תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub
[ocr errors][merged small]
[ocr errors]
[blocks in formation]

ufual diftinction appropriated to this divinity, leaves us no room for doubt ¶. Worthy of attention is the chlamys fufpended on his left

It must be mentioned, that all the naked of the left arm is new, and the fceptre likewife is new, though it is probable that originally he did hold the fceptre in his left hand, Albricus faying, 1. c. Sceptrum regium in manu tenens, fcilicet finiftra: ex altera vero fcilicet dextra, fulmina ad inferos mittens; and thus we frequently fee it, especially in the medals of the Brutii. The artist who adjusted the bronzes of our Museum, was perhaps induced to make this fceptre fhort like a truncheon, by having feen it in the fame form in certain antique ftatues (Montfaucon Ant. Expl. Tab. ix. and xi. and Bonanni Muf. Kirch. Cl. i. Tab. x. n. 3) in these it is true, we remain uncertain whether it be entire or broken, that is, whether it were thus made by the ancient artist, or if partly confumed by time: it is certain that in all other ancient monuments we constantly see Jupiter with the bafia pura (that is to fay with a long ftaff) or with a fceptre, which is likewife long, although fomewhat fhorter than the hafta (as in the marble of the Apotheofis of Homer, and in another of the Adm. Rom. Ant. in Montfaucon, Tom. i. Tab. xv. and on a Patera, and on an Etrufcan vafe in Dempster, Tab. i. and Tab. xxx. and in our paintings, Tom. iv. Tab. i) and fometimes with a little globe at the top (as in the medals of the Brutii) or with fome other ornament (as in our paintings, Tom. i. Tab. xxiv. and xxix.) if really it was at all different from the hafta, it was of a fufficient length to be mistaken for it. That it was long is evident, because they leaned upon it, whence it had its name according to the etymologift, σκῆπτρον, παρὰ τὸ σκήπτω, τὸ ἐπακομβίζω, ἀπὸ τὸ σκήπε Todas vai værigeidotas aute. In effect, Ovid talking of Jupiter,

Celfior ipfe loco, fceptroque innixus eburno :
Higher in place on ivory fceptre leans.

And Met. vii. 505. Eacus in capulo sceptri nitenti finiftra;
And more precifely Homer, Il. 8. v. 109 and the following, fays
that Agamemnon rifing on his feet, addreffed himself to fpeak,
leaning on his fceptre; and it is obfervable that Homer himself says
of this fceptre, it was made by Vulcan, and given to Jupiter, from
whom it paffed to Mercury, and from him to Pelops, from Pelops
to Atreus, from Atreus to Agamemnon. Now this identical fceptre,
we are told by Paufanias ix. 40. was preserved by the Cheronefians,
and he adds, τότο ἂν τὸ σκήπτρον σέβασε, δόρυ ὀνομάζοντες : they honour
this fceptre with a particular veneration, and call it hafta,

Indeed the bafta was the fceptre of the primitive kings. Juftin. xliii. 3. 3. Per ea adhuc tempora reges pro diademate haßas habebant, quas Græci oxşa dixere: nam & ab origine rerum pro Diis immortalibus haftas veteres coluere; ob cujus religionis memoriam ad buc deorum fimulacris hafta adduntur. See likewife Feftus in the word hafta; and Stanley on Æschylus Sept. ad The. v. 535. For the reft fee the notes on the Tab. i. Tom. iv. Pitt. where it is fhewn, that the fceptre o Jupiter, faid by Ovid to be of ivory, and by Phidias, formed of T14 all

left arm, and on the lower extremity of the part which hangs down we obferve a button †.

Of the bronzes reprefented in this volume, the first that occur are the gods of ancient Greece and Rome, which, for the greater part, are eafily known by their garb, and the infignia that accompany them. Thefe plates are in number 57. Among them a Venus, plate 14, and a Mercury, plates 29, 30, 31, 32, gave us the most pleafure. The dancing faun, plates 38, 39, has all the motion and fprightlinefs that the ancient fculptors have bestowed on these joyous retainers of Bacchus; he is as light as air. The boxers, or wrestlers, plates 58 and 59, are finely imagined; each watching an opportunity to feize his antagonist to advantage; and, like the others we have here specified, are some of the beft engraved in the collection, though none of them do juftice to the originals.

