238 CURSORY OBSERVATIONS 



original is lost, even in the best translation^, needs no argument. 

 But even if those translations were ever so well executed, a vast 

 majority of mankind continue, at this day, in blind ignorance — in- 

 capable of reading and writing. I am well warranted in a belief 

 that the Iliad and ^neid, in their original languages, convey no 

 more information to nine hundred and ninety nine out of every 

 thousand persons in the world, than a brick, a stone, or clod of the 

 valley. This does not arise from any want of fervour or beauty in 

 the poetry, but from the diversity of languages, and the backward 

 state of civilization in so many divisions of the globe. 



On the contrary, if those noble epics on canvass, the battle of Con- 

 stantine, by Raffaelle and Julio Romano, and the battles of Alexan- 

 der, by Le Brun, were placed before the most ignorant tribe of sa- 

 vages, they would derive a degree of information from them. They 

 would, at once, see that the work of death was going on — that men 

 were the combatants — and that the furious passions expressed, with 

 so much intensity, by the pencil, were those into which they them- 

 selves were wont to be hurried in their wars. They would discover 

 in the scenery of those paintings, woods, grounds, rivers, mountains, 

 and skies, which represent the general aspect of nature. From every 

 well-painted historical picture, they would derive a portion of similar 

 information, although everything conventional in the manners, cus- 

 toms, dresses, and accessories, must be wholly unintelligible to them. 

 If we pass from the savage state, to the middle ranks of society in 

 civilized nations, we shall find it probable that the great majority 

 of those classes, although without any cultivation of the arts, would 

 feel their curiosity excited by the inspection of fine historical pic- 

 tures, and receive, in a greater degree, some such information as 

 that already noticed, from their details. 



Painting, sculpture, and poetry, have each distinct advantages 

 arising from the circumstance that the two former enter into the 

 mind and passions through the eye, the latter through the ear. I 

 leave it to some far more competent pen to settle the balance. If I 

 had all the necessary ability, the limits of The Analyst forbid the 

 attempt here. I have not adverted to the subject to lower one of 

 the three by comparison with the others. They owe each other 

 mutual obligations. The Greek sculptors and painters drew their 



