NOT EASILY ASCERTAINED. 99 



tragic mafk. Terpfichore, landing, with the lyra, 

 and enraptured. Erato, with the cithara. Polyhym- 

 nia has only the defignation of the torch. Urania is 

 fitting, with the globe, in a reclining porition. Calli- 

 ope has only the roll. Euterpe is wanting. 



On a fepulchre in Villa Mattei they are all in relief 

 in marble. 



It would require a book if we would give but a cur- 

 fory difcuffion of the numerous naked female flatues 

 which are pronounced to be the images of Venus, or 

 of thole which are dreiied in the long flola, and have 

 been bought for Minervas. 



Thefe few remarks will fuffice to call the attention of 

 admirers in fome degree to the difficulties that may 

 ■arife in pronouncing on the figures and ftatues of an- 

 tiquity in regard to their being genuine or not. Whe- 

 ther the work itfelf in the whole be really antique or 

 modern, is a matter that will not give any long emba- 

 raiiment to a real artift ; and never does this contrail 

 appear more finking than when antient and modern are 

 mingled in the fame collection, as at Sans-Souci. But 

 it will be more difficult to decide, where each reitera- 

 tion begins or ends ; whether this particular head for- 

 merly fat on this trunk?— — and especially in female 

 figures, what was properly and originally intended by 

 the firft fculptor of the figure, and what may have 

 been its peculiar determinate character ? For it is"not 

 only bunglers that employed themfelves in reiloring, 

 but frequently the greater! mailers of modern times, as 

 William della Porta in the Farnefe Hercules, and others 

 of merit fufficient to gain them a place belide artifts of 

 antiquity. 



H 2 ROUSSEAU'^ 



