Wi Ancient Monuimnts. 171 



oients towards that which is true. In truth, if we examine, one 

 by one, the parts of which they construct this monster, we shall 

 find them in accordance with those they ought to recall. Thus, 

 whether they give it the tail of the dragon, and the body of a 

 goat, whether the head and body of the lion, in the middle of 

 which they may raise the head of a ruminating animal, and a 

 tail terminated by that of a serpent, they scarcely ever deviate 

 from the truth in each of the parts of a combination so extra- 

 ordinary. 



The relations that exist between the organization of an ani- 

 mal, and the end it has to fulfil, are far from having been so 

 judiciously appreciated by the painters and statuaries of ancient 

 Egypt. The animals which these artists have wished to repre- 

 sent on their monuments, present neither the purity of form, nor 

 the exact imitation of nature, which we remark on those which 

 the Greeks and Romans have left. 



However, in those paintings and sculptures which reach 

 back to the epoch of Egypt's greatest prosperity, they near- 

 ly constantly give cloven feet to animals with horns. So when 

 they figured quadrupeds whose jaws were armed with sharp 

 and pointed canine teeth, the Egyptian artists took care at 

 the same time, to furnish them with the feet of carnivorous 

 animals. As, however, we do not always trace in their works, an 

 aiming at the rigorous and precise observations of true forms, 

 even could we find, on their monuments, animals uniting all the 

 conditions of existence, without appearing to have representa- 

 tives at present on the earth, we could not be so certain that 

 these animals have had a real existence^ and belong to the species 

 now regarded as lost. This conclusion appears to us correct, 

 only in relation to animals which, depicted on the monuments 

 of Greece and ancient Rome, are no longer to be met with on 

 the surface of the globe. 



In spite of this conclusion, it ought to be remarked, that, in 

 the monuments of ancient Egypt, there exist more than fifty 

 different animals, so exactly designed as to be recognised at the 

 first glance. They belong to nearly all the classes. 



The statuaries and painters of modern times have also endea^ 

 voured to invent creatures of fancy. But as they have not taken 

 sufficient pains to compose them out of portions really true, their 



