THE GREEK RIDING-HORSE. 85 



was commissioned to paint a horse rolling,* 

 but he painted him running with a cloud of 

 dust about him. The man who gave the 

 order naturally objected, whereupon the 

 master turned the picture upside down, and 

 behold ! the patron's stipulations were ful- 

 filled. ^4 Criticism could discover only one 

 defect in a painting by Micon; the famous 

 rider Simon remarked that he had never 

 before seen a horse with eyelashes on the 

 lower lids. 75 Such stories, in spite of mani- 

 fest exaggerations, show that extant works 

 are not a fair criterion of the skill of the great 

 painters. Not a single work remains that can 

 be traced to any of them ; but doubtless to 

 their art, in comparison with what survives, 

 might have been applied lines like Donne's, 

 written of a contemporary of his own, — 



" A hand or eye 

 By Hilyarcle drawne, is worth an history 

 By a worse painter made." 



In sculpture, both in the round and in 

 relief, and in reliefs on coins, the extant 

 works are far more satisfactory ; for they rep- 



* See p. 131. 



