472 OBSERVATIONS ON SCULPTURE. 
it cost a thousand pounds, is twenty-two feet high 
and fourteen wide. 
Cisser, who had studied the heathen gods and . 
goddesses at Rome, began a manufactory of 
Venuses and Dianas in London, and accommo- 
dating himself to the pockets of his customers, 
he wrought in a cheap material; and vindicated 
his choice by averring, that fine conception and 
skilful workmanship could consecrate Freestone. 
Our raw and inhospitable atmosphere, was soon 
found to wage a destructive war with this fragile 
race of divinities. | We have the evidence of the 
Marbles of Minerva’s Temple, in favour of the 
long endurance of Sculpture in the fine climate of 
Greece. But the rain, the haze, the hail, and 
the snow of our island, strips off the external 
beauty even of marble, in a few seasons, and with 
the outward grace, much that the many admire 
Sculpture for, has departed. So it fared with 
Cibber’s labours in groves and gardens ; and our 
Sculpture now no longer covets the open air, but 
seeks shelter in galleries, or takes sanctuary in 
the church. Nature says, that art can never be 
to Britain, what it was of old to Greece. 
The most celebrated of Cibber’s works are the 
