T I M 



45C 



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stoning to death of the unfortunate Palamed**, the victim 

 of thr ignoble revenge of Ulysses for having proclaimed 

 Im apparent insanity to be feigned = subject worthy of 

 tin- pencil of a great master. This picture is said to have 

 made Alexander shudder when he saw it at V.\-' 



cs, C/iil.. \iii. !!>: Junius, Cat. Arti/., v. Tinmn- 

 Tinmnthcs entered into competition with Parrha- 

 snis at -Sm<*, and gained the vntorv . the sub-. 

 the paintings was the contest of Ajax and I'lysses for the 

 arms of Achilles. [PARRHASH-V! Hi* most eel. 

 work however was that with which he bore away the 

 palm from Colotes of Teos; the subject was tin- c 

 tire of Iphigenia ; and perhaps no other work of antient 

 art has been tlie object of so much criticism, for and 

 against, as this painting, on account of the concealment ol 

 the face of Agamemnon in his mantle. Theantients have 

 all given the incident their unqualified approbation, but 

 its propriety has been questioned by several modem critics. 

 especially by Falconet and Sir Joshua Reynolds : Fuseli 

 however, in an elaborate and excellent criticism in In 

 lecture, has probably finally settled the matter in favour of 

 the painter. The Sacrifice of Iphigcnia was given as the 

 subject of a prize-picture to the students of the Royal 

 Academy in 177H, and ail the candidates imitated the 

 trick ' o'f Timanthes, as Sir Joshua Reynolds terms it, 

 which was the origin of his criticism upon the subject in 

 his eisrhth lecture: he says, 'Supposing this method of 

 leaving the expression of grief to the imagination to he, its 

 it was thought to be, the invention of the painter, and 

 that it deserves all the praise that has been given it, still it 

 is a trick that will serve but once : whoever does it a 

 second time will not only want novelty, but be justly sus- 

 pected of using artifice to evade difficulties.' 



The shallow remark of Falconet about Timanthcs' ex- 

 posing his own ignorance by concealing Agamemnon's lace, 

 is scarcely worthy of an allusion. It may be questioned 

 whether Agamemnon, under such circumstances as he was 

 placed, could have been well or even naturally repre- 

 sented in any other way : although many things might 

 combine to render his presence at the sacrifice absolutely 

 necessary, still it is not to be supposed that he could 

 calmly stand by and be un eye-witness of his own daugh- 

 ter's immolation ; notwithstanding his firm conviction that 

 his attendance was m-ces-ary to sanction the deed, he 

 could not look upon it ; it would be unnatural. The cri- 

 ticism of Quintihan, Cicero, and others, that the painter, 

 having represented Calchas sorrowful, Ulysses much more 

 so, and having expressed extreme sorrow in the coun- 

 tenance of Menelaus, was in consequence compelled to 

 conceal the face of the father, is not more pertinent than 

 that of the modem critics. 'They were not aware,' says 

 .i, 'that by making Timanthes waste expression on 

 inferior actors at the expense of a principal one, they rail 

 him an improvident spendthrift, and not a wise econo- 

 mist.' 



Falconet observes that Timanthes had not even the 

 merit of inventing the incident, but that he copied it from 

 Euripides: upon this point Fuseli remarks 'It is oh-. 

 by an ingenious critic that in the tragedy of Euripides the 



C cession is described; and upon Iphigenia's looking 

 k on her father, he groans and hides his lace to conceal 

 his tears: whilst the picture gives the moment .that pre- 

 cede* the sacrifice, and the hiding has a different object, 

 and arises from another impression ' v. 1550). 



' I am not prepared with chronologic proofs to deride 

 whether Kuripides or Timanthrs. who were contemporaries 

 nbout the period of the Peloponncsiaii war. fell li 

 tins expedient ; though the silence of Pliny and Quintilian 

 on that head seems to be in favour of the painter, neither 

 of whom could be ignorant of the celebrated drama of 

 Kuripides, and would not willingly have suite red the ho- 

 nour of this master-stroke of an art they were so much 

 better acquainted with than painting, to be transferred 

 to another from its real author, had the poet's claim been 

 prior.' As far as regards priority, the 'expedient' was 

 made use of by Polycnotus long before either Timanthes 

 or Kuripides; in the Destruction of Troy, in the I.esche at 

 Delphi, an infant is holding his hands over his eyes, to 

 avoid the horrors of the scene. (Pausanias, 1'hnr., x. 13!. 



