The masterpiece of this painter was _Jalysus_, an historical piece of a fabulous hero of that name, whom the Rhodians acknowledged as their founder. Protogenes devoted seven years to this picture. When Apelles first saw it, he was so astonished and delighted that he seemed struck dumb: he at length, however, broke out into the warmest commendation: “Prodigious work, indeed! admirable performance! It has not, however, the graces I give my works, and which have raised their reputation to the skies.” Pliny says that whilst Protogenes was working at this picture, he practised the most rigid abstinence, in order that the delicacy of his taste and imagination might not be affected by his diet. This picture was carried to Rome, and consecrated in the Temple of Peace, where it remained in the time of Pliny; but it was destroyed at last by fire. Pliny, indeed, pretends that Rhodes was saved by this picture, because, as it hung in the only quarter by which it was possible for Demetrius to take the city, he rather chose to abandon his conquest than expose so precious a monument of art to the danger of being consumed by the flames. This would appear to be carrying his love of painting to a surprising length; but the incidents we are told of the enthusiastic worship of the Greeks for refinement and taste, if they do not convince us of their own identical truth, at least prove to us the extent to which that love must have been felt by a people who could even invent such. One of the figures of the picture was a dog, much admired by good judges, and which had cost the painter great pains, without his being able to express his idea to his own satisfaction, though pleased with the rest of the work. His wish was to represent the dog panting, and with his mouth foaming, as after a long chase; and yet, with all his skill, he could not content himself: art was more visible than it ought to be. He was desirous that the foam should not appear to be painted, but actually flowing from the mouth of the dog. He frequently retouched it, and suffered a degree of torture from his anxiety to express the simple effects of nature which he had in his mind. All his attempts were in vain, till, in a fit of rage, and with an imprecation, he threw the sponge he was accustomed to wipe his palette with at the picture--and chance accomplished what art had not been able to execute. This painter is censured for being too difficult to be pleased, and for retouching his pictures too frequently. It is certain, that although Apelles almost considered him as his master, and allowed him a number of excellent qualities, yet he condemned in him the defect of not being able to lay down the pencil and consider his work finished. “We ought,” says Cicero, “to know how far we should go: and Apelles justly censured some painters for not knowing when to have done.” THIRD SIEGE, A.D. 1521.