in French (Moliere's comedy) "si bien
que je n'entendais goutte."

1 Hor. de Arte Poet. 11. 361—5.

2 As below, p. 143.

ii2 SECOND CHARACTERS

Reasons why a gentleman's taste if practical and
empirical1 necessarily false :

First Reason. Becomes interested, makes him
self a party, espouses a manner, style, mannerist in
lowest degree and below the painter by trade and
profession. Also judge and party in the cause unfair.
So Nero's2 voice and acting (remember Agrippinus,
etc.) in the divine man, and so again the governour of
the Grecian province and the people differing about
the actor or advice.

Dilemma. Either has an idea or not. If an idea :
a hand to come up to it or not. If a hand obedient
and answering, then a painter omnibus numeris ; if a
hand inferiour unanswering, then being not obliged to
pursue as a professor, or for maintenance, but wholly
voluntary and for pleasure only, must lose his end, and
hate his products. For if loves and pleasure come by
degrees, through self love, conceit, or flattery ; then
here comes the corruption, here the taste inevitably
miscarries, grows awry, warps, turns crooked, perverse.
Carry this reasoning into music3.

Second Reason. Extravagant fondness for one
master, one particular hand, one piece (a hundred to
one, if a good one). Besides that, no one master yet
of the moderns after Raphael has deserved anything
like this ; and even as to Raphael see reasons...

So Nero's Greek statue. See Pliny.

Third Reason. That if our gentleman besides his
superiour knowledge, learning, education and converse,
has not withal a particular genius, idea, and hand
superiour to the trading artists and of a degree dis
tinguishable from the common road and style of
painting : he must naturally by his study and practice
be brought upon a level and familiarized with the set
of painters of his time ; and as he is subject to their
flattery and emulous of their praise be brought into

1 Exception for gentlemen quite painters as Fabius Pictor.

2 So also the good emperor Adrian, his great weakness and blemish ;
only cause and subject of tyranny in him.

3 And see below, p. 176.

PLASTIC ART 113

society and sympathy with this race, so as to be in a
manner one of tkem, and of their club and fraternity ;
a circumstance which will prove as little advantageous
to his fame and reputation as to his manners, his
interest, family and estate1.

The case being the same with this company as with
that of players, musicians, songsters, minstrels, dancers,
and the rest of those trades and their conspiring crew :
all holding together2.

Nothing even of natural beings worthy of wonder
or admiration, but as they show nature's real and
highest art, best hand, supreme touches, nature's
magnificence, symmetry, proportions, highest orders,
supreme order (beyond doric or ionic, beyond corin-
thian). For what are all these but imitations ? Or as
in united and conspiring forms, of actual unity and
concurrence in one, means to an end, harmony
agreement.

Ergo a tree or even a leaf, beautiful not as a green,
not as regularly shaped ; for then a mere turf or cut
bush would equal and surpass an old oak, or cedar, or
pine. But a rough bit of rock more beautiful in reality
than a pearl or diamond. No bribe to make those
relished by almost all, and lastingly relished. The
other but for a moment, as a rarity, or as set off itself
or helping to set off other forms in dress, equipage, etc.,
of the lowest human caprice and misconception of
beauty. Thus grottos, caves, etc., the finest imitations
of finest gardening. For this is truth ; the rest false,

Thus even in nature, the rainbow a mere jewel,
an accidental species, refraction, etc. No real unit:
no being, form, design, end, concurrence. Ergo, a
nothing, a non-entity in virtuosoship. A mere miracle
or prodigy (without moral or doctrine} ; a nothing, a
juggle. The passion of those who run after monsters
in fairies and the ^av/xaTorrotot. Prestidigitators.

1 Memd. Exception for Fabius Pictor, etc., as above, p. 112, and the
whole man as below, p. 176. Definition of a pedant and how formed in
painting, etc., as in other science. Adrian Emperour as above, p. 112.

2 As said below, p. 176. 'Ambubaiarum collegia.'

ii4 SECOND CHARACTERS

Therefore the same here as in life and true wisdom
in order to avoid deceit and imposture.

The great business in this (as in our lives, or in the
whole of life) is "to correct our taste1." For whither
will not taste* lead us ? aircrew, arrest, suspend, defer,
delay, proceed gradually, wait, expect, improve... Else
we are run away with. The man upon the runaway
horse in Lucian's cynic (if so good a piece as that be
Lucian's), "Whither away! Whither this pleases,"
viz. his horse, pointing to it. Therefore stop it in its
full career, cross it, turn it ; and sometimes when lazy
even give it the spur ; just as in horsemanship, as in
breaking the colt.

Animum rege : qui nisi paret,
Imperat : hunc frenis, hunc tu compesce catena3.

[" Check your temper, which if not ruled, will
sternly rule. Hold it hard in with bit and rein."]

From hence it follows : " That pleasure (in order
to reap true pleasure) not to be indulged." Ask,
inquire of self. " What sort of pleasure have I ?
What would I have ? Quaere, if the true ? if truth ?
to what end ? What do I contemplate ? What
inspect ? What to understand, reap, learn4 ? "

Is it to see flesh painted as flesh ? — No. This
artificial, empirical, the artisan, and even least part of
the artisan ! — Is it drapery ? — No. This of the same
kind. — Is it fore-shortnings, academy postures, etc. ? —
No. This still empirical. — Is it fine forms in a vicious
sense ? This false and more so than ever the ryparo-
graphics. Since this deforms the beautiful nature ;
whereas the cacatorio, a boor, or soldier, under a
hedge or on a dunghill, more nauseating. — Exciting
appetite, a horrid reason. Who dares give this for a
reason ? If so : paint sauces and dishes for the table,
smoking pastys, etc. A thought never as yet pursued
(I think) any more than curtsying ladies, or bowing

1 Infra, p. 144. 2 TO 8oK(iv.

3 Horat. Epistola, Lib. I, Ep. 2, 11. 62, 63. 4 Supra, p. 92.

PLASTIC ART 115

beaus, except in the French court. Pictures of the
pretty princes and princesses, and court-airs as hung
in toy shops.

Observe the difference of a right and liberal eye
from a mechanic, false : the same in painting and
figures, etc., as in real life and persons. " What
Person, what form, character, species of a man, do we
see ? Who was he whom we saw in such a company,
in such an action, circumstance, reading, writing,
talking, hearkening, musing, exercising ? "

A tailor who is asked : he answers (according to
his eye). " A gentleman in such a coloured stuff, of
such a cut."

If it be a dancing master: he answers (according
to his eye). " A gentleman with such a gait or tread,
his leg turned so or so."

If it be a fop : he answers (according to his eye)
still, and as uniting the two latter tastes. " A gentle
man so or so dressed, coming into a room with such or
such an air, etc., such coloured lips, such teeth."

But if a man of sense, with an eagle's eye : he
answers from his memory and recollection (for so he
gathers, collects, imprints, and such is his imagery,
history, invention). " A gentleman of such a be
haviour, speech, action, such an address, such manners,
aspect, and seeming note or character of sense and
understanding, temper, mind, soul, and inward com
plexion."

The artificial, witty, far-fetched, refined, hyper
critical taste (what is apt to be commended as
ingenuous and merely speculative) is the worst in the
world, being half-way, and like half-thinkers (in
Char-cks, in, 302). The same in fencing, riding,
dancing. The natural best, till well and truly formed
(see again Char-cks, i, 190, at the end), and the
original first rude taste' corrected by rule, and reduced
to a yet more simple and natural measure. Otherwise
an innocent child's eye (of good parts and not spoilt
already by pictures of the common sort) always found

n6 SECOND CHARACTERS

the best, as I have found experimentally, in such a one
not of the higher gentry but liberal, and out of the
way of prints, and such costly playthings of imagery,
etc. The same experienced as to likeness in por
traiture.

Ergo. Better mere nature than half-way, illa-
borate, artful, merely critical judgment ; as it were in
wantonness, gayete de coeur, with indifference, super
ciliousness, neglect, scoff, as may be seen even in the
manners, and in the way itself of censuring by these
false-censurers, pseudo critiques, answerable to the
French pretieuses, etc.

Better be the mere je ne sais quoi of the French.
Though this not in our language : nor I hope ever
will. But for us (I hope) something better reserved.

Docti rationem artis intelligunt, indocti voluptatem1.

[" The learned understand the art of composition, the
unlearned enjoy pleasure from it."]

6. DISCOURAGEMENTS IN ART.

Compare moderns with ancients. Consider the
latter, their care and culture of bodies themselves by
exercises, the Greek discipline. Wrestling, even of
the wrestlers in state (remember Pericles in Plutarch).
So a Scipio, when first Rome took the polite way. See
the passage of Livy when the commissioners from the
Senate were sent as inquisitors into his athletic and
other Greek manners.

Consider after the bodies and forms themselves,
the opportunity of viewing these forms of the finer
sort (not porters or beggars) in nudity, and in easy,
familiar, as well as strenuous exercising action. For
as in a hot country, so in quotidian baths. In private
families, wives, children. Whereas now none but
painters (as Albani) used to such views, and these

1 Quintilian's Institutiones Qratoriae, Lib. IX, cap. 4, 1. 116, cited by
Junius in de pictura veterum, p. 38.

PLASTIC ART 117

constrained and awkward as being lucrative only,
necessitous, mercenary, and a reproach and shame in
the passive parties.

Also distortions by dress, unnatural bandages,
ligatures : as cravats, garterings, women's bodice
and contraction of waist, pressure of hips, swellings
and unnatural disfigurations of necks, breasts, paps.
Borings and lugging down of ears by jewels, (well that
it is not nostrils as with the other barbarians), perukes,
cravats.

Also props or stilts under the heel or hind part
of the foot, relaxing the hinder tendon and muscles ;
and extending, stretching unnaturally those of the
fore part and instep, setting us young a tiptoe. So
women's figures of feet and legs wholly destroyed in
China by small shoes, till they are unable to stand.
Our case even among the lower sort very near the
same ; a degree or two only removed from the same
barbarism.

Hence no modern figure (of the noble kind) now
extant in the world, which can be seen standing natur
ally on the ground.

Idea therefore must be taken from nature and
drawn ; instinct and what is innate ; or from the
ancient trunks and broken remains.

What little help from Academy in this respect, viz. of
nudity's, i.e. naked porters, or privately from diseased
courtesans. Whereas those who know nature under
stand well what difference debauch soon makes in the
youngest female, and how deflowering is soon de
flowering in this sense also : the fas instantly vanishing.

Statuary1 the mother art to painting. In the first
place on account of religion and civil government (as
these stood among the ancients), the families, heroes,
patricians, patriots, etc. as well as penates. ("He
deserves his statue in gold ! " Modern expressions
which show the nature of the thing.) And in the next
place on account of the profound learning, muscles,

1 Infra^ p. 127.

n8 SECOND CHARACTERS

anatomy, physique, symmetry, (a statue viewed all
round), simplicity, purity.

Remember also what pity: Raphael forced to paint
walls1; cartoons for tapestry ; an underwork man for
false work ; altar pieces as the priests commanded ;
popes enjoined (witness the transfiguration -piece2,
called the first picture of the world) saints with lights
about their heads : sometimes gold and silver ! rare
works in art3 !

False* criticism another discouragement in art. Up
start affected critics: Why this? Why that ? General
topics which they think mighty ingenious as : lights
whence ? How here and yet there ? — Answer: Flying
clouds, a thunder storm covering one spot; sun shining
the stronger and brighter on another. A reflection
from the rocks unseen. Other objects out of the
picture in the very place of the spectator, whence new
various mixed tints5 of which nothing appears, — but
the effect in the picture itself.

Also that other pert question of these sprightly
critics, viz. " How does that garment hang on ? "
Answer: "It does not hang at all. 'Tis dropping.
You catch sight only in an instant." So in running

1 Infra, p. 148.

2 This transfiguration-piece of Raphael would have made an excellent
marble or piece of relief-work (and such Raphael always carried in head:
those of the ancients in default of pictures having been his great school
and lesson). But as it is, in the illusive art 'tis so far from that sweet
persuasiveness and illusion (sweet as it is in other respects) that it not
only breaks all rule of perspective, but everything of general order,
position or collocation. The mountain a mole-hill, at most a mounte
bank's stage. Those figures below which should be seen by the upper
parts (supposing the point of sight to be above the flat of the mountain
as it must be for the sake of the lying figures there) are not at all in the
air. Every figure a point of light by itself may be cut out of the cloth,
or stuck on any other cloth, anywhere as well as where they are. No
one principal, no subjection, subordination, unity or integrity : no piece :
no whole. All disposition and order sacrificed in this transfiguration-
work, as all colouring in the cartoons.

3 Quere. Whether no instance of this in Raphael's ? Where or what
other master's besides. Answer....

4 Of true criticism (of which an art must be found) see ' Soliloquy,'
vol. I, p. 240. " For to all music there must be an ear proportionable.
There must be an art of hearing found." So of seeing, etc.

5 Infra, p. 147.

PLASTIC ART 119

figures, in a horse full speed, in the gladiator Farnese.
Whoever saw either of these subjects precisely and
distinctly in any such attitude ? So a man falling from
a precipice. An angel, mercury flying. Michael
Angelo's natural attraction of his resurrection figures
upwards (ill represented in the print, a poor one). All
these instantaneous. All is invention (the first part of
painting), creation, divining, a sort of prophesying
and inspiration, the poetical ecstatic and rapture.
Things that were never seen ; no nor that ever were :
yet feigned. Painter as poet, a second maker1.

But without all this apology and defence. The
poem and fiction is answer sufficient : the hyperbole,
the invention, essential ; the probable, plausible ; the
poetic, truth. What else would be every line in epic
exaggerated continally beyond all possibility if narrowly
searched. And see most particularly (what is of in
finite curiosity and of usefulest speculation to us in
the research of painting) the Homerical and Virgilian
description of the shields, where the figures at last
insensibly begin to stir and move and do what is
absurd and impossible to imagine. Yet this is right.

Sad to consider that the occasional rise of painting,
being chiefly from the popish priesthood, the improve
ment and culture of it (excepting the vicious part for
the cabinets of the grandees etc.) has turned wholly
on the nourishment and support of superstition (chiefly
too in ugly forms), and exaltation of that vile shrivelling
passion of beggarly modern devotion (as in Miscel
lanys, pp. 126-8, and Letter of Enthusiasm, pp. 35-36).
Witness the best picture in the world, Domenichino's
St Jerome.

Remember here (as prefatory) to anticipate the
nauseating, the puking, the delicate, tender-stomached,
squeamish reader (pseudo or counter critic), deltca-
tulus. "Why all this?" And "can't one taste or
relish a picture without this ado ?" (So in Miscellany,
the prosopopy, pp. 166, 278.) Thus kicking, spurning

1 See Char-cks, vol. I, p. 207.

120 SECOND CHARACTERS

at the speculation, investigating, discussion of the je
ne sais quoy.

Euge tuum et belle : nam belle hoc excute totum,
Quid non intus habet ?*

["Your 'well done!' and your 'O fine!' for examine
this whole ' Opine.1 What has it not within ? "]
So the "I like," "you like," who can forbear? who
does forbear? Therefore. Have patience. Wait the
tale. Let me unfold etc.

Chief support of painting what? — X1! — Wretched
model2. Barbarian. No form, no grace of shoulders,
breast3, no demarche, air, majesty, grandeur, a lean
uncomely proportion and species, a mere Jew or
Hebrew (originally an ugly scabby people) both shape
and physique, with half beard peaked, not one or the
other. Lank clinging hair, snivelling face, hypocritical
canting countenance and at best melancholy, mad
and enthusiastical in the common and lower way, not
so well as even the bacchanals and bacchantes4.

