in the beginnings of painting, might be confirmed from the fate of the first practitioners in every art. Both the works and the genius of the first sculptors, were despised in afterages, while Polycletus, Phidias, Euphranor, and others, who, improving on their effays, rofe to excellence, were held in veneration (y), Scarce one of the pocts who preceded Homer, is mentioned by ancient authors (z). No work of any tragedian older than Æfchylus, has been thought worth preferving; and though the name of Thefpis is not forgotten, he is mentioned rather with contempt for the () Quis enim eorum, qui hæc minora animadvertunt, non intelligit, Canachi figna rigidiora effe, quam ut imitentur veritatem? Calamidis dura illa quidem, fed tamen molliora quam Canachi. Nondum Myronis faris ad veritatem adducta, jam tamen quæ non dubites pulchra dicere. Pulchriora etiam Polycleti, et jam plane perfecta, ut mihi quidem videre folent. Cic. Brut.-Phidiæ fimulacris, quibus nihil in illo genere perfectius videmus. Orat. Nani duriora et Tufcanicis prox ima Calon atque Egefias, jam minus rigida Calamis, molliora adhuc fupra dictis Myron lecit. 1 iligentia et decor in Polycleo fuper cæteros.-At que Polycleto defuerunt, Phidi arque Alcameni dantur. Phidias tamen diis quam hominibus efficiendis melior artifex traditur: in ebore vero longe citra zmulum. QUINT. Inft. Orat. lib. xii. cap. 1o. Euphranorem admirandum facit, quod et cæteris optimus ftudiis inter præcipuos, et pingendi hngendique idem mirus artifex fuit. Ibid. See alfo PLIN. Nat. Hijt. lib. xxxiv. cap. 8. lib. xxxv. çap. 11. (E) Nec dubitari debet, quin fuerint ante Homerum poeta, quod ex eis carminibus intelligi poteft, quæ apud illum, et in Phracum, et in procorum epulis canuntur. Cic. Brut. rudeness rudeness of his effays, than with esteem, as the inventor of the drama («). It is acknowleged that the Greeks received the beginnings of their knowlege in philosophy and mathematics, from the Egyptians; but there is reason to suspect, that among the Egyptians, these sciences were in a very imperfect ftate: it is certain that the earliest Greek philofophers learned, in Egypt, only the first elements of mathematics. In Greece, the sciences made rapid progress, and reached a very high degree of improvement. If the Egyptians were the inventors, this proves them to be ingenious; but the Greeks shewed themselves to poffefs fuperiour genius, and are acknowleged to have poffeffed it, for greater invention was neceffary for the perfection to which they rofe. (Arts and sciences have been known to the Chinese for many ages, held in the highest veneration, and ftudied with great ardor; yet they have not gone beyond the elements of most of them.) This is an evidence that real genius is not frequent among them. They are defective in (a) Ignotum tragicæ genus inveniffe Camenæ Dicitur, et plauftris vexiffe poemata Thefpis, HOR, Ars Poet, ver, 275. invention; they have fome lucky ideas, but they are incapable of pursuing them. IT is worth while to remark, that fometimes we are neceffarily liable to error in comparing the genius of different authors, from the impoffibility of our afcertaining, in many cafes, the degree of invention which truly belongs to them. At one time we may reckon that original, which is only imitation, or even a fervile copy; at another, what we brand with these epithets of reproach, may be really invention. This circumstance is often of peculiar difadvantage to modern authors; and it leads us, perhaps, to afcribe greater genius to the ancients, than they are entitled to. The former are accused of borrowing from their predeceffors, many principles, fentiments, or images, for which they are indebted folely to their own genius. In the latter, every thing is reckoned original, because we know not, who had occupied it before. We can form no objection against the oldest authors extant, for the works of those who wrote before them, are long fince loft. Ariftotle had not, even in his time, the means of discovering, in every particular, how far Homer owed the perfections of his works, I works, to the leffons of others, and how far to the excellence of his own genius (b). SECT. II. To what Faculty of the Mind, Genius properly' belongs. INCE invention is the infallible crite SIN rion of Genius, we cannot better inveftigate the nature of Genius, than by enquiring, what power of the mind it is, that qualifies a man for invention? Invention is the сараcity of producing new beauties in works of art, and new truths in matters of science; which can be accomplished only by assembling ideas in various pofitions and arrangements, that we may obtain uncommon views of them. Our intellectual powers, fo far as it is neceffary to confider them at prefent, may be reduced to four; Senfe, Memory, Imagination, and Judgment. By recollecting the proper offices of thefe, we fhall be able to determine, from which of them Genius derives its origin. (6) Speaking of the entire unity of Homer's fables, he leaves it undetermined, whether he was directed in this by inftruction, or by his own natural parts: švos die viŋow, ŵ Субм. Перь понят. наф, по SENSE SENSE only perceives those objects which are really exiftent, and actually exhibited to the mind. It can, therefore, lead us to no. difcovery beyond the objects that happen, in the courfe of nature, to occur to it. It cannot carry us a flep farther than the real things. which present themselves to its notice at any. one individual moment. Its fphere is thus by much too narrow, to render it the parent of invention (c). MEMORY is confined to a review of those objects which have once been present to sense. It gives a fort of duration to the perceptions which fenfe has conveyed, but it can create no new perceptions. Like a mirrour, it reflects faithful images of the objects formerly perceived by us, but can exhibit no form with which it is not in this manner fupplied. It is in its nature a mere copier; it preferves scrupulously the very position and arrangement of the original fenfations, and gives us along with this, a perception of their having been at fome past time prefent to the (e) It is obvious that we here use the word sense in an extenfive meaning, fo as to include not only the external fenfes, but also that internal fenfe or consciousness, by which we attend to the operations of our own minds, 'mind. 1 |