t 45 ] 



on the fame fubjed ever agree. The hiftorical 

 painter, efpecially he who would reprefent the 

 fiélions of the poets, may take greater liberties, 

 and ftudy by all methods to elevate his fubjeél 

 by adding the higheft ftrokes of art, in order to 

 pleafe the eye, and raife in the mind ideas equal 

 to the hiftorian or poet he would reprefent : yet 

 every one who reads natural hiftory, and fees 

 figures and defcriptions of things in nature, fup* 

 pofes they are, or ought to have been immedi- 

 ately drawn and defcribed from nature. But no 

 experienced man, when he beholds an hiftorical 

 piece, fuppofes the figures there drawn are like to 

 thofe they are intended to reprefent either in fea- 

 ture or perfon, any farther than in general the 

 hiftorian or poet may have told us, that one 

 man was a graceful perfon, another a little 

 crooked or deformed ; which accidents a painter 

 has liberty to carry to what degree of per- 

 fection or imperfection he can conceive, pro- 

 vided always he doth not contradid: the letter of 

 his hiftorian. But in drawing after nature, a 

 moft religious and fcrupulous ftridnefs is to be 

 obferved ^ and by this means only we can de- 

 monftrate, that nature is or is not the fame 



through 



