order to take exact admeasurements and delineations of fuch remains of ancient Architecture, as might be found ftill fubfifting in the city of Athens and the country adjacent; a defign for which every lover of the fine arts then admired their spirit and refolution, as much as we must now applaud the care and attention evidently beftowed in the execution of it.

Their motives to fo arduous an undertaking do no lefs honour alfo to their judgment and tafte; there being no part of Europe, as their first propofals truly intimated, which more deservedly claims the attention and excites the curiofity of the lovers of polite literature than the territory of Attica, and its capital, Athens; and this not only on account of the figure it makes in hiftory, from its production of the greatest men both in arts and arms, but alfo on account of the antiquities still remaining there; monuments of the good fenfe and elevated genius of the Athenians, as well as the most perfect models of what is excellent in Sculpture and Architecture. It is very juftly observed, indeed, that of all the countries which were embellished by the Ancients with magnificent buildings, Greece appears principally to merit our regard; fince, if we believe the Ancients themselves, the most beautiful orders and difpofitions of columns were invented in that country, and the most celebrated works of Architecture were erected there; to which may be added, that the most excellent treatifes on the art appear to have been written by Grecian Architects.

Now Athens having the manifeft fuperiority over the other parts of Greece, our Artifts, we are told, refolved rather to examine that spot than any other; flattering themfelves, that the remains they might find there, would excel in true taste and elegance every thing before published. We are farther informed, alfo, that they were fo happy as to find them fully anfwer their highest expectations.

Left they fhould be conceived, however, to have thought too highly of the Athenian buildings, and fhould thence fuffer by the over-hafty opinions and unadvised cenfures of the inconfiderate, they judged it expedient to give their reafons and authorities for holding thefe antiquities in fuch high estimation; efpecially as fuch reafons might ferve, at the fame time, as an apology for themselves, and the best judification of their undertaking.

We are perfuaded that the Reader will not be displeased at our tranfcribing this part of Mr. Stuart's preface, although our quotation must be conceived in fome measure defective, for want of the feveral claffical annotations by which it is illustrated.

After the defeat of Xerxes, the Grecians, fecure from invaders, and in full poffeffion of their liberty, arrived at the height of their profperity. It was then they applied themselves with the greatest affiduity and fuccefs to the culture of the arts. They maintained their independency and power for a confiderable time, and diftinguifhed themfelves by a pre-eminence and univerfality of genius, unknown to other ages and nations. During this happy period, their most renowned Artists were produced. Sculpture and Architecture attained their highest degree of excellence at Athens, in the time of Pericles, when Phidias diftinguished himself with fuch fuperior ability, that`his works were confidered as wonders by the Ancients, so long as any knowlege or tafte remained among them. His ftatue of Jupiter Olympus, we are told, was never equalled; and it was under his infpection that many of the most celebrated buildings in Athens were erected. Several Artists of moft diftinguished talents were his contemporaries, among whom we may reckon Callimachus, an Athenian, the inventor of the Corinthian capital. After this a fucceffion of excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects appeared, and thefe arts continued in Greece at their highest perfection, till after the death of Alexander the Great, In the mean time, Painting, Sculpture and Architecture remained in a rude, uncultivated state among the Italians. But when the Romans had fubdued Greece, they foon became enamoured of thefe delightful arts. They adorned their city with ftatues and pictures, the fpoils of that conquered country; and, adopting the Grecian ftyle of Architecture, they now firft began to erect buildings of great elegance and magnificence. They feem not, however, to have equalled the originals from whence they had borrowed their tafte, either for purity of defign or delicacy of execution. For, although thefe Roman edifices were most probably defigned and executed by Grecians, as Rome never produced many extraordinary Artifts of her own, yet Greece herfelf was at that time greatly degenerated from her former excellence, and had long ceafed to display that fuperiority of genius which diftinguished her in the age of Pericles and Alexander. To this a long feries of misfortunes had reduced her; for, having been oppreffed by the Macedo-. nians firft, and afterwards fubdued by the Romans, with the Jofs of her liberty, that love of glory likewife, and that sublimity of fpirit, which had animated her artifts as well as her warriors, her ftatefmen and her philofophers, and which had formed her peculiar character, were now extinguished, and all her exquifite arts languifhed, and were near expiring. They were indeed, at length, affiduoufly cherished and cultivated at Rome. That city, being now miftrefs of the world, and poffelled of unbounded wealth and power, became ambitious alfo

of

of the utmoft embellishments which these arts could beftow. They could not, however, though affifted by Roman munificence, re-afcend to that height of perfection, which they had attained in Greece during the happy period we have already mentioned. And it is particularly remarkable, that, when the Roman Authors themselves celebrate any exquifite production of art, it is the work of Phidias, Praxiteles, Myron, Lyfippus, Zeuxis, Apelles, or, in brief, of fome Artift who adorned that happy period and not of thofe who had worked at Rome, or had lived nearer to their own times than the age of Alexander."

It appeared, for thefe reafons, that Greece was the place where the most beautiful edifices had been erected, and where the purest and most elegant examples of ancient Architecture were to be difcovered. Many Authors, indeed, had occafionally mentioned the remains of the Athenian art, as works of great magnificence and most exquifite tafte; but their descriptions were in general fo confufed, and their meafures fo infufficient that the ableft Architects found it difficult, if not impoffible, to form any distinct idea of the buildings fuch Authors defcribed; their writings feeming to be rather calculated to raise admiration. than to fatisfy curiofity or improve the tafte. On the other hand, Rome, who borrowed her arts, as above observed, and frequently her Artificers, from Greece, being thereby adorned with magnificent ftructures and excellent fculptures, a confidérable number of them had been publifhed, in the collections of Defgodetz, Palladio, Serlio, Santo Bartoli, and others. So that, though many of the originals which they copied are fince deftroyed, yet the memory, and even the form of them, feemed to be fecurely preferved; as the industry of those excellent Artists had difperfed reprefentations of them throughout all the polite nations of Europe.

