STUDY XII. €l 



an anlnml paffion. Nay, 1 do not know whether it 

 be poffible to exprefs a virtue otherwife than by a 

 triumph of this kind. Hence it is that modefty 

 appears fo lovely on the face of a young female, 

 becaufe it is the conflid: of the moft powerful of 

 animal pafîîons with a fublime fentiment. The 

 expreffion of fenfibility, likewife. renders a face 

 extremely interefting, becaufe the foul, in this cafe, 

 (hews itfelf in a ftate of fufFering, and becaufe the 

 (ight of this excites a virtue in ourfelves, namely, 

 the fentiment of compaflion. If the fenfibility of 

 the figure in queftion is aélive, that is, if it fprings, 

 itfelf, out of the contemplation of the mifery of 

 another, it ftrikes us ftill more, becaufe then it 

 becomes the divine expreffion of generofity. 



I have a convidion, that the mofl celebrated fta- 

 tues and piélures of Antiquity owe much of their 

 high reputation entirely to the expreffion of this 

 double charafler, that is, to the harmony arifing out 

 of the two oppofite fentiments of paffion and virtue. 

 This much is certain, that the moil juftly boafted 

 mafter-pieces, in fculpture and painting, among 

 the Ancients, all prefented this kind of contrail. 

 Of this abundance of examples might be adduced 

 from their ftatues, as the Fenus piidicay and the 

 dying Gladiator, who preferves, even when fallen, 

 refped; for his own glory, at the moment he is 

 finking into the arms of death. Such, likewife, 



was 



