arouse, poetry enrapture, art embellish, or wisdom instruct the nations in their predestined progress. The epitaph--_Here is the heart; the spirit is everywhere_--most appropriately belongs to the capital of Attica. From her gates went forth colonies of beautiful intellect throughout the civilized world; and the light of her genius, lingering around the ruins of her skill, still serves to model all the masterly productions of earth. Like the venerable Nestor's cap of sculptured gold, the material may have perished, but the power which conceived and executed it has proved itself immortal. Proficiency in sculpture was at one time widely diffused; it rose rapidly to the highest excellence, and as rapidly descended to a corresponding depth. The great Socrates was himself a statuary. Pausanias saw, at the entrance of the Athenian Acropolis, a group of Graces draped, which was executed by the philosopher. Praxiteles, at a later period, was distinguished for delicate grace and most careful finish. When Nicomedes, of Bythinia, wished to purchase of the Cnidians the Aphrodite by this artist, with the condition of discharging the city of its oppressive debt, they preferred to endure any hardship rather than suffer such a loss. This tender solicitude for the preservation of the beautiful was utterly unlike a mere mania for museum collections, and was not limited to plastic art; it grew up in common with all Grecian culture, and is to be found in all the phenomena of exalted Hellenic life. Art was indigenous to that prolific soil, and graced the maturest fruit, as well as nourished the deepest roots, of existence. While the auspices of freedom remained, she constantly derived fresh vigor, as Antæus gained strength from contact with mother earth, borrowing radiance from Olympus, and growing in conscious companionship with heroes and gods. Critias, Nestœlis, and Hegias succeeded each other with some distinction, but not much was added to plastic art until Polycletus was born to raise alto-relievo to perfection, and won the proud renown of being the Sophocles of sculpture. He excelled in exquisite symmetry and superlative polish. The statue he made of a Persian life-guard was so exact in its proportions, and careful in its finish, that it was called the Rule. But the highest excellence in art had passed, and Myron, and Scopas, in their works which commemorated war, the chase, or the terrors of a violent death, foretokened the tempestuous age about to break in desolation all over earth. Having thus briefly sketched the progress and character of both architecture and sculpture, let us now glance at the painting of the Periclean age.