beauty of Antinous, the catamite of Hadrian, is feminine; but the form of Apollo is such as mind giving its character to form and countenance would prepare you to expect. He is not Jupiter, nor Mars, nor Bacchus; there is blended in his figure the excellence of each, but with no extreme; he is such as you would look for in the ruler of the day, the president of the muses, in the handsomest and the wisest of the gods.

This delight, which the Grecian antiques excite, and as a matter of feeling, without any philosophical inquiry, has been witnessed by all, in various ages and nations. The Greeks copied from nature; her most perfect forms were their standard: succeeding artists have received their productions as a standard, and looked for reputation as they approximated to the perfection of their works. The antient Romans in the highest pride of their empire deemed nothing excellent in the art of statuary but what was of Greek fabrication. Their admiration

knew

knew no bounds; and though, of the statues preserved to us, many are of an age posterior to the earlier Cæsars, it is probable that they were all the workmanship of Grecian genius. The school denominated the Roman, though the Roman empire had been long extinct, was formed on the basis of Greek art; it aspired to no higher honour than to be the imitator of the antient Greek: yet, inimical as imitation is supposed to be to great exertion, this school is allowed to have surpassed all other moderns in the beauty and character of its figures ;—while other subsequent schools of statuary, which have wrought from their own ideas, and been laborious enough in the execution, have each exhibited less beauty, less correctness, less conformity to what every one feels to be To xxλov in the original. This concurrent testimony may almost be allowed to be decisive. Among the artists of Italy, and succeeding to them, in other countries, there are who appear to have devoted their whole lives to the study of what

a

ever is most beautiful in nature or in art; and if their unqualified deference to the Greek be not admitted, I wonder from whom, with a more refined and better furnished mind, we may expect a juster sentence !

The artists of later days ascend no higher in the pursuit of the beautiful than the models which Greece has transmitted to us. Have any of them retraced the steps of the Greek artist in the formation of one celebrated statue? Have they selected from individuals of approved form, whatever is most beautiful in each, and thus composed a more perfect whole? Until this be done, it is mere presumption to suppose that they will surpass the Greek, that with all the aid of the antients they will produce a more perfect model of beauty, that this second extract of the beautiful would more answer to our most perfect idea from nature.

There is reason to believe that the Grecian artists did select the most beautiful originals, and, from what appeared to be most perfect in each, formed their mean

figure of the beautiful. It was, inasmuch as art could execute, the summary of what nature had dispersed in a variety of the best chosen subjects.

It is further to be observed, and, if true, very important to the purpose, that no climate, no state of society, no modes of life and manners, were ever more happily adapted to the preservation of beauty, to the production of the most beautiful and most perfect designs of nature. A happy temperament of elements, inviting to enjoyment, and also to exercise, activity and sportiveness, simplicity of diet and simplicity of manners; were eminently favourable to the primary production and to the preservation of beautiful form. The concurrence of these advantages is so powerful as to resist the barbarism and oppression of the Turkish government, and even to this day preserve to the native Greek race their preeminence of beauty.

The Grecian games invited the most perfect of the species, in varied character and exhibition,

exhibition, with all the advantage of exposure, and with all the action proper either to strength or grace; which must have furnished to the Grecian artist modela of perfection in nature, and of the truth of nature in her best specimens, such as modern artists can have no access to. Our modern manners admit not of such exhibitions; and if in a moral view we have gained thereby, the loss to the imitative arts of sculpture and painting is incalculable. Nor, if it were otherwise, is it probable that, in our climates and with our modes of life, any such speci mens of the beautiful working of nature can be furnished. It will be allowed at least that the hirelings, which are exhibited in our modern academies, are nó substitute for the ampler and richer display of form and character, from which the Grecian sculptor and painter copied their admired productions.

The freedom of the Grecian mind must also have had a considerable influence on the feature and form. The influence of the mind on the feature, where the soul speaks in all D 2

its