[49] “Copies of Two Papers written by the late King Charles II., together with a Copy of a Paper written by the late Duchess of York. Published by his Majesty’s command. London, 1686.”
[50] His pamphlet is entitled, “An Answer to some Papers lately printed, concerning the authority of the Catholic Church in matters of Faith, and the Reformation of the Church of England. London, 1686.”—Stillingfleet withheld his name.
[51] “I refer myself to the judgment of those who have read the answer to the defence of the late king’s papers, and that of the duchess, in which last I was concerned, how charitably I have been represented there.”—Preface to the Hind and Panther, Vol. X. p. 113, 114.
[52] See Vol. X. p. 203-208, and the notes there referred to.
[53] Morley, bishop of Winchester, who, as presently will be noticed, was chaplain in the family of Sir Edward Hyde during the usurpation, tells us, “that the duchess, (then Miss Hyde,) as she was the eldest, so was she the forwardest, and most capable to receive instruction; for God having given her an extraordinary good understanding for one of her sex and years, so he had given her an extraordinary good inclination to the exercises of piety and devotion; so that, when she was not, as I remember, above twelve years of age, I did think her every way fit to be admitted to the receiving the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, which she did then, and always afterwards, with very great devotion, so long as she and I staid together in her father’s house at Antwerp.”—Preface to Bishop Morley’s Treatise, p. vi.
[54] Morley says, that he continued to be the duchess’s spiritual director “until after her father’s banishment; and all that time I must bear her witness, that she was not only a zealous Protestant herself, according as it is by law established in the church of England, but zealous to make proselytes.”—Preface as above, p. xii.
[55] Dr Peter Heylin was born at Burford, in Oxfordshire, in 1600, and rose high in the church, being one of the chaplains in ordinary to Charles I. During the great civil war, he was reduced to distress, but survived the Restoration, and died in 1662. In 1661, he published his history of the Reformation, under the title of “Ecclesia Restaurata.”
[56] These were Sheldon and Morley. Sheldon was bishop of London, and was promoted to the see of Canterbury on the death of the venerable Juxon. Burnet describes him as generous and charitable, and extremely dexterous in politics; but adds, that he only spoke of religion as an engine of government, and thus gained with the king the character of a wise and honest clergyman. He was much blamed by the Low Church divines, for the rigour with which he followed up the parliamentary deprivation, by which two thousand divines, as was alleged, were ejected for non-conformity.
Blandford, successively bishop of Oxford and Worcester, was an able and excellent divine, modest and humble, says Burnet, even to a fault. Morley, bishop of Winchester, had recommended him to the duchess to be her spiritual director in his stead, when he himself retired from court in 1667: “And I made choice of him,” says that prelate, “not only because, in regard of his learning, piety, gravity, and modesty, together with the gentleness and sweetness of his address and conversation, he was at least as fit as any I could think of for that employment, but in regard of his former relation of chaplain to her father, to whom he owed his rise in the church.”—Preface to Bishop Morley’s Treatise, p. xiv.
[57] Stillingfleet, being at this time dean of St Paul’s, stood in the van of the controversy with the Papists. He had learning, penetration, some power of language, without much nicety of expression, and, above all, that intrepidity and undaunted resolution which the times required. After the Revolution, he reaped the harvest of his labours in the bishopric of Worcester. This eminent divine was born in 1635, and died in 1699. The tract which follows, is the third part of his Answer to the Papers published by James, respecting the conversion of his brother and wife to the Roman Catholic faith.
[58] This prelate was Dr George Morley, who, during the time of the usurpation, was domestic chaplain to Sir Edward Hyde, afterwards Lord Clarendon; and educated his daughter, Anne Hyde, in the faith of the church of England. See page 189. Upon the Restoration, Morley was made successively bishop of Worcester and Winchester. “He was,” says Burnet, “a pious, charitable man, of an exemplary life, but extremely passionate and obstinate.” This prelate, who was deeply and justly afflicted with the Duchess’s change of religion, vindicated himself from the suspicion of having neglected his duty towards her, by publishing, in 1683, a collection of tracts, with an apologetical preface already quoted, and a letter which he had written to the Duchess in 1670-1, some months before her death, upon hearing a rumour that she was shaken in her adherence to the Protestant faith.
