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peachment in Dr. Fiddes's collections," that the faid Lord Cardinal got a bull for the fuppreffing certain houfes of religion, by his untrue fuggeftion to the pope."

A ftronger argument hath been brought from the plot of Hamlet. Dr. Grey and Mr. Whalley affure us, that for this Shakespeare muft have read Saxo-Grammaticus in the original, for no tranflation hath been made into any modern language. But the misfortune is that he did not take it from Saxo at all; a novel called the hiftorie of Hamblet was his original: a fragment of which, in black letter, I have feen in the hands of a very curious and intelligent gentleman.

Mr. Farmer takes notice of the fuppofition that the Comedy of Errors is founded on the Menæchmi, which is (fays he) notorious Nor is it lefs fo, that a tranflation of it by W. W. perhaps William Warner, the author of Albion's England, was extent in the time of Shakespeare*.

But the fheet-anchor holds faft: Shakespeare himself hath left fome tranflations from Ovid.

Shakespeare was not the author of these translations, fays Mr. Farmer, who proves them to have been written by Thomas Hay, wood. He proves likewife a book in profe, (in which are many quotations from the claffics) afcribed to William Shakespeare, to have been written by William Stafford, Mr. Farmer mentions many other inftances concerning the learning of Shakespeare, with refpect to the ancient languages, and makes feveral obfervations on

his fuppofed knowledge of the modern ones.

We shall conclude with a curious circumftance relating to Shakespeare's acting the ghoft in his own Hamlet, in which he is faid to have failed.

Dr. Lodge, fays Mr. Farmer, who, as well as his quondam colleague Greene, was ever peftering the town with pamphlets, publifhed one in the year 1566, called

Wits Miferie, and the Worlds Madnaffe, difcovering the devils incarnate of this age.' One of thefe devils is Hate-vertue, who, fays the doctor, "looks as pale as the vifard of the Ghost, which cried fo miferably at the theatre, like an oifter-wife, Hamlet Re venge.'

An effay on the expreffion of the paffions in painting, tranflated from the Italian of the celebrated Alga. rotti.

ANY have written, and

MA

among the reft, the famous Le Brun, on the various changes, that, according to various paffions, happen in the mufcles of the face, which is, as it were, the dumb tongue of the foul. They obferve, for example, that in fits of anger, the face reddens, the mufcles of the lips puff out, the eyes fparkle; and that on the contrary, in fits of melancholy, the eyes grow motionlefs and dead, the face pale, and the lips fink in. It may be of fervice to a painter to read thefe, and fuch other remarks; but it will be of infinitely more fervice to study them in nature itself, from This we are told in the preface of Mr. Thornton's tranflation of the Comedies of Plautus, just published, is in the collection of Mr. Garrick, and is dated 1595,

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which they have been borrowed, and which exhibits them in that lively manner which neither tongue nor pen can exprefs.

But if a painter is to have immediate recourfe to nature in any thing, it is particularly in treating thofe very minute, and almoft imperceptible differences, by which, however, things very different from each other, are often expreffed. This is particularly the cafe with regard to the paffions of laughing and crying, as in thefe, however contrary, the mufcles of the face operate nearly in the fame manner,

As the famous Pietro de Cortona was one day finishing the face of a crying child, in a reprefentation of the iron age, with which he was adorning the floor, called the hot bath, in the royal palace of Pitti, Ferdinand II. who happened to be looking over him for his amufement could not forbear expreffing his approbation, by crying out, Oh! how well that child cries! to whom the able artift-Has your majefty a mind to fee how eafy it is to make children laugh? behold, I'll prove it in an inftant; and taking up his pencil, by giving the contour of the mouth a concave turn downwards, inftead of the convex upwards, which it before had, and with little or no alteration in any other part of the face, he made the child, who a little before feemed ready to burst its heart with crying, appear in equal danger of bursting its fides with immoderate laughter; and then, by reftoring the altered features to their former pofition, he foon fet the child a crying again.

According to Leonardo da Vinci, the best masters that a painter can have ecourfe to in this branch, are

thofe dumb men, who have found out the method of expreffing their fentiments by the motion of their hands, eyes, eye-brows, and, in fhort, every other part of the body. This advice, no doubt, is very good, but then fuch geftures muit be imitated with great fobriety and moderation, left they fhould appear too ftrong and exaggerated, and the piece fhould fhew nothing but pantomimes, when fpeaking figures alone are to be exhibited, and fo become theatrical and fecond-hand, or at least look like the copy of theatrical and secondhand nature.

