fieger, there shall be a champion in the garrison ready to turn out and give him battle: Let all who are upon the fick lift in the community be laid out between the camps, and let the refpective combatants fight it out over the bodies, but let the forces of life and health have no fhare in the fray Why should their peace be disturbed, or their fociety contaminated by the infectious communication? It is as much out of time and place for a man to be giving the diary of his disease in company, who are met for focial purposes, as it is for a doctor to be talking politics or scandal in a fick man's chamber; yet so it is that each party are for ever out of character; the chatterer difgufts his patient by an inattention to his complaints, and the valetudinarian difgufts his company by the enumeration of them, and both are equally out of feason.

Every man's observation may furnish him with inftances not here enumerated, but if what I have faid fhall feem to merit more confideration than I have been able to give it in the compafs of this paper, my readers may improve upon the hint and fociety cannot fail to profit by their reflections.

N° XCIX.

N° XCIX.

Cuntti adfint, meritæque expectent præmia palmæ !

A

CURIOUS Greek fragment has been lately difcovered by an ingenious traveller at Conftantinople, which is fuppofed to have been faved out of the famous Alexandrian library, when fet on fire by command of the Caliph. There is nothing but conje&ure to guide us to the author: Some learned men, who have examined it, give it to Paufanias, others to Elian; fome contend for Suidas, others for Libanius; but most agree in afcribing it to fome one of the Greek fophifts, fo that it is not to be disguised that just doubts are to be entertained of it's veracity in point of fact. There may be much ingenuity in these difcuffions, but we are not to expect conviction; therefore I fhall pafs to the subject-matter, and not concern myself with any previous argumentation on a question, that is never likely to be fettled.

"This fragment fays that fome time after the death of the great dramatic poet Æfchylus, there was a certain citizen of Athens named Philoteuchus, who by his industry and fair cha

racter in trade had acquired a plentiful fortune, and came in time to be actually chofen one of the Areopagites: This man in an advanced period of his life engaged in a very splendid undertaking for collecting a feries of pictures to be compofed from fcenes in the tragedies of the great poet above-mentioned, and to be executed by the Athenian artifts, who were then both numerous and eminent.

“The old Areopagite with a spirit, that would have done honour to Pifftratus or Pericles, conftructed a fpacious lyceum for the reception of these pictures, which he laid open to the refort both of citizens and strangers, and the fuccefs 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 part of the fragment, which however is fortunately refumed in that place, where the writer gives fome account of the mafters, who painted for this collection, and of the scenes they made choice of for their feveral pictures.

"He tells us that Apelles was then living and in the vigour of his genius, though advanced in years; he defcribes the fcene chofen for his compofition minutely, and it appears to have been taken from that fuite of dramas, which we know Efthylus, compofed from the ftory of the Atrida,

Atride, and of which we have ftill fuch valuable remains. He reprefents Ægisthus, after the murder of Agamemnon by the inftigation of Clytemnestra, in the act of confulting certain Sybils, who by their magical fpells and incantations have raised the ghost of Agamemnon, which is attended by a train of phantoms, emblematic of eight fucceffive kings of Argos, his immediate defcendants: The spectre is made pointing to his pofterity, and at the fame time looking on his murderer with a smile, in which Apelles contrived to give the feveral expreffions of contempt, exultation and revenge with fuch a character of ghaftly pain and horror, as to make the beholders fhrink. Amongst thefe Sybils he introduces the perfon of Caffandra the prophetess, whóm Agamemnon brought captive from the deftruction of Troy. The light, he fays, proceeds only 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 caft upon the figures, as producing a wonderful effect, and giving an amazing horror and magnificence to the group. Upon the whole he ftates it as the most capital performance of the mafter, and that he got fuch univerfal honour thereby, that he was afterwards.

employed

employed to paint for the Perfian monarch, and had a commiffion even from the queen of Scythia, a country then emerging from barbarity.

"Parrhafius, though born in the colony of Miletus on the coaft of Afia, was an adopted citizen of Athens and in great credit there for his celebrated picture on the death of Epami nondas: He contributed to this collection by a very capital compofition taken from a tragedy, which was the third in a feries of dramas, founded by fchylus on the well-known ftory of Oedipus, all which are loft. The miferable monarch, whofe misfortunes had overturned his reafon, is here depicted taking fhelter under a wretched hovel in the midst of a tremendous ftorm, where the elements feem confpiring against a helplefs being in the laft ftage of human mifery. The painter has thrown a very touching character of infanity into his features, which plainly indicates that his lofs of reafon has arifen from the tender rather than the inflammatory paffions; for there is a majeftic fenfibility mixed with the wildnefs of his distraction, which ftill preferves the traces of the once benevolent monarch. In this defolate fcene he has a few forlorn companions in his diftrefs, which form a very peculiar group of perfonages; for they confift of a venerable old man in a very piteous