(436 On the Beautiful in the Grecian Statues. 
equally accessible to the lowest minds, has 
too much usurped over the more generous 
one of fame. 
I shall conclude this essay, whith perhaps is 
already too long, with another very powerful . 
argument in favour of Grecian art ; which may 
be inferred from the great length of time that 
it flourished, and the innumerable productions 
which it furnished. This argued a degree of 
fame attached to it, and an encouragement to 
rivalship, of which we have no example. We 
may judge of this from the immense number of 
works which escaped the repeated plunder of the 
Romans ; and from the valuable remnant, which 
to our day has survived the destruction’ of ages, 
of successive revolutions, and the rudest barbarism. 
Memmius, /Emilius Verres, and Proconsuls, 
and Pretors and Generals, and Romans of rank 
and taste, beyond all calculable amount, might 
have been thought to have exhausted Greece of 
her rich treasures of art; but succeeding to them 
Tiberius Nero carried off a valuable plunder from 
the Acropolis, Delphi and Olympia, and yet in 
these very places not fewer than three thousand 
statues were remaining in the time of Pliny, Can 
any thing in modern times compare to this? 
Can modern artists recur to so grand a feast of 
the senses, so glorious a school for instruction in 
their art? Does the patronage of later times 
