ANECDOTES of PAINTING, &c. CHAP. I. Painters in the Reign of CHARLES II. HE arts were in a manner expelled THE with the Royal Family from Britain. The anecdotes of a Civil War are the hiftory of Destruction. In all ages the mob have vented their hatred to Tyrants on the pomp of Tyranny. The magnificence the people have envied, they grow to deteft, and mistaking confequences for causes, the first objects of their fury are the palaces of their masters. If Religion is thrown into the quarrel, the most innocent arts are catalogued with fins. This was the cafe in the contests between Charles and his parliament. As he had blended affection to the fciences with a luft of power, nonsense and ignorance were adopted into the liberties of the fubject. Painting became idolatry; VOL. III. A monuments monuments were deemed carnal pride, and a venerable cathedral feemed equally contradictory to Magna Charta and the Bible. Learning and wit were conftrued to be fo heathen, that one would have thought the Holy Ghost could endure nothing above a pun. What the fury of Henry VIII. had fpared, was condemned by the Puritans: Ruin was their harvest, and they gleaned after the Reformers. Had they countenanced any of the fofter arts, what could thofe arts have reprefented? How picturesque was the figure of an Anabaptist? But fectaries have no oftenfible enjoyments; their pleasures are private, comfortable and grofs. The arts that civilize fociety are not calculated for men who mean to rife on the ruins of established order. Jargon and aufterities are the weapons that best serve the purposes of herefiarcs and innovators. The fciences have been excommunicated from the Gnoftics to Mr. Whitfield. The restoration of royalty brought back the arts, not tafte. Charles II. had a turn to mechanics, none to the politer fciences. He |