By tie Rev. Jf. F. Short. 



185 



the mere workman who copied it more or less accurately. About 

 this time, too, arose the great demand for engraved amulets and 

 charms, the fruit of the superstition which is the invariable accom- 

 paniment of an utterly vicious society ; and the Roman world was 

 flooded with intaglios, barbarous in their execution, fantastic in 

 their design, sometimes half-Christian, half-heathen, and many of 

 them quite unfit to exhibit. 



One word about the various style of art shewn in its different 

 stages. We can trace the stiff mannerism of the Chaldsean work, 

 growing more plastic as it passes through the Assyrian and Baby- 

 lonian periods (so called,) but still dealing with the same subjects — 

 the gods and their worship, monsters and warriors and kings ; and 

 it is not hard to recognise in the earlier Greek work, a somewhat 

 similar motive, modified partly by a touch of Egyptian influence, 

 more by the intuitive grace and good taste of the Greek intellect. 

 But the way in which Greek art developed itself, and the perfect 

 technical mastery which the engravers seem to have acquired over 

 their somewhat intractable materials, seem to me quite unparalleled. 

 The entire freedom and grace of some of the Greek work, whether 

 in portraiture or in figure work, could not be surpassed if the artists 

 had possessed the magical power of moulding the hard stone like wax. 



Side by side with the development of Greek art a style very 

 peculiar, and closely related, I think, to the rough drill work of 

 Northern India is found in Etruria. Here the scarab form of signet 

 is invariable (it prevails more or less in Phoenicia, and even in 

 Greece), but the work is quite distinct from the Egyptian, and still 

 more, I think, from the Assyrian. In the ruder forms large and 

 small drill holes seem to have been sunk at proper intervals, to serve 

 as body, head and legs, and these were connected by lines scratched 

 with the diamond point, reminding me always strongly of the way 

 in which, long ago, in the nursery, we were taught to draw a caU 

 There are found other scarabs in Italy, where the intaglio work is 

 vigorous and graceful ; but I am disposed myself to refer all these, 

 though made of the same material as the Etruscan, to the better 

 taste and workmanship of the Greeks in Lower Italy. 



From these combined influences, the Greek and Etruscan,, the 



