I have never met with a statue, ancient or modern, of Hippolytus; the finest possible ideal of a Greek youth, touched with some individual characteristics which are peculiarly fitted for sculpture. He is a hunter, not a warrior; a tamer of horses, not a combatant with spear and shield. He should have the slight, agile build of a young Apollo, but nothing of the God’s effeminacy; on the contrary, there should be an infusion of the severe beauty of his Amazonian mother, with that sedateness and modesty which should express the votary and companion of Diana; while, as the fated victim of Venus, whom he had contemned, and of his stepmother Phædra, whom he had repulsed, there should be a kind of melancholy in his averted features. A hound and implements of the chase would be the proper accessories, and the figure should be undraped, or nearly so. A sculptor who should be tempted to undertake this fine, and, as I think, untried subject—at least as a single figure—must begin by putting Racine out of his mind, whose “Seigneur Hippolyte” makes sentimental love to the “Princesse Aricie,” and must penetrate his fancy with the conception of Euripides. I find in Schlegel’s “Essais littéraires,” a few lines which will assist the fancy of the artist, in representing the person and character of Hippolytus. “Quant à l’Hippolyte d’Euripide il a une teinte si divine que pour le sentir dignement il faut, pour ainsi dire, être initié dans les mystères de la beauté, avoir respiré l’air de la Grèce. Rappelez vous ce que l’antiquité nous a transmis de plus accompli parmi les images d’une jeunesse héroïque, les Dioscures de Monte-Cavallo, le Méléagre et l’Apollon du Vatican. Le caractère d’Hippolyte occupe dans la poësie à peu près la même place que ces statues dans la sculpture.” “On peut remarquer dans plusieurs beautés idéales de l’antique que les anciens voulant créer une image perfectionnée de la nature humaine ont fondu les nuances du caractère d’un sexe avec celui de l’autre; que Junon, Pallas, Diane, out une majesté, une sévérité mâle; qu’ Apollon, Mercure, Bacchus, au contraire, ont quelque chose de la grace et de la douceur des femmes. De même nous voyons dans la beauté héroïque et vierge d’Hippolyte l’image de sa mère l’Amazone et le reflet de Diane dans un mortel.” (The last lines are especially remarkable, and are an artistic commentary on what I have ventured to touch upon ethically at page 85.) The story of Hippolytus is to be found in bas-reliefs and gems; it occurs on a particularly fine sarcophagus now preserved in the cathedral at Agrigentum, of which there is a cast in the British Museum. Under the heroic and classical form, Hippolytus conveys the same idea of manly chastity and self-control which in sacred art would be suggested by the figure of Joseph, the son of Jacob.