We are told ft range things of the ancient painters of Greece, in regard to expreffion, efpecially of Arittides, who, in a picture of his, reprefenting a woman wounded to death at a fiege, with a child crawling to her breast, makes her afraid, left the child, when he was dead, fhould, for want of milk, fuck her blood. A Medea murdering her children, by Timomachus, was likewife much cried up, as the ingenious artift contrived to exprefs at once in her countenance, both the fury that hurried her on to the commiffion of fo great a crime, and the tenderness of a mother, that feemed to withhold her from it. Rubens attempted to exprefs fuch a double effect in the face of Mary of Medicis, ftill in pain from her laft labour, and at the fame time, full of joy at the birth of a dau phin, And in the countenance of Sancta Polonia, painted by Tierpolo for St. Anthony's church at Padua, one may, I think, clearly read a mixture of pain from the wound given her by the executioner, and of pleafure from the profpect of paradife opened to her by it.

Few

Few, to fay the truth, are the examples of strong expreffion afforded by the Venetian, Flemish, or Lombard fchools. Deprived of that great happiness, the happiness of being able to contemplate at leifure the works of the ancients, the pureft fources of perfection in point of defign, expreffion, and character, and having nothing but nature conftantly before their eyes, they made ftrength of colouring, blooming complexion, and the grand effects of the chiaro ofcuro, their principal ftudy; they aimed more at charming the fenfes, than at captivating the understanding. The Venetians, in particular, feem to have placed their whole glory in fetting off their pieces with all that rich variety of perfonages and drefs, which their capital is continually receiving; by means of its extenfive commerce, and which attracts fo much the eyes of all those who vifit it. I doubt much if in all the pictures of Paul Veronese, there is to be found a bold and judicious expreflion, or one of thofe attitudes, which, as Petrarch expreffes it, fpeak without words; unless perhaps, it be that remarkable one in his marriagefeaft at Cana in Galilee, and which, I don't remember to have feen taken notice of before. At one end of the table, and directly oppofite to the bridegroom, whofe eyes are fixed upon her, there appears a woman in red, holding up to him the skirt of her garment, as much as to fay, I fuppofe, that the wine miraculously produced, was exactly of the colour with the ftuff on her back. And in fact it is red wine we fee in the cups and pitchers. But all this while the faces of the company betray not the leaft

fign of wonder at fo extraordinary a miracle. They all in a manner appear intent upon nothing but eating, drinking, and making merry. Such in general is the ftyle of the Venetian school. The Florentine, over which Michael Angelo prefided, above all things curious of defign, was most minutely and fcrupulously exact in point of anatomy; on this the fet her heart, and took fingular pleafure in difplaying it; not only elegance of form, and nobleness of invention, but likewife ftrength of expreffion, triumph in the Roman fchool, nurfed as it were among the works of the Greeks, and in the bofom of a city which had once been the feminary of learning and politenefs. Here it was, that Domenichino and Pouf fin, both great mafters of expreffion, refined themfelves, as appears more particularly by the St. Jerom of the one, and the death of Germanicus, or the flaughter of the innocents, by the other.

Here it was, that Raphael arofe, the fovereign mafter of his art. One would imagine that pictures, which are the books of the ignorant, and of the ignorant only, he had undertaken to make the inftructors even of the learned. One would imagine, that he intended in fome measure, to juftify Quintilian, who affirms, that painting has more power over us than all the arts of rhetoric. There is not indeed a fingle picture of Raphael, from the ftudy of, which, thofe who are curious in the point of expreffion may not reap great benefit, particularly his martyr. dom of St. Felicitas, his Magdalene in the houfe of the Pharifee,

his

his transfiguration, his Jofeph explaining to Pharoah his dream, a piece fo highly rated by Pouffin. His fchool of Athens, in the Vatican, is to all intents and purpofes, a school of expreffion. A. mong the many miracles of art, with which this piece abounds, I fhall fingle out that of the four boy's attending on a mathematician, who ftooping to the ground, his compaffes in his hand, is giving them the demonstration of a theorem; one of the boys, recollected within himself, keeps back, with all the appearance of profound attention to the reafoning of the maf ter, another by the brifknefs of his attitude difcovers a great quicknefs of apprehenfion, while the third, who has already feized the conclufion, is endeavouring to beat it into the fourth, who, ftanding motionlefs, with open arms, a ftar ing countenance, and an unfpeakable air of ftupidity in his looks, will never perhaps be able to make any thing of the matter; and it is probably from this very group, that Albani, who ftudied Raphael fo clofely, drew the following precept, viz.

