The rhapsodies of the bards, however, may be forgotten, and will probably be so in a few generations;[28] and, if a tribe migrate so as to settle where other tongues are spoken, the songs are sung in the ears of the deaf, and the beginnings of history are swept wholly away. How, then, shall the memory of the past be preserved? the propensity of man to imitation will lead him to attempt to form a likeness of any great benefactor to the community. The simple stone set up for a memorial will soon be cut into a rude statue. The face of a rock will admit of carving figures enough to represent an event of importance; or the outlines may be scratched upon a board, and the use of colour, which abounds everywhere, is an easy step towards the beginning of painting. Such, we have positive proof, it was in Mexico; such, we may reasonably presume, it must have been in Egypt. But the heroes and benefactors of a lively and enthusiastic people soon came to be looked upon as something divine. He, who first in the sight of his tribe, scattered seed upon the earth, and, trusting to the certain return of the season, taught how to gather in the harvest and convert the grain into bread, must have stood in the light of a Creator. When accident had attracted observation to the fatty nature of the olive, he who applied oil to the feeding of a lamp would be celebrated as a benefactor. The tamer of the bull, who brought kine to labour for men, and from their milk produced such variety of delicious food, merited still higher gratitude; and those who converted rude dross and shapeless ore into instruments of agriculture, mechanical tools, weapons offensive and defensive, almost deserved the divine honours paid to them. It is neither my business nor my inclination to discuss the origin or principles of the mythology of any country, farther than as it affected the arts. The pictures and statues of the benefactors, or, as they soon began to be called, of the gods, were intended to be lasting memorials of their forms and acts. They were to speak a language independent of the tongue. Hence it became absolutely necessary, that their representative type should remain for ever fixed. So that to whatever excellence the _mechanic_ might attain, or whatever improvement the progress of science might enable the _artist_ to make, all change was forbidden; and though the labour and finish became exquisite, it would have been sacrilege to alter the form. Hence, while the statues of other nations not under these restrictions, assumed the freedom and grace of nature, Egypt saw her Osiris and Isis retaining their rigid and unnatural characters, notwithstanding the sublime style in which they were conceived. The basso-relievos, intaglios, and painted stuccoes of the temples and catacombs, present greater varieties of action and design; but even in them, the human figure is still monotonous in character.