is the synonym of unrivalled excellence and a very superior critic has observed, that grace of conception and refinement of taste were his elements, and went hand in hand with grace of execution and taste in finish,-powerful, and seldom possessed singly, irresistible when united. Such were the principles on which he formed his Venus Anadyomene, or rather the personification of the Birth-day of Love, the wonder of art, the despair of artists; whose outline baffled every attempt at emendation, whilst imitation shrunk from the purity of the force, the brilliancy, the evanescent gradations of her tints'. This celebrated picture, drawn from Campaspe, the beautiful mistress of Alexander, to which the name of Apelles was affixed, and usually called his masterpiece, was valued at a hundred talents, or £19,375 English money. Of the very high prices of pictures amongst the Romans, the following notices are derived 1 Fuseli's Lectures. The story of the contest between Protogenes of Rhodes and Apelles is well known by the tale which Prior has founded on it. from learned authorities:-The two pictures of Medea and Ajax, by Timomachus, a painter of Byzantium, were bought by Julius Cæsar for eighty talents, about £15,500. Hortensius, the orator and friend of Cicero, paid for the Argonauts, painted by Cydias, about 1,1627.10s. English money. Agrippa purchased two remarkable pictures of Ajax and Venus from the Cyzicenians for twelve thousand nummi, or about 967. 17s. 6d. The Archigallus, or High Priest, a picture which the Emperor Tiberius highly esteemed, and painted by Parrhasius, was valued at sixty sestertia, about 4841. 7s. 6d. Pliny says he was one of the most excellent painters of his time; that it was he who first gave symmetry and just proportions in the art; that he also was the first who knew how to express the truth of character and the different airs of the face; that he found out a beautiful disposition of the hair, and heightened the grace of the countenance. It was allowed even by the masters in the art, that he bore away from all others the glory of succeeding in the outline, in which consists the grand secret of painting. Amongst his pictures was a celebrated one of Theseus; and another representing Meleager, Hercules, and Perseus, a group'. L. Lucullus bought a copy of Glycera, by Pausias, for two talents, or 3977. 10s. English money'. Quintilian, commenting upon the talents of six famous painters, says: Protogenes excelled in exactness; Pamphilius and Melanthus, in the disposition; Antiphilus, in facility; Theon the Samian, in fruitfulness of ideas; and Apelles, in grace and ingenious conception. Other celebrated artists were Zeuxis, Metrodorus, &c., whose works were in very high estimation in Italy. THE BIBLIOTHECA. The Library also communicated with the Peristyle, and was required to have an eastern aspect; as its use demanded the morning sun, 1 Pliny, book xxxv.; and Junius de Pictura Veterum;—of the last there is an English translation, published in 1638. 2 Arbuthnot's Tables of Ancient Coins, p. 164. which was calculated to preserve the books from damp, and had the additional advantage of shielding the apartment from those sultry winds which engender worms,-a consideration by no means to be overlooked; as these insects were found to occasion infinite mischief in libraries, by gnawing the rolls of parchment or the leaves of papyrus, of which the books were made'. The private libraries of the Romans, although they contained a considerable number of books, were probably small: one discovered at Herculaneum, containing more than a thousand volumes, was of such confined dimensions, that by extending the arms, both sides of the wall might be touched. The manuscripts of 1 A deed written in Latin on papyrus, dated A.D. 572, is exhibited in the British Museum; and also a large specimen of the reed Cyperus Papyrus, of which that kind of paper is made. It is accompanied by an Italian note by Sir William Hamilton, written on modern papyrus, explaining the mode of preparing it. The ancient papyrus was to be found nowhere but in Egypt and in India, according to Strabo. 2 Winkelman, Récherches sur l'Architecture des Anciens, p. 73. papyrus found at Herculaneum, and now preserved at Portici, consist chiefly of the works of the Greek philosophers or sophists, the subjects of which are either natural or moral philosophy, medicine, criticism, and general observations on the arts, life, and manners'. The unfolding of the papyri is exceedingly curious and interesting. From the frailty of the material the process is extremely slow; perhaps not more than half an inch is unfolded at a time, and is fixed upon gold-beater's leaf. In appearance the papyri might be mistaken for parts of calcined branches of trees, the circular folds seeming like the growth of the wood. In looking at these black and indurated masses, it requires an effort to believe them to be replete with human knowledge". In the Bibliotheca, drawers placed all round the room preserved the Locumenta, or boxes containing the volumes carefully labelled'. 1 Sir Humphry Davy's Report, 1819. |