we tee how you yourself practifed them if you be really what you take fo much pains to appear; if your imitations do not hold the third rank, but the fecond after truth, let us fee in yourfelf the model which you depict in your works; fhew us the captain, the legiflator, the fage, whofe portraits you to boldly difplay to us. Greece and all the world celebrate the good actions of great men who poffeffed thofe fublime arts, whofe precepts coft you fo little. Lycurgus gave laws to Sparta, Charondis to Sicily and Italy, Minos to Crete, Solon to us. Is the object the duties of life, the wife government of the houfe, the conduct of a citizen in every station. Thales of Miletta, and the Scythian Anacharfis furnished at once precepts and examples. Are these fame duties to be taught to others, and philofophers and fages to be intituted who practife what they have been taught this was the tak of Zorbafter to the Magii, Pythagoras to his difciples, Lycurgus to his fellow-citizens. But you, Homer, if it be true, that you have excelled in fo many parts; if it be true that you can inftruet men and render them better; if it be true that you unite knowledge with imitation, and learning to words; let us fee thofe works that evince your abilities, the ftates that you have inftituted, the virtues which do you honour, the battles you have gained, the riches that you have acquired. How comes it that you have not fecured crowds of friends, that you have STVOL. X. not been beloved and honoured by all the world? how could it happen that you attracted none but the fingle Cleophilus ? and even here you only nourished ingratitude. What! a Protagoras of Abdera, a Prodicee of Chio, without iffuing from a private fimple life, to convene their cotemporaries around them, to perfuade them to learn from them alone the art of governing their country, their families, and themfelves; and yet fuch wonderful men as a Hefiod, and a Homer, who knew every thing, who could teach every thing to men of their time, to be fo neglected by them as to wander and beg throughout the univerfe, chanting their verfes from city to city like vile balladfingers! In those barbarous ages, when the preffure of ignorance began to be felt, when the want and avidity of knowledge concurred to render every man a little more enlightened than others, ufeful and refpectable; if thefe had been as learned as they appeared to be, if they had poffeffed all the qualities which they fo pompously blazoned, they would have paffed for prodigies; they would have been fought for every one; all would have eagerly puthed forward to have feen them, to poffefs, to keep them and difplay their hofpitality towards them; and thofe who could not have fixed their refidence with them, would rather have followed them all over the earth; than to have loft fo fcarce an opportunity to be inftructed, and become fuch heroes as those they admired*. N by Let Plate does not fay that a man who is ftudious of his intereft and versed in luciative matters, cannot, by the fale of poetry or other means, obtain a great fortune. Let us then agree that all poets, to begin by Homer, do not reprefent us in their pictures the model of virtuous talents, and the qualities of the foul, nor the other objects of the understanding and fenfes which they have not in themfelves, but the images of all thefe objects drawn from foreign objects, and that they do not approach nearer to truth in this, when they offer us the features of a hero or a captain, than a painter who, depicting a geometrician or a workman, who does not confider the art, which he is entirely unacquainted with, but only the colours and figure. Thus are names and words illufive to thofe, who, fenfible of rhyme and harmony, let themselves be charmed by the enchanting art of poetry, and yielding to feduction by the attraction of pleafure, infomuch that they take the images of objects that are unknown, both by them and their authors, for the objects themfelves, and fearful of being difabused of an error which flatters them, either by impofing upon their ignorance, or by those agreeable fenfations with which this error is accompaniedrone? In effect, diveft the most brilliant of thefe pictures of the charms of veries and the foreign ornaments which embellish them; ftrip them of the colouring of poetry and style, and leave nothing but the defign, and with difficulty you will remember it, or if it can be recollected, it will no longer please, refembling thofe children rather pretty than handsome, who embellished with nothing but the flower of youth, lofe with it all their graces, without having loft any of their features. Not only the imitator or author of reprefentation is unacquainted with any thing but the appearance of the thing imitated; but a real knowledge of this thing does not belong even to him who made nit. I