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ders, one invincible, born of Olympias, and the other inimitable, created by Apelles.

Shall we deem these praises of the ancient painters extravagant? Could they, who transmitted to posterity such splendid monuments of perfect taste in other things, have made a mistaken estimate of the beauty of a picture! We are not fond of indiscriminate eulogy of the ancients. The time is past by, when classick learning was the only test of scholarship, and adulation of the ancients conclusive evidence of correct taste. But the best critics are satisfied of the perfection of Greek painters, at least in Alexander's time, in all the essential qualities of the art. Modern painters may have more of scientific excellence in the management of perspective, and in the composition of figures, but in design, expression, invention, colouring, we do not believe they surpass the ancients.

Happily, the genius of ancient sculptors and architects was exercised on more durable objects than canvass, and works of theirs yet survive, to attest the perfection of the art. Were it not so, sceptical inquirers might as reasonably deny the wonderful excellence of Phidias, as of Apelles. But the broken relic of a façade, the magnificent ruin of a temple or an arch, or a single inimitably perfect statue, has outlived the ravages of time and barbarism, to be the models for us of all that is most beautiful in their kind, and to give us an idea of the miracles of taste and skill, which Greek art could produce.

As it is, we meet with no difficulty in crediting the well known story, that Nicomedes, King of Bithynia, offered to discharge the large publick debt of Cnidos, as the price of Praxiteles' Venus, which belonged to that Island; or that the offer was rejected by the Cnidians. What is there strange in the fact related by Livy, that when Paulus Æmilius beheld the magnificent collossal statue of the Olympian Jupiter made by Phidias, he was struck with awe, as if in the actual presence of the Thunderer? Well might Lucian hazard the saying that Phidias was adored in his sublime productions; for surely if any thing could furnish an apology for the transfer of worship from the being represented to the representation, it would be the glorious creations of genius, which adorned the splendid and beautiful temples of the Greeks.

LESSON XV.

Usefulness of the Fine Arts.-U. S. LITERARY Gazette.

GIVING the narrowest construction to utility, of which the word is susceptible, we apprehend it is demonstrable that the study of the ornamental arts is eminently useful to a nation. It might be shown to contribute to the national wealth, as well as to national honour, the encouragement of genius, and the laudable gratification of opulent individuals,-by the plainest considerations. It provides a new field for the exercise of labour, and thereby augments the productive industry of the nation. It cannot diminish the productive labour of any other branch of industry. In many countries, and no where more evidently than here, the number of hands employed in cultivation is much greater than is needed, to produce the requisite amount of agricultural products, demanded for domestick and foreign consumption. There being a surplus of labour devoted to agriculture, the creation of a new branch of productive industry would naturally draw labour away from that department, in which there is now an excess of it; and the whole value of the labour thus diverted into a new channel, would be so much clear gain to the community.

The wealth expended on publick or private buildings, on paintings, or on sculpture, is not lost nor consumed. It still remains in the country, being merely transferred from the rich to the ingenious, from the hands of those, who have a surplus over their wants and over what they can profitably employ, to the hands of the industrious classes. A portion of it is fixed in a new object, in a beautiful statue or church, in a commodious house, or in an elegant picture; but nevertheless it still exists.

The employment of labour in the fine arts, increases the demand, and with the demand, the value of the products of other branches of industry. It creates a new class of men to be fed, and clothed, and supported in comfort; it calls marble and granite from the quarry; it causes the mine to be wrought for its metal; it demands a supply of colours, wood, and all the other various materials used in the ornamental arts.-Thus it gives, at once, occupation to additional labourers; it converts vegetable and mineral substances, of no value intrinsically, or at least of no value whilst in the earth or the forest, into profitable articles of trade; and it adds, by the whole operation, to the value of lands and to the aggregate of national wealth

Besides, surplus wealth will be expended by its holders, in the purchase of objects of taste and luxury, such as the fine arts produce. If those objects cannot be found at home, the money will depart into foreign lands, to discourage domestick industry, and encourage that of some rival nation.

