of all the time, and all the vigour of body, and mind, allowed to humane nature; he should take care to hufband, and improve these as much as poffible, by prudence and virtue. The way to be an excellent painter, is to be an excellent man; and thefe united make a character that would fhine even in a better world than this.

But as a picture may be esteemed a good and a valuable one, in which all the good qualities of a picture are not to be found (for that never happens) and thofe that are, but in a degree fhort of the utmoft; nay, if a picture have but one of them in a confiderable degree it is to be valued; painters have a right to the fame indulgence, and have had it in paft ages, as well as in the prefent ; for whether for their own fakes, or from principles of reafon, virtue, good-nature, or whatever other motive the world is not wanting to cherish, and reward merit, though in a narrow compass, and inferior degrees. We have no reafon to complain.

Only give me leave to add, that a painter that holds but a fecond or third rank in his profeffion, is entitled to an equal degree of efteem with one in the first in another, if to arrive at that inferior ftation, as many good qualities are requifite as to attain to the higheft in that other.

The whole Art of PAINTING confifts of thefe Parts:

INVENTION, EXPRESSION, COMPOSITION, DRAWING, COLOURING, HANDLING, and GRACE, and GREATNESS.

WHAT is meant by thefe terms, and that they are qualities requifite to the perfection of the art, and really diftinct from cach other, fo that no one of them can be fairly implied by the other, will appear when I treat of them in their order; and this will justify my giving fo many parts to Painting, which fome others who have

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wrote on it have not done.

As to thofe properties in a picture fo much spoken of, fuch as force, fpirit, the understanding of the Clairobfcure, or whatever other there may be, they will be taken notice of hereafter, as being reducible to one or more of these principal heads.

The art in its whole extent being too great to be compaffed by any one man in any tolerable degree of perfection, some have applied themselves to paint one thing, and fome another: thus there are painters of faces, hiftory, landscapes, battles, drolls, ftill-life, flowers, and fruit, fhips, &c. but every one of thefe feveral kinds. of pictures ought to have all the feveral parts, or qualities, juft now mentioned; though even to arrive at that, in any one kind of Painting, is beyond the reach of any man. Even in drolls, there is a difference; there is a grace and greatness proper to them, which fome have more than others. The hiftory-painter is obliged oftentimes to paint all thefe kind of fubjects, and the face-painter moft of them; but befides that, they in fuch cafes are allowed the affiftance of other hands, the inferior fubjects are in comparison of their figures as the figures in a landscape, there is no great exactness required, or pretended to.

Italy has unquestionably produced the beft modern Painting, efpecially of the beft kinds, and poffeffed it in a manner alone, when no other nation in the world had it in any tolerable degree; that was then confequently the great school of Painting. About a hundred years ago there were a great many excellent painters in Flanders; but when Van-Dyck came hither he brought face-painting to us; ever fince which time, that is for above fourfcore years, England has excelled all the world in that great branch of the art, and being well stored with the works of the greatest masters, whether paintings or drawings, here being, moreover, the finest living models, as well as the greatest encouragement. This may jufly be eftemed as a complete, and the beft fchool for face-painting now in the

world;

world; and would probably have been yet better, had Van Dyck's model been followed: but fome painters poffibly finding themselves incapable of fucceeding in his way, and having found their account in introducing a falfe tafte, others have followed their example, and forfaking the ftudy of nature, have proftituted a noble art, chufing to exchange the honourable character of good painters for that fordid one of profeffed mercenary flatterers, and fo much worfe than the meanest of these, in that they give under their hands, and to be feen of every body, what thofe only utter in words, and to thofe chiefly who they find weak enough to be their dupes.

As for the other branches of Painting, fome few of feveral nations have been excellent in them; as the Borgognone for battles, Michelangelo the Battaglia and Campadoglio for fruit; Father Segers, Mario del Fiori, and Baptift for flowers; Salvator Rofa, Claude Lorrain, and Gafper Pouffin for landscapes; Brower and Hemfkirk for drolls; Perfellis and Vande-Velde for fea-pieces; and feveral others, But I am not difpofed to enlarge on this article.

of INVENTION.

