§28. THE BEAUTIFUL. 217 



they took the idea, the motive, of the object, and made it an 

 ideal imitation, which was much more pleasing to the eye 

 than the imperfect attempt at representation in an unsuitable 

 material ; and it is evident that no copy of a real honeysuckle 

 would have been as beautiful an ornament as the conventional 

 flower and leaf we see in a Greek building. The same 

 idea was carried out by them in fancy borders, 

 on walls, vases, furniture, dresses, and objects of 

 common use; and, generally speaking, in all 

 ornamental decoration where figures were not 

 introduced. It was only in the decadence of art that they 

 adopted a somewhat closer imitation of real flowers, as on the 

 vases of Southern Italy. With the Greeks, "the beautiful 

 and the good " were closely allied ; and if they did not, like 

 one great German writer, include the good in the beautiful, 

 or consider the latter the higher of the two, they thought that 

 nothing in art could be good without being beautiful ; and to 

 be fca\6s koX ayaObs, " beautiful and good," was the highest 

 merit even in man.] Indeed, the former word was often 

 synonymous with "good;" as "valour" was with "virtue;" 

 which last idea finds a parallel in the use of the word " brave" 

 in French and Italian, as of old in English. 



[The same feeling and ideal conception of the beautiful 

 enabled them (as I have already observed) to perceive, in the 

 ornaments of people less cultivated than themselves, whatever 

 possessed the germ of beauty ; and whatever they did borrow 

 they improved. Nor was this unworthy of their genius ; and 

 it would be well for us to recollect that the most accomplished 

 minds have not been above the adoption of what was beautiful 

 from other sources. They preferred what was good to what 

 was merely new; and it is far better to have one thing good 

 than any number of new ones on the sole recommendation of 

 novelty. Nor was novelty the same recommendation to the 

 Greeks as to us ; and when our vendors of ornamental works 



