eness and finish they are deserving of the highest
commendation, yet in grandeur of conception and in boldness of
execution they fall far short of the sculptures of Sethos and the
second Remeses.

The skill of the Egyptian artists in drawing bold and clear outlines
is, perhaps, more worthy of admiration than anything connected with
this branch of art, and in no place is the freedom of their drawing
more conspicuous than in the figures in the unfinished part of
Belzoni's tomb, at Thebes. It was in the drawing alone that they
excelled, being totally ignorant of the correct mode of coloring a
figure, and their painting was not an imitation of nature, but merely
the harmonious combination of certain hues, which they well
understood. Indeed, to this day the harmony of positive colors is
thoroughly felt in Egypt and the East, and it is strange to find the
little perception of it in Northern Europe, where theories take upon
themselves to explain to the mind what the eye has not yet learned, as
if a grammar could be written before the language is understood.

A remarkable feature of Egyptian sculpture is the frequent
representation of their Kings in a colossal form. The two most famous
colossi are the seated figures in the plain of Thebes. One is
recognized to be the vocal Memnon (Amunoph III.) mentioned by Strabo.
They are forty-seven feet high, and measure about eighteen feet three
inches across the shoulders. But the grandest and largest colossal
statue was the stupendous statue of King Remeses II., a Syenite
granite, in the Memnonium, at Thebes. It represented the King seated
on a throne, in the usual attitude of Kings, the hands resting on his
knees. It is now in fragments. It measured twenty-two feet four inches
across the shoulders. According to Sir G. Wilkinson, the whole mass,
when entire, must have weighed about 887 tons. A colossal statue of
Remeses II. lies with his face upon the ground on the site of Memphis;
it was placed before the temple of Pthah. Its total height is
estimated at forty-two feet eight inches, without the pedestal. It is
of white siliceous limestone. Another well-known colossus is the
statue of the so-called Memnon, now in the British Museum. It is
supposed to be the statue of Remeses II. It was brought by Belzoni
from the Memnonium, at Thebes.

In the different epochs of Egyptian sculpture, the Egyptian artists
were bound by certain fixed canons or rules of proportion to guide
them in their l