have agreed in saying. Here we have master-pieces, beyond which the
sculptors of the many ages that have passed away since Phidias
laboured at his Jupiter in the Olympian grove have never reached. High
praise this to say of a man who has been twenty-two centuries in his
grave, that he accomplished in the utmost perfection those ideals to
which his imitators have vainly aspired. It appears that Phidias had
his troubles, knew the force of a frown from men in power, and in
exile produced his master-piece. Whether he died in disgrace and by
foul means are points upon which the dust of ages has settled for
ever. We know thus much of him and no more. But the visitor who has
probably been more impressed with the contents of the Elgin Saloon
than with the massive coarseness of the Egyptian antiquities, will be
glad to hear a few general words--an authoritative summing up of the
matter from a pen more clearly authorised to touch the subject than
ours can be. A brief summary, a terse description, analytical and
picturesque, of a field of speculation or a region of wonder,
systematises the spectator's impression, and with the view of
fastening the proper contemplation of these master-pieces upon the
visitor's mind, we quote a few pointed sentences on the sculptures of
the Elgin Saloon, from the pen of Sir Henry Ellis.

"These marbles, chiefly ornamental, belong to one edifice dedicated to
the guardian deity of the city, raised at the time of the greatest
political power of the state, when all the arts which contribute to
humanise life were developing their beneficial influence. Many of the
writers of Athens, whose works are the daily textbooks of our schools,
saw in their original perfection the mutilated marbles which we still
cherish and admire. The Elgin collection has presented us with the
external and material forms, in which the art of Phidias gave life and
reality to the beautiful mythi which veiled the origin of his native
city, and perpetuated in groups of matchless simplicity the ceremonies
of the great national festival. The lover of beauty and the friend of
Grecian learning will here find a living comment on what he reads; and
as in the best and severest models of antiquity we always discover
something new to admire, so here we find fresh beauties at every
visit, and learn how infinite in variety are simplicity and truth, and
how every deviation from these principles produces sameness and
satiety. It is but just that