he sculptor
labours, (which are only white marble,) prescribe bounds to his art, and
teach him to confine himself to proportionable simplicity of design." Mr
Burnet has not given a better note than that upon Sir Joshua's remark,
that sculpture has but one style. He shows how strongly the ancient
sculptors marked those points wherein the human figure differs from that
of other animals. "Let us take, for example, the human foot; on
examining, in the first instance, those of many animals, we perceive the
toes either very long or very short in proportion; of an equal size
nearly, and the claws often long and hooked inwards: now, in rude
sculpture, and even in some of the best of the Egyptians, we find little
attempt at giving a character of decided variation; but, on the
contrary, we see the foot split up with toes of an equal length and
thickness; while, in Greek sculpture, these points characteristic of man
are increased, that the affinity to animals may be diminished. In the
Greek marbles, the great toe is large and apart from the others, where
the strap of the sandal came; while the others gradually diminish and
sweep round to the outside of the foot, with the greatest regularity of
curve; the nails are short, and the toes broad at the points, indicative
of pressure on the ground." Rigidity he considers to have been the
character of the first epochs, changing ultimately as in the Elgin
marbles, "from the hard characteristics of stone to the vivified
character of flesh." He thinks Reynolds "would have acknowledged the
supremacy of beautiful nature, uncontrolled by the severe line of
mathematical exactness," had he lived to see the Elgin marbles. "The
outline of life, which changes under every respiration, seems to have
undulated under the plastic mould of Phidias." This is well expressed.
He justly animadverts upon the silly fashion of the day, in lauding the
vulgar imitation of the worsted stockings by Thom. The subjects chosen
were most unfit for sculpture,--their only immortality must be in Burns.
We do not understand his extreme admiration of Wilkie; in a note on
parallel perspective in sculpture, he adduces Raffaelle as an example of
the practice, and closes by comparing him with Sir David Wilkie,--"known
by the appellation of the Raffaelle of familiar life,"--men perfect
antipodes to each other! There is a proper eulogy on Chantrey,
particularly for his busts, in which he commonly represented the eye. We
are most an