In a former Essay I have mentioned the compliment paid to Protogenes by Demetrius, who refused to attack the quarter of the city of Rhodes, where his famous picture of Ialysus then hung. It is of that painting that we are told that accident produced one of its greatest beauties. Protogenes, being anxious to represent the foam from the mouth of one of the overtired dogs, found it so difficult, that, losing patience, he threw his sponge at it. The softness of the sponge just obliterated so much of the form as the foam might naturally have hidden, and the painter, improving the accident, rendered the picture perfect[130]. But Apelles, however he might admire and assist Protogenes, used to find one fault with him, he said he never knew when to have done, and that he sometimes injured his works by over-anxiety. In this matter he preferred himself to his friend, as of better judgment. Yet Apelles was careful beyond what we know of modern painters, as we learn from the well known story of his publicly exhibiting his pictures, and hiding himself behind them, that he might profit by the unrestrained criticism of the multitude. On one occasion, a shoemaker passing, remarked that something was wanting to the sandal of the principal figure. In the evening, Apelles altered the faulty sandal, and when the shoemaker passed the next morning, he was so charmed with the attention paid to his observations, that he extended them farther, and began to find fault with the limbs; upon which, Apelles broke out of his hiding place, exclaiming, “Let not the shoemaker go beyond his last,” which words have passed into a proverb. The most noted work of Apelles was his Venus Anadyomene, which was afterwards carried to Rome, and so greatly injured in the carriage, that it could not be restored. He had undertaken to make a duplicate of this celebrated figure, but died before it was finished, and the imperfect work is said to have been valued as highly as his more perfect paintings, because it was the last thing upon which that skilful hand had rested. In the Greek Anthology there are the following lines of Leonidas, which inform us how the painter had treated the subject: When from the bosom of her parent flood She rose refulgent with the encircling brine, Apelles saw Cytherea’s form divine, And fixed her breathing image, where it stood. Those graceful hands entwined, that wring the spray From her ambrosial hair, proclaim the truth; Those speaking eyes where amorous lightnings play, Those swelling heavens, the harbingers of youth: The rival flowers behold with fond amaze, And yield submission in the conscious gaze.