Affer this he uses the gradine, which is a 
flat cutting tool, with three teeth, but is not 
so strong as the point. 
Having advanced his work wit It the gradine, 
he uses the chisel to take oft the ridges left by 
the former toois ; and by the dexterous and 
delicate use of this instrument, lie gives soft- 
ness and tenderness to the figure, till at 
length, by taking a rasp, which is a sort of 
tile, he brings his work into a proper state 
for being polished. 
Rasps are of several kinds, some straight, 
some curved, and some harder or softer than j 
Others. 
When the sculptor has thus far finished his 
work with the best tools he can procure, 
wherever certain parts or particular works 
require polishing, he uses pumice-stone to 
make all the parts smooth and even. He 
then goes over them with tripoli, and when 
he would give a still higher gloss, he rubs 
them with leather and straw-ashes. 
Besides the tools already mentioned, 
sculptors use also the pick, which is a small 
hammer pointed at one end, and at the other 
formed with teeth made of good steel and 
squared, to render them the stronger. This 
serves .to break the marble, and is used in 
all places where the two hands cannot be em- 
ployed to manage the mallet and chisel. 
The bouchard, which is a piece of iron, 
well steeled at the bottom, and formed into 
several strong and short points like a diamond, 
is used for making a hole of equal dimensions, 
which cannot be done with cutting tools. The 
bouchard is driven with the mallet or beetle, 
and its points bruise the marble and reduce it 
to powder. Water is thrown into the hole 
from time to time, in proportion to the depth 
that is made, to bring out the dust of the mar- 
ble, and to prevent the tool from heating, 
which would destroy its temper ; for the 
free-stone dust on which tools are edged, is 
only moistened with water to prevent the 
iron from heating and taking olT the temper 
of the tool by being rubbed dry ; and the 
trepans are wetted for the same reason. 
The sculptor uses the bouchard to bore or 
pierce such parts of his work as the chisel 
cannot reach without danger of spoiling or 
breaking them. In using it, he passes it 
through a piece of leather, which leather 
covers the hole made by the bouchard, and 
prevents the water from spirting up in his 
face. 
The other tools necessary for sculpture on 
marble or stone, are the roundel, which is a 
sort of rounded chisel; the houguet, which 
is a chisel squared and pointed; and various 
compasses to take the requisite measures. 
The process of sculpture in stone is the 
same as in marble, excepting that the ma- 
terial being less hard than marble, the tools 
used are not so strong, and some of them are 
of a different form, as" the rasp, the hand-saw, 
the ripe, the straight chisel with three teeth, 
the roundel, and the grater. 
If the work is executed in free-stone, tools 
are employed which are made on purpose, as 
the free-stone is apt to scale, and does not 
work like hard stone or marble. 
Sculptors in stone have commonly a bowl , 
in which they keep a powder composed of 
plaister of Paris, mixed with the.same stone in 
which their work is executed. W itb this 
composition thev fill up the small holes, and 
Yo\. u: ‘ 1 
sculpture, 
repair tire defects which they meet with in 
the stone itself. 
HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
AiiHcnt art. 
The art of sculpture is of such immemo- 
rial antiquity, that it has been by some con- 
ceived to have had its being from eternity ; 
but without regarding it in this exalted light, 
St. Augustin has attributed a date to its in- 
vention as early as the time of the Protoplast, 
our common father Adam, who, he affirms, 
was the inventor of letters. Sculpture, there- 
fore, may trace its pedigree from the infancy 
of the world, and contend for pre-eminence 
with the most remote antiquities which it has 
been employed to celebrate. Josephus, Ce- 
drenus, and some other authors, make men- 
tion of some antediluvian sculptures in stone 
and brick erected at Joppa, which are ima- 
gined to have contained the system of sidereal 
and celestial sciences, and to have remained 
unhurt for some thousands of years after the 
universal cataclysm. 
Cham, who is supposed to be the same as 
Zoroaster, is spoken of by the author of the 
scholastic work on Genesis, as having en- 
graved the liberal arts on fourteen columns, 
seven of brass, and seven of brick. Serenus 
also mentions the same circumstance, with 
this variation, that he says they were en- 
graved on plates of different metals (diver- 
sorum metallorum laminis). 
Concerning the art of sculpture imme- 
diately after the Flood, it is scarcely to be 
questioned that it was transmitted by Noah 
to his descendants. About three hundred 
years after the Deluge, Mercurius Trisme- 
gistus reports of himself, that he engraved 
his most abstruse mysteries on stone, reform- 
ing all that had been depraved by Cham. 
