310 ON TASTE IN ORNAMENTAL DESIGN. Part II. 



have said, from their Pagan predecessors, became at one time 

 extinguished in Italy ; and it was not till it received a new 

 impulse from Byzantium that it was once more brought into 

 existence; its revival, therefore, was owing to that external 

 influence, which may be considered the real parent of Italian 

 art. Like that of the primitive Christians in Italy, Byzantine 

 art, though assuming a new type, also owed its origin to the 

 debased style of its Pagan predecessor ; for a similar obliga- 

 tion to an older source must be acknowledged by the Byzan- 

 tine as by other schools. 



The same may be as clearly traced in the MSS. of the 

 Anglo-Saxons; who were not deterred by their Christian pre- 

 judices from copying Pagan models ; and we occasionally find 

 classical figures introduced there, having all the characteristics 

 of late Eoman art. They had access to Pagan drawings, and 

 they took advantage of them ; and the fact of some figures 

 being introduced into the same picture and the same subject, 

 together with others of a rude, ill-proportioned style, at once 

 show how the former were copies, and the latter the result 

 of the draughtsman's unaided and imperfect efforts. And 

 instances of similar combinations of classical and rude figures 

 are found in Byzantine MSS. of about 1066, 1120—30, and 

 other periods. The jagged outline of a sleeve, or other piece 

 of drapery, in Anglo-Saxon MS. of about the year 1000, prove 

 that the draughtsman either made a careless copy, or had re- 

 ceived the general impression of the classical mode of repre- 

 senting draperies and costumes, without possessing sufficient 

 knowledge either of the classical manner, or of the natural 

 folds, to be able to draw them correctly. The outlines are 

 therefore broken up into those disconnected curves which so 

 strongly mark Anglo-Saxon drawings, and very much resemble 

 an imperfect tracing penned from recollection by some 

 tyro; detached parts being introduced instead of the con- 

 tinuous lines and folds. The same may be seen at the side 



