i 4 6 APPENDIX. 



felves, as well as they are able, a model of the fuperior beau- 

 ties ; and, reflecting on them, endeavour to correct and amend 

 the common Nature, and to reprefent it as it was firft created, 

 without fault, either in colour or in lineament. 



" This idea, v/hich we may call the Goddefs of Painting 

 and of Scuplture, defcends upon the marble and the cloth, and 

 becomes the original of thofe Arts j and, being meafured by 

 the compafs of the intellect, is itfelf the meafure of the per- 

 forming hand ; and, being animated by the imagination, in- 

 fufes life into the image. The idea of the Painter and the 

 Sculptor is undoubtedly that perfect and excellent example of 

 the mind, by imitation of which imagined form, all things 

 are reprefented which fall under human fight : Such is the 

 definition which is made by Cicero, in his book of the Orator 

 to Brutus. " As therefore in forms and figures, there is 

 " fomewhat which is excellent and perfect, to which imagined 

 " fpecies all things are referred by imitation, which are the 

 " objects of fight; in like manner we behold the fpecies of 

 " Eloquence in our minds, the effigies, or actual image of 

 " which we feek in the organs of our hearing. This is like- 

 " wife confirmed by Proclus, in the Dialogue of Plato, called 

 " Timaeus : If, fays he, you take a man, as he is made by 

 " Nature, and compare him with another who is the effect of 

 " art, the work of Nature will always appear the lefs beauti- 



" ful, becaufe Art is more accurate than Nature." But 



Zeuxis, who, from the choice which he made of five virgins, 

 drew that wonderful picture of Helena, which Cicero, in his 

 Orator befbre-mentionecJ, fets before us, as the mod perfect 

 example of beauty, at the fame time admonishes a Painter to 

 contemplate the ideas of the moft natural forms; and to make 

 a judicious choice of feveral bodies, all of them the moft ele- 

 gant which he can find: By which we may plainly underfland, 



that 



