PREFACE.

IT is an opinion generally received, that the race of man degenerates as the world grows older. In HOMER's time it required the strength of two men to raise the fragment of a rock which DIOMED hurled with ease, and in VIRGIL's that of twelve to bear the stone thrown by TURNUS. This ought to be proof sufficient; yet, if further evidence should be wished for, are we not ourselves witnesses to the enormous bulk of the armour—the weight of the shields—and the length of the swords our own ancestors have wielded, and which are still preserved in the Tower and other depositories of ancient relics? May we not also expect to be in our turn considered as giants in comparison with our descendants, and picture to ourselves the astonishment with which future gazers will behold the spoils taken from the enemy in the nineteenth century, when they are shewn the lions by a beef-eater of the twenty-fifth. The same must happen with respect to the Female Sex, at least, so may we infer from HOMER's description of the helmet of MINERVA, which was alone capable of containing many regiments of infantry.

To give posterity an adequate idea of the size and proportions of a celebrated Beauty of our time was evidently the object of the first edition of the following Sketches. Since its publication, however, the fair original has so grown in grace, and encreased in loveliness, that it would be injustice in the highest degree not to pourtray her as she really is, following the advice of HORACE, "Ne desilies imitator in arctum." To unite all that is delicately chaste (in the contorno) of the female figure, with a perfect idea of sublimity and grandeur, must ever, to the most favored children of Art, appear an arduous undertaking; but where Nature so largely contributes, where she offers "from the life" a subject at once adapted to express whatever is great in woman, adorned with all the lustre of ease, elegance, and activity, the difficulties vanish from before us—the task is made easy—the design is accomplished—and, with a laudable pride, we glory in transmitting to after-ages a MODEL OF PERFECTION, which must excite the admiration, emulation, and imitation of our children's children for ever!