The expression, mixed art, selected to discriminate the second epoch, has been adopted, to mark the successive changes in the ancient modes induced by the Persians and the Greeks. The influence exerted upon art by the dominion of the former, amounted merely to a negative,--to the prohibition of its exercise; which, with the destruction of many of its best monuments, produced a deterioration in the few and feeble attempts during the latter years of that dynasty. Mythraism, in which elemental fire was the symbol of the Deity, proscribed the imitative arts in that service, whence, in all other countries, they have sprung. The Persians, says the father of history, have neither temples nor statues. Or, if architecture was encouraged by these conquerors, evidence still remains that their erections were but modifications of materials torn from the mighty structures of past ages. In little more than a century and a half, the Persian was subverted by the Macedonian empire. Yet even in Alexander, the ancient and native arts of Egypt obtained not a patron. The majestic range of temples, palaces, and cities, which bordered the sacred stream of the Nile, furnished so many quarries, of tempting access, whence Alexandria was reared; and the mightiest, as well as most rational trophy of Grecian superiority, received its grandest and most enduring monuments from the stupendous labours of the first age. His successors followed the example; and although, under them, the polished literature of Greece, united with her own subtile philosophy, constituted Alexandria the Athens of the East, yet in sculpture, in architecture, and in religion, to which both were subordinate, the character remained essentially Egyptian, but with certain deviations and additions.