As I have also preserved a sketch of my famous Ourang-Outang, a thought has struck me, that with a few finishing touches he might easily be converted into a Caliban for the Tempest, and, when that is done, I shall not totally despair of his obtaining a niche in the Shakspeare gallery.

It has been common with the great masters, Rubens, Vandyke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and others, when they paint a warrior, or other great personage, on horseback, to throw a dwarf, or some other contrasted figure, into the back ground: should any artist be in want of such a thing, I can very readily supply him with my hair-lipped boy; if otherwise, I am not totally without hopes that he may suit some Spanish grandee, when any such shall visit this country upon his travels, or in the character of ambassador from that illustrious court.

"Before I conclude I shall beg leave to observe, that I have a complete set of ready-made devils, that would do honour to Saint Anthony, or any other person, who may be in want of such accompaniments to set off the self-denying virtues of his character; I have also a fine parcel of murdered innocents, which I mean to have filled up with the story of Herod; but if any gentleman thinks fit to lay the scene in Ghent, and make a modern composition of it, I am bold to say my pretty babes will not disgrace the pathos of the subject, nor violate the Costuma. I took a notable sketch of a man hanging, and seized him just in the dying twitches, before the last stretch gave a stiffness and rigidity unfavourable to the human figure this I would willingly accommodate to the wishes of any lady, who is desirous of preserving a portrait of her lover, friend, or husband, in that interesting attitude.

These, cum multis aliis, are part of my stock on hand, and I hope, upon my arrival at my lodgings

XXXIX.

2 F

in Blood-bowl-alley, to exhibit them with much credit to myself, and to the entire satisfaction of such of my neighbours in that quarter, as may incline to patronise the fine arts, and restore the credit of this drooping country. Yours, GORGON.'

NUMBER XCIX.

Cuncti adsint, meritæque expectent præmia palmæ! A CURIOUS Greek fragment has been lately discovered by an ingenious traveller at Constantinople, which is supposed to have been saved out of the famous Alexandrian library when set on fire by command of the Caliph. There is nothing but conjecture to guide us to the author: some learned men, who have examined it, give it to Pausanias, others to Ælian: some contend for Suidas, others for Libanius: but most agree in ascribing it to some one of the Greek sophists, so that it is not to be disguised that just doubts are to be entertained of its veracity in point of fact. There may be much ingenuity in these discussions, but we are not to expect conviction; therefore I shall pass to the subject matter, and not concern myself with any previous argumentation on a question that is never likely to be settled.

This fragment says, That some time after the death of the great dramatic poet Eschylus, there was a certain citizen of Athens named Philoteuchus, who by his industry and fair character in trade had acquired a plentiful fortune, and came in time to be actually chosen one of the Areopagites; this man in an advanced period of his life engaged in a very splendid undertaking for collecting a series of pic

tures to be composed from scenes in the tragedies of the great poet above-mentioned, and to be executed by the Athenian artists, who were then both numerous and eminent.

The old Areopagite, with a spirit that would have done honour to Pisistratus or Pericles, constructed a spacious lyceum for the reception of these pictures, which he laid open to the resort both of citizens and strangers, and the success of the work reflected equal credit upon the undertaker and the artists whom he employed.'

The chain of the narration is here broken by a loss of a part of the fragment, which however is fortunately resumed in that place, where the writer gives some account of the masters who painted for this collection, and of the scenes they made choice of for their several pictures.

'He tells us that Apelles was then living and in the vigour of his genius, though advanced in years; he describes the scene chosen for his composition minutely, and it appears to have been taken from that suit of dramas, which we know Eschylus composed from the story of the Atridæ, and of which we have still such valuable remains. He represents Ægisthus, after the murder of Agamemnon by the instigation of Clytemnestra, in the act of consulting certain Sybils, who by their magical spells and incantations have raised the ghost of Agamemnon, which is attended by a train of phantoms, emblematic of eight successive kings of Argos, his immediate descendants: the spectre is made pointing to his posterity, and at the same time looking on his murderer with a smile, in which Apelles contrived to give the several expressions of contempt, exultation, and revenge, with such a character of ghastly pain and horror, as to make the beholders shrink. Amongst these Sybils he introduces the person of

Cassandra the prophetess, whom Agamemnon brought captive from the destruction of Troy. The light, he says, only proceeds from a flaming cauldron, in which the Sybils have been making their libations to the infernal deities or furies, and he speaks of the reflected, ruddy tints, which by this management of the artist were cast upon the figures, as producing a wonderful effect, and giving an amazing horror and magnificence to the group. Upon the whole he states it as the most capital performance of the master, and that he got such universal honour thereby, that he was afterward employed to paint for the Persian monarch, and had a commission even from the queen of Scythia, a country then emerging from barbarity.

'Parrhasius, though born in the colony of Miletus on the coast of Asia, was an adopted citizen of Athens, and in great credit there for his celebrated picture on the death of Epaminondas: he contributed to this collection by a very capital composition taken from a tragedy, which was the third in a series of dramas, founded by Eschylus on the wellknown story of Edipus, all which are lost. The miserable monarch, whose misfortunes had overturned his reason, is here depicted taking shelter under a wretched hovel in the midst of a tremendous storm, where the elements seem conspiring against a helpless being in the last stage of human misery. The painter has thrown a very touching character of insanity into his features, which plainly indicates that his loss of reason has arisen from the tender rather than the inflammatory passions; for there is a majestic sensibility mixed with the wildness of hist distraction, which still preserves the traces of the once benevolent monarch. In this desolate scene he has a few forlorn companions in his distress, which form a very peculiar group of personages; for

they consist of a venerable old man in a very piteous condition, whose eyes have been torn from their sockets, together with a naked maniac who is starting from the hovel, where he had housed himself during the tempest: the effect of this figure is described with rapture, for he is drawn in the prime of youth, beautiful, and of a most noble air; his naked limbs display the finest proportions of the human figure, and the muscular exertion of the sudden action he is thrown into furnish ample scope to the anatomical science of the artist. The fable feigns him to be the son of the blind old man above described, and the fragment relates that his frenzy being not real but assumed, Parrhasius availed himself of that circumstance, and touched the character of his madness with so nice and delicate a discrimination from that of Edipus, that an attentive observer might have discovered it to be counterfeited even without the clue of the story. There are two other attendant characters in the group; one of these is a rough, hardy veteran, who seems to brave the storm with a certain air of contemptuous petulance in his countenance that bespeaks a mind superior to fortune, and indignant under the visitation even of the gods themselves. The other is a character that seems to have been a kind of imaginary creature of the poet, and is a buffoon or jester upon the model of Homer's Thersites, and was employed by Eschylus in his drama upon the old burlesque system of the Satyrs, as an occasional chorus or parody upon the severer and more tragic characters of the piece.

The next picture in our author's catalogue was by the hand of Timanthes: this modest painter, though residing in the capital of Attica, lived in -such retirement from society, and was so absolutely devoted to his art, that even his person was scarce known to his competitors. Envy never drew a word