Religion was the nurse of the fine arts, and first gave rise, not only to sculpture and painting, but also to those private collections of statues and pictures[479] in which we discover the germs of our modern galleries[480] and museums. The first step was made towards these when the Greek set up the images of his household gods upon his hearth. Thence, step by step, he proceeded, improving the appearance, enriching the materials, increasing the number of his domestic deities, with which niche after niche was filled, till his private dwelling became in some sort a temple. The religious feeling, no doubt, made way, in many cases, for a passion for show, or a nascent taste for the beautiful; so that rude figures in terra-cotta, wood, or stone, were gradually replaced by exquisite statues in ivory, gold, or silver,[481] or the fairest marble, breathing beauty and life, with eyes of gems, and clothed with majesty as with a garment. Hence flowed the passion for mimetic representations and all the plastic arts. The gods were transferred from the fireside to the temple, to the agora, to the senate-house, to the innumerable porticoes everywhere abounding in Greece.[482] ----- Footnote 479: Plat. de Rep. t. vi. p. 86. Plin. Hist. Nat. vii. 39. xxxv. 36. xxxiii. 56. Footnote 480: Athen. xi. 3. Menage, Observat. in Diog. Laert. vi. 32. p. 138. a. b. Footnote 481: Poll. i. 28. Footnote 482: Plat. de Rep. t. vi. p. 86. ----- On their superb candelabra,[483] &c., matter for a curious volume might be collected. The lamps in common use,[484] though sometimes very beautiful in shape, were of course fictile,[485] such as we find in great numbers among the ruins of Greek cities, both in the mother-country, and in their Egyptian and other colonies. Sometimes, however, they were of bronze, silver, or massive gold. A very beautiful specimen in this last metal was found, by Lord Belmore, among the ruins of an Egyptian temple, a short time before my visit to the Nile. In many houses were magnificent chandeliers, suspended from the ceiling, with numerous branches, which filled the apartments[486] with a flood of light. The most remarkable article of this kind which I remember was that set up as a votive offering to Hestia, in the Prytaneion of Tarentum, by Dionysios the Younger, which held as many lamps as there are days in the year.[487] Among people of humble condition wooden chandeliers, or candlesticks, were in use.[488] In remoter ages they burned slips of pine-branches, the bark of various trees, &c., instead of lamps. They were acquainted with the use of horn and wicker lanterns.[489] ----- Footnote 483: An elegant candelabrum, ornamented with the figure of a twisted serpent, and a flight of birds resting here and there on the branches, is found in the Mus. Cortonens. tab. 80.—They were sometimes of gilt wood.—Winkelmann, i. 34. Footnote 484: Poll. ii. 72. vi. 103. x. 115. Soph. Ajax. 285, sqq. Footnote 485: