a traveller's journal. 1$J 



the poor ftone is tortured, for profecuting a work that 

 "will never be finimed, becaufe the inventionlefs flu- 

 pidity that fuggelted it, had at the fame time the power 

 to iketch out an infinite plan. 



material of imitative art. 



NO work of art is independent on rules, however 

 great and fkilful the artift : he may make himfelf mailer 

 as much as he will of the materials in which he works, yet 

 he can never alter the nature of them. He can, therefore, 

 execute what he has in his mind, only in a certain fenfe and 

 under certain conditions ; and he will always be the moil 

 eminent artift in his profeffion whofe imagination and 

 inventive faculty are, as it were, immediately connected 

 with the materials in which he has to work. This is 

 one of the greaterl preeminences of the antient art ; 

 and, as men can only then be called prudent and hap- 

 py when they live in the utmoft liberty poiiible within 

 the bounds of their nature and circumilances : fo thofe 

 artifls deferve our greatefl refpecl:, who intend, to per- 

 form no more than their materials allow them; and 

 yet make fo much of them, that, with the whole 

 exertion of our mind, we can fcarcely do juftice to 

 their merits. 



We will oecafionally adduce in (lances how mankind 

 have been led by the material to the art, and by the fame 

 means farther conducted in it. For the prefent I mall 

 content myfelf with bringing forward one of a very 

 fimple fpecies. 



It feems to me very probable, that the ^Egyptians 

 were led to the creeling of fo many obelifks by the 



form 



