derful taste of that gifted people speedily raised them to a point of excellence, never attained by the Egyptians or any others, the rise and first germs of art and architecture must be sought in the valley of the Nile. In the oldest monuments of Greece, the sloping or pyramidal line constantly predominates; the columns in the oldest Greek order are almost purely Egyptian, in the proportions of the shaft, and in the form of its shallow flutes without fillets; and it is a remarkable fact that the oldest Egyptian columns are those which bear the closest resemblance to the Greek Doric.

Though great variety was permitted in objects of luxury, as furniture, vases, and other things depending on caprice, the Egyptians were forbidden to introduce any material innovations into the human figure, such as would alter its general character; and all subjects connected with religion retained to the last the same conventional type. A god in the latest temple was of the same form, as when represented on monuments of the earliest date; and King Menes would have recognised Amun, or Osiris, in a Ptolemaic or a Roman sanctuary. In sacred subjects the law was inflexible; and religion, which has frequently done so much for the development and direction of taste in sculpture, had the effect of fettering the genius of Egyptian artists. No improvements, resulting from experience and observation, were admitted in the mode of drawing the human figure; to copy nature was not allowed; it was therefore useless to study it, and no attempt was made to give the proper action to the limbs. Certain rules, certain models had been established by the priesthood; and the faulty conceptions of ignorant times were copied and perpetuated by every successive artist. For, as Plato and Synesius say, the Egyptian sculptors were not suffered to attempt anything contrary to the regulations laid down regarding the figures of the gods; they were forbidden to introduce any change, or to invent new subjects and habits; and thus the art, and the rules which bound it, always remained the same.

Egyptian bas-relief appears to have been, in its origin, a mere copy of painting, its predecessor. The first attempt to represent the figures of gods, sacred emblems, and other subjects consisted

in drawing, or painting, simple outlines of them on a flat surface, the details being afterwards put in with colour; but in process of time these forms were traced on stone with a tool, and the intermediate space between the various figures being afterwards cut away, the once level surface assumed the appearance of a basrelief. It was, in fact, a pictorial representation on stone, which is evidently the character of all the bas-reliefs on Egyptian monuments; and which readily accounts for the imperfect arrangement of their figures.

Deficient in conception, and above all in a proper knowledge of grouping, they were unable to form those combinations which give true expression; every picture was made up of isolated parts, put together according to some general notions, but without harmony, or preconceived effect. The human face, the whole body, and everything they introduced, were composed in the same manner, of separate members placed together one by one according to their relative situations: the eye, the nose, and other features composed a face; but the expression of feelings and passions was entirely wanting; and the countenance of the king, whether charging an enemy's phalanx in the heat of battle, or peaceably offering incense in a sombre temple, presented the same outline and the same inanimate look. The peculiarity of the front view of an eye, introduced in a profile, is thus accounted for it was the ordinary representation of that feature added to a profile, and no allowance was made for any change in the position of the head.

It was the same with drapery: the figure was first drawn, and the drapery then added, not as part of the whole, but as an accessory; they had no general conception, no previous idea of the effect required to distinguish the warrior or the priest, beyond the impressions received from costume, or from the subject of which they formed a part; and the same figure was dressed according to the character it was intended to perform. Every portion of a picture was conceived by itself, and inserted as it was wanted to complete the scene; and when the walls of the building, where a subject was to be drawn, had been accurately ruled with squares, the figures were introduced, and fitted

to this mechanical arrangement. The members were appended to the body, and these squares regulated their form and distribution, in whatever posture they might be placed.

As long as this conventional system continued, no great change could take place, beyond a slight variation in the proportions, which at one period became more elongated, particularly in the reign of the second Remeses; but still the general form and character of the figures continued the same, which led to the remark of Plato, "that the pictures and statues made ten thousand years ago, are in no one particular better or worse than what they now make." And taken in this limited sense-that no nearer approach to the beau ideal of the human figure, or its real character, was made at one period than another-his remark is true, since they were always bound by the same regulations, which prohibited any change in these matters, even to the latest times; as is evident from the sculptures of the monuments erected after Egypt had long been a Roman province. All was still Egyptian, though of bad style; and if they then attempted to finish the details with more precision, it was only substituting ornament for simplicity; and the endeavour to bring the proportions of the human figure nearer to nature, with the retention of its conventional type, only made its deformity greater, and showed how incompatible the Egyptian was with any other style.

The proportions of the human figure did not, as I have just said, continue always the same. During the 4th and other early dynasties it differed from that of the Augustan age of the 18th and 19th; and another change took place under the Ptolemies. The chief alteration was in the height of the knee from the ground, which was higher during the 18th and 19th than in the ancient and later periods. The whole height of the figure in bas-reliefs and paintings was then divided into nineteen parts; and the wall having been ruled in squares, according to its intended size, all the parts of it were put in according to their established positions; the knee, for instance, falling on the sixth line. But the length of the foot was not, as in Greece, the standard from which they reckoned; for being equal to 3 spaces, it could not be taken as the base of 19; though the height of the foot being 1 might

Mode of drawing the human figure on a wall, previous to its being sculptured or painted; showing the proportions during the 18th and 19th dynasties.

Thebes.

answer for the unit. (See Müller's Ancient Art, p. 392, on Greek forms.)

:

In the composition of modern paintings three objects are required one main action; one point of view; and one instant of time and the proportions and harmony of the parts are regulated by perspective; but in Egyptian sculpture these essentials were disregarded: every thing was sacrificed to the principal figure; its colossal dimensions pointed it out as a centre to which all the rest was a mere accessory; and, if any other was made equally conspicuous, or of equal size, it was still in a subordinate station, and only intended to illustrate the scene connected with the hero of the piece.

In the paintings of the tombs greater licence was allowed in the representation of subjects relating to private life, the trades, or the manners and occupations of the people; and some indication of perspective in the position of the figures may occasionally be observed but the attempt was imperfect, and, probably, to an Egyptian eye, unpleasing; for such is the force of habit, that even where nature is copied, a conventional style is sometimes preferred to a more accurate representation.

In the battle scenes on the temples of Thebes, some of the figures representing the monarch pursuing the flying enemy, despatching a hostile chief with his sword, and drawing his bow, as his horses carry his car over the prostrate bodies of the slain, are drawn with much spirit; and the position of the arms gives a perfect idea of the action which the artist intended to portray; still, the same imperfections of style, and want of truth, are observed; there is action, but no sentiment, expression of the passions, nor life in the features; it is a figure ready formed, and mechanically varied into movement; and whatever position it is made to assume, the point of view is the same: the identical profile of the human body with the anomaly of the shoulders seen in front. It is a description, rather than a representation.

But in their mode of portraying a large crowd of persons they often show great cleverness; and, as their habit was to avoid uniformity, the varied positions of the heads give a truth to the subject without fatiguing the eye. Nor have they any