painting and sculpture. "As," says he, "the depths of the sea always
remain calm, however much the surface may be raging, so the expression
in the figures of the Greeks, under every form of passion, shows a
great and self-collected soul.

[Footnote 15: From Chapter I of the "Laocoon." Translated by E. C.
Beasley and Helen Zimmern.]

"This spirit is portrayed in the countenance of Laocoon, and not in
the countenance alone, under the most violent suffering; the pain
discovers itself in every muscle and sinew of his body, and the
beholder, while looking at the agonized contraction of the abdomen,
without viewing the face and the other parts, believes that he almost
feels the pain himself. This pain expresses itself, however, without
any violence, both in the features and in the whole posture. He raises
no terrible shriek, such as Virgil makes his Laocoon utter, for the
opening of the mouth does not admit it; it is rather an anxious and
supprest sigh, as described by Sadoleto. The pain of body and grandeur
of soul are, as it were, weighed out, and distributed with equal
strength through the whole frame of the figure. Laocoon suffers, but
he suffers as the Philoctetes of Sophocles; his misery pierces us to
the very soul, but inspires us with a wish that we could endure misery
like that great man.

"The expressing of so great a soul is far higher than the painting of
beautiful nature. The artist must have felt within himself that
strength of spirit which he imprinted upon his marble. Greece had
philosophers and artists in one person, and more than one Metrodorus.
Philosophy gave her hand to art, and breathed into its figures more
than ordinary souls."

The observation on which the foregoing remarks are founded, "that the
pain in the face of Laocoon does not show itself with that force which
its intensity would have led us to expect," is perfectly correct.
Moreover, it is indisputable that it is in this very point where the
half-connoisseur would have decided that the artist had fallen short
of nature, and had not reached the true pathos of pain, that his
wisdom is particularly conspicuous.

But I confess I differ from Winckelmann as to what is in his opinion
the basis of this wisdom, and as to the universality of the rule
which he deduces from it.

I acknowledge that I was startled, first by the glance of disapproval
which he casts upon Virgil, and secondly by the comparison with
Philoctetes. From this point then I