[59] Preface to his Treatise, p. 5.
[60] Letter to her Royal Highness, p. 3, 4.
[61] “And this I am the rather obliged to believe, because, the last time I had any discourse with your Highness of things of this nature, you did seriously affirm to me, that never any priest of the church of Rome had ever been so bold as to enter into any discourse of religion with you. Whereupon, when I humbly besought your Highness, that if any of them should be so bold at any time afterwards, and you should think fit to hear what they could say, either for their own church, or against ours; your Highness would be pleased to command them to give it you in writing, and that you would be pleased to show me, or my lord of Oxford, any such papers, or paper, they should give you to consider of, and to reply to: the which, because you were pleased to promise me you would do, and have never as yet done, (not to me I am sure, nor to him either for aught I know,) I cannot believe that any thing of that kind hath been as yet said to you, at least, not so as to make any impression on you, and much less to gain an absolute belief from you, that there is no salvation to be had but in the church of Rome only, and consequently, that if ever you mean to be saved, you must of necessity quit our communion, and embrace theirs.”—Letter to the Duchess.
[62] Sheldon, and Blandford. The former, as already mentioned, was bishop of London, and afterwards archbishop of Canterbury; the latter bishop of Oxford, afterwards of Worcester.
[63] Blandford.
[64] The bishop of Winchester had only heard of this paper from Maimbourg’s publication, “wherein,” says Morley, “he reciteth something, which he saith was written by the late Duchess of York, to justify her leaving the communion of the church of England, to embrace that of Rome. But why should I say any more, or indeed so much as I have said of a non-ens, or of what I believe never was in rerum naturâ; I mean such a discourse, as is pretended to have been betwixt the Dutchess of York, and two of the most learned bishops of England; I know no proof we have, that there was ever any such thing, at least in print, or publicly known, and avowed, but this attestation of Maimbourg the Jesuit, who I am sure was neither eye nor ear witness of it, but must have it by hearsay only, from others, who had it from others, that might be the devisers of it.”
[65] Heylin’s extreme animosity against the Puritans, hurries him into the opposite extreme of favouring the Catholics. Nicolson has observed, that he falls foul of all the princes of the time, without regard to their good or ill wishes to the Protestant interest. Historical Library, p. 98.—Burnet even charges him with delivering “many things in such a manner, and so strangely, that one would think he had been secretly set on to it by those of the church of Rome;” but adds, “I doubt not he was a sincere Protestant, but violently carried away by some particular conceits.”—Burnet’s History of the Reformation, Preface.
[66] The treatise alluded to, seems to be “An Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England, in the several Articles proposed by the late Bishop of Condom,” 4to, 1689. This was circulated by the Protestant divines, in reply to “An Exposition of the Doctrine of the Catholic Church in Matters of Controversy. By the Reverend James Benigne Bossuet, Counsellor to the King, Bishop of Meaux, formerly of Condom. Done into English,” &c. 4to, 1685.
[67] This alludes to a story of an Oxford divine, who imagined he had utterly confounded the grand advocate of the Catholic church, by the stout, though unsupported asseveration, “Bellarmine, thou liest!” This egregious argument is alluded to in the Preface to “The Royal Medal Vindicated;” and in another tract, entitled, “Letter to a Friend concerning Dr Owen’s Principles,” 1670.
[68] Sir Henry Wotton, provost of Eton College, who died in 1639, directed his grave-stone to be thus inscribed:
Hic jacet hujus Sententiæ primus Author;
Disputandi Pruritus, Ecclesiæ Scabies,
Nomen Alias Quære.
Wotton’s biographer, honest Isaac Walton, seems to allow, that this sentence, or something like it, was to be elsewhere found, and that Sir Henry was not the first author of it. But he contends, that reason, mixed with charity, must persuade all readers to believe that a holy lethargy had surprised his memory when he assumed the merit of inventing it.
