Many will say that such rude delineations were not painting, but everything has its beginning. From these simple lines has the perfection of painting sprung, what Artist does not remember the feeble attempts he made at representations when but a child; does he not remember them with pleasure, and did he not then, and does he not now, consider them, feeble as they were, paintings? The first efforts at delineation were painting, without regard to color, or without regard to their truth in delineation. The origin of what may now be called painting, as an art instructive or decorative, is altogether involved in obscurity--authorities differing widely on the subject. Pliny dates its invention to a period antecedent to the siege of Troy, and other writers after. The Egyptians boasted of possessing the art six thousand years before the Greeks, but this has always been doubted. They certainly practised painting at a very early period, and Cambyses destroyed all the monuments of art he found in Egypt, as much as was in his power, which is some argument in favor of the statement; and hence all such monuments as display specimens of the art, must be posterior to his invasion. The remains of Egyptian painting, now extant, are but poor representations of the human, and other figures, showing a meagre advance in the art, being weakly and falsely drawn with no natural grouping or attempts at sentiment. The Phoenicians were an early cultivated people, and have the credit of first inventing letters, and therefore may, by the best authority, lay claim to the invention of painting. King Solomon, one thousand years before Christ, held their ingenuity in such high regard, that he employed them as the master workmen in building his temple, and the scriptures describe the magnificence of the columns and their capitals, and the borders and cornishes and the doors, besides the great brazen sea, supported by twelve oxen. The coins also of this people, that have come down to us, show in design, and execution, a good condition in the arts.