Cambridge in the beginning of the sixteenth century, no books were printed here in Hebrew characters before the year 1592, when Dr. Rhese published his Institutiones Linguæ Cambro-Britannicæ. In the year 1657 the English Polyglott in six volumes folio was printed at London, under the auspices of archbishop Usher and bishop Walton. This magnificent work was begun in 1653, and contains the sacred text in the Hebrew, Samaritan, Syriac, Chal. dean, Arabic, Persic, Æthiopic, Greek, and Latin languages, all printed in their proper characters. Besides the characters exhibited in the body of this great work, the Prolegomena furnish us with more; namely, the Rabbinical, the Hebrew, the Syriac duplices, Nestorian, and Estrangelan, the Armenian, the Egyptian, the Illyrian, both Cyrillian and Hieronymian, the Iberian, and the ancient Gothic. Most of the rare books above specified are to be found in his Majesty's library at the Queen's house, in the British Museum, or in that of earl Spencer. The greatest difficulty, which the first letter.founders had to encounter, was the discovery of the necessary number of each letter for a font of types in any particular language; and in order to know this they would endeavour to find out how much oftener one letter occurred than another in such a language. Perhaps this discovery was made by casting off the copy, as the printers call it; which is by calculating the number of letters necessary for compo. sing any given number of pages, and by counting the number of each letter which occurs in those pages; this would in some degree have pointed out the proportional number of one letter to another, but whether it was done by this, or by what other method, is not easy to discover: however it is generally supposed, the letter, founder's bill was made in the fifteenth century, but on what prin ciple all writers are silent: the various ligatures and abbreviations used by the early printers made more types necessary than at present, Printers divide a font of letters into two classes, namely, the upper-case and the lower-case. The upper-case contains large capi. tals, small capitals, accented letters, figures, and marks of refer. ences. The lower-case contains small letters, ligatures, points, spaces, and quadrates. [Astle. CHAP. III. IMITATIVE ARTS, COMPRISING, DESIGNING, PAINTING, ENAMELLING, PRINTING, ENGRAVING, SCULPTURE, POTTERY, AND PORCELAIN-MODELLING. SECTION I. Knowledge of the Ancients in respect to the Imitative Arts. IT was not, to the philosophy of light, shade, and colours alone, that the ancients directed their attention. They made a practical use of them in the elegant arts of designing and painting, in all the different branches of which they acquired a degree of perfection which may well vie with that of later ages. Those who have studied the history of these arts, as anciently but satisfacto rily compiled by Pliny, must be convinced, that there is scarcely a style of modern drawing or colouring which was not known to the Greeks; who united to these exquisite accomplishments all the collateral ramifications of embroidery, tapestry, brocading, damask work, in the time of Homer denominated spiora,and every species of mosaic, which, according to the Roman annalist, had a different denomination assigned to each. Thus, we meet with one set of arranged and coloured stones which was called lithostrata; another, opus tesselatum; a third, musivum; fourth, emblematical; and a fifth, vermiculatum; many of several kinds of which are still carefully preserved in St. Peter's church at Rome, and contribute, in no small degree, to the splendour of that magnificent edifice. Their inlaid works, however, were not confined to stone and marble; they extended to horn, tortoise-shell, and ivory and Pliny makes express mention of several exquisite proofs of their taste and ingenuity in inlaying ta. bles, and other furniture, with a mixture of ivory, and woods or barks differently coloured, so as to produce the effect of a finished picture or medallion. From whom the Greeks derived their first knowledge of designing we know not. According to Pliny, Telephanes of Sicyon and Ardices of Corinth equally contended for the honour; but the species of design he first adverts to, an invention, indeed, prior to the æra that can be ascribed to these artists, is the rude and in. condite method of tracing the mere outline of the human shadow when projected upon a wall, a method which still exists among ourselves under the name of a silhouette,-brâ hominis lineas circumducta. This species of drawing, and, probably, painting, strictly so called, must have been of very early origin indeed. Embroidery and tapestry, in which colours were introduced, we know to have been of high antiquity even among the Jews and Babyloneans; but both these arts presuppose the existence of outlines, or line draw. ings, for the artist necessarily worked from a pattern. The history of Pandion, king of Athens, and of his daughter Philomela, who informed Progné of her misfortunes by describing them on tapestry, may, perhaps, be fabulous. Be this, however, as it may, we know that this fable is of very remote origin, ard as it is related by Apol lodorus, was, probably, the production of one of the Cyclic poets, concerning whom the reader will find an account in Note on Book V. v. 339. of the present version. According to this admirable mythologist, Philomela did not indeed paint her history, but embroidered it in characters on a veil. Yet, at the period when this fable was invented, we can scarcely conceive, that embroidery was confined to the exhibition of characters alone; it was unquestion. bly employed, and with more freedom, in the art of tracing and designing. In the time of Homer, however, we have undoubted