full as much to do, and perhaps more, than if the very story was invented; for he is bound to follow the ideas which he has received, and to translate them (if I may use the expression) into another art. In this translation the Painter's invention lies; he must in a manner new-cast the whole, and model it in his own imagination: to make it a Painter's nourishment, it must pass through a Painter's mind. Having received an idea of the pathetick and grand in intellect, he has next to consider how to make it correspond with what is touching and awful to the eye, which is a business by itself. But here begins what in the language of Painters is called Invention, which includes not only the composition, or the putting the whole together, and the disposition of every individual part, but likewise the management of the back-ground, the effect of light and shadow, and the attitude of every figure or animal that is introduced or makes a part of the work.

Composition, which is the principal part of the Invention of a Painter, is by far the greatest difficulty he has to to encounter,

Every man that can paint at all, can execute individual parts; but to keep those parts in due subordination as relative to a whole, requires a comprehensive view of the art, that more strongly implies genius, than perhaps any other quality whatever.

NOTE XIII. VERSE 118.

R.

Vivid and faithful to the historick page,
Express the customs, manners, forms, and age.

Though the Painter borrows his subject, he considers his art as not subservient to any other. His business is something more than assisting the Historian with explanatory figures as soon as he takes it into his hands, he adds, retrenches, transposes, and moulds it anew, till it is made fit for his own art; he avails himself of the privileges allowed to Poets and Painters, and dares every thing to accomplish his end, by means correspondent to that end, to impress the Spectator with the same interest at the sight of his representation, as the Poet has contrived to impress on the Reader by his description: the end is the same in both cases, though the means are and must be different. Ideas intended to be

conveyed to the mind by one sense, cannot always, with equal success, be conveyed by another our author therefore has recommended to us elsewhere to be attentive "On what may aid our art, and what destroy.v.598. Even the Historian takes great liberties with facts, in order to interest his readers, and makes his narration more delightful; much greater right has the Painter to do this, who, though his work is called History-Painting, gives in reality a poetical representation of

events.

NOTE XIV. VERSE 120.

Nor paint conspicuous on the foremost plain
Whate'er is false, impertinent, or vain.

R.

This precept, so obvious to common sense, appears superfluous, till we recollect that some of the greatest Painters have been guilty of a breach of it; for, not to mention Paul Veronese or Rubens, whose principles, as ornamental Painters, would allow great latitude in introducing animals, or whatever they might think necessary, to contrast or make the composition more picturesque, we can no longer wonder why the Poet has

thought it worth setting a guard against this impropriety, when we find that such men as Raffaelle and the Caracci, in their greatest and most serious works, have introduced on the foreground mean and frivolous circum

stances.

Such improprieties, to do justice to the more modern Painters, are seldom found in their works. The only excuse that can be made for those great Artists, is their living in an age when it was the custom to mix the udicrous with the serious, and when Poetry as well as Painting gave into this fashion. R.

NOTE XV. VERSE 124.

This rare, this arduous task no rules can teach.

This must be meant to refer to Invention, and not to the precepts immediately preceding; which relating only to the mechanical disposition of the work, cannot be supposed to be out of the reach of the rules of art, or not to be acquired but by the assistance of supernatural power.

R.

NOTE XVI. VERSE 127.

Prometheus ravish'd from the Car of Day.

After the lines in the original of this passage, there comes in one of a proverbial cast, taken from Horace*: Non uti Dædaliam licet omnibus ire Corinthum." I could not introduce a version of this with any grace into the conclusion of the sentence; and indeed I do not think it connects well in the original. It certainly conveys no truth of importance, nor adds much to what went before it. I suppose, therefore, I shall be pardoned for having taken no notice of it in my translation.

Mr. Ray, in his collection of English proverbs, brings this of Horace as a parallel to a ridiculous English one, viz. Every man's nose will not make a shoeing-horn. It is certain, were a proverb here introduced, it ought to be of English growth to suit an English translation; but this, alas! would not fit my

* Horace's line runs thus, (Epistle 17, Book I. line 36.) Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum.

M.