countenance being Ethiopian, and are just sufficiently distinguished for the effect of separation; the depth of shadow is wanting to give contrast and firmness. The eyes, whether long and narrow, the peculiar characteristic of the earliest era, or more full and open, as in the Greco-Egyptian period, are nearly on the general level of the face; the nose is broad and depressed, the lips thick, and always sharp on the outer edge, though often touched with great softness and delicacy; the cheeks, chin, and ears, are large, ill made out, and without feeling. Hence, although the heads are often finished with wonderful labour, the effect is always feeble, while the whole is uniformly surmounted by harsh and disproportionate masses of drapery, overpowering the already too weak expression. The superior beauty of some of the colossal busts may perhaps be rightly attributed to their having been executed as portraits. Conventional art, even in the most skilful hands, is rarely pleasing; nature, even rudely imitated, is ever viewed with a degree of pleasure. On the methods employed to work materials so unyielding as those of the Egyptian sculptors, it is difficult to propose any decided opinion. On their porphyry, granite, and basalt, modern tools can hardly make impression; yet are the forms, in all instances, highly finished, with angles sharp and unbroken. The latter circumstance, indeed, constitutes a peculiar feature in the works of this country as distinguished from Oriental art generally, which, together with breadth and simplicity, brings them nearest the productions of the Grecian chisel. From the style of execution, however, it would appear that the effect has been brought out rather by patience and labour, than by rapid or dexterous management. In fact, the general character has been influenced not a little by the materials; for in the statues of wood, both as described and discovered, the action is bolder, and the manner more free. If a conjecture may be hazarded on the subject of their theory, it would seem that the Egyptians, in the infancy of their arts, were guided by an outline traced round a human figure, dead or alive, extended upon the block, face upwards, with the arms close by the sides, and the limbs placed together exactly as their statues are composed. The scattered details given in the Greek writers respecting the arts of this ancient people, have indeed induced the belief, that they were acquainted with much more refined canons of symmetry; but it ought to have been observed, that Diodorus and others describe the practices existing in their own times, when Egypt had, to a certain extent, become the pupil of Greece. In some respects, also, it is difficult to give implicit credit to their accounts, at least in the common interpretation. It is farther particularly to be observed, that the supposition now made will account for the correctness of the general proportions which would thus be obtained from nature; likewise no