196 



ture, we could at once view and compare 

 with each other all the different master- 

 pieces which existed at the same pe- 

 riod, we should probably find the nicest 

 shades of distinction, not only between dif- 

 ferent deities, but between the different 

 characters of the same deity.* The Belvi- 

 dere Apollo is in the act of slaying the Py- 

 thon ; he is the destroying, not the creating 

 power — " Severe in youthful beauty f there 

 may have been other equally perfect sta- 

 tues of him as the god of poetry and mu- 

 sic ; he may have been represented in the 

 enthusiasm of those divine arts, or in the 

 softer emotions of love, a passion to which 

 none of the deities was more subject ; and 

 certainly the expression of rapture or ten- 

 derness, is more congenial to beauty, than 



* There cannot be a stronger instance of such a nice dis- 

 tinction, than that of the three famous statues of Scopas, 

 representing three different names of Cupid, — that is, three 

 shades or distinctions of the passion of Love. The names are 

 Epwj, i/A£po?, nofiof. There probably are no terms that e\|ctly 

 Correspond with these, in any other language. 



