244 CURSORY OBSERVATIONS 



only Lucio's excuse, — ' I spoke according to the trick/ In a story 

 rohere the greater part is avowedly Jiction, the author is at liberty to 

 introduce suck variations from actual fret as his plot requires, and 

 which are calculated to enhance it/'* In this instance the author 

 of Waverley justifies an actual deviation from, or rather a falsifica- 

 tion of, an historical fact ; and in Greece and Rome, the license of 

 poets, painters, and sculptors, to introduce variations from fact, was 

 generally established. According to Virgil, Laocoon, the priest of 

 Apollo, was surprised by the serpents when in the act of sacrificing 

 to Neptune ; and, upon the principle of mere congruity, he should 

 have been represented in his sacerdotal vestments ; but, as all the 

 anatomical details which constitute grandeur and beauty of form, 

 which are, also, the supreme test of an artist's skill, are concealed by 

 drapery, the three famous sculptors, Polydorus, Athenadorus, and 

 Agesander, represented him naked. Here was a departure from 

 the poetical description ; and if those great artists had been fettered 

 and intimidated by censors ready to cry out against incongruities 

 for the better, the world would have been deprived of one of the 

 finest groups of sculpture in existence. Upon the same principle of 

 license, the Roman consuls, emperors, and heroes are represented 

 naked by the sculptors. It would have been condemned as a mon- 

 strous incongruity and offence against morals, for the Roman em- 

 perors or magistrates to have appeared in their public functions 

 undraped : but that which would have been so heinous in life, was 

 deemed perfectly congruous in the arts, and honoured with the 

 approbation of the Roman critics, historians and people. This com- 

 prehensive license was in the spirit of those ages ; but a naked sta- 

 tue of George IV., of Nelson, Dr. Johnson, or of any other modern 

 king or worthy, would be justly censured, as being contrary to our 

 modern notions of propriety and decency : therefore our British 

 sculptors conform, in this respect, to the spirit of the time and the 

 religious sense of the people. Montesquieu has justly observed, 

 and Blackstone and Paley concur with that eminent authority, that 

 there is a right reason in all things, which right reason constitutes 

 the law by which each exists and is regulated. The right reason 



* Introduction to Peverilo/the Peak. 



