artists, and meant to be seen at the heighth of more than forty feet from the eye; they can throw but little light upon the more important details of his art. From the degree and mode of relief in the friezes, they appear to have been intended to produce an effect like that of the simplest kind of monochromatic painting when seen from their proper point of sight; which effect must have been extremely light and ele gant. The relief in the metopes is much higher, so as to exhibit the figures nearly complete, and the details are more accurately and elaborately made out; but they are so different in their degrees of merit, as to be evidently the works of many different persons, some of whom would not have been entitled to the rank of artists in a much

less cultivated and fastidious age. The well known sitting figures of Jupiter, which appear on the silver coins of Alexander the Great and several of his successors, were probably copied with slight variations from the magnificent colossal figure executed by this artist in ivory and gold, at Olympia: for we have not observed it on any coins or other monuments anterior to this time, though so common afterwards. The general composition may, however, have been earlier; as no very extensive variety seems to have been allowed in the attitudes of the deities; and the statues of the Assyrian god, whom He rodotus calls Jupiter Belus, were equally in a sitting posture; such probably as appear on several Phoenician coins, the age of which is uncertain, though all that we have seen appear to be posterior to Phidias. Two sitting figures of Jupiter in marble, probably copied from that of Olympia above mentioned, are extant, tolerably entire ; one of which, formerly in the Verospi Palace at Rome, is now at Paris; and the other at Marbrook Hall, in Cheshire, the seat of the late John Smith Barry, Esq. The latter is much the best, but having fallen upon its face, the eyebrows, nose, and lips, are restored. The circumstance of a very celebrated painter having been employed upon the original, with the sculptor, to enrich still further with va rious colours, especially in the draperies, materials in themselves so rich and splendid, proves that it must have been gorgeous to a degree, which we should now think extravagantly glittering and gaudy. It also seems to have been too big for the temple, large as that was ; the head nearly touching the ceiling, so as to excite the unpleasant idea that if it was to rise from its sitting posture, it must lift up the roof. It was nevertheless universally allowed to be a most grand and imposing object; though the works of Polycletus in the same materials were thought by competent judges to be more perfect examples of art than those of Phidias, which were superior in size and magnificence. The figure of Minerva engraved in plate XXV. of this volume seems to be a copy of the celebrated statue which the latter artist executed in these materials for the Parthenon at Athens; and it is probable that the heads of the same goddess on the silver tetradrachms of that city, struck after the art had become mature, have been copied from the colossal statue of brass by the same hand in the Acropolis.'

'Accurate and extensive as was the science of these great artists in the physiology of the human body, it seems to have been more the result of that daily observation, for which the manners and habits of

the

the times continually afforded subjects, than of any systematic course of study or anatomical research; for it does not appear from the works of Hippocrates, that anatomy was regularly studied or practised, even by surgeons or physicians, to whom it is so much more necessary than to artists. As far, indeed, as our observation enables us to pronounce, artists in modern times have been oftener misled than improved by such studies; for the appearance of the surface of the hu man body, when all the parts are dead and collapsed, is so different from what it is in life and action, that it affords but little information; and the artist, who has acquired a very accurate and extensive knowlege both of its internal structure and external form, by studying it in the former state, is very apt to exhibit it on the latter according to certain theoretical conclusions of his own, not according to its actual state. Knowing the structure, use, and disposition of every bone, muscle, and vein, and the general laws by which their respective functions are regulated, he puts them into action according to those laws; and thus makes a figure upon the same principles, and with the same success, as the Laputian taylor made a coat. Such was the case in some degree with Michel Angelo, and such will te more or less the case with all who suffer the pride of theoretical science to exalt them above practical observation.

Having spoken of the times and causes of the improvement of the arts, the learned author proceeds to notice their decline, as intimately connected with the political changes of the people; when ostentatious vanity or selfish luxury began to take place of the national ambition of applying property to the nourishment of genius, and the developement of talent in public works.

