2 5
from the fchool of Phidias ; crowned with vidlory atits rival exhibition, and fince, the theme of unlimitedpraife from the orators and hiftorians of antiquity,though the folidity or juftice of their praife relatively toour art, has been queftioned by modern criticifm. Onthis fubjedt, which not only contains the gradations ofaffedlion from the moft remote to the clofeft link ofhumanity, but appears to me to offer the faireft fpeci-men of the limits which the theory of the ancients hadprefcribed to the expreflion of pathos, I think it myduty the more circumftantially to expatiate, as thecenfure paffed on the method of Timanthes, has beenfandtioned by the higheft authority in matters of art,that of your late Prefident, in his eighth difcourfe atthe delivery of the academic prize for the beft pidturepainted from this very fubjedt.
How did Timanthes treat it ? Iphigenia , the vidtim ordained by the oracle, to be offered for the fuccefsof the Greek expedition againft Troy, was reprefentedftanding ready for immolation at the altar, the prieft,the inftruments of death at her fide ; and around her,an affembly of the moft important agents or witneffesof the terrible folemnity, from Ulyfles, who had dis-engaged her from the embraces of her mother at Mycenae ,to her neareft male relations, her uncle Menelaus , and
e her