In some instances, an ancient sculptor only produced one statue during his life--it was his whole history.--He perfected it every day: if he loved, if he was beloved, if he received from nature or the fine arts any new impression, he adorned the features of his hero with his memories and affections: he could thus express to outward eyes all the sentiments of his soul. The grief of our modern times, in the midst of our cold and oppressive social conditions, contains all that is most noble in man; and in our days, he who has not suffered, can never have thought or felt. But there was in antiquity, something more noble than grief--an heroic calm--the sense of conscious strength, which was cherished by free and liberal institutions. The finest Grecian statues have hardly ever indicated anything but repose. The Laocoon and Niobe are the only ones which paint violent grief and pain; but it is the vengeance of heaven which they represent, and not any passion born in the human heart; the moral being was of so sound an organization among the ancients, the air circulated so freely in their deep bosoms, and the order politic was so much in harmony with their faculties, that troubled minds hardly ever existed then, as at the present day. This state causes the discovery of many fine ideas, but does not furnish the arts, particularly sculpture, with those simple affections, those primitive elements of sentiment, which can alone be expressed by eternal marble. Hardly do we find any traces of melancholy; a head of Apollo, at the Justinian palace, another of the dying Alexander, are the only ones in which the thoughtful and suffering dispositions of the soul are indicated; but according to all appearances they both belong to the time when Greece was enslaved. Since that epoch, we no longer see that boldness, nor that tranquillity of soul, which among the ancients, has produced masterpieces of sculpture, and poetry composed in the same spirit. That thought which has nothing to nourish it from without, turns upon itself, analyses, labours, and dives into every inward sentiment; but it has no longer that creative power which supposes happiness, and that plenitude of strength which happiness alone can give. Even the sarcophagi, among the ancients, only recall warlike or pleasing ideas: in the multitude of those which are to be found at the museum of the Vatican, are seen battles and games represented in bas-relief on the tombs. The remembrance of living activity was thought to be the finest homage that could be rendered to the dead; nothing relaxed, nothing diminished strength. Encouragement and emulation were the principles of the fine arts as well as of politics; they afforded scope for every virtue, and for every talent. The vulgar gloried in knowing how to admire, and the worship of genius was served even by those who could not aspire to its rewards.