acknowledges, a power of awakening and reflecting its own truest, best sympathies. These principles are unfolded in their purest elements; and the modes of accomplishing this union distinctly traceable by careful observation on the style of Phidias. The forms are, in the first place, composed with the most correct, but unostentatious science; hence the freedom of their movements, the ease of their attitudes, seeming to possess the same capabilities of momentary action as the living models. In this anatomical knowledge, too, as actually displayed, there is a truly admirable simplicity: the bones and muscles are, indeed, pronounced with a firmness rare in antique sculpture, whence chiefly arises the wonderful elasticity of the figures. All this is unaccompanied with the slightest exaggeration; the divisions being few, and masses large, the eye runs sweetly along the general forms, yet finds wherewithal to be delighted in resting upon details. This absence, or rather this unobtrusiveness, of all pomp of art, throws over the whole an air of reality and of unsophisticated nature. But with these essential qualities of merely imitative art, are united perfect symmetry, the most harmonious contours, grand composition, the most refined taste, and noble expression. This causes every figure to respire an heroic and elevated character. Hence, we perceive, that to base ideal upon imitative art--to address the imagination by grandeur of design and perfection of form, while he appealed to the judgment by fidelity of detail and correctness of resemblance--have formed the objects of this great sculptor. The relations under which truth and imagination produce results at once grand and interesting, he has carefully studied and successfully rendered. Hence, while the general composition breathes the loftiest spirit of ideal or possible excellence, the means by which the sentiment is rendered are received from individual nature, expressed simply, and without artifice. In this happy and unobtrusive union of nature and imagination, in this continually remounting, without convention or ostentation, to the eternal sources of natural truth and beauty, Phidias displays the real sublimity of art, and stands unrivalled among the masters of the ancient world. CHAPTER IV.