with numerous other statues of gods and goddesses, emperors, philosophers, poets, and statesmen of antiquity.  The Dying Gladiator, which ornaments the capitol, is alone a magnificent proof of the perfection to which sculpture was carried centuries after the art had culminated at Athens.  And these are only a few which stand out among the twenty thousand recovered statues that now embellish Italy, to say nothing of those that are scattered over Europe.  We have the names of hundreds of artists who were famous in their day.  Not merely the figures of men are chiselled, but of animals and plants.  Nature in all her forms was imitated; and not merely Nature, but the dresses of the ancients are perpetuated in marble.  No modern sculptor has equalled, in delicacy of finish, the draperies of those ancient statues as they appear to us even after the exposure and accidents of two thousand years.  No one, after a careful study of the museums of Europe, can question that of all the nations who have claimed to be civilized, the ancient Greeks and Romans deserve a proud pre-eminence in an art which is still regarded as among the highest triumphs of human genius.  All these matchless productions of antiquity are the result of native genius alone, without the aid of Christian ideas.  Nor with the aid of Christianity are we sure that any nation will ever soar to loftier heights than did the Greeks in that proud realm which was consecrated to Paganism.

We are not so certain in regard to the excellence of the ancients in the art of painting as we are in regard to sculpture and architecture, since so few specimens of painting have been preserved.  We have only the testimony of the ancients themselves; and as they had so severe a taste and so great a susceptibility to beauty in all its forms, we cannot suppose that their notions were crude in this great art which the moderns have carried to such great perfection.  In this art the moderns doubtless excel, especially in perspective and drawing, and light and shade.  No age, we fancy, can surpass Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when the genius of Raphael, Correggio, and Domenichino blazed with such wonderful brilliancy.

Painting in some form, however, is very ancient, though not so ancient as are the temples of the gods and the statues that were erected to their worship.  It arose with the susceptibility to beauty of form and color, and with the view of conveying thoughts and emotions of the soul by imitation of their outward expression.  The walls of Babylon were painted after Nature with representations of different species of animals and of combats between them and man.  Semiramis was represented as on horseback, striking a leopard with a dart, and her husband Ninus as wounding a lion.  Ezekiel describes various idols and beasts portrayed upon the walls, and even princes painted in vermilion, with girdles around their loins.  In ages almost fabulous there were some rude attempts