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beauty of the workmanship remained long uninjured in the open air of that mild and sunny region.

On the Syrian palaces and in the temples of the deserts, travellers yet observe the marks of Grecian genius. A mythology, recommended by the song of Homer, and the almost equally divine labours of sculptors, was widely spread; and nations who refused to bow to the arms of Greece, admitted her religion, bowed to her deities and consulted her oracles. Even when their proper altars were overthrown, the gods of the Greeks descended to the Christians. They took them to the font and baptized them. Minerva was Wisdom; Mercury, Eloquence; Venus, Beauty; Hercules, Strength; Apollo, Poetry; Neptune, Father Eridanus, or Father Tiber, or Father Nile. In this heathen train came the dark legion of Abstract Ideas, of whom Nero was a patron in his verse; his longribbed Appenine' has been the fruitful mother of many a personified hill, and maternal Rome' has begotten many a city-lady with turrets on her brows to sit and do nothing on our monuments. That progeny of the brain infested our literature, and deformed our painting, and it still lingers in the national sculpture which for a long time it overwhelmed.

The Romans made the conquest of the world so much the passion of their hearts, that they had little enthusiasm to spare for art. They admired the works of Greece and filled Rome with statues, but though they inherited the empire they succeeded not to the genius of that little knot of republics. In their hands sculpture soon degenerated; it became more vulgar and more absurd in every succeeding reign. As they worshipped the gods of Greece, they were content to find them ready made to their hands, and their chief works were statues of their great men, and triumphal columns and arches. Their best and most characteristic sculpture was history. The Column of Trajan represents in one continued winding relief, from the base to the summit, the actions of the emperor, and his statue stands at the top to show him as the consummation of all glory. It is a kind of martial gazette in stone.

These universal conquerors succeeded in fixing slavery and sculpture upon our barbarian ancestors, and the temples and courts of justice were adorned, or, more probably, encumbered with statues of the divinities of the country. The remains of Roman and British art in England are well imagined, but executed with such deficiency of skill as countenances the conjecture, that the gods and altars, as well as the roads of the time, were made by the soldiers. The warlike invaders left something like the love of art behind them when Etius withdrew his last legion. A brazen

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statue of King Lud was erected on Ludgate Hill. But the colossal dimensions, and the fierce countenance which Bede celebrates, are bad symptoms. Amplitude had been taken for sublimity, and gigantic ferocity for heroic grandeur.

The Saxons succeeded the Romans, and whatever they did had a dash of the wildness of that blunt people. Their attempts to imitate the human form are savage and hideous. But riches and repose began to aid them in softening down the barbarous rudeness of imitation; and in their sacred architecture they had begun to display some taste, when their progress was arrested by the Normans, a people as fierce as themselves. To this band of conquering adventurers we owe, among other benefits, the introduction of a better kind of sculpture. The tombs of the days of William the Norman and his sons were good examples of the Gothic taste; and the forms sculptured upon them were stiff but natural, and intelligible though coarse. As we come along the stream of our history, the beauty of church architecture increases; and the devout meaning and skilful execution of its accompanying sculptures become more and more remarkable. The return of the Crusaders brought a taste for the Grecian art, which was then visible wherever they had marched. The church waxed strong, rich, ambitious, and desirous of splendour. Magnificent abbeys were built, and the whole skill and genius of the land were employed in embellishing them with traditions of the saints and legends of the church. In the days of the third Henry, the desire to excel seemed universal, and many works of true genius adorned our cathedrals. The Creation, the Deluge, the Nativity, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection were designed with a feeling at once scriptural and imaginative; and statues of tles and saints, sufferings of martyrs, miracles, abbesses, processions of priests and pilgrims, and rites and ceremonies of the church covered the walls, filled the niches and recesses, and even mingled with the foliages of the cornices and bands. On one place the glory of heaven was represented, with saints, souls of just men made perfect, and ministering angels: on another, the horrors of hell the pangs of damnation, and the writhing of evil spirits. The Day of Judgment was likewise sculptured, and the genius of latter times has added little to the severe and impressive power of the delineation. The Saviour descends with looks of meekness and mercy among his adoring apostles, and beneath him are seen the nations of the earth arising to judgment. Some start up unwillingly and with gestures of horror, while others emerge from the grave with looks of awe and hope. Over the works of those days were scattered much good sense, right feeling, and simple grace, which redeemed the imperfect

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workmanship. And, what is still more remarkable, arts and literature had not then revived in Italy. Down to the time of the final contest of the people with the church of Rome a love of sculpture prevailed; domestic monuments crowded our cathes drals; and, in the chapel of Henry the Seventh alone, several thousands of figures were carved by native artists with good taste and more than common skill.

The works which we have so hastily described in the mass were of the right kind, since they reflected the religion of the people and the history of the land. They were the offspring of the Christian belief, and, though darkened by superstition, and dedicated to propagate improbable legends and absurd miracles, still they were easy to be understood, and, indeed, were intended for the instruction of the people. The reformed religion disdained the aid of sculpture; it had no saints, no miracles, no legends, and, though it had many martyrs, it refused to have them done in stone; it took up the pen and told their sufferings in history. It had the Angels, and it had the Trinity, and it had the twelve Apostles; but the latter had already been monopolized by the Church of Rome: the Three Persons were held too holy for the chissel; so there was nothing left but the angels. On the angels, accordingly, the sculptors fell, and our monuments have ever since had a copious garniture of figures with wings, both male and female, and a goodly generation of cherubs.

