in the Exercife of its Faculties. 123 
glance over all the red, and fo enable the mind to 
get, at once, a clear and didind idea of the whole. 
All fculptors, in thofe works, where the eye 
might he divided by the number of figures, fuch 
as, group, entaglios, baffo-relievos, (hew great at¬ 
tention to this rule, and always chufe a principal 
objed, to fix the fight of the beholders. 1 he three 
Rhodian artifts, whofe joint work, according to 
the elder Pliny,* has produced the famous group 
of Laocoon, which now (lands in the Belvidere at 
Rome, feem to have had that principle flrongly in 
view, in the difpofition of their figures. The 
Society, I trud, will forgive me, if, by way of 
illudration, I here join a defcription of that 
celebrated monument of human powers, which 
Michael Angelo, himfelf a wonder of modern times, 
ufed to call, a miracle of art. This defcription I 
At all, for the mod part, take from a French book, 
which deferves to be better known in this country, 
from whence fo many annually go to vifit the 
clafiical ground of Italy, and fo many in vain, from 
the want of proper guides. I mean, Le Defcription 
bijlorique et critique de PItalic, par Monf. V Abbe 
Richard, 6 vol. i2 mo . Paris 1769. In Englidr, 
* “ Sicut in Laocoonte, qui eft in Titi domo, opus 
omnibus, et piflurse et ftatuarite artis, anteferendum, ex 
uno lapide, cum et liberos, draconum, mirabiles nexus, 
de Confilii fententia fecere, fummi Artifices, Agriander, 
Polidorus, et Atbenedorus, Rhodii.” 
Px.iN. Hift. Nat. Lib. XXXVI. cap. 5. 
An 
