In these pompous expressions, or such as these, the Italian has given you his idea of a Painter; and though I cannot much commend the style, I must needs say, there is somewhat in the matter. Plato himself is accustomed to write loftily, imitating, as the critics tell us, the manner of Homer; but surely that inimitable poet had not so much of smoke in his writing, though not less of fire. But, in short, this is the present genius of Italy. What Philostratus tells us in the proem of his Figures,[115] is somewhat plainer; and therefore I will translate it almost word for word:—“He who will rightly govern the art of painting, ought of necessity first to understand human nature. He ought likewise to be endued with a genius to express the signs of their passions, whom he represents; and to make the dumb, as it were, to speak. He must yet further understand what is contained in the constitution of the cheeks, in the temperament of the eyes, in the naturalness (if I may so call it) of the eyebrows; and in short, whatsoever belongs to the mind and thought. He, who thoroughly possesses all these things, will obtain the whole; and the hand will exquisitely represent the action of every particular person. If it happen that he be either mad or angry, melancholic or cheerful, a sprightly youth or a languishing lover; in one word, he will be able to paint whatsoever is proportionable to any one. And even in all this there is a sweet error, without causing any shame; for the eyes and minds of the beholders being fastened on objects which have no real being, as if they were truly existent, and being induced by them to believe them so, what pleasure is it not capable of giving? The ancients, and other wise men, have written many things concerning the symmetry which is in the art of painting,—constituting, as it were, some certain laws for the proportion of every member; not thinking it possible for a painter to undertake the expression of those motions which are in the mind, without a concurrent harmony in the natural measure; for that which is out of its own kind and measure, is not received from nature, whose motion is always right. On a serious consideration of this matter, it will be found, that the art of painting has a wonderful affinity with that of poetry; and that there is betwixt them a certain common imagination. For, as the poets introduce the gods and heroes, and all those things which are either majestical, honest, or delightful, in like manner the painters, by the virtue of their outlines, colours, lights, and shadows, represent the same things and persons in their pictures.”