more antient times with regard to merit ; it was distinguished indeed and rewarded, but with extreme capriciousness. In the Athenian republic, at the period of their greatest refinement and opulence, they who discharged the honourable and important functions of ambassadors to foreign states, enjoyed no nobler recompence than two drachmæ a day. Contrasted with this mean parsimony, what can have been more magnificent in design, more liberal in the disposition, or more costly in the gift, than the profusion lavished by superstition, or by ambition, on oracles, priests, and temples? -Reflect but for a moment on the donations made by Croesus to the various oracles of Greece; or the monuments of art, and ornaments of value, possessed by the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, and the mind is lost in wonder and astonishment, To specify one example only: Croesus, to demonstrate his gratitude to the divinity of Delphi, or rather perhaps to reward those whose sagacity and subtlety, anticipating what followed, gave such

oracular communication as they knew to be wanted, constructed one immense pile of golden goblets, cars decorated with gold and silver, with other splendid and valuable materials, and then set fire to the whole, in honour of the oracle. Of the mass of gold which ran together from this process, he made one hundred and seventeen tiles of gold of different sizes and purity; none of which however weighed less than one talent and a half. Upon these tiles he placed a lion of pure gold, which weighed ten talents. sent also two large cisterns, one of gold, and one of silver, the statue of a woman, in solid gold, three cubits high, with a multitude of other things of such extraordinary value, that it would be no easy task to give their actual amount in money of our country.

He

THE inference to be drawn from the above fact is this;-that as art must have made great progress in those very remote times, which is implied by the statues of the female, the lion, and the tiles of

gold; there must have existed a proportionable disposition to encourage and reward the merits of artists.-Of the skill of antient artists in every branch, many remarkable tales are told:-they occur in Pliny, in Athenæus, Pausanias, and other writers of antient times. They occur in Pancirollus, and a multitude of more modern compilers; and many also have been brought together by Dutens, in his ingenious and useful work on the discoveries of the antients attributed to the moderns. It may perhaps be sufficient to adduce an example;-It is related by Pliny of Theodorus of Samos.

It was this Theodorus who constructed the celebrated Labyrinth at Samos; but he was no less famous for having made a representation of himself in brass, which must ever be considered as a prodigious effort of genius.-The statue was acknowledged to be a strong resemblance of the artist. He held in his right hand a file: with three fingers of his left hand he held a carriage drawn by four horses;

but the carriage, the horses and the driver, were all so exceedingly minute, that the whole was covered by the wings of a fly.

HITHERTO We have considered only our proposed subject, with respect to Greece, where indeed our materials seem almost inexhaustible.-What must have been the state of arts, and what the proud and lofty feelings of artists most distinguished for their genius, when we read of Alexander the Great, that he forbad any painter but Apelles to attempt to give his picture; or any statuary but Lysippus to represent him in marble. It is more than probable, that both these men considered so honourable a reservation in their favour, the noblest recompence of their talents, as it was the surest testimony of their excellence.-Pericles, most probably, when crowned with two sprigs of olive, in the Forum at Athens, as the most meritorious of his fellow citizens, felt an emotion of triumph, far beyond the power of gold, or splendour of riches, to compensate. What prouder reward of merit can be pourtrayed than Archi

gem,

medes received at the siege of Syracuse! In vain had Marcellus used every strataand every power of military engines. His menace was despised, and all his attempts frustrated. Yet did the lofty Roman strictly enjoin, that no violence should be offered to the man, whose knowledge and whose skill so long and so effectually protracted his victory.

I SHALL, in a succeeding number make a transition to other countries, examine what was the retribution, and what the connexion, between genius and patronage; and conclude with some remarks as to encouragement of art and science, given at the present period among ourselves.

I add the following letter respecting the FLY-FLAP.