seen on the roof of palace, tomb, and temple: here are the fox, the jackal, the ape, the cat: the emblems of evil are typified by the crocodile, the hippopotamus, and the snake. The meanest insect is not forgotten: the bee, the grasshopper, and the locust are all there: the lotus and the papyrus furnished designs for the pyramid builder. Everything they drew from the sky, the river, or the desert of Egypt. They decked Osiris with the feathers of the hawk and the ostrich; fillets of the sand asps wreathed the brows of their kings; withered lotuses are still found crowning the dry skulls of mummies-the maneless lion of Nubia became the model for the sculptor: even their minor deities appeared under thes emblance of frogs and part of the Nile. This great land is now the deadest of all lands: its palaces and temples are the habitation of sore-eyed Arabs, who light their fires with the gilded coffins of dead princes; the Nile flows on, unworshipped as in days of yore, though it still fertilizes the now uncultivated lands: papyrus grows no longer beside the sacred stream, and the scarlet ibis has fled far off to the desert, to escape the double-barrel and swanshot of a superior civilization. Egypt, the site of so many powerful empires, was the home of a people, who, however fettered by priestly convention, crushed by the tyranny of its monarchs, or weakened by the traditions of caste, has still left behind them monuments more vast and more enduring, though, perhaps, less beautiful, than those of Rome or Greece. The sun still, at daybreak, turns the pyramids to flame, though it shine only to be cursed by the scorched Arab; and the statues of many a forgotten king still bear, says the eloquent author of Eōthen, an awful semblance of deity in their aspect; unchangefulness in the midst of change: the same seeming will, intent, and ever inexorable—the same earnest eyes and tranquil mien everlasting."

From Egypt to Greece-from the country which saw the earliest dawn of civilization, to that upon which_art, and philosophy, and science first descended-is but a step. Enter these classic courts and vestibules, and you are surrounded with works of artists of the grandest days of Greece-the productions of men who were feelingly alive to the bounteous gifts of nature, who embodied them in their works, and who, conceiving of their "cloud-compelling” Jove as in the image of man, made men like gods, and who, to the marbles of Paros, could alone impart the beauty and celestial charm of that matchless Helen, who for "nine long years had kept the world in arms," who "moved a goddess, and who looked a queen." The clear sky and the happy temperature of Greece, the shores and beautiful island of the Egean, exercised a great influence in forming the Grecian style of art. The mountains of this favoured soil inspired its architects with something of a sympathy with their character, and the temples of the gods of Greece soared like

eagles from the mountain tops, which formed their firm pedestals," and gave a delicate finish to the works of nature.

Never did a nation owe so much to the physical aspect of a country, not merely in the character of its people, but in the development of its genius and art, as did the Greeks. To the Greek, his nation conveyed as distinct an idea as that of home in larger empires, for throughout the country an unvarying series of landscape, of heroic trophies, of temples, and monuments, was constantly before their eyes. The despot glittering in barbaric pomp, and surrounded by foreign guards, appeared to his subject provinces like a being of another order, but the small and independent Greek states, protected by the barriers of their gulfs and mountains, regarded their rulers merely as the persons appointed by themselves to direct and control the affairs of the state. The people of Greece modelled their government according to the circumstances and their views of the common interest, and never did the powers of the human mind display themselves with such energy and grandeur under any other system in the history of the human race.

Each order or gradation of Greek architecture is definite and easily understood. The severe style of the Doric admitted only the single ornament upon its capitals of the horse-chestnut (echinus). The figure of a ram's-horn (the volute) is added, and the beautiful Ionic style is formed, while the graceful acanthus with its stalks forms the rich and finished Corinthian order. Throughout the whole of Greek architecture there is a great degree of simplicity evident not alone in the details themselves, but also in the arrangements of the material which constitute the ornament. Many beautiful forms were employed by the Egyptians and Assyrians, such as the lotus, the water-lily, and the zig-zag, the emblem of water. These were taken up and improved by the Greeks, and almost the first step in art is shown by the manner in which these forms were introduced in Greece for their own sake, and purely for the purpose of ornament. From the earliest periods the sculpture of the Greeks was distinguished by a majesty peculiar to itself, and the images of their gods, rudely finished as they were at first, displayed a grandeur and sublimity of expression which delighted and astonished all who beheld them, even in the best and most refined ages of art. Few, indeed, are the number of Grecian sculptures which have come down to the present age; in the fifteenth century there were only six antique statues known to exist, and nearly all of these were, more or less, mutilated. Copies of these will be found either in the Greek or Roman Courts, but the extent to which the originals have suffered may be judged from the following instances the left arm of the Apollo Belvidere is modern, and the right arm and foot have been badly mended; both the arms and the beautiful hands of the Venus de Medici are new; Mars has a new nose, a right hand, and a right foot; the hand and part of the foot of the Dying Gladiator are also modern additions; Apollino has been furnished with new hands; the beautiful Venus of the

Capitol has a false nose; and the right arm of the Laocoon is one which did not originally belong to him. The Discobolus (¿. e., quoit-hurier) has been fitted with a new head, and the charming Townley Venus owes her left arm and right hand to a modern sculptor. The wonder is that even so many relics of Grecian art have been preserved, when we consider the varied misfortunes to which they have been subjected. In one campaign the last King of Macedonia destroyed two thousand statues; the despicable Nero tore five hundred of the finest statues from the shrine at Delphi; "the very road dust of modern Athens," it has been forcibly said, “formed, perhaps, once a part of the noblest labours of Pheidias."

