§9. GREEKS EXCELLED IN ART. 185 



Asia ; and though we might not be led to that conclusion 

 without the evidence of works of that period, their testimony 

 sufficiently shows what was the character of the changes in- 

 troduced by Lysippus and Apelles, and how high finish, with 

 conventional or artificial grace, tended to the decline rather 

 than to the perfection of art. The subject is too extensive to 

 be treated in a limited space ; and I will only observe, that 

 these remarks only apply to the comparative merits of certain 

 epochs in Greece, the best being from the age of Phidias 

 (and Pericles), 450 B.C. to that of Praxiteles, or about 350 B.C.* ; 

 for even when art had ceased to be as perfect there as of old, 

 it was still far superior to that of any other nation ; it was a 

 decline from perfection, not a fall : and the Greeks continued 

 to be long afterwards the people of taste in ancient, as the 

 Italians have been in modern, times. 



9. But whatever may have been the cause of any exceptions, 

 whatever changes took place at different periods, the Greeks 

 were always the people most remarkable for taste, in which 

 they continued to excel even after the conquest of their 

 country by the Romans ; and though some of their works did 

 not attain to the excellence of those of the best period, and 

 some may be pronounced unworthy of imitation, they generally 

 show how fully their authors were impressed with love of the 

 beautiful, for which they stand unrivalled. In the appreciation 

 of form and proportion the Greeks excelled all other people ; 

 [and such was the beauty of their designs, both in small objects 

 and on a great scale, that no people have ever approached, 

 much less equalled, them. And even in the early infancy of 

 their ait, we may trace the tendency they already had towards 

 the perception and the practice of the beautiful. They had 

 also this great advantage, that men of first-rate talent were 



* This is satisfactorily confirmed by the style of the Halicarnassus marbles, 

 which though full of merit fall short of the excellence of those of the Parthenon. 

 They are a most interesting link in the history of Greek art. 



