The beginnings of Greek art were very imperfect. How great is the distance between the representation of the three Graces, by three long and smooth stone blocks, without limbs, and the completion of the Phidian Jove! Thus nature proceeds through her various works, till she arrives at the wonder of creation-man. Through what numberless degrees of formation does she not pass, from the unorganized pebble, to this perfect and unsurpassable organization! If, then, we admit that art must act in the same manner as the creative spirit of nature,—that is, that each form must be organized according to the ideas of beauty conceived by the artist, we see that the external form of beauty can only grow out of the artist's observance of the perfect harmony between form and idea. Here no laws, no lines of beauty, can be given; the entire process is a secret, of which genius, itself, first becomes conscious during the representation. The Greeks had no models before them; why then have they been enabled to create models for us? Because they listened at the threshold of nature, and creatively showed forth her inspiration. They strove to represent the idea within them, and in this continual endeavour to express the conception in the substance, the masterpiece was at length achieved. Their art then, as the representation of their own beautiful Greek life, is certainly national. We will not here stop to inquire how closely this is connected with the freedom of their political institutions, the object of which was to secure the perfect

harmony between body and mind; and to this object their public assemblies, feasts, national games, and religious festivals, were all directed. The character of Greek art has a peculiar charm, and unattained by any other people. In vain would you point to the works of Rome, from Augustus to the Antonini, since they were formed either by Greek artists or by Romans, who had studied in Greece, and had there resigned their native character, so that the specimens in question belong more properly to Greek than to Roman art.

The result of what we have before said concerning the nationality of art is, that this nationality is the individual conception belonging to a people, and its just representation of the ideas of the beautiful. So considered, national character is analogous to the personal character of an individual; that is to say, as the individual in his words and actions, in his scientific and æsthetical creations, has, besides his idea of the morally good and the æsthetically beautiful, an expression of his own personal character and disposition of mind, as the mark of his mental peculiarity, with which no other can be the same, though similar; so art, if genuine, and if not merely servile copying, will bear the characteristic impress of the people among whom it appears: and thus true poetry, as one branch of art, must always reflect the popular character; that is, it must be national. I have already designated modern art, as it formed itself in the western nations after the destruction of the

Roman empire, and has continued with unremitted progress to our own times, by the general name of romantic, as describing its peculiar character. We must not, however, lose sight of the fact, that this romantic art, in progress of time, has represented itself in various national colours. The different literatures of the European peoples developed themselves, in proportion as the various European languages gradually gained a determined form, by the separation of the peculiar characters of those peoples, which now, through the higher band of culture and civilization, are combined into one European federative union, however much political prejudice and selfish policy may counteract this lofty purpose. The character of art, during the middle ages, is generally of one tone and colour, though the different shades are perceptible therein; and in like manner we see, in the boy and in the youth, a greater generality and resemblance of characteristic features: the personal character is certainly evinced in the inclinations and amusements of youth, but that character wants determination and individuality, which is fully displayed first in man. In European mankind, awakened to perfect manhood after the reformation, this individual character of the different peoples appears fully delineated. If we take under one view the national features of art in different countries, it seems that they are invariably and unavoidably consequent on the condition of human nature in those countries. As, in history, an Alexander, or a Charlemagne, can only once appear,

so a Greek, a German, or an English language and art, can be found but once. Those who have contended that one eternal art and science exists for all times and peoples, confound the principle of there being but one idea, as the source of all art, namely, that of beauty, manifested (as Plato says) by God to the mind of man: this they confound with the execution or representation thereof. Human intellect we have above taken as the creative element of science, entering upon various subjects, but always by the same path, and hence we deduced that science had, not a national, but an universal character. But poetry, the offspring of feeling and fancy, and religious intuition, appears in changeful hues, according to the variance of those qualities in nations and individuals. Hence the variety of mythology, in the mysterious gloom of which the origin of every people is veiled. It is true that the various mythological creeds of almost all nations, whose history has been transmitted to us, spring from one common source, an antehistorical revelation; but their clothing the exterior form given to them by poetry-differs in the different peoples, and loses the common character, as the nation deviates from the primitive religious belief and individualizes itself.

We thus endeavoured to determine the limits of art, and to come to an understanding of its character, in contradistinction to that of science; and having found, in feeling and fancy, the qualities of the human mind, by which the idea of the beautiful attempts to

acquire form, it must appear obvious that activity is an innate property of feeling and fancy, which do not lie dormant in the human breast, but live and express their life, in the attempt to gain the form of beauty.

All this would seem to be sufficiently clear, for few would undertake to dispute the propriety of our considering feeling and fancy, as the agents by which art is compelled into a visible form. But there is a point which we have not yet touched,-one also which is the principal element of all art, its very innermost and essential being. I mean that idea of the beautiful of which I have frequently spoken in the foregoing lectures, without, however, defining what I understood thereby. This "idea of the beautiful" is, in fact, the nucleus of the whole inquiry; for as man is the identity of body and soul, so art seems to be the identity of idea and form. You can understand nothing of the form, unless acquainted with the idea. But, gentlemen, from time immemorial philosophers have been much perplexed in their attempts to describe and define the nature of the soul, and no less so, that of beauty. Now, it would be assumption in me to attempt the decision of a point, upon which men of immortal genius have disagreed. Few philosophers are to be named, who have not touched the subject. Mr. von Schlegel, so renowned in England for his profound philosophical and critical powers, and for his extensive erudition, enumerated, during his lectures, delivered at Berlin, on the Theory and History of the Arts of