SIDEREAL ASTRONOMY. 321 



reaching that art of landscape delineation, which has attained 

 such variety of excellence in modern times. Painters they 

 had; and the great names of Zeuxis, Apelles, Parrhasius, 

 Polygnotus, &c., have descended to us ; their powers attested 

 by the prices of their works, and the universal admiration 

 they obtained. But the subjects chosen for painting seem, 

 with little exception, to have been the same as those of 

 Grecian sculpture, viz. the delineation and colouring of the 

 human figure and features, either singly or grouped in action. 

 All other objects were regarded as subordinate to these, and 

 we are obliged to believe that they scarcely went beyond the 

 elements of perspective in their paintings. A long series of 

 ages, reaching to the confines of our own time, was required 

 to attain that excellence of a new art, which often inverted 

 the style and feeling of the ancients, by making man and his 

 works mere accessories to the delineation of nature. 



Keturning from what might seem a digression but for the 

 sanction of our author, we may advert briefly to the re- 

 mainder of his second volume, which, under the singular 

 title of ' Epochs in the History of the Contemplation of the 

 Universe,' includes a history of the progress of discovery from 

 the earliest times ; as well on the* land and oceans of our 

 own globe, as in the celestial spaces so marvellously explored 

 by the labour and genius of man. He arranges the whole 

 under seven epochs ; a classification somewhat arbitrary in 

 its character, and liable to various objections in its details. 

 But we admit the need of some arrangement, and we know 

 not that any better could have been proposed. We may 

 strongly recommend these chapters to all who love to follow 

 the line of human advancement, from the feeble and un- 

 certain steps of its infant state to the gigantic march of our 

 own time. Baron Humboldt's narrative is vigorous, im- 

 partial, and complete within the limits he has assigned to it. 

 The most accomplished traveller himself of modern times, 



Y 



