The art of the first Pharaohs, as well as that of the last Ptolemies, is brought down to us in well preserved relics, and by means of these, at a single glance, we can survey a boundless historic period, during which, in the first progressive land, civilization had passed from the lowest to the highest point; from the Pelasgi to the Parthenon, from the wooden works of Dædalus to the marble glories of Phidias; from the fabulous Orpheus, and mythological Amphion, to Homer and Sophocles; in a word, from Cecrops to Pericles. But on the Nile, beyond certain ignoble and arbitrary types, sculpture never advanced. Dædalus is reputed to have been the first statuary in Greece, but he was more of a mechanist than sculptor, the architect of labyrinths, carver of wood, and inventor of wings. He was the countryman and cotemporary of Theseus, equal to that hero in the adventures of his life, born of a royal race, admired for his works while living, and honored by the Egyptians with a special chapel after death. About two centuries later, appeared Dipœmus and Scyllis. They were born in Crete, under the Median empire, but worked at Sicyon, and made statues of Apollo, Diana, Minerva, and Hercules. They were the first to use the white marble of Paros, and gave to each divinity a peculiar personal appearance so entirely distinct, as to cause the offensive symbolism of preceding art to be laid aside. The slow progress of sculpture may be further traced, until a single mighty master raised his profession to a height, of which the world had entertained no previous conception. The Greeks could produce beauty without meretricious ornament, delicacy without affectation, strength without coarseness, and the highest degree of action without the slightest disturbance of equilibrium. Proud only of progressive invention, they preserved their first rude monuments side by side with their later masterpieces, and appealed to this aggregate as the true archives of nobility, their highest credentials to glory. The plastic sense, which usually disappears with the infancy of nations, was fostered to the fullness of adult perfection among this people. Whatever of beauty real objects supplied to their hands, the inspiration of fervid genius transfigured into the most beautiful idealized forms. As was said by one of their number, the higher nature of the divinities passed into the arts; and we have reason to believe that sculpture especially, did wear a celestial aspect in its representation of glorified heroes and the highest gods. The law which Plato long after prescribed to artists, seems to have been instinctively observed from the earliest era, "that they should create nothing illiberal or deformed, as well as nothing immoral and loose, but should everywhere strive to attain to the nature of the beautiful and the becoming." Latent worth doubtless lay imprisoned in the uncouth sculpture of the East, but it was only when moved westward, that the