the evidence of the fact? For, by a latitude of conftruction, he might bring the fact within the feverity of the law, contrary to the fenfe of the legislature; or, by a confined expofition, he might reftrain it, to the hindrance of justice.

Thus the life and liberty of the fubject might depend on the decifion of one man, who might poffibly, in fome cafes, be more likely to be biaffed than twelve jurors, totally indifferent to the parties concerned, who are fworn to give a true verdict, and must do it under the peril of a heavy punishment, and whofe duty it is to ftate their doubts and difficulties, if any fhould occur, for the advice of the court. Is there not lefs to be apprehended from the occafional mistakes of judgment in twelve fuch jurors, than the poffible error of judgment or of will in the judge, who, whatever be his knowledge or probity, is but

a man?'

Under the head of laws, with reference to the number of inhabitants, our Author has the following fhort but striking paffage :

Does it repair the lofs of the fufferer, does it reform the vicious, to execute criminals for petty and venial offences? By fuch policy, the individual wronged is not only left without any recompence for the injury fuftained, but the injury done him is often farther aggravated by the expence of a profecution; and fociety is prejudiced by the lofs of a member, without reaping any benefit from the example of his fate.'

It is, doubtlefs, we would here observe, in the highest degree abfurd, that after a robbery has been committed, the sufferer fhould be bound over to prosecute the offender, at his own expence. It is an odd compenfation to him for his first lofs, that he should a fecond time be legally plundered by Old Bailey folicitors, and the menial retainers of the law. In cafes of this nature, the action having in view the good of fociety, the expence of it fhould be fuftained by the public, and a calumniator publicus fhould be the profecutor.

In concluding our account of the prefent work, we must do the Author the justice to remark the fpirit of philofophy and enlargement with which he has ventured to treat his fubject. It is feldom that the enquirer into matters of law difcovers a liberality of mind fo commendable.

ART. II. A Difcourfe delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy, en the Diftribution of Prizes, Dec. 10, 1771. By the Prefident. 4t0. 2 s, Davies. 1772.

ΤΗ

HIS mafterly difcourfe is chiefly employed in defcribing and comparing the diftinguifhing merits of the great artists of the Roman and the Venetian fchools. The former addreffed

themselves

themselves to the paffions, and awakened the mind to sensibility the latter were ftudious to pleafe the eye; they excelled in ornament, and difcovered dexterity in the ufe of the pencil, but affected not the nobler faculties. To thofe, accordingly, the attention of the ftudents of the Royal Academy is particularly called by our ingenious Author; and, of thefe, he exhibits the defects, which, as they are fplendid and bewitching, tend to vitiate the taste of the young and inexperienced, and have even, fometimes, feduced the admiration of the connoiffeur and the artist from the higher excellencies of painting.

The value and rank, fays he, of every art is in proportion to the mental labour employed in it, or the mental pleasure produced by it. As this principle is preferved or neglected, our profeffion becomes either a liberal art, or a mechanical trade. In the hands of one man it makes the highest pretenfions, as it is addreffed to the nobleft faculties. In those of another it is reduced to a mere matter of ornament, and the painter had but the humble province of furnishing our apart ments with elegance.

This exertion of mind, which is the only circumstance that truly enobles our art, makes the great diftinction between the Roman and Venetian schools, and gives the fuperiority to the painter of hiftory over all others of our profeffion. No part of his work is produced but by an effort of the mind; there is no object which can be set before him as a perfect model; there is none which he can venture minutely to imitate, and to transfer with all its beauties and blemishes into his great defign.'

The painter, who would attain excellence in his art, must avoid particular ideas. To produce a perfect form, he must affift himself by imagination: he muft dress nature to advantage. The fame principle extends its influence to all the finer arts. It was not from the obfervation of one figure that the sculptor executed the Apollo Belvedere; and the poet, in the characters he draws, and in the fcenes he defcribes, is perpetually carriedbeyond the truth. Suetonius and Tacitus have fometimes recorded the fame facts; but with how different a value does the man of taste regard the narrations of these writers! That compofitions be agreeable it is neceffary that they be accommodated to a higher standard than those of the former; but, perhaps, it is impoffible that they can arrive at a point of perfection more ftriking than thofe of the latter. The Polite Conversation ** of Dean Swift does not please, because too exact a transcript from real life; and the vivacity of Farquhar, and the wit of

Sce, in his works, a treatife fo intitled.
Bb 4

Congreve,

Congreve, would have no charms, were they commonly to be met with.

The principle to which we allude, our Author has examined in a former difcourfe, and has proved it to be metaphyfically juft. In the prefent performance he applies it to every part of his art; and contends that it gives what is called the grand file to invention, to compofition, to expreffion, and even to colouring and drapery.

Invention in painting, he obferves, does not imply the invention of the fubject; for that is commonly supplied by the poet or hiftorian. With respect to the choice, no fubject can be proper that is not generally interefting. It ought to be either fome eminent inftance of heroic virtue, or heroic fuffering. There must be fomething either in the action, or the object, in which men are univerfally concerned, and which powerfully ftrikes upon the public fympathy.

Strictly speaking indeed, no fubject can be of universal, hardly can it be of general concern; but there are events and characters fo popularly known in thofe countries where our art is in requeft, that they may be confidered as fufficiently general for all our purposes. Such are the great events of Greek and Roman fable and hiftory, which early education, and the usual courfe of reading, have made familiar and interefting to all Europe, without being degraded by the vulgarifm of ordinary life in any country. Such too are the capital fubjects of fcrip. ture hiftory, which, befides their general notoriety, become venerable by their connection with our religion.

