Burrow, Edward John: The Elgin marbles: with an abridged historical and topographical account of Athens (Band 1): Illustrated with forty plates (London, 1817)

189

Possessing none of that commanding influence-
which is the effect produced by heroic atti-
tude, superhuman perfection, and artful com-
bination of outline,—producing none of that
painful wonder w7hich is excited by the Bel-
videre Apollo, or of the horror which is caused
by the tragic death of the Laocoon*, the un-
aspiring specimen of Grecian taste and skill
before us, is in every sense instructive. The
truth of the representation identifies the ori
ginal, and introduces to us the rare character
—an amiable heathen god. Those who have
drawn from it, can best tell how inimitable
are the beauties of the contour, and the ex-
pression of living substance; but these per-
fections are, to a certain degree, obvious to
every eye.

The quality, however, in which this, in com-
mon with all the male figures of the Pediments,
excels, perhaps, every work in marble which
time has spared,—even the famous Borghese
Gladiator of Agasias the Ephesian sculptor,
the -Dying: Herald,or the Discobolus of Myron,

* Opus omnibus et picturae et statuariae artis praeponendum.
Pl'm. xxxvi. ii. c. 5.