DEAR SIR,

LETTER II.

June 27, 1753.

THE Continuance of your correspondence will always yield me fresh delight: nor can the communication of your sentiments ever bring satiety along with them. No apology can ever be needful to accompany your letters. Whenever therefore you are in the humour of writing, impart your thoughts without reserve: when you are not so disposed, I shall not blame your forbearance, but silently wish that the liberality of your genius may not be long dormant.

The poor whore's fate was undetermined when your letter arrived: and the softness of your nature has influenced that of your friend. By your favour, she walks at large, enjoying freedom and sunshine: the putative father is gone into exile, and the parish maintains the child.

You are really too modest in disclaiming the merits of an Atticus, at the time when you would make a Cicero of your friend. You have indeed neither the rank nor fortune of that Roman; but I will aver, that you have as clear an understanding as he could boast, and some better endowments than were attributed to him. Had you been in his circumstances and situation, you would have been a more useful man. A proper distribution of his immense wealth might have prevented the fall of Rome. I think that I am able to support this assertion.

Since I made the inquiry about the invention of writing, I was informed in a dream that Moses (whom the heathens called Cadmus) was the man, into whose head that glorious art was first inspired. I confess no arguments were suggested to confirm that declaration; but what need is there of reasoning, when the authority is divine? For dreams are undoubtedly from heaven. So said Homer*; and so say all the orthodox, sacred and profane.

The gout has left me, and I enjoy perfect health. The writers upon Natural Evil you have rallied with a spirit that is no less judicious than it is pleasant and facetious. I have never met with any of them that have contributed to remove my perplexities. But I remember a conversation with a certain acquaintance of mine upon Blackheath, that gave me more satisfaction than all the volumes I had perused. "Pain," said he, " is a natural consequence of imperfection,

and imperfection there must be, if there be a gradation of beings. But if there had not been such a scale of existences, there would have been a great void left, which would have been an argument of less benevolence in the deity, than to have created beings only in high perfection. This system then could not be without pain and distress: they are necessary defects in a constitution which is good upon the whole." I think, this is the substance of what you then said, and it operated with great force upon my mind. Yours most affectionately,

1784, May.

NAT. LANCASTER.

XXXV. Mr. Rogers to Dean Milles, on two ancient Pictures.

MR. URBAN,

YOU receive herewith a letter from the late Charles Rogers, Esq. to the Rev. Dr. Milles, Dean of Exeter, and late President of the Society of Antiquaries; read at a meeting of that learned body, Feb. 18, 1779; but not inserted in any of their publications.

Yours,

A. B.

SIR,

May 17, 1778.

I TAKE the liberty to lay before you two small pictures of an old Greek master, which I purchased in 1765, at the sale of some of the valuable effects of Ebenezer Mussell, Esq. a fellow of this Society, and which may merit some regard on account of their antiquity.

They were accompanied with a memorandum of their being supposed to have been painted about the tenth century, of having been brought from Smyrna, and been part. of the collection of Edward Earl of Oxford, out of which Mr. Mussell acquired them in 1741-2.

Their outward appearance is of a book 6 inches high, wide, and 14 thick. The covers in which they are painted are of wood, with their edges and corners of brass; they are opened on hinges, fastened together with a clasp; and had two rings on the upper edges, by which they might be hung up. This shape gives us reason to conjecture, that they were intended for a portable or pocket altar-piece.

The subjects painted on the inside of the covers are the Trinity and the Annunciation.

That of the Trinity fronts the left-hand of the spectator, and is represented by God the Father, with Jesus Christ sitting at his right hand, and the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove with extended wings, over them; and flying round them are the heads of Cherubims, whose ruddy countenances glow with divine ardour.

God the Father is figured as the Ancient of Days, the hair of whose head was like the pure wool*, and with a white beard falling on his breast. His right hand reclines on a globe which is between him and Jesus, and with his left he is giving his benediction; not in the Roman manner, with his fore and middle fingers erect, and the thumb with the other fingers depressed, but in that practised by the Greek church, with the fore and middle fingers joined together, and extended strait, except a little bending of the middle finger, with the thumb touching the third finger, and with the little finger bent also somewhat inwards.

