exhibiting his picture, found it necessary to explain, "This is Daniel, and those are the lions." For surely, in looking at the landscape of the Assyrian artist, some such exegesis is called for. It is doubtful, indeed, whether any explanation can make it quite intelligible. For example, an army is represented retreating over a bridge, or narrow strip of land with water on each side. The figures are capitally drawn, but the only indication of the river is a row of fishes above and below, half of them with their noses turned up, and half of them with their noses turned down.

We admire the expedient, yet not without surprisesurprise, not that these men were unable to draw more correctly, but rather that with their helplessness to represent the simplest object of a landscape they should have approached so very closely to a true rendering of that which is more difficult to express–the human form.

But if we turn from these half-barbarous examples to the High Art of the Classic period we find the same thing recurring. Again the influence of the national life. upon the schools becomes as manifest as the influence of the individual life upon the work of each artist. The passions of their gods; the majesty of their kings; the heroism of their warriors; the beauty of their women; the pluck of their gladiators-these were the themes that fired the soul of Greek and Roman.

And think for a moment what all this meant to the poet and the painter. In the gladiator he saw the development of the human frame in its strength and flexibility; in the king he saw the human form in its dignity; in the warrior, still the man-not standing apart and scientifically directing the issue, but in the breach himself, the Hector of the fight. In woman, again, he saw the human form-robed with perfect modesty and grace, but still the human form-not Elizabethan walls, built up of materials known or unknown, in which a human form is supposed to move.

But the modern artist-Nature he sees, but man never. He does see the individual, he does dissect with his scalpel, he does know every bone and muscle, better perhaps than did the Greek; but the human frame, as a living thing—in stillness, in fierce conflict, in passion of great joy or triumph, in pain, and weariness, and anguish this he does not see, and so he cannot paint it.

We read in Homer of the shield, made by the Artist God at the entreaty of Thetis, that she might present it to Achilles. Were there no cornfields there? Ah, yes,

Forests and streams, with scattered cots between,

And fleecy flocks that whiten all the scene.
Fields furrowed deep, or high with waving grain,
Children and women with the reaper train.

Is not this Landscape Art? Yes; but it is Land

scape Art in Poetry. Where is Achilles' shield? The gods are immortal, yet it seems that their works may perish or perhaps the warrior carried it with him to the Elysian Fields when he became immortal too. As

to the works of Art which do remain to us, they were made by men-and we fail to see in them that exquisite rendering of Nature which we should have expected from the accomplished Greek. The outline in the margin is from a rare Antique. It represents Jason preparing to seize the Golden Fleece, while Medea charms the ever-watchful Dragon. But the tree! It

would be manifestly unfair to judge a school by this early work. Yet it is sufficient to indicate the disparity that already existed between the landscape and figuredrawing of Classic times.

Of the Greek landscapists, however, we know very little, for the heirlooms of Classic Art are but of one kind. We have the cloud-compelling god, but nothing of the cirrus or cumulus that fill the sky. Instead of the sunrise we see Aurora: instead of the fields we see Pan. Were there no forests of dark cypress then to lie beneath the white moon?—we see only Diana as she stoops to kiss Endymion. Was there no blaze of light in the meridian sky? - we see only Apollo in Were there no cornfields ?-we see only

his chariot.

Ceres.

And when, after a thousand years of silent darkness, the Arts revived, it was a renascence to Passion rather than to Nature. I have already traced this renascence in its association with Religious Art, and shown how it affected the Schools in concentrating the painter's thoughts upon the expression of human emotion. The poet was held by no such conditions, hence the sweet outbursts of song that came like blessings on the cornfields, even while the seed was yet lying in the dark ground. But to the early painters the ground was indeed very dark and cold. There is no difficulty in finding in the Medieval school a parallel to the well

drilled regiment of Assyrian fishes. Amongst the mosaics in St. Mark's, Venice, there is a representation of the Deluge. The Ark is seen resting upon the waters. Here then was an opportunity-nay, rather a

necessity for Landscape Art. But how are the waves represented? By a series of twisted lines or curious coils, that stand to Nature only in the relation of a hieroglyph. And yet, by the same hand, on the same walls, are mosaics of saints and martyrs, kings and priests, visions of the Apocalyptic splendours, our Lord seated in majesty with angels and archangels casting their crowns at His feet; so that again we are met by the strange spectacle of a School of Art able to express