[69] Dr Seth Ward, an eminent mathematician.
[70] Sheldon and Blandford. Vide Supra, p. 198.
[71] Dr Blandford, at the time of the conference with the duchess of York, was bishop of Oxford. Being afterwards translated to the diocese of Worcester, he is elsewhere always in this tract called by the latter title. He died bishop of Worcester in 1675.—Malone.
[72] In allusion to the game of chess, where one of the two pieces, called bishops, always moves on the white, and the other on the black spaces of the chequer.
[73] From the French rompre en visiere; a phrase taken from tilting, and used metaphorically for giving an open affront.
[74] During the parliamentary struggles of 1680, the Commons used many arbitrary measures to support their authority, and especially by summarily committing those who, having expressed by petition to the king their abhorrence of addresses for calling a parliament, were called abhorrers. “Scarce a day passed, but some abhorrer was dragged before them, and committed to the custody of the serjeant at arms, at the pleasure of the House; and this strange despotism they exercised with so much wantonness, as well as cruelty, that Mr Treby was pleased to say, they kept an hawk, (meaning the said serjeant,) and they must every day find flesh for him. And the quantity he was this sessions gorged with, gave rise to this proverbial expression—Take him, Topham! [the name of the serjeant,] in all discourse of peremptory commitment.”—North’s Examen, p. 561. These arbitrary commitments are elsewhere censured by Dryden, particularly in the Postscript to the History of the League.—See p. 179.
[75] Nolo episcopare.
[76] Morley is anxious to vindicate himself from being one of the two bishops consulted, for, in Maimbourg’s copy of the Duchesses paper, they were not named. “Supposing,” said he, “there was such a conference betwixt her Highness and two bishops of the church of England, and that what they said to her did increase her desire to embrace the Roman Catholic religion; yet what doth that concern you, (may some man say,) as to your own particular? Are you one of the two of the most learned bishops of the church of England? (for so it is said they were, to whom the Duchess proposed her scruples,) No; I am not, I know I am not, I am sure I am not; but yet (how unlearned, and how unworthy soever,) I am a bishop, and a bishop of the church of England; and therefore as he, to whom it was said, Tantumne otii tibi à re tuâ est, aliena ut cures? answered, Homo sum, Humani nihil à me alienum puto; so say I, Episcopus sum, et Episcopus Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ, and therefore think myself concerned in whatsoever was said in reproach of episcopacy; especially in reproach of any of the bishops of our own church.”
[77] Probably her brothers, Clarendon and Rochester.
[78] Such was James’s account of the dying hours of his first wife. Burnet gives a different statement, which may be here transcribed:—
“While things were in fermentation, the Duchess of York died. It was observed, that for fifteen months before that time, she had not received the sacrament; and that upon all occasions, she was excusing the errors that the church of Rome was charged with, and was giving them the best colours they were capable of. An unmarried clergy was also a common topic with her. Morley had been her father confessor; for he told me, she practised secret confession to him from the time that she was twelve years old; and, when he was sent away from the court, he put her in the hands of Blandford, who died bishop of Worcester. Morley also told me, that upon the reports that were brought him of her slackness in receiving the sacrament, she having been for many years punctual to once a month, he had spoken plainly to her about it, and told her what inferences were made upon it. She pretended ill health, and business; but protested to him, she had no scruples with relation to her religion, and was still of the church of England; and assured him, that no Popish priest had ever taken the confidence to speak to her of those matters. He took a solemn engagement of her, that if scruples should arise in her mind, she would let him know them, and hear what he should offer to her upon all of them. And he protested to me, that to her death she never owned to him that she had any scruples, though she was for some days entertained by him at Farnham, after the date of the paper, which was afterwards published in her name. All this passed between the bishop and me, upon the duke’s shewing me that paper, all writ in her own hand, which was afterwards published by Maimbourg. He would not let me take a copy of it; but he gave me leave to read it twice. And I went immediately to Morley, and gave him an account of it; from whom I had all the particulars already mentioned. And upon that he concluded, that that unhappy princess had been prevailed on to give falsehoods under her hand, and to pretend that these were the grounds of her conversion. A long decay of health came at last to a quicker crisis than had been apprehended. All of the sudden she fell into the agony of death. Blandford was sent for, to prepare her for it, and to offer her the sacrament. Before he could come, the queen came in, and sat by her. He was modest and humble, even to a fault. So he had not presence of mind enough to begin prayers, which probably would have driven the queen out of the room. But, that not being done, she pretending kindness, would not leave her. The bishop spoke but little, and fearfully. He happened to say, he hoped she continued still in the truth: Upon which she asked, what is truth; and then, her agony encreasing, she repeated the word truth, truth, often; and in a few minutes after she died, very little beloved, or lamented. Her haughtiness had raised her many enemies. She was indeed a firm and a kind friend: But the change of her religion made her friends reckon her death rather a blessing than a loss at that time to them all. Her father, when he heard of her shaking in her religion, was more troubled at it, than at all his own misfortunes. He writ her a very grave and long letter upon it, enclosed in one to the duke. But she was dead before it came into England.”—Burnet’s History of his own Times, Book II.
