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and I need only appeal to those who have ever felt in any way the almost intoxicating delight of that quickened existence, in which man can alone create forms of beauty, to declare whether they have not found more enjoyment in that state of being, than under the influence of any other source of enjoyment, except perhaps some direct communing, in the temple or the closet, with Divinity itself. As Gibson the sculptor has said, "The beautiful elevates us above the crowd in this world,—the ideal higher,—yet higher still is the celestial beauty, the fountain of all." Socrates said that outward beauty is the sign of inward. In the life of man, as in an image, every part should be beautiful^[1]." Mengs, a better critic than painter, has elegantly expressed a somewhat similar view. "La Bellezza," he says, "consiste nella perfezione della materia, secondo nostre idee. Siccome Iddio solo e perfetto la Bellezza e percio una cosa divina. Quanto piu di bellezza si trova in una cosa, tanto piu essa e spiritosa. La Bellezza e l'anima della materia."

A fourth reason why art should be studied, is to be recognised in the fruits such study bears to our national importance.

We have seen already that the tendency of the culture of the Fine Arts is to refine men. The refined citizen constitutes the best subject. Gentle and peaceful existence to him becomes a necessity; he best represses disorder, greed, tyranny, presumption; he best holds an even and temperate hand when power is entrusted to his care; he best wields the sword of justice whose tendency and cultivation lead him to desire to sheathe it: in short, that country is foremost in the race of nations to reach the goal of general happiness, the constituents of which study with the greatest zeal, energy and discretion, those arts which refine without enfeebling mankind.

I am of course aware that there are heroic stages of a

1. ↑ Lady Eastlake's Life of Gibson, page 240.