which, you just now fuppofed the moderns to be much fuperior to the ancients.

A. My fuppofition was grounded on the obfcurity of their writers, and the difference of their practice. The ancients verfed in the nude, derived from this, as I have before observed, their elegance and correctness in defign. They were no lefs indebted to it, for their truth and beauty of colouring. The moderns, on the other hand, particularly the Venetians, accustomed to clothe their figures, in velvet, filks, woolen, linen and the like, were naturally led into an observance of the different [n] effects of their

[] We may form a general idea of the various effects of reflections from the following examples: If a blue be reflected on a yellow, the latter becomes greenish; if on a red, the red becomes purple; and fo on through a variety of combinations: And as the white is of a nature to receive all the colours, and to be tinged with that of each reflection, the painter must be careful how his carnations may be affected by the feveral reflections.

reflections;

reflections: as, of the accord or difagreement in their. appofition. In order to be convinced, that this accord or difagreement is not fantastical, we need but observe the rainbow in its full difplay of colours; at which time, their union is perfect: Let the red, the blue, or yellow difappear, it is entirely difturbed. In the fame manner, place green and yellow or yellow and red together in a picture, they are evidently at variance; let the blue interpofe, their correspondence is restored. Rubens has painted in imitation of the rainbow; all the colours co-operate; the effect is good but accidental; but, in Titian and Correggio, this arrangement is the refult of science, it is a harmony, which springs from a judicious and happy union of confenting colours.

B. IT fhould feem that the Mexicans were great mafters of this harmony or correfpondence of colours, of which, Antonio

de

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de Solis, the elegant author of the Conqueft of Mexico, gives the following remarkable inftance. Among the presents sent to "Cortez from the emperor, was a quanti"ty of plumes and other curiofities, made "of feathers; whofe beauty and natural "variety of colours found on rare birds "that country produces, they fo placed and "mixed with wonderful art, distributing "the feveral colours, and fhadowing the

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light with the dark fo exactly, that, with

"out making ufe of artificial colours, or "of the pencil, they could draw pictures, "and would undertake to imitate nature.

"In another place, Montezuma is de"fcribed feated on a chair of burnished "gold, which glittered through the vari

ous works of feathers, placed in handfome proportion about, the nice diftri"bution of which, in fome measure, seem"ed to outvie the coft of the metal."

A. THE

A. THE example you have produced in the practice of the Mexicans, is an extraordinary inftance of the happy effect from an union of colours; and it is probable that their artists were, in this particular, nothing inferior to the Italians. Their fkill, in waving thofe various colours into a kind of feathered tapestry, or Mofaick, and forming in them regular pictures, and lively imitations of nature, far exceeds the descriptions we meet with, of the Babylonian tissues: As, in their painted language, they evidently refemble, and feem to have excelled the hieroglyphicks of the Egyptians.

B. WHEN We meet with fuch ftrokes of resemblance in the efforts of human wit, among nations cut off from all intercourse with each other, we are moved with a kind of pleasing surprise; fome treat them as the inventions of hiftorians; others account

for

for them by fuppofed, though undiscovered, communications; and yet, to confider things juftly, nothing can be more natural; the feeds of ingenuity, like thofe of good fenfe, are sown in all foils; and it is no more extraordinary, that their productions should be alike, than, that the oranges of New-Spain fhould refemble thofe of Old.