But of this more when we come to speak of
Decorum5. And there add (in notes): The painters,
without any manner of necessity or prescription that
I know of, represent the husband of the blessed virgin
as a broken, blind, doating old man, at the very birth
of our Lord and Saviour ; though highly probable

1 Persius, Satires, I.

2 Memd. Here the general subject, viz. God the Father a broken,
wrapt up, nursed, old ; consumptive look, haggard, with carcass, a dead
Christ held forth in winding sheet, a pigeon in bosom, and a lubberly,
hober-de-hoy or two of an angel (hermaphroditical forms, half-man, half-
woman, in petticoats and broad flopping wings) with a dozen or score
of peepers, raw, callow heads (like gaping birds out of a nest) stuck in
unnaturally between a pair of wings without a body, and called cherubs.

From hence (as taking ground from a high station), thunder and rant
(but comical still and in good humour) against common prayer-book-
cult, glass window etc., tapestry figures of high church and chapel.

Better the perfect in the kind ; and statuary introduced. Altar a true
altar, and image etc. as becoming. And justify this by Queen Elizabeth's

rant cited by an ingenious author and learned gentleman (M'C ). Is

priestcraft in perfection. (Cite the cited authority but not M'C., nor his
pamphlet by name.)

3 Here cite the poets, finest works of Apollo, Jove.

4 Of which see below, p. 126. 5 Infra, p. 167.

PLASTIC ART 121

(and better to be supported) that according to the
Jewish practice, highly commendable in suitable
marriages and regard, veneration, that the parties were
of equal or suitable age. And now thirty and odd
years after, the same Joseph is seen going out without
kindred in search of Christ.

7. ENCOURAGEMENTS, MOTIVES.

1. Invention of prints, etchings (which are
original) answerable to printing in the commonwealth
of letters. Hence eye of the public framed ; though
injured by the false (French and Flemish) taste, and
ill cuts in books of learning : always ill because of
cheapness of the impression.

2. As to the benefit to mankind and the youth :
not only emollit mores1, but forms. Diverts the noble
(and idle) from extravagant expense of time and
estate : gaming : riot : excess : lazy habit and its
consequences2.

3. IloXXa/as e#av/*acra... and upon that tone to
remark, observe, " How great an ambition in nobility,
gentry, wits, etc., to be knowing in master's hands."
Comparisons drawn from painting, poets, orators,
divines. Lives of painters, even modern and mere
wretches such as they are, much canvassed, emphati
cally related, in the best companys, among ladies, etc.3

Also this concerning excursions, deviations, di
verting tales, episodes, miscellany, occasional reflections
(partly as Lucullus said, for my own sake). I have
always thought strange that authors should be found
(and readers to support them) who could purpose,
write, and couch their fragments and spare thoughts,
as if pity the world should lose the least4.

1 [Ovid, Epistola ex Ponto, Lib. II, Epist. 9, 1. 48.]

2 As below, p. 174.

3 This in the preface and introductory part, with much thrown off into
notes below it. See also about the master painters' lives and occasional
relation of their personal and hand characters, resembling and instructive
as well as entertaining. See I say above, p. 15.

* See ' Soliloquy,' p. 164, and ' Miscellanys,' pp. 145 — 6.

122 SECOND CHARACTERS

With respect to self, (apologizing for it). Thus
reconciliation of plastics, etc., viz. That being sick
and under pains, watches, insomnias, etc., as also
disturbing business or affairs overmuch for one in a
low habit, etc. The custom of viewing the forms and
raising these pleasing spectres, not only good as
chasers, drivers away of other species and haunting
forms of faces, grimaces, etc., in weak stomachs, in
digestions, head aches ; but in reality helping the
passions, calming, allaying, introducing new. But this
conditionally, that the just virtuoso-rules be practised,
and none of the frightful or ghastly spectacles (as
Apollo, executioner of martyrs, in the very flaying act),
any more than the lascivious be admitted. For each
of these are false and never ryparography.

8. PRAISES, RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE ART.

Had I been born a Christian Catholic where
Christianity and imagery was natural cult, etc., I
should say to myself, or as I now am, shall say to such
a one, in favour of poor art and artists, recognized
however by heaven and divine law {jure divino] :
"Sir! Can you worship thus? Would doggerel
serve you for hymns ? bagpipe or jews' harp for music
and hallelujahs ? Can you see Christ twice crucified ?
Him broken and distorted of whom it was said a bone
of him, etc. ? Him disfigured of whom it is written... ?
Him decrepit, gouty, old, etc., who never had a
blemish, wound, or disease ; and who was so young a
man still when he suffered ? Him who was purposely
by the wicked placed between two thiefs in disgrace,
made resembling to such countenances, and of the
same looks, mien, form and passion as either rascal ? "

Dilemma about the use of pictures by Christians.
Either none or good. Church of England, (High
Church) and Lutheran miserable. And in this sense
odi imitatores as in ' Characteristics.'

PLASTIC ART 123

And here again in favour of painters: To insist1
that beautiful forms beautify ; polite, polish. On the
contrary, gothic gothicize, barbarous barbarize.

In respect of economy and as delivering from
other luxuries and expences when rightly taken. First
because of its own nature ; TO KaXov ; expensiveness
and richness being the very ruin of the art according
to Pliny in the ' Characteristics.'

Also for reasons hinted just below2. And here a
place for moralizing. " Everyone covets in proportion
to the appetite of expence : not florid and generous as
is vulgarly conceived, but modest and generous. Love
of giving, largition, communication, joined with hatred
of waste and needless expence. — Frugal ergo liberal-
Saving ergo bountiful." A good father, excellent man
I knew, taught his lad to fling away farthings in view
of generosity. This directly the contrary road and I
fear would sooner teach him avarice, increasing his
wants by negligence, and his appetites not decreasing.
On the contrary his ill appetites and affections rising
stronger by the contempt of other peoples wants and
the noble pleasure of relieving them by what he neglects
and spurns. Hence heart hardened.

The Roman vir frugi. The first Cato. Above
all the Englishman, because of a court and place-pre
ferment, prostitution, etc.

But in a way it may be objected : " That this
makes against our subject, viz. Pictures." If it does
so, so let it. Let it take its chance. God's name.
But let us see first. Examine the true taste, etc.

In some of the early divisions3 (whether the begin
ning or middle of part or chapter) raise the objection
of luxury and expence encouraged in the great, and
consequently too in the little according to Esop's and
Horace's Frogs so unto themselves. But first a com
promise, a compounding, a less for a greater and
worse ; a taking off from play, equipage, riot and feast.

1 Supra, p. 104. 2 Infra, p. 123.

3 Supra, p. 123.

i24 SECOND CHARACTERS

Nay even from building ; and in the next place when
the extravagance is committed and the res, the patri
mony hurt (of which speak seriously as the way to
knavery, etc., in the gentleman). All may be retrieved
and upon a new turn of business with a good air dis
posed of, and with good advantage and increase of the
principal, if such rules as these arefollowed and notfancy.

For this is worthy observation that though we
scarce see a man whose fancy agrees with another in
the many hands and paintings, yet in general when
the cabal1 is over, for this must be excepted (as in
Poussin's case in France and Domenichino's in Naples),
the public always judges right, and the pieces esteemed
or disesteemed after a time and a course of some years
are always exactly esteemed according to their pro
portion of worth by these rules and studies. So that
the gentleman who follows his caprice may undo
himself. But he who either fixes his taste, or buys
according to the universal judgment and public taste
and confession of painters in works of the deceased,
will never be abused or come off a sufferer when he
parts with his effects.

Also secret apology (in passing and not with set
design) for purchasing of pictures : because of necessity
of purchasing as a virtuoso for commerce and acquaint
ance in Italy. This to be thrown in in raillery and
humour upon my Lord ... etc., and addressing to him
as the cause of drawing me in. And there being a
necessity withal of speaking of self (another kind of
self-citation) because of these purchases2.

9. ANCIENT MASTERS AND WORKS, IN STATUES,
HEADS, RELIEFS, INTAGLIOS.

Beginning of ancient reform, improvement and
perfection of iconics, plastics, and graphical imitation,

1 In notes refer to Fre"art and Bosse about this Cabal against Poussin.
Supra, p. 15; infra, p. 128.

2 See above, p. 98.

PLASTIC ART 125

about the same time with the poetical (after the great
model Homer) in the two branches of dramatic, viz.
tragedy and comedy.

Euripides before and Menander just after Apelles
and Protegenes ; or near upon their contemporaries.
The art of colours being not in its perfection (or beyond
four) till then.

Therefore statuary1 first in order of time (history
and nature: as said of other arts in Char-cks). Then
painting. For design indeed the foundation : colours
an after ornament (and to be regarded by tyros),
though drawing perfect of necessity when statuary
perfect. Therefore Leukis not yet an Apelles. And
had Raphael ever had an equal since him in idea and
grace, he had been surpassed and not the first and
only great in painting, because of some improvement
perhaps in colouring after, tho — .

Egyptians though so much earlier and so vastly
ancient ; yet barbarous. Why ? A law in this case.
Orthodox designing, hieroglyphics2, sacred-monstrous,
reformation of these first forms, sacrilegious, heretical.
National church-painting. Figures of the gods still
monstrous (though somewhat Greek) whilst in Asia
or Africa: as Jupiter, Hammon, Diana of Ephesus,
Anubis, Canopus —

The animals once ill designed as at first when
given by Isis, or other sovereigns to be kept alive
and mourned for when happening to die (being in
memory of mangled husband whose true body was
still concealed3).

These animal forms, I say, being never after to be
innovated.

The religion of the Egyptians being thus made
specific*, both internally within themselves and with

1 Supra, p. 117. 2 Supra, p. 92.

3 Sec Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus.

4 So the Jewish religion specific. Christian not till after Christ and
settled by successional authority. E.g. had a proselyte to the Jewish
temple and religion been at Jerusalem, or in Judea at the preaching of
Christ and been converted, afterwards carried away and lost in a foreign

126 SECOND CHARACTERS

still greater division and abhorrence from externs.
Not thus the Greek, Roman, and other heathen
worthies. For here an emperour, or philosopher, or
historian (as Herodotus) travelling, could be initiated
severally in each worship.

Note that all the true antique figures, and especially
the single female1 heads or busts of bacchanals, have a
deep, eager, severe ecstatic or enthusiastic air. No
thing like disorder from wine : nothing drowsy, frolic
some, wanton, or so much as gay or smiling ; but on
the contrary stern and rigid, the passion of the plain,
prophetic, oraculous kind, fanatic and lymphatic (as
in Letter of Enthusiasm, etc.). Whence the guess2 of
Heinsius, (though so rash an obtruder) wonderfully
engaging and persuasive, entering into the spirit of
the Ode of Horace there cited3 and into the rest of
antiquity as by these figures and heads of bacchanals,
is so confirmed and illustrated. Also the place in
Livy, ibid. (viz. Letter of Enthusiasm, p. 47) and
Miscellanys, pp. 39, 40, 66, 67 and notes. Full of
the Holy Ghost. — Full of grace (as the Molinists and
Quietists, mystics, quakers, new prophets). Same
passion by modern painters in some of their saints4.

Against Academy life-painting (as inferiour to study

land like China or Japan: in this case he would not have been a specific,
unless he had an apostolic revelation or mission, but at liberty to have
relinquished the Jews even though he found a synagogue, circumcision,
and sabattizing in that very new country to which he was carried. Thus
also during the controversy between Paul and Peter, the Christian
religion less specific : whilst one conformed the other absolutely dis
sented from the Jewish rites with anger and reflection on the occasional-
conformist Peter. And thus also the Protestant sects more or less
specific, as they allow latitude and communion with others : not ab
solutely damning, condemning. But the Church of Rome absolutely
specific, as exclusive, peremptory, negatively and affirmatively.

This by way of explanation only of the phrase specific. So to return
again to our specific forms, the barbarous sculpture and hieroglyphic
notes of the Aegyptian priests.

1 See Leonardo Agostini's Le Gemme Anttche, partie ie, Fig. 27,
pp. 28 and so to 34 inclusive.

2 Viz. Lymphatur for Lactatur. For no joy in the case. " I have
seen God. 1 shall die." See Scripture.

3 Letter of Enthusiasm, p. 51.

4 As for instance see in modern masters, infra, p. 127.

PLASTIC ART

127

of ancient forms and culture of ideas). Let but any
one read Plutarch and Xenophon on the Spartan
discipline, diet, and care of breed, conception, birth
and nurture of bodies, and then wonder, if he can, why
ancient life beyond modern (porters), and Spartans
beyond even the rest of the Greeks in number of
victories at the Olympics ; or that Leonidas and his
six hundred at Thermopylae, etc.

(1) Ancient masters how much honoured and in
repute from Xeuxis and Apelles, Fabius Pictor, etc.
to Diognetus, Marcus's master —

(2) Philosophy itself out of the school of design
and plastic art. Sophroniscus's son of whose own hand
the graces, etc.

(3) In the question, whether the statuary or painter
—the noblest. Remember, that besides Socrates, of
Sophroniscus, etc. and his graces. Nothing mechanical
and even much less than painting, though seemingly
the contrary. For note the story of Raphael contend
ing with Michael Angelo, and making (by command
and precept to an ordinary stone-carver) one of the
perfectest, if not the perfectest, of modern statues.
Also the ancient statuarys wrought more immediately
for the temples, the lares, the gods, heroes, patriots,
ancestors, magistrates, etc. The painters more for
pleasure and beauteous contemplation.

(4) Here statuary the mother art of painting1.

10. MODERN MASTERS AND WORKS, IN PAINTING,
ETCHING, ETC.

What our English life-writer says of the enthusiasm
of Domenichino.

Enthusiasm represented by modern masters, when
of the prophetic ecstatic kind — as by ancient masters2
— in the persons of St Paul, the prophet Jeremiah,
Saul.

1 Supra, p. 117. 2 Supra, p. 126.

128 SECOND CHARACTERS

Monsieur du Fresnoy \ who wrote the Ars Graphica,
was himself a painter, according to our English trans
lator2. Quere. What for a performer ? — This highly
material because of his being an author.

Quere also (for the same reason) about Leonardo
da Vinci3, so extolled by the French author Freart,
who was refuted on this point ; it having been shown
that this piece (which he brags of having translated)
was not of Leonardo da Vinci, nor of any worth ; as the
excellent Poussin testifies in his letter, if it be genuine
and undoubted as published by Monsieur Bosse in
his Peintre\

Censure of Annibale Carracci9. His noted piece
frequently engraved, etched by Carlo Marat with great
exactness (viz. Christ and Samaritan Woman). Action
all theatrical6. Imitation of an imitation ; at second
hand ; not immediate, not original, from nature. Art
by custom becomes a new model.

So the tragic, or the stage. Each nation (as French
and English, vice versa] finds this better in their con
trary than in themselves. Monr Baron. Our Mrs Barry.
So the dancing-master7 if strictly followed : a fictitious,

1 Infra, p. 140.

2 Anonymous publisher who praises him. [Cf. C. du Fresnoy's The
Art of Painting, translated by M. Dryden. Lond. 1750.]

3 A Florentine great mathematician, anatomist, and older than
Raphael. Rival of, in art, and restorer of modern painting, according
to our English author (in Dryden's Fresnoy, p. 278).

4 P- 56.

6 Memd. Speak of his gallery with just applause, that being after
his contemplation of the ancient forms and study of Raphael, for which
I have heard him censured by the best modern heads of eminent painters
and virtuosi : " Forsooth ! as varying from his finer early manner and
delicacy of his great predecessor, leader, and countryman Correggio,
from whence his Lombard school."

