fpread the banquet of the reapers, ftood apart: what he says of the valley sprinkled all over with cottages and flocks, appears to be a description of a large country in perspective. And indeed, a general argument for this may be drawn from the number of figures on the shield; which could not be all expressed in their full magnitude: and this is therefore a fort of proof that the art of leffening them according to perfpective was known at that time. What the criticks call the three unities, ought in reason as much to be observed in a picture as in a play; each fhould have only one principal action, one inftant of time, and one point of view. In this method of examination alfo, the fhield of Homer will bear the teft: he has been more exact than the greatest painters, who have often deviated from one or other of these rules; whereas (when we examine the detail of each compartiment) it will appear, First, That there is but one principal action in each picture, and that no fupernumerary figures or actions are introduced. This will answer all that has been faid of the confufion and croud of figures on the fhield, by those who never comprehended the plan of it. Secondly, That no action is represented in one piece, which could not happen in the fame inftant of time. This will overthrow the objection against fo many different actions appearing in one fhield; which, in this cafe, is much as abfurd as to object against so many of Raphael's Cartoons appearing in one gallery. Thirdly, It will be manifeft that there are no objects in any one picture which could not be feen in one point of view. Hereby the Abbé Terrafon's whole Criticifm will fall to the ground, which amounts but to this, that the general objects of the heavens, ftars and fea, with the particular profpects of towns, fields, &c. could never be feen all at once. Homer was incapable of fo abfurd a thought, nor could thefe heavenly bodies (had he intended them for a picture) have ever been seen together from one point; for the conftellations and the full moon, for example, could never be seen at once with the fun. But the celestial bodies were placed on the bofs, as the ocean at the margin of the fhield: thefe were no parts of the painting, but the former was only an ornament to the projection in the middle, and the latter a frame round about it: in the fame manner as the divifions, projections, or angles of a roof are left to be ornamented at the discretion of the painter, with foliage, architecture, grotefque, or what he pleases: however his judgment will be ftill more commendable, if he contrives to make even these extrinsical parts, to bear fome allufion to the main design: it is this which Homer has done, in placing a fort of fphere in the middle, and the ocean at the bor der, of a work, which was fo exprefly intended to represent the universe. I proceed now to the detail of the fhield ; in which the words of Homer being first translated, an attempt will be made to fhew with what exact order all that he describes may enter into the compofition, according to the rules of painting. THE SHIELD of ACHILLES, Divided into its feveral Parts. The Boss of the SHIELD. ERSE 483. Ev μèv yaïav, &c.] Here Vul can reprefented the earth, the heaven, the fea, the indefatigable course of the fun, the moon in her full, all the celeftial figns that crown Olympus, the Pleiades, the Hyades, the great Orion, and the Bear, commonly called the Wain, the only conftellation which, never bathing itself in the ocean, turns about the pole, and obferves the course of Orion. The sculpture of these resembled fomewhat of our terrestrial and celeftial Globes, and took up the center of the shield: it is plain by the huddle in which Homer expreffes this, that he did not describe it as a picture for a point of fight. The circumference is divided into twelve compartiments, each being a feparate picture, as follow: |