The rule of Constantine was, however, far more disastrous to art as the seat of the Empire was removed to Byzantium. Most of the finest statues accumulated in Rome were removed there only to be lost forever in the plundering of wars and the fanatical rage of the Christian iconoclasts. While destroying the statues of the gods, they may have spared those which commemorated agonistic victors; but we may be sure that nearly all the works in metal which the Christians spared were melted down by the barbarous hordes of Gothic invaders, who under Alaric occupied the Morea about A. D. 395. With this glance at the complete decadence of art and the coming darkness that preceded its revival, we approach the subject of sculpture as connected with the rise of ecclesiastical religious art, which is necessarily reserved for further consideration. SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. I recommend the study of Franklin to all young people; he was a real philanthropist, a wonderful man. It was said that it was honor enough to any one country to have produced such a man as Franklin.—_Sydney Smith._ A man who makes a great figure in the learned world; and who would still make a greater figure for benevolence and candor were virtue as much regarded in this declining age as knowledge.—_Lord Kaimes._ He was a great experimental philosopher, a consummate politician, and a paragon of common sense.—_Edinburgh Review._ He has in no instance exhibited that false dignity by which science is kept aloof from common application; and he has sought rather to make her an useful inmate and servant in the common habitations of man, than to preserve her merely as an object of admiration in temples and palaces.—_Sir Humphrey Davy._ His style has all the vigor, and even conciseness of Swift, without any of his harshness. It is in no degree more flowery, yet both elegant and lively.—_Lord Jeffrey._ When he left Passy it seemed as if the village had lost its patriarch.—_Thomas Jefferson._ Extracts From Poor Richard’s Almanac.