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among others, they forbad them, under pain of death, to be present at the Olympic games, notwithstanding these were the public diversions of all Greece.

As our English women excel those of all nations in beauty, they should endeavour to outshine them in all other accomplishments proper to the sex, and to distinguish themselves as tender mothers and tender wives, rather than as furious partizans. Female virtues are of a domestic turn. The family is the proper province for private women to shine in. If they must be shewing their zeal for the public, let it not be against those who are perhaps of the same family, or at least of the same religion or nation, but against those who are the open, professed, undoubted enemies of their faith, liberty, and country. When the Romans were pressed with a foreign enemy, the ladies voluntarily contributed all their rings and jewels to assist the government under the public exigence,' which appeared so laudable an action in the eyes of their countrymen, that from thenceforth it was permitted by a law to pronounce public orations at the funeral of a woman in praise of the deceased person, which till that time was peculiar

to men.

Would our English ladies, instead of sticking on a patch against those of their own country, shew themselves so truly public-spirited as to sacrifice every one her necklace against the common enemy, what decrees ought not to be made in favour of them?

Since I am recollecting upon this subject such passages as occur to my memory out of ancient authors, I cannot omit a sentence in the celebrated funeral oration of Pericles, which he made in honour of those brave Athenians that were slain in a

1 This was repeated throughout Italy in the revolution of 1848; and at Venice, those who had no jewels, cut off their hair, and sold it as a contribution to the public cause.-G.

fight with the Lacedemonians. After having addressed himself to the several ranks and orders of his countrymen, and shewn them how they should behave themselves in the public cause, he turns to the female part of his audience; 'And as for you (says he) I shall advise you in very few words: aspire only to those virtues that are peculiar to your sex; follow your natural modesty, and think it your greatest commendation not to be talked of one way or other.'a1-C.

No. 83. TUESDAY, JUNE 5.

-Animum pictura pascit inani.

VIRG. En. 1, 464.

And with the shadowy picture feeds his mind.

WHEN the weather hinders me from taking my diversions without doors, I frequently make a little party with two or three select friends, to visit any thing curious that may be seen under covert. My principal entertainments of this kind are pictures,

1 Thucydides, L. ii. c. 45. It might perhaps be objected by a large part of the sex, that Pericles addresses his admonition altogether to widowsεἰ δέ με δεῖ καὶ γυναικείας τι ἀρετῆς, ὅσαι νῦν ἐν χηρείᾳ ἔσονται, μνησθῆναι, &c. 'If I am to say any thing on the chief excellence of women, such as those who will now be in widowhood,' &c. And as Addison has perhaps strained the text a little in favor of his argument, I add a more literal translation of the whole passage: 'It is a great glory for you not to fall below the nature which you ordinarily have already; and her's, too, is a great glory, whose name is little talked of either for good or for evil.-G.

a The humour of this paper (as of all those which turn on light, or triv. ial subjects) is inimitable: but what is most to be admired, is the moral use he always makes of this talent. Hence in giving a loose to his "Badinage," he, every where, sustains the dignity of his own character. You laugh, perhaps, with other writers of this class, but you love and approve Mr. Addison.-H.

insomuch that when I have found the weather set in to be very bad, I have taken a whole day's journey to see a gallery that is furnished by the hands of great masters. By this means, when the heavens are filled with clouds, when the earth swims in rain, and all nature wears a lowering countenance, I withdraw myself from these uncomfortable scenes into the visionary worlds of art; where I meet with shining landscapes, gilded triumphs, beautiful faces, and all those other objects that fill the mind with gay ideas, and disperse that gloominess which is apt to hang upon it in those dark disconsolate seasons.

I was some weeks ago in a course of these diversions; which had taken such an entire possession of my imagination, that they formed in it a short morning's dream, which I shall communicate to my reader, rather as the first sketch and outlines of a vision, than as a finished piece.

I dreamt that I was admitted into a long spacious gallery, which had one side covered with pieces of all the famous painters who are now living, and the other with the works of the greatest masters that are dead.

On the side of the living, I saw several persons busy in drawing, colouring, and designing; on the side of the dead painters, I could not discover more than one person at work, who was exceeding slow in his motions, and wonderfully nice in his touches. I was resolved to examine the several artists that stood before me, and accordingly applied myself to the side of the living. The first I observed at work in this part of the gallery was Vanity, with his hair tied behind him in a ribbon, and dressed like a Frenchman.

All the faces he drew were very remarkable for their smiles, and a certain smirking air,which he bestowed indifferently on every age and degree of either sex. The toujours gai appeared even in his judges, bishops, and privy-counsellors in a word, all his

The

men were petit maitres, and all his women coquettes. drapery of his figures was extremely well suited to his faces, and was made up of all the glaring colours that could be mixt toge ther; every part of the dress was in a flutter, and endeavoured to distinguish itself above the rest.

On the left hand of Vanity stood a laborious workman, who I found was his humble admirer, and copied after him. He was dressed like a German, and had a very hard name that sounded something like Stupidity.

The third artist that I looked over was Fantasque, dressed like a Venetian scaramouch. He had an excellent hand at Chimæra, and dealt very much in distortions and grimaces. He would sometimes affright himself with the phantoms that flowed from his pencil. In short, the most elaborate of his pieces was at best but a terrifying dream; and one could say nothing more of his finest figures, than that they were agreeable monsters.

The fourth person I examined, was very remarkable for his hasty hand, which left his picture so unfinished, that the beauty in the picture (which was designed to continue as a monument of it to posterity) faded sooner than in the person after whom it was drawn. He made so much haste to dispatch his business, that he neither gave himself time to clean his pencils, nor mix his colours. The name of this expeditious workman was Avarice.

Not far from this artist I saw another of a quite different nature, who was dressed in the habit of a Dutchman, and known by the name of Industry. His figures were wonderfully laboured: if he drew the portraiture of a man, he did not omit a single hair in his face; if the figure of a ship, there was not a rope among the tackle that escaped him. He had likewise hung a great part of the wall with night-pieces, that seemed to shew themselves by

"Better-" that arose."-H.

b

Of it-i. e. of the beauty: a little careless and inaccurate.-H.

the candles which were lighted up in several parts of them; and were so inflamed by the sunshine which accidentally fell upon them, that at first sight I could scarce forbear crying out, Fire.

The five foregoing artists were the most considerable on this side the gallery; there were indeed several others whom I had not time to look into. One of them, however, I could not forbear observing, who was very busy in retouching the finest pieces, though he produced no originals of his own. His pencil aggra vated every feature that was before over-charged, loaded every defect, and poisoned every colour it touched. Though this workman did so much mischief on this side of the living, he never turned his eye towards that of the dead. His name was Envy.

Having taken a cursory view of one side of the gallery, I turned myself to that which was filled by the works of those great masters that were dead; when immediately I fancied myself standing before a multitude of spectators, and thousands of eyes looking upon me at once; for all before me appeared so like men and women, that I almost forgot they were pictures. Raphael's figures stood in one row, Titian's in another, Guido Rheni's in a a third. One part of the wall was peopled by Hannibal Carrache, another by Correggio, and another by Rubens. To be short, there was not a great master among the dead who had not contributed to the embellishment of this side of the gallery. The persons that owed their being to these several masters, appeared all of them to be real and alive, and differed among one another only in the variety of their shapes, complexions, and cloaths; so that they looked like different nations of the same species.

Observing an old man (who was the same person I beforementioned, as the only artist that was at work on this side of the gallery) creeping up and down from one picture to another, and retouching all the fine pieces that stood before me, I could not but be very attentive to all his motions. I found his pencil was

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