mazing groupe was cut out of one
stone, by Appollonius and Tauriscus, two sculptors of Rhodes; and is
mentioned by Pliny in the thirty-sixth book of his Natural History. All
the precious monuments of art, which have come down to us from
antiquity, are the productions of Greek artists. The Romans had taste
enough to admire the arts of Greece, as plainly appears by the great
collections they made of their statues and pictures, as well as by
adopting their architecture and musick: but I do not remember to have
read of any Roman who made a great figure either as a painter or a
statuary. It is not enough to say those professions were not honourable
in Rome, because painting, sculpture, and musick, even rhetoric,
physic, and philosophy were practised and taught by slaves. The arts
were always honoured and revered at Rome, even when the professors of
them happened to be slaves by the accidents and iniquity of fortune.
The business of painting and statuary was so profitable, that in a free
republic, like that of Rome, they must have been greedily embraced by a
great number of individuals: but, in all probability, the Roman soil
produced no extraordinary genius for those arts. Like the English of
this day, they made a figure in poetry, history, and ethics; but the
excellence of painting, sculpture, architecture, and music, they never
could attain. In the Palazzo Picchini I saw three beautiful figures,
the celebrated statues of Meleager, the boar, and dog; together with a
wolf, of excellent workmanship. The celebrated statue of Moses, by
Michael Angelo, in the church of St. Peter in Vincula, I beheld with
pleasure; as well as that of Christ, by the same hand, in the Church of
S. Maria sopra Minerva. The right foot, covered with bronze, gilt, is
much kissed by the devotees. I suppose it is looked upon as a specific
for the toothache; for, I saw a cavalier, in years, and an old woman
successively rub their gums upon it, with the appearance of the most
painful perseverance.

You need not doubt but that I went to the church of St. Peter in
Montorio, to view the celebrated Transfiguration, by Raphael, which, if
it was mine, I would cut in two parts. The three figures in the air
attract the eye so strongly, that little or no attention is payed to
those below on the mountain. I apprehend that the nature of the subject
does not admit of that keeping and dependence, which ought to be
maintained in the disposition of the lights and shadows