226 PREFACE TO LECTURE ON ANCIENT PAINTING. 



noted relic of the past, sucli characteristic remarks as these : 

 "How very, very clever! Now isn't it?" "(Test magnifique ! 

 Mon Dieu, c'est un ouvrage splendide ! " " Well now, I can't see 

 anything there to make a fuss about." This last speaker has 

 somehow gotten the name abroad of being excessively practical, 

 of reducing everything right down to its present value of merit 

 or utility. He is pointed out as the " cui bono " man the one 

 who is forever asking, u What is it good for ? " 



Now, my friends, there is a world of interest and of attraction 

 in things that are good for nothing in old castles and ruins, in 

 old statues and paintings, in old histories and legends. It is in 

 the endeavor to make this appear to you, that I am to speak 

 to-night of things long since passed aw^ay of the Rise and Fall 

 of an Empire of Art more wonderful and impressive than the 

 Empire of Arms which Gibbon has immortalized. 



I have had the opportunity and the pleasure to give my disser- 

 tation on the more modern art of painting, in the Catalogue of 

 the Gallery in our City, which the liberality, aided by the gifted 

 taste, of one of our foremost citizens, has already made the 

 richest collection of the Fine Arts in America. But further 

 back than anything there shown more ancient than the old, 

 grander than the grandeur of artistic Italy there is another 

 realm of art dimly rising out of the dawn of nations and of 

 languages. In this cloud-region of the classics I have gathered 

 this evening's subject, which is u Ancient Painting as among the 

 Lost Arts." 



