cant; the origin of art is forgotten, its adult state alone is an object of admiration. The germ of the tree is unregarded, its blossoms scattered to the wind, and its mature fruit alone preserved.

MUCH has been said, and undoubtedly with considerable propriety, of the fortunate circumstances of the happy times, which favoured the progress of the improvement of art in Greece and Italy..

IN GREECE, in the most glorious age of sculpture, a patriotic and refined people existed in that state of society, in which the imagination is in its full vigour, in the rich spring of youth. Poets were enjoying an untouched field of interest, Philosophers were forming their own systems of logic, having no strict rules of thought, and carrying fancy into all their combinations. Warriors existed, animated by the desire of glory, public spirit, and all the grand virtues. Orators gifted with talents, that changed the fate of em

pires, and made kings tremble on their thrones, Besides, in that country, beauty of person seems to have been eminent, The dress, the gymnastic exercises, and perhaps even the freedom of manners, were peculiarly favourable to the studies of the sculptor. The people were masters of gesticulation; and strength of action and the expression of passion seem even amongst the lower orders to have been softened by grace, and exalted by dignity. An universal sympathy existed with regard to the sublime, the beautiful, and the decorous. There was one vivifying spirit in the public mind,─The character of the artist was necessarily form, ed and modified by the popular feeling; and nothing was wanting to animate his hopes, and awaken his ambition.

IN ITALY, in the age of the Medici, in a more advanced though less romantic state of society, some of the same causes still operated. The genius of the southern nations naturally disposes them to activity and warmth in the intercourse

of society; and the expression of the human countenance is varied and impassioned. The period of the great Italian painters likewise was the period in which learning was reviving, in which the human mind began to awaken to day after its long slumber in the night of the middle ages. The era was distinguished by the progress of physical science, by the discovery of a new world, and by the triumphs of the Christian Faith. A state of general activity is necessarily favourable to every particular pursuit, and, above all, the arts were protected by princes and potentates; and fame and riches equally bestowed on the successful candidate.

THE worship of the people, both at Rome and Athens, was exceedingly favourable to the progress of art. The age of idolatry, if not the favourite age of the moralist and the philosopher, is at least the fortunate age of the sculptor and the painter. The zeal of the puritans and early reformers of christianity,

in destroying paintings and statues, sufficiently proves the peculiar importance attached to these productions, in a religious point of view, by the church of Rome. And in early Greece, the temples of the gods were the theatres of the glory of the sculptors. The Jupiter of Phidias, and the Apollo of Praxiteles, were venerated, admired, and worshipped by a whole pagan world. Being essential to the magnificent ceremonials of a most magnificent system of superstition, the artist received, as it were, an apotheosis; and the adoration paid to the work became a supreme glory to the workman, and stamped a kind of divinity on the efforts of genius.

IN BRITAIN, at the present era, there are certainly no circumstances of equal brilliancy or magnificence; none so capable of exalting and purifying

art.

We have undoubtedly beauty of person in a high degree, but in general it

is either concealed or disguised by fashion. The common dress of the people is rather simple and convenient, than graceful or picturesque. We are, generally speaking, firm, cool and reasoning, and not lively, active and impassioned; prudence, or the coldness of excessive refinement, banishes gesture almost entirely from the scenes of real life. It may be said, that this is no great evil, and that the artist may easily gain his ideas of grace, of beauty, and expression from the study of the antique, and that a few elements only are required to enable genius to produce new combinations. I fear, however, that this cannot be the case. The cold forms of the marble, or the superficial colours of the canvass, must necessarily affect the imagination less vividly than the warmth of real and active life, the at once palpable and expressive-the body and the soul. And it is astonishing how much the habitual and daily acquaintance with particular impressions affects the tone of the mind. The person confined