6 Theatrical, etc. (see " Notion of Hercules," chap, in, 7), or, which is
the same as theatrical action, pulpit-action, as in foreign catholic-country.
(This may be safely pushed to ridicule, our own priests accompanying
the laugh; though against their real interest and art at the bottom.)
And from hence I have known a real able, but devout painter fall in
raptures on the pathetic action of the Christ, the touch of the single
finger on the breast (the other fingers in apt position about), when by
this he really and truly showed and even demonstrated to me, the affec
tation I suspected, and which I was always willing in honour of Carracci
to pass by uncriticised. 7 Supra, p. no.

PLASTIC ART 129

false and affected gesture and mien : not the natural
bow, tread or entrance into a room.

The painter more than the poet should beware of
this (though even in tragedy Horace says: Et tragicus
plerumque dolet sermone pectestri1} [" So tragical gener
ally, in their pain take to the language of prose"]
by reason that...

Modern masters no learning. No converse till
after raised and known by their pencil, and then too
late. Illiberal. Dis-ingenuous. Sharks, rakes. What
ideas, when thus vulgar! Not even so high as what
we call good breeding and manners in a common
sense. What sense of poetic manners, characters,
personages, moral truth ! What kind of judges ! Yet
these give the clue and lead the great, who are cheated
as well as misled by these mechanic knaves.

History of revival of painting. How far owing to
Roman hierarchy2 (see Char-cks, vol. in, p. 90).
But liberty withal, viz. the hierarchy itself (archon for
life, ephori, generals of orders, Jesuits etc.), and also
civil liberty, the free states of Italy as Venice, Genoa,
and then Florence also and other places. Besides
that, meeting and as it were co-habiting as private
men, but grandees, in one city (as in Rome, or at a
carnival in Venice). This reduces things to a parity
with a free state and independency which sets painters
and artists free, erects a public, a nation, Italy (see
Machiavelli's passion for Italy as the Greek ^>l\e\\t]va),
excites emulation etc., creates a taste, judgment.

1 De Arte Poetica, 1. 95.

- Memd. Under this head of the hierarchy remark in notes, viz.
" That we in particular (viz. Anglo-saxons) and church (quatenus Chris
tian, independent of the magistracy and act of parliament) are but a
colony of the papal hierarchy from Pope Gregory and his missionary
monk," etc. (as in Characteristics, vol. in, p. 239, and N.B.). That notwith
standing the Pope's great enmity to letters (true letters : though himself
so rhetorical) yet what care of music and magnificence ! See in his life,
in Platina and Monsieur Bayle. Glad would he have been after extir
pation of ancient heathen beauties (a reproach as he thought) to have
revived art, statuary, idols, etc., upon the finest model and taste, provided
it had been new and like the attempted new Christian poem (page 240
of the same third volume of the Char-cks) on the foundation of Christ,
etc.

130 SECOND CHARACTERS

Story of Domenichino (here in Naples, ergo] from
Signer Paulo, after I had been to see the chapel of
the town-saint (St Janr), called the treasury in the
archiepiscopal great church. Whereupon a consul
tation held by the convoked. Poor Domenichino

was rated by the head : they wisely supposing that he
would make no bodies without heads, and therefore
concluding that a head must carry a body at ten crowns1
per head. So the poor painter stuck the vaults with
heads (cherubim and seraphim) as an orange with
cloves to get his bread : the hard even at this rate.
The work therefore unfinished, unstudied, and much
of it unworthy of him. The pretty peepers still very
amiable and executable even by their gentility and
prettiness. But sometimes even a bishop and principal
figure peeps, which is very unsuitable ; and sometimes
such a figure stretched out too far in length, a mere
whole profile because easier studied and as it were
taking breath, or making way for thicker heads to
appear the more excusably in clusters elsewhere.

How judge of such things without knowledge of
these facts and lives of the painters themselves.

Poussin wonderful, when considered according to
paragraph (3) of the Notion ; and chiefly when con
sidered also as a Frenchman\ and working in little2.

Apply to Poussin's character what stands in Char-
cks3, viz. fidelity to art. This plainly the cause of
his discontent in France and being set and over
powered by the cabal. This the reason why he after
wards4 naturalized himself a Roman : resolved not to
betray his art or renounce his manner. Drawing in
little (of which the very kind is in strictness without
truth'] was the utmost he would do. But his other
work of figures tolerably sizeable.

1 Ducats, viz. five to our pound.

2 Hint withal his learning and education as in English lives (Du
Fresnoy's Art of Painting, tr. p. 359), with reproach on other painters as
illiterate.

3 Vol. I, p. 261.

4 See if this be sure.

PLASTIC ART 131

Reason for this little manner, viz. cabinet-furniture,
pieces-de-cabinet for ladies and the court. Ladies hate
the great manner; love baby-sizes, toys, miniature.
Besides this the churches and palaces (that are spacious)
were filled ere this by the multitude of tolerable good
pieces, since the Carracci's school. And therefore
according to our love of novelty and the humour of
the age he found this to be the most enabling him to
get a living by a moderate price (such as he set upon
his pieces with great integrity), the roof, staircase,
cupola, and fresco-painting (the chief in vogue) being
abhorrent from his chaste, severe, just and accurate
genius, which therefore kept itself to tablature and
home-study, wisdom, nature, philosophy, history,
criticism, learning.

ii. PAINTERS: — CHARACTER, EDUCATION,

QUALIFICATION1.

The face painter, limner (as Cooper, Sir Godfrey
Kneller, Riley etc.), no study of their works after the
knack and colouring got. No workmanship, no labour,
no not so much as thought, but when the party is
sitting and sees. The patron lord or lady sees and
is witness to all the industry, pains, or study, there
is in the business : nothing when their back is turned.

But when a subject is given to a real painter, a
heroic great subject: Good heavens! What toil! What
study ! What meditation requisite ! The five parts
resolved, accommodated, determined, ist. Invention
raised. 2d. Forms passed in review, proportion
chosen suitably. 3d. Colouring and tints in the same
manner suitable: if tragical, tragic, and so in general
and particular each figure with harmony considered.
4th. The passions, moral, thought, sentiment, manners.
—What a study. And 5th, the collocation, general
symmetry, disposition, as a general making his dis
position and order of battle when about to engage.

1 See Junius' passages on this head.

9—2

i32 SECOND CHARACTERS

What restless nights ! What brown studies, reveries,
ecstatic veins, rabiosa silentia etc.!

Here remember what said of Michael Angelo.
Domenichino... when surprised, overheard, or spied
through a key-hole or chink, in agitation, trembling,
rolling on the ground, on all fours, prancing, caprioling
(like a horse or quadruped monster when such a one
was to be imagined, designed), gaping, staring, mur
muring, roaring. So my painter (Closterman) going
into his picture when in the dark and standing long
before it.

How great a shame for such an artist as a "painter
(an epic, heroic-one) to know less of mathematics,
measuring, statics, common principles, or rules of
mechanic art, than the most ordinary mechanic, the
house carpenter, common surveyor, head bricklayer,
or inferiour architect ! For the statuary, his very
measuring tools and plumets will set him in the way! "

Michael Angelo1 to be justified against the French
and other bigot attacks. Pietro Belloris denial of
Vasaris and the received account of his having taught
Raphael ; and particularly against the French author,
Freart de Chambray2. Whose as impertinent censure of
Raphael (his pretended favourite and abominably wrong
commended, as if it were praising Both3 upon his
Judgment of Paris) in his Massacre of the Innocents4.

Jordano. Rabble painter, not only as painting
rabble best (witness his rout of Holofernes' camp in
the treasury roof of the Carthusians at Naples, and
his great door piece at the entrance of the church of
St Girolimi, ibid!}\ but as disguising himself best in

1 Confer with Sensus Communis, p. 144 note. And below, p. 154.
Monr Freart (according to his dogmatical character) reasons only on a
wretched print: having never seen the original; or if he had, having
no eye in painting; only a good thought and maxim from affection to
the ancients, and Raphael their student.

2 Freart de Chambray, An idea of the perfection of painting, translated
by J. Evelyn. Lond. 1668, pp. 14, 64, 70.

3 [The text refers probably to Jan Both's painting in the National
Gallery (no. 209) in which the figures are by Poelenburgh.]

4 See his pages 47, 48 and supra, p. 16.

PLASTIC ART 133

a multitude, in a confusion, heap, variety of tints, and
mad figures, especially the imperfect ones at a distance
do wonders. See what is applied of the chorus
singers1 (like the French). Can't sing alone, or with
a il corbo, or few strings accompanying.

Spaniolet2: Bust painter, half figures, and of old
ugly figures, fierce style (from M. Ang. de Caravaggio),
no drawing, the antipode of grace (witness his rival
picture to Domenichino, in the treasury of the great
church), horrid, monstrous, is said to be well from
waist upward, an executioner, from whence below.
And indeed all his whole3 figures, like himself barbarous
and horrid.

12. SUBJECTS OF PAINTING.

Through indulgence to the fashionable taste (viz.
gallantry and amours, as in tragedy and poem, so in
epic tablature) give for a subject and pattern of the
ultima linea in this kind: 'The History of Bacchus
and Ariadne.'

Firstly. Both sexes in perfect beauty; as heroic
then machine : (Juno, whom as Pronuba I would prefer
to Venus, cupids being allowed in a distinct group in
the air or otherwise, so as not to intermix with Juno,
or her car, or attendance). And in the next place as
to the camps or perspective, both land and sea
(Ariadne having been left on an island) with the
beauties of both as far as the principal life will allow,
and thus grove, rock, port and shipping, a descent
and train. A kind of oration, solemn march, or
triumph. The hero and chief in agriculture and
benefaction to mankind, a conqueror with benignity,
in opposition to a ravager, a mars, a nimrod. Thirdly.
The form perfect. Age, youth, strength, no decay,
no rawness, much less fat, or bloating (as illiterate
artists of the moderns represent), but rather over-slim

1 Infra, p. 176. 2 [Spagnoletto] supra, p. 15.

3 Supra, p. 15.

i34 SECOND CHARACTERS

and effeminate, like the Eastern princes, whence he
came conqueror with the softness of their manners ;
not those of the Northern Thrace, who abused his
gift and were thence noted for quarrels — Pugnare,
Thracum est1. Fourthly. Ariadne's form, the same
with chastity waiting him in the marriage bower (as
in Xenophon who chose this subject for his Sym
posium); yet being widow not virgin may be allowed
better to wait him with secret but modest joy, inter-
mixt with sorrow because of her abandoned state.
Sixthly. The comic part (as in Homer himself) viz.
satires, fawns, etc. in the train and dance after Bacchus.

13. SORTS OF PAINTERS AND PAINTING: PORTRAITURE,
RYPAROGRAPHY, GROTESQUE, BATTLE PAINTING, ETC.

Portraiture. Face painting being almost the whole
of portraiture (as profiles and mere busts in medals
and the like). The artist may be and almost ever is
ignorant of anatomy, proportions, and the five parts,
excepting a small matter of the outline (enough for
copying, since a copy after a face or a figure taken in
a cloth is much the same) together with some part or
degree of the third part, viz. colouring. And with
this he may set up for a painter and great in his way,
with drapery's, etc. ; if perhaps, he hires not another
as is usual to do this, or anything that happens if
beyond a mere common figure singly or a single head.
Thus good face painters and medalists, etc. without
further study. For if perhaps a genius, capable ; it
must be checked and spoilt : witness Van Dyck2, Sir

1 Horace, Ode xxvii, 1. 2.

2 A portrait painter (as Van Dyck) attempts a family piece, puts
figures together in an action, lays a scene, unites, makes a disposition,
etc. But this is launching out of his depth. Better a history painter
if strongly invited should descend to this work for some great and
understanding patron or Prince — for if not understanding cannot be
satisfied with the work on account of subordination, and 2d, 3d and 4th
figures disobliged— than that the accustomed face-painter should offer
to ascend so high as this, in which he will prove an Icarus. For so
Van Dyck : fantastic, apish, antic in his action, and wretched and false
in his composition, collocation, etc.

PLASTIC ART 135

P. Lilly. And thus our Cooper, Peter Oliver, and
others in miniature, were perfect in face painting,
ignorant in design and art, mere mechanics. This
not so much as a liberal art nor to be so esteemed ;
as requiring no liberal knowledge, genius, education,
converse, manners, moral-science, mathematics, optics,
but merely practical and vulgar. Therefore not deserv
ing honour, gentility, knighthood conferred1.

Even an indifferent person'-, who neither in mien
nor habit carries any similitude to any known species,
rank, or class (as neither senator, or judge, soldier,
scholar, or philosopher, saint, monk3, or priest, good
fellow, rake, squander, wild youth, enamorata, courtier,
cook4, country-squire, etc.), yet being known parti
cularly, and very remarkable, citable, much talked of,
much praised, much ridiculed, or bantered by his club,
cabal, set of friends, or known in such and such walks,
such coffee-house, in the side-box, at St James or
Hyde Park, Mr Such-a-one, Mr What-do-you-call-him,
Mr Thing-urn. This personage, this very phiz (as
they say) is for the time that he is known and re
membered, and whilst the human lasts a pleasing
imitation, and makes the artist by chance and un
knowingly "a poet-painter for the time being." Even
this a character3, and the work characteristicaLm^\x\\^.\.^.
("How like! Just he for all the world!") But the
humour over once, the jest spent; and where is the
sense, the thought ? The piece sinks again into its
nothing. Its no character. It dies and becomes

1 Glance at Sir Kneller. Am not reflecting on King W" : yet see
again, infra, note 3. 2 Supra, p. 102.

3 Monk : Remember Van Dyck's friar, which old Lord Bradford had
of Closterman. An imitation of an imitation (of a hypocrite, not really
mortified, but how refined ! how artful and near nature in the original,
viz. the actor, the priest himself!). A fiction after a fiction, yet even
thus characteristical, a character: with his death head and seeming
mortified face. Not so on the stage. See Dryden's Spanish friar and
Sir G. Kneller after Lee. Even this characteristical, and though reiterate
still pleasing.

4 A cook. And so down through all the order of ryparography, as
below, p. 136. 6 See above in Characters, p. 99.

6 Sic oculos, sic ille manus, sic ora ferebat. Aeneid, lib. 3.

136 SECOND CHARACTERS

thoughtless, void of meaning; and all the art in the world
is thrown away. 'Tis an abuse of real art which should
(aye and will) be reserved for better purpose. For if
the painter deigns to hold to this work, his art and
genius will not deign to attend him thus employed.
He may excel in this, but (as Van Dyck) sacrifice his
ability in all else.

This remark as to the epic artist when he becomes
face painter, or worker in portraiture, viz. " That
besides the subjecting of his genius, narrowing of his
thought, contraction of his idea, deadening of his fancy,
constraining of his hand, disaccustomed him in the
freedom of his pencil, tying him down to copying, trans
lating, servilely submitting to the lords and ladies, etc.,
his originals. Besides all that, I say he looks his time
and fame. These works buried : those immortal ;
these scarce one in twenty worth purchasing by a
stranger: those the same to all people and all nations.
And as he proceeds, he improves. He gains not only
in his experience, but by the spreading of his works
abroad, which spread his name, bring custom to him
while living, honours both while living and (what is
the generous artist's great spur as it is the hero's) after
life, both in his own country and foreign nations."

Ryparography. Ryparography though by itself
naught, yet to be understood and used by the heroic
masters to mix (but much modified) with his heroic
as the foil. So often Raphael himself; a cook, a
pharisee, a thyrsites, amidst the other homerical forms.

The prince of critics and great judge of arts dis
tinguishes painters into the heroic, who paint them
better than the common life, better than they are
by nature; the ridiculous, lower comic, who paint them
worse than the common life, worse than they naturally
are ; and a middle sort, who paint them true and just
as they are. But then this truth in heroic is falsehood,
and a blur against the truth of art and the hypothesis
itself; whether it be Scripture and history which is
posed or laid down, or whether heathen gods or

PLASTIC ART 137

heroes, or even great men, Roman and Grecian chiefs,
consecrated as it were by age, time, and history.