all metals (danois tuis märu gibiopévor: Paufanias, v. ii.) was by the Pythagoreans believed to be of cyprefs; Diegenes Laertius, viii. 10. and Menage on that paffage: and Jamblicus de Vita Pythag. cap. 28. See likewife Servius xii. En. 206. where he obferves that in treaties of peace they ufed the fceptre as a type of the ftatue of Jupiter, whom they always reprefented with a fceptre in his hand, a token of his dominion. The fame Servius writes, En. xi. 238. Apud majores omnes duces cum fceptris ingrediebantur curiam: poftea coeperunt tantum ex confulibus fceptra geftare, & fignum erat eos confulares effe: and thefe confular fceptres had the eagle on their upper extremity, in the fame manner as on the fceptre of Jupiter, in imitation of which was formed the fceptre of the Tufcan kings, from whom the fashion paffed to the kings of Rome first, and afterwards to the confuls: Buonarroti Med. p. 185. Vetr. p. 252. & Ifidore xviii. 2. who remarks that the fceptre with the eagle was borne by thofe who triumphed.'

[ocr errors]

+ Although we equally fee Jupiter reprefented fitting and flanding, for we meet with him in both pofitions, as well as in act to hurl his thunder, (fee Burman, de Jove Fulgur. cap. 14. and Beger Thefaur Palat. Sel. n. iv.) and although we obferve him fometimes quite naked, fometimes partly clothed, and often covered from the waist downward, it is by no means common to find him, as we ice him here, with his drapery hanging only from one arm, it is like. wife remarkable, but plainly to be diftinguithed, that this drapery is a chlamys or a paludamentum (which was almoft the fame thing); fee Kippingius Antiq. Roman. iv. 5, Voffius Etym. in Paludamentum) both one and the other being fattened on the right shoulder with a button, as we fee it in ancient monuments.'

Oh! the profound erudition of the Herculanean Academicians!Perhaps an apology may be expected, by fome of our Readers, for the trial we have made of their patience by the notes which we have tranflated from this work. In excufe, we have only to urge, that we thought it might gratify the general curiofity of the public, to fee in what manner this royal production is executed, by the learned Antiquarians employed in it.

The equestrian statue, plates 61, 62, is fuppofed to reprefent Alexander the Great; but if it refembles the print, it is certainly not the work of Lyfippus; the other equestrian statue is an Amazon. Next follows a horse without a rider, and then another horse, the only one of four that were harneffed to a triumphal chariot; but his three companions, and the chariot itfelf, were found in fo fhattered a condition, as to be deemed incapable of repair, and have been deftroyed.

Plate 77 is a coloffal ftatue of Auguftus in the character of Jupiter; that is, he has the hafta pura, or fcepter, in his right hand, and a thunderbolt in his left, and has probably been placed in a temple, an object of divine worship: fo foon did abfolute power debase the spirit of the Romans, and from a generous free people, render them the basest of flatterers, and the most abject of flaves!

Plate 78, is the monster Tiberius, another divinity of the fame fort and fize with the preceding.-Gods worthy of the degenerate Romans!

Plate 79, Claudius Drufus Germanicus, in a facerdotal habit: this likewife is coloffal, as are the fix following:

The book concludes with ten plates that are abominably indecent; the defcriptions, with the learned and copious notes which accompany and explain them, cannot but aftonifh a Reader unaccustomed to the ftudy of fuch antiquities. He may figure to himself a group of Herculanean Academicians compofed chiefly of priests and lawyers; and, with an indignant fmile, fancy he fees thofe gentlemen, fo refpectable for their profound erudition! laying their folemn heads together, poring over this obfcene trafh, citing Greek and Latin without mercy, calling ancient philofophers, poets, and hiftorians, and what is ftranger, faints and venerable fathers of the church, to their affistance, and puzzling through many a page for an illustration of what would be better configned to oblivion, or left to fuch dilettanti, virtuofi, ftudents, and profeffors, as pursue their ftudies in the purlieus of Covent Garden.

In the last note on the laft chapter, fome account is given of the Phallic band, fuppofed by fome writers to be the Manus impudica. On this occafion a curious ftory is related of the virgin St. Therefa; who being, it fhould feem, haunted by the devil with certain impure phantoms, is ordered by her confeffor to make the Fico, or phallic hand, in Satan's face; whence the writer, doubtlefs a profound cafuift, deduces, that there is no great harm in making the aforefaid Fico. St.

*

St. Jerome, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. John Chryfoftome; Arnobius, Tertullian, and Clemens Alexandrinus.

ART.

ART. VII.

