From these observations on the collateral and unsolicited beauties which must branch out from the primary expression of every great idea, it will not, I hope, be suspected, that I mean to invalidate the necessity of its unity, or to be the advocate of pedantic subdivision. All such division diminishes, all such mixtures impair the simplicity and clearness of expression: in the group of the Laocoon, the frigid ecstasies of German criticism have discovered pity like a vapour swimming on the father's eyes; he is seen to suppress in the groan for his children the shriek for himself,--his nostrils are drawn upward to express indignation at unworthy sufferings, whilst he is said at the same time to implore celestial help. To these are added the winged effects of the serpent-poison, the writhings of the body, the spasms of the extremities: to the miraculous organization of such expression, Agesander, the sculptor of the Laocoon, was too wise to lay claim. His figure is a class, it characterizes every beauty of virility verging on age; the prince, the priest, the father are visible, but, absorbed in the man, serve only to dignify the victim of _one_ great expression; though poised by the artist, for us to apply the compass to the face of the Laocoon, is to measure the wave fluctuating in the storm: this tempestuous front, this contracted nose, the immersion of these eyes, and above all, that long-drawn mouth, are separate and united, seats of convulsion, features of nature struggling within the jaws of death. FOOTNOTES: [3] Abstract of the Laws of the Royal Academy, article _Professors_; page 21. [4] This has been done in a superior manner by J. G. Herder, in his _Ideen zur Philosophie der geschichte der Menschheit_, Vol. iii. Book 13; a work translated under the title of _Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man_, 4to. [5] This account is founded on the conjectures of Mr. _Riem_, in his Treatise on _die Malerey der Alten_, or the _Painting of the Ancients_, 4to. Berlin, 1787. [6] Pausanias Attic. c. xxviii. The word used by Pausanias καταγραψαι, shows that the figures of Parrhasius were intended for a Bassorelievo. They were in profile. This is the sense of the word _Catagrapha_ in Pliny, xxxv. c. 8, he translates it "obliquas imagines."