In the era and labours of Phidias, we discover the utmost excellence to which Grecian genius attained in the arts. From an examination, then, of this excellence, we shall not only obtain a knowledge of that style pronounced by the Greeks themselves to be their proudest achievement in sculpture, but may also be able to elicit principles of the highest general importance in the philosophy of imitative art. This inquiry likewise demands attention, were it merely on account of the singularly fortunate circumstances under which it can be instituted. Respecting the most esteemed masterpieces of antiquity, reasonable doubts still exist how far our judgments are formed upon real originals. But in the marbles of the British Museum, the former ornaments of the Parthenon, we certainly behold the conceptions, and, in some measure, the very practice of the great Athenian sculptor. Both statues and relievos compose these precious remains, one of the noblest bequests of ancient to modern talent. The statues adorned the two tympana of the Parthenon, which was amphiprostylos or double-fronted, consisting, besides fragments, of fourteen groups, or seventeen figures, of the natural proportions. The relievos are of two kinds, one of which formed the inner frieze of the cella, and flat, representing the procession of the Panathenean festival; the other, consisting of fifteen metopes of the exterior peristyle, very bold, even to entire roundness in some parts, the subject, combats of the Centaurs with the followers of Theseus, appropriate to a national temple.