NOTES. 28^ 



rafter, killed, and ftretched along the grafs, he might introduce 

 near him, fome beautiful wild plant, analogous to his character, 

 with drooping flowers, and the ftalks half cut down. If it were 

 in a pidure of a modern battle, he might mutilate, and, if I may 

 venture on the expreflion, kill, in it, the vegetables of a higher 

 order, fuch as a fruit-tree, or even an oak j for our cannon bul- 

 lets commit ravages of a very different kind in the plains, from 

 thofe produced by the arrows and javelins of the Ancients. They 

 plow up the turf of the hills, mow down the forefts, cleave afun- 

 der the young trees, and tear off huge fragments from the trunks 

 of the moft venerable oaks. I do not recolieft that I ever faw 

 any of thefe effects reprefented in piAures of our modern battles. 

 They are, however, very common in the real fcenes of war, and 

 redouble the impreffions of terror which Painters intend to ex- 

 cite, by the reprefentation of fuch fubjes^s. The defolation of 

 a country has a ftill more powerful expreffion than groups of the 

 dead, and of the dying. It's groves levelled, the black furrows of 

 it's up-torn meadows, and it's rocks maimed, awfully difplay the 

 efFefts of human fury, extending even to the ancient monuments 

 of Nature. We difcern in them the wrath of Kings, which is 

 their final argument, and is accordingly infcribed on their can- 

 non : Ultima ratio Regum. Nay, there might be exprefTed 

 through the whole extent of a battle-piece, the detonations of the 

 difcharge of artillery, repeated by the valleys to feveral leagues 

 diftance, bv reprefenting, in the back-grounds, the terrified fliep- 

 lierds driving off their charge, flocks of birds flying away toward 

 the horizon, and the wild beafls abandoning the woods. 



rhyfical confonances heighten moral fenfations, efpecially 

 when there is a tranfition from one kingdom of Nature to an- 

 other kingdom. 



(8) ^nd,. finally, from his niodejly, ivhich reprejjed in him the 

 theatrical ioiie^ and the oracular feûtentiovfnefs of our convex Jaticns. 

 Thefe are the perfonal reafons which he might have for talking 

 fparingly in company; but I have no doubt that he had others 

 much more weighty, arifing from the chara6ler of our Societies 



VOL. V. u themfelves. 



