This difference, also, extends only to the minor details of execution; in the more intellectual principles of art, all are nearly on an equality. Even the design and attitudes are wonderfully limited, the sameness being more uniform than could have been produced, except by the operation of prescriptive rules and fixed models of imitation. In many of the ancient Egyptian buildings, the whole of the exterior is frequently covered with relievos. This profusion, for the purpose, too, of mere decoration, together with the indefinite nature of hieroglyphical delineation, operated strongly against improvement in this particular province. Indeed, the prejudicial effects arising from an embellishment, in which extent more than intrinsic beauty was regarded, and where arbitrary forms, or mere indications of known objects, precluded all natural imitation, and all delicacy of expression, infected the whole of the art. The general inferiority in works of this third class, is, however, to be understood with due limitation. In relievos, consisting of few figures, sepulchral ones for instance, which in the same piece rarely contain more than three, are often displayed no mean beauties both of execution and of character. In historical relievos, again, which occupy entire walls of the temples, crowded as they are with figures in various actions, processions, battles, sieges, and represented by artists who apparently possessed no principles of design, save a knowledge of simple form in its most restricted movements, all is feebleness, puerility, and confusion. Or if beauty occasionally break forth, it is in some single reposing figure, or in the patient details of execution. In the drawing and anatomy, singular ignorance is manifested; the limbs are without joints, and the movements exhibit neither balance nor spring; proportion and perspective seem to have been utterly unknown. Military engines, buildings, horses, soldiers, all appear of the same dimensions, and all equally near the eye. The hero in all these monuments bears a strong individual resemblance; he is represented ever victorious, in the bloom of youth, and in his figure are sometimes displayed both grandeur and beauty of conception, when considered apart. But these separate excellences are completely obscured by the absurdity of representing him at least double the stature of his followers or opponents. The circumstance of thus confounding moral greatness with physical magnitude, were alone sufficient to mark the infancy of invention, and the barbarism of taste. It is nevertheless only justice to mention, that occasionally, in the historical relievos, we observe rudiments of higher art, with less of convention, and more of freedom of imagination, than in any other Egyptian sculptures.