of antiquity he made his own; nor, since the best ages of Greece, do we anywhere find, in the works mentioned in these pages, greater meaning, more deep feeling of truth, with less pomp of art, than in the sculpture of Flaxman. The wonderful designs from Homer, the statues of Mr Pitt and Sir Joshua Reynolds, the monuments of Montague, Howe, and Nelson, the group of Michael and Satan, will alone fully justify this character. If, in the works of this master, a defect may be pointed out, it is an excess of the severe and simple, which nearly approaches to harshness. Surpassing both Canova and Thorwaldsen in the loftiness of his conceptions, and perhaps in classic purity of taste, in the graces of composition, and the facilities of modelling, he is inferior to the former. But in all that constitutes the epic of the art, Flaxman is not surpassed. We must omit with regret, though not unadmired, the names of living English artists. To their honor be it remarked, that, at this moment, in rectitude and sobriety of precept, in the walk which has hitherto been followed, where nothing is yet to be unlearned, and which must infallibly conduct to higher perfection, no school in Europe can boast of happier auspices, of more vigorous practice, nor of sounder principles, than the British school of Sculpture. In Italy, the numerous--we may say universal--imitators of Canova, appear to be following, with exaggerated effect, the only failing towards which his style inclines--elaborate grace. In Germany, the art languishes for want of encouragement. Sculpture is more pre-eminently the nursling of freedom. The French sculptors are, at the present time, more distinguished for science than for feeling or invention. They want individuality of character in their works; the symmetry and proportions, the mechanical art of antiquity, their chisel has transferred,--but the sentiment, the essence which unites art with nature, which breathes into Grecian statuary the breath of life, has escaped. It is a singular fact, that from the school formed under the empire, while the most valued treasures of existing art were collected in the French capital, not a sculptor, hardly one artist of eminence, has issued. The cause is plain. These monuments were torn from their resting places by the hand of violence; they were viewed by a vain and mistaken people as the trophies of victory; but they were never venerated with that enthusiastic yet humble devotion, with which the disciple regards the sources of knowledge. During a shorter period, how different have been the effects of our own unsullied and bloodless collection. Since the public exposition of the Phidian Marbles, in particular, every department of taste has been improved, and every artist has been ready to exclaim, with the late venerable president, that till he saw these works, he was ignorant how much of his art he had yet to learn. Let the British sculptor, then, continue in the same