tion: the destiny of the arts was in other hands than those of the persecuted converts who, during the first centuries of the Church, maintained the faith of Christ; nor would it be difficult to prove that even these individuals contributed to retard rather than to accelerate the decay. Several centuries elapsed, in fact, ere images were employed in their worship; and in lieu of richly adorned temples, where the exhibition of their sacred delineations could have an influence on popular taste, they were driven for the culture of their religion, as well as the safety of their persons, to

* "Ecclesia vero Christiana tribus seculis prioribus ne quidem imagines recepit, aut inter sacra numeravit instrumenta. Sed demum sub firem quarti seculi ea lege admisit, ut in templis memoriæ ac ornatûs causa haberentur."-Reiskius de Imagin. Jesu Christi Exercitationes Histor. Ex. i. c. i. sec. 2. p. 12. "Illud certe non prætermittam, nos dico Christianos, ut aliquando Romanos, fuisse sine imaginibus in primitiva quæ vocatur ecclesia,"-Lillius Gregorius Gyraldus Historiæ Deorum Syntag. v. i. p. 15. The earliest images of Christ are those mentioned as being placed by Alexander Severus along with those of Abraham, Jupiter, Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle.-(Reiskius de Imaginibus, Ex. vii. c. i. sec. 1. p. 151. Gibbon, c. xl. ix.) Constantine afterwards placed two equestrian statues of the Saviour in the Lateran church; but Molanus, who mentions the latter fact, insists that there were existing about this period numerous statues which he would refer to the time of Pontius Pilate. (De Historia S. S. Imagin. l. i. c. 6. p. 65.)

the shelter of the sepulchres and catacombs, in which, after the manner of the ancient Hebrews, they were wont to inter their dead. It was on the adornment of these retreats, that during the ages of intolerance they bestowed that care which a more prosperous era enabled them subsequently to lavish on their churches and altars; and their sculpture and pictorial decorations still serve as the amplest illustrations of the arts during the early centuries.* These, as they have been successively brought to light, exhibit in numerous instances à chasteness of design, and an elegance of execution, superior by far to the productions of the patronized professors of the same period; † nor was it till Christianity had, in the fourth century, gained a legal ascendency, that we find it

* Agincourt, vol. i. Architect. p. 16. vol. ii. Sculpt. p. 31. Peint. p. 23.

+ Such are the sarcophagus of St. Constance and that of Junius Bassus, at present deposited in the Museum of the Vatican, both of which, and the latter especially, evince a beauty of design unequalled by any surviving production of the age of Constantine. The Museum Christianum, in the Vatican, abounds with urns and various fragments of the first centuries drawn from these sepulchres, whose excellence is striking. See Agincourt, vol. ii. Sculp. p. 30. 32. vol. iii. Sculp. p. 4. 5. Several of them are engraved in the same splendid work, in Pes. iv. v. and vi. illustrative of the decline of sculpture.

exercising an influence prejudicial to the arts, by destroying the monuments of paganism.*

It is to other causes, unconnected with religion, that we are to attribute the popular decline. Art, transplanted to the Tiber, had lost by the migration a number of those stimulants which aided its early advancement. The alteration and final abolition of the national games had removed from the sculptor one of his most efficient opportunities of perpetually contemplating the purest models of manly proportion and athletic vigour. The artist, taught to feel himself degraded by his profession, lost every spur to ambition or anxiety for distinction. The rude genius of the successors of Augustus was devoted to debauchery rather than refinement; and that servile adulation of the throne, which forms the leading characteristic of every national aristocracy, taught the wealthier portion of the empire, in whose hands were patronage and power, to manifest the same disregard for the intellectual embellishments of society. Besides, the intercourse of the Romans with their distant and unenlightened provinces, and their association with

"La religion Chrêtienne, d'humble qu'elle étoit, devint arrogante à son tour: poussés par un zèle indiscret, des furieux pillèrent les temples des payens."-Winkelmann, 1. vi. c. 8.

the barbarians who, through choice or the chance of war, had settled in their dominions, tended imperceptibly but inevitably to vitiate the taste of the empire. And finally, as the Northern nations began to congregate around the confines of Rome, and to quarter themselves on its subjugated districts, their perpetual dissensions and revolts served to destroy that tranquillity so essential to the prosperity of the arts. From such a combination of causes we might naturally anticipate the most unfavourable effects; and the result was, that at the period when the empire of the East was established, the purity of sculpture and the other branches of design was virtually extinct.

During the entire extent of the fourth century, the fury of the Christians was remorselessly turned against the idols and statues of the discarded mythology. The temples of paganism, as convertible to the purposes of the Church, were visited with greater clemency, but still the injuries they sustained were irreparable; and amongst other instances, posterity has to regret the total demolition of the gorgeous temple of Serapis, at Alexandria, and the destruction of the innumerable works of sculpture which embellished it. So extensive were the ravages of superstition during this fanatical era, that when the Emperor Honorius deemed it necessary to

renew for the fourth time the edict against the proscribed images, he deemed it requisite to add a clause expressive of his doubt whether any had escaped destruction.* This pious outrage, however, was directed, not against the existence of the art, but what were considered to be the productions of its prostitution; the pedestals of the overthrown gods were quickly replenished with the statues of their more popular successors, the saints; and the walls and altars of the Christian churches were rapidly adorned with paintings and sculpture, which, in brilliancy at least, eclipsed those of the suppressed temples. The busts and portraits of the emperors, likewise, still served to perpetuate the practice of sculpture; but after the age of Constantine, scarcely any mention is made of its productions by the historians of Byzantium. Almost the only subsequent records which we possess are those which refer to their destruction by the Goths, and the madness of

"Si qua etiam nunc in templis fanisque consistunt." + Winkelmann, 1. vi. c. 8.

I have in a previous chapter (vol. i. p. 43.) ventured a conjecture as to the exaggerated accounts which have reached us of the ravages of the Goths in Greece and at Athens. On considering the extensive ruin entailed upon the treasures of the nation by the fanaticism of the early Christians, we are forced to conclude, that, on the advance of Alaric, but little was left for him to destroy. In this opinion I am glad to be