The religion of Greece was not, like Christianity, the consolation of misfortune, the riches of poverty, the future hope of the dying--it sought glory and triumph;--in a manner it deified man: in this perishable religion, beauty itself was a religious dogma. If the artists were called to paint the base and ferocious passions, they rescued the human form from shame, by joining to it, as in Fauns and Centaurs, some traits of the animal figure; and in order to give to beauty its most sublime character, they alternately blended in their statues (as in the warlike Minerva and in the Apollo Musagetus), the charms of both sexes--strength and softness, softness and strength; a happy mixture of two opposite qualities, without which neither of the two would be perfect. Corinne, continuing her observations, retained Oswald some time before those sleeping statues which are placed on the tombs, and which display the art of sculpture in the most agreeable point of view. She pointed out to him, that whenever statues are supposed to represent an action, the arrested movement produces a sort of astonishment which is sometimes painful. But statues asleep, or merely in the attitude of complete repose, offer an image of eternal tranquillity which wonderfully accords with the general effect of a southern climate upon man. The fine arts appear there to be peaceful spectators of nature, and genius, which in the north agitates the soul of man, seems beneath a beautiful sky, only an added harmony. Oswald and Corinne passed on to the hall where are collected together the sculptured images of animals and reptiles; and the statue of Tiberius is found, by chance, in the midst of this court. This assemblage is without design. Those statues appear to have ranged themselves of their own accord about their master. Another hall enclosed the dull and rigid monuments of the Egyptians; of that people whose statues resembled mummies more than men, and who by their silent, stiff, and servile institutions, seem to have assimilated as much as possible, life to death. The Egyptians excelled much more in the art of imitating animals than in representing men: the dominion of the soul seems to have been inaccessible to them. After these come the porticos of the museum, where at each step is seen a new masterpiece. Vases, altars, ornaments of every kind, encircle the Apollo, the Laocoon, and the Muses. It is there that we learn to feel Homer and Sophocles: it is there that a knowledge of antiquity is awakened in the soul, which cannot be acquired elsewhere. It is in vain that we trust to the reading of history to comprehend the spirit of nations; what we see inspires us with more ideas than what we read, and external objects cause in us a strong emotion, which gives that living interest to the study of the past which we find in the observation of contemporary facts and events.