ATHENS. 
usm S was one f several, made by 
Middleton, which the author had conveyed for 
him from England to Naples many years before. 
He had only two remaining : and he considered 
them of so much importance to the perfection 
of his designs, that he would willingly have 
purchased more at an equal weight of gold; 
using them only in tracing the outline, and as 
sparingly as possible. The best illustration of 
his remark was in a sight of the outlines he had 
then finished. It might have been said of the 
time he had spent in Athens, as of APELLES, 
" Nulla dies sine lined : " but such was the extra- 
ordinary skill and application shewn in the 
designs he was then completing, that every 
grace and beauty of sculpture, every fair and 
exquisite proportion, every trace of the injuries 
which time had effected upon the building, 
every vein in the marble, were visible in the 
drawing ; and in such perfection, that even the 
nature and qualities of the stone itself might be 
recognised in the contour 1 . He would not hear 
(l) Whoever may hereafter be the possessor of these Drawings, will 
have in the mere outlines (for it is impossible this artist can ever finish 
the collection he has made) a representation of the antiquities and 
beautiful scenery of Greece, inferior to nothing but the actual sight of 
them. Hitherto no Maecenas has dignified himself by any thing 
deserving 
