1 88 Literary and Philosophical Society. 



by way of drink, though in small quantities.' ' Redi, who 

 made many experiments (cruel and unjustifiable in my 

 opinion) to ascertain the effects of fasting on fowls, observed 

 that none were able to support life beyond the ninth day 

 to whom drink was denied ; whereas one, indulged with 

 water, lived more than twenty days.' Vol. ii. p. 475. 



Perception of Colour among the Ancients. 



Thomas Cooper, the same who was in Northumberland 

 in the United States along with Priestley, gives three papers 

 on very different subjects : ' Observations respecting the 

 History of Physiognomy/ vol. iii. p. 408 ; ' On the Founda- 

 tion of Civil Government,' p. 481 ; 'Observations on the 

 Art of Painting among the Ancients,' p. 510. In this he 

 defends the ancients from a supposed ignorance of colour- 

 ing, a subject which, although reviewed of late, is shown to 

 be by no means novel. It has been said that the ancients 

 had only four colours ; he thinks the idea arises from mis- 

 interpreting a passage in ' Cicero : ' f In the paintings of 

 those who used no more than four colours, such as Zeuxis, 

 Polygnotus, and Timantes, we admire the outline and 

 the features ; but in Action, Protogenes, Nicomachus, and 

 Apelles all is perfect,' evidently including colouring, and 

 implying that the latter set used more than four colours ; 

 and Philostratus says, * The ancients were satisfied with one 

 colour, but the increasing progress of the art afterwards 

 employed four ; and from thence even more than that 

 number' (p. 514). 



He mentions the painting of flowers, peacocks, etc., also 

 the delicate tints of the skin in one of Lucian's descriptions, 

 also from Lucian he finds the painters Polygnotus, Eu- 