proof of the application of tapestry to the dignity of historical subjects. Iris, in the third book of the Iliad, finds Helen occupied in representing on tapestry the evils which the Greeks and Trojans had suffered on her account in their battles. Such an undertaking, even supposing it were executed in cammeo, or with a single colour, evinces a considerable perfection of the art she was practising. But the Trojans are stated to have been also acquainted with the mode of intermixing different colours in their tapestries. When Andromache learned the death of Hector, she was at work in a retired part of her palace, and representing, in tapestry, flowers of a variety of tinctures. Αλλ, ηγ' ιστον υφαίν μυχω δόμου υψηλοίο, Far in the close recesses of the dome Pensive she ply'd the melancholy loom; IL. K. 439. To the mere outline or silhouette, the Corinthian or Sicyo. nian artist, according to Pliny, added strokes to its interior, -jam tunc spargentes lineas intus; a style which is yet retained whenever the quill or the crayon is employed; and some admirable drawings, in which are still preserved at Rome as the production of Polydore of Caravagio, a celebrated pupil of Raphael; the mode of executing which is denominated by the Italians al sgrafitto. Our historian then advances to a second epoch, regarding the mere outline, and the out'ine with internal strokes as one and the same, although I cannot but agree with M. Levesque, in his very ingenious essay on this subject, (Mem. de l'Instit. Nat. Lit. et B. Arts, I.) that the former must, for a long period, have preceded the latter. This second epoch of Pliny comprises the use of a single colour alone, and its style was, in consequence, denominated by the Greeks, Monochromaton, and is still retained, in modern times, under the appellation of cammeo. For this improvement the Roman historian presents us with two competitors also, without deciding on the superiority of their pretensions; Philocles, whom he asserts to have been of Egypt, and Cleanthes of Corinth. This seems to have been a great improvement upon the style of stroke or linear drawing; for although the former may have been founded upon an observation of the effects of light and shade, and an attempt to introduce such effects upon paper, yet, every attempt must, in the first instance, and by the use of strokes alone, have been harsh and inharmonious; it must have wanted relief, and been incapable of exhibiting the gradual softness, recession, and rotundity which are every where to be met with in nature. This alone is to be obtained in any high degree, by the introduction of colour, although that colour be, as in the present instance a monochrome, or simple individual hue, diversified, as we must naturally suppose it to have been, by the gradual ad. mixture of some other substance, which, without presenting any second hue, would progressively modulate its tones; as when black, for example, is the only tint resorted to, and its different shades are produced by different combinations of white. It is to these melodious combinations of tints, apparently opposite, in which the black alone maintains the supremacy, that the Italians have given the name of chiaroscuro, or clear obscure. From this advantage gained to the art, it is easy to trace its ascent to the life and harmony of colouring properly so called-to the æras of Panæ. mus, Polygnotus, and Zeuxis-to the exquisite paintings of the Pacile and the meridian age of Appelles, who, in the language of Cicero, consummated this noble invention-“ jam perfecta," said he, "sunt omnia." To draw a comparison between these and others of equal celebrity, and the painters of modern times, would be as invidious as foreign to the plan I have prescribed to myself. It is enough to observe, that their excellence has been admitted, to its utmost extent, by Raphäel and Poussin; and we cannot err in applauding them after such antecedent panegyrics. Upon the subjects of Grecian statuary and engraving, so nearly The perfec connected with painting, I have not space to enter. tion of the former art may be fully appreciated from the precious reliques which have descended to our own days; and that of the latter, from the description of the shields of their heroes as pre. sented to us by their poets. But I ought not to forbear noticing, that amidst many other proofs of their ingenuity, which are totally lost to us, is to be enumerated their mode of encaustic painting as well in wax as on ivory. Of the inventors of these very curious arts we know nothing. The style of painting in wax was in com mon use at least as early as the age of Anacreon, who, as the friend of Polycrates of Samos, must have flourished upwards of five hundred anterior to the Christian æra; for he expressly men. tions it in several places, and particularly in Ode xxviii. in which he gives his direction to the painter, who was taking a likeness of his mistress. years Απέχει βλεπω γαρ αυτήν Ταχα κήρες και λαλήσεις. Enough 'tis she-her air, her cheek O WAX! thou soon wilt learn to speak. There was also another mode of employing wax in ship-painting, which was obviously invented for the sake of duration, but which The little with which we are acquainted of is equally lost to us. these different methods is preserved by Pliny in the following pas. sage, xi. 41: Encausto pingendi duo fuisse antiquitus genera constat, cerâ et in ebore, cestro, id est, verculo; donec classes pingi cœpere. Hoc tertium adcessit, resolutis igni ceris penicello utendi ; quæ pictura in navibus nec sole nec sale, ventisque corrumpitur.There were formerly two modes of painting in encaustic, with wax, and on ivory, by the use of a cestrum, or graver, till, at length, ships began to be painted. A third mode was then in. |