“O lad! O lad!” exclaimed the painter, with a loud laugh, “you have fairly brought yourself into a dilemma at last, dear doctor; for it is well known that your ancient Greek and Roman artists knew nothing at all of the matter, in comparison with our modern masters; for this good reason, because they had but three or four colours, and knew not how to paint with oil: besides, which of all your old fusty Grecians would you put upon a footing with the divine Raphael, the most excellent Michael Angelo, Bona Roti, the graceful Guido, the bewitching Titian, and above all others, the sublime Rubens, the--.” He would have proceeded with a long catalogue of names which he had got by heart for the purpose, without retaining the least idea of their several qualifications, had not he been interrupted by his friend, whose indignation being kindled by the irreverence with which he mentioned the Greeks, he called him blasphemer, Goth, Boeotian, and, in his turn, asked with great vehemence, which of those puny moderns could match with Panaenus of Athens, and his brother Phidias; Polycletus of Sicyon; Polygnotus, the Thracian; Parrhasius of Ephesus, surnamed Abrodiaitos, or the Beau; and Apelles, the prince of painters? He challenged him to show any portrait of these days that could vie with the Helen of Zeuxis, the Heraclean; or any composition equal to the Sacrifice of Iphigenia, by Timanthes, the Sicyonian; not to mention the Twelve Gods of Asclepiodorus, the Athenian, for which Mnason, tyrant of Elatea, gave him about three hundred pounds apiece; or Homer's Hell, by Nicias, who refused sixty talents, amounting to upwards of eleven thousand pounds, and generously made a present of it to his own country. He desired him to produce a collection equal to that in the temple of Delphos, mentioned in the “Ion” of Euripides; where Hercules and his companion Iolaus, are represented in the act of killing the Lernaean hydra with golden sickles, kruseais harpais, where Bellerophon appears on his winged steed, vanquishing the fire-breathing chimera, tan puripneousan; and the war of the giants is described. Here Jupiter stands wielding the red-hot thunderbolts, keraunon amphipuron; there Pallas, dreadful to the view, Gorgopon, brandishes her spear against the huge Euceladus; and Bacchus, with slender ivy rods, defeats and slays the ges teknon, or the mighty son of earth.