Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/116

 the Windows of a Building four Leagues off may all be counted as easily as of one that is within twenty Paces. Nay, he cannot tell whether some part of that Beauty, now so peculiar to Raphael's Pieces, may not, in a great Measure, be owing to Time, which adds a real Beauty to good Paintings. For, in Works of this kind, as in New-killed Meat, or New-gathered Fruit, there is a Rawness and Sharpness, which Time alone concocts and sweetens, by mortifying that which has too much Life, by weakning that which is too strong, and by mixing the Extremities of every Colour entirely into one another. So that no Man can tell what will be the Beauty of Le Brun's Family of Darius, Alexander's Triumph, the Defeat of Porus, and some other Pieces of equal Force, when Time shall have done her Work, and shall have added those Graces which are now so remarkable in the St. Michael, and the H. Family. One may already observe, that Monsieur Le Brun's Pieces begin to soften; and that Time has, in part, added those Graces which it alone can give, by sweetning what was left on purpose, by the judicious Painter, to amuse its Activity, and to keep it from the Substance of the Work'. Thus far Monsieur Perrault.