OF THE FINE ARTS. 



Vil 



sandals and half boots, buttoned coats and 

 Roman togas. What the two colossal elephants 

 had to perform which still stand nigh the entrance 

 of the temple of Elora, no one has conjectured ; 

 nor has the meaning of the stupendous Sphinx, 

 still a wonder in a land of wonders, been clearly 

 accounted for. The former are cut out of de- 

 tached portions of rock, and seem to have been 

 intended as guardians to the sacred temple ; the 

 latter has recently been bared as low as the 

 belly, and instead of being composed of quarried 

 blocks, it is now found to be produced from a 

 huge earth-fast stone, or cut out of the salient 

 angle of an immense rock. The head and body 

 are of one piece, and connected with the soil ; 

 the legs and paws are of the like material, and 

 though some have doubted whether the seams or 

 veins which cross them are not joints, they are 

 much more likely of a piece with the body. The 

 breasts, shoulders, neck, and face are those of a 

 human being of the Nubian character ; the ex- 

 pression is placid. " No people, either ancient 

 or modern," says Champollion, " ever conceived 

 the art of architecture in so sublime and grand a 

 scale as the ancient Egyptians. Their concep- 

 tions were those of men a hundred feet high ; 

 and the imagination which in Europe rises far 

 above our porticos, sinks abashed at the foot of 

 the hundred and forty columns of the hypostyle 

 of Carnac." He might have added, that the 

 largest statues of modern times are but like 

 figures carved from a cherry stone, compared to 

 the gigantic gods and heroes of the land of 

 Egypt. 



Both Greeks and Romans seem to have ex- 

 amined the works of art, on the banks of the 

 Nile, with an eye curious, if not tasteful. Some 

 of their measurements have proved erroneous ; 

 nor has the opinion pronounced on the excellence 

 of the sculpture been supported by specimens 

 such as have descended to us from the artists of 

 Greece. The splendid varieties of the marble 

 and the porphyry, together with the bright polish- 

 ing and brilliant colours, united to dazzle men's 

 eyes and influence their judgment ; they found 

 temples more massive, and statues more lofty, 

 than they looked for, and they pronounced 

 accordingly. The same may be said .with regard 

 to later accounts : the French and the British 

 have united to explore and explain the perishing 

 wonders of the banks of the Nile ; but it may be 

 remarked, that no artists of approved taste and 

 genius were in the train of those explorers, and 

 that we have reason to believe that the gigantic 

 dimensions, the lustre of the materials, and the 

 careful polish of the workmanship, were to the 

 visitors grace, expression, and sublimity. In- 



deed, in the eyes of many, whatever is large is 

 great ; a statue twelve feet high has twice the 

 grandeur of one of six, while one of twenty-four 

 has but half the sublimity of one of forty-eight. 

 Two of the noblest statues, however, of these our 

 later days, are but eighteen inches high the 

 Michael Angelo and the Raphael of Flaxman. 



Yet the architecture of Egypt may claim the 

 name of sublime, if the title be not too noble for 

 works produced by mechanical skill. Temples, 

 which seem to be as stable as the mountains, are 

 still standing to justify men's admiration ; while 

 colonnades of solid stone, sixty feet high, obe- 

 lisks higher still, without joint, and walls com- 

 posed of enormous blocks, everywhere abound ; 

 fractured or overthrown by some convulsion of 

 nature, rather than by the hand of time. The 

 sculpture of the land is not at all equal to the 

 architecture. Statues, indeed, of fifty and sixty 

 feet high abound, and walls and pillars are 

 carved over with figures, singly or in groups ; 

 but the former are not very graceful, either in 

 proportion or in expression, and the latter are 

 chiefly rude etchings or sinkings, in which dura- 

 bility has been the main object. A figure, sixty 

 feet high, cut out of solid porphyry, standing now 

 as it did three thousand years ago, amid the 

 arid deserts of Upper Egypt ; or the god Silsal, 

 of twice the height, hewn out of rock, discovered 

 by Burnes among the snowy mountains of 

 Koosh, are sublime from their antiquity more 

 than from their dimensions, or the character 

 impressed upon them. These works may be 

 called magnificent, but they cannot, with any 

 propriety, be called beautiful, in the natural 

 sense of the word. The Nubian features can 

 never be reconciled to our notions of the grace- 

 ful in form ; nor have they been redeemed from 

 the grotesque by sentiment and feeling : the 

 lumpy lips, the wide cheek bones, the " forehead 

 villanous low," with perpendicular draperies 

 descending like icicles or petrifactions, could 

 never, though painted with the brightest colours, 

 or gilt from head to heel, rank for a moment 

 with the poetic creations of the dullest days of 

 Greece. 



By the curious inquirer the contrast between 

 the master and the scholar, between Egypt and 

 Greece, may be traced, even in the works which 

 have descended to our own day, and are now in 

 this country. This was visible in the earliest 

 times ; and the same paternity was boldly 

 claimed then, as well as now, for the statues of 

 Thebes and Athens. But this applies rather to 

 the mode of handling than to the ruling beauty 

 of the sculpture chaiacter and sentiment. The 

 early statuary of Greece had rigid limbs, inflexi- 