In the middle kind, when according to truth, may
be comprehended fairs, camps, public places in modern
cities, hunting matches, and parties of pleasure, of
gentlemen and ladies, (where the figures, not the
perspective pay sage or animals are principal)...

In the last detestable and odious kind, excels the
Flemish . . . Brouwer, pvirapoypafyoi.

Grotesque. All grotesque painting not ryparo-
graphy; though most may be such. Witness Raphael's
monsters and grotesque after the ancients, in Signr
Bartoli's book of prints, etc.

Remember also to acknowledge the excellence and
attainment of perfection in the vulgar life and abject1
base life by modern masters. But not so as to the
heroic, epic, lyric (not even Raphael entirely ; for how
clogged! how diverted! how prostituted!). Only the
doggerel, farce, burlesque. Parody : first comedy :
satire: mimes. But not tragedy: latter not comedy,
not after an iliad like the verses given to - — on
which he formed his Olympic Jove.

Battle Painting. Battle painting though modern
and little; yet next joined to humanity (proportionately
little) because of the horse noble animal, and next to
man. Of the horse treat elsewhere, remembering the
noble cast of the eye and head ; the sublime air ; the
triton horses ; the hero horses, half or quarter deities
such as Achilles' Xanthus and his speech (a noble
subject for painting!), on which mention Homer and
the Pere Bossu's excuse by Balaam's ass. The en
thusiasm and inspiration expressible in the heathen
subject and poet, not in the sacred one, not to be
attempted (I fear) with any success. This historically
true : poetically false. In the other (with the religious
heathen, who could join both) what effect2!

1 By masters Flemish, not worthy of being mentioned. The boor-
painters.

2 See Letter of Enthusiasm, pp. 4, 5, 6, 7.

138 SECOND CHARACTERS

Battle painting if in little figures (unfinished and
therefore true as said just before) is to be esteemed
but as a species of perspective, (according to what is
said in Notion, chap, v, par. 10). The same as to
buildings and architecture, if the perspective painter's
genius leads to architecture. But if the architecture
be so far principal and eminent as to drown, or as
it were devour the field, and stand single by itself
without a town, people and natural appurtenances of a
town-prospect ; or without a country, ruins, rocks, wood
and natural appurtenances of a rural or country pro
spect: in this case the species of painting is empty,
foolish, false, and below still life. For this at least is
true and taking in vases, and other proportionable
and artful pieces; and contains as well the rules of
mathematics, or mathematical mechanics, and elegant
workmanship.

Ship Painting. Ship painting (whether storms or
calms), in which the Dutch, as they well may, excel,
is also no more than a species of perspective ; the
rest being the mere knowledge of a hulk and ropes
(no extraordinary science, not above the ship-wrights) ;
but if joined with rock, sky, sea-port, etc. : then right
and a true though inferiour species of perspective.

Miniature or Limning. "Miniature (viz. the dimi
nutive kind) if finished is false ; if unfinished and true
serves only as machine work, appendix, or ornament
to perspective."

Exception in this place for small portraiture of
heads only (for bodies would be mere puppets and
ridiculous as everyone presently sees), which con
venience and use renders agreeable and friendship
amiable. So enamel and water colours (viz. in minia
ture still. For even roof-work and fresco is water-
coloured and so Raphael's cartoons though bigger
than life). But enamel especially being generally
little and in its nature glossy is still more false ; though
the ancients who had not our way in oil had another
(as they had many now lost) of burning, which way

PLASTIC ART i39

for the largest as well as least manner, and what was
highly esteemed, as by Pliny's remark of the master's
inscriptions of their names eVe'/caoz/.

Exception also in general for miniature or the
diminutive kind in statuary1, sculpture, etc., and for
all works in the plastic kind, or of one substance, or
even on a superiour plane with lines as lapidary or
medal-imitations, or draughts in two colours, claro-
oscuro, etc. on account of reason given in Notion2.

Besides that there is no perspective field, or ac
companying nature (sky, ground, distances, appendices,
etc.). And for high or low relief, the medal-learning
and antiquary science of anaglyphies (so necessary in
society and for the use of mankind), as also the mere
use and currency of coinage and money (another
necessity) familiarizes and executes this diminutive
manner in other kinds, which are not fully, supremely
and strictly imitative painting.

Remember the reverse of the common phrase
(speaking of meadows and perspective). " 'Tis as if it
were painted." — Ridiculous !• — Therefore this is just
what should not be painted. And therefore when a
real good picture is to be commended say of it : " This
is like perfect nature and not like paint." For when
nature herself paints (as sometimes in wantonness and
as it were luxuriantly) she ought not to be imitated :
not the picture, but herself only (her pure self] copied.

Concerning mixture of works, master with master
(as "perspective by such a one, figures by such a one
or such a one ") wholly false. So in my Claude de
Lorrain, figures by Jordano, the latter giants and out
of size, though moderately in harmony as to colouring.
Remember Montague House, which I was never
willing to go to see after rebuilt and painted, because
the better the masters the more violent the conflict

1 And thus of old certain considerable statuary commended in the
little way as.... See Pliny.

But of painters above that I remember... Search for these in Pausanias,
Pliny, Philostratus.

2 Chap, v, p. 12.

1 40 SECOND CHARACTERS

and dissonance harsher. For though a man may
submit to himself in this regard (though even the
judicious Poussin — that equally great master in both
kinds — sometimes failed in this and could not be
enough below himself in perspective pieces), yet never
to another. But Caspar his brother-in-law (by him
taught) and being able only in the perspective part,
was through necessity perhaps (though with judgment
joined) a perfect model of truth of this kind1.

14. THE FIVE PARTS IN PAINTING.
General Considerations.

Monsieur Du Fresnoy's Ars Grapkica*: whether
worthy of notice ?

1. If worthy note that the five parts of painting
are wrongly reduced to three, by the marginal notes
added, contrary to the sense of the author ; who is
not distinct in the five parts, has however reckoned
four at least, and would have made no such enumera
tion as three according to the text.

2. In the first place, in the article of satire, or way
of anticipation by raillery, censure, etc. (as necessary
according to miscellaneous style to turn off ridicule,
excite the nauseating palate by piquancy and feed the
fashionable spleen). Remember to note the wrong
impertinent blundering application of the plastic rules.

Scarce at any time in any of our modern poets or
authors one single metaphor, allusion, allegory, simile
grounded on the art and formed on the painter's
business, but what makes the painter blush, the artist
lose himself, not cognizable in the description or com
parison. Something silly, preposterous and betraying
ignorance.

1 Expose in this place the civil war, riot, hub-bub, sedition, tumult,
uproar of pieces, parts, colours, etc. in mixed works. Cupola of the
Treasury at Naples, the Jesuits, ibid. And refer reciprocally to Notion,
chap, v, par. 2 and 9.

* [Cf. C. A. Du Fresnoy's The Art of Painting, translated by Mr
Dryden, Lond. 1750.]

PLASTIC ART i4I

3. Also comparisons and parallel ran between
painting and poetry because of the pictoribus atque
poetis1 [painters and poets] etc. and the ut pictura
poesis* [poems are as paintings] almost ever absurd and
at best constrained, lame, or defective.

One says... .Another says....

As to habits, dresses and all which painters com
prehend in the common phrase of drapery should it
be asked: "In which of the five parts do we place
this ? " Tis answered: " In the first and third." For
not only invention, but history and learning lie in the
first part. And for whatever in art goes further than
the outline, must in respect of the draperies, be wholly
in the third part (viz. light and shadow and colouring).
There being properly no symmetry or regular men
suration of mere foldings so as to require anything of
the second part ; and much less life or passion, so as
to have to do at all in the fourth. And as for the
fifth, the general collocation, it is either included or
carried along with the figures and bodies which it
adorns, or it comes in like architecture, or trees, as
making part of the masses or balancing parts in the
perspective ; and as such, it belongs indirectly and
not immediately to part second.

ist Part in Painting: Invention. Story. Imagery.

This being the first of the (five) parts in painting ;
though in poetry 'tis the Swecris, collocation, whole,
unity, as the French author (Monr Freart de Cham-
bray) has made it also in painting : but not with parity
of reason. Since the manner of signature, designation,
or image making is common to the poet with the rest
of mankind, especially the literate, viz. by words,
written characters of speech, grammar, etc.

But the painter's or plastic's manner, means, or
medium peculiar to himself and art ; not common to
him with others. A man complete in wit, science,

1 Horace's De Arte Poetica, 1. 9. 2 Ibid. 1. 361.

142 SECOND CHARACTERS

letters, politeness and even in the very judgment1 of
design : yet no designer, no hand, nor idea in order
to a hand.

Therefore in this first part is involved the materia
plastica. Without this and the forming or active part
(according to the high philosophical division into the
amwS^s KCU V\LKOV [causal and material]), no work, no
business, no advancement or foundation.

1. The good painter (quatenus painter) begins by
working first within. Here the imagery! Here the
plastic work ! First makes forms, fashions, corrects,
amplifies, contracts, unites, modifies, assimilates, adapts,
conforms, polishes, refines etc., forms his ideas : then
his hand : his strokes.

2. Thus Raphael, dying young (37). His idea
before his hand. All other masters their hand before
their idea. He still working to his death. Hand
(viz. colouring) scarce come to him ; as painters observe
in his best piece of this kind, viz. his Transfiguration,
called foe. first picture of the world (this Raphael would
have judged otherwise : being mixed, a double piece,
not a whole).

3. Accordingly a proficient in this kind (and such
a one when found and happening to read this young
would thank me) will apply to his idea, and study
invention, for which a real secret (non obstante, re
hearsal, Mr Bays) viz. passing the forms in review
(as soldiers mustering), then checking, redressing,
imprinting, stirring, exciting ; then criticizing ; then
corroborating2.

4. And thus the proficient in another science,
the true c^tXo/caXog [lover of the beautiful], forms his
ideas, till a habit (as in Cebes' Table3, so reiterately
enjoined).

The young painter thus becomes original4, "whilst he

1 Almost not quite so. For judgment will necessarily impart some
degree of polishing or working on the forms, species, etc.
- See Instinct, p. 105. 3 Supra, pp. 74, 81.

4 See Characteristics, vol. ill, p. 262, note, line 20.

PLASTIC ART I43

draws from various models," etc. Whereas by copying
merely (though this good in some degree and at first)
he advances little and can create nothing of his own.

But again the secret (as just above) of invention
is (when young) to view good models, etchings (the
nearest originals, and really original when by the
masters themselves), drawings, cartoons, if not able to
come at pictures and statues.

And from hence fleeting forms between sleeping
and waking, working on his ambition as well as fancy.
So Themistocles haunted and made to walk at nights
by the apparitions of the trophies of Miltiades (an-
swerably to the statues1 said to walk in those days,
when many of a family in the house, many in all
public places. See Lucian).

From these fleeting forms (call them the effluvia
of Epicurus, or the ideas of Plato) the prophet collects
still, joins, disjoins, compares, adds, subtracts, modifies,
tempers, allays for fear of wildness. Appeal to ordinary
fancy of faces upon walls in obscure places where
casual lines are drawn at random and chiefly in fever,
sickness, or indigestion, grimaces and ugly forms ;
sometimes fair and beautiful, sometimes bestial, mon
strous. These drive away, beat down ; those mark,
note, remember, raise, repass. So Raphael. So Guido.
See their letters. The first of his Galatea or Venus
in Pietro Bellori concerning his works. The second
in... where he says: "that for the devil (the idea of
ugliness) he purposely keeps it out of his mind till
necessary to paint." Thus Raphael, a Raphael; and
Guido, Guido.

i . The reverse of this, and the ruin of young artists
as well as virtuosos, judges, good eyes and taste, is
the contrary habit of not selecting, not gathering ;
suffering the ideas to present themselves and lead on
and engage and enamour as they will or can'2. No

1 See what is said bemoaningly of the want of statues, supra, p. 108.

2 See Characteristics, vol. I, p. 312, viz. imperiousness of the -visa,
(avTdcraiai etc.

i44 SECOND CHARACTERS

order : no control : no regulation of the forms : no
check, restraint or exception ; but all permitted, the
appearances — I fancy ergo I choose. — I am pleased,
therefore, I will be pleased. — But this is impossible :
not durable, as in the chosen, select, and truly judicious
and natural forms. These durable, eternal, more and
more enchanting and instructive, improving, exalting.
The other nauseating, soon quelling, satiating: then
art and science condemned, slighted. What wonder ?
2. 'Tis not the/<? ne sais quoi to which idiots and
the ignorant of the art would reduce everything. 'Tis
not the So/cet, the I like and you like. But why do I
like ? And if not with reason and truth I will refuse
to like, dislike my fancy, condemn the form, search it,
discover its deformity and reject it1.

2d Part" in Painting: Proportion, Drawing,
Symmetry particular.

No intention to declare which and which are the
proportions; how many heads lengths, whether... or...
to a body. (This the Academy, the painter's school,
common, practical.) But which and which species,
many sorts, even of the heroic genus, still different
species,— as Mars more gladiatorian, gregarian, legion
ary form : thick truss, waist not so noble round, equally
turned, as a Hercules of middle age, much less in beauty
of form like an Apollo, Bacchus (the true Bacchus),
or a Mercury. Witness the best medals as well as
statues and ancient relief works.

This founded in nature. For as Hercules (young)

1 [A paragraph follows here in the text numbered 3, beginning :
"And thus the proficient," etc. which is the same as 4, supra, p. 142 ; and
another numbered 4, beginning : " First corruption of taste," etc. which
is the same as 2 supra, p. 108.]

2 Note that according to this division into five parts, this second part
must be subdivided into two : of which figures (in respect of themselves)
must make one, and perspective another.

— No! Not so! — For now I see at least (according to Frdart's report
from Junius) that perspective (or optic) must be referred to the last part,
viz. collocation.

PLASTIC ART 145

the finest form to succeed in all the five exercises and
carry (as he is said to have done) the prizes of the...,
so the form of Mars most proper for war, foot or
horse. J\.sfoot because of the length of the fork, slow
marching but gaining ground, not for running. And
as horse, because of short waist sitting best, and long
legs, a help especially when the horse clasped with the
calf or shin, as when they used no stirrups to draw
and lengthen out their legs, to an inconvenience, if
the horse anything low.

Add to this : the thick chestedness for great breath
and long endurance of fatigue. The length also of
arms (accompanying the long legs) a principal matter
in fence by the reach, and in the cast of the lance as
well thrust. Also height and tallness generally at
tending this make more than the longer waisted equal
and proportionable. Seldom the well-made and exact
bodies seen very tall but middle-sized.

These the reasons for the stated forms of the
ancients as they appear in the antiques, and which
the practising painters of the Roman schools (present
at Rome and studying the antique) learn by rote and
do wonderfully, they know not why themselves. And
this is the great subject in which Protogenes excelled
Apelles by his own confession. This the subject on
which the learned artist Euphranor wrote his treatise
concerning symmetry, and the different proportions
belonging to the different and subdivided under species
of the genus MAN1.

Add to this : " That as the view of the antique,
the study of the basso-relievo, statues, etc. (with coins
and other assistance) can only be expected to qualify
for the right conception of forms in the heroic kind ;
so this school alone of Rome (whence Raphael, Jul.
Romano and Poussin) has as yet ever qualified for the
unmixed, pure and simple grace, void of affectation*.

1 See Char-cks, I, 144.

2 Concerning which see in the other head below on the 4th part of
painting, i.e. Sentiment, etc.

R. 10

146 SECOND CHARACTERS

3rd Part in Painting : viz. Colouring.

Simplicity the main in this, as in all. But the way
to it more strange and paradoxical1.