[79] History of Henry VIII. p. 402, according to Dryden. I cannot find the passage alluded to.
[80] Clement the Tenth.
[81] The church of England Divines made a common cause at this important crisis. Those who directed the warfare, were Tillotson, Stillingfleet, Tennison, and Patrick; and under their banners, Burnet numbers Sherlock, Williams, Claget, Gee, Aldrich, Atterbury, Whitby, Hooper, and Wake. It is probable, that when a piece of such consequence as the Answer to the Royal Papers was to be brought forward, more than one of these would be employed in revising, at least, and correcting it.
[82] The Duke of York, who commanded the fleet in the Dutch wars.
[83] Robert Wisdom was a fugitive in the reign of Queen Mary; in that of Elizabeth, he became rector of Stysted in Essex, and of Settrington in Yorkshire, and died in 1568. He was a zealous puritan, and the author of a hymn, printed at the end of Sternhold’s psalms, which begins with the passage referred to in the text:
The witty Bishop Corbet thus addresses the ghost of Robert Wisdom:
[84] This assertion Stillingfleet denied. See the conclusion of his Answer to the Defence, where he affirms “such a book had been lately published in London.” To this Dryden replied, that “the magnified piece of Duncombe on this subject, which his opponent must have meant, was stolen, or translated, without acknowledgment, from the Spanish of Rodriguez;” meaning, probably, the Jesuit Alonso Rodriguez, who wrote “Exercio de perfecion y Virtudes Christianas, Sevilla, 1609.” But while Dryden claimed for the Catholic church the merit of this work, he seems to have mistaken the name of the translator; for in the preface to the “Town and Country Mouse,” Prior, or Montague, upbraid him with having confounded Allen with Duncombe; names which did not so much as rhyme. In a list of books subjoined to “The Practice of a Holy Life, by Thomas Allen, rector of Kettering, in Northamptonshire,” I find “The Virtue of Humility, recommended to be printed by the late Reverend and Learned Dr Henry Hammond,” which may be the book alluded to by Stillingfleet. See Vol. X. pages 114. 249.
[85] Hitherto Stillingfleet had been encountering the person who defended the two papers which were found in the king’s strong box, with which part of the controversy Dryden had nothing to do.
[86] Defence, p. 250.
[87] Defence, p. 219.
[88] Defence, p. 217.
[89] Ibid. p. 210.
[90] Defence, p. 211.
[91] Defence, p. 220.
[92] Ibid. p. 232.
[93] Defence, p. 232.
[94] Defence, p. 212.
[95] Defence, p. 213.
[96] Ibid, p. 217, 218.
[97] Defence, p. 222.
[98] Defence, p. 242.
[99] Nicholas Sanders, some time regius professor of the canon law at Oxford. Upon the Reformation, he fled to Rome, where he was long a retainer of Cardinal Hosius. At last Gregory XIII. sent him as Nuncio into Ireland, where he died in 1580. His work here alluded to, is a history of the Reformation, under the opprobrious title De Origine et Progressu Schismatis Anglicani. Stillingfleet refers to the passage, l. i. p. 11.
