We pay little attention to what has been said by the writers quoted regarding Acrolithic or Chryselephantine statues, whether of the best or lowest character. Whatever they were, they have perished, and there is nothing left for modern barbarism to restore. We have looked chiefly to undoubtedly good genuine marble—white marble statues, and reliefs of the best times, of such as are to be seen and admired, unadorned, in our British Museum. “It is the custom of all barbarous nations to colour their idols,” says the writer of the historical evidence. We perfectly assent to this, and believe we shall ourselves be a very barbarous nation whenever the statues in that Museum shall be plastered with stucco, or painted over with four coats of vermilion or any other colour. Barbarous nations have painted, and do so still, not only their idols but themselves. Our Picts, with their woad colouring, may have emulated the peculiar beauty of blue-faced baboons. We dispute not the point that Greece, as well as every other country, at some period of its history was addicted to the common barbarous taste of colouring to the utmost of their means. The question is not whether they did it, but when they left it off. It is said in the “Apology,” that if they had ever left off the practice, it would have been so remarkable an event that it would have been noted in history. We know not where any one will be able to put his hand upon any passage in history, showing the exact or probable period at which our neighbours the Picts left off the fashion, which we learn prevailed. We think Mr Owen Jones himself would be very much astonished if, even though in pursuit and pursuance of his own argument, he should turn the corner of Pall Mall, and come face to face with half-a-dozen naked Picts in the ancient blue and vermilion costume. Quite satisfied that the fashion has been superseded, we care not about the when. Nor do we care to know, in our practical age, what finery they put upon their idols; and although a commission under Polychromatic direction may bring back, from no very distant travel, accounts of multitudes of idols still draped and painted, we are sure this English nation will not resume the practice. We have something else to do, which the “Wisdom of Solomon” tells us they had not, who fabricated such monstrosities. “The carpenter carved it diligently, _when he had nothing else to do_, and formed it by the skill of his understanding, and fashioned it to the image of a man, or made it like some vile beast, laying it over with vermilion, and with paint colouring it red, and covering every spot therein.”