This subject is treated at large in the work of L'Abbe Fraguier, and by M. Boivin, who gives a drawing of the shield, with its multifarious subjects, designed from the description. Mr. Pope likewise adds a dissertation on this subject, which he considers to have been a piece of painting; and certainly his profound knowledge of Ho mer ought to give great weight to his opinion. He ob serves, "that there is scarcely a species or branch of the art of painting which is not here to be found, whether history, battle painting, landscape, architecture, fruit, flowers, animals, Ste." he adds, " I think it possible that painting was arrived to a greater degree of perfection, even at that early period, than is generally supposed by those who have written upon it. We may have a higher notion of the art from those descriptions of statues, carving, tapestries, sculptures upon armour and ornaments of all kinds, which every where occur in oar author ; as well as from what he says of their beauty, the relievo, and their emulation of life itself. If we consider how much it is his constant practice to confine himself to the customs of the times whereof he writ, it will be hard no doubt but that painting and sculpture must have been in great practice and repute," Ste. " It is certain that Homer had, whether by learning, or by strength of genius, a full and exact idea of painting in all its parts ; that is to say, in the invention, the composition, the expression," Ste The shield was divided into twelve comp..rtments, with a border representing the sea encircling the pictures, which were different in each compartment. meaning to represent the picture of the whole world ; and so it. was understood by the ancient authors, who mention it as a master-piece of picturesque sculpture or painting. The subjects were, 1. A town in peace. 2. An assembly of the people. 3. The senate. 4. A town in war. 5. An ambuscade. 6. A battle. 7. Tillage. 8. The harvest. 9. The vintage. 10. Animals. I 1. Sheep. 12. The dance. Of the composition as a picture, Mr. Pope gives the following opinion : "Nothing is more wonderful than his exact observation of the contrast, not only between figure and figure, but between subject and subject. The city in peace is a contrast to the city in war; between the siege in the fourth picture, and the battle in the sixth, a piece of paysage is introduced, and rural scenes follow after. The country, too, is represented in war in the filth, as well as in peace in the seventh, eighth, and ninth. The very animals are shown in these two different states in the tenth and in the eleventh. Where the subjects appear the sante, he contrasts them some other way. Thus the first picture of the town in peace, having a predominant air of gaiety, in the dances and pomps of the marriage; the second has a character of earnestness and solicitude, in the dispute and pleadings. In the pieces of rural life, that of ploughing is of a different character from the harvest, and that of the harvest from the vintage. In each of these, there is a contrast of the mirth and the labour of the country people. In the first] some are ploughing, others taking a cup of good liquor ; in the next, we see the reapers working in one part, and the banquet prepar ed in another ; in the last, the labour of the vineyard is relieved with music and a dance. The persons are no less varied, old and young men and women ; there being women in two pictures together, namely, the eighth and ninth. It is remarkable that those in the latter are of a different character from the former ; they who dress the supper being ordinary women, the others who carry baskets in the vineyards, young and beautiful virgins; and these, again, are of an inferior character to those in the twelfth piece, who are distinguished as people of condi tion by a more elegant dress. There are three dances in the buckler ; and these, too, are varied : that at the wed ding is in a circular figure ; that of the vineyard in a row ; that in the last picture a mingled one. Lastly, there is a manifest contrast in the colours; nay, even in the back grounds of the several pieces. For example, that of the ploughing is of a dark tint; that of the harvest yellow ; that of the pasture green; and the rest in like manner." Virgil has given a similar testimony with Homer, to his belief of the state of the arts at the period of the Trojan war, by various picturesque descriptions in the Łneid, particularly the shield of lEncas, in imitation of that of Achilles, has all the actions of the Romans prophetically represented on it down to the age of Augustus ; and he represents the whole Trojan war as painted on the walls of the temple of Juno at Carthage.
At the period of the Trojan war, and how long before we know not, embroidery, which implies a knowledge of design, was the chief employment of females of rank: it is the employment that Homer gives to Helen in the third book of the Iliad, where she is represented as exercising her talent on the extensive subject of the Trojan war. When the news of her husband's death was brought to Andromache, she is found in a small chamber embroider ing coloured flowers on cloth. Now, to work flowers on canvas, the drawing must have been previously traced upon it ; and if not only flowers, but the complicated sub jects of history, were worked, the embroiderers must have had the model of a picture in drawing and colour to guide their work ; so that tapestry, as Homer describes it to have existed, and to have been practised at that time, implies the pre-existence of painting in a considerable state of advance, and long before Pliny admits of the invention having taken place We have so little to guide us through the obscurity of these early times as to the real state of the arts, that in ference is all we can pretend to. Many fluctuations of improvement and decay, similar to what the arts have ex perienced in modern times, was most probably their fate at a former era; though now we are as much in ignorance of them, as of the revolutions that may have given rise to them; but the supposition would explain the seeming Inconsistency of the perfections ascribed to very ancient artists, compared with facts of a much later date leading to prove a very low state of the art. Although we are ignorant of the fact that Homer was preceded by many generations of poets of merit, who raised the art progres sively; and, consistent with the usual course by which genius develops itself, to that climax of perfection which lie was able to attain; there is reason to conclude that it was so, rather than to suppose the prodigy of such a luminary at once starting from the depths of ignorance. The observation applies equally to painting. We cannot suppose Homer to have anticipated by so many genera tions that taste for the peculiar excellencies of the fine arts.
According to Pliny, the most celebrated painters of Greece lived about seven' or eight centuries before the Christian Rra, when the art was in such high considera tion as to constitute one of the subjects of contest at Del phos, and likewise at Corinth. In one of these, Panxus, the brother of Phidias the statuary, exhibited a painting of the battle of Marathon, in which the principal figures were as large as life, and represented portraits of the lead ing chiefs. This implies a pretty advanced state of the art, and likewise that portraits of these generals existed before the painting of the battle; several of them not be ing then in life, as the picture was painted at a period somewhat later than the xra of the battle. It is possible, however, that the painter resorted to the surer and simpler means of ascertaining the persons intended by his figures, by writing their names under each ; which was not an un frequent practice with Greek artists, and takes away not a little from the boasted merit of the resemblance. The picture was afterwards hung up for public inspection in the portico of the Pcecile at Athens. Parmus lived 448 years before the Christian era. His works were much admired in the best days of painting at Athens, yet at one of the contests for superiority in painting held at Delphos, he was vanquished by his rival Timagoras. These pictu resque combats nitist have contributed much towards the improvement of the arts. There is a picture of a battle particularly mentioned as having been painted by Ilular chus some centuries anterior to this period ; the merits of which are said, though without much probability of truth, to have been such as to induce a king of Lydia to give its weight in gold for the acquisition. This story seems to have become an hereditary fable in the art, as those who have visited the cabinets of the Continent must have re marked, in the most of which sonic legend of the kind is generally recorded.