Thus Rome was possessed of the finest paintings in the world, without the slightest claim to the advancement of the art. And if the opinion of Sir Joshua Reynolds is correct, art could advance no higher in the realm of painting, as well as of statuary, than the Greeks had already borne it. Yet the Romans learned to place as high value on the works of Grecian genius as the English do on the paintings of the old masters of Italy and Flanders. And if they did not add to the art, they gave such encouragement that under the emperors it may be said to have been flourishing. Varro had a gallery of seven hundred portraits of eminent men. The portraits as well as the statues of the great were placed in the temples, libraries, and public buildings. The baths especially were filled with paintings. The great masterpieces of the Greeks were either historical or mythological. Paintings of gods and heroes, groups of men and women, in which character and passion could be delineated, were the most highly prized. It was in the expression given to the human figure--in beauty of form and countenance, in which all the emotions of the soul, as well as the graces of the body were portrayed--that the Greek artists sought to reach the ideal, and to gain immortality. And they painted for a people who had both a natural and a cultivated taste and sensibility. Among the Romans portrait, decorative, and scene painting engrossed the art, much to the regret of such critics as Pliny and Vitruvius. Nothing could be in more execrable taste than a colossal painting of Nero, one hundred and twenty feet high. From the time of Augustus landscape decorations were common, and were carried out with every species of license. Among the Greeks we do not read of landscape painting. This has been reserved for our age, and is much admired, as it was at Rome in the latter days of the empire. Mosaic work, of inlaid stones or composition of varying shades and colors, gradually superseded painting in Rome; it was first used for floors, and finally walls and ceilings were ornamented with it. It is true, the ancients could show no such exquisite perfection of colors, tints, and shades as may be seen to-day in the wonderful reproductions of world-renowned paintings on the walls of St. Peter's at Rome; but many ancient mosaics have been preserved which attest beauty of design of the highest character,--like the Battle of Issus, lately discovered at Pompeii; and this brilliant art had its origin and a splendid development at the hands of the old Romans.