APELLES AND ALEXANDER.

Apelles was held in great esteem by Alexander the Great, and was admitted into the most intimate familiarity with him. He executed a portrait of this prince in the character of a thundering Jove; a piece which was finished with such skill and dexterity, that it used to be said there were "two Alexanders, the one invincible, the son of Philip, and the other inimitable, the production of Apelles." Alexander appears to have been a patron of the fine arts more from vanity than taste; and it is related, as an instance of those freedoms which Apelles was permitted to use with him, that when on one occasion he was talking in this artist's painting room very ig. norantly of the art of painting, Apelles requested him to be silent lest the boys who ground his colors should laugh at him. On another occasion, when he had painted a picture of his famous war-horse, Alexander did not seem to appreciate its excellence; but Bucephalus, on seeing his own portrait, began to prance and neigh, when the painter observed that the horse was a better judge of painting than his master.

APELLES AND PROTOGENES.

Apelles, being highly delighted with a picture of Jalysus, painted by Protogenes of Rhodes, sailed thither to pay him a visit. Protogenes was gone from home, but an old woman was left watching a large piece of canvass which was fitted in a frame

for painting. She told Apelles that Protogenes was gone out, and asked him his name, that she might inform her master who had inquired for him. "Tell him," said Apelles, "he was inquired for by this person," at the same time taking up a pencil, and drawing on the canvass a line of great delicacy. When Protogenes returned, the old woman acquainted him with what had happened. The artist, upon contemplating the fine stroke of the pencil, immediately proclaimed that Apelles must have been there, for so finished a work could be produced by no other person. Protogenes, however, drew a finer line of another color; and as he was going away ordered the old woman to show that line to Apelles if ho came again, and to say, "This is the person for whom you were inquiring." When Apelles returned and saw the line, he resolved not to be overcome, and in a color different from either of the former, he drew some lines so exquisitely delicate, that it was impossible for finer strokes to be made. Having done so, he departed. Protogenes now confessed the superiority of Apelles; flew to the harbor in search of him; and resolved to leave the canvass as it was, with the lines on it, for the astonishment of future artists. It was in after years taken to Rome, and was there seen by Pliny, who speaks of it as having the appearance of a large black surface, the extreme delicacy of the lines rendering them invisible, except on close inspection. They were drawn with different colors, the one upon

or rather within, the other. This picture (continues Pliny), was handed down, a wonder for posterity, but especially for artists; and, notwithstanding it contained only those three scarcely visible lines (tres lineas), still it was the most noble work in the Gallery, though surrounded by many finished paintings by renowned masters.

This celebrated contest of lines between Apelles and Protogenes, is a subject which has greatly perplexed painters and critics; and in fact, Carducci asserts that Michael Angelo and other great artists treated the idea with contempt. The picture was preserved in the gallery of the Imperial palace on the Palatine, and was destroyed by the first fire that consumed that palace, in the time of Augustus; therefore it could not have been seen by Pliny, and the account must have been related by him from some other work. In regard to its vagueness, one of the principal causes, undoubtedly, is a mutilation of the text; but the whole thing is told with obscurity. Suffice it to say, that in the opinion of Professor Tölken of Berlin, and the best modern critics, this wonderful piece could not have contained only three simple lines, as stated by Pliny, else how could it have been termed "the most noble work in the gallery, and the wonder of posterity."

At the time this occurrence took place, Protogenes lived in a state of poverty and neglect; but the generous notice of Apelles soon caused him to be valued as he deserved by the Rhodians. Apelles

acknowledged that Protogenes was even in some re spects his superior; the chief fault he found with him was, that "he did not know when to take his hand from his work;" a phrase which has become proverbial among artists. He volunteered to purchase all the works he had by him, at any price he should name, and when Protogenes estimated them far below their real value, he offered him fifty talents, and spread the report that he intended to sell them as his own. He thus opened the eyes of the Rhodians to the merit of their painter, and they accordingly secured his works at a still higher price.

In Protogenes, the able rival of Apelles, the arts received one of the highest tokens of regard they were ever favored with; for when Demetrius Poliorcetes was besieging the city of Rhodes, and might have taken it by assaulting it on the side where Protogenes resided, he forbore, lest he should do an injury to his works; and when the Rhodians delivered the place to him, requesting him to spare the pictures of this admired artist, he replied, "that he would sooner destroy the images of his forefathers, than the productions of Protogenes."

ANECDOTES OF BENJAMIN WEST.

HIS ANCESTRY.

Cunningham says, "John West, the father of Benjamin, was of that family settled at LongCrendon, in Buckinghamshire, which produced Colonel James West, the friend and companion in arms

of John Hampden. Upon one occasion, in the course of a conversation in Buckingham palace, respecting his picture of the Institution of the Garter, West happened to make some allusion to his Eng. lish descent, when the Marquis of Buckingham, to the manifest pleasure of the king, declared that the Wests of Long-Crendon were undoubted descendants of the Lord Delaware, renowned in the wars of Edward the Third and the Black Prince, and that the artist's likeness had therefore a right to a place amongst those of the nobles and warriors, in his historical picture."

WEST'S BIRTH.

Galt says Benjamin's birth was brought on prematurely by a vehement sermon, preached in the fields, by Edward Peckover, on the corrupt state of the Old World, which he prophesied was about to be visited with the tempest of God's judgments, the wicked to be swallowed up, and the terrified remnant compelled to seek refuge in happy America. Mrs. West was so affected that she swooned away, was carried home severely ill, and the pains of labor came upon her; she was, however, safely delivered, and the preacher consoled the parents by predicting that " a child sent into the world under such remarkable circumstances, would assuredly prove a wonderful man," and admonished them to watch over their son with more than ordinary care.