The several colours being assembled, and each
absolute simple and unmixed in themselves, make in
the joint views the least simple and most complex,
staring effect that is possible. Thus patchwork of
pure white, red, green, blue, yellow, etc., the more
pure, the more ugly ; the more simple, the more
tawdry — a rainbow, a foolscoat flower, or a real
harlequin foolscoat, a parrot, peacock, jay, pictaeque
volucres (as Virgil calls them). Nature's painting!
But nature not to be painted where she herself paints.
Not a picture of a picture.

This the simplicity which delights children2. Gaudy,
striking. " Itself a spectacle not a medium by which
other spectacles, views are created, raised, exhibited."
Colours the instruments, not the subject-matter.
Means: not end. Imitation, lesson, instruction, peda
gogy of the eye : to make it learned, erudite, polite,
acute, judicious in its choice and discernment of
objects ; in its fruition of beauty, its taste of good, by
which its pleasure consistent and lasting, and by which
by easy transition the mind learns its art and fruition :
the moral pictures known and proportion discovered.

Thus in respect of painting and the art of imitation
by colours, the least simple, sincere and genuine, etc.
in the cloth or seam of the tablature are those which
are the most simple, pure and absolute in themselves.
These the true art of painting abhors.

Nor would a Raphael, a Jul. Romano, a Titian
(the chief in this), endure such a glare, notwithstanding
the Pietro da Cortona and other corrupters, with all
the French, Poussin excepted. A mere white, a mere

1 Infra, p. 149.

2 Such the bubbles of soap-suds blown up by children and ravishing,
first for their regular tigure (as the globe, the cube, the cylinder, etc., in
Moralists), and next for their colouring, the various and rich.

PLASTIC ART 147

scarlet, a mere blue1, (the worst of all and most abused
because of the lapis lazuli, and Pliny's reason of the
rich fancy of the great, and ruin of painting) all these
so many monarchies or monarchs, independent, abso
lute. Now nothing should be so as to colouring in
the piece. The ambient air and earth (being chief of
the field or camps) govern chiefly, and then the greater
bodies. To the air or sky belong the clouds, and all
the tints which the painter thinks fit to raise out of
them, as he may to best advantage, whatever he
pleases, in great variety. To the other part, viz. the
earth, belong the rocks, ruins, pieces of architecture,
trees, rivers, pools, broken grounds of all sorts, out of
which also the painter may, for the interest and
economy of his figures, raise what variety of tints he
can find occasion or thought to use.

Next to these two fundamental repositories, come
the great and near figures themselves with the great
draperies, whether on or off of the bodies. All these2
as they receive so they communicate to each other.
The sky chiefly to these ; but these again something
to those, and much to one another. For every con
siderable mass which carries light, every illuminated
and coloured body in a picture, is a chameleon and
borrows something. Everything3 gives and takes and
from this multiplicity of tints is formed that chief and
amiable simplicity, the very perfection of colouring.

1 An azure blue for this reason also one of the worst of colours, as it
robs heaven, kills the sky, puts the very celestial bodies out of counten
ance, hills, sea, waters, etc., and which if any might tend to simplicity
and absoluteness ; but yet how false see in Caspar and the best perspective
painters.

The ultra marine or lapis lazuli, good (they say) to hold the colour
ing. Excellent. Therefore use, but mix, allay, change, break and
modify it.

2 Supra, p. 1 1 8.

3 For this reason a mass of blue draperies red, rose, yellow, etc., not
sufferable ; because it must communicate too much and can take or
receive but little or nothing. For how go about to break such a bright
original and wrongly-simple mass ? Above all, blue the worst.

148 SECOND CHARACTERS

Manage1 des Couleurs. Contrapposizione2 della Tinta.

i. Melting of colours, symphony, harmony. Age
helping a picture, why but for this reason ? Ridiculous !
When we can have that effect instantly and without
loss (for age loses and in the shades or sinkings,
expression vanishes). But we see with a false and
artificial eye what is new, and expect the new genius,
the mere paint, and wont believe ourselves that when
colours are finest, work is worst. As if old music
(were this possible) could pass when heard simple, but
new music the contrary. Or as if music was to be set
at a distance and half of it drowned, lost and unheard,
that the other half might be the more music and more
harmonious. Ridiculous ! As if music near at hand
and all in hearing (and so picture all in sight) could
not be so governed and modulated as to hear all that
should be heard. Thus the glare and gloss of new
painting once off, i.e. when but once thoroughly dry :
nothing else can add, if painted according to plastic
truth. But that, the modern painter, though a
Raphael, (a Poussin chiefly), fears to do. So he must
wait for time hereafter and be really better seen then
(when perished in part even in his picture), than in
his own time and in the perfection of his work. For
if perchance he ventures to paint perfect and right at
first, antiquity alone (the name of it) must give it
protection. Its own merit cannot, and the painter
must be condemned for doing well, because he is
modern : because the modern taste is false ; and
affectation of antiquity alone sets us right in ancient
pieces.

I remember in the working of a sketch once by a

1 Hence may be used poetically, and in the style of this treatise, the
expressions of the ambition of colours, their aspiring, assuming, their
encroachment on the art, their domineering, their insolence, pride,
avarice (because of gold and silver, jewels, etc., intermixt and what Pliny
says, Char-cks, I, p. 340), as well as that riot and luxury, luxuriant.

2 Hence in opposition, maquerellage, libertinage, prostitution, as it
were fornication, whoredom of colours, unlawful procreation, engendering,
copulating, spurious race, bastardy, illegitimacy.

PLASTIC ART 149

good master in history to have seen all run har
moniously, and colours embrace, love, etc., when on
a sudden a fine cherry-colour clapt in made the same
painful harsh effect, as a trumpet putting in on a
sudden, with a soft mellow voice and a theorbo lute in
a chamber.

2. Remember here the story of the deaf man's
likening scarlet to a trumpet.

3. Strange paradox1 ! but leading maxim, viz.
" that in tablature and painting, colours are in them
selves nothing, nor have nothing to do." For first
all the perfect and true rejected as wholly false in the
workmanship. The rest dirtied, deadened, mixed,
confounded, and as it were annihilated. The slave
of all.

Remember censure2 of cartoons : viz. Raphael's
druggery3 for hangings. This a fatal stumbling block
of taste for English-men, being our great model, if no
caution and premonition. All gaudiness, all false.
The very pattern of falsehood. Curious to see how
all turned together (bad music !) by so good a master,
so prostitute to cardinals, popes, etc.

Maxim4. That: "By as much as they attract to
themselves, by so much they detract and derogate
from the design, and render the execution of the piece
defective and impotent." For if glaring colours in the
standing frame or close about the picture disturb the
view, and weaken the strength of our imagination on
which the painter practises and to which he chiefly
applies, what effect must these colours have when
introduced into the piece itself? And how is that
attention likely to be commanded which is necessary
for that pleasing illusion or deceit which makes the
sole use and beauty of the spectacle ? 'Tis evident
that in the pieces of claro-obscuro, but especially where

1 Supra, p. 148. 2 Supra, p. 118.

3 [Possibly the nature of drugget.]

4 On the subject of florid colours taken from maxim at the end of the
Treatise II, viz. The Notion.

150 SECOND CHARACTERS

a single colour is added, if the design and history be
well performed, the illusion becomes so strong, and
the eye of the able spectator so fixed, and by a sort of
enchantment in a manner riveted to the subject : that
the mind in its first transports requires not anything
further ; nor does the fancy while this fervour lasts
suggest the least defect, or suffer the least uneasiness
for want of what is still behind. How must it prove,
therefore, when the whole force of colours, under a
just management and due restraint are added to the
piece ? And how real an enchantment must be then
produced when all the resemblances of nature in her
proper aspects are assembled and united harmoniously
and in consort to complete the summary and the
supreme work of art ?

The Modern Four Colours.

The modern four colours, viz. i . Terra rossa. Ocre
rouge. 2. Terra galla. Ocre jaune. 3. Oltra-marino.
Azuro. Lapis lazuli. 4. Terra verde, de verona ferrigno,
iron-coloured. The light and dark, viz. i. Biacca y
ceruse. Blanc de plomb. Ceruse. 2. Terra nigra.
The last has also a dun colour akin to it to be called
Terra d'ombra. The green, however, seems not an
original, or principal colour, since it can be made by
mixture of black and yellow with a little white. A few
hints only of this kind to be proved by others. This
a foundation or ansa [handle] only. Our consideration
and work different.

It must be remarked upon the whole, after the
small explanation (not too precise or mechanical) of
the four colours that : this was meant by the four colours
of Apelles, etc., in Pliny. Not merely by four without
the mixture and result.

Remember also here the reigning tint1 or regent
colour, master species. The real complexion from
the chief in the complex, the predominant in the

1 Tint 4.

PLASTIC ART 151

assemblage and mixture. This to be explained by the
easy practice of a curtain of any one colour drawn before
the single window or entrance of light into a room.
Be there what colours it will, it instantly reduces them
all and forms one of those species of drawings reckoned
amongst the claro obscuros — amongst which is an old
way of a particular colour as yellow or dun added to
the black and white, which makes three colours,
though in strictness but one colour, the other black
and white, being shade and light only, not colouring :
not a piece said to be in colours on this account, nor
indeed on the addition of this one real colour, though
green, blue or red. This being still in the singular
not plural. But when a real second colour is super-
added, a progeny arises as from male and female, and
the parents beget abundantly. Good reason therefore
to stop at four. For see how multiplied a generation !
Though kindred and so affectionately, kindly, consan-
guineously allied and united. Therefore live the
ancients.

4th Part in Painting: viz. Sentiment, Movement,
Passion, Soul.

The divine part and only Raphael's. Something
which is above the modern turn and only antique
species of grace. Above the dancing-master, above
the actor and the stage. Above the other masters of
exercise. And this even the ordinary painters and
statuarys see ; and therefore, no toe twisted out, na
chin held up. No stalk1, or tread, or bridling, like
the tragic, or theatrical action. Yet the sneer
retained ; the twist ; the affected contrast. :< Here
and here. This way and this way." So the French
modern school, in reverse of Poussin their renegade ;
or rather they his rebels, since he had a right to. be
their prince.

1 No seat, a horse-buck, according to modern discipline and ac
coutrements, stirrups, etc., with raised chin, tossing head, etc.

152 SECOND CHARACTERS

This an eternal distinction between ancient and
modern. The first ever without affectation. The
latter (except Raphael, Poussin, and in statuary
Michael Angelo) all give into it more or less. And
the cavalier Bernini1 in this respect an apostate in
statuary, as Pietro da Cortona in painting, both for
this and for colours2.

Definition of affectation, viz. "An expressed
consciousness of grace which spoils grace and its
simplicity. An attention to self, to the action, move
ment, or attitude itself." This unpardonable even in
a Venus, and never allowed even there by the
ancients.

Many ill works remaining of ancients (for must
not they have had their underlings and botches as
well as we ?). But never a show or token of this
affectation in coin, basso relievo, statue, etc.

5th Part in Painting : viz. System, Composition*,
Collocation, Position, Symmetry general.

Hyperbole4, i. In this part treat of the magis
trates (together with the hyperbole), e.g. I n portraitures,
even in half-lengths and heads, often a window open
and a distant perspective of small and lessened objects,
no way, not by any medium or middle size united to
the great. This a plain breach of symmetry, and an
errour in the magnitudes.

1 Memd. Bernini wicked. Therefore sit the harder on him as on
Spaniolet, Carvagio, etc., throwing in a word in behalf of M. Angelo and
Salvator Rosa. This elsewhere not here.

2 See Colouring.

3 Beware of word composition here, since it may be applied equi
vocally to Invention, part ist.

4 On the subject of the hyperbole (which I believe will require a
distinct head) remember principally the noble ancient statue of Laocoon.
True example ! But so unknown to modern judges, that it is even
condemned by critics, as if the master, great as he was, had been such a
blunderer as to mistake his sizes, and give the form of twenty or twenty
one years old to a pair of children, not half grown. N.B. This is the
very statue (of which I have the old print), a good subject for Mr Frei.
Gribelin, or other engraver in little ; to fit the octavo size and stand in
the page under this chapter, among the ornaments of Second Characters.

PLASTIC ART 153

The same rule holds as well in the masses or
groups as between the particular pieces or figures.

2. By the very use of the hyperbole (which is a
voluntary and premeditated errour from the rules of
perspective) those very rules are shown to be most
necessary for the painter to understand. The devi
ation in loco requiring the nicest knowledge and
reason. As for instance when it is and how a distant
figure on a ground near the horizon (the air appearing
under its legs), or receiving a strong light on any
extremity or particular part, comes to be excessive and
large beyond its proportion, as in N. Poussin's figure
and perspective piece of the Samaritan Woman, where
a pointing finger is longer than the whole head or face.

How agreeable this part ! (essential and constituent
of piece and tablature) even when found in ryparo-
graphy, animals, a dunghill (cock and hens), a flower,
or fruit piece (according to what delivered in Notion
at paragraph 3 of the introduction) if perchance the
poor master has a genius of this kind ; and has order
in his head, to him indeed the je ne sais quoi yet
perceived and executed. // ne salt comment : ravishes
and delight others. Us ne savent pour quoi.

15. MAXIMS OF THE ART1.

1. A tablature must have but one point of sight.

2. It must be seen only from one position, or
point of sight, and be so wrought that if nearer or
further viewed, it appears imperfect. For if as well
nearer or further, here or there : then as well no-where.
The touches or pencil (as well as the dimensions in
fresco-work and uneven superficies) must trim the
balance and drive you back, or bring you forward, as
your eye (you will find) requires.

3. All very little painting (viz. less than natural

1 Memd. The only [section] which is to be marked with hands (as
determined above, p. 7). Bring first as many as possible into the first
Treatises, and mark them still repeatedly with the hands afterwards, both
there and here.

i54 SECOND CHARACTERS

lessening at convenient distance computed within and
without the tabula or cloth) is false ; and only suffer-
able in portraiture of faces, not whole or half-figures ;
which would be still so much the more preposterous as
being more, and the littleness amplified and more
apparent and resulting pigmy, baby-forms. But in
this respect (if history and real humanity) false :
because no life so lessened can appear so distinct, or
features be seen and counted. Therefore bemoan the
excellent Poussin employing the greatest truth of
pencil and judgment in a kind or species that is in
itself false, but for cabinets — and so he got his liveli
hood best — : modesty and the great masters all before
him discouraging him from the noble size and that
above life, of which otherwise so capable. Witness
his. ..in St Peter's. But his pieces of two or three feet,
not of the kind here censured. These excellent.
His Plague and other pieces in the French king's
closet of the unhappy little kind, and relish of closet
virtuosos and the court.

Hyperbole.

In the heroic style (as either epic or tragic) the
hyperbole1 has place and must reign : else no heroes,
no amplification. And therefore buskin (cothurnus)
high raised, bigger than life, voice and tone suitable,
and action (which makes the strut and bellow endured
even to extravagance in the actor). But in the
common, practical, and merely natural style, the
hyperbole runs to farce immediately and the buskins
are stilts ; the tones whining or bellowing in reality.
The descriptions, motions, etc. are Horace's ' Dwarf
of Augustus in Arms.' The genuine comic becomes
farce ; the middle comedy and Menander, Aristo-
phanic.

Even the great Michael Angelo2, his muscling

1 Supra, p. 100.

2 Confer with Sensus Communis, p. 144 notes.

PLASTIC ART 155

action and movements gigantic. Other painters too
timorous and strict ; sweet and natural ; but unfit for
any noble sally of genius, as Domenichino the judicious,
correct, and Poussin. And among the yet more
modern, Carlo Marat, fittest for beauty and soft action ;
not fierce, terrible. So wrong was a certain Cardinal's
judgment, who having two contrary pieces to bespeak,
a tragic ugly one, and a pleasant beautiful one, gave
the former to Salvator Rosa and the latter to Marat.
Whence this absurdity : " The devils or furies of the
latter were angel's forms ; the angels of the former
furies."

