By time[232] it was turned to the colour of old parchment, but that it was written by the righte cunnynge hand of Martinus Scriblerus there can be little doubt.
When he sent some literary memoranda to Arbuthnot,[233] he recommended to the Doctor "the recovery of others which lay straggling about the world."[234]
Let it be also remembered, that though this prodigy of science presented to our English Cervantes numerous tracts, he might not think the Doctor would have a proper value for those on painting. That Martinus was a competent judge of the fine arts, is proved by his fifth chapter on Sinking in Poetry. Now as the family of the Scribleri, with all their alliances and collateral relations, have time immemorial been distinguished for the cacoëthes scribendi of whatever he was a judge, certes he would write, and that which he hath written I have happily preserved. A few extracts[235] which I have inserted will give a general idea of the whole, which is entitled, The Art of Sinking in Painting; and is thus introduced in the Prolegomena:—
"Great and manifold have been the benefits (my dear countryman) which poesy hath derived from that innumerable army of critics and commentators, who fabricated fences to keep her in bounds, and bore blazing torches to irradiate her path. Lamentable is it to consider how few lights have been held out to her sister art; who, notwithstanding an equal or prior claim, hath been suffered to wander through her dreary night with no other illumination than the glow-worm on the bank, or the ignis fatuus in the ditches. For the use and service of the poet there is an ocean of commentary; while the painter hath no other stream in which to slake his thirst for instruction than that which creeps among the weeds in the meadow, or gurgles over the pebbles in the valley.
"From intense application to the mysterious tablets of my great ancestors, for ages professors of astrology and chemistry in the universities of Germany, I am empowered to see by anticipation.
"For me it is decreed to strike the rock of nature with the rod of science, and liberate the fountain of truth, whose waters shall fertilize this ungenial isle. Ye whose well-poised pinions enable you to soar above this our terrestrial globe, and dip your pencils in the rainbow! come and contemplate the magic mirror of Martinus Scriblerus.
"Conscious am I that this our divine muse, who hath not unaptly been styled journeywoman to Nature, is now in a profound sleep; but in the coming century she shall awake from her trance, shake the dust from her many-coloured mantle, and dazzle the surrounding nations. Blest with the power of penetrating the cloud of time, which is impervious to vulgar sight, I see, as in a vision, the wonders of another age; and should these my lucubrations be neglected by my contemporaries, happy am I in the confidence that by their posterity they will be properly estimated, and sought for as were the Sibyl's leaves, regarded as the oracles of Apollo, and considered as the touchstone of true taste. To the age of whom they are worthy, and who are worthy of them, I dedicate these my labours.
"The few who have written upon the fine arts have endeavoured to inculcate simplicity of action, anatomical correctness, symmetry of parts, harmony of colouring, easy folding of drapery, and due attention to the grouping of figures. These rules can only be classed among the idle dreams of visionary speculation; resign yourselves unto my guidance, and listen unto the lessons of truth.
"In every animal there is an original instinct, tending towards that for which it was by nature designed. In man, there is a natural bias to the bathos; but he must be instructed, or rather compelled into any relish or taste for what is denominated the sublime.
"To prove this my position, show a collection of drawings or paintings to a child: it will be irresistibly attracted by glittering colours, forced expressions, and grotesque, or what are commonly called caricatured countenances. Let the savage, who is not vitiated by idle rules, and has never seen painted canvas, be taken into a picture-gallery,—his natural taste will lead him to similar objects. What the artists call a quiet picture, he will quietly pass; but let the figures be crowded, the attitudes extravagant, and the colours gaudy,—his attention and admiration are ensured.