But though such culture is calculated to be elevating and purifying in a certain degree, we must not expect too much from it. Grace is a sweetener and embellisher of life, and as such is worthy of cultivation. Music, painting, dancing, and the fine arts, are all sources of pleasure; and though they may not be sensual, yet they are sensuous, and often nothing more. The cultivation of a taste for beauty of form or colour, of sound or attitude, has no necessary effect upon the cultivation of the mind or the development of the character. The contemplation of fine works of art will doubtless improve the taste, and excite admiration; but a single noble action done in the sight of men will more influence the mind, and stimulate the character to imitation, than the sight of miles of statuary or acres of pictures. For it is mind, soul, and heart--not taste or art--that make men great. It is indeed doubtful whether the cultivation of art--which usually ministers to luxury--has done so much for human progress as is generally supposed. It is even possible that its too exclusive culture may effeminate rather than strengthen the character, by laying it more open to the temptations of the senses. "It is the nature of the imaginative temperament cultivated by the arts," says Sir Henry Taylor, "to undermine the courage, and, by abating strength of character, to render men more easily subservient--SEQUACES, CEREOS, ET AD MANDATA DUCTILES." [1817] The gift of the artist greatly differs from that of the thinker; his highest idea is to mould his subject--whether it be of painting, or music, or literature--into that perfect grace of form in which thought [18it may not be of the deepest] finds its apotheosis and immortality. Art has usually flourished most during the decadence of nations, when it has been hired by wealth as the minister of luxury. Exquisite art and degrading corruption were contemporary in Greece as well as in Rome. Phidias and Iktinos had scarcely completed the Parthenon, when the glory of Athens had departed; Phidias died in prison; and the Spartans set up in the city the memorials of their own triumph and of Athenian defeat. It was the same in ancient Rome, where art was at its greatest height when the people were in their most degraded condition. Nero was an artist, as well as Domitian, two of the greatest monsters of the Empire. If the "Beautiful" had been the "Good," Commodus must have been one of the best of men. But according to history he was one of the worst.