* * * * * I now pass to another field of art, in which this gifted nation has exercised an undoubted supremacy down to the present day. The very idea of exceeding the excellence of a great Greek statue hardly enters the mind of the modern sculptor. If he could but approach the work of Praxiteles, or even of the nameless workers who carved the great tomb of Sidon, he would regard it as an astounding achievement. We shall find not a few who attribute this perfection of Greek sculpture to the great opportunities they had of observing the play of limb and muscle in their daily exercises in the _palæstra_, where men and boys exercised naked. That I take to be so far true, that I have often suggested to modern sculptors, who complain of the insufficiency of their models, to make a pilgrimage for a couple of years to Samoa, or the Solomon Islands, where they may study very noble forms, exercising in the purest state of nature, so far as they have not been depraved into clothes by well-meaning, but mischievous, missionaries; and I think that the first sculptor who ventures upon this education may do great things in his art. But it only touches a fringe of the question as regards the old Greek triumphs. Naked figures were not the earliest or greatest Greek achievement in sculpture. There are indeed some archaic nude Apollos, but all the early goddesses, so far as I know, were draped, and it is in drapery also that Greek sculpture is unique for its supreme grace. Need I add that it is not only in single figures, but in composition that the Greeks are still our masters? If any of you will compare the frieze of the Parthenon, even as we have it, with any modern composition of the same sort, it will require no argument to persuade him of the truth of what I say.