spreading authority has been broken and humbled to the earth by Time and Desolation; or these two destroying powers may be viewed as the Regan and the Goneril, while Architecture is the Lear, and Sculpture the Cordelia of the Arts!

Even as a note of music struck from a chord of Nature vibrates to the heart, in like manner does the voice of Sculpture reach and echo around the walls of Life: it is Poetry's diapason-it speaks of God and His works of Man in his intellect and glory-of Woman in her charity and beauty: it speaks a language which the unlettered may translate, while to her more subdued or secret tones, the disciples of her heavenly power have but to listen, or behold her action of utterance, as developed in her free or drapered limbs, to give the history of her thoughts; nor have those thoughts or attitudes, chaste as the marble they inhabit, ever been conquered by lust or luxury,— that unworthy conquest was reserved for the false disciples of her faith, yet not over herself, but her fair handmaid-Painting. But Architecture and Sculpture have lived on-severe and chaste, stern and graceful, majestic and beautiful-as when they were first created from the Eden of the mind! No sword of wrath has driven them forth to wander as outcasts; but as Messengers of Peace they have visited every clime; they have raised their temples and cities in every land, subjected to one power only-the insatiate monster of the earth, Time - the twin-born with Creation, and who will be the last mourner of Nature

and her name! Yet even when their children have been struck down-like Niobe's, by the shafts of fatestill how beautiful in Ruins! Although prostrate upon the earth, yet even in death, they have voices as speaking from the tomb:-but the Parents still live on, ever young and immortal, and can point to the proud remains of their fallen Children, and with the voice of historic truth proclaim their fadeless epitaph and character.

EGYPT! My first-born and consort of the Nile !— while thy Pyramids and Temples shall remain—and they will even to the final tempest of the World-thou shalt be identified from among all the nations of the Earth!

ATHENS! My favourite daughter! Until the Rock of the Acropolis shall fall,-thy classic beauties,around which have gleamed the meridian splendour of the mind, will proclaim that Minerva, Plato, Pericles, and Phidias, were thy own!

PALMYRA-My third joy! Although the wild Arab sleeps within thy roofless dwelling, with the whirling sands for his nightly mantle-yet, while thy Porticoes, Arches, and Colonnades shall be seen, the City of the Desert will live in Memory; for the Spirits of Longinus and Zenobia will be there!

ROME-My Warrior Son! Thy ancient glory lives in the recorded evidences of thy Parent's Art; for amid the ruined columns of thy Forum glide the spectral forms of Romulus, Junius, Virginius, Brutus,

Cato, and of Cicero! Through thy Arches move those of Septimus, Vespasian, Titus, and of Constantine !--And dost thou not speak to all the world from the solemn historic voice of thy giant Coliseum? But beyond all this, from the ashes of thy former magnificence-like the Phoenix upon the spot of Martyrdom, thou hast risen in double splendour to the Glory of THE SAVIOUR and the Faith of an Apostle; and to the triple-fame of Bramante, Raphael, and Angelo!

These are the still-living metropolitan records of bygone days-from the Heathen to the Christian-they cannot be rejected-from them we trace and prove the æras of the world.

Sculpture has also her own prerogative, apart and separate from her Lord, as a dower-right, a jointure power of instruction; and what immortal pupils has she not produced? They stand as the models of art and intellect each unapproached-solitary and beautiful, the human eye contemplates them with the chaste wonder of Creation's daughter-Eve, when from the banks of Eden's limpid waters, she first gazed upon the mirrored image of herself! The Jupiter of Elias, the Minerva and the Triple-Fates of the Parthenon, the Medicean Venus and her sister of the Bath,—the gentle Antinöus,—the Athenian Phocian,— The Pythonian Victor-Sun-clad Apollo,-the Serpent-strangled Priest and Sons of Troy, all speak the intellectual power of their mistress: and even the poor Roman captive-the death-struck Gladiator-has

been raised by her magic wand from the sandy deathbed of the Coliseum, to live on, unconquered to all posterity!

Sculpture is a title not only applicable to statuary, but to every kind of architectural stone-ornament, and in every stage towards its completion-from the roughquarried block to the polished marbles of the frieze and pediment: this being admitted, how vast and almost unlimited is the field for historic contemplation! The Antiquary when he removes the trodden earth from the mouldering tomb to trace the deeds of heroes: or from an antique Gem or Medal, raises to light from beneath the dark dust of ages, the bold outline of an imperial head: or, when within the lava-coloured city, a hidden statue from beneath the veil of centuries bursts upon his bewildered sight, he still remembers that Sculpture was the creative power. The traveller who pauses in silent wonder as he views the Egyptian Pyramids (blocks of stone raised to perpetuate a nameless king), turns with redoubled pleasure to contemplate the sculptured marble of Tentyra—in the sight of whose shrines the followers of Napoleon felt amply repaid "for the dangers they had passed." Although the Assyrian Kings have for ages been covered with the sands of their desert, and the wandering Arab sleeps unmolested in the shade of Palmyra's columns, unconscious of his mighty mansion, yet her temples and porticoes speak loudly for the living truth of historic marble.

Greece the wonder of the classic age,-the key

stone in the arch of intellect, owes her glory to Marathon and Salamis, but her living name breathes from the Sculpture of the Acropolis. The proportion given by Ictinus to the body of the Parthenon is fast falling to decay, while the sculptured mantle of Phidias which adorns it adds regality to splendour, and every stone that falls produces but another graceful fold to the gorgeous drapery! Sculpture still preserves Syracuse amid the wreck of time, as when Marcellus wept tears of joy at beholding his mighty conquest: it still points out Carthage, the fatherland of Hannibal, as when Marius upon a prostrate column mourned her desolation. Mysterious Pæstum has no other monument, for her deeds have perished with her records. From Istria to Dalmatia may be traced the historic progress of the art,-the gate of the Sergii, Theatre of Pola, and the Palace of Dioclesian, whose columned wall is mirrored in the Adriatic, all bear convincing testimony. And for ancient Rome !—it is her living history! The Statorian columns of the Forum, lifting high their leafy brows, proclaim the spot where Romulus checked the bold advance of the Sabine Tatius: the solitary shaft of Corinthian form and grace, gives fame to Phocas: the Ionic columns of Concordia's Temple, proudly point the place where Cicero impeached the blood-stained Catiline; while the triumvirate columns of the Tonans-Jupiter preserve the imperial name that witnessed THE REDEEMER'S Birth The arch of Titus (where the Composite first shone forth) heralds the Conquest of Jerusalem,