[100] Page 15.
[101] Page 10.
[102] Page 18.
[103] Acworth. c. Sander. l. 2. c. 14, 17.
[104] Page 22.
[105] History of Hen. VIII. p. 216.
[106] Servi Fidelis Responsio, &c.
[107] Lord Herbert, p. 219.
[108] Apology for the Oath of Allegiance.
[109] Defence, p. 243.
[110] Ibid.
[111] Conference, § 24. p. 156.
BY
C. A. DU FRESNOY.
WITH REMARKS.
TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH;
WITH AN ORIGINAL PREFACE, CONTAINING
A PARALLEL BETWEEN PAINTING AND POETRY.
FIRST PRINTED IN QUARTO IN 1695.
Charles Alphonse Du Fresnoy, as we learn from his life by Mason, was born in Paris in the year 1611. He studied the art of painting in Rome and Venice, and afterwards practised it in France with great reputation. Meanwhile, he did not neglect the sister pursuit of poetry; and combining it with the studies of an artist, he composed his poem on the Art of Painting. It did not appear till after the author’s death, in 1658, when it was published with the French version, and remarks of De Piles. The first edition was printed in 1661. This poem, as containing, in elegant and perspicuous language, the most just rules for artists and amateurs, has been always held in esteem by the admirers of the art which it professes to teach.
The version of Dryden first appeared in 4to, in 1695, and was republished by Richard Graham in 1716, by whom it is inscribed to Lord Burlington. The editor of 1716, informs us, that Mr Jervas had undertaken to correct such passages of the translation as Dryden had erred in by following, too closely, the French version of De Piles. To Graham’s edition is prefixed the epistle from Pope to Jervas, with Dryden’s version; an honourable and beautiful testimony from the living to the dead poet, which I have retained with pleasure, as also the epistle from Mason to Sir Joshua Reynolds, which contains some remarks on Dryden’s version.
The late Mr Mason, as a juvenile exercise, executed a poetical version of Fresnoy’s poem, which has had the honour to be admitted into the works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, vol. iii. and might have superseded the necessity of here reprinting the prose of Dryden. But there is something so singular in a great poet undertaking to render into prose the admired poem of a foreign bard, that, as a specimen of such an uncommon task, as well as on account of its brevity, I have retained this translation.
Being no judge of the art to which the poem refers, I follow the readings of Jervas, as published by Graham in 1716.
Mason has retained the Parallel between Painting and Poetry, in his edition of Fresnoy, with the following note:
“It was thought proper to insert in this place the pleasing preface, which Mr Dryden printed before his translation of M. Du Fresnoy’s poem. There is a charm in that great writer’s prose, peculiar to itself; and though, perhaps, the parallel between the two arts, which he has here drawn, be too superficial to stand the test of strict criticism, yet it will always give pleasure to readers of taste, even when it fails to satisfy their judgment.”
It may be reasonably expected that I should say something on my own behalf, in respect to my present undertaking. First, then, the reader may be pleased to know, that it was not of my own choice that I undertook this work. Many of our most skilful painters, and other artists, were pleased to recommend this author to me, as one who perfectly understood the rules of painting; who gave the best and most concise instructions for performance, and the surest to inform the judgment of all who loved this noble art: that they who before, were rather fond of it, than knowingly admired it, might defend their inclination by their reason; that they might understand those excellencies which they blindly valued, so as not to be farther imposed on by bad pieces, and to know when nature was well imitated by the most able masters. It is true indeed, and they acknowledge it, that beside the rules which are given in this treatise, or which can be given in any other, to make a perfect judgment of good pictures, and to value them more or less, when compared with one another, there is farther required a long conversation with the best pieces, which are not very frequent either in France or England; yet some we have, not only from the hands of Holbein, Rubens, and Vandyck, (one of them admirable for history-painting, and the other two for portraits,) but of many Flemish masters, and those not inconsiderable, though for design not equal to the Italians. And of these latter also, we are not unfurnished with some pieces of Raphaell, Titian, Correggio, Michael Angelo, and others.
