knew the [n] art of colouring metals by fire, or by their mixtures; this is an evident imitation of painting: it is, befide, a refinement; and speaks the art, not in its infancy, but at full growth. If we allow then in this cafe, the fame fpace of time, to bring it from its birth to its perfection, which every other art, though of lefs compafs than this, has taken, we shall find it in being at the time of the [o] Trojan war. I fhould not be fo particular in tracing the origin of sculpture, and confequently of painting, to this era, were it not, that

Quon

[z] This art was loft in the time of Pliny. dam æs confufum auro argentoque mifcebatur, et tamen ars pretiofior erat: Nunc incertum eft, pejor hæc fit, an materia; mirumque cum ad infinitum operum pretia creverint, ars extincta est. Lib. xxxiv. c. 2.

[] Servius, ad ver. 392, 393. Æneid. ii. has the following note: Scutis Græcorum, Neptunus; Trojanorum, fuit Minerva depicta. And again, ad ver. 784. Æneid. x. Lino tegebantur fcuta, ut poffent inhærere picture.

C 4

Pliny

Pliny confidently affirms, that the latter did not exist in those times; for which, however, he gives no reason, any more than he does, for treating as ridiculous the affertion of the Egyptians, that they practifed painting, many thousand years before it was known in Greece. Whoever confults [p] Tacitus will find, that the Egyptians knew defign, and fculptured marble, long before they had the knowledge of letters; which, Cadmus, a defcendent of theirs, many ages after, introduced into Greece.

B. WHAT you have offered concerning the Egyptians, is confirmed by a later and undoubted example. When the Spaniards first arrived in America, the

[P] Primi per figuras animalium Ægyptii fenfus mentis effingebant, et antiquiffima monumenta memoriæ humanæ impreffa faxis cernuntur. Annal. lib. xi. cap. 14.

news was sent to the Emperor in painted expresses, they not having at that time the use of letters.

A. As it is evident that paint bears the immediate ftamp, and very image of our conceptions, [9] fo it was natural, that men fhould fooner hit on this method of representing their thoughts, than by letters, which have no connection with, or resemblance to the ideas they ftand for: From whence, no less than from the authority of hiftory, it has been justly concluded, that writing is of a much later invention than painting. But that which brought the antiquity of the latter fo much

[9] It is to be obferved, that, in the Greek tongue, the fame word (yeaper) fignifies to paint, or to write; which is eafily accounted for, if we fuppofe that, like the Egyptians, they firft explained their thoughts by paint: So that, afterwards, when letters were difcovered, though they changed the manner, they continued the term.

into doubt, was the vanity of the Greeks, Piqued that any other nation fhould have the honour of its invention, they dated its origin from its firft appearance among themselves; they tell us of a certain maid, who to have fome prefent image of her lover, who was about to leave her, [r] drew the out-lines of his fhadow on a wall.

B. It was prettily imagined however, to make the most amiable of all our paffions give birth to the most pleasing of all arts.

A. Pliny who mentions this, objects to the Greeks their inconfiftency, and want of accuracy. The first painter they name, lived in the nintieth olympiad; upon which

[r] Hence the art itself was by the Greeks termed Exaygapia and in the Latin, Adumbrare and Pingere are fynonymous.

he

he obferves, that Candaules, "a king "of Lydia, who died in the eighteenth,

gave an immense price for a picture

by Bularchus; to which he adds, [s] "it is manifeft, that the art was even "then in its full beauty and perfection; "which, if we are forced to allow, it "neceffarily follows, that its beginnings "muft have been much more ancient."

THE Picture Ardeæ, fo much prais ed by Pliny, were, as he tells us, painted before the foundation of Rome; as were the Atalanta and Helena at Lanuvium, by the fame hand; each of excellent beauty. This is a fecond proof, that painting was at a high point of perfection before the institution of the olympiads. Having thus eftablished the reputation of

[] Manifeftâ jam tum claritate artis atque abfolutione; quod fi recipi neceffe eft, fimul apparet multò vetuftiora principia effe. Lib. xxxv.

our