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the habitual temper, and even the blended ingredients that form 

 it, be difcerned often in the afpett ? Pliny defcribes the flatue 

 of Paris by Euphranor, which reprefents him as judex dearum, 

 amator Helenas, & interfedor Achillis. , This inftance from 

 fculpture is cenfured by the Prefident ; and yet why may not a 

 dignified form and an expreffed charader of martial gallantry be 

 united with the marks of an amorous temperament ? 



The charaderiftical portrait of the Demos Athenienfis, men- 

 tioned by Pliny, and faid to be allegorically painted by Parrha- 

 fius, is indeed a moral monfter, formed of qualities utterly 

 incompatible. Volebat namque varium, iracundum, injuftum, in- 

 conftantem ; eundem exorabilem, clementem, mifericordem, excel- 

 fum, gloriofum, humilem, ferocem, fugacemque & omnia pari- 

 ter oftendere. Such a pidure is beyond the reach of art ; and 

 it is as impradicable for painting to delineate fuch an affemblage 

 of contradidions as for the imagination to embody- the mutually 

 exclufive qualities brought together in Lock's defcription of the 

 abftrad idea of a triangle; or for the foul of Cardan to have 

 cemented into one mafs the warring vitious pallions with which, 

 in the vifions of his diftempered fancy, he feemed polluted. 



But to come near to the queftion : Can it be doubted that 

 every indication of inward emotion which the countenance is 

 capable of affuming the pencil of the painter may imitate on 

 the canvas ? If the original difplays a fenfible conflid of paffions 

 why muft the power of the imitative art be limited to an indif- 

 thiEl and imperfcEl marking ? 

 Vol. VI. M If 



