It would be strange in so few pages that a writer should so contradict himself, if we did not bear in mind with what ingenuity a theory will invest its own pertinacity. Surely no man on earth will believe that the Athenians, either by any extraordinary devotion[50] they showed towards their gods in the time of Pericles, or by an unheard of folly (for they were a practical people), chose the one quarry in preference to the other, for no other reason than its greater cost and difficulty. We are referred to the evidence of Mr Bracebridge, produced before the committee of the Institute, which Mr Jones says settles the point “as far as regards monumental sculpture.” The evidence is, that in the winter 1835–6, an excavation, to the depth of twenty-five feet, was made at the south-east angle of the Parthenon. “Here were found many pieces of marble, and among these fragments parts of triglyphs, of fluted columns, and of statues, particularly a female head, which was painted (the hair is nearly the costume of the present day).” It is quite an assumption that the spot of this excavation was the place where “the workmen of the Parthenon had thrown their refuse marble.” There is no proof whatever that these fragments were even of the age of the Parthenon; even if they may be supposed so to be, we presume that, as works of art, they are worthless, for they are called refuse, and most likely had nothing to do with the work of the Parthenon. We believe at the same time was found the very beautiful fragment in relief, the Winged Victory, of which but very few casts were taken. One of these we have just now seen, and doubt not its being of the age of Phidias. This is white marble, and we have never heard that it has any indication of having been painted. If Mr Owen Jones could prove to us that the whole Parthenon, with all its statues, showed certain indications of paint, we still have not advanced to any ground of fair conclusion; for, in the want of contemporary evidence—(we cannot call anything yet adduced evidence)—we are left to conjecture that the daubing and plastering were the work of a subsequent age, or ages, when ornament encroached upon and deteriorated every art in Greece, whether dramatic, painting, or sculpture. “Pliny and Vitruvius both repeatedly deplore the corrupt taste of their own times. Vitruvius (vii. 5), observes, that the decorations of the ancients were tastelessly laid aside, and that strong and gaudy colouring and prodigal expense were substituted for the beautiful effects produced by the skill of the ancient artists.”—(Smith’s _Antiquities_.)