The style of mural painting at Pompeii is only to be understood by the same ancient custom of covering and inlaying the walls which they reproduced in appearance by divisions and painted draperies. See Vitruvius, on this point, in the chapter on Plastering. Wiegmann has erred in attributing the same system of ancient painting to purely technic causes. The Ceramic art was, in its turn, called on as a means of replacing drapery. It is certain that potter’s clay painted, and even glazed, served, at a very remote period, as a covering for walls. It may even be admitted, that the employment of the potter’s art on the surface of walls, preceded the manufacture of burnt bricks, and that the invention of burning bricks was the result of the custom cited above. The mural incrustations in baked clay were the precursors of brick masonry; in the same manner as the Assyrian slabs may be considered to be the forerunners of constructions in hewn stone. We shall return again to this subject. Among the various methods of replacing the use of drapery, should be also mentioned those furnished by metallurgic processes. Vestiges of metallic coverings on walls have been found on the oldest existing monuments; and the most ancient annals of mankind are filled with recitals of buildings resplendent with gold and silver, bronze and tin respectively. As an invention of relatively recent date, may be cited lastly, the use of slabs of marble or stone, granite, alabaster, &c., notwithstanding that we find traces of this custom, but as it were already effaced, on the most ancient monuments of the earth. (_See farther on_). In all the cases we have named, _the character of the substitute followed that of its original type_, and the painting and sculpture, or rather the two united, on wood, plaster, burnt clay, metal, stone, or ivory, was—and traditionally continued to be—an imitation, more or less faithful, of the embroideries or variegated interlacings which ornamented the antique wall-coverings. It may be asserted that the entire system of decoration, with the art of painting and sculpture in relief, up to the period of its highest application, which is that of the tympanums of the pediments in the Greek temples, proceeded from the manufactures of the Assyrian weavers and dyers; or rather from their predecessors in human inventions. In any case, it was the Assyrians—next to the Chinese—who appear to have preserved most faithfully the antique type, even in its application to a different material. We will enter a little more explicitly on this subject. THE ASSYRIANS.