"So far from attempting to lower the ancients, I have always thought, and it is universally admitted, that they knew some fundamental principles in nature which enabled them to produce works that have been the admiration of succeeding ages; but I have not allowed this merit to those leaden-headed imitators, who, having no consciousness of either symmetry or propriety, have attempted to mend nature, and in their truly ideal figures gave similar proportions to a Mercury and a Hercules.
"This, and many other opinions which I have ventured to advance, has roused a nest of hornets from whose stings I would wish to guard myself, as I am conscious that they will try to condemn all my works by my own rules. To disappoint these insects I have, in my explanatory prints, done the Antinous, Venus, etc. in a slighter style than the other figures, to show that they are introduced as mere references to the originals; and I will not now attempt to paint my Goddess of Beauty.[53] Who can tell how long the artist was employed in giving such exquisite grace to the Grecian Venus? he might perhaps think that a single super-excellent statue would confer immortality, and was sufficient for a whole life. Can any one expect to see equal perfection in that which is done in little, and in a short space of time?
"With respect to beauty, though men felt its effects, yet both artists and others appeared to me to be totally ignorant of its principles, and contented themselves with bestowing undistinguishing praise, and giving us cold and servile copies of the fine models of antiquity, without making any inquiry into the system by which they were produced. The few who wished to learn the principles found themselves so bewildered and confounded by the vague and contradictory opinions which they had heard and read concerning beauty and grace, that they began to suspect the whole to be an illusion, and that neither one nor the other existed except in fancy and imagination. This should excite less surprise, from its having sometimes happened in a matter of an infinitely higher and more important nature; and were it politically right, it is possible that a small octavo might be written, which would start as many folios of theological controversy as would fill Westminster Hall, though the whole put together might be mere lumber, and of no more use than waste paper. But this by the by. To return into my own path, and resume the reasons that induced me to tread it in a new character. In doing this, it will be proper to give a succinct statement of the strange way in which this subject has been treated by preceding writers.
"The first attempts that were made to fix true ideas of taste upon a surer basis, were by natural philosophers, who, in their amplified contemplations on the universal beauty displayed in the harmony and order of nature, very soon lost themselves; an event that, from the way in which they set out, was inevitable: for, if I may be permitted to adopt an allegorical figure, it necessarily led them into the wide road of Order and Regularity, which they unexpectedly found crossed and intersected by many other paths that led into the Labyrinths of Variety; where, not having passed through the Province of Painting, they became confused, and could never find their way. To explaining the order and usefulness of nature they might be equal; but of her sportiveness and fancy they were totally ignorant. To extricate themselves from these difficulties, they ascended the Mound of Moral Beauty, contiguous to the open field of Divinity, where, rambling and ranging at large, they lost all remembrance of their former pursuit.
"These gentlemen having failed, it was next suggested that the deeply read and travelled man was the only person fully qualified to undertake the task of analyzing beauty. But here let it be observed, that a few things well seen, and thoroughly understood, are more likely to furnish proper materials for this purpose than the cursory view of all that can be met with in a hasty journey through Europe.
"Nature is simple, plain, and true in all her works; and those who strictly adhere to her laws, and closely attend to her appearances in their infinite varieties, are guarded against any prejudiced bias from truth; while those who have seen many things that they cannot well understand, and read many books which they do not fully comprehend, notwithstanding all their pompous parade of knowledge, are apt to wander about it and about it, perpetually perplexing themselves and their readers with the various opinions of other men.
"The knowledge necessary for writing a work on the arts, differs as much from that acquired by the simple traveller, as the art of simpling doth from the science of botany. Taking the grand tour to see and pick up curiosities, which the travellers are taught nicely to distinguish from each other by certain cramp marks and hard names, may, with no great impropriety, be termed 'going a simpling;' but with this special difference, that your 'field simpler' never picks up a nettle for a marsh-mallow,—a mistake which your 'tour simpler' is very liable to.
"As to those painters who have written treatises on painting, they were in general too much taken up with giving rules for the operative part of the art to enter into physiological disquisitions on the nature of the objects. With respect to myself, I thought I was sufficiently grounded in the principles of my profession to throw some new lights on the subject; and though the pen was to me a new instrument, yet, as the mechanic at his loom may possibly give as satisfactory an account of the materials and composition of the rich brocade he weaves as the smooth-tongued mercer surrounded with all his parade of showy silks, I trusted that I might make myself tolerably understood by those who would take the trouble of examining my book and prints together; for as one who makes use of signs and gestures to convey his meaning in a language of which he has little knowledge, I have occasionally had recourse to my pencil. For this I have been assailed by every profligate scribbler in town, and told that though 'words are man's province,' they are not my province; and that though I have put my name to the Analysis of Beauty, yet (as I acknowledge having received some assistance from two or three friends) I am only the supposed author. By those of my own profession I am treated with still more severity; pestered with caricature drawings, and hung up in effigy in prints; accused of vanity, ignorance, and envy; called a mean and contemptible dauber; represented in the strangest employments, and pictured in the strangest shapes,—sometimes under the hieroglyphical semblance of a satyr, and at others under the still more ingenious one of an ass.[54]
"Not satisfied with this, finding that they could not overturn my system, they endeavoured to wound the peace of my family. This was a cruelty hardly to be forgiven: to say that such malicious attacks and caricatures did not discompose me, would be untrue, for to be held up to public ridicule would discompose any man; but I must at the same time add that they did not much distress me. I knew that those who venture to oppose received opinions must in return have public abuse: so that, feeling I had no right to exemption from the common tribute, and conscious that my book had been generally well received, I consoled myself with the trite observation that every success or advantage in this world must be attended by some sort of a reverse; and that though the worst writers and worst painters have traduced me, by the best I have had more than justice done me. The partiality with which the world has received my works, and the patronage and friendship with which some of the best characters in it have honoured the author, ought to excite my warmest gratitude, and demands my best thanks. It enables me to despise this cloud of insects; for happily, though their buzzing may tease, their stings are not mortal."
That these hard blows of his adversaries were felt, and felt keenly, appears from the whole tenor of his language; but his mortifications were in a degree balanced. The annexed letter, from a man of Warburton's literary fame, was a flattering testimony to his talents, though a gentleman to whom I read it observed, that the Doctor might be as much actuated by a fear of his satire as admiration of his abilities. It enclosed a £10 bank note. By his friend Rouquet he was informed that his book was eagerly expected in Paris, and told in a note from the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge, that it would have a place in the University library:—