Some of these records were in letters, some 
in figures and enigmatical characters, pro- 
bably not unlike to those contained in the 
stupendous obelisks erected by Misra, the 
first Egyptian Pharaoh, about four hundred 
years (according to Kircher) before Moses. 
The first mention that is made of tiie art of 
sculpture in the writings of Moses, is in the 
book of Genesis, where we are informed that 
when Jacob, in obedience to the divine com- 
mand, was returning to Canaan, his wife 
Rachel carried along with her the thera- 
phim,.or idols, of her father’s house. These 
must certainly have been very small images, 
since Rachel found it so easy to conceal them 
from her father, notwithstanding his anxious 
search; but we are ignorant in what form 
they were made, or of what materials they 
were composed. The first persons mentioned 
in the Bible as artists, are Aholiab and Be- 
zaleel, who formed the? cherubim which co- 
vered the mercy-seat, and wrought the orna- 
ments of the pectoral to be worn by the high 
priest. 
As Chaldea, therefore, was the first peo- 
pled region of the earth after the Flood, and 
as it appears from various accounts that the 
art of engraving upon bricks baked in the 
sun was there carried to a considerable degree 
of perfection at a very early period, it ap- 
pears highly probable that the Chaldeans de- 
rived the rudiments of the art of sculpture 
immediately from their antediluvian an- 
cestors. 
The origin of idolatrous worship is gene- 
rally thought to be (Drived from images first 
4 L 
03 y 
made to preserve ihe memory of the dead, 
and, in process of time, converted I y the 
flatterers of great men into objects of ado- 
ration. This also affords presumptive evi- 
dence that the Chaldeans were the first whtr 
invented the art of hewing blocks of wood 
and stone into the figures of men and other 
animals; for the Chaldeans were unques-s 
tionably the first idolaters, and their early 
progress in sculpture is confirmed by the 
united testimonies of Berosus, Alexander, 
Polyhistor, Apollodorus, and Pliny. 
Against this conclusion some plausible 
arguments have been urged on the authority 
ot a theory established by a French writer, 
who maintains that in the year of the world 
1949, about 300 years after the Deluge, the 
Scythians under Brouma, a descendant of 
Magog, extended their conquests over the 
greater part of Asia ; and that Brouma was 
not only the civilizer of India, and the author 
of the Braminical doctrines, but also diffused 
the principles of the Scythian mythology over 
Egypt, Phoenicia, Greece, and the continent 
of Asia. 
Leaving the consideration of this question, 
as too extensive for our present purpose, we 
shall endeavour to trace the progress of the 
art of sculpture through some other nations 
of antiquity, till we bring it to Greece, where 
it was carried to the highest perfection to 
which it has yet attained. 
Phoenicia, in the immediate vicinity of 
Chaldea, must necessarily have very early 
acquired a knowledge of sculpture. The 
Phoenicians possessed both a character and 
situation highly favourable to the cultivation 
of this art. They beheld the most beautiful 
models in their own persons, and their in- 
dustrious character qualified them to attain 
perfection in every art for which they had a 
taste. But as their situation raised a spirit 
of commerce, it is at all times questionable 
whether commerce induced them to cultivate 
the arts. Their temples shone with statues 
and columns of gold, and a profusion of 
emeralds were every where scattered; but 
the beauties of art do not consist in finery or 
ostentation of wealth. The greatest works 
of the Phoenicians have been unfortunately 
destroyed; many Carthaginian models in- 
deed are still preserved, ten of which were 
deposited in the cabinet of the grand duke 
of Florence. But though the Carthaginians 
were a colony of Phoenicians, we should pro- 
bably deduce from their works a very unfair 
estimate ofthe merit of their ancestors. 
Very high pretensions to antiquity of every 
kind are made by the Persians ; but we do 
not find that they ever made any distinguish- 
ed figure in either of the arts of sculpture or 
painting. They were indeed sensible to the 
charms of beauty, but they did not sludv to 
imitate them. Their dress, which consisted 
of long flowing robes, concealing the whole 
person, prevented them from attending to the 
beauties of form. Their religion too, which 
taught them to worship the divinity in the 
emblem of fire, and that it was impious to 
represent him under a human form, seemed 
almost to prohibit the exercise of this art, b_v 
taking away the strongest incentives to art 
during the reign of superstition ; and as it 
was not customary among them to raise 
statues to great men, it was impossible that 
statuary could flourish in Persia 
