Page:Letters, sentences and maxims.djvu/224

 *ment, which few of our travellers know anything of. Read, ask, and see everything that is relative to it. There are, likewise, many valuable remains of the remotest antiquity, and many fine pieces of the ''antico moderno'', all which deserve a different sort of attention from that which your countrymen commonly give them. They go to see them as they go to see the lions, and kings on horseback, at the Tower here, only to say that they have seen them. You will, I am sure, view them in another light; you will consider them as you would a poem, to which indeed they are akin. You will observe whether the sculptor has animated his stone, or the painter his canvas, into the just expression of those sentiments and passions which should characterize and mark their several figures. [June 22, 1749.]

—You will examine, likewise, whether, in their groups there be a unity of action or proper relation; a truth of dress and manners. Sculpture and painting are very justly called liberal arts; a lively and strong imagination, together with a just observation being absolutely necessary to excel in either, which, in my opinion, is by no means the case of music, though called a liberal art, and now in Italy placed even above the other two—a proof of the decline of that country.