The case has been the same in the modern world, and it will be found universally true, that where the arts have arisen from natural, or nearly natural causes, and have thence proceeded by gradual advances to higher degrees of perfection, the judgment or taste of the nation similarly meliorating with their improvement, they have attained, and will attain, the utmost excellence which the abilities of the artists can give them: but when brought forward among a people by extraneous circumstances, such as the force of conquests, the commanding influence of supreme power, or the efforts of affected imitation, though they may bloom and flourish for a season, that they never will arrive at that richness of maturity they have been seen to possess elsewhere, nor will enjoy that vigour of growth which native juices infuse; but, like hothouse plants, though fairly seeming, are yet vapid to the sense, and when bereft of their borrowed heat, quickly sink, rot, and die. The progress of the arts in the ancient world, with the astonishing excellence to which they were carried, was also much aided by the manners and customs there prevailing, and in constant and daily practice. To games and vigorous exercises the ancients were remarkably addicted, regarding them both as liberal amusements and as a preparatory discipline for the active occupations of war, in which each freeman of the state knew himself obliged to engage at a certain period of his life, and which he could not avoid without being damned to never-ceasing infamy. Now all these were performed _naked_, as well on account of the warmth of the atmosphere as to preclude all unequal advantages, and to habituate the mind fearlessly to expose the person to the assaults of incumbent danger. Hence the human figure was hourly exhibited to the inspecting view of the attentive beholder, whether sculptor or painter, in all its various forms of grace and elegance, of strength and force, or of agony and torture: and these not the assumed appearances of fictitious feeling, but the vivid effects of actual endurance, and glowing from the mint of present impression. These were not to be sought in Schools and Academies, they were not the lifeless colourings of mercenary hirelings, but the energies of men emulous of fame, and conscious that their characters with their countrymen would be materially influenced by their performances in these favourite contests. Contests which as amusements were the delight of all, which as exercises were the duty of multitudes; which hoary age beheld with rapture, as recalling the remembrance of the days of their prime, and which unfledged youth gazed on with transport, as picturing those deeds whereby they panted soon to be distinguished. Thus nothing but the most careless inattention could avoid noting the distinctive marks of the various passions and affections, which nature writes in very legible characters: and as all from repeated observation were equally well