the Stoic Epictetus complained; and, according to the account of this philosopher, it was still considered a misfortune for any one of his cotemporaries to die without having seen the masterpiece of Phidias.

At a later period, in the age of Julian the Apostate, the Jupiter of Olympia, seated, and as if unassailable on its throne, continued to receive there the homage of Greece, in spite of every kind of attack, which the convert zeal of Constantine had made against polytheism, its temples and its idols. But this is the last notice which we possess on the existence of this masterpiece: authentic information does not come down further than the age of Julian. It has been said and repeated, on the authority of Winckelmann, and on the credit of some Byzantine writer, that the Jupiter of Olympia, the Venus of Gnidus, the Juno of Samos, continued to be admired at Constantinople as late as the eleventh century, and that they perished not until the taking of the town by the Crusaders in 1204. But according to accounts more deserving of credit, the greater number of the works which have been mentioned, were destroyed, in the burning of the palace of Lausus, about the year 475, under the emperor Basilicus; and with regard to the Jupiter, there is nothing to prove that it was ever transported from Olympia to Constantinople. Such a mass, composed entirely of connected parts, and of precious materials, could doubtless never have resisted the danger of such a voyage, at a period when so many passions, raised against the ancient worship, conspired in unison to complete its ruin. Everything induces us to believe that the Jupiter of Phidias was destroyed on the spot, in those ages of decline, when fanaticism broke or mutilated the ancient idols, when the necessities of religious worship, and of the state claimed the materials, when individual cupidity, in concert with general superstition, shared the fragments.

Thus perished obscurely this work of genius, which for a long time had enjoyed so brilliant a destiny, without even the sound of its fall finding an echo in history; and, we must admit, such was nearly the fate of all the beautiful monuments of ancient art, which Christianity used every endeavour to destroy or to devote to a different purpose, sometimes by converting the temples to its own use, which at least served to preserve them, as happened in the case of the Temple of Theseus, and the Parthenon at Athens, the Temple of Concord

at Agrigentum, and the Pantheon at Rome; sometimes, and unfortunately the most frequently, by removing the columns. which supported them, by carrying off the statues, and basreliefs with which they were decorated, and putting them to the vilest uses, or using them as the most common materials. It would be superfluous to search among the works of antiquity which have come down to us, for an image however feeble it may be, of this masterpiece of Greek art. The Jupiter Verospi, the most beautiful ancient statue which we possess of this god, and which appears to be an imitation of the colossus of Olympia, cannot convey an idea of it, no more than those small figures in bronze, frequently seen in cabinets, and those numerous representations of Jupiter seated, with the sceptre in its hand, and the eagle or Victory, such as they are to be seen on the tetradrachmæ of Alexander and his successors, or on the large bronzes of the empire. Here every imitation is imperfect, every comparison useless; for the representations, large as well as small, are all equally too much below the work of Phidias, in order to serve as points of comparison, relatively to the style of this work.

But we possess elements the most fitted to make us appreciate if not the manner of Phidias, at least the taste and character of his school, in the original sculptures taken from the Parthenon, and which at the present day form the invaluable ornaments of England: all Europe echoed with the debate which was held in the British Parliament in order to determine the value of these sculptures, and to fix their price. The national artists and antiquarians were divided in opinion with regard to the merit of these works; and in general, this opinion inclined to place the sculptures of the Parthenon in the second rank among the ancient monuments which have come down to us. A foreigner was called in to decide this great debate, which was, finally, to resolve itself into guineas, and this sole arbiter, this supreme judge, was a man whom England borrowed from France, whence he had come from Italy; it was the illustrious Visconti, the prince of the antiquaries of our age. It did not require any very lengthened research for this profound interpreter of ancient monuments to appreciate at their just value, to place in their real position, sculptures which although mutilated in every manner, bear the unchangeable stamp of genius. The excellence of these works, which issued from the workshop of Phidias, was proclaimed.

The naked figures, in better preservation, or more entire, such as the Ilissus and Theseus, were placed above all known sculptures. The draped figures assumed also a rank at the head of all statues of this kind, the most perfect we possess.

The most beautiful works of ancient art, which up to this period had been without rivals, the Apollo, the Laocoon, the Torso, descended from that lofty position which they had hitherto occupied in public opinion, and were placed in different ranks, according as they approached more or less to this sublime school, in which the most elevated ideal was united with the most exquisite truth. The Torso alone maintained its place as second in position, or almost by the side of the sculptures of Phidias. In a word, the appearance of this master of ancient art, in the domain of monuments which have come down to us, was sufficient to place each object in its place, by their taking possession, without difficulty, of the first place; and the admiration of the ancients was justified, at the same time that modern art obtained an infallible rule and an inimitable model. However, a last observation is necessary here. These sculptures which emanated from the mind of Phidias, and were most certainly executed under his eyes and in his school, are not the works of his hands. Phidias, himself, disdained or worked but little in marble. They were his most skilful pupils, Alcamenes or Agoracrites, and most probably the latter, who executed the sculptures in alto relievo, placed in the two pediments; and they were artists without name, but certainly not without merit, who produced from the designs of Phidias, the bas-reliefs of the frieze with which the Parthenon was decorated in its entire circumference. Thus these monuments of so beautiful an art, are not, indeed, the work of Phidias himself; they reveal to us his mind, his genius, but not by an immediate and direct impression; they exhibit to us a perfection of which we had no idea; but still it is not that of which the genius of Phidias was capable, if we could behold it in his original productions; and it is not certainly that with which we would be struck, if some chance, unfortunately impossible at the present day, should cause to appear suddenly before our eyes in all the splendour of its worship, that sublime Jupiter of Olympia before which all antiquity prostrated itself.