As it is required that the fubject felected fhould be a ge neral one, it is no lefs neceffary that it fhould be kept unembarraffed with whatever may any way ferve to divide the attention of the fpectator. Whenever a story is related, every man forms a picture in his mind of the action and the expreffion of the perfons employed. The power of reprefenting this mental picture on canvafs is what we call invention in a painter. And as, in the conception of this ideal picture, the mind does not enter into the minute peculiarities of the drefs, furniture, or scene of action; fo, when the painter comes to reprefent it, he contrives thofe little neceflary concomitant circumstances in such a manner, that they fhall ftrike the fpectator no more than they did him in his first conception of the ftory.

I am very ready to allow that fome circumftances of minutencfs and particularity frequently tend to give an air of truth to a piece, and to intereft the fpectator in an extraordinary manner. Such circumftances, therefore, cannot wholly be rejected; but if there be any thing in the art which requires peculiar nicety of difcernment, it is the difpofition of thefe minute circumftantial parts, which, according to the

judgment

judgment employed in the choice, become so useful to truth. or fo injurious to grandeur.

However, the ufual and most dangerous error is on the fide of minuteness; and therefore I think caution moft neceflary where most have failed. The general idea conftitutes real excellence. All fmaller things, however perfect in their way, are to be facrificed without mercy to the greater. The painter will not enquire what things may be admitted without much cenfure. He will not think it enough to fhew that they may be there, he will shew that they must be there; and their absence would render his picture maimed and defective.

Thus, though to the principal group a second or third be added, and a fecond and third mafs of light, care must be yet taken that these subordinate actions and lights, neither each in particular, nor all together, come into any degree of competition with the principal; they fhould make a part of that whole which would be imperfect without them. To every part of painting this rule may be applied: even in portraits, the grace, and, we may add, the likeness, confifts more in taking the general air, than in obferving the exact fimilitude of every feature.

Thus figures must have a ground whereon to ftand; they must be cloathed; there must be a back-ground; there must be light and fhadow: but none of these ought to appear to have taken up any part of the artift's attention. They fhould be fo managed as not even to catch that of the spectator. We know well enough, when we analyze a piece, the difficulty and the fubtilty with which an artift adjufts the back-ground, drapery, and maffes of light; we know, that a confiderable part of the grace and effect of his picture depends upon them: but this art is fo much concealed, even to a judicious eye, that no remain of any of these fubordinate parts occur to the memory when the picture is not prefent,

The great end of the art is to ftrike the imagination. The painter is therefore to make no oftentation of the means by which this is done; the fpectator is only to feel the refult in his bosom.

• An inferior artift is unwilling that any part of his induftry fhould be loft upon the fpectator. He takes as much pains to difcover, as the greater artift does to conceal, the marks of his fubordinate affiduity, In works of the lower kind, every thing appears ftudied and encumbered; it is all boaftful art, or open affectation. The ignorant often part from fuch pictures with wonder in their mouths, and indifference in their hearts.

But it is not enough in invention that the artist should reftrain and keep under all the inferior parts of his fubject; he

muft

P

muft fometimes deviate from vulgar and ftrict hiftorical truth, in pursuing the grandeur of his defign.

How much the great ftile exacts from its profeffors to conceive and reprefent their fubjects in a poetical manner, not confined to mere matter of fact, may be seen in the cartoons of Raffaelle. In all the pictures in which the painter has reprefented the apostles, he has drawn them with great nobleness; he has given them as much dignity as the human figure is capable of receiving; yet we are exprefsly told in fcripture they had no fuch refpectable appearance; and of St. Paul in particular, we are told by himself, that his bodily presence was mean. Alexander is faid to have been of a low ftature; a painter ought not fo to represent him. Agefilaus was low, lame, and of a mean appearance. None of these defects ought to appear in a piece of which he is the hero.

In conformity to cuftom, I call this part of the art history painting it ought to be called poetical, as in reality it is.

All this is not falfifying any fact; it is taking an allowed poetical license. A painter of portraits retains the individual likeness; a painter of history fhews the man by fhewing his

actions.

• A painter muft compenfate the natural deficiencies of his art. He has but one fentence to utter, but one moment to exhibit. He cannot, like a poet or hiftorian, expatiate and imprefs the mind with great veneration for the character of the hero or faint he represents, though he lets us know at the same time that the faint was deformed, and the hero lame.

The painter has no other means of giving an idea of the dignity of the mind, but by that external appearance which grandeur of thought does generally, though not always, impress on the countenance; and by that correfpondence of figure to fentiment and fituation, which all men with, but cannot command. The painter, who may in this one particular attain with ease what others defire in vain, ought to give all that he poffibly can, fince there are fo many circumftances of true greatnefs that he cannot give at all. He cannot make his hero talk like a great man; he must make him look like one for which reafon he ought to be well ftudied in the analysis of those circumftances which conftitute dignity of appearance in real life.

As in invention, fo likewise in expreffion, care must be taken not to run into particularities. Thofe expreffions alone fhould be given to the figures which their respective fituations generally produce. Nor is this enough; each person should also have that expreffion which men of his rank generally exhibit. The joy or the grief of a character of dignity is not to be expreffed in the fame manner as a fimilar paffion in a vulgar face.

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