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refined and delicate tafle. Every thing is chafte and tem- 

 perate, corredl and beautiful; there appears nothing, to 

 fliew, that either the artift himfelf, or the models from which 

 he wrought, could have been pofTeffed by that ferocity of fpirit, 

 or animated by that cruel or fanguinary difpofition, which I 

 attribute to the Grecian moral charadter*. The Apollo of BelviJere, 

 the Medicean Venus, the groupe of Niobe and her children, befpeak 

 minds governed by fober judgment, awake to the fineft feelings, 

 and fertile in the faireft ideas. The Greeks excelled no lefs in 

 Painting than in Sculpture ; and though, ages on ages have rolled 

 away, fince thofe pidtures, which were the admiration of antiquity, 

 have been loft to the world, a learned Roman., who pofleffed an 

 exquifite tafte for the fine arts, has left us a copious and moft 

 interefting account of the principal Grecian painters and their 

 works. From the details of the elder Pliny, it appears, that the- 

 fubjeds of the Grecian painting were, in general,. as tender, foft, 

 and engaging, as the fubjeds of their tragic drama were terrible 

 and afHidive. Suppofe all traces of the Grecian hiftory and poetry 

 annihilated, and that we knew and judged of them, only, by fome- 

 of their ftatues, and thofe chapters in the thirty-fifth book of 

 Pliny that relate to their painters ; Ihould we hefitate to pro- 

 nounce, from the fweetnefs of the countenances, and the attitudes- 

 and charaders of the figures, in what remains, and from the 

 defcriptions of what is loft, that the Greeks were a people, not only 



of fenfibility, but even of a mild and tender difpofition. 



How 



• To (hew the corredt judgment of Grecian artifts, I have heard it obferved that the ■ 

 figure of Niobe, in the famous groupe, has fcarcely any breafts, left an admixture of the 



luxurious. 



