TOL. XXIV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 233 



notwithstanding their works have been read over and over, are still reckoned to 

 be of uncertain age. 



As for pictures, though I have much less experience in them, than I had 

 once in MSS. yet I will not deny but that the works of a hundred masters may 

 be known by the hands, though they may be almost as different as their several 

 hands in writing: but that one painter cannot copy from another, so exactly, as 

 that in tract of time it shall not be known which picture is the original, is what 

 I dare not assert. It has been frequently practised by painters to borrow pic- 

 tures of those who are lovers and judges of such things, to copy them, and to 

 return their copies for the originals, without any discovery made by the discern- 

 ing owners. And I believe it possible, though exceedingly difficult, for a great 

 master to copy a picture so, that when they both stand together, a good judge 

 shall not dare positively to say which is the copy and which not : nor he that 

 drew the original, dare to own, that he could imitate his own handywork better 

 than a stranger has done. There are a great many stories common among 

 painters, to this purpose. And one would not think it much more difficult, 

 for a man to imitate a drawing or picture, than to counterfeit another man's 

 hand-writing, which some people can do most exactly. And others with pen 

 and ink will copy after any thing that is printed so nicely, as that one would 

 affirm their writing to be printed off at the press. 



As to the notion of discerning the age, as well as the hand of the painter, 

 by his picture, it is very curious, and I doubt not but there is a great deal in it. 

 I only want the whole works of some great painter, with an account of the time 

 when he wrought each piece, to fit me for the making the experiment. And 

 why might not this notion be advanced a little farther, and the painter's com- 

 plexion be known by his pictures, as well as his age.'* As supposing that the 

 sanguine naturally run upon portraits, poetical histories, nudities, &c. The 

 choleric upon battle-pieces, sea-fights, fire-pieces by land or sea, tempests, &c. 

 The phlegmatic upon the still-life, flower-pieces, birds, beasts, fishes, &c. and 

 the melancholic upon landscapes, architecture, pieces of perspective, &c. Not 

 but that the cifFerent genius of a country, or the desires of a good customer, 

 may oblige a painter to work upon a subject, which he had no great fancy 

 for. 



As to the difference in the works of painters grown old, in respect of what 

 they did when young, I doubt no certain rules can be established, as to their 

 performances in that kind. I know that painters generally live faster than other 

 men, which may at length occasion a failure in their sight and memory, a trepi- 

 dation in their hands, &c. ; yet I never heard that Michael Angelo, Alb. Durer, 

 Titian, and others, painted worse at the latter end of their long lives, than they 



VOL. V. H H 



