to enable you to judge at your transition from the marble to life what was substance and possession in the individual, and what excrescence and want, what homogeneous, what discordant, what deformity, what beauty. It intended, by making you acquainted with a variety of figures, to qualify you for classing them according to character and function, what exclusively belongs to some or one, and what is the common law of all; to make you sensible that the union of simplicity and variety produces harmony, and that monotony or confusion commences where either is neglected, or each intrudes upon the other; in short, to supply by its stores, as far as time and circumstances permitted, what the _public_ granted to the artists of Greece; what Zeuxis demanded and obtained from the people of Croton; what Eupompus pointed out to Lysippus; what Raffaello, with better will than success, searched in his own mind; and what Andrea Mantegna, however unqualified to find himself, desired to impress on the mind of Albert Durer--a standard of FORM.[97] I shall not here recapitulate the reasons and the coincidence of fortunate circumstances which raised the Greeks to the legislation of form: the standard they erected, the canon they set, fell not from heaven; but as they fancied themselves of divine origin, and religion was the first mover of their art, it followed that they should endeavour to invest their authors with the most perfect forms, and finding _that_ the privilege of man, they were led to a complete and reasoned study of his elements and constitution; this with their climate, which allowed that form to grow and to show itself to the greatest advantage, with their civil and political institutions, which established and encouraged exercises, manners, and opportunities, of all others best calculated to rear, accomplish, and produce that form, gave in successive periods birth to that style which beginning with the _essence_, proportion, proceeded to _character_, and rose to its height by uniting both with Beauty. Of all three classes specimens in sufficient numbers have survived the ravages of time, the most considerable of which, accumulated within these walls, form the ample stores of information which the Academy displays before its students; but--I say it with reluctance, though as teacher my office, as your reader my duty, demand it--displays not always with adequate success. Too often the precipitation with which admission from the Plaster to the Life-room is solicited; the total neglect of the Antique after they have once invaded the model, and the equally slovenly, authoritative, and uninformed manner of drawing from it, prove the superficial impression of the forms previously offered to their selection. The reason of all this lies perhaps in a too early admission to either room. They enter without elements, and proceed without success; they are set to arrange and polish before they are acquainted with the rough materials. To one