liked the companionship of shepherds and shepherdesses. The _Tulasi_ (or lotus) was sacred to Krishna, as the _Laurus_ (laurel) to Apollo. These and similar legends ought to be studied by artists to enable them not only to understand Indian art from a higher point of view, but to learn that many a monstrous form had a sacred symbolic meaning, that outward signs may be hallowed by hidden conceptions; and that, wherever this is the case, art will not succeed in reaching the bright spheres of beauty. The finest sculptured Durga without her necklace of human skulls, the protruding red tongue, the four arms with outstretched fingers balancing severed human heads, &c., would no longer convey to the mind of an Indian worshipper the idea of the goddess of valour and wisdom. Thus we may understand how a baked clay Indian idol, in spite of its revolting form, may be the symbol of some grand idea, through which it obtains value in the eyes of the credulous believer. In considering the causes that produced the peculiar development of Indian art, we must not omit to refer to the continually increasing power of the Brahmans. Symbolism and mysticism were used by the priests of all ancient nations for thousands of years in preparing intoxicating draughts of superstition for the people, and proving the necessity for making sacrifices. At first depraved passions only were to be sacrificed, but by degrees they tried to typify those passions by animals, with analogous propensities. Goats became the representatives of licentiousness; bulls, types of indomitable fury and insubordination; and these animal types were offered to the gods. As soon as the priests had convinced the people that the blood of animals, the smoke from their burning bodies, the odour of roasting sheep, might appease the anger of S’iva, fanaticism went a step further, and drew human beings into the awful vortex of prejudice, and thousands of men and women were crushed, joyfully screaming, under the heavy wheels of Jugurnaut’s, S’iva’s, or Harris’s cars. Men and women were burned alive; intellectual progress stopped, asceticism and blind submission to priestly despotism were enforced, and the possibility of a progressive art was crushed for thousands of years. This desolate state of society required reform, and _Manû_ stepped forward. He divided society into four distinct layers: the Brahmans, Kshattryas, Vaisyas, and S’udras, of which the two first were Aryans, the third caste Turanians, and the fourth Negroes; consequently, in spite of the excellence of his laws, which were assumed to have been dictated by Brahma himself, no real art was possible.