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painter, yet nature has fo contrived the human body, that the external parts cannot be well understood, without a juft idea of the internal ones, even of thofe which are as it were buried in the center of the body: I mean the bones, or skeleton, which are the foundation and frame on which the whole fabric is built, and to which, as a bafis, all the other parts are mediately or immediately referred, particularly the mufcles, fo neceffary to be known by painters, which are chiefly inferted into the bones, and make confiderable marks and impreffions upon them; and confequently, without the knowledge of the bones, the muscles and other foft parts cannot be understood: but there is another reason why the bones must be ftudied by a painter, viz. becaufe parts of the bones, though covered by the integuments, appear not obfcurely to the eye in many places of the body, and like the large muscles, are there the cause of the outline, and of the character, proportion, beauty, and appearance of many parts; and when properly confidered and understood, the bones, by fo many fixed points, give the fineft direction to a painter, not only how to find and place the muscles, but alfo how to draw the human body; nor can it be fo justly or readily drawn by any painter, as by one that understands anatomy in a masterly manner, and particularly the bones and external muscles, and can point them all out upon a living man, and by means of that knowledge, determines all his points, and the forms and proportions of every part and member, adding one part to another as he knows they lie upon the body: this is the true and natural method of drawing the human figure, and is a much easier and com→ pleater way, to one that understands anatomy, than any artificial or mechanical method by fquares, or by dividing the body into so many heads, or by trufting merely to practice and memory, or a fervile imitation of any mafter. But though the bones and external muscles are the most neceffary part of the anatomical study of a painter, yet it must be confeffed, that at least a general knowledge of the whole fa bric is of great ufe, in order to a more complete and masterly repre sentation of the human body, and in order to be able to diverfify, and give a reafon for every appearance; and not only the folids muft be known by a painter, but he ought likewife to have fome idea of the fluids, as on thefe chiefly depend the various tints and colours of the fkin, that appear in the different fexes and ages of life, in different characters and occafions, climates and nations, even to that of the Blacks or Ethiopians. And as nature has fo contrived the human frame, that the movements and paflions of the mind affect the body, and are evidently seen and diftinguished upon the countenance, and are expreffed there and in other parts of the body by strong and certain characters, and as this is the most delicate and highest part of the painter's art, by which he is capable to move, to delight, and to struct mankind, and to recommend himself and his art to their efteem and admiration; therefore, the study of the mind, and its various characters, paffions, and movements, in fo far as they are marked upon, and expreffed by the body, ought to be above all things the Atudy of a painter: for as the members of the human body, in a good picture, beautifully appear through the drapery, and as the bones and mufcies appear through the fkin, fo the mind itself in all its charac ters and paffions appears upon the countenance, and in the expreffive proportions,

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proportions, attitudes, and tints of various parts; by which, as in a pantomime or dumb reprefentation, a painter can as it were fpeak to the beholders, and by lines and colours alone, can perform the fame effects with the musician, the poet, the orator, or the actor upon the ftage of mimic, or of real life.

A lover of the arts of defign, or indeed any anatomist of true taste, will look upon the human body and all its parts with the eye of a painter, otherwife, he will fee and describe it in an ignorant and ruftic manner: this picturefque turn we observe in few modern anatomifts, but rather a great ignorance of it, the generality feldom rifing above mechanical ideas, and many of them have even been ignorant of geometry, and every polite and liberal science, though abfolutely neceffary to a true knowledge of anatomy. Obferving the human body with the eye of a painter, enables us to fee it in all its beauty and perfection, and raises in our minds a thousand ideas of the ufes and propriety of the feveral parts, whereof one ignorant of painting will be totally infenfible: and in defcribing the human body upon this plan, we naturally do it in the moft clear, short, and agreeable manner, far different from the dull pedantic descriptions and tedious trifling of vulgar anatomifts. It is from bad habits alone, and mere want of genius, that any noble science, or any defcription of nature, can become tedious or difagreeable, or be borne and relished by the hearers: hence the works of the ancients, and of those who follow their footsteps, are read and feen with delight and admiration, while we are apt to fall afleep over the works of many accurate and laborious modern writers, and wonder how men can be fo blind and infenfible to true beauty, when nature and fuch admirable models are conftantly before their eyes.'

Upon the whole, few, we apprehend, who have any relish for anatomy and the arts of defign, are unacquainted with the works of Albinus; Dr. Brifbane, however, appears to be a perfon of tafte; his translations are well executed; and the tables have been copied with care, but from their fize must necessarily be less diftinct than the originals.

