——_Cœnæ fercula nostræ_ _Malim convivis quam placuisse coquis._ II. There appears, in almost every line of yours, the most passionate attachment to antiquity; which perhaps I shall convince you of, by the following remarks. The first particular objection I have to make is against your third page. Remember, however, that my passing by two pages is very generous dealing: _non temere a me_ _Quivis ferret idem:_ Hor. but let us now begin a formal trial. The author talks of certain negligences in the Greek works, which ought to be considered suitably to Lucian’s precepts concerning the Zeus of Phidias: “Zeus himself, not his footstool;”[23] though perhaps he could not be charged with any fault in the foot-stool, but with a very grievous one in the statue. Is it no fault that Phidias made his Zeus of so enormous a bulk, as almost to reach the cieling of the temple, which must infallibly have been thrown down, had the god taken it in his head to rise?[24] To have left the temple without any cieling at all, like that of the Olympian Jupiter at Athens, had been an instance of more judgment[25]. ’Tis but justice to claim an explication of what the author means by “negligences”. He perhaps might be pleased to get a passport, even for the faults of the ancients, by sheltering them under the authority of such titles; nay, to change them into beauties, as Alcæus did the spot on the finger of his beloved boy. We too often view the blemishes of the ancients, as a parent does those of his children: _Strabonem_ _Appellat pætum pater, & pullum, male parvus_ _Si cui filius est._ Hor. If these negligences were like those wished for in the Jalysus of Protogenes, where the chief figure was out-shone by a partridge, they might be considered as the agreeable negligée of a fine lady; but this is the question. Besides, had the author consulted his interest, he never would have ventured citing the Diomedes of Dioscorides: but being too well acquainted with that gem, one of the most valued, most finished monuments of Greek art; and being apprehensive of the prejudice that might arise against the meaner productions of the ancients, on discovering many faults in one so eminent as Diomedes; he endeavoured to keep matters from being too nearly examined, and to soften every fault into negligence. How! if by argument I shall attempt to shew that Dioscorides understood neither perspective, nor the most trivial rules of the motion of a human body; nay, that he offended even against possibility? I’ll venture to do it, though _incedo per ignes_ _Suppositos cineri doloso._ Hor. And perhaps I am not the first discoverer of his faults: yet I do not remember to have seen any thing relative to them. The Diomedes of Dioscorides is either a sitting, or a rising figure; for the attitude is ambiguous. It is plain he is not sitting; and rising is inconsistent with his action.