Inasmuch as painters and sculptors adhered to those principles in their work, they assisted to enforce a popular impression of divine attributes and perfections, even in ages of gross idolatry. In the highest order of divinities, the energy of intellect was represented above the material accidents of passion and decay. The statues of the Saturnian family, Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, were the most sublime and mighty of the superior divinities. Apollo, Bacchus, and Mercury, were youthful resemblances of the Saturnian family, in energetic, delicate, and more athletic beauty: Apollo-Belvidere supplies Homer’s description to the sight; he looks indignant, his hair is agitated; he steps forward in the discharge of his shafts; his arrows are hanging on his shoulder. A youthful and infantine beauty of the highest class distinguish the Cupid of Praxiteles, and the group of Ganymede and the Eagle. The order of heroes or demigods excel in strength, activity, and beauty; Achilles, Ajax, Hæmon, Zethos, and Amphion, are examples in Grecian statuary to establish this remark. The Giants are human to the waist; their figures terminate in serpentine tails. Ocean and the great Rivers have Herculean forms, and faintly resemble the Saturnian family, and have reclining positions. The Tritons resemble the Fauns in the head, and upper features, with finny tails, and gills on their jaws; their lower parts terminate in the tails of fish. In the highest class of female characters, the beauty of Juno, is imperious; that of Minerva, wise, as she presides over peaceful arts; or warlike, as the protectress of cities. Venus is the example and patroness of milder beauty and the softer arts of reciprocal communication; of which the Venus Praxiteles and Venus de Medicis are instances. The Greeks had also a Venus Urania, the goddess of hymenial rites and the celestial virtues. The Graces are three youthful, lovely sisters embracing: they represent the tender affections, as their name implies; while their character gives the epithet _graceful_ to undulatory and easy motion. The universe was peopled by genii, good and evil demons, which comprehends every species and gradation from the most sublime and beautiful in Jupiter and Venus, to the most gross in the Satyr, resembling a goat, and in the terrific Pan. As the public have now an opportunity of consulting many of the objects above referred to, in our great national gallery in the British Museum, those of our readers who can obtain this advantage will do well to pay a visit to that celebrated depository for the relics of antiquity, where they will have it in their power to convince themselves of the truth of the foregoing remarks.