fee in this picture thofe horses which drew Hector's cars thefe horfes have harneffes, bits and reins; the filversmith, the blackfmith, the fadler produced these different things, the painter has reprefented them; but, neither the workman who is acquainted with them, nor the painter who delit neates them, knows what they fhould be; it is the equerry or their leader who determines their form by their ufe; it is he alone that can judge whether they are good or bad, and is able to correct their faults. Thus, in every poffible intrument, there are three practical objects to be confidered, namely the ufe, the conftruction, and the imitation. Thefe two latter arts evidently depend upon the firft; and there is nothing imitable in nature, to which the fame distinctions are not applicable.compert f fortune. But there is a great difference between enriching onefelf and becoming illuftrious by the trade of a poet, and the enriching onefelf and being illuftrious by the talents which the poet pretends to teach. It is true, that we might inftance to Plato the example of Tirteus; but he acquitted himself with diftinction, and was rather confidered as an orator than a poet. FAR... from from being capable of pronounc ing upon the qualities of the things that he imitates, that this decifion does not even belong to him who made them. The imitator follows the workman whofe work he copies, the workman follows the artist who knew how to apply the object which he alone can appreciate as well as its imitation. This confirms, that the pictures of poets and painters hold only the third rank after the first model, or truth.id But the poet who has no other judges than an ignorant people whom he endeavours to pleafe, how will he not disfigure the objects he reprefents to Hatter them? He will imitate that which appears fine to the multitude, to without being folicitous whether it is fo in reality. If he defpifes valour, will he have an Achilles for his judge? If he paints artifice, will he have an U lyffesd to reprehend him? Quite the contrary: Achilles and Ulyffes will be his perfonages: Therfites and Dolon his fpectators. To this you will object, that the philofopher is himfelf equally ignorant of many of thofe arts upon which be fpeaks, and that he frequently extends his ideas as far as the poet doth his images. I agree but the philofopher doth not pretend to be acquainted with truth, he is only in fearch of it: he examines, he difcuffes, he extends our views, he even inftructs us whilft he deceives himself; he propofes his doubts as doubts, his conjectures as conjectures, and affirms nothing but what he knows. The philofopher who reafons, fubmits his reafons to our judgment; the poet, or imitator, arrogates to himself the province of a judge. In offering us his is mages; he affirms that they are: conformable to truth; he is, there fore obliged to be acquainted with it, if his art have any reality; in depicting every thing, he lays claim to a knowledge of every thing. The poet is the painter who difplays the image; the philofopher is the architect who draws the plan: the one dare not even approach the object to delineate it, the other measures it before he chalks it out. But, that we may not be deceived by analogical errors, let us endeavour more diftinctly to, difcover with what part, what faculty of our foul poetical imitations have any affinity; and let us previously confider whence arifes the illufion of those of the painter. The fame bodies feen at various diftances do not appear of the fame fize, nor their figures equally fenfible, nor their colours glowing with the fame vivacity. When feen in water they change their appearance: that which was ftraight appears to be broken; the object feems to flow as with the wave; all the conformity of parts is altered when feen through a spherical or hollow glafs with the affiftance of light and fhade, a plain furface is either rendered convex or concave at the will of the painter; his pencil penetrates as deep as the chiffel of the fculptor; and in thofe reliefs which he knows how to delineate upon canvas, the touch, deceived by the fight, leaves us doubtful by which we are to determine." All thefe errors are, doubtlefs, in the precipitate judgments of the mind. It is the weakness of the human understanding, ever urged to judge without knowledge, that lays us open to all those magical deceptions, whereby optics and mechanics abuse our fenfes. We conclude folely by appear ance, from what we know, upon what we do not know; and our erroneous conclufions are the fource of infinite illufions. and truth. Thus the art of imitation, vile in its nature, and from the faculty of the foul upon which it actuates, muft neceffarily likewife be fo by its productions; at leaft with regard to the material fenfe, which makes us judge of a painter's pictures. Let