But to return to my own undertaking of this translation. I freely own that I thought myself incapable of performing it, either to their satisfaction, or my own credit. Not but that I understood the original Latin, and the French author, perhaps as well as most Englishmen; but I was not sufficiently versed in the terms of art; and therefore thought that many of those persons who put this honourable task on me, were more able to perform it themselves,—as undoubtedly they were. But they, assuring me of their assistance in correcting my faults where I spoke improperly, I was encouraged to attempt it, that I might not be wanting in what I could, to satisfy the desires of so many gentlemen, who were willing to give the world this useful work. They have effectually performed their promise to me, and I have been as careful, on my side, to take their advice in all things; so that the reader may assure himself of a tolerable translation,—not elegant, for I proposed not that to myself, but familiar, clear, and instructive: in any of which parts if I have failed, the fault lies wholly at my door. In this one particular only, I must beg the reader’s pardon. The prose translation of this poem is not free from poetical expressions, and I dare not promise that some of them are not fustian, or at least highly metaphorical; but this being a fault in the first digestion, (that is, the original Latin,) was not to be remedied in the second, viz. the translation. And I may confidently say, that whoever had attempted it must have fallen into the same inconvenience, or a much greater, that of a false version.
When I undertook this work, I was already engaged in the translation of Virgil,[113] from whom I have borrowed only two months; and am now returning to that which I ought to understand better. In the mean time I beg the reader’s pardon, for entertaining him so long with myself: it is an usual part of ill manners in all authors, and almost in all mankind, to trouble others with their business; and I was so sensible of it beforehand, that I had not now committed it, unless some concernments of the reader’s had been interwoven with my own. But I know not, while I am atoning for one error, if I am not falling into another; for I have been importuned to say something farther of this art; and to make some observations on it, in relation to the likeness and agreement which it has with poetry, its sister. But before I proceed, it will not be amiss, if I copy from Bellori, (a most ingenious author yet living,) some part of his idea of a painter,[114] which cannot be unpleasing, at least to such who are conversant in the philosophy of Plato; and, to avoid tediousness, I will not translate the whole discourse, but take and leave as I find occasion.
“God Almighty, in the fabric of the universe, first contemplated himself, and reflected on his own excellencies; from which he drew and constituted those first forms which are called ideas; so that every species which was afterwards expressed, was produced from that first idea, forming that wonderful contexture of all created beings. But the celestial bodies above the moon being incorruptible, and not subject to change, remained for ever fair, and in perpetual order. On the contrary, all things which are sublunary are subject to change, to deformity, and to decay. And though nature always intends a consummate beauty in her productions, yet through the inequality of the matter, the forms are altered; and in particular, human beauty suffers alteration for the worse, as we see to our mortification, in the deformities and disproportions which are in us. For which reason, the artful painter and the sculptor, imitating the Divine Maker, form to themselves, as well as they are able, a model of the superior beauties; and reflecting on them, endeavour to correct and amend the common nature, and to represent it as it was at first created, without fault, either in colour, or in lineament.
