v. One of the most curious circumstances, in the history of almost every art or science, is to trace the slow and laborious efforts by which they were carried to perfection, to mark the long intervals which separate every advance, and how little was gained by each successive step, to note how the deficiencies of invention are remedied by the efforts of perseverance, and the imperfections of the intellectual atoned for by the excellencies of the moral nature of man. In the paintings of the Mexicans, however, we cannot discover much progress, or indeed that they ever deviated essentially from their original character of mere paintings. Dr. Robertson remarks, that upon an attentive examination of the plates alluded to, we may observe some approach to the plain or simple hieroglyphic, where some leading part, or circumstance in the subject, is made to stand for the whole. In the annals of their kings, published by Purchas, the towns conquered by each are uniformly represented in the same manner by a rude delineation of a house; but, in order to point out the particular towns which submitted to their victorious arms, peculiar emblems, sometimes natural objects, and sometimes artificial figures, are employed. In the tribute roll, published by the Archbishop of Toledo, the house which was properly the picture of the town is omitted, and the emblem alone is employed to represent it. After the material addition that has been made to our hieroglyphical knowledge, by the instrumentality of the Rosetta Inscriptions, it would be curious to ascertain if all or any of these emblems were phonetic, and contained the Mexican name of the city or town. One of the most obvious modes of designating any particular place, is to delineate the natural production for which it is most remarkable. If a Mexican painter, for instance, had wished to convey an idea of Tadmor in the Desert, he would perhaps have added a palm tree to the character employed to denote city; but no Roman could have pronounced the name of that emblem, or natural object, palma, without at the same time pronouncing also the second name of the city, Palmyra, and the same observation will apply to a host of other places. The Mexicans appear to have made some advances beyond this, and, in a few particular instances, to have made use of the more figurative and fanciful hieroglyphic. In order to describe a monarch who had enlarged his dominions by force of arms, they painted a target ornamented with darts, and placed it between him and those towns which he subdued, but, generally speaking, they made few attempts to convey any idea of qualities, either moral or intellectual, and restricted all their efforts to the delineation of the visible, the tangible, and the material. (Robertson's America, book vii.) VI. To be convinced of the extreme imperfection of this Mexican picture writing, and of the very limited degree of information that is or can in the nature of things be conveyed by it, we have only to reflect on the restricted powers of the art, in its most advanced state. The imitations of every particular picture, however perfect, are limited to a moment of time, the necessary consequence of which is, that it conveys a very imperfect notion of the causes which produced, or the consequences which resulted from, the action delineated. The three unities of action, time, and place, which the ancient drama so rigidly prescribed, and the modern has so rarely observed, the painter can never by any effort escape from. He can denote the succession of time, only by a series of pictures, and the number of the latter must keep exact pace with the moments of delineation of the former. Such a series, arranged in a chronological order, may convey some very imperfect idea of the relations of cause and effect; but we can never be quite confident at which end we are to begin, except from some information extraneous to the series itself. If painted in fresco on a wall the arrangement cannot easily be disturbed, until they are cut out of the wall, and transferred to canvas, a process with which we are now perfectly familiar; but supposing such a series painted on paper, and arranged in portfolios, the chronology of an empire is as liable to be disturbed as the leaves of the Sibyl; and one cannot but conjecture that that of Egypt, India, and China has suffered by some such untoward accident. "Insanam Vatem aspicies; quæ rupe sub ima VII. To be convinced how much previous knowledge the art of painting supposes and requires in the spectator, and how very inconsiderable is the addition made to that stock by the artist, let us consider how much we should have brought away from the contemplation of the Sistine Chapel, the Camere of the Vatican, or the Cartoons, if we had not gone with minds prepared, but trusted entirely to the paintings themselves to tell their own story, and make their own impression; and yet these are unquestionably among the most gigantic efforts and splendid triumphs of art. In another instance, how false is the impression conveyed by the last work of perhaps the very greatest genius the art of painting has ever produced, the Transfiguration of Raphael! If judged of by the three unities of action, time, and place, from which it is as difficult for the painter to escape, as for the dramatist to submit to, the composition is faulty every way; as there are two distinct actions, the Transfiguration of Christ, and the Miracle of the Demoniac Boy; two distinct places, the summit of the mountain, and the plain "The mad prophetic Sibyl you shall find DRYDEN'S Virgil. below; and two distinct times, while Jesus was in the Mount, and after he had descended from it. It is possible, however, to form such a conception of the subject as that the unities shall not be violated. We are informed (Matthew, xvii. 16.) that the disciples had been unable to heal the boy, and we may suppose that this unsuccessful attempt exactly coincided with the moment of Christ's Transfiguration, that the former took place at the bottom, and the latter at the top of the mountain; and that the artist intended to represent not simply how Christ was employed, but the other nine Apostles also, Peter, James, and John being with him; and we preserve the unities, and repel the charge which has been brought against Raphael, that the Transfiguration contains two perfectly distinct pictures in the same frame. The probability, however, is, that Raphael was determined to paint the Transfiguration, though perfectly aware, as he could hardly have failed to be, that it was in many respects an unfavourable subject for his art. Unless the top of the mountain had occupied the top of the picture he would have failed in giving an idea of its elevation. If he had confined himself to the representation of the Transfiguration solely, not only would all the light have been concentrated in the top of the picture, but the bottom would have been absolutely without subject, two grievous violations of the great laws of Chiaro-scuro and Composition. The former circumstance was incident to the very nature of the subject, and has always appeared a fault to every judicious critic; but by introducing the Demoniac Boy, and the other disciples at the bottom of the picture, Raphael redeemed his composition, and by regarding the moment of the unsuccessful attempt at healing as identical with that of the Transfiguration, which the 16th verse left him at liberty to do, he gave unity to the top and bottom of his picture, and rendered the subject one and harmonious. 2. Figurative, or Proper Hieroglyphics. VIII. We have seen the limited range of picture writing, that it could do no more than delineate external events, and that very imperfectly, that is, was incapable of exhibiting their relations and connections, of describing such qualities as were not visible to the eye, and of conveying any idea of the virtues, the vices, or the disposition of mankind;except so far as they are expressed by the countenance. Warburton regards the Hieroglyphics of the Egyptians as of three kinds, viz. 1. The first was to make the principal circumstance in the subject stand for the whole, and when they would describe a battle, for instance, or two armies in array to paint two hands, one holding a shield and the other a bow; when a tumult, or popular insurrection, an armed man casting arrows; when a siege, a scaling ladder. This was very little more than an abridged picture writing, which lost in clearness more than was gained by the saving of time. To those who were not informed of the circumstances to which these contractions alluded they must have been unintelligible; to those who were informed, useless; and no attempt was yet made to represent any thing beyond external objects, or visible appearances. 2. The second method, was by putting the instrument of the thing, whether real or metaphorical, for the thing itself. An eye, for example, eminently placed, was designed to represent God's omniscience; an eye and a sceptre to represent a monarch; a sword their cruel tyrant Ochus; and a ship and pilot, the governor of the universe. 3. The third method was to make one thing stand for or represent another, where any point of resemblance or analogy in the representative could be collected from their observations of nature, or their traditional superstitions. Of these three sorts of hieroglyphics, Warburton denominates the first Curiologic, the second Tropical, and the third Symbolic. As the classes are not very clearly discriminated, we may reasonably doubt, not merely the accuracy of the division, but whether there are any grounds and materials in existence for making it more so. IX. Of the numerous instances of interpretations, or pretended interpretations of the hieroglyphics of Egypt, it may |