BEING determined as to the hiftory that is to be painted, the first thing the painter has to do, is to make himself mafter of it as delivered from hiftorians, or otherwife; and then to confider how to improve it, keeping within the bounds of probability. Thus the fculptors imitated nature; and thus the beft hiftorians have related their ftories. No body can imagine (for example) that Livy, or Thucydides, had direct, exprefs authorities for all the speeches they have given us at length, or even for all the incidents they have delivered to us as facts; but they have made their ftories as beautiful, and confiderable as they could; and this with very good reafon,

for not only it makes the reading of them the more pleafant, but their relations with fuch additions are fometimes more probably the truth, than when nothing more is fuppofed to have happened than what they might have had exprefs warrant for. Such an improvement Rafaelle has made in the ftory of our Saviour's directing St. Peter to feed his flock, commonly called the Giving him the Keys. Our Lord seems, by the relation of the Evangelist (at least a Roman Catholic, as Rafaelle was, must be fuppofed to understand it fo) to commit the care of his church to that apoftle preferably to the reft, upon the fuppofition of his loving him better than any of them: Now, though the hiftory be filent, it is exceeding probable that St. John, as he was the beloved difciple, would have expected this honour, and be piqued at his being thought to love his master less than Peter. Rafaelle, therefore, in that carton, makes him addrefs himself to our Lord with extreme ardour, as if he was entreating him to believe he loved him no less than St. Peter, or any of the other apoftles. And this puts one upon imagining fome fine fpeeches, that it may be fuppofed, were made on this occafion, whereby Rafaelle has given a hint for every man to make a farther improvement to himself of this story.

The fame liberty of heightening a story is very commonly taken in pictures of the crucifixion; the Bleffed Virgin is reprefented as fwooning away at the fight, and St. John, and the women, with great propriety, dividing their concern between the two objects of it, which makes a fine fcene, and a confiderable improvement; and probably was the truth, though the hiftory fays no fuch thing.

In like manner, when the facred body was taken from the cross, the Virgin-mother is frequently introduced as fwooning away also, when even her being prefent is not authrized by the facred hiftory; yet it being very probable, that he that could fee her fon crucified (which the fcripture fays fhe did) would fee him alfo after he was dead, it is a liberty the painter not only may, but ought to take.

An

An improvement much of the fame nature is the angels that are frequently introduced in a nativity, or on other occafions, the noble, though not rich habit of the Virgin, and the like, though perhaps not altogether in the fame degree of probability.

But that circumftance of the Bleffed Virgin-mother being a fpectator of the crucifixion of her fon, ought not to have been introduced, notwithstanding any advantage it might give the picture, without exprefs warrant from the hiftory for reasons that are obvious; and the like restrictions are neceffary in other fuch cafes.

As the painter may add to the flory for the advantage of it, he may, to improve his picture, leave out fome things. I have a drawing of Rafaelle, wherein he has taken the liberties of both thefe kinds; the ftory is the defcent of the Holy Ghoft on the day of Pentecoft (a moft amazing event! and worthy to be defcribed by the firft painter of the world) the tongues of fire on the heads of the infpired, would have been fufficient to have informed us of the ftory, and what part the Holy Spirit had in the affair, and is all the facred history relates; but he has added the dove hovering over all, and cafting forth his beams of glory througout all the void fpace of the picture over the figures, which gives a wonderful majefty, and beauty to the whole. This is his addition. On the other hand, because there were (as the fcripture fays) about one hundred and twenty perfons, the whole number of the infant church, and which would not have had a good effect to have been all, or a crowd like that brought into the picture, he has only taken the twelve, and the Bleffed Virgin, with two other women, as reprefentatives of all the reft. This defign is graved by Marc Antonio, but is very rare.

Under the prefent rule is comprehended all thofe incidents which the painter invents to enrich his compofition; and here, in many cafes, he has a vaft latitude, as in a battle, a plague, a fire, the flaughter of the Innocents, &c. Rafaelle has finely imagined fome of thefe (for example) in his picture called the Incendio il Borgo. The