In the absence of the actual paintings, great use has been made of the scenes painted on Greek vases of the best period, some of which attain to quite a high level, and we cannot but feel with Sir Alma-Tadema that from this source he has drawn not a few of his ideas. Surely the products that inspired Keats with his exquisite Ode make clear to us how the fruitfulness of Greek genius is not dead or even exhausted, but still kindles a pure light in modern minds sensitive enough to catch the flame. It is to be observed, before we pass on to another subject, that the art of painting among the Greeks began, and long remained, a branch of decoration, and was therefore subsidiary to architecture, or stately furniture, or fine pottery. The fashion of producing easel pictures painted for their own sake, readily movable and therefore displayed in galleries, as well as upon the walls of palaces, only came in with the decadence or at least the full ripeness of other arts. The products of the painter were akin to those of the epigrammatist, whose elegance may well be called by a poorer word--_finish_--and is to us rather the exhibition of great cleverness than the outcome of genius. It was the day also of social decadence, when the mere artist became the idol of society, and could parade his conceit and his vulgarity without fear of censure from patrons who only valued him as the ephemeral fashion. The gossip we hear about the old painters often exhibits this painfully modern triviality. I now turn to the topic of music, in interest second to none, but one in which I must endeavour to make my discussion intelligible to those who have only a practical knowledge of this subject. In most histories of Greek art, music is simply omitted; in the special works upon it, there is much that is not only so difficult, but so dry and technical that the average student of Greek life can hardly be expected to approach it.