482 OBSERVATIONS ON SCULPTURE. 
sence of a great Master and Teacher, and felt 
disposed implicitly to receive the principles of 
Art, as perfect and unimpeachable, embodied in 
their forms and expressions. In this class of the 
Imaginative, the Ancients maintain their great 
superiority, and the Moderns do not pretend to 
put forward one rival near their throne. There 
are indeed, very few instances in Modern Sculp- 
ture, where the Statue fills the mind with its own 
thoughts, and teaches the soul whilst it forms the 
taste. Some few there are, butin general we re- 
verse the order of critical rule, as before deseri- 
bed; and now, remembering the principles of 
Taste, we ask if the Statue before us is executed 
according to those principles. In the Ancient 
we receive them from the Statue; in the Mod- 
ern we apply them ¢o the Statue; and how many 
there are that will not bear the test. Trom these 
we learn that the extreme accuracy of portraits, 
combined with the minute details of Coat, But- 
tons, and Button-holes, produce a poor and mean 
effect ; that the naked body, the enigmatical hier- 
oglyphic, the scanty drapery, the out of date Vic- 
tories and Virtues, are unsuitable and preposte- 
rous. The Sculptor gifted with genius, may 
safely take Truth and Nature for his guides, and 
Taste and Imagination for his instructors. There 
is ample scope in these, without deviating into 
