FIRST LECTURE.

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4 The words from which the pidture is fuppofed to be4 taken, are thefe : Agamemnon faw Iphigenia advance4 towards the fatal altar ; he groaned , he turned afde4 his heady he Jhed tearsy and covered his face with4 his robe.

4 Falconet does not at all acquiefce in the praife that4 is bellowed on Timanthes: not only becaufe it is not4 his invention, but becaufe he thinks meanly of this4 trick of concealing, except in inftances of blood,4 where the objedts would be too horrible to be feen;

4 but, fays he, 44 in an afflidted Father, in a King, in4 Agamemnon , you, who are a painter, conceal from4 me the moft interefting circumflance, and then put4 me off with fophiftry and a veiL You are (he adds)4 a feeble painter, without refources: you do not know4 even thole of your Art: I care not what veil it is»4 whether clofed hands, arms raifed, or any other4 adtion that conceals from me the countenance of the1 Hero. You think of veiling Agamemnon; you have4 unveiled your own ignorance.”

4 To what Falconet has faid, we may add, that fup-1 poling this method of leaving the exprelfion of grief4 to the imagination, to be, as it was thought to be,4 the invention of the painter, and that it deferves all* 4 the