among the Ancients. 563 



are not wanting inftances of attention to them 

 in praftice, fuch as the contrivance of Nealces,* 

 who cum pralium navale Mgyptiorum et P erf arum 

 pinxijjiet, quod in Nil cujus aqua'ejl mart fimilis 

 factum volehat intelligi, argumento declaravit quod 

 arte non -poterat^ ajellum enim in littore bibentem pinxit, 

 et crocodilam infidientem ei. Mr. Webb, f with 

 great truth, remarks on this artifice, that a 

 f^odern artift with the fame view would have 

 planted at one end a river-god with water 

 ifTuing from feven urns, with no fmall conceit 

 of his erudition. In fafb this clumfy expedient 

 has been the refource of the greateft among the 

 modern artifts on fimilar occafions. Thus 

 Raphael, in his painting of the paffage through 

 Jordan, has reprefented the river in the form 

 of an old man dividing the waters. Pouflin has 

 done the fame as to the very river in queftion, 

 the Nile, in the pifture which reprefents the 

 difcovery of the infant Mofes ; and an artift of 

 the firft merit in the prefent day J has defcribed 

 the river Thames under the fame venerable 

 form, among other allegorical reprefentations 

 equally objedlionable. Whether the ancient 



* Plin. XXXV. 40. •}■ Inquiry, 199. 



X Mr. Bacon, on the monument of Lord Chatham in 

 Weftminiler Abbey. This particular fault is obrervable 

 alfo among the feries of paintings in the room of the 

 fwiety of arts «t the Adelphi. 



O o 2 painters 



