ion of the province
of sculpture, never fulfilled the promise given in his early work of
Apollo and Daphne. He was ever attempting to make drapery flutter in the
air, which the very massiveness of the material, stone, should seem to
forbid. Sir Joshua does not notice the very high authority for such an
attempt--though it must be confessed the material was not stone, still
it was sculpture, and multitudinous are the graces of ornament, and most
minutely described--the shield of Hercules, by Hesiod; even the noise of
the furies' wings is affected. The drapery of the Apollo he considers to
have been intended more for support than ornament; but the mantle from
the arm he thinks "answers a much higher purpose, by preventing that
dryness of effect which would inevitably attend a naked arm, extended
almost at full length; to which we may add, the disagreeable effect
which would proceed from the body and arm making a right angle." He
conjectures that Carlo Maratti, in his love for drapery, must have
influenced the sculptors of the Apostles in the church of St John
Lateran. "The weight and solidity of stone was not to be overcome."

To place figures on different plans is absurd, because they must still
appear all equally near the eye; the sculptor has not adequate means of
throwing them back; and, besides, the thus cutting up into minute parts,
destroys grandeur. "Perhaps the only circumstance in which the modern
have excelled the ancient sculptors, is the management of a single group
in basso-relievo." This, he thinks, may have been suggested by the
practice of modern painters. The attempt at perspective must, for the
same reason, be absurd; the sculptor has not the means for this "humble
ambition." The ancients represented only the elevation of whatever
architecture they introduced into their bas-reliefs, "which is composed
of little more than horizontal and perpendicular lines." Upon the
attempt at modern dress in sculpture, he is severe in his censure.
"Working in stone is a very serious business, and it seems to be scarce
worth while to employ such durable materials in conveying to posterity a
fashion, of which the longest existence scarcely exceeds a year;" and
which, he might have added, the succeeding year makes ridiculous. We not
only change our dresses, but laugh at the sight of those we have
discarded. The gravity of sculpture should not be subject to contempt.
"The uniformity and simplicity of the materials on which t