And there is another point of view, wherein it is important to regard the subject. We have spoken thus far only of the supply of objects of the fine arts, and of a supply of them only for domestick consumption. The subject has vastly more extensive relations. It is estimated that, in England, of the students devoted to professional improvement in the fine arts, but one out of forty or fifty rises to the rank of a distinguished painter or sculptor. Not every aspirant after fame becomes a West, a Chantrey, an Allston, or a Newton. The hundreds of others, oftentimes men of genius too, who spend their lives in the practice of the fine arts, find more profitable employ ment for their talents, in the manufactories of clay, glass, metals, cottons, and the like, than they would in the higher walks of the profession.

These are the artists, who communicate that beauty of design and exquisite finish to the meanest as well as richest articles of British manufacture, by means of which, among other things, they have hitherto obtained a preference in all the markets of the world. Thinking men amongst us are beginning to perceive, that the most advantageous investments of capital, so far as the interest of the nation is concerned, is in manufactures. It is for them to consider whether we can compete with Great Britain in foreign markets, successfully, and upon equal footing, before we have secured, not only a sufficient capital and the excellent machinery which we now possess, but also the same taste in giving finish and grace to our manufactured productions. And we hazard nothing in predicting the time to be close at hand, when, with the blessing of heaven, the same country, which now produces artists of unequalled skill in the strictly useful and inventive arts, shall be not less fertile of ornamental and imitative genius.

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LESSON XVI.

Dion's Dream.-JONES.

He lay upon his couch by night,
Locked fast in sleep; for he had been
Engaged the livelong day in fight
With warriour-bands of foreign men:
When, on the moon's declining beam,
There came the Spirit of a dream.

It breathed upon his face the spell,
Which shows the future and the past,
And bade him note fair Hellas well,
And see her age of glory past.

And cast thine eyes, chief, west and east,
And tell me, dreamer, what thou seest.

And Dion saw, and lo! the land,
The land of Greece, was free no more;
But o'er it ruled a turbaned band,
Whose scimitars were red with gore.
And there a Spartan boy, who waits
A bondman at the conqueror's gates.

He saw her sons the proselytes
Of a pure creed- -a faith divine;

None the Unknown God' high rites-
pay "
His temple holds a holier shrine.

"Tis changed; alas, at evening there,
A Muezzim chants the Moslem prayer.

He saw a wretched peasant stand ;
Chained to his implements of toil;
And there are fetters on his hand,
And there are tears, but ne'er a smile.
And oft is upward cast his eye
In prayer to God, that he may die.

He saw a girl with golden locks
And polished brow and azure eye;
Why roves she o'er the lonely rocks?
Why all the day long weep and sigh?

Alas, her loveliness has caught
A haram's lord, and she is bought.

And o'er the Morea, far and wide,
The ruthless sons of Islam stand
With every weapon, art has tried
To work the downfall of a land.
And Dion thus in sorrow slept,
Then left his couch, and sat, and wept.

Again he sunk to sleep:-again

He dreamed. Upon that mount of Thrace,
Which rises, as 'tis said of men, adva
Ten thousand feet above its base,
He stood, and from the height surveyed
The changes passing centuries made.

Is that lost Greece he sees below?
Where is the glittering minaret?
And where is he, the turbaned foe,
The Othman surely rules her yet?
No, rest thee, chief, the Moslem thrones!
Cumber no land that Europe owns.

He sees upon a sunny slope,
All festooned over with the vine,
A merry, laughing, peasant group,
Around a vase of Chian wine.
And much they talk of days gone past,
Ere Despotism breathed his last.

He sees a labouring man at work;
His children, babes with yellow hair,
Play by, and, fearless of the Turk,
Pursue a young bird fluttering there,
And he, that sire, with soft embrace
Of those dear babes, joins in the chace.

And, emblem of the peace, that reigns
Throughout the clime, he sees a maid
Of angel form forsake the plains,
And wander to the mountain's shade,
All lonely, with her father's flocks;-
For there's no Turk among these rocks...

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