relique of those remote ages that has yet been found.

No works of any modern has so much of the air of antique painting as
those of Poussin. His best performances have a remarkable dryness of
manner, which, though by no means to be recommended for imitation, yet
seems perfectly correspondent to that ancient simplicity which
distinguishes his style. Like Polidoro he studied them so much, that he
acquired a habit of thinking in their way, and seemed to know perfectly
the actions and gestures they would use on every occasion.

Poussin in the latter part of his life changed from his dry manner to one
much softer and richer, where there is a greater union between the
figures and the ground, such as the "Seven Sacraments" in the Duke of
Orleans' collection; but neither these, nor any in this manner, are at
all comparable to many in his dry manner which we have in England.

The favourite subjects of Poussin were ancient fables; and no painter was
ever better qualified to paint such subjects, not only from his being
eminently skilled in the knowledge of ceremonies, customs, and habits of
the ancients, but from his being so well acquainted with the different
characters which those who invented them gave their allegorical figures.
Though Rubens has shown great fancy in his Satyrs, Silenuses, and Fauns,
yet they are not that distinct separate class of beings which is
carefully exhibited by the ancients and by Poussin. Certainly when such
subjects of antiquity are represented, nothing in the picture ought to
remind us of modern times. The mind is thrown back into antiquity, and
nothing ought to be introduced that may tend to awaken it from the
illusion.

Poussin seemed to think that the style and the language in which such
stories are told is not the worse for preserving some relish of the old
way of painting which seemed to give a general uniformity to the whole,
so that the mind was thrown back into antiquity not only by the subject,
but the execution.

If Poussin, in imitation of the ancients, represents Apollo driving his
chariot out of the sea by way of representing the sun rising, if he
personifies lakes and rivers, it is no ways offensive in him; but seems
perfectly of a piece with the general air of the picture. On the
contrary, if the figures which people his pictures had a modern air or
countenance, if they appeared like our countrymen, if the draperies were
like cloth or silk of our manufacture, if the landsca