[105] No one can be more sensible than I am of the great merits of the modern German artists. Yet I think they have carried their admiration of the ancients to excess in some points, and I cannot but consider the outlines of Riepenhausen, intended to illustrate the descent of Ulysses, by Polygnotus, a proof of it. Surely a German should have looked at Hemelink, and at the history of St. Paul, at Augsburg, by the elder Holbein, where he would have found that a double story, or even one of many parts, can be treated without violating common sense, or the rules of painting. [106] Olymp. 93. [107] Holland’s Translation, b. xxxv. [108] Pliny, b. xxxv. ch. 10. [109] See Fuseli’s first lecture. [110] B. iv. Ode 8. [111] Institutes, b. xii. ch. 10. [112] Ælian. [113] This picture was at Lindos in Pliny’s time. [114] It is a pity that this anecdote has come down to us bald as it is, because it seems to infer that the lowest kind of excellence was what these great men aimed at, that is, mere deceptive imitation. But we should remark that we have not the writings of a single painter or artist of any kind preserved, and that the relators of the story were notoriously ignorant of art. It is impossible that the painter of the Helen of Agrigentum, and he who conceived the Demos of Athens, could have had such narrow views of art. [115] Institutes, b. xii. ch. 10. [116] I cannot help subjoining, as a note, Lucian’s description of one of the pictures of Zeuxis:--“I will tell you a story of Zeuxis. That famous painter seldom chose to handle trite or common subjects, such as heroes, gods, and battles, but always endeavoured to strike out something new, and exerted all his art and skill upon it. Amongst other things, he painted a female centaur, with two young ones; there is an exact copy of it now at Athens; the original was said to have been sent into Italy, by Sylla, the Roman general, and lost at sea, with the whole cargo, somewhere, I believe, near Malta. The copy, however, 1 have seen, and will describe to you; not that I pretend to be a judge of pictures, but because, when I saw it in a painter’s collection there, it made a strong impression on me, and I perfectly recollect every part of it.