ndemned those
spurious portraits which were fit only for the amusement of children.
The painter does not always give a correct likeness, or the engraver
misses it in his copy. Goldsmith was a short thick man, with wan
features and a vulgar appearance, but looks tall and fashionable in a
bag-wig. Bayle's portrait does not resemble him, as one of his friends
writes. Rousseau, in his Montero cap, is in the same predicament.
Winkelmann's portrait does not preserve the striking physiognomy of the
man, and in the last edition a new one is substituted. The faithful
Vertue refused to engrave for Houbraken's set, because they did not
authenticate their originals; and some of these are spurious, as that of
Ben Jonson, Sir Edward Coke, and others. Busts are not so liable to
these accidents. It is to be regretted that men of genius have not been
careful to transmit their own portraits to their admirers: it forms a
part of their character; a false delicacy has interfered. Erasmus did
not like to have his own diminutive person sent down to posterity, but
Holbein was always affectionately painting his friend. Montesquieu once
sat to Dassier the medallist, after repeated denials, won over by the
ingenious argument of the artist; "Do you not think," said Dassier,
"that there is as much pride in refusing my offer as in accepting it?"

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 22: Impressions have been taken from plates engraved by the
ancient Egyptians; and one of these, printed by the ordinary
rolling-press, was exhibited at the Great Manchester Exhibition, 1857;
it being for all practical purposes similar to those executed in the
present day.]

DESTRUCTION OF BOOKS.

The literary treasures of antiquity have suffered from the malice of Men
as well as that of Time. It is remarkable that conquerors, in the moment
of victory, or in the unsparing devastation of their rage, have not been
satisfied with destroying _men_, but have even carried their vengeance
to _books_.

The Persians, from hatred of the religion of the Phoenicians and the
Egyptians, destroyed their books, of which Eusebius notices a great
number. A Grecian library at Gnidus was burnt by the sect of
Hippocrates, because the Gnidians refused to follow the doctrines of
their master. If the followers of Hippocrates formed the majority, was
it not very unorthodox in the Gnidians to prefer taking physic their own
way? But Faction has often annihilated books.

The Romans burnt the boo