It is not difficult to understand how this tended to the revival in Italy of old Roman art; and, once revived there, the centre of ecclesiastical and, in a great degree, of literary influence, the centre, too, of the revival of painting in its highest form, it need not be wondered that it spread itself as a fashion into more northern countries where the same literary tastes had taken root. However this may be, the fact is undoubted, that from this time forward original art ceased, and borrowed or resuscitated art took its place. My predecessor, Mr. Smirke, in one of his lectures, gave a highly interesting description of the noble enthusiasm which inspired the early architects of the Renaissance in Italy; and I can quite appreciate this feeling in a land where the Mediæval styles were less deeply rooted, where classical traditions had never been extinct, and where the reminiscences of ancient Rome were a subject of national exultation. The revival of the noble literature of their mighty ancestors could scarcely fail, in such a country, to prompt a wish to revive their arts; and I am convinced that such a revival became a spontaneous and irresistible movement, wholly unconnected with any premeditated plan. Anyhow, whether for good or for ill, the revival was a great and potent fact; and its results have now lasted as long as the whole period of the ascendancy of Pointed architecture, and have extended their sway to all parts of the globe where European influence is felt; nor can its opponents deny that, on its native soil especially, its productions were often of the most masterly description and exquisite beauty; enriched as they are by decorative painting which has never been excelled; by sculpture of which antique artists would not have been ashamed; and by other arts of proportionate merit. In other lands, it has produced works of which no one would venture to dispute the value; and, though a borrowed style, it has developed anew many marked chronological and national varieties, and has produced, as we have seen in my last lecture, works and types scarcely even foreshadowed by its antique originals. Nevertheless, in the opinion at least of many, it had, by the close of the last century or early in the present, so far run its course, at least in this country, as to have lost its old artistic power. Art had become enfeebled, while art-history had risen more prominently into view; and the decay of the one was promoted by the distraction of thought occasioned by the other.