ptable to the taste of the town, men who have
genius would bend their studies to excel in them. How forcible an effect
this would have on our minds, one needs no more than to observe how
strongly we are touched by mere pictures. Who can see Le Brun's[144]
picture of the Battle of Porus, without entering into the character of
that fierce gallant man,[145] and being accordingly spurred to an
emulation of his constancy and courage? When he is falling with his
wound, the features are at the same time very terrible and languishing;
and there is such a stern faintness diffused through his look, as is
apt to move a kind of horror, as well as pity, in the beholder. This, I
say, is an effect wrought by mere lights and shades; consider also a
representation made by words only, as in an account given by a good
writer: Catiline in Sallust makes just such a figure as Porus by Le
Brun. It is said of him, 'Catilina vero longe a suis inter hostium
cadavera repertus est; paululum etiam spirans, ferocitatemque animi quam
vivus habuerat in vultu retinens.'[146] ('Catiline was found killed far
from his own men among the dead bodies of the enemy: he seemed still to
breathe, and still retained in his face the same fierceness he had when
he was living.') You have in that one sentence, a lively impression of
his whole life and actions. What I would insinuate from all this, is,
that if the painter and the historian can do thus much in colours and
language, what may not be performed by an excellent poet, when the
character he draws is presented by the person, the manner, the look, and
the motion, of an accomplished player? If a thing painted or related can
irresistibly enter our hearts, what may not be brought to pass by seeing
generous things performed before our eyes?" Eugenio ended his discourse,
by recommending the apt use of a theatre, as the most agreeable and easy
method of making a polite and moral gentry, which would end in rendering
the rest of the people regular in their behaviour, and ambitious of
laudable undertakings.

St. James's Coffee-house, April 27.

Letters from Naples of the 9th instant, N.S., advise, that Cardinal
Grimani had ordered the regiment commanded by General Pate to march
towards Final, in order to embark for Catalonia, whither also a
thousand horse are to be transported from Sardinia, besides the troops
which come from the Milanese. An English man-of-war has taken two
prizes, one a vessel of Malta, the other of