we seldom meet with
a human performance exclusively made up of epic, dramatic, or pure
historic materials." This confession, as it appears to us, renders the
classification useless to a student, and shows a yet incomplete view of
arrangement, and specification of the power, subjects, and means of art.

Indeed Mr Fuseli proceeds to instances wherein his epic assumes the
dramatic, the dramatic the epic, and the historic both. There does seem
something wanting in an arrangement which puts the _Iliad_ and
_Odyssey_, two works essentially different, in the same category. We do,
therefore, venture the opinion, that such distinctions are, more
particularly in painting, not available. With Sir Joshua, he considers
borrowing justifiable, and that it does not impair the originality of
invention. The instances given of happy adoption are the "Torso of
Apollonius," by Michael Angelo; of the figure of "Adam dismissed from
Paradise," by Raffaelle, borrowed from Massaccio, as likewise the figure
of "Paul at Athens;" and for figures of Michael Angelo's, Raffaelle,
Parmegiano, Poussin, are all indebted to the cartoon of Pisa. The
lecture concludes with some just remarks upon the "Transfiguration," and
a censure upon the coldness of Richardson, and the burlesque of the
French critic Falconet, who could not discover the point of contact
which united the two parts of this celebrated picture. "Raphael's design
was to represent Jesus as the Son of God, and, at the same time, the
reliever of human misery, by an unequivocal fact. The transfiguration on
Tabor, and the miraculous cure which followed the descent of Jesus,
united, furnished the fact. The difficulty was, how to combine two
successive actions in one moment. He overcame it, by sacrificing the
moment of cure to that of the apparition, by implying the lesser miracle
in the greater. In subordinating the cure to the vision, he obtained
sublimity; in placing the crowd and patient on the foreground, he gained
room for the full exertion of his dramatic powers. It was not necessary
that the demoniac should be represented in the moment of recovery, if
its certainty could be expressed by other means. It is implied, it is
placed beyond all doubt, by the glorious apparition above; it is made
nearly intuitive by the uplifted hand and finger of the apostle in the
centre, who, without hesitation, undismayed by the obstinacy of the
demon, unmoved by the clamour of the crowd, and the pusillanimous
s