As monuments of art were thus less respected, the production of them was of course less encouraged; and as artists saw, for the first time, their works perish before them, the prospect of immortality, the great stimulative to genius, was rendered dim and uncertain. The subjects, too, upon which it was called upon to exert itself were debased; for, as every petty chief or tyrant was deified, the cities under his rule were crowded with his statues; and individual took the place of general nature. Instead of giving appropriate form and character to abstract perfections or poctical images, the artist was thus degraded to the mean and irksome labour of copying the features and embellishing the form of some contemptible despot; without, perhaps, a hope of any other reward than the price which he received for it; since there was always at least a probability that his work would perish with its archetype. Even the most dignified employment that he could expect was to copy, with slight variations perhaps, the great works of preceding periods; for, in the decline of art, public opinion concerning living artists always declines faster than the art itself; and thus accelerates its fall by estimating the productions of past times in a compound, and those of present in an inverse ratio to their comparative merits. Sculpture, too, which was then the leading art, is in its nature less various and inventive than painting, which has been the leading art in modern times; so that its

powers of change are sooner exhausted; and it became necessary af ter so long a period of successful exertion, and amidst such a pro fusion of master-pieces, either not to deviate at all or to deviate into vice and extravagance. Thus, though many magnificent works were executed under the patronage of the Kings of Egypt, Syria, and Pergamus, they appear to have been chiefly repetitions; and the artists employed are allowed to have been upon a lower scale of merit than their predecessors.

"Of these repetitions are probably the Farnese Hercules, the Torso of the Belvidere, and the statue called the Fighting Gladi. ator; for if works of such merit had been originals, we can scarcely doubt that the names inscribed upon them would have been recorded by some antient author. The last, indeed, is manifestly copied from a figure in brass; and the form of the letters in the names in the two others proves that they could not have been inscribed more than a century before the Christian æra, though the statues might have been wrought earlier; for, it was no uncommon practice, under the first Roman emperors, to inscribe the names of more antient artists upon their real or supposed works, either to enhance their value, or impose upon the credulity of wealthy and ignorant collectors. The execution of the Torso is certainly far above the age of the inscrip tion; and its composition still above its execution.

Notwithstanding all these unfavourable circumstances, Grecian art maintained both the dignity of its style and the delicacy of its execution in a very high degree of excellence, down to the last stage of the Macedonian power in Asia; the coins of Antiochus VI., Trypho, and Antiochus VII., only differ from the portraits of the finest times, in having more luxuriance and softness of manner. Even some of those of Mithridates Eupater, King of Pontus, the last in dependent monarch of the civilized world, have all the grandeur of character peculiar to the Grecian style, though it be less skilfully and vigorously expressed than in happier periods.

To these ages of the decline and relaxation of art from vigour and sublimity to luxuriance and softness, we attribute the articles engraved in plates LXI.-VIII. inclusive. And here we must pause to consider the effects of a great and disastrous change in the affairs of mankind, which brought all the learned and civilized nations of the earth under the hard dominion of one military republic; and, in its consequences, plunged them into barbarism and utter darkness.'

An elaborate history of the Roman polity next ensues, consisting of nearly thirty pages, with occasionally a cursory observ ation on the contemporaneous state of art; in which the author displays an uncommon share of acute discernment respecting the political effects of the constitution and temper of the Roman republic. While, however, we render justice to the abilities of the writer, we must stop to inquire how far so long a dissertation on the Roman politics is consistent with a work which is professedly devoted to the arts. In our opinion, it seems injurious, by withdrawing our attention from the main purport

purport of the publication. Political changes, as affecting the style of art, are proper to be noticed in a treatise on this subject but if the observations be not condensed, the reader is imperceptibly led to conceive that he is perusing a history of political events, and forgets all that has preceded relative to the main topic of his study: whereas it should be the great care of a writer to keep the attention of his reader to that principal object, making all matter, which in any way partakes of the nature of a digression, so concise that, while it relieves, it is not likely to lead astray.

