Assyrian sculpture is a discovery of recent times, first made in 1842-3 by Botta, the French consul at Mosul on the banks of the Tigris, and almost simultaneously by Mr. Layard, who though he had seen the ruins of Nineveh in 1840 did not get permission to examine and excavate till 1845. The sculptures differ widely from any in Egypt in being nearly all in bas-relief and high relief. There are very few statues, carved in the round, that stand either with a support practically or on the legs. There are no colossi nearly approaching in size the Egyptian and Greek colossal statues, none being higher than eighteen feet, while as we have seen sixty feet was a moderate height for an Egyptian or Greek colossal figure, and some were higher. The colossal human-headed bulls and lions with wings, at the portals of the king’s palace, are in high relief on huge slabs, one on each side, facing outwards, and one on each side on the wall, with the head turned to look to the front. It does not appear that any principal figure was set up in an interior, either of these compound animals, or of any deity or king. No colossal seated figures like the Egyptian statues have been found. The standing figures carved in relief differ entirely in the expression of the countenance and motive of the figure from the Egyptian. They have all some action; the king grasps a captured lion, or as chief priest he walks with his staff which he holds firmly, while the left hand rests on the hilt of his sword. It is true that the legs are on one plane, and the feet in a position that could not support the body; still the intention to show action and life is there. There is none of the desire to express majestic, calm, eternal repose and content which is so characteristic of Egyptian sculptured statues. Throughout the great number of slabs in the British Museum and in the Louvre there is a very vigorous descriptive power displayed in carving figures of men, horses, chariots, battles, sieges of cities, hunting scenes, processions, rivers with men swimming on inflated skins, with fish and boats; implements, weapons, chairs, baskets, trees, birds, buildings, with a close resemblance to the real objects that is very distinctive of the Assyrian style. The quadrupeds and birds are much better done than the human figures; the character of some of the mules is faithfully given, and there is much feeling for nature in some of the lions in the hunting-scenes. There is no doubt, also, that this naturalistic realism was carried further by painting the sculptures. In none of these painted reliefs, however, is there anything of the careful carving and delicate delineation of the Egyptian _cavi relievi_; they are all boldly done, and with a good deal of skill, but by hands that would seem to have been self-taught, and at liberty to represent as they pleased so that the conventional attributes and symbolic objects were duly made clear. There is scarcely any regulated