Of the happy medium and just hyperbole, see
perpetual instance in divine Raphael. And here cite1
and reprove sharply the sharp French censurer and
railer Freart2 particularly p. 47 being the exact
description and very picture of the false taste. Nothing
being so just and beautiful on this very account as
Raphael's in this Massacre of the Innocents (of which
I have seen the original drawing).

Again as to the hyperbole even in perspective—
Salvator Rosa3 : " He had chosen a cloth of a vast
height in proportion to its breadth. It was full... by...
This was with design to compose his perspective of
huge parts (according to the right and noble taste),
taking in for the purpose as much height as was
possible for his near rocks and trees which would
require it ; and choosing to lose the shapeliness of his
piece both as to frame and portion of space without,
and as to the whole or body within, rather than not
approach his great objects of this kind ; which could
not therefore be seen to their tops if so mighty a
height had not been gained.

" Accordingly when this was done he introduced his

1 In the notes.

2 Fre"art's An Idea of the Perfection of Painting. Preface at the end
of p. 14. Bigot, revenge against M. Angelo.

3 A small history of this Salvator Rosa which though no where written
or told and though past long before my time (for he died ere I was born).
I shall relate as if had been present.

156 SECOND CHARACTERS

rock in the most stupendous manner. This being
designed and drawn to his fancy ; he proceeds to
adorn his piece (according to his natural ambition)
with those wild savage figures of banditti, wandering
gypsies, strollers, vagabonds, etc., at which he was so
excellent ; and being pushed on still by that vanity to
make these also in great perfection and to advantage,
he designed and painted them on a forward ground, in
a full size or rather larger than naturally the perspective
would allow at so near a distance. He had no sooner
done this than he perceived what injury he had done
at the same time to his first design and that after
doing all in his power to magnify his rock and raise
the majesty and grandeur of that form and principal
part, he had pulled it back again, thrown it off to a
distance, or what was worse, kept it in the same place
but rendered it diminutive, which in that peculiar form
and shape of horrour and dismay would prove a sort
of burlesque and absolutely ridiculous (like a little
elephant, a little camel, etc.). This was the faulty
reiterate hyperbole, which destroys itself put all out
of tune and order, and renders the whole fantastical
and a mere vision, a sick dream, not a clear view, an
inviting, instructive, exalting fiction or poem.

" But what does Salvator upon this. In an instant,
ere the paint was well laid, he strikes all out with
a dash or two of his pencil, destroys his giants niched
in his hollow cave, and draws a rock over his vast
abode, as Dryden translates in his Proteus of Virgil's
Eclogues. But that his piece might not want its
ornamental human figures he immediately upon a yet
nearer ground places just such another figure or two
at least three sizes less, by which his hyperbole once
again came right, the grandeur of parts in perspective
restored, and his rock majestic, terribly impending,
vast, enormous ; as it should be, and as he first
designed it."

The picture (with another of the same kind, its
fellow) was purchased at a high price by the truly

PLASTIC ART 157

great and worthy Prince and Governour, the Viceroy
of Naples ; after whose death, his pictures coming to
sale, the piece mentioned, together with its fellow, came
into the hands of the author. And the piece mentioned
being set in a counter light sufficiently discovers the
passage related.

Great maxim of colouring1, viz. " For the hyperbole
something must be sacrificed." Therefore, see what ?
The hyperbole must be one, only one, unique, simple.

Upon the same subject of hyperbole apply Horace's2
Qui nil molitur inepte ["who begins with no foolish
effort "]. So the divine Raphael in this respect far
beyond Michael Angelo, whose figures labour and toil
though without reason, showing great learning in
design, anatomy, etc., but without cause. But par
ticularly among the more modern Pietro da Cortona,
who often molitur inepte, overdoes in this sense, as in
his colouring and ornaments, overrich, magnificent, false.

Ellipsis3.

1 . From the following two maxims, viz. ( i ) " Frus-
tra fit per plura" etc., confirmed in practice by nature
in anatomy ; and (2) " whatever in poetic or plastic
imitation, or rhetoric, is left to guess and results strong
and striking though not expressed " (as by the figure
ellipsis) — from these two maxims, I say, this deduction :
That the outline when skipped, or lost (as in an arm
running over any part of the body, and marked only
here and there), and yet has its effect at due distance,
shows the power of art, and has its suitable effect even
on the unconscious spectator.

2. Remember the ellipsis (or omission, retrench
ment, reform, reduction) of the traces and harness in
the divinity and triumphal chariots, and even racing
chariots, ploughs, etc., in medal and antique relief- work
entails, etc. : yet this however to be moderated in

1 See above, p. 149.

2 Horace's De Arte Poetica, 1. 140.

3 Outline see Free-manner, infra, p. 165.

158 SECOND CHARACTERS

painting and colours, because of the maxim in Notion
(chap, v, par. 12).

3. In the comparison between poetry and painting
(ist and 2d Characters) this difference: That what
may decently be described in one not seen the least
in the other ; so in a plague painted1, mascerated bodies
and cadaverous looks indicative of the sores, but no
plain sore, no running boil, or plague-sore, no ulcer,
cancer, or the like. From hence argument a fortiori:
How indecent is obscenity ? When painting in other
impurities is so nice and cannot show what may be
said in the broadest, harshest terms.

4. Again of the ellipsis and outline. The sense
as well as the wit and fancy loves to guess, when easy ;
hates to be overhelped, tutored. In leaping, running,
to take a leap, aiming at a thrust in fencing, a recurring
to the rule puzzles. The fruit of the doctrine to be
from nature and instinct, no lesson applied or thought
of at the time. Besides that in views whether real or
imitative, that which is gathered from a few charac
teristics, or notes, principal aspects, touches, lines,
features, is more powerfully gathered2, more simply
formed in the conception, idea, more distinct and firmly
lodged in the memory, and sealed to the sense or
understanding, than what is multifariously drawn from
a confusion of concurrent indicatives, which destroy
the effect of each other. So in rhetoric and a cause
pleaded, the one reason or the two or three principal
grounds well urged ; the rest slighted. Else the fine
speech and the enforced argument overturns the cause ;
shows the fine grammarian and logician, but destroys
the orator. Not so Demosthenes, who having struck
his blow, etc. So the tragedians, epics, enemies of the
detail as all great arts. And so the great masters in
their style of painting, hate minuteness3.

1 Supra, p. 141.

2 lecta potenter. Horace's De Arte Poetica, 1. 40, and what ensues
by way of facility in the artist's free pencil. Verbaque provisam rem non
inirita sequentur, 1. 311.

3 See Characteristics, I, 144.

PLASTIC ART 159

The power of the figure and its supreme utmost
politeness well known to those who have studied
the ancient critics and orators as well as poets, with
what has been remarked on the style of Isocrates,
Demosthenes1, etc. Even in comedy a Menander, a
Terence. Ego ne illam, quae ilium, quae me, quae non ?
So even a La Fontaine in his first fable2, etc., par le
moindre petit morceau., which shows that author (who
prostituted his muse and lost his real beauty and
simplicity in his long, multiform, complex, unshapely
tales, where the ill salt and lewdness chiefly attracts
(carmina Lucilii3)) to have imbibed the ancient wit and
to have known more of true dialogue than Fontenel,
whose dialogues of the dead are only tricked with
patch work, commonplace book writing without body4,
grace or characters. And a single fable of La Fontaine
will, both with the lady page and the philosopher, be
read (sincerely speaking) more repeatedly again and
again at all hours and times, than the finest of his
ancient masqueraders whom he defames and defaces,
and are indeed real marks and speeches. No one of
the real good judges of the French but would avow
they had rather be author of one such little fable as
this of the ant and the grasshopper (where characters
and manners are touched, and the very spirit and
humour of the housewifely dame and frugal man of
business and the prodigal squire are exactly touched)

1 Remember to search Longinus for this, also Dionysius Halicar-
nassus, and what Aristotle says above all ; and let this be a full and large
note of citations.

2 So the omission of the two indicatives of the dialogue in the last
line, as in all his dialogue manner : a thing of the nicest judgment and
art, to know when and how to omit ; of which Horace the great pattern
after his masters in Greece.

3 [This word is obscure in the text.]

* See Char-cks (upon the manner of dialogue writing), Vol. I, p. 196.
And what is said of the same false manner of dialogue writing used by
certain divines and other false imitators of Plato and the ancients. These
dialogues of Monsieur Fontenel being indeed only bad imitations of a
bad false imitator Lucian, good only in style and humour of the lower of
the abusive ist comedy and his master mimic Aristophanes : the great
paroder and only model of what we call burlesque, and was quitted in
the middle ages of politeness, viz. from Aristophanes to this Lucian.

160 SECOND CHARACTERS

than of either of the volumes of that other author's
uncharacterized characters, and dialogues of phantoms
with borrowed names and without a tale or story,
a moral design, draught, or any proportion, body or
shape belonging to them. This author is worthy,
however, of criticism, being one who was able to write
well, as his dialogue of the Pluralite des Mondes may
serve to show, where there is some kind of imitation
(with allowance for modern air of gallantry) : the
chief and common scope, mark, or butt of dialogue
and poetry, and all fictitious work according to
Atheneus in Char-cks, i, 254, and so 196, Homer, etc.

1 6. OF THE MACHINE, MACHINERY, OR DEITY
WORK.

Deus intersit. Always necessary in the high heroic
(as in the epic). No piece sublime without the action
being in this respect of full dignity. Dignus Vindicis
Nodus. No tablature complete in the heroic kind
without.

Ergo common history (though of heroes such as
Alexander, Caesar, Mark Antony, etc.) not of the
higher epic order in painting ; because no machine
introducible, and much less modern history (except in
the emblematic and oblique way, which is of the
irregular kind) since a King William, a Louis, can
much less appear in the field, or council, with a train of
deities, or with Mars, Minerva, Apollo, Mercury, etc.

But when the Christian machine enters (as in the
case of a Constantine), then the painter again rises
and heroism complete, the miraculous and sublime
restored with credibility, through faith, tradition, sacred
history, religion, as in heathenism, and the ancient
machine.

Ergo fable more the subject of historical painting
than mere history. Same reasons as in poetry. See
Char-cks, Aristotle and places depending.

This is besides the advantages of the machine, the

PLASTIC ART 161

glory's, clouds, and miraculous lights as Apollo in
particular : the rays about his head as the sun ; and
something of this kind in proportion also to other
deitys and demigods.

But why ancient machine still superiour to modern,
see example in such a case as the weakness of human
nature, or the virile virtue in opposition to the female
charms or those of love. Take a Hercules (according
to the common fiction) and an Omphale. Here the
hero spins, lies in the lap, etc. Cupids above and
below triumph, insult, illude. Venus laughs. Even
fawns and satyrs may come in to make sport and add
to the victory since the same fiction makes Hercules
withal subject to the pleasure of wine and of the table.
Now change the scene and take a Samson. What
machine ? Not angels surely. And for demons much
less. How would this appear ? Ergo moderns hit
the sublime best in the more ghastly and (otherwise)
ungraceful in-venuste subject of executioners and
martyrs, or hideous dying pieces, beggary, prayer, etc.
As Domenichino instance the second esteemed picture
in the world (according to Poussin, etc.), viz. St Jerome
taking the host. A sacred mystery, seen with the eyes
of faith and confirmed by the very machine above.
All noble ! and exalting low part.

Nothing worse than the unskilful mixture and

confusion of the machine work with the historical and
human figures. A delicate and just perceptible dis
tinction and separation necessary. Not so as to make
two pieces, or two styles, or two sorts of light (though
somewhat of this latter kind not amiss if well united
by intermediates).

Examine Raphael's Transfiguration piece by this
maxim, and observe how the false double piece (viz.
the part above) serves however as the machine part
with an infinite advantage.

Remember Rubens' Mercury with the two cardinals
and queen, as an instance of the monstrous mixture of
machine and history... Luxembourg gallery, Paris.

162 SECOND CHARACTERS

17. OF THE SCENE, CAMPS, PERSPECTIVE,

ORNAMENT.

(i) Of landscape painting or perspective con
sidered by itself.

Ego laudo ruris amoeni
Rivos et musco circumlita saxa, nemusque1.

[" I praise the streams, the moss-covered rocks and
the groves of the delightful country."]

Also that of Juvenal after encomiums of the country
in his own way. Satire 3 in the beginning and the

Ego vel Prockytam praepono Suburae.
In vallem Egeriae descendimus, et speluncas
Dissimiles veris. Quanto praestantius esset
Numen aquae, viridi si margine clauderet undas
Herba, nee ingenuum violarent marmora tophum ?

[" / prefer even Prochyta to the Sziburra. We
descended into the valley of the Egeria and the
grottoes so altered from what nature made them.
How much more should we feel the influence of the
presiding genius of the spring, if turf enclosed the
waters with its margin of green, and no marble
profaned the native stone."]

And that of the other severe poet (for even the
severest allow and even exalt this relish as the truly
natural. So we see in this of Juvenal in order from
that foot or foundation to reproach and shame vice,
and at being in itself divine and moral* according to
the spirit of the Lucilius's, the Horace's, etc.), viz.
Persius, Sat. 6.

Hybernatque meum mare3, qua latus ingens
Dant scopuli et multa litus.se valle receptat.

1 Hor. Epist. Lib. I, x. 6.

2 Characteristics, I, 141.

3 So Horace's description of his villa :

Continui montes, nisi dissocientur opaca

Valle;...

and Paulum silvae super his.
and Ubi ingens pinus albaque populus

Umbram hospitalem, etc. et obliquo laborat lympha.

PLASTIC ART 163

[And my sea is wintry, where the rocks present a
large side, and the shore recedes into a deep valley.]
Hie ego securus vulgi, etc.

[" Here am I, careless of the vulgar."]

These are the images with which a mind must be
rilled ; these the beauties of which it must be apprised
and with which it must be enamoured and possessed,
previously to this taste in painting. For so in poetry.
What would pastorals (for instance) prove to one who
had no relish of the real pay sage ? the rus, animals, and
rural objects.

Remember the several orders (as of old with
Mr Clostr in Richmond Park and St Giles's woods) into
which it is endeavoured to reduce the natural views :
the last and most sacred, like the Alpine kind, where
the vast wood and caverns with the hollows and deep
valleys worn by the cataracts in the very rock itself,
pines, firs, and trunks of other aged trees1. This
attempted by Salvator Rosa, but without the just
speculation. Witness the stickiness of his noble trees
(which he otherwise finely described), and his mangling
them like artificial trunks and amputations made by
man and with instruments — contrary to the idea of
those sacred recesses, where solitude and deep retreat,
and the absence of gainful, lucratible and busy mortals,
make the sublime, pathetic and enchanting, raises the
sweet melancholy, the revery, meditation. " Where
no hand but that of time. No steel, no scythe, but
that of Saturn's." Secret2 suggestion of the world's
ruin and decay; its birth and first formation3, "where
neither art nor the conceit or caprice of man has spoiled
their genuine order4."

1 See Rhapsody, p. 389, etc.

2 Against the atheists of the world (this globe's eternity).

3 Cf. Rhapsody, pp. 389—390 and 393, line 22.

4 Write this fluently, though a repetition of what writ before in Rhapsody
to which no occasion to refer here purposely. For why not cite one's
own when suitable, as Xenophon (his battle of Mantinea in his Agesilaus
and his History), after Homer and the poets. So Lucretius, Virgil. If
moderns imitate not, 'tis because not so elaborate, just. On ' Self-citation,'
supra, p. 4.

II 2

1 64 SECOND CHARACTERS

1 8. OF SHORTENINGS OR FORE-SHORTENING.