During a century and more our demands for sculpture were mostly supplied by foreign hands, and often from a foreign market. The heathen gods, under the protection of modern names, gained a footing in the island; and a crowd of allegorical creatures came after them-Hopes, Charities, Sensibilities, Fears, Fames, Victories, Valours, Temperances, Modestys, Geniuses, Rapines, Anarchies, Faiths, Religions, Muses, Cities, Kingdoms, Countries -nay, Asia and Africa, America and Europe followed, and London and Thames, and Bristol and Britannia went down to the shore to welcome them. Neither Hume nor any other historian mentions this invasion, which has done more lasting mischief than the Spanish Armada. Look into our cathedrals-there this marble offspring of Affectation and idle Learning are seated; and who shall remove them? It is painful to see our churches crowded with riddles too hard to be read-to hear Sculpture speaking over English dust with an alien tongue. The artists of those days did, however, undertake sometimes to represent nature; but they gave only the lifeless image-they missed the serenity of slumber, and carved the horror of death. We gladly turn away from such misconceptions.

All this evil, or almost all of it, happened to the sculpture

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of Italy herself, as well as to that of England. No influence can prevail against want of genius, and an artist who wants it will, with the best examples before him, only do something silly or absurd. The genius of Michael, in particular, has misled many more than it has wisely inspired. His thoughts were colossal. The forms and the subjects on which he loved to me ditate are above the mark of common minds, and it is only a great and a daring master who can wield such elements of art. Even with Angelo the original vivid conception sometimes waxed cold and indistinct during the progress of execution-the first heat of fancy was lost ere the figure started from the block. His followers had his extravagance without his loftiness-and proved, had any proof been wanting, that tranquil dignity and subdued action are most congenial to sculpture.

The sculpture of the last hundred years has partaken more largely of English feeling and intellect; and, though often deformed by allegory and affectation, debased sometimes by vulgarity, and in general unelevated and monotonous, it contains works of a high and pure order. Of some of her domestic monuments in particular England may be justly proud; here the soundness of the heart has happily prompted many daring acts of rebellion against the false tendency of professional taste.

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Cibber was among the first of our artists who returned to sense and nature, and his statues of Raving and Melancholy Madness are the earliest of our works after the Reformation which show an original grasp of mind. The cold insult of Pope is forgotten as we look on those Brainless Brothers,' who yet stand foremost in conception and second in execution among all the productions of English sculpture. Those who see them for the first time are fixed to the spot with sorrow and awe; an impression is made on the heart never to be removed-nor is the impression of a vulgar kind. The poetry of those terrible infirmi ties is presented;-from the degradation of the actual madhouse we turn overpowered and disgusted, but from these statues of Cibber we retire with mingled awe and admiration. The bas reliefs on the sides of the Fire Monument, and some statues at Chatsworth, revivals of antique gods, are from his chissel. His other labours may be allowed to descend quietly into oblivion.

Rysbrach succeeded Cibber, and Sheemaker came and divided with him the public patronage. Though feeble, literal, and languid, they maintained something of the elevation of style which

An unfinished marble in the collection of Sir George Beaumont shows at once the genius and impatience of the artist. The group is rough-hewn only-a virgin and child are imaged fairly out, and the character fully expressed; yet there it stands, coarse from the gradina or toothed-chissel, to tell, along with most of his labours, that he wanted the patience and deliberation of well-regulated genius.

Cibber introduced; they produced several recumbent figures which seem nature transcribed rather than nature exalted by art, -yet they are nature still, and welcome from that novelty. They saw little but what others had seen far better before them. They were heavy and ungraceful-they had not the skill to use Allegory so as to make it understood, or nature so as to render it attractive. Many of their designs indeed were produced by architects: it was the fashion of the day for one man to think and another to carve; and these men had not firmness or genius enough to cast off the great architectural dry-nurse who seemed in a fair way to overlay them both.

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Roubiliac's name still stands deservedly high; though it is at this moment suffering under something like an eclipse. ideas are frequently just and natural, and his execution is always careful and delicate. He spared no labour; he was not afraid of strong relief, of deep and difficult folds and sinkings, and of attitudes which ate up marble and consumed time. But he sacrificed nature and simplicity for the sake of effect; his works are all too lively and too active. He followed the precept of Punch; he still kept moving. He has little sedate beauty, little tranquil thought. Violent passion can be carved by a commouer hand than men imagine. A broad mark is easily hit: but quiet agony of mind and deep thought are less palpable things that demand the hand of a master. Roubiliac dealt largely in abstract ideas, nor did he use them wisely. We may take his monument of Mrs. Nightingale as an example; it is his most famous work, and a work of beauty and pathos a dying wife and an agonized husband. So far all is natural and consistent. But he could not be satisfied with nature and with simple emotion. He opens an iron door; and sends forth a skeleton-a Death, projecting his allegorical dart against the woman, while the man seeks to stay it with a hand of flesh and blood. Can any thing be more absurd than this strange mixture of shadow and substance? See with what discretion Milton has escaped from the difficulty of describing Death, and yet we feel satisfied with the indistinct image which he gives :

? What seemed his head

The likeness of a kingly crown had on,' We have no grinning jaws nor marrowless bones here. When blood was first shed on earth, the same great poet makes death rejoice as a bird of prey smelling coming carnage :

So scented the grim Feature, and upturned
His nostrils huge into the dusky air.'

The poet saw the difficulty; ordinary minds see none; and hence

the

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