I shall leave it to others to decide whether Mr. Lock, in these observations, spoke like a man of taste: I am sure he spoke like a father. I have sensibility to feel the beauty and justness of the remark, though I had not the ingenuity to make it. It is disputed whether this groupe was formed from Virgil’s description of the death of Laocoon and his sons, or the description made from the groupe; it is evident, from their minute resemblance, that one or other must have been the case. The Poet mentions a circumstance, which could not be represented by the sculptor; he says that, although every other person around sought safety by flight, the father was attacked by the serpents, while he was advancing to the assistance of his sons— —auxilio subeuntem ac tela ferentem. This deficiency in the sculptor’s art would have been finely supplied by the improvement which Mr. Lock proposed. Reflecting on the dreadful condition of three persons entangled in the horrid twinings of serpents, and after contemplating the varied anguish so strongly expressed in their countenances, it is a relief to turn the eye to the heavenly figure of the Apollo. To form an adequate idea of the beauty of this statue, it is absolutely necessary to see it. With all the advantages of colour and life, the human form never appeared so beautiful; and we never can sufficiently admire the artist, who has endowed marble with a finer expression of grace, dignity, and understanding, than ever were seen in living features. In the forming of this inimitable figure, the artist seems to have wrought after an ideal form of beauty, superior to any in nature, and which existed only in his own imagination. The admired statue of Antinous is in the same Court. Nothing can be more light, elegant, and easy; the proportions are exact, and the execution perfect. It is an exquisite representation of the most beautiful youth that ever lived. The statue of Apollo represents something superior, and the emotions it excites are all of the sublime cast. LETTER XLVII. Rome.