Du Theatre, ou Nouvel Essai fur L'Art Dramatique.-A New Effay on the Drama. 8vo. pp. 372. Amfterdam.

WE E do not imagine that the ingenious Author of the work now before us, intended an ambiguity in the use of the words L'Art Dramatique; yet the main fcope of his treatise would justify such a conftruction; the intention of this essay on the theatre being evidently to recommend the new fpecies of drama cultivated by Diderot and his followers, and denominated by its fupporters and admirers, by way of eminence, La Drame, but by the wits of Paris chriftened, in derifion, La Comedie larmoyante, "Crying Comedy."

To this end our fpirited advocate for the new species of drama opens his work with fome general reflections on ftagereprefentations, tending at once to fhew their excellence, and to lament their having, after fo many ages, not yet attained perfection and maturity. His favourite drama at once presents itself, as this image of excellence. The firft direction givent to our theatre (fays he) was not perhaps the happiest that might have been wifhed. It is poffible that there might remain a fpecies to be created, which might carry the art much higher than it has yet reached, even in our most admired tragedies and comedies. How far we affent to this propofition, will appear in the course of these remarks; but we cannot difmifs the Author's introductory chapter, without transcribing his fenfible and animated vindication of the ftage.

• I shall give no answer in this work (fays he) to the adverfaries of the theatre. If there exifted a people who made bufinefs their pleasure; who were laborious, though free, who could prefer to every other fpectacle the glorious theatre of Nature; who were void of vices, and had only foibles; who, far from luxury, lived in an induftrious fimplicity, and could look upon the arts as indifferent or hurtful to their happiness; among fuch a people it might be dangerous to establish a theatre: their pure and innocent manners might be infected; drawn from their calm delights, they would seek false pleasures; the ftage would not be fit for fuch a people, because they would have no occafion for it. But to a nation, in want of being recalled to thofe holy and primitive laws from which they have prodigiously wandered, and to that natural fentiment which their prejudices have extinguifhed; to fuch a nation the stage is ⚫ufeful and neceffary.'

The diftinction here is juft; yet the conceffion feems too great. For if it be allowed that dramatic exhibitions might in

fect the pure and innocent manners of a virtuous people, is it likely that by fuch means a nation fhould be recalled to thofe holy. and primitive laws from which it had wandered? If the stage were dangerous to native innocence and virtue, furely, little were to be expected from it, for moral reformation.

Nor will the Author, we prefume, be thought more happy in his argument, when he would reprefent it as owing to little more than a mere afferviency to words, that the diftinction of tragedy and comedy is ftill retained: I will venture to affert, fays he, that had it not been for the distinctive names of tragedy and comedy, which have often led poets into error, by drawing them from the ufe of thofe mixed colours, from which alone a regular portrait can be obtained ;-I will be bold to fay, he continues, that the dramatic art would, by this time, have attained to all the perfection one could with. It is not that our poets have been deficient in genius [that this art continued imperfect] it is because they knew not how to exert it in the most ftriking manner, and to purposes of the most general utility. Now, without paying any regard to words, let us fee and determine whether we are not now in poffeffion of a species of dramatic compofition, more true, more inftructive, than either tragedy or comedy. For if this fpecies, fo much decried by people who judge only from habit, unites all the intereft of tragedy, by means of its pathos, with all the natural charms of comedy, by means of its painting; if it be free from that indecorum [l'inconvenient] in tragedy of making divinities of vices, and from that inhumanity with which a ridiculous character is frequently facrificed in comedy; if from an union of the two fpecies, unluckily separated, a new one is produced, more fenfible, more affecting, more useful, where every thing arifes from the fituation of the character, THIS DRAMA may, perhaps, be allowed to be incomparably preferable, both as to its end and its effect.'

Here it seems that the drama is to be allowed every thing in tragedy, except the deification of vices, and every thing in comedy except the feverity of its ridicule; though the former is a point that it would be puritanical to contend about, and the Jatter a circumstance that it would be impolitic to depart from. Now, what, after all, can this be but that old ftage-monster, tragi-comedy?-A ftrange and horrible Being, begot by Comus on the Goddess of Death! Such it would feem at prefent; but let us proceed to that part of the work before us, where the Author enters into a more explicit account of it.

I am now, fays he, to prove that this new fpecies, called the drama, which is the refult of tragedy and comedy, uniting the pathos of the one with the natural painting of the other, is

infinitely

« הקודםהמשך »