TWENTY-SECOND SECTION.

Judgment evinced by the ancient Artists in their Selection of Subjects from Homer.

Zeuxis, we are told, painted a picture of Helen, and had the courage to place beneath it those celebrated lines of Homer, in which the enraptured elders manifest their admiration at the sight of her beauty. Never were painting and poetry brought into more complete rivalry with each other; the victory remained undecided, and both were judged worthy of the palm.

The skilful poet has conveyed to us, by its effect alone, an idea of that beauty which he felt he could not delineate by any description of its component parts; while the no less ingenious painter exhibited it by means of those component parts alone, feeling it to be unworthy of his art to have recourse to any other expedient.

His picture consisted of the simple figure of Helen, exposed to view unrobed; at least if we may conclude, as was in all probability the case, that the picture in question was the same which was at Crotona.*

Let us now compare with this the picture which Caylus has drawn for the modern artist from those lines of Homer:—" Hélène," he says, "couverte d'un voile blanc, parait au milieu de plusieurs viellards, du nombre desquels est Priam, distingué par les marques de la Royauté. L'Artiste doit s'attacher à faire sentir le triomphe de la beauté par l'avidité des regards, et par tous les témoignages d'admiration marqués sur le visage de ces hommes glacés par l'âge. La scène se passe sur le haut d'une des portes de la Ville. Je crois que le fond du Tableau établi sur le Ciel, sera plus heureux que sur les bâtimens de la Ville; il sera du moins plus hardi, mais l'un est aussi convenable que l'autre."

Let us imagine this picture executed by the

* Val. Maximus, lib. iii. cap. 7.

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greatest master of our times, and placed by the
side of the work of Zeuxis. Which of them
would exhibit the real triumph of beauty ?—
This, in which I actually feel its power, or that,
in which I am left to infer it from the grimaces
of a groupe of excited old men?
senilis amor;" an amorous expression renders
the most venerable countenance ridiculous, and
an old man who betrays youthful passions is an
object of aversion. This objection is not appli-
cable to the Homeric elders; the emotion they
feel is but a momentary burst of feeling which
their prudence instantly checks; it serves only
to do homage to Helen's charms, and not to
disgrace themselves. They at once acknow-
ledge their feelings, but immediately afterwards
express a hope that such dangerous charms may
not be permitted to remain, to work mischief to
themselves and their children :-

"Yet hence, O heaven! convey that fatal face,
And from destruction save the Trojan race!"

Had they not come to this conclusion, they would have shown themselves to be the old dotards which the picture of Caylus makes them

appear. And what is the object towards which they are made to direct their amorous looks?— A figure muffled up in a veil! Is it thus that Helen is presented to us?—It is inconceivable to me how Caylus could ever think of leaving the veil upon her. Homer, it is true, distinctly gives her one,

"O'er her fair face a snowy veil she threw,"

but this is only to conceal her from the vulgar gaze while passing through the streets; and though he makes the old men testify their admiration even before the veil appears to have been removed, or thrown back, yet it must be remembered that this was not the first time they had seen her. Their acquaintance with her appearance was not therefore confined to the view they obtained of her at that particular moment, but they must frequently have felt before, what they for the first time acknowledged that they felt on that occasion. Nothing of all this is to be found in the picture. When we behold a parcel of old men thrown into ecstasies of admiration, we are naturally desirous to see

at the same time what it is which excites their rapture; and we should be exceedingly astonished to find that they are gazing with so much ardor at nothing more than a figure wrapped up in a veil. What is there of Helen in this object? All that we can perceive is her white veil, and something of her well-proportioned outline, so far as an outline can be made visible beneath the folds of drapery. But perhaps it was not the Count's intention that her face should be concealed, and he mentions the veil merely as a part of her attire? If this be the case, which however his words, "Helene couverte d'un voile blane," will scarcely permit us to suppose, then we shall, on the other hand, be equally surprised to find that, while he takes the greatest pains to instruct the artist in the proper expression, for the faces of the old men, he says not one word on the subject of the beauty of Helen's countenance. He dwells not for an instant on the finished picture of attractive beauty which Homer draws when he describes her as timidly approaching, with the expression of conscious shame upon her features, and a repentant tear