Befides all this, it is abfolutely neceffary to a history-painter that he understand anatomy, ofteology, geometry, perfpe&tive, architecture, and many other fciences which the hiftorian or poet has little occafion to know.

He must, moreover, not only fee, but thoroughly ftudy the works of the most excellent mafters in painting and fculpture, ancient and modern; for though fome few have gone vaft lengths in the art by the ftrength of their own genius, without foreign affiftance, thefe are prodigies, the like fuccefs is not ordinarily to be expected; nor have even thefe done with the advantages the ftudy of other mens works would have given them. I leave Vafari and Bellori to dispute whether Rafaelle was beholden to Michaelangelo's works for the greatness of his flyle, but that he improved upon his coming to Rome, and made advantages from what he faw there is inconteftable. Nor am I certain that Coreggio faw the St. Cecilia of Rafaelle at Bologna, as has been afferted, but that he would have been the better for it if he had feen that, and other works of that master, I can easily believe.

To be a good face-painter, a degree of the hiftorical and poetical genius is requifite, and a great measure of the other talents and advantages which a good hiftory-painter muft poffefs. Nay fome of them, particularly colouring, he ought to have in greater perfection than is abfolutely neceffary for a history-painter.

It is not enough to make a tame infipid resemblance of the features, fo that every body fhall know who the picture was intended for, nor even to make the picture what is often faid to be prodigious like (this is often done by the lowest of face-painters, but then it is ever with the air of a fool, and an unbred perfon.) A portraitpainter muft understand mankind, and enter into their characters, and exprefs their minds as well as their faces: and as his bufinefs is chiefly with people of condition, he must think as a gentleman, and

a man of fenfe, or it will be impoffible for him to give fuch their true, and proper resemblances.

But if a painter of this kind is not obliged to take in fuch a compafs of knowledge as he that paints hiftory, and that the latter upon fome accounts is the nobler employment, upon others the preference is due to face-painting; and the peculiar difficulties fuch a one has to encounter will perhaps balance what he is excufed from. He is chiefly concerned with the noblest, and most beautiful part of human nature, the face, and is obliged to the utmost exactness. A history-painter has vaft liberties; if he is to give life, and greatness, grace to his figures, and the airs of his heads, he may chufe what faces, and figures he pleafes; but the other muft give all that (in fome degree at leaft) to fubjects where it is not always to be found, and must find, or make variety in much narrower bounds than the hiftory-painter has to range in.

and

Add to all this, that the works of the face-painter must be seen in all the periods of beginning, and progrefs, as well as when finifhed, when they are not, oftener than when they are fit to be feen, and yet judged of, and criticized upon, as if the artist had given his last hand to them, and by all forts of people; nor is he always at liberty to follow his own judgment. He is, moreover, frequently difappointed, obliged to wait till the vigour of his fancy is gone off, and to give over when it is ftrong, and lively. These things, and several others which I forbear to mention, often times try a man's philofophy, and complaifance, and add to the merit of him that fucceeds in this kind of Painting.

A painter must not only be a poet, an hiftorian, a mathematician, &c. he must be a mechanic; his hand, and eye, must be as expert as his head is clear, and lively, and well ftored with fcience: he must not only write a history, a poem, a defcription, but do it in a fine character; his brain, his eye, his hand, must be bufied at the fame time. He must not only have a nice judgment to distinguish be

twixt

twixt things nearly refembling one another, but not the fame, (which he must have in common with thofe of the nobleft profeffions) but he muft, morcover, have the fame delicacy in his eye to judge of the Tincts of colours, which are of infinite variety, and to distinguishi whether a line be strait, or curved a little; whether this is exactly parallel to that, or oblique, and in what degree; how this curved line differs from that, if it differs at all, of which he must also judge; whether what he has drawn is of the fame magnitude with what he pretends to imitate, and the like; and must have a hand exact enough to form thefe in his work, anfwerable to the ideas he has taken of them.

An author must think, but it is no matter how he writes, he has no care about that, it is fufficient if what he writes be legible; a curious mechanic's hand must be exquifite, but his thoughts are commonly pretty much at liberty, but a painter is engaged in both refpects. When the matter is well thought and digefted in the mind, a work common to painters and writers, the former has ftill behind a vaftly greater task than the other, and which, to perform well, would alone be a fufficient recommendation to any man who fhould employ a whole life in attaining it.

And here I must take leave, to endeavour to do juftice to my profeffion as a liberal art.

It was never thought unworthy of a gentleman to be master of the Theory of Painting. On the contrary, if fuch a one has but a fuperficial skill that way, he values himfelf upon it, and is the more efteemed by others, as one who has attained an excellency of mind. beyond those that are ignorant in that particular. It is ftrange, if the fame gentleman fhould forfeit his character, and commence mechanic, if he added a bodily excellence, and was capable of making, as well as of judging of a picture. How comes it to pass, that one that thinks as well as any man, but has, moreover, a curious hand, fhould therefore be efteemed to be in a clafs of men at all. inferior?

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