All the shortenings of figures, or other constituent
parts of the tablature our painters have customarily
called by the name of fore-shortenings because indeed
all shortenings of a particular single figure (standing
by itself and being substantial not adjective, but con
taining the point of sight within itself) are indeed
fore-shortenings, that is, shortenings, foresight. But
the point of sight being taken out of the figure and
removed to some other (which changes the whole
economy of the tablature), the shortenings whatever
they are become quite different ; though the attitude of
that figure be exactly the same. The whole drawing
is then changed, be the figure transplanted but a half
body's breadth either to the one side or other, or
removed but a faces' length either higher or lower in
respect of the horizon, which must be the first thing
fixed even by the most stupid and paltry draughtsman
before he can draw so much as a man at table, a dish
on it, a dog under it. For if the point of sight be just
above the table so that the dish be seen into, if the
servant raises the dish it must be seen by the bottom
and no possibility of seeing into it ; unless the point of
sight again be raised higher and the horizon supposed
above the raised dish; and then the bottom dishes are
not only deeper seen into, but the guests' heads are seen
like the dishes before, and their crowns or upper parts
discovered, chins and throats so much lost in proportion.
The same side-ways, right and left, whence may rise
the phrase, high-shortening; low-shortening; side-
shortening.

19. OF TRUTH (viz. PLASTIC).

Remember what argued with Mr Trench about my
design of the good and evil conscience (two boys) for
flourish plate of Treatise III of Characteristics. The
harpies and evil dreams in volatile shapes, being first

PLASTIC ART 165

proposed to be made bigger than the life in respect of
the boys, that their action and accompaniments might
be seen the plainer. But this was found nought and
false. Afterwards having reduced them to as big as
life, but having chosen rather the eagle and vulture-
proportion as the largest: this still was found false.
For at this rate, the haggard forms instead of buffeting
and frightening the children might be supposed brg
enough to fly away with them as their prey. The next
size therefore was chosen, viz. that of the raven, the
kite, etc.

This merely in grotesque work and the emblematic ;
where all is false and everything so wildly and ex
travagantly fictitious, with such variety of proteus-
forms and different species conjoined; yet not pre
posterously, absurdly, or without intelligence, specula
tion and a truth !

-Non ut placidis coeant immitia1.

["Not to join what's fierce with what is mild."]
How great a testimony to truth and support of that
early maxim in Characteristics, i, p. 4, "That truth
is the most powerful thing in the world." So again,
pp. 142, 146 of Sensus Communis.

And here by the way take notice in relation to
Horace's verse just cited, that the harpy form is no
objection to him. Since if the fair lady was joined
to the vulture beneath, this was the more moral and
instructive, like the other forms of the siren-kind, to
show the speciousness of vice, and that in such
characters the best countenance and face of sweetness
and beauty may hide the greatest cruelty underneath,
and be joined to the most savage disposition.

20. OF FREEDOM OR THE FREE MANNER.

i. Remember Mgr Heer Van der Werff (the exact
contrary) his Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar introduced.

1 Hor. De Arte Poet. 1. 12.

1 66 SECOND CHARACTERS

All false, bound up, glued, clung, candied, baked. ...And
withal minute, contracted, diminished, miniatured,
particularized, detailed, little parts expressed, nails,
hair, etc. (as ridiculed by Horace in the Emilian Faber.
See Char-cks). No sacrifice of under parts, no sub
jection of tints, beating down the ambitious colours1.
No introducing of the mortifying kind (amortir in
French), no abatement, degradation; consequently,
no elevation, exaltation, or sublime. No hyperbole,

majesty, etc. No.2 And lastly no ellipsis or right

direction in the outline3.

Compare the ellipsis in the outline of painting to
the superficies of large or colossus statuary work, or
relief work set at a distance. For here the roughness
helps. Remarkable lineaments and no more. Not
the Emilian Faber. Not the hairs. But by this rule:
"That whatever is hid by the due distance, whether
in painting or statuary, is not only superfluous, but
injurious and detracting."

Remember the Ephesian colossus4 (of which
Salvator Rosa speaks in his satire on painting), which
being admired before erected, was afterwards found to
lose much instead of gaining as was believed.

Also Pliny's story of Nero's passion for a statue,
which he first gilded (by which he gave dazzling lights
and odd reflections to the before quiet, passive, and
sober work); then ungilt by scraping off, whence
besides a small diminution of each part of the superficies
(and not in proportion neither) he made all smooth,
and could not possibly without new impression and
subtraction restore to its original roughness and
masculine touch and complexion.

2. Freedom ! Free-manner ! What ? As how ?
Why not explain ? This said by everyone. But let
us hear what account ? Few except the painter can
give any. And the painter mute in this respect viz.
that he has neither language nor pen by which to

1 See in Colours, supra, p. 148. 2 Supra, p. 155.

3 Supra, p. 159. 4 Quere where to find this story?

PLASTIC ART 167

explain himself clearly to those who are not of the
mystery and trade. (Not so the ancient painters, who
wrote and philosophized on their art.) Thus certain
philosophers coiffed in their artificial terms of ideas,
complex, reflex, etc., are angry when they cannot
explain their mind to one without the pale1.

3. Concerning freedom see a moral explanation:
The samedoctrine and explanation of liberty and freedom
in true moral philosophy as in painting, viz. "That the
truly austere, severe, and self-severe, regular, restrain-
tive, character and regimen corresponds (not fights or
thwarts) with the free, the easy, the secure, the bold.
TO 0apcra\eov [the undaunted]," etc. "Not libertinism
for liberty." No libertinage, dissoluteness, but the only
e\€vBepia [freedom]. Sibiqui imperiosus* [who controls
himself].

4. Memorandum. In life of Titian, what he said
upon his loose, wild strokes over the hair ana com-
plection of a portraiture nicely painted, viz. that he did
it por coprire la fatica, to cover the fatigue, or bury
the pains.

21. OF THE DECORUM.

This the place for censure of the censurer of
Raphael Monsieur Freart3. But then by way of
excuse for him (he being a stout defender of the
ancients) observe: "That this is in common with all
other popish virtuosi accustomed to cruel and indecent
spectacles... Painting, wholly opposite to the decorum,
viz. crucifixion, martyrdoms, wheels, gibbets, torments,
to be ranked indeed in ryparography.

A painter therefore must imitate the dramatic and
scenical, not the epic and merely recitative poet.

1 See the parallel place in the divine man.

2 Cf. Horace, Sat. II. vii. 83. So Char-ks (Miscellany, p. 311 and
other passages).

3 As above, p. 132.

168 SECOND CHARACTERS

See Homer's (Iliad xvm, 569) description of
Achilles shield :

(l) Totcru' S' ez' /tecrcrotcrt TTCUS

Hos vero inter medios puer etiam cithara sonora
'ifjiepoev /ci$api£e, \Lvov S' VTTO KaXbv aetSei'
Suaviter citharicabat chorda autem belle resonabat
AeTrraXeij (jxovy rot Se prjcrcrovTes a^aprfj
Tenella voce hie hiero pulsantes terram simul
MoXTTT? T' Ivyi^a) re TTOCTI <TKa.ipovTe<; eirovro.
Cantuque sibiloque pedibus tripudiantes seque-
bantur.

[" And in the midst of them a boy made pleasant
music on a clear toned viol, and sang thereto a sweet
Linos-song with delicate voice ; while the rest with
feet falling together kept time with music and song."]

And so again Virgil's description of Aeneas' shield.
The wolf nurse: 1 11am tereti cervice reflexa mulcere
alternos1. ["She with sleek neck bent back stroked
them by turns."]

Nee non Tarquinium ejectum Porsenna jubebat

Accipere —

Aeneadae in ferrum pro libertate ruebant2.

["Therewithal Porsenna commanded to admit the
exiled Tarquin.

The Aeneadae rushed on the sword of liberty."]

Here we have tyranny and liberty painted but
without marks or signature, and so huzzas and the
noise of multitudes. Laetitia ludisque viae plausuque
fremebant3. ["The streets were loud with gladness and
games and cheering."] And even variety of language,
victae longo ordine gentes, quam variae linguis, habitu
tarn vestis et armis4. ["The conquered tribes move in
long line, diverse, as in tongue, so in fashion, in dress,
and in armour."]

These two works are real spectacles, not recitals of

1 Virgil's Aeneid, vm. 633. 2 Ibid. 646.

3 Ibid. 717. 4 Ibid. 723.

PLASTIC ART 169

spectacles, where the mind takes in greedily what the
eye cannot (i) investigate, or (2) endure.

Thus Medea, whether in the scene or the chaste
correct tablature, must not actually stab her children
(coram populo1); but the combat of the passion must
be seen and represented according to supreme art, not
the butchery and mere event and fact.

Thus ever in battles (heroic and of good masters),
rarely a spear sticking in a body, and then too not in
a principal or near figure. Never a head divided like
that by Turnus in the Aeneid?.

(2) Atque illi partibus aequis

Hue caput atque illuc humero ex utroque pependit.

["In equal halves
The sundered head from either shoulder swung."]

And just before

Et mediam ferro gemina inter tempora frontem
Dividit, impubesque immani vulnere malas3.

["Clove temples, brows and beardless cheeks clean

through with loudly ringing blow."]
And below again

Cum galea longe jacuit caput4.

["With one swift blow lopped off the head."]

No arms, limbs, etc. chopped off and lying by as
by this Monsieur Freart prescribed in this his censure5.
Such are the pictures which the (reciting epic) poet
draws. But of which the first sort, marked (i), are
un-executable; the second indecent and against the
decorum in painting, and unimitable on the stage.
And for the former sort see again what a design Virgil
makes for a shield in the same place (lib. VIIL). But
which neither basso relievo, claro oscuro, nor colours
can execute. "Fleets with their officers aboard them

1 Horace, De Arte Poetica, 1. 185. 2 Virgil, Aeneid, Lib. IX. 754.

3 Ibid. 1. 750. 4 Ibid. 1. 7?i-

5 Fre"art's An idea of the Perfection of Painting, tr. Lond. 1668, p. 48.

i;o SECOND CHARACTERS

appearing distinct; nations and the gods drawn to
battle ; generals and particulars ; aggregate and separate ;
near and distant; little and great."

Inveigh here (but with modesty and socratic irony)
against High Church arrd Popish toleration and inqui
sition of that horrid representation (viz. crucifixion)
and other saints adored in those agonies and made
altar-pieces, church-ornament and for rock closets.
Not our part here to censure (like true protestant1 and
zealous) the idolatrous part. On the contrary should
we speak our thought we might incur some displeasure
perhaps for diminishing the force of that terrible word
idolatry (which we might confine perhaps to the material
virtue, the relic worship only, indulging all else for
vulgar's sake who will always frame the idol and might
better have one painted beautiful to hand). But as to
humanity and manners, sure I am, that this is all ill,
injurious, and imbruing young minds in merely cold
blood, massacre, etc. And here take occasion to re
commend the genius of our nation against keeping
anything in pain and putting out of pain, though
otherwise so greedy of fighting spectacles, but not
cold-blood. Above all praise our laws for rack abo
lished: no wheel. "Spectacle corrupts more than the
example mends or terrifies."

22. COMMON CITATIONS AND REMARKS.

In praise and as mere just character of the Greeks:
Note the two passages of Cicero and of Livy, the first
such a partial zealot, the second such a high admirer
and lover of his nation. The first ad Fratreni1-, when
governing in Greece: cum vero ei generi hominum
praesimus, non modo in quo ipsa sit, sed etiam a quo
ad alios pervenisse putetur humanitas. ["But when
we rule over a race of men in which civilization not
only exists, but from which it is believed to have spread
to others."]

1 Supra, p. 119. 2 Cicero, ad Fratrem, Lib. I. Epis. I. 9.

PLASTIC ART 171

The other of Livy, viz. Lib. 39. viii. Nulla cum
arte earum, quas multas ad animorum corporumque
cultum nobis eruditissima omnium gens invexit. [" Not
with one of the many trades which his nation, of all
others the most skilful in embellishing the mind and
body, has introduced amongst us."]

Against libidinous1 representation in plastic art.
This reflection (in a protopope of a master): "If I
have a servant, a dependant, a poor relation, or any
friendly person much beneath me and at my command,
unashamed even though lewd and licentious in my life
to use such a one and employ him in such a base
service ! And shall I use my art'\ my science, thus
and prostitute my head and pencil ? Shall I scruple
out of my respect and regard to dignity of person to
give a bawd's, a pimp's, a pandar's part to one for
whom I have but the least common esteem ? And shall
I use that divinity, muse, and personage, which is
beauty and decorum itself in such a vile manner and
to such vilifying purposes ? "

See also the good reasons of the pragmatical author
Monsieur Freart de Chambray3 of the loss and distinc
tion of good painters from bigots (as Rubens graces
by Madam de Guise or Monpensier: Quere which?).
Though Rubens' graces not so great a loss. Well
that they were not a Raphael's: the only painter fit.
For even Titian not fit. No heroic, antique, learning,
poetry, enthusiasm. A Guido fitter: had he under
stood much beyond le air de t£te.

Aemilium circa ludum faber imus et ungues

Infelix...quia ponere totum

Nesciet4.

["You will come across in the Aemilian school
a worker in bronze of the lowest rank... unhappy...
because he has no idea of representing a whole."]

This applicable to the architect, as well as statuary,

1 Supra, p. 114. 2 Infra, p. 175.

3 pp. 15, 1 6. 4 Horace, De Arte Poetica, 11. 32, 34.

172 SECOND CHARACTERS

and painter. You may know him (viz. the pseudo-
architect) by his extolling an inlaid floor : mighty nice,
draught (with collections of such) of the rails of a new
modern altar, or the mosaic work and incrustation of...
He is a mighty admirer of Pietro da Cortona, Carlo
Maratti, above a Raphael, or a Carracci. He even
abhors, etc. Such a one having spent three or four
years at Rome, and got the mimical action and tones
of the Italian with the idiom and phrase, comes home,
and the first thing you hear of him1

Penatibus et magnis Dis2.

["The gods of household and state."]
From hence take occasion to speak of the lares,
little statues, portable concealable movables. Every
one's first religion, his family's, his private and peculiar
one; then "the publics3," which a man and partaker
and intelligent in such affairs, the community, and
common religion, i.e. the religion in common proavis
and focis. A perfect toleration4 for private worship
and public. No priest called: but master of the family,
his own; as in the main and in the higher degree the
magistrate himself for the public, the mere priests being
but servants5, one to a temple, a sort of sexton, little
better; and the augurs but a sort of pedlars in the
trade, not arrived to be such merchants and traders at
large as afterwards for whole kingdoms, continents;
as now the Jesuits (after gleaning up the remains of
other orders in the catholic Europe, where the whole
tribe of orders, etc. have in some kingdoms and states
swallowed two-thirds, and have gone so far as not to

1 Continue this picture remembering Mr Talm-n.

2 Virgil, Aeneid, Lib. 3, 1. 10.

3 Letter of Enthusiasm, p. 17.

4 Not so at present (Turk and Christian) in Europe or Asia Hard to

find in any region a human society which has human laws (Inquiry, p. 97).
This self-citation tempered as many others by an as I said to that Ld P
elsewhere particularly when it refers to ' Letter of Enthusiasm.' For as
to the Inquiry, indeed, and other Tracts it cannot be so well said your
Lord P....

5 Miscellany, p. 43.

PLASTIC ART 173

leave slaves now remaining, or a gentry and laity enough
to cover and guard them, or keep up the countenance
of a temporal and civil government) are gone to Asia,
China, America, joining real trade and commerce with
their spiritual, and bidding for the magi-empire, by a
previous universal monarch, their assured slave.

23. MORAL AND THEOLOGICAL CITATIONS
AND MAXIMS.

1. The two passages of the 'ATro/x^^ovevVctra1 of
Xenophon, Dialogue of Socrates with the painter and
statuary. Also with the armourer, ibid.

