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uecessaiy, or from a courtly, and not unusual, compliance \nth. the 

 prevalent vice or folly of the age. Under Paganism, Mahommedanism, 

 and Christianity, wars and persecutions have flourished. When warriors 

 have achieved success, then ministers of rehgion have vied with bards in 

 paeans for the cou(][ueror ; they have swelled his triumph and ministered 

 to his glory ; and, in order to make their efforts more complete, they 

 have enlisted the fine arts to their aid. Acting thus in conjunction, the 

 influence of religion and war has been unrivalled, and the successful 

 prosecution of the arts of peace, by any nation, has usually depended 

 on these influences, conjoint or separate: it was so in Egypt and 

 Assyria, in Athens and in Rome. The merchant prince of Italy warring 

 with territorial potentates ; the grandee of Spain fighting with the 

 Moslem; tbe burgher of Ghent waging war with his suzerain or the 

 invader, the fugitives who founded Venice, and they who fled to the 

 marshes of Holland : these, and their descendants, with the spoils of 

 war, or the fruits of agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, under 

 the stimulus of a warlike era, enlarged and adorned their cities, 

 indulged in luxurious palaces, paid tribute to religion, and com- 

 memorated their departed heroes. The rudest nations manifest their 

 dawning love for art by decorating the weapons and joerson of the 

 warrior chief. The most acceptable ornament of religious edifices has 

 been the spoils of war, either as taJien from the field of battle and hung 

 up for trophies, or transmuted by affection and piety into decorative 

 memorials of departed heroism, uttering through long years, to 

 succeeding generations, the touching appeal, "Pray for his soul I"' 



But where a nation has been permitted to enjoy a long period of 

 commercial prosperity, undisturbed by war of any kind, its encourage- 

 ment of the fine arts, more especially, has been stinted and illiberal. 

 I am not aware that those carriers of antiquity, the Phosnicians, 

 have left any records of profuse patronage behind them ; and cer- 

 tainly the two most commercial -people of modern times have been 

 singularly remiss ; neither England nor America is noted for its 

 encouragement of the fine arts. America, which has been less 

 occupied by war, it might be expected would have earned a profusion 

 of bays, had the highways of successful commerce been the highways of 

 the peaceful arts. England has exerted most of her patronage duiing 

 her periods of war ; from the time of Alfred the Great to the peace of 

 1815, the eras of her poets, historians, and artists of every kind are 

 coincident with her most warlike and successful monarchs. On the 

 other hand, Mr. Fergusson, and other writers on India, inform us that 

 wliilst ouch of the other numerous dynasties who have conquered that 



