This great artist was well aware of his powers, but the applause which he received, added to a naturally vain and conceited disposition, so completely carried him away, that Pliny terms him “the most insolent and the most arrogant of artists.” He assumed the title of _The Elegant_, styled himself the _Prince of Painters_, wrote an epigram upon himself, in which he proclaimed his birth, and declared that he had carried the art to perfection. He clothed himself in purple, and wore a wreath of gold on his head; and when he appeared on public occasions, particularly at the Olympic games, he changed his robes several times a day. He went so far as to pretend that he was descended from Apollo, one of whose surnames was _Parrhasius_, and even to dedicate his own portrait as Mercury in a temple, and thus received the adoration of the multitude. THE INVENTION OF THE CORINTHIAN CAPITAL. About B. C. 550, there died at Corinth a marriageable virgin; and her nurse, according to the custom of the times, placed on her tomb a basket containing those viands most agreeable to her when alive, covering them with a tile, for better preservation. This basket was unintentionally placed over the root of an acanthus, the spring leaves and stems of which growing up, covered it in so elegant a manner as to attract the notice of Callimachus, who, struck with the idea and novelty of the figure, modelled from it the Corinthian capital, thus giving a remarkable proof of the intimate connection between Art, and Nature--the source of all true art--and producing that exquisitely graceful design which for twenty-four centuries has charmed the civilized world. THE INVENTION OF SCULPTURE. Pliny relates a pleasing and highly poetic anecdote of the invention of sculpture. Dibutades, the fair daughter of a celebrated potter of Sicyon, contrived a private meeting with her lover, on the eve of a long separation. After a repetition of vows of constancy, and a stay prolonged to a very late hour, the youth fell fast asleep. The fair nymph, whose imagination was on the alert, observing that her admirer’s profile was strongly reflected on the wall by the light of a lamp, eagerly snatched up a piece of charcoal, and, inspired by love, traced the outline, that she might have the image of her lover before her during his absence. Her father, when he chanced to see the sketch, struck with its correctness, determined to preserve it, if possible, as a memento of such a remarkable circumstance. With this view, he formed a kind of clay model from it, and baked it; which, being the first essay of the kind, was preserved in the public repository of Corinth, even to the fatal day of its destruction by that enemy to the arts, Mummius Achaicus. PRAXITELES.