In the mean time, Athens, the mother of elegance and politeness, whofe magnificence fcarce yielded to that of Rome, and who for the beauties of a correct ftyle must be allowed to furpafs her, had been almoft totally neglected; fo that had no exact copies of them been made, her beautiful fabricks, her temples, theatres and palaces, fallen into ruins, would have funk into oblivion: pofterity, as our Artists obferve, having justly to reproach us, that we fhould leave them no tolerable idea of what was fo excellent and fo deferving attention; but that we should fuffer the perfection of an Art to perifh, when it. was in our power to have retrieved it.

The reafon, indeed, why thefe Antiquities had been thus neglected, our Artists tell us, is obvious: Greece, fince the

revival

revival of the arts, has been in the poffeffion of Barbarians; and · Artifts capable of fuch a work, have been able to fatisfy their paffion, whether it was for fame or profit, without risking themfeives among such profeffed enemies to the arts as the Turks: the ignorance and jealousy of that uncultivated people, rendering an undertaking of this fort dangerous.

Again, "Among the Travellers who have vifited thefe countries, fome, it is true, have been abundantly furnished with literature; but they have all of them been too little converfant with painting, fculpture, and architecture, to give us any tolerable ideas of what they faw. The books, therefore, in which their travels are defcribed, are not of fuch utility, nor fuch entertainment to the public, as a person acquainted with the practice of these arts might have rendered them. For the best verbal defcription cannot be fuppofed to convey fo adequate an idea of the magnificence and elegance of buildings; the fine form, expreffion, or proportion of sculpture; the beauty and variety of a country, or the exact fcene of any celebrated action, as they may be formed from drawings made on the spot, with diligence and fidelity, by the hand of the Artist.”

These were the confiderations which firft determined our Artifts to engage in a work of so much hazard, labour, expence, and time. In regard to the laft, indeed, the delay occafioned by the great accuracy which they had prescribed themfelves, and other caufes, fubjected the publication of their work to the circumftance of being anticipated, in some measure, by another hand. Monfieur Le Roy, (an Artist of that ingenious and volatile nation, who are fo ready to catch at the hints of others, to put fomething in execution, and then to claim the merit of the whole) conceived the fame defign, fet out for Athens near four years after them, made his drawings, returned to Paris, and, for the honour of his country, publifhed his Antiquities of Athens, long before our tardy English Artists could get theirs through the prefs.

It remains, however, to be confidered, on a fair comparison of the labours of the different Artifts, whether the precipitancy with which Mr. Le Roy executed his work, hath not, in a great mcafure, defeated the defign of it; which undoubtedly was, or at leaft ought to have been, to take exact admeasurements, and give accurate drawings, of thofe remains of ancient art, they went profeffedly to copy. And here, as it is not unreasonable to expect, our English Artifts have evidently the advantage. Mr. Le Roy's work, it is true, is greatly fuperior in point of fcenery; his views are beautifully picturefque; the drawings executed with tafte, and the engravings mafterly. In this re-.

spect,

fpect, the prefent work is moft defective; the general views are ftiff, and indifferently defigned: Mr. Stuart, indeed, seems to apologize for this, by faying, that "the views were all finifhed on the fpot; and in thefe, preferring truth to every other confideration, he hath taken none of thofe liberties with which Painters are apt to indulge themselves, from a defire of rendering their representations of places more agreeable to the eye. Eafe and correctness of drawing, however, are in all cafes indifpenfible; and wherever human, or other animal, figures are introduced, they ought certainly to be as well defigned as any other part of the work; otherwife, while we admire the beauty of the landskip, or the elegance of the buildings, we are offended with the monftrous images of men or cattle, that dif grace the foreground of the piece. This is a very general and capital defect in most of our English views of buildings. It is not expected, indeed, that Architects should be always masters of this kind of drawing; but, for the reafon juft given, they ought either to get these figures inferted by other hands, or leave them entirely out; which, in our opinion, is frequently moft adviseable, as they only ferve to divert the eye from the principal object of attention; and, if not very well done, cannot fail of difgufting perfons of the smallest degree of taste.

In the capital and moft effential parts of this undertaking, however, our English Artifts indisputably bear away the palm. In the prefervation of the due proportions in the architectural parts of the work, Le Roy can hardly be named in the comparifon; his fhameful negligence in taking his measures, or careleffness in laying them down, being evident on fight, to those who have any knowlege of architecture.

Mr. Stuart hath taken the pains, indeed, to point out a multiplicity of thefe blunders, as alfo many distortions and mifreprefentations in his views, of which we cannot pretend to judge. The French Artist appears to have given us an inaccurate picturesque representation of what the ruins of Athenian architecture now are; our English Artists, on the other hand, feem to have been more folicitous to give us an exact and faithful representation of what they were in their ancient fplendour: doubtlefs, a nobler and more fatisfactory defign. Of this, the Doric Portico (fuppofed to be the remains of a temple dedicated to Rome and Auguftus) the temple of the winds, and the Choragic monument of Lyficrates, are elegant and beautiful inftances; the latter being one of the moft exquifite pieces of monumental architecture that we ever faw delineated.

The Sculpture exhibited in this volume, and which ferved as ornaments to the feveral buildings defcribed, hath also its merit;

tho'