that is commonly supplied by the poet or historian. With respect to the
choice, no subject can be proper that is not generally interesting. It
ought to be either some eminent instance of heroic action or heroic
suffering. There must be something either in the action or in the object
in which men are universally concerned, and which powerfully strikes upon
the public sympathy.

Strictly speaking, indeed, no subject can be of universal, hardly can it
be of general concern: but there are events and characters so popularly
known in those countries where our art is in request, that they may be
considered as sufficiently general for all our purposes. Such are the
great events of Greek and Roman fable and history, which early education
and the usual course of reading have made familiar and interesting to all
Europe, without being degraded by the vulgarism of ordinary life in any
country. Such, too, are the capital subjects of Scripture history,
which, besides their general notoriety, become venerable by their
connection with our religion.

As it is required that the subject selected should be a general one, it
is no less necessary that it should be kept unembarrassed with whatever
may any way serve to divide the attention of the spectator. Whenever a
story is related, every man forms a picture in his mind of the action and
the expression of the persons employed. The power of representing this
mental picture in canvas is what we call invention in a painter. And as
in the conception of this ideal picture the mind does not enter into the
minute peculiarities of the dress, furniture, or scene of action, so when
the painter comes to represent it he contrives those little necessary
concomitant circumstances in such a manner that they shall strike the
spectator no more than they did himself in his first conception of the
story.