The fifth work ol'Timanthcs mentioned by the aiitienN 

 was the picture of a hero, preserved in the time of Pliny 

 in the Temple of Peace at Rome, an admirable per- 

 form ance. 



There was another antient painter of the name of Ti- 

 manthes : he was contemporary with Aiatiis, and distin- 

 guished himself for a painting of the battle ul lY!lcnc. in 

 Arcadia, in which Aratus . 



Hans. ( (lun. l:i.1.l -'-Jll M.c. . Plutarch 'praise, tin' pic- 

 ture ; he terms it an exact and animate representation 

 (Aral nt. :t'J . 



TIMBER-TRADE. Several centuries ago the woods 

 and forests of Kngland were sufficient to supply all the 

 timber required for the building of ships and hou-> 

 well as for fuel. In the sixteenth century we begin to 

 hear complaints ot their exhaustion. An act having been 

 passed in ITi.'tl requiring coopers to sell their 

 fixed prices it 11. n. \ 111., c. -I . they were allowed by 

 another act :t."> Hen. VI 1: piuofd twelve 



afterwards, to increase their prices. Various circumstances 

 rendered this change necessary ; but at the time, t In- 

 great er scarcity of timber, though only n:: :' the 

 rise of the material, was regarded as the sole i 

 evident from an act passed during the .u . lor 

 the preservation of woods' uC> Hen. VIII.. <. 17 . in the 

 preamble of which ' the decay of timber and woods uni- 

 versally within this realm of Kngland 'is said to ; 

 great, that unless speedy remedy in that behalf be pro- 

 vided, there is great and manifest likelihood of scarcity 

 and lack as well of timber for building, making, repairing 

 of houses and ships, as also for fuel and tire-wood.' The 

 act relating to the price of barrels required, amongst other 

 things, that the exporters of beer should import 

 sufficient to replace the barrels sent out of the country ; 

 and the other act was designed to entorre certain iv 

 tions respecting the felling of trees, and to prevent the 

 conversion of woodlands into pasture or tillage. The 

 wealds of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey, where iron-works had 

 been carried on from very antient times, were excluded 

 from the provisions of this act. In 15.~>rt however an act 

 was passed (1 Eliz., c. 15 , entitled 'An Act that timber 

 shall not he felled to make coles for the making of iron,' 

 which prohibited the use of timber one foot square in 

 iron-works within fourteen miles of the sea, or within the 

 same distance of eight of the principal rivers of Kngland, 

 or any navigable stream having an cutlet on the coast : 

 but the three .southern counties previous! v mentioned 

 exempt from the operations of the act. The design seems 

 to have been to encourage the trade in timber fit for 

 building, and to benefit those parts of the country which 

 did not possess a sufficient supply. Iron-works having 

 been subsequently erected not far from London, and 

 within the prescribed distance of the Thames. 

 within other limits, and which required so much fuel that, 

 the woods 'daily decav and become scant,' an act was 

 1 in l.'isil ii Kli/... <. "> to prevent, the erection of 

 new iron-works within the limits mentioned by the act of 

 I.ViH, and tile restrictions respecting felling trees vvcio 

 renewed. In 151)2 the subject again attracted notice, and 

 an act was passed :r> Khz., c. II , which, amongst other 

 things, prohibited aliens exporting fish, unless they im- 

 ported clapboards : and altogether prohibited the exporta- 

 tion of wine-casks. In the following century the scale of 

 prices turned in favour of pit-coal. Defore the discovery 

 of the process of smelting iron with pit-coal, the transfer 

 of tins branch of industry to the colonies in North Ame- 

 rica was seriously entertained, and Wits carried into effect 

 to some slight extent. It was also suggested that the 

 waste lands of Kngland should be planted : and the v 

 of Ireland being less exhausted than those of Kngland, a 

 considerable quantity of iron was for some time smelted 

 there. 



During the decline in the internal supply of timber, it 

 gradually became an article of extensive demand from 

 oilier countries. In 1K), according to a statement of .Mr. 

 Huskisson, the fir timber used in Kngland for building 

 purposes was nearly all brought from abroad. The 

 portion of timber of native production used for similar 

 objects is not known or even guess r( l at. > th of 



Kurope, especially the countries on the Haltic. and our 

 colonies in Uritish North America, are the great source.- of 

 supply. Teak is brought from the v. :rica, 



maboganv from theHa\ of Honduras and other places, and 

 fane\ and dye woods from a number of other quail 

 but none of these come into competition with the building 

 timber of the Haltic or of our North American possessions. 

 The timber of the north of Europe is generally of excellent 



