What has been said relates also to an inscription upon a piece of stone[105], with Egyptian figures, communicated to Kircher by Carolo Vintimiglia, a Palerman patrician. The letters ΙΤΙΨΙΧΙ are two words, and signify, “Let the soul come.” This stone has met with the same fate as the gem engraved with the head of Ptolomæus Philopator: for here an Egyptian has joined two random figures, and there the inscription may be of a Greek hand. The litterati know what little change it wants to be orthographical.
AN
ANSWER
TO THE FOREGOING
LETTER,
AND
A further Explication of the Subject.
I could not presume that so small a treatise as mine would be thought of consequence enough to be brought to a publick trial. As it was written only for a few connoisseurs, it seemed superfluous to give it a learned air, by multiplying quotations. Artists want but hints: their task, according to an ancient Rhetor, is “to perform, not to peruse;” consequently every author, who writes for them, ought to be brief. Being besides convinced, that the beauties of the art are founded rather on a quick sense, and refined taste, than on profound meditation, I cannot help thinking that the principle of Neoptolemus[106], “to philosophize only with the few,” ought to be the chief consideration in every treatise of this kind.
Several passages of my Essay are susceptible of explications, and, having been publickly tried by an anonymous author, should be explained and defended at the same time, if my circumstances would permit me to enlarge[107]. As to his other remarks, the author, I hope, will guess at my answer, without my giving one explicitly.—Indeed they do not require any.
I am not in the least moved by the clamours concerning those pieces of Corregio, which, by undoubted accounts, were not only brought to Sweden[108], but even hung up in the stables at Stockholm. Reasoning is of no use here: arguments of this kind admit of no other evidence but that of Æmilius Scaurus against Valerius of Sucro: “He denies; I affirm: Romans! ’tis yours to judge.”