MEMOIR OF PLINY. 69 



to my designe and purpose. I am not ignorant that 

 the Egyptians do vaunt thereof, auouching that it 

 was deuised among them, and practised 6000 yeres 

 before there was any talk or knowledge thereof in 

 Greece : a vain brag and ostentation of theirs, as 

 all the world may see. As for the Greeke writers, 

 some ascribe the inuention of painting to the Si- 

 cyonians, others to the Corinthians. But they do 

 all jointly agree in this, that the first pourtrait was 

 nothing els but the bare pourflirig and drawing one- 

 ly the shadow of a person to his just proportion and 

 liniments. This first draught or ground they began 

 afterwards to lay with one simple colour, and no 

 more ; which kind of picture they called Monochro- 

 maton, i. e. one-coloured, for distinction from other 

 pictures of sundry colours. As for the linearie por- 

 traying, or drawing shapes and proportions by lines 

 alone, it is said that either Philocles the Egyptian, 

 or els Cleanthes the Corinthian, was the inuentor 

 thereof. But whosoever deuised it, certes it is, Ar- 

 dices the Corinthian, and Telepharies the Sicyonian, 

 were the first that practised it ; howbeit, colours they 

 vsed none ; yet they proceeded thus far as to dis- 

 perse their lines within, as well as to draw the pour- 

 fle ; and all with a coale and nothing els. The first 

 that took upon him to paint with colour was Cleo- 

 phantus the Corinthian, who (as they say) took no 

 more than a peice of red pot-sherd, which he ground 

 into powder, and this was all the colour that he 

 vsed. 



