Let us take a nearer view of the historical evidence. We are told, “Ancient literature abounds with references and allusions to the practice of painting and dressing statues. Space prevents their being copiously cited here.” We venture to affirm, that the lack of existence is greater than the lack of space, if by ancient literature is meant the best literature—the literature contemporary with the works of the great sculptors. There were poets and historians—can any quotation be given at all admissible as evidence? It is extraordinary that the advocates for the theory, if it were true, can find no passages in the poets. Is there nothing nearer than what Plato puts into the mouth of Socrates? “Let it be remembered that Socrates was the son of a sculptor, and that Plato lived in Athens, acquainted with the great sculptors and their works; then read this passage, wherein Socrates employs by way of simile the practice of painting statues—‘Just as if, when painting statues, a person should blame us for not placing the most beautiful colours on the most beautiful parts of the figure—inasmuch as the eyes, the most beautiful parts, were not painted purple but black,—we should answer him by saying, Clever fellow, do not suppose we are to paint eyes so beautifully that they should not appear to be eye.’—PLATO, _De Repub._, lib. iv. This passage would long ago have settled the question, had not the moderns been preoccupied with the belief that the Greeks did not paint their statues; they therefore read the passage in another sense. Many translators read ‘pictures’ for ‘statues.’ But the Greek word Ανδριας signifies ‘statue,’ and is never used to signify ‘picture.’ It means statue, and a statuary is called the maker of such statues—Ανδριαντοποιος. (Mr Davis, in Bohn’s English edition of Plato, avoids the difficulty by translating it ‘human figures’).”—Mr Lloyd, in his remarks upon this passage, confesses that it does not touch the question concerning the painting the flesh, but refers to the eyes, lips, and ornaments. We object not to admit more than this, and, as we have before observed, that certain images, mostly of wood, were painted entirely, excepting where clothed; and, for argument’s sake, admitting that Socrates alluded to these common images, if we may so speak, the ancestors of our common dolls, should we be justified in building a theory subversive of all good taste upon such an ambiguity? For nothing is here said of marble statues; and there is nothing to show that marble statues are meant. The writer in the “Apology” says, with an air of triumph, that Ανδριας always means statue, and never picture; but these were figures, that he would call statues, of wood and of clay, and of little value—a kind of marketable goods for the vulgar, as we have already shown. But if the writer is determined to make them marble statues, and of the best, he might certainly have made his case the