MONTHLY

CATALOGUE,

For AUGUST, 1769.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Art 10. A Letter to the Monthly Reviewers occafioned by their candid and impartial Stricture upon a late fenfible and patriotic Poem, entituled, Ambition, an Epistle to Paoli.' With a prefatory Address to the Shaver. And a paraphraftic Inverfion of the famous Petition of Agur: by way of Appendix. Drawn up for the Comfort of the Scru pulous, Difcontented, or Audacious. 8vo. 6d. Cooke.

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HE Writer of this Letter pretends to have no connection with the Author of Ambition, an Epiftle to Paoli, which he has endeavoured to defend against the cenfures which were paffed upon it in the

Review for April laft; there is, however, great reafon to fuppofe, that the Author of Ambition and of this Letter are the fame; fimilitude of hands is very strong evidence, and this evidence we shall bring in favour of our fuppofition. There is nonfenfe from a redundancy of words in Ambition, fo there is in this Letter; I could not find,' fays the Author, in his epiftle dedicatory, to whom with greater propriety the following pages might be more appofitely dedicated than to you; that is, I could not find to whom more properly the following pages might more properly be dedicated. The Author of Ambition attempts illuftration by figures that do not illaftrate, fo does the Letter-writer: he infinuates that no literary performance will stand the test of severe criticism, and immediately adds, some particular parts of here and there a fingular performance, like fome uncommon inftances of fortitude upon the rack, may be fafely put to this ordeal, yet the whole of no compofition ever did, or ever will bear it.' The principle to be illuf'trated is, that particular parts of a literary compofition may appear to be faultless when brought to the teft of criticism; the figure is, a perfon on the rack, who makes no confeffion, whether innocent or guilty the rack is a test of fortitude and not of innocence: the ordeal indeed was a teft of innocence and not of fortitude: the Letter-writer has fuppofed the rack and the ordeal to be the fame, which is another inftance of his resemblance to the Author of Ambition. That Author fuppofes minstrels to be courtezans; the Letter-writer is as grofsly ignorant in the fame particular, for he fuppofes them to be women educated with a view to prostitution. Minstrel is a word of nearly the fame import with bard, and was used to fignify a man who fung historical verses to an inftrument; it has been fince used to fignify an itinerant fidler who plays at country wakes, but it is not lefs abfurd to fuppofe parfon and harlot to be fynonimous terms, than harlot and fidler.

The Author of Ambition uses metaphors that are mixed and incongruous in the highest degree; the Letter-writer thinks that metaphors are not the worse, for mixture and incongruity; the Poet talks of a chaplet of poifon to debauch a mind; let us hear the Apologift:

"A chaplet of poison to debauch the mind."-Here, I fuppofe, is thought to be a clashing, or confufion of ideas-Be it fo-it nevertheless expreffes what it was intended to mean (and fo much it certainly should) one of thofe fallacious and infinuating arts that are made ufe of to debauch or vitiate the mind, by pleafing, in order to impofe, upon the senses; or rather by them upon the imagination, and thereby gaining an irrefiftable afcendancy over both the affections and the will; of whofe pollution the fenfes become the inftruments, as the object itfelf was of their deception.-Now, gentlemen, viewed in this light, (and in what other ought it to be viewed?) tho' your AcCURACIES may object to the metaphor, the moral is clear enough to intelligence and if only by the courtesy of criticism, would have been tolerated in almost any thing but an addrefs in behalf of Mr. Wilkes; or " Ambition, an Epistle to Paoli."

But if a metaphor thould not be cenfured as tranfgreffing the rules of poetry or rhetoric, provided its general meaning can be gueffed, neither should a literal expreffion be cenfured as tranfgreffing the rules of grammar, fuppofing it not to be wholly unintelligible, and the Let-`

ter-writer

ter-writer may be juftified in making the noun- fingular, and the pronoun plural, when he afks Whether we have not recommended many a production which, exclufive of their futility, have had no other merit than that they were advertised for our bookfeller.'

But whether this Apologift for Ambition is or is not the Author, is a question of little importance either to us or to the public: we apprehend our Readers are fufficiently fatisfied with refpect to his learning and abilities: his candour and politeness are equally confpicuous we have remarked the most glaring faults of a performance in which there is nothing to commend, for which he accufes us of rancour, partiality, and invidiousness, has ftigmatized us as the enemies of liberty and religion, as commending only from intereft and condemning merely from envy, as mean, selfish, foolish; nay, as folly itself. • Erafmus, fays he, has written your encomium.' We answer nothing to these charges, but wish him a better temper, and a more reputable employment.