Passing from the larger Egyptian court the visitor enters a small vestibule of Grecian architecture. There is here a fine statue of Aristides the Just, and arranged on each side are busts of Homer, Eschylus, Euripides, Aratus, and other Greek poets and philosophers. At the entrance from the nave are two fine seated figures, the one of Demosthenes, most renowned of Grecian orators, and the other of Posidonius, famous as a philosopher and astronomer. On the right is the fine Borghese Achilles, on the left Silenus, who holds in his brawny arms the youthful Bacchus, and in the centre is the Dying Gladiator of the Capitol,

In front of the large Greek court, facing the nave, and next to the Silenus and Bacchus, are the Bacchus and Fawn, the Drunken Fawn, and the world-famed group of the Wrestlers. Many of the finest works of Grecian sculpture are devoted to the delineation of muscular forms as shown by gladiators, and in this case by wrestlers. The art of wrestling among the Greeks, as well as among other nations, was practised at first with simplicity, with but little art, and in a natural manner; the weight of the body and the strength of the muscle having more share in it than either address or skill. Theseus was the first that reduced the practice to method, and refined it by the rules of art. He was also the first who established the public schools called "Palestræ," in which the young people were instructed in the art. The wrestlers, before they began the combat, were usually rubbed all over in a rough manner, and afterwards anointed with oils, for the purpose of adding to the strength and flexibility of their limbs. But as this unction, by making the skin too slippery, rendered it difficult for them to take hold of each other, they remedied that inconvenience sometimes by rolling themselves in the dust of the Palæstræ," and sometimes by throwing a fine sand upon each other, kept for the purpose in the xystæ or porticoes of the gymnasia. Thus prepared, the wrestlers began the combat. They were matched two against two, and sometimes several couples contended at the same time. In the conflict the whole aim of the wrestlers was to throw their adversary upon the ground, and both strength and art were employed for this purpose. They seized each other by the arms, drew forwards, pushed backwards, used many distortions and twistings of

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the body, locked their limbs into each other's, and seized one another by the neck; they endeavoured to choke their adversaries, to press them with their arms, and were incessant in struggling, plying on all sides, lifting from the ground, dashing their heads together like rams, and twisting one another's necks. The most considerable advantage in the wrestler's art was to make himself master of his adversary's legs, of which a fall was the immediate consequence.

In this manner the Athlete wrestled standing-the combat ending with the fall of one of the competitors. But when it happened that the wrestler who was down drew his adversary along with him, either by art or by accident, the combat continued upon the sand, the antagonists tumbling and twining with each other in a thousand different ways, till one of them got uppermost, and compelled the other to ask for quarter and confess himself vanquished. This fine group represent the wrestlers in the most important moment of the conflict. Their fine athletic forms and muscular development cannot be too highly praised.

Near this group, and upon one side of this central entrance, is a beautiful cast of Adonis, the youth who, disregarding the fond advice of Venus, not to endanger his life by hunting savage beasts, received a fatal bite from a wild boar which he had wounded. The disconsolate Venus shed many tears, and after his death changed the daring and darling boy into a beautiful flower called the " Anemone. Proserpine, the Queen of Hades, however, restored Adonis to life on condition that he should spend half of the year with her, and the other half with Venus. What vast ideas of the grace and beauty of Adonis must the ancient Greeks have entertained, to suppose that the two most loveliest of goddesses, Venus and Proserpine, should forget their rivalry, and mutally agree to share the affections of the happy Adonis! A fine statue of an Amazon, one of that famous nation of women who so frequently made war upon the Greeks, and whose sole occupations were war or manly exercises-and a graceful Polyhymnia, the tuneful muse, are placed next in order, and then two charming figures of Apollo.

Ranged around the four sides of the court, commencing at the side adjoining the nave, are an Amazon, a Reposing Fawn, Juno the Queen of Heaven, a cast of the Ariadne from the Vatican, and a colossal bust of Juno. Then comes a fine copy of the Arrotino from the Uffizi gallery at Rome; that dreaming angel, the Genius of Eternal Repose; the Ludoviso Mars, the Diana found at Gable, and now placed in the Louvre at Paris, a second group of Wrestlers, and a cast of a fine Jason. On the third side are placed the Barberini fawn, a Minerva beaming with Divine Wisdom, a Minerva Giustiniana from the Vatican, and a Minerva Farnese In each, the fine features, the broad agis entwined with serpents, and the helmet on her serenely contemplative brows, attest the character and power of this favoured and much worshipped goddess. She alone of all the other deities could hurl the thun