But “_nil desperandum_,” there is yet time. Tear down the monument of heedlessness and call Taste to teach us once again. Faithful she returns at our bidding. Now hark to the sound of the mallet and chisel as they ring against the stone, chip by chip of superfluous material is worked away, piece by piece which is unneeded is broken off and thrown aside until some other work shall call them into use. Now seems to become exhumed, as from a grave of stone and rubbish, the massive pedestal, the firm base, the graceful column, the sculptured capital and the rich cornice. Day by day, and hour by hour, these multiply in true and classic beauty, and higher and higher skyward soars the now elegant structure, until, amid the shouts and admiration of the world, the voice of Reason proclaims that Taste has fashioned it. This, then, is an edifice, a work worthy of the mind, formed from materials the choicest within man’s reach, wrought out and builded by the hand of Taste; it is worthy to be gazed upon, to be admired and copied by all. Age after age will go by, but still it will stand firm, and beautiful, and admired as when the artist gave the last stroke, and proclaimed it to the world as finished. Are proofs required, among the names of the ancients may be found those time-honored and long worshiped ones of Lysippus, Polycletus, Praxiteles, Timanthes, Appelles, Zeuxis, Parrhasius, Plato, Aristotle, Pliny, Ovid, Pollio, Catullus, Demosthenes, Thucydides, Xenophon, Aristophanes, Orpheus, Archilocus and Timotheus, together with many, many of their cotemporaries, for whose names I have no space, but whose memories are still, and still are to be, revered. Following in the path which these have hewn through the thickets of prejudice and ignorance comes a long bright train. Amidst the stars of this latter day firmament gleam conspicuous the names of Banks, Young, Cole, West, White, Vandyck, Tasso, Titian, Rittenhouse, Mozart, Milton, Crabbe, Gallileo and Godfry, and ever and anon new and brilliant planets flash forth and shed their glad effulgence around. Could this be without Taste? It could not. Glorious and rich and varied as are the works of those whose efforts and the productions of whose minds have tended to elevate and improve our condition, they never could have been without Taste to suggest—Taste to aid, and Taste to accomplish the mighty, the stupendous, the gigantic works they have wrought. What was it, let us inquire, that induced the ancient Egyptians to build the city of Thebes in such glorious magnificence that even its ruins produced effects upon historians to cause them to be immortalized? Homer tells of her hundred gates, from each of which two hundred chariots and ten thousand warriors could issue at a time. To her palaces painting and sculpture had lent all their art, combining to render this city one of the glories of the world. Was not this Taste?