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though not lefs to be blamed, than the declamation of moralifts has generally fuppofed. When excluded from the pleasures which the ufe of money might procure, we substitute, if I may be allowed the expreffion, the archetype of enjoyment for enjoyment itself, and prize wealth as the end, when it has ceased to be the means. Old men are niggard of their money as they are profufe of their talk, because the poffeffion of wealth is one of those pleasures in which they can equal younger men; as daws and starlings can pilfer and hoard, who are deftitute of plumage and of fong.

But there are ufes of wealth which fome wor

thy and wife old men difcover, that may supply this want of object for its appropriation. To beftow it in the purposes of beneficence, is one of the ways of spending money for which a man is never too old; or if some are so unhappy as to have outlived the relish of this, it is only where they have been at little pains to keep up in their minds thofe better feelings, which prompt and reward good deeds. That pleafure which Colonel Caustic mentioned, of making happy faces, is a fort of fine art, which fome people never attain, and others easily lose.

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N° 73. SATURDAY, June 24, 1786.

AMIDST the various branches of the Fine

In

Arts in which Ancient Greece excelled, there feems to be none in which her pre-eminence ftands more undifputed than that of Sculpture. In Mufic fhe was far diftant from any perfection; and indeed it is in modern times only that this art has received its highest improvements. In painting, too, whatever we may be told of the high admiration in which a Zeuxis and an Apelles were held by their countrymen, yet there is very good reason to believe that the moderns have far exceeded the ancients. Poetry, though we shall not prefume to fay that other nations have gone beyond the Greeks; yet furely it must be allowed, that the Roman poets, as well as those of modern times, approach fo near the Grecian models, as to fuffer very little from the comparison. But in Sculpture the Greeks ftand confeffedly unrivalled, as having attained the fummit of perfection. All the productions, not only of modern, but even of Roman Sculpture, are acknowledged to be inferior to those perfect and finished models. which Greece produced. In fhort, however

much

much the partisans of modern times may be inclined to difpute the palm with the ancients in others of the Fine Arts, yet in that of Sculpture all seem to concur in confessing the superiority of the Grecian artists. And I think their arriving at such excellence in this art may be accounted for from very obvious and fatisfactory causes.

Sculpture or Statuary is one of the imitative arts which mankind would very early practise; and accordingly there are few, even of the most uncultivated nations, among whom we do not find some rude attempts to form images in wood or in stone, if not in metal. To reprefent with any correctnefs and accuracy a folid figure upon a plain furface, would not fo readily occur as the idea of forming the refemblance of a man, or any other animal, in ftone or marble. Painting, therefore, is of later invention than Statuary; and being an art of much greater difficulty, would confequently be much flower of coming to any confiderable degree of perfection. To acquire the art of properly diftributing light and fhade, fo as to make the feveral figures ftand out from the canvafs; to poffefs the power of animating those figures with the most natural and glowing colours; to throw them into groupes of a pleafing form; to preserve that perfect proportion of fize and diftance which perspective

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perspective demands; are thofe excellencies of Painting which it has required the efforts and the experience of many fucceffive ages to attain. To form a finished statue is neither fo complex nor fo difficult an art. To be able, by means of the chisel, to bring the rude block of marble to prefent the exact refemblance of the most graceful human form, is no doubt a furprising and beautiful effort of industry and genius; and it would require a confiderable time before fuch an art could attain perfection; but that perfection being obviously much more easily attainable than any excellence in painting, so it would neceffarily be much fooner acquired. As more readily to be acquired, it would naturally be more generally practifed; and this circumftance again would, in its turn, accelerate the progrefs. of the art.

The athletic exercifes of the Greeks, joined to the natural beauty of the human form, for which their country and climate were diftinguished, furnished ready models for Sculpture. To Painting they afforded much less affiftance. The mere mufcular exertions of the body are favourite objects of imitation for the Statuary, and from the fuccefsful copy he acquires the very highest degree of renown. Painting draws its beft fubjects from other fources; from the combination of figures, from the features of

emotion,

emotion, from the eye of paffion. Groupes in Sculpture (if we except works in relief, which are much less distinct and striking than pictures) are perhaps, too near nature to be pleafing. It is certainly true, as a moft ingenious and excellent philofopher has obferved, that we are not pleased with Imitation when the preffes too close upon reality a coloured ftatue is offenfive; and the wax-work figures of Mrs. Wright, which the dreffes in the habits of the times, and places in various attitudes in different parts of the room, excite surprise indeed, but never produce delight. Sculpture, therefore, thus confined to fingle figures, feems little less inferior to Painting, than was the ode recited by one person at the feast of Bacchus, to the perfect drama of Sophocles and Euripides.

When Statuary reached its highest excellence in Greece, the art of Painting had made but a flender progrefs. The admiration of the works which their painters produced, feems to have proceeded more from a fenfe of the great difficulty of the art, and from furprise at the effects it produced, than from the pictures truly meriting the high praises we find bestowed upon them. To the eye of tafte, the work of the Statuary was the more complete and finished production; the art was accordingly more generally cultivated; and by the authors of antiquity the statues

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