“For both those arts that they might advance,” &c. Poetry, by its hymns and anthems; and Painting, by its statues, altar-pieces, and by all those decorations which inspire respect and reverence for our sacred mysteries, have been serviceable to religion. Gregory of Nice, after having made a long and beautiful description of Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac, says these words:—“I have often cast my eyes upon a picture, which represents this moving object, and could never withdraw them without tears. So well did the picture represent the thing itself, even as if the action were then passing before my sight.” [*†24.] “So much these divine arts have been always honoured,” &c. “The greatest lords, whole cities, and their magistrates of old, (says Pliny, lib. xxxv.) took it for an honour to obtain a picture from the hands of those great ancient painters.” But this honour is much fallen of late amongst the French nobility: and if you will understand the cause of it, Vitruvius will tell you, that it comes from their ignorance of the charming arts, “_Propter ignorantiam artis, virtutes obscurantur_;” (in the Preface to his Fifth Book.) Nay more, we should see this admirable art fall into the last degree of contempt, if our mighty monarch, who yields in nothing to the magnanimity of Alexander the Great, had not shown as much love for painting as for valour in the wars; we daily see him encouraging this noble art, by the considerable presents which he makes to his chief painter.[143] And he has also founded an academy for the progress and perfectionating of painting, which his first minister[144] honours with his protection, his care, and frequent visits; insomuch that we might shortly see the age of Apelles reviving in our country, together with all the beauteous arts, if our generous nobility, who follow our incomparable king with so much ardour and courage in those dangers, to which he exposes his sacred person, for the greatness and glory of his kingdom, would imitate him in that wonderful affection, which he bears to all who are excellent in this kind. Those persons, who were the most considerable in ancient Greece, either for birth or merit, took a most particular care, for many ages, to be instructed in the art of painting; following that laudable and profitable custom, begun and established by the great Alexander, which was to learn how to design. And Pliny, who gives testimony to this, in the tenth chapter of his thirty-fifth book, tells us farther, (speaking of Pamphilius, the master of Apelles,) “That it was by the authority of Alexander, that, first at Sicyon, and afterwards through all Greece, the young gentlemen learned, before all other things, to design upon tablets of boxen-wood; and that the first place, among all the liberal arts, was given to painting.” And that which makes it evident, that they were very knowing in this art, is the love and esteem which they had for painters. Demetrius gave