His paraphraftic inverfion of Agur's prayer is a rhapsody altogether unintelligible; it feems to have been intended as a cenfure of what was faid of Agur's prayer in a late Review, but it neither implies nor expreffes any juft impeachment of that article: it is a mixture of blafphemy and nonfenfe, of which a parallel can scarcely be found: let the Reader judge, from the following extract:

O Thou! whatever is thy nature or thy name; who art not only unknown and invifible, and therefore quite out of reach and unapproachable but who, as it appeareth to us, at times art equally ftrange and unreasonable; whofe ways, (if indeed they are thine) are really beyond our accounting for; but only that, as they must be fomebody's, and we are willing to put the most charitable conftruction upon even the moft fufpicious and unfavourable appearances, we are therefore ready to believe, art better than appearances would reprefent-behold! we the most trufty and deferving, (though to be fure not the most favoured or beloved) of all thy injured and ill-treated creatures, are now going to make our most juft and rational complaints; as the generous and voluntary advocates and interceffors, as well in the behalf of our fpecies in general, as for that most useful and refpectable part of it ourselves and Co. in particular: who are, as indeed we have long been, mott bafely and fhamefully permitted to be, the most eminent lofers and fufferers; not only by the fcandalous and unjustifiable inequality, and want even of common fenfe, which is fo notoriously confpicuous in the diftribution of that which, our own obfervation convinces us, alone can or ought to conftitute the real felicity of any fuch intelligent and fenfible beings as we are. either in this or any other ftate that we know any thing about and which, for many reafons, by the bye, we ought to have had without asking; but by the ftupid, irrational, and contradictory documents and inAructions lugged out of a certain old worm-eaten volume, tranflated, as we are informed, by a fet of religious aftrologers, from a jargon, by their own account, confounded at Babel, are precluded from feeking any redrefs; and only recommended to the example of one Agur, (whom we believe to have been no better than a forcerer) and, what is more aftonishing ftill, all this (for the more effectually accomplishing their execrable and fanguinary intentions) is pretended to have been

written

written under the fanction of thy infpiration and appointment, by which not only our interests are prejudiced, but our very fenfes and reafon are infulted: nay, more, we are, under the fevereft penalties, not only prohibited from complaining; but are, by the fame cruel and defpotic authority, commanded and required to take our fuffer ings as a FAVOUR, and the moft tyrannical fubjugation under them as an efpecial and extraordinary PRIVILEGE: fo that by this means our miferies are buckled on us like a burden on the back of an ass, or, a collar on the neck of a dog; as if we had either forfeited our exiftences, or existed only to be SCARIFIED! This being then our fituation, (but a fituation we are refolved not to fubmit to a moment longer than we can help,) We now make it our bufinefs to inform Thee of it, as well as of our refolutions upon it; and that as we are not only our own, but indeed, our own best friends too, instead of crouching, -cringing,-fawning, and whimpering, as others have often done, to be miferable, or defiring the honour of being permitted to remain fo, we make no ceremony to declare, that we will stand to no fuch bargains, and fhould look upon ourselves unworthy of the shape of attitudes of men if we did, and our fouls no bigger than a nutmeg-A parcel of frigid, timid, narrow, felf-concentred animals, undeferving the notice of a grasshopper-lo pretend from flattery or fear to make Thee imagine we approved of any fuch ufage, when at the fame time we are fure, that if they were to be placed in our stead, who preach up this flavery to us, the very first thing they would attempt would be to get rid of that or their being! Amen.'

After eight pages more of the fame jargon, the Author concludes with what he calls the effence of the foregoing, extracted for the eafe and comfort of the lazy, the infirm, or impatient:

"I befeech Thee do not give me poverty for then I fhall only be laughed at: nor yet a mere mediocrity, for that will be no better than my daily bread-A petition hardly fit for a dormouse-But give me riches in abundance, and then, though I fhould deferve to be hanged, every body will pull off their hats fhall have all I want in this world, and be treated lie a gentleman in the NXT! Amen."

Now follows an ejaculation containing the Ether of both; and may be used at court or the India house.

"OJAFFIER! make me a NABOB! Amen for ever and ever!” Perhaps from this paffage the Reader will conceive an opinion of the Author's brain, from which it will follow that his morals are fecured at the expence of his understanding..

Art. 11. A Treatise on Fruit-trees. By Thomas Hitt, formerly Gardener to Lord Robert Manners, at Blexholm in Lincolnshire; and * Lord Robert Bertie, at Chislehurst, in Kent. The 3d Edition. 8vo. 5 s. 3 d. Boards. Robinfon and Roberts. 1768. The first edition of this work came out in the year 1755; and our Readers will find it recommended, at large, in the 13th volume of this Review. From the time of its firft publication, Mr. Hitt declares he has made fuch additions, fucceffively, to his work, as a very extenfive practice afforded him opportunities for doing; and thefe, he affures his Readers, are all faithfully inferted, together with fome neceffary corrections, in this third edition: which we look upon as a very rational and useful publication.

Art. 12.

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