APELLES; who, according to Pliny*, excelled all painters, both before and after him. The delicacy of his colours may be gathered from Cicero's description of the COAN VENUS. "It is not flesh, but like flesh; and that redness diffused and blended with a fair skin, is not blood, but the resemblance of blood." He was in great favor with Alexander. The most celebrated performance of this artist was "the Venus Anadyomene," or rising from the sea; and, on account of this picture, a tribute of 100+ talents, £.19,635, was remitted by the Athenians to his native Isle of Cos.

APELLES made a voyage to Rhodes to see the Painter PROTOGENES. Calling at his house, he found only an old woman, who took care of the paintings, and seizing a brush, he drew a simple outline over a half finished picture. Protogenes, upon his return, exclaimed that

* Lib. 35. Omnes prius genitos futurosque excellit, Strabo. Lib, 14.

Apelles had been there; and forming a still more delicate line by that of Apelles, bade his servant shew it the stranger, if he came again. The Coan, impatient of a superior, drew a third line, which exceeded the former, and baffled the farther powers of art. Pliny says these three outlines (lineæ) almost eluding the sight, were long preserved in the Capitol at Rome, and more valued than the paintings of the best masters. Before Apelles left Rhodes he inquired the price set on the paintings of Protogenes; and some trifling sum being mentioned, he offered for them fifty talents, about ten thousand pounds of our money, sold them for his own, and thus enhanced the fame of his rival, A long cata

* The reader will recollect a similar circumstance, in our own times: I mean that of Sir Joshua Reynolds purchasing a picture by Gainsborough, and thereby instructing the public in the value to be set on the paintings of that excellent artist. I add another anecdote from La Peinture, poeme, par le Mierre. C'est un usage établi à Rome, de faire mettre en mosaïque dans l'eglise de Saint Pierre, tous les ta

logue of artists might now be named, PRAXITELES in marble, the famous LYSIPPUS* in brass, POLYCLETUS, who made a statue of so just proportion, that it was called "The Rule" and many others, both painters and statuaries, but

bleaux estimés. Le DOMINIQUAIN ayant peint la communion de Saint Jérôme, désira cette distinction, et fit exposer son tableau dans cette eglise, pour être jugé par le public;—mais soit ignorance, soit jalousie, son ouvrage fut méconnu et relégné comme par mépris dans un lieu où il seroit peut-être encore ignoré, sans la franchise du POUSSIN. Ce peintre apprend où est le tableau et demande à la copier: comme il travailloit, le Dominiquain entre pour observer l'impression de son ouvrage sur un artiste habile, se tient derriere lui lie conversation, et développe sur l'art la théorie la plus lumineuse; le Poussin étonné se retourne, le voit les yeux mouillés de larmes; le Dominiquain se nomme, le Poussin jette les pinceaux, se lève et lui baise la main avec transport; il ne se borne pas à cet hommage, il employe tout son crèdit pour réhabiliter le tableau, qui a été copié en mosaïque dans l'eglise de Saint Pierre.

* Edicto vetuit ne quis se, præter Apellem, Pingeret; aut alius Lysippo duceret æra, Fortis Alexandri voltum simulantia.

See Quintilian. Pa. 386. and Pliny.

HOR.

it is sufficient for the present purpose to enumerate those of most note.

IN Italy the Pantheon was erected, or adorned, in the time of Augustus Cæsar, by his son-in-law Agrippa. He, at least, added the admirable portico, scarcely less an object of wonder than the temple itself; consisting of sixteen pillars of oriental granite, each composed of a single stone. The edifice is circular, and receives the light from an aperture in the dome of 29 feet diameter. This is the most magnificent and perfect relic of antiquity preserved to the world.

Mark! how the dread Pantheon stands,
Amidst the domes of meaner hands!
Amidst the toys of idle state,
How simply, how severely great!

BUT the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus on the Tarpeian Rock, was the most superb of the Roman structures. Tarquinius Priscus began it; it was several times demolished and repaired, and pro

bably never appeared in greater lustre than in the time of Julius and Augustus Cæsar. It is said to have covered four acres of ground.

*

THE capture of Corinth by Mummius, about a century before this period, and the consequent subjugation of Greece, was the occasion of introducing a taste for the fine arts among the Romans. Before this time they paid little or no attention to painting or sculpture; and Mummius himself, it is well known, was extremely ignorant in works of art. When, however, Attalus, king of Pergamus in Mysia, offered to redeem of this Roman general the picture of Bacchus, painted by ARISTIDES, for what Pliny calls sexies sestertium, or more than £.4,800; Mummius, imagining there must be some hidden virtue in the piece, refused to part with it. The same monarch, however, redeemed another picture for 100 talents, more than £.19,000.

* See Pliny. Lib. xxxiii. and Suet, in Aug. * Pliny. Lib. vii. 38.

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