The Artist's Repository, Or, Encyclopedia of the Fine Arts (Band 1): The Human Figure (London, 1808)

lect. i.] history of art. 3q

and connect with it the reflection, that, rather than
not possess representations of certain personages,
mankind has adopted suppositious forms, and unau-
thentic portraits. I know not any satisfactory
authority for the heads of Hosier, yet heads of
Homer are numerous; and out of an army of saints
and martyrs that might be collected, great would be
the difficulty of justifying the likeness of one in a
thousand. Surely this disposition of the mind sup-
ports the observation, that, the Arts contribute
greatly to the endearments of affection.

But, beside contributing to the endearments of
affection, the Arts, when well employed, become
the channels of much useful intelligence ; many
pages of description will not, cannot, impart so
clear ideas of an eruption of Vesuvius, or of iEtna,
of a hurricane, or of a tempest, as design ; nor will
language produce the view of a capital city, or an
extensive prospect, which a picture opens at once ;
no explanation of many implements of manufactures
can be understood without representations of them ;
nor can subjects of natural history, plants, fossils,
or animals, be accurately distinguished, unless ac-
companied by proper figures. I might appeal for
the confirmation of this remark, to the various sen-
timents of naturalists on the animals of Aristotle
and Plixy ; the present name of that creature is so,
or so, says one investigator of the subject; no, says
another, not that, but it may be such, or such ;
while a third is ready to conclude that class of ani-
mals, or at least that species, is extinct; whereas,
I had