FIRST LECTURE.

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expreflion, becaufe the infpiring feature of paternal af-fection at that moment, and the adtion which of neceflitymuff have accompanied it, would either have deftroyedthe grandeur of the character and the folemnity of thefcene, or fubjedted the painter with the majority of hisjudges to the imputation of infeniibiliy. He mufteither have reprefen ted him in tears, or convulfed at theHath of the raifed dagger, forgetting the chief in thefather, or (hewn him abforbed by defpair, and in thatflate of ftupefadtion, which levels all features anddeadens expreflion; he might indeed have chofen afourth mode, he might have exhibited him fainting andpalfled in the arms of his attendants, and by this con-fuflon of male and female charadter, merited the ap-plaufe of every theatre at Paris. But Timanthes hadtoo true a fenfe of nature to expofe a father’s feelings orto tear a paflion to rags; nor had the Greeks yet learntof Rome to fteel the face. If he made Agamemnon bear his calamity as a man, he made him alfo feel it asa man. It became the leader of Greece to fandtionthe ceremony with his prefence, it did not become thefather to fee his daughter beneath the dagger’s point:the fame nature that threw a real mantle over theface of Timoleon , when he aflifted at the punifhmentof his brother, taught Timanthes to throw an imaginary

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