That it behoves a painter to exprefs more circumftances than one by every attitude, and fo to employ his figures, that by barely feeing what they are actually about one may be able to guefs, both what they have been already do. ing, and are next going to do." This I know to be a difficult pre, cept; but I know too, that it is only by a due obfervance of it, the eye and the mind can be made to hang in fufpenfe on a painted piece of canvafs. It is expreffion, that a painter, ambitious to foar in his profeffion, muft above

all things labour to perfect himself in. It is the laft goal of his art, as Socrates proves to Parrhafius. It is in expreffion that dumb poetry confifts, and what the prince of our poets calls a visible language,

A letter from the Abbe Metaftafio on the mufical drama, addreffed to the author of an effay on the union of mufic and poetry,

SIR,

́OU are not mistaken; I read

YOU

your book with the greatest furprife. By this effay alone, we can form a judgment of the acutenefs of your wit, the folidity of your taste, and the depth of your knowledge in the arts. There is no Italian, at least as far as I know, who has carried his views and reflections fo near to the first fources of that lively and delicate pleafure, which is produced from the prefent fyftem of our mufical drama, and which is ftill capable of farther improvement.

Your ingenious and particular analysis of the measure and cadence of our airs; the dexterity by which you point out, in a manner intirely new, the neceflity of difplaying and fetting off the chief motive in all adventitious ornaments; the judicious comparifon you draw on that fubject, between the mufical art, and that of defign in painting, wherein the parts untouched by the pencil, fhould always be perceived amidst the drapery: Your remarks on the climax of gradual progreffions, by means of which, in paffing from the fimile to the compound recitative, we should imitate thofe changes that are pro

d'uced

duced, by playing with the violence of our paffions, and many other parts of your learned differtation, which I omit, to avoid tranfcribing the whole, are still lefs valuable for the truth which is peculiar to them, than on account of the prodigious advantages, that may be drawn from them by fuch artifts as are capable of unveiling them, and applying useful and fuitable obfervations. I owe you my thanks, both as an author and as an Italian, and I give them you with the greatest pleasure, But, jealous as I may be of the good fenfe of a judge like you, yet as a poet I would chufe that my own art fhould lofe nothing, by the preference you have given to mufic, in regarding this as the principal object of the drama, and in attributing its progrefs to its being difengaged from the fhackles of

poetry.

When mufic, in concert with poetry, afpires to fuperiority, it deftroys poetry, and lofes itfelf. It would be a great abfurdity to fuppofe, that the habiliments could ever be capable of meriting more regard, or attracting more attention than the very perfon for whom they were defigned. My dramatic pieces are much better received in all parts of Italy, when they are fimply declaimed, than when they are fung in air or recitative. Make the fame trial of the fineft piece of mufic, ftript of the ornament of words, do you imagine it will ftand the teft? Thofe airs called bravura, the too frequent ufe of which you juftly condemn, are directly the laft effort of mufic, endeavouring to ufurp an empire over poetry. Mafic, in thefe airs, pays no regard to fituation or characters,

neither doth it intereft our paffions, fentiments, or reafon. It only difplays its native charms; but then, what pleafure, what applaufe doth it excite? A pleafure that arifes merely from novelty and furprise ; fuch plaudits as cannot be juftly refufed to a rope-dancer, whofe performance exceeds the expectation of the public.

Yet proud of this fuccefs, our modern mufic has infolently revolted againft poetry, it has neglected the true and genuine expreffion, and has confidered words but as a fervile vehicle, which muft fubmit to all its capricious extravagances in oppofition to the rules of good fenfe. The theatre no longer refounds, but with the airs called bravura, and mufic has thus haftened its own fall, when it had before occafioned the ruin of the drama.

Those pleasures which make no impreffion on the understanding, or which intereft not the affections, are of very fhort duration. It is certain mankind easily yield to mechanical fenfations, when they are agreeable, and have the force of novelty and furprife, but they cannot abfolutely renounce their reafoning faculty, for the bare fatisfaction of being pleased. The inconveniency I here complain of, is now arrived at fo intolerable an height, as to make it neceffary from this moment, that mufic, as a rebellious flave,fhould either again fubmit to its lawful fovereign, which can adorn it with fuch grace and beauty, or that it fhould totally withdraw, and blend itself no more with poetry, and let poetry for the future be fatisfied with its own proper melody; whilft mufic fhall be content with regulating the

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