2. " Inquiry," pp. 104, 105, on the TO /caXoV. A
principal and fundamental citation for plastic beauty
and contemplation.

3. Maxim, viz. Ruinous in religious and moral
sense to wonder or admire wrong. Hence superstition.
So barbarity (that of tyrants) from delight in blood,
pain, torture. First a horrour: then by degrees a
delight. At last horrour removed, delight remains,
etc. eTrt^atpe/ca/cta2.

4. Thus in painting, wonderment, astonishment
at bold and great things apt to beget the taste of
savage and monstrous in design and colouring. And
the same wonderment and rapture at the sight of
pretty and genteel things apt to beget the little taste
or relish of toys, baby relish, womanish as Camilla's in
Virgil's Aeneid, Lib. XL 775:

Turn croceam chlamydemque sinusque crepantes
Carbaseos fulvo in nodum collegerat auro,
Pictus acu tunicas et barbara tegmina crurum.

["Red gold knotted up his yellow scarf with its
rustling lawny folds; his tunics and barbarian leggings
were wrought in needlework."]

1 Xenophon's Memorabilia, Book ill. ch. x.

2 This maxim may be placed under the head of Taste, supra, p. 108.

174 SECOND CHARACTERS

which was what Virgil here called womanish in
Camilla's taste, and which he makes to be her loss
and ruin, and of the whole cause and army entrusted
with her. Noble and just heroic fable of the same
sense and moral as that of Esop's kind of the Bride
and Mouse. "Nothing even of natural beings worthy
of wonder or admiration but as, etc."

Est aliquid quo tendis et in quod dirigis arcum ?
...atque ex tempore vivis1 ?

["Is there anything whither you tend ? and to what
do you direct your bow?... and do you live from the
Time ?"]

Extemporary life miserable. Better the settled
miser or covetous passion (when attended with thought
of name, family, etc.), than the full, easy, contented,
but uncertain floating. Non prescripta ad munia
surgit (as the accumulator). But "what shall I do
next?" Oscitantia: visiting fashionable gentlemen of
the town, set up with a pair of horses and a chariot.
"Whither shall we go?" "How pass our time, till
such or such an hour, the opera play, etc.?" In the
interim caught by a thousand passions, hooks, snares:
always sure to catch those who are not engaged. But
the accumulator (though the worst employed) more
secure. The collector of a cabinet and intent virtuoso,
still more secure as nearer order, virtue, beauty. If
taken with a belle; for once or so only; not ever, not
a rake.

The unity and equality of life, made by unity of
object. Therefore the artist (if in liberal art) one of
the happiest men, whilst truly ^iXoTrovos and true
to his art. Capable of doing the greatest good (as the
intention of this treatise is to show). And therefore
worthy even of a liberal and noble born youth: if an
extraordinary genius, with particular reasons against
the public and family engagements (i.e. economy the

1 Persius, Sat. ill. 1. 60.

PLASTIC ART 175

chief part or duty of such person). And so Fabius
Pictor in Pliny, with many other Grecians, if examined1.

What Virgil2 said of stealing verses from Homer:
Facilis esse Herculi clavum quam Homero versum
surripere: so a figure from a great master's piece in
great design, viz. history and composition, where the
fifth part (the collocation, just position and optics are
observed) by reason of want of application. For how
apply to any thing besides ? How adapt but as there
adapted ; if the design be just, real, one, a whole ?

Also the reason given by the French author, viz.
Monsieur Freart de Chambray3: "Si bien qu'il est
absolument impossible apres avoir derobe" quelque
partie du travail dans une nouvelle composition, sous
1'aide de la perspective ! " Now if perspective be called
to assistance and the figure new designed, it is in great
measure original and a new figure, at least much more
so than anything taken from a statue. Since the figure
borrowed from painting must first be reduced, as it
were, to statuary and life by the borrowing painter or
copyist; and thence from that idea new wrought and
so transferred into his new composition, which is almost
equivalent to an original design or drawing.

1. The most lovely thing in the world is love of
one's duty, part. So of one's art4 (quatenus) painter
merely; and more quatenus ingenious, virtuous painter
in humanity, etc. i.e. in reality quatenus poet, historian,
philosopher.

2. The word ^xe/crec? [attitudes] by the deepest
moralists borrowed from statuary, anatomy, designing,
and applied as the most significant term of art in
morals.

3. The quid verum atque decens5 of Horace little

1 "Ergo examine." Also see what modern in Vasari, etc.

2 See in his life by Tib. Claud. Donat.

3 Not quoting him as not worthy because of his detraction, insolence,
conceit, etc. and what he so ignorantly says against Raphael's Massacre,
p. 457 and over censoriously and bitterly against Michael Angelo, p. 14.

4 Supra, pp. 171 and 174.

6 Horace, Epist. Lib. I. i. n.

176 SECOND CHARACTERS

understood (like the blundering Bishop Fowler in his
answer to the Letter of Enthusiasm, p. 4, soil. Great
Discovery, etc.).

4. The vita colour (quisquu eritvitae^ of Horace;
as also his operumque colores'2, to be alluded to, com
mented and morally explained (with sublime and
pathetic as may be) in the chapter3 of colouring; the
melting, uniting, counterposition, marriage, symphoniz-
ing, spreading, diffusing, communicating, conspiring
of tints.

5. Memd. The malus musicus delitascens in choro.
Where is this? In Arrian ? or... ? Subjoin this as a
reinforcement to what is noted (Char-cks, vol. in,
p. 263). And apply this or rather introduce it where
mention is made of Jordano4.

6. Also that passage (a principal citation) in
Moralists, p. 211: "Knowing as you are... well knowing
in all the degrees and orders of beauty... of the par
ticular forms, etc."

Learning music practically (as to play on an
instrument, or sing, or anything of this kind beyond
mere rudiments and for better speculation, theory, and
ear, is the same in a gentleman or liberal youth, as
learning to paint. 'Tis mechanical. 'Tis either poor
and base, if indifferent and slightly studied (and as the
French say sillily cavalierement), or, if thoroughly and
to perfection, requires the whole man5.

But remember what as to statuary is feigned by
the poetical author of Telemachus and Philocles, when
compelled for a livelihood. One of the finest parts in
his book.

Among other citations remember Marcus on the
rictus of wild beasts, etc. (and here innate ideas).

Also Socrates on painting in the Memorabilia,
instructing about the passions. Mark that painting

1 Horace, Satires, Lib. II. Sat. I. 1. 60. 2 De Arte Poetica, 1. 86.

3 Supra, p. 148.

4 Supra, p. 132. N.B. This ought to have been placed in common
citations as being not properly moral in the use and sense.

5 See what is said on this subject above, p. 112 and p. 115.

PLASTIC ART 177

though high at that time as to symmetry, form, etc.,
yet not as yet attained this part of the affections, the
pathetic, moral, etc.

"To look around, inspect, survey, dive into beauty,
be present with nature in her sweetest aspects. See
her causes and dependancies, her drawing, design,
her prosperity (TTO.V /xot crvvapfjLoa-r), etc.), her flourishing,
a beauteous perspective, the woods, the rivers, animals,
birds (the rising singing lark), and thus joyously with
the rest celebrate nature's festival, her birthday,
marriage, progeny, and give joy to the incessant
creator."

Self-cite the passage in Soliloquy1: "The Thalia's,
Polyhymnia's, etc., willingly join their parts and being
alike interested in the cause of numbers are with regret
in favour of disorder — made syrens-pandar." So the
generous painter — beware of fact, because of Titian's,
Carache's and others prostitution. But keep to what
should be, and to the example of the best ancients, the
majesty and gravity also of a Roscius, an Aesopus in
acting. See Cicero, what he says of one of them
keeping to the grave and slow pronunciation: though
not so popular and effeminate. See above2 what is
said on obscenity in painters.

Self-cite also on good occasion the theological
passages referring to art in Inquiry3: "the elegant
passion, or love of beauty running too high, etc."
Ecstasy and rapture in the common subjects of art,
etc. enthusiasm.

The rules of perspective lie hid (under the je ne
sais quoi] like the rules of morals, right and wrong,
equity and inequity, etc.

The philosopher and virtuoso alone capable to
prove, demonstrate. But the idiot, the vulgar man
can feel, recognise. The eye has sense of its own, a
practice method peculiar and distinct from common
reason or argumentation. Thus the equilibrium found

1 p. 317. 2 p- 171-

3 Latter end of first book, viz. p. 75-

1 78 SECOND CHARACTERS

so instantly in some creatures (as that of the wing in
a swallow and the legs in a partridge and other poultry
kinds), as well as all their other instincts, which our
kind made by nature to rely on reason (virtuoso-like
and according to that rule of frustra Jit per plura]
possesses in a less degree. But the anti-virtuosi again
says — Who is he ? — Who but the same one and the
same man from him who said he knew not what the
KaXov [beautiful] was et /AT) eiraiveTov ? [unless it be
praised ?] Hence Hobbes, Locke, etc. still the same
man, same genus at the bottom. — " Beauty is nothing."
—"Virtue is nothing." — So "perspective nothing.—
Music nothing." — But these are the greatest realities
of things, especially the beauty and order of affections.
These philosophers together with the anti-virtuosi
may be called by one common name, viz. barbar

DICTIONARY1 OF ART TERMS

In case of the word ordonance (necessary to be used as before in
Letter and Notion) remember to put sometimes the word economy.

In case of the word group or groups (in the same manner) the word
mass. "The groups, masses."

And in case of plastic, the word graphic (as in Sensus Communis,
p. 146), especially when with a glance to gravery-geo-graph, Ars graph.

Also these words (some made, others already of arf)

Feigned, devotional

Ryparography )
RyparographersJ
Accompaniments.
Colourists, viz. of the Venetian

School for the best.
Mannerists.

Epic2- painting and painter.
Contraposition of tints.
The plastic3.
Picturesque4, grotesque.
Arabesque.
Contrast.
Tint for teinte.
Machinery.
Vegetable, still
Sensible, quick
Real

Natural, animal
Heroic, epic
Tragic, poetic
Masculine
Romantic, fantastic

Life.

Ecstatic, seraphic, mystic , .,

Grotesque, barbarous

Savage, monstrous

Fruitage.

Drapery.

Groups or masses.

Ordonance.

Foreshortening.

High-low-side-short.

Killing, killed.

Deadened, mortified.

Tablature.

Relief works.

Inwroughts.

Outline.

Signature.

Designation.

Figurative (as in the title).

Freedom and free manner.

Style.

Design.

(i) What to join with the word epique (for tragic) instead of comic
and satire ? The word not yet found. But remember the word ethic in
case of moral and manners. Thus " ethic and moral," " ethic and heroic,"
"epic and ethic," "ethic artist, painter," "ethic and poetic."

1 Supra, p. 7.

a P. Belloris' Raphael, p. 38.

3 The generous plastic, the noble plastic (the artist). The epic master, heroic
painter, etc. The maker, TTOHJT^S, creator, etc. as in Miscellanys.

4 But whereas the terminations in esque (as burlesque, romanesque, etc.) are all
buffooning, remember never to use the word pictoresque by way of honour (as all
common painters in their art, so Raphaelesque or Salvatoresque). But rarely this,
and use instead of it painterlike, plastical, graphical, poetical.

i8o SECOND CHARACTERS

The epic-painter can be said with dignity. But what for a Paul
Veronese, an ordinary scripture painter, painter of Christ's, Apostles,
virgins, etc. ? Martyrdoms indeed are tragic in form and epic because
usually intermixt with heathen grandeur, pomps, and magistrate, with
the sublime of Christian machine and seraphim in the air, etc.

(2) Venture the word and call the tablature sometimes the poem after
P. Belloris' example (p. 36, 1. 8) of his pictures of Raphael in the Vatican.

(3) The epithetic decorous (under the head Decorum) and the decorouse
instead of ihepulchrum. TO KO\OV as in sounds, the sonorous.

(4) The -virtual for the virtuous ; which last cannot be used for the
energetic in the good sense. But virtual may be introduced with practical.
Also applied to make things — painting, etc. For so already in our
language the virtue of a medium, etc. Hence the virtualize to come in
case (and with diversion) of virtuoso.

(5) In the same manner the numerous (sense of number). The
decorous, the numerous (use them together). The true. The veri/m atque
decens of Horace, supra p. 175.

INDEX OF EASE

Adrian, 112, 113

Aesop, 12, 123, 174

Affectation, 151

Almanac, Oxford, 92

Ambubiarum Collegia, 100, 113

Andromeda, 95

Apelles, 125

Apology, 4

Arabesque, 104

Aristotle, 99, 160

Arrian, 103, 176

Atheneus, 160

Bacchus, 133
Battle painting, 137
Bernini, 152
Bosse, 1 6
Bossu, 137

Caravaggio, 133
Carracci, 128, 172
Cebes, picture of, 9, 64-87
Cicero, 177
Constantine, 160
Contrast, 151
Correggio, 128
Criticism, 118
Cupids, 98, 1 13, 161

Decorum, 166-170
Demosthenes, 93, 108, 159
Dialogue, 96

Diogenes Laertius, 84, 85, 86
Dionysius Halicarnassus, 103
Domenichino, 119, 124, 127, 132,

161

Don Quixote, 101
Dryden, 135, 140

Ego, 58

Egyptians, 92, 125
Ellipsis, 157-160
Enthusiasm, 126, 127
Epicurus, 87
Evremond, 100

Fabius Pictor, 113, 175

FalstafF, 100

Fre"art, 128, 132, 141, 155, 167, 169,

171
Fresnoy, 128, 140

Groups, 179
Guido, 95, 143, 171

Hercules, Judgment of, 37-61, 161

Herodotus, 103

Homer, 4, 88, 104, 137, 168, 175

Horace, 137

Hyperbole, 152, 154-157

Idolatry, 170
I socrates, 159

Jesuits, 172

Jordano, 132, 139, 176

Juvenal, 100, 162

Kneller, Sir Godfrey, 131, 135

La Bruyere, 99

La Fontaine, 159

Laocoon, 152

Lares, 172

Leonardo da Vinci, 128

Livy, 170, 171

Locke, 178

Lucian, 114

Marat, 155
Maxims, 153, 173
Medea, 169
Metamorphoses, 96
Mimicry, 93
Miniature, 135, 138
Moliere, 1 1 1
Music, 112, 176

Nature, 177
Nero, 1 66
Notes, 8, 90

182

SECOND CHARACTERS

Outline, 158

Painters, 37, 119, 131-133

Parmenides, 87

Pathologia, 2

Pedantry, 108

Penates, 117, 172

Peripatetics, 71

Persius, 120, 162, 174

Perspective, 177

Physiognomy, 14, 105

Pietro da Cortona, 15, 146, 152, 172

Plato, 80, 87, 103, 104

Pliny, 61, 150, 166

Plutarch, 103

Poetry, 141, 158

Poets, 159

Portraiture, 134, 136

Poussin, 13, 130, 140, 145, 154

Prevention, no

Priests, 119, 172

Pythagoras, 65, 85, 87, 103

Raphael, 99, 108, no, 118, 125,

127, 132, 138, 149, 155
Romano, 145, 146
Rubens, 161, 171

Salvator Rosa, 15, 100, 152, 155,

163

Saturn, 64, 65
Shakespeare, 100
Shield, Achilles', 168
Socrates, 87, 98, 108, 173, 176
Sophocles, 97
Spagnoletto, 133
Statuary, 125
Symmetry, 99, 144
SXHTttf, 175

Terence, 159

Thales, 85, 86

Titian, 167, 171

Trumpet, 149

Truth, plastic, 98, 164 — 165

Van Dyck, 134, 135, 136
Vitruvius, 61, 96

(j)i\(\\rjva, 129
(f)i\6irovoS) 174

Xenophon, 41, 103, 134, 163, 173
Zoroaster, 85

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