ANCIENT PAINTING AS AMONG THE 

 LOST ARTS. 



It would seem as if the world's progress had always been made 

 by starts and sudden bounds. The Genius of cultivation has 

 visited the earth like the rare and uncertain returns of a comet. 

 After each appearance it has departed again for unknown regions ; 

 and when or how or where it w^ould return from its roaming, no 

 man could tell. Who could have foretold or supposed that the 

 spirit of letters and literature would have made its first appear- 

 ance on the rugged sea-girt peninsula and islands of Greece? 

 Then, five hundred years later, on the classic hills of the capitol 

 that boasted to rule the world ? And again, after a dreary 

 absence of fifteen hundred years, to have alighted on the islands 

 of Britain, afar in the Northern Seas ? Sometime, away back in 

 the ages, science has come very near dawning upon the earth. 

 We have no certain knowledge when or where, for we only know 

 of the fact by the fragments that have been left. The races of 

 Eastern Asia have, for all historic time, known how to calculate 

 eclipses, to figure the revolutions of the planets, to divide and 

 measure the seasons and years, together with many other elements 

 of knowledge implying an intimate acquaintance with astronomy. 

 They have made gunpowder, used the magnetic needle, created 

 power by steam, and printed with types, for thousands of years. 

 But as they never made any worthy use of this information and 

 these discoveries, we must suppose them to be the relics of a lost 

 civilization. 



So also the beautiful arts, as painting and sculpture, have been 

 twice discovered, and twice have grown independently, and by 

 almost identical stages, to a remarkable state of perfection. First 



