hey were
only called in to neutralize the aforesaid obstacles, which obstacles
have proved to be fictitious. It remains then to consider the
_artistic_ objection of costume, &c., which consideration ranges
under the head of _real differences between the things of past and
present times_, a consideration formerly postponed. But this
requiring a patient analysis, will necessitate a further
postponement, and in conclusion, there will be briefly stated the
elements of the argument, thus.--It must be obvious to every
physicist that physical beauty (which this subject involves on the
one side [the ancient] as opposed to the want of it on the other [the
modern]) was in ancient times as superior to physical beauty in the
modern, as psychical beauty in the modern is superior to psychical
beauty in the ancient. Costume then, as physical, is more beautiful
ancient than modern. Now that a certain amount of physical beauty is
requisite to constitute Fine Art, will be readily admitted; but what
that amount is, must be ever undefined. That the maximum of physical
beauty does not constitute the maximum of Fine Art, is apparent from
the facts of the physical beauty of _Early Christian_ Art being
inferior to that of Grecian art; whilst, in the concrete, Early
Christian Art is superior to Grecian. Indeed some specimens of Early
Christian Art are repulsive rather than beautiful, yet these are in
many cases the highest works of Art.

In the "Plague at Ashdod," great physical beauty, resulting from
picturesque costume and the exposed human figure, was so far from
desirable, that it seems purposely deformed by blotches of livid
color; yet the whole is a most noble work of Poussin. Containing as
much physical beauty as this picture, the writer remembers to have
seen an incident in the streets where a black-haired, sordid,
wicked-headed man, was striking the butt of his whip at the neck of a
horse, to urge him round an angle of the pavement; a smocked
countryman offered him the loan of his mules: a blacksmith standing
by, showed him how to free the wheel, by only swerving the animal to
the left: he, taking no notice whatever, went on striking and
striking; whilst a woman waiting to cross, with a child in her one
hand, and with the other pushing its little head close to her side,
looked with wide eyes at this monster.

This familiar incident, affording a subject fraught with more moral
interest than, and as much picturesque matter as, many an