“This idea, which we may call the goddess of painting and of sculpture, descends upon the marble and the cloth, and becomes the original of those arts; and being measured by the compass of the intellect, is itself the measure of the performing hand; and being animated by the imagination, infuses life into the image. The idea of the painter and the sculptor is undoubtedly that perfect and excellent example of the mind, by imitation of which imagined form all things are represented which fall under human sight: such is the definition which is made by Cicero in his book of the “Orator” to Brutus:—‘As therefore in forms and figures there is somewhat which is excellent and perfect, to which imagined species all things are referred by imitation, which are the objects of sight, in like manner we behold the species of eloquence in our minds, the effigies or actual image of which we seek in the organs of our hearing.’ This is likewise confirmed by Proclus in the dialogue of Plato, called “Timæus.” ‘If, says he, you take a man as he is made by nature, and compare him with another, who is the effect of art, the work of nature will always appear the less beautiful, because art is more accurate than nature.’ But Zeuxis, who, from the choice which he made of five virgins, drew that wonderful picture of Helena, which Cicero, in his “Orator” before-mentioned, sets before us as the most perfect example of beauty, at the same time admonishes a painter, to contemplate the ideas of the most natural forms, and to make a judicious choice of several bodies, all of them the most elegant which he can find; by which we may plainly understand, that he thought it impossible to find in any one body all those perfections which he sought for the accomplishment of a Helena, because nature in any individual person makes nothing that is perfect in all its parts. For this reason Maximus Tyrius also says, that the image which is taken by a painter from several bodies, produces a beauty which it is impossible to find in any single natural body, approaching to the perfection of the fairest statues. Thus nature on this account is so much inferior to art, that those artists who propose to themselves only the imitation and likeness of such or such a particular person, without election of those ideas before-mentioned, have often been reproached for that omission. Demetrius was taxed for being too natural; Dionysius was also blamed for drawing men like us, and was commonly called ανθρωπόγραφος, that is, a painter of men. In our times, Michael Angelo da Caravaggio was esteemed too natural. He drew persons as they were; and Bamboccio, and most of the Dutch painters, have drawn the worst likeness. Lysippus of old upbraided the common sort of sculptors, for making men such as they were found in nature; and boasted of himself, that he made them as they ought to be: which is a precept of Aristotle, given as well to poets as to painters. Phidias raised an admiration, even to astonishment, in those who beheld his statues, with the forms which he gave to his gods and heroes, by imitating the idea, rather than nature. And Cicero, speaking of him, affirms, that figuring Jupiter and Pallas, he did not contemplate any object from whence he took the likeness, but considered in his own mind a great and admirable form of beauty; and according to that image in his soul, he directed the operation of his hand. Seneca also seems to wonder, that Phidias, having never beheld either Jove or Pallas, yet could conceive their divine images in his mind. Apollonius Tyanæus says the same in other words,—that the fancy more instructs the painter, than the imitation; for the last makes only the things which it sees, but the first makes also the things which it never sees.
“Leon Battista Alberti tells us, that we ought not so much to love the likeness as the beauty, and to choose from the fairest bodies severally the fairest parts. Leonardo da Vinci instructs the painter to form this idea to himself; and Raffaelle, the greatest of all modern masters, writes thus to Castiglione, concerning his Galatea: ‘To paint a fair one, it is necessary for me to see many fair ones; but because there is so great a scarcity of lovely women, I am constrained to make use of one certain idea, which I have formed to myself in my own fancy.’ Guido Rheni sending to Rome his St Michael, which he had painted for the church of the Capuchins, at the same time wrote to Monsignor Massano, who was Maestro di Casa, (or Steward of the House,) to Pope Urban the Eighth, in this manner: ‘I wish I had the wings of an angel, to have ascended into Paradise, and there to have beheld the forms of those beautiful spirits, from which I might have copied my archangel. But not being able to mount so high, it was in vain for me to search his resemblance here below; so that I was forced to make an introspection into my own mind, and into that idea of beauty which I have formed in my own imagination. I have likewise created there the contrary idea of deformity and ugliness; but I leave the consideration of it, till I paint the devil; and in the mean time, shun the very thought of it as much as possibly I can, and am even endeavouring to blot it wholly out of my remembrance.’
“There was not any lady in all antiquity, who was mistress of so much beauty as was to be found in the Venus of Gnidus, made by Praxiteles, or the Minerva of Athens, by Phidias; which was therefore called the beautiful form. Neither is there any man of the present age equal in the strength, proportion, and knitting of his limbs, to the Hercules of Farnese, made by Glycon; or any woman, who can justly be compared with the Medicean Venus of Cleomenes. And upon this account, the noblest poets and the best orators, when they desired to celebrate any extraordinary beauty, are forced to have recourse to statues and pictures and to draw their persons and faces into comparison. Ovid, endeavouring to express the beauty of Cyllarus, the fairest of the Centaurs, celebrates him as next in perfection to the most admirable statues: