Hamilton, William; Kirk, Thomas: Outlines from the figures and compositions upon the Greek, Roman and Etruscan vases of the late Sir William Hamilton: with engraved borders (London, 1814)

INTRODUCTION. XV11

with a finger or with a sponge, and easily replaced
by a fresh one. When the whole design was set-
tled, and no further altei'ation intended, it was suf-
fered to dry, was covered, in order to make it per-
manent, with a brown encaustic varnish ; the lights
were worked over again, and rendered more bril-
liant with a point still more delicate, according to
the gradual advance from mere outlines to some
indications, and at last to masses of light and
shade, and from those to the superinduction of
different colours, or the invention of the poly-
c7tron, which, by the addition of the pencil to the
style, raised the mezzotinto or stained drawing
to a legitimate picture, and at length produced
that vaunted harmony, the magic scale of Gre-
cian colour.

" If this conjecture, for it is not more, on the
process of linear painting, formed on the evidence
and comparison of passages always unconnected,
and frequently contradictory, be founded in fact,
the rapturous astonishment at the supposed mo-
mentaneous production of the Herculanean dan-
cers, and on the earthern vases of the ancients
will cease; or rather, we shall no longer suffer
ourselves to be deluded by palpable impossibility