The intention of this disposition of the fingers I shall beg leave to transcribe from "A Collection of Prints in Imitation of Drawings, &c." lately presented to your Society, tome I. p. 44.

66

"S. Gregorius Nissenus insinuates, that among the Greek priests the custom prevailed of giving their blessings with their fingers lifted up in such a manner that by them they might express the name of Jesus Christ: the demonstration of which is thus given from Bishop Nicolaus. The second finger of the right-hand," [but in the painting before us it is the left] and the third joined to the second are extended strait, although the third be a little bent in the middle; which disposition of the hand effectually denotes, and, as by an image, expresses the name of Jesus; for the second finger extended strait denotes the letter I, the third a little bent describes C; which letters joined together signify Jesus. Besides, the thumb joined to the fourth finger, and crossing it a little obliquely, forms the letter X, and the little finger bent inwards C [being the first and last letters of the words IHEOTC XPICTOC.] Thus the name of Jesus Christ is described in the hand of the Bishop; and as Jesus conferred grace and benediction on the Apostles, so the Bishop,

* Daniel, vii. 9.

strengthened with the name of Christ, diffuses his benediction."

The inscriptions in these pictures are partly in Greek, but chiefly in Russian, characters; which Mr. Peters, a studious gentleman who resided some years at Petersburgh, has very obligingly interpreted for me. Those on each side and over

the head of this figure are,

Lord

Father

of Sabaoth.

Jesus is represented with a beard and hair so dark as to be almost black; his right hand rests on a book (containing probably the Prophecies of the coming of Christ,) which is supported by his knee, and his left holds the Cross of Salvation over the Globe, an emblem of his being "Salvator Mundi." Over and on each side his head are written,

And in the upper margin of this tablet is written,

Holy Trinity have Mercy upon us.

The title inscribed over the other tablet is,

Visitation of the Holy Mother of God.

In this the Virgin Mary sits on a seat richly carved, with her head a little inclined, and her right-hand on her bosom, receiving the joyful tidings with great humility. She is with her neck and breast covered, and expresses a modesty becoming the Queen of Heaven, in the manner Luigi Scaramuccia, a painter of Perugia, prescribes to modern artists; and in which, he observes, the old Greeks drew her (although in their plain style) as is even at this time seen in their representations of her in the houses of the devout+. A book is open before her, lying on a table covered with a cloth of gold embroidery, in which is written,

"And thou, Virgin, shalt conceive a Son in thy Womb, and his Name shall be Nare."

* Numismata Sum. Pontificum a P. Philippo Bonanni Societatis Jesu. Fol; 1699. Tom I. p. 356.

+ Le Finezze de' Pennelli Italiani, p. 210.

In reference to the Prophecy of Isaiah [vii. 14.] of "Behold a Virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and shall call his name Immanuel."

On her left breast is a star, perhaps denoting that which was to go before the Wise Men from the East to Bethlehem, and stand over where Jesus was to be born*.

May not this lead us to conjecture, that the representation of the Star of Bethlehem is intended by those embroidered on the breasts of the knights of several orders?

Behind the Virgin is seen a canopy-bed, with crimson curtains worked with gold, and other decorations, in an apartment so highly finished as to be more suitable to the Queen of Heaven than the spouse of an artisan; unless we may esteem such painters as this to be somewhat justified in their imagining the Virgin Mary to be rich, and representing her apartment sumptuously furnished at the time of the Annunciation, by being told, from St. Hierom, that Joachim and Ann, her father and mother, were enabled to divide their substance into three parts; one of which alone was sufficient for their own uset.

The Dove is descending to her; and the Archangel Gabriel, that stood in the presence of God, has a white lily in his left-hand, the hieroglyphic of Christ and Angels, and holds up his right, as saluting the Virgin with " Ave gratia plena§."

The inscription over the Dove is,

The painter has not ill expressed the instantaneous arrival of Gabriel, and his quick descent from Heaven, by his yet standing on the clouds without his feet touching the floor, by one of his wings being yet extended upright in the air, and by the fluttering of his garments, which have not had as yet time to fall into their proper positions.

* Matth. ii. 9.

+ Aurea Legenda per Jacobum de Voragine, folio 99. verse 6. Vide J. Pierii Valeriani Hieroglyphica. Lib. LV. cap. 10. Luke i. 19, 28.