\ 
— 
MONTHLY 
T 
MAGAZINE. 
No. 98.] + 
MARCH 1, 1803. 
[No. 2, of Vou. 13. 
a en 
ona 
ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, < 
> your Literary and Philofophical In- 
telligence for the month of December, 
I fee announced the figures of Homer, 
defigned after the antique by H. G. Tilch- 
bein, x vol. folio. After defcribing which, 
at page 440, itis faid—** Mr. Tifchbein 
has been accufed, but on flight grounds, 
of embellifhing the monuments which he 
copied, of idealizing them, and beftowing 
en them an expreffion which they really 
had not.—This charge would be a high 
encomium for a modern artift, who could 
thus be prefumed to have more of a cor- 
rect genius than his mafters; but thofe, 
who {peak thus, have no idea of the in- 
finite care that Tifchbein and his bef pn- 
pilsdave exerted in the copying of all the 
monuments, which he gives us with the 
true {pirit of the antique : adefign having 
been often begun five times over, and all 
pofible means ufed to procure the moit 
exact copies, &c.” 
Now, Sir, as this accufation or charge 
alludes to what I have written, and put 
my name to (as I ever fhall do to every 
thing I write on this or any other fubject), 
I muft beg leave, firft, to give you the ex- 
preflions £ ufed, and, next, my reafons 
for ufing them, that the public may judge 
between me and the writer of that para- 
graph, as well as be guarded againft fo- 
femn puffs from the fupporters of a na- 
tional fchog]l, that would have degraded 
our ftage, deftroyed our tafte for poetry, 
and are now attempting to Germanize the 
ideas of the Greeks, though fure, at the 
fame time, to miflead our artifts. 
What I faid was in page fixreen of my 
Thoughts on Outline‘ What thall we fay 
to the ftate of the arts in 1795, when 
profteffed artifts, and profefled dilettanti, | 
have difcovered fo very unmathematical 
an idea of form in general, as to publith 
works copied from the ancients, or in- 
vented in their ftyle, with outlines, thick 
and thin alternately, like the flourifhes 
ofa penman, &c.”—and here, by the by, 
Jet me remark that, by the words ¢¢ in- 
vented in their ftyle,”” I alluded folely to 
a work of a very fuperior caft, not copies, 
but the original defigns of that ingenious 
artift, Mr. Flaxman, his Homer and Ef- 
MONTHLY Mae. No. 98. 
chylus; and never meant or thought i€ 
could be applied as you fee above, for 
thefe were my words—‘‘ In making this 
obfervation, I do not f{cruple to fay that 
I allude to two books lately publithed, 
the very tafteful Homer and Efchylus of 
Mr. Flaxman, and the laft volume of Sir 
William Hamilton's Grecian Vafes (which 
in fa& contained many fpecimens of the 
Greek Homeric vafes, of which your 
writer is fo partial in the praife.) This 
laft volume, fo long expected, fo earneftly 
defired, feems to have given a death’s 
blow to all hope of ever feeing a faithful 
tracing of any antique defign: on copver- 
plate; for all the money expended incom- 
pleating it has been worfe than thrown 
away, and Mr. Tifchbein has prefented 
us with a heavy tranflation of thefe Greek 
vafes, finely flourifhed, but materially un- 
like the originals, if proportion, charac- 
ter of heads, ftyle of hair, or flow of 
drapery, were confidered as worth pre- 
ferving ; and when this volume is intro- 
duced to us by one,* who is not only a 
paffionate admirer, buat a real judge of 
ancient workmanfhip, as molt of his col- 
lections have proved, it becomes doubly 
dangerous; efpecially when we are told: 
by himfelf, that no pains have been {pared 
to make it fo correét, that artifts may 
ftudy thefe outlines with as much fatisfac- 
tion as.if they had the originals before 
them; and that the chief cbjeét of their 
publication was to ferve the fine arts, to 
further which purpofe many of them were 
drawn two or three times over. If fuch 
were really his intentions, the lovers of 
the art have only to drop a tear, and to 
hope that the fault arofe from our am- 
baffador’s having been too much occupied 
to have been able'to beftow on them more 
than his wifhes; for I, who am alfo too 
paffionate a lover of thefe arts, to ftand 
by and fee them injured, hold it to bea 
duty incumbent on me to fay, that who- 
ever confiders them in the light there re- 
prefented will be lamentably mifled.”” 
Such were the plain obfervations which 
they have been pleafed to convert into a 
panegyric ; fuch indeed as none but aman 
who had long dedicated himfelf to truth, 
nn a ee at a aa . 
* Sir William Hamilton. | 
3) in 