The Introduction concludes the Roman history with the fol lowing remark on its effect on the arts:

Amidst the disorders of their military democracy, the clouds of barbarism and ignorance rapidly overspred the earth. The figures on the triumphal arch of Severus prove, that all taste or skill in composi tion had vanished even in his reign: though the portraits, both in marble and on coins, prove, that accuracy of imitation, and nicety of finishing prevailed even to the time of the Gordians. Farther it is in vain to trace the progress of art; which, in the last stages of cor ruption and debasement, is necessarily as uninteresting, as it is interesting in its first efforts of improvement. The primary attempts of a people emerging from barbarism have always a character of ori ginal meaning and intelligence, which, how imperfectly soever expressed, will always excite sentiments similar to those from which it sprang but the operose productions of a people sinking into darkness are either servile and vapid imitations of the works of better days, or crude and abortive efforts of invention; which, being no longer guided by feeling and observation, seeks only for novelty, and thus deviates into glitter and extravagance. Of original compositions of this period, we scarcely know of any extant, except those on the arch of Severus; and perhaps the figures on the head-picce of the helmet found in Lancashire, and published by the Society of Antiquariea. It is possible, too, that the figures engraved in plates LXXIV.

V. of this volume may be of the invention as well as workmanship of this century; for we do not remember to have met with this fat and bloated form of the young Bacchus in any monuments of earlier times; and it appears to have arisen out of the corruption of religion as well as of art. Coarse and inelegant, however, as the design of these figures is, the surface is more soft and fleshy than the best modern sculptor has ever been able to give to metal. The mystical and symbolical composition of the groupe, plate LXXV., which will be explained in the preliminary dissertation to the next volume, may scem indeed to be of an earlier and better age; but the mystic system, though degraded and corrupted, was not yet extinct; and the meanness of the characters, poverty of the drapery, and feebleness of the action, all indicate an expiring effort of the art.'

Of the examples of sculpture with which we are here presented, by far the largest portion, as may be supposed, is sup

plied from the collection of the late Mr. Charles Townley, nowin the British Museum. They are accompanied by descriptions, in general very appropriate : but in some cases betraying too. great a bias in favour of one artist, and bestowing too severe a censure on another, among those who have been employed for the drawings. The principal artists engaged to delineate the sculp tures were Mr. Howard and Mr. Agar; and the drawings of Mr. Howard are engraved by Skelton in the line-manner, while. those of Mr. Agar are engraved by himself in the dottedmanner. As one example of unmerited censure and praise, we shall notice plates 5 and 6 of the same subject. Of plate 6.,. drawn by Howard, the writer says; the artist has been guilty of a fault which we have found it difficult to prevent, that of. indulging his own taste for the elegant and beautiful, at the expence of fidelity of imitation: but in the first, (plate 5.) the strongly marked coarse features of the primitive style are accurately rendered, and the general character of the hand, whichis probably taken from that of a colossal statue, and consequently made to be seen at a distance from the eye, is well preserved. Unfortunately for the author's remark, the drawing thus praised is so very little like the original sculpture, that the latter would not be well recollected from this representation of it, while no such difficulty would occur on looking at the cen sured delineation. We are sorry to say that the same tendency to commendation and blame generally pervades the descriptions In making this observation, we do not attribute any malevolent motive to the author; for we are satisfied that an enthusiastic zeal for depicting the hard manner of the early works has led him to desire more than it was requisite to accomplish in that way, and has prevented him from exercising his usual judgment in discriminating the different talents of the artists employed. We are not insensible to the propriety of a dry manner, in order to present in a drawing a just notion of the appearance of a piece of sculpture but a wide difference prevails between a dry manner, and giving hard lines in a drawing which do not. exist in the original which it pretends to copy. Mr. Howard's very superior talent of delineating the human figure, had it been properly appreciated, would have led to his being employed in-delineatng those specimens of sculpture which are of the firstrate excellence; reserving the labours of his brother-artist för those which display the hard manner that is more consonant to his style of work.

Among the engravings in this volume, are representations of the small bronze figures, in Mr. Knight's collection, which were found in the year 1792 in Epirus. It was an observation of the late Mr. Charles Townley that, until we were acquainted