EPISTLE.

to heaven, which made them born such, and in such a time, that the merit and sufficiency of people of knowledge were thus respected, admired, and rewarded: so that they were able to enjoy their glory during their life: and their ashes after death have since participated in this great ease and contentment through such long revolutions of centuries; among such a great number of peoples. This man, having once found himself in the city of Naples, with the other Declaimers and Rhetoricians at a prize game of eloquence; to show his readiness and facility of speaking well, chose a very strange and bold subject; to discourse unexpectedly upon a great number of Platte-peinture panel paintings which were at the house of his host, without otherwise coming prepared for it. Nevertheless, these are all rare words and very proper and express locutions; doing by one and the same means several things together, all of weight. For in the first place he treats what is the principal point in painting, and the most recommended and exquisite; namely the invention, with the arrangement and disposition, which the Greeks call Oeconomie Economy: or Oecodomie Structure: upon which depend all the knowledge, grace, and accomplishment of this art. Because it is one thing, dragging oneself step by step upon the tracks of another, to imitate the features and colorings of a subject that one has as an exemplar and patron before oneself: and another to have known how to draw such a thing ingeniously from one's spirit with deep thoughts and researches, so that it can satisfy everyone. It is one thing to know how to keep a route already frequented and known; and another to dare to be the first to embolden oneself to make a path in a spacious and not yet opened sea. So that several mediocre workers have been able very happily to counterfeit the Centaurs of Zeuxis: the Venus of Apelles sailing to shore in a