us now confider the fame art directly applied by the imitations, of the poet to the internal sense, that is, understanding. What means are there to obviate these errors? difquifition and analyfis, fufpenfion of judgment, the art of menfuration, weighing, calculating, are the aids furnished to man to verify the reports of the fenfes, that he may not judge of what is great or little, fpherical or cubical, rare or compact, dif. tant or near, by what appears so to be, but by what numbers, measure, and weight, afcertain to be fuch. Comparifon, judgment, the affinity difcovered by these various operations, inconteftably belong to the reafoning faculty, and this judgment is often contra-opinions, in the fame dictory, with what the appearance of things would induce us to conclude. We have already feen that the fame faculty of the foul cannot adduce contrary conclufions from the fame things, confidered in the fame light. Hence it follows that it is not the most noble of our faculties, namely reafon, but a different and inferior faculty, which judges according to appearance, and yields to the charm of imitation. This is what I meant before to exprefs, by faying that painting, and in general the imitative arts, exerted their influence very diftant from truth, and by uniting with a part of our foul, deftitute of prudence and reafon, and incapable of itself, of having any knowledge of realities The fcene reprefents men acting voluntarily or by force, efteeming their actions good or bad, according to the advantage or evil they expect to derive from them, and who are variously affected through them, with pain or pleasure. Now, for the reafons which have been already affigned, it is impoffible that the man thus reprefented fhould ever be confiftent, with himfelf; and as the appearance and reality of fenfble objects excite in him contrary he estimates variously the objects of his actions, as they are distant or near, conformable or oppofite to his paffions; and his judgment, equally mutable as them, inceffantly renders his defires, his reafon, his will, and all the powers of his foul, in a state of contradiction. The fcene then represents to us all men, and even those who are given to us as models, otherwife affected than they ought to be, to fupport themselves in a state of moderation that is agreeable to them. Let a wife and courageous man lofe his fon, his friend, his mistress, in a word, the object the deareft to his heart; we shall not fee him give way to exceffive and extravagant grief; and if hu man man frailty y will grace, are the works of reafon-; In effect, reafon requires us to fupport adverfity patiently, that its weight fhould not be aggravated by ufelefs complaints; that human things fhould not be etimated beyond their value; that we fhould not by fears exhault thofe powers, which fhould foften it; and, in a word, that we fhould fometimes confider it is impoffible for a man to foresee the future, and to be fufficiently acquainted with himself, to know whether what happens to him is a good or an evil. and In this manner will a judicious prudent man behave, when he falls a prey to ill fortune. He will even endeavour to turn his croffes to account, as a cunning gamefter endeavours to benefit by a bad hand that is dealt to him; without lamenting like a fallen child who weeps upon the ftone he fell againft, he will know how to apply a falutary lancet to his wound, and by bleeding cure it. We must fay therefore that confancy and perfeverance in dif Now it is from this fenfible weak part that the affecting and variegated imitations, which we fee upon the ftage, are derived. The refolute, prudent, and confiftent man is not fo eafily imitated; and if he were, the imitation being lefs variegated, it would not be fo agreeable to the vulgar: they would be but little interested at an image, which did not refemble their own, wherein they could difcover neither their manners nor paffions; the human heart being never ftruck with objects that are entirely foreign to it. Wherefore the judicious poet, and the painter who has difcovered the art of fucceeding, by endeavouring to please the people and the vulgar part of mankind, takes care not to offer them the fublime image of a heart, which is entirely mafter of itself, which liftens only to the voice of wifdom; but he charms the fpectators by characters that are ever inconfiftent, who will and will not, who make the theatre eccho with cries and groans, who compel us to pity them, even when they do their duty, and think that virtue is a fhocking thing, as it renders its votaries fo miferable. By these means, eafy and variegated imitations enable the poet to move and flatter ftill more the fpectators. This cuftom of rendering those perfons, whom we are made to love, fubmit to their paffions, alters and changes in fuch a manN 3 ner |