What But perhaps the plague does not furnish an advantageous subject for a painting. Here, then, is another, presenting greater attractions for the eye;—the gods sitting in full council, and refreshing themselves with nectar.* Here we have a spacious, golden palace, and varied groupes of the most beautiful as well as the most venerable forms, with their chalices in their hands, attended by the ever-youthful Hebe. What splendid architecture! masses of light and shadow! What admirable contrasts! What infinite variety of expression! Where shall I begin, where shall I cease to feast my eyes? If the painter thus delights me, how much more shall I be enchanted with the poet !—I turn to the book, but, how greatly do I find myself mistaken! I read only four simple Greek lines, which might answer very well for the explanatory inscription of a picture, and which contain the materials for one, though they certainly are not a picture in themselves :— * Iliad, A. v. 1—4. Tableaux tirés de l'Iliade, p. 30. "And now Olympus' shining gates unfold; The gods, with Jove, assume their thrones of gold: The golden goblet crowns with purple wine: There is nothing here but what might have been equally well expressed by an Apollonius, or any still more indifferent poet; and Homer in this instance falls as far below the painter, as in the former case the painter falls short of him. With the exception of the subject contained in these few lines, Caylus could not discover a single picture in the whole fourth book of the Iliad. Much, says he, as it is distinguished by the exciting energy of its warlike exhortations, by its richness in brilliant and varied characters, and by the art with which the poet indicates the multitudes whom he is about to set in motion, yet it is totally unfit for painting. Rich as it is, he might have added, in what we call poetic pictures; for these certainly are to be found as perfect and in as great abundance in the fourth book as in any of the others. Where is there a more finished, or more illusive picture than that of Pandarus breaking the armistice, at the instigation of Minerva, and discharging his arrow at Menelaus? Or that of the advance of the Grecian host? Or that of the mutual assault of both armies ? Or that of Ulysses avenging the death of Leucus? Since, then, it is evident that not a few of the finest pictures of Homer offer no subject for the painter;—that the artist can sometimes on the contrary, extract a picture from the poet, where the latter presents none ;—and that those which we find in Homer, and which are at the same time of a nature for the artist to make use of, would make but paltry pictures, did they contain no more than the canvass is able to exhibit; —what conclusion are we to draw from these considerations? What, but that the question put at the commencement of this section can only be answered in the negative? It is clear that no conception can be formed of the pictorial talent of Homer, from any pictures for which his poems have furnished the subjects, let them be ever so numerous, or ever so admirably executed. FOURTEENTH SECTION. Continuation of the Subject.—Refutation of Caylus's Censure of Milton. If the conclusion to which we have arrived in the preceding section be correct; if it be true that a poem, unpictorial in itself, may yet be abundantly rich in subjects for the painter, while, on the contrary, another which is highly pictorial, may be totally unfit for the purposes of art;—then is there no foundation whatever for that idea of the Comte de Caylus which would make the test of a poem its fitness for painting, and would determine its place in the rank of merit according to the number of pictures which it may furnish to the artist.* *See Note 33, end of volume. I cannot suffer such an idea to pass unnoticed, lest, by my silence, I should seem to regard it with the respect due to a well-grounded rule. Milton would be the first to fall an innocent sacrifice to it; for it would really appear that the contemptuous judgment which Caylus pronounces on that poet is not so much the effect of national taste, as a necessary consequence of his pretended rule. The loss of his eye-sight, he says, was probably the chief point of resemblance between Milton and Homer! It must be confessed that Milton is not well adapted to fill galleries with pictures. But if the sphere of internal vision is thus to be bounded by the narrow range of the external organs of sight, so long as they endure, then might we hail the loss of these as a blessed relief from a thraldom which must miserably contract the circle of our enjoyments! The Paradise Lost is no less the first epic poem after Homer, though it yields but few pictures, than the history of the sufferings of Christ is unfit to be called a poem, though we can scarcely place the head of a needle on any |