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But why should I attempt to depict and describe in detail, and feature by feature, the beauty of the peerless Dulcinea, the burden being one worthy of other shoulders than mine, an enterprise wherein the pencils of Parrhasius, Timantes, and Apelles, and the graver of Lysippus ought to be employed, to paint it in pictures and carve it in marble and bronze, and Ciceronian and Demosthenian eloquence to sound its praises?"
And in every case it is necessary to take care how far it may be right to go, for although everything has its proper limit, still excess offends more than falling short. And that is the point in which Apelles said that those painters made a blunder, who did not know what was enough.
Mr. Lilly has writ the following dramatic pieces; Alexander and Campaspe, a tragical comedy; play'd before the Queen's Majesty on twelfth-night, by her Majesty's children, and the children of St. Paul's, and afterwards at the Black Fryars; printed in 12mo. London, 1632. The story of Alexander's bestowing Campaspe, in the enamoured Apelles, is related by Pliny in his Natural History. Lib. xxxv.
Indeed, in certain little-known studies for Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Calumny of Apelles one may discover, in the strong sweep of the outline, in the solid fashion in which the figures are planted on their feet all peculiarities which disappear in the painted pictures, where grace of motion and exquisitive research take the place of solid draughtsman-ship the hand of the artist whom the restless desire to confront ever new problems alone prevented from attaining a place among the great men of his time.
"This," thought Emerson, his eye rolling in a fine frenzy of moral feeling, "this must be what Apelles experienced, this fervor is the passion of Bramante. I understand the Parthenon." And so he projected his feelings about morality into the field of the plastic arts.
Above all those beauties, I could see the shape of two globes which Apelles would have taken for the model of those of his lovely Venus, and the rapid, inequal movement of which proved to me that those ravishing hillocks were animated.
All that belongs to my own adornment of course I cannot do without, for I must be prepared to meet Caesar in a dress befitting my rank; but the little bronze Eros there must be worth something, Plutarch's ivory cup, which is beautifully carved, and above all, that picture; its former possessor was convinced that it had been painted by Apelles himself herein Alexandria.
And if we possessed the painted Venus of Apelles, as we can boast of having the sculptured Venus of Cleomenes, we should probably discover greater richness of coloring as well as grace of figure than appear in that famous picture of Titian which is one of the proudest ornaments of the galleries of Florence, and one of the greatest marvels of Italian art.
Demetrius was not alone, and as soon as he had introduced Marcus to his companion, an abbot of friendly mien, the monk warmly expressed his pleasure at meeting another son of Apelles, to whom he had once owed his life. Demetrius then told his brother what his adventures had been during the last few hours, and where he had met this worthy Father.
Once secured he had been induced to speak, and his narrative proved beyond a doubt that Apelles had perished in a skirmish with the Saracens; the Egyptian slave had only taken advantage of his master's death to make off with the money he had with him.
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