probably branches of pine, or feme other refinous tree, I do 

 not conceive that the divine v^rorkman had much reafon to be 

 proud of his work. But be that as it may, we are here to 

 take notice that Phoeacia, the feat of thefe miracles of art,, 

 was, as the learned and ingenious Mr, De Goguet* has well 

 proved, an ifland of Afia, where undoubtedly the arts were 

 arrived at a greater degree of perfedion than was known in 

 European Greece. 



These are the very few inftances where, as far as I can 

 recoiled. Homer fpeaks of ftatues, which I fliould therefore 

 fuppofc were, at the time of the Trojan war f, extremely rare 



VOL.V. (D) in 



■ * Liv. li. cap. i. page 84, in the note. Phceacia is ufuaily fuppofed to be the Ifland of 

 Corfu, where certainly all this magnificence could fcarcely have been expefled. And yet, 

 even though we were to adhere to the common opinion, it may be faid that Homer in this 

 inftance feems to have indulged his imagination more perhaps than in any other part of his 

 writings, and to have accumulated on this favourite fpot every idea of fplendour which his 

 extenfive travels had enabled him to collea throughout the more refined and fumptuous regions 

 of Afia. 



t There is yet another reafon which would induce me to fuppofe that, in the times of which 

 we treat, ftatues were in effeft extremely rare in Greece, and that, if any were really wrought 

 there, they muft have been of the rudefl: form and workmanrtiip, namely, the want of proper 

 tools. We are told, it is true, that D^dalus and his nephew Talus, names which however 

 appear apocryphal, invented the plane, the faw, the gimlet, the fquare, the levelling plummet 

 and the compafs, yet from the filence of Homer, who is apt to tell all he knows refpefling 

 many of thefe inftruments, there is feme reafon to fufpeft that they did not all of them exift 

 even in his time. When Calypfo, whofe divine power might certainly have furnifhed her lover 

 with the beft implements then in ufe, provides tools for Ulyffes, to enable him to build his 

 fiiip, Ihe gives him nothing but a two-edged hatchet, a plane, a gimlet and a rule or ftraight 

 edge ; and if the joiner or (hlpwright was fo ill provided, in how much worfe a fituation muft 

 the fculptor have been, whofe work is fo much more delicate and difficult of execution ? Such 

 cools as thefe are indeed fo inadequate to the forming a human figure out of any material, -hat 



I fnould 



