In no town in Europe can the artist study the sculptural splendour of ancient Greece with greater ease than in London. Of the ninety-two metopes which adorned the Parthenon on the Akropolis at Athens we possess seventeen; of the frieze of the cella 3-1/5 feet high and 524 feet long, representing the Panathenaic procession, we possess fifty-three plates and casts of the whole western side. In all these sculptures what a clear power of grouping, what a variety of characters, what handsome men and women! The flower of Athens is seen assembled to do homage in joyous excitement to the supreme divinity of the State, the embodiment of wisdom and intellect. Some are crowned with wreaths; others carry sun-shades, chairs, splendid pitchers, ornamented vases, or decorated pateras; some are ready to start; others, preparing in animated haste to take their places, are in the act of mounting their prancing horses, or, already mounted, eagerly await the arrival of their friends. On the eastern side, under the entrance to the temple, there was an admirable group of gods and goddesses, in whose presence _peplus_, or sacred veil, is delivered to the authorities of the temple; animals are led to be sacrificed--flute and kythara-players follow. Amongst the hundreds and hundreds of figures not one is like the other; the exquisite variety in the folds of the dresses of the sitting, standing, walking, riding, driving groups is in general unsurpassed for beauty of design, and perfection of execution. None of the figures are raised more than _three_ inches from the background, and yet the most correct perspective is observed. There is such a softness and truthfulness, such a firmness and ideal vitality in this frieze, that we may at least attribute the composition to Pheidias himself. Some plates of the western side are less excellent in execution; the forms are marked with roughness and dryness, and some faults in the outlines are also apparent to the critic. Some of the horses have legs too long, and bodies too thin; in one of the horses, which is bending its neck to rub its head against one of its fore feet, the curves are much too stiff. The execution of these reliefs must have been left to some inferior artist. What we must admire is, that there are so few faults. The correct study of this frieze ought to serve us as an example in grouping, and would teach us how to arrange a marble strip round some monument for the sake of decoration. Little of this influence, however, is to be observed in our sculptors. We intend to evolve sculpture from our own inner consciousness, and neglect these ancient books with their glorious poems in Pentelic marble; we prefer ‘_going to nature_’ as the popular phrase runs, and ignore or despise the study of the antique. Now the Greeks had an opportunity of going to real nature--not with the darkened eye of Asiatic prejudice, despising matter and exalting _spirit_--but with a prejudice in the