of the same melody, so also do the figures of the group, some standing, some reclining, some kneeling, some rising, some draped, some nude, meet our sight in various ways so as to constitute in their variety, one great pattern; balance each other on opposite sides of the gable, slope and taper down towards the extremities, grow and rise higher towards the middle where the vertex of the triangular temple front, the triumphant centre of the rhythm and harmony of lines, is formed by the majestic, magnificent mother between her two eldest, most beautiful daughters. And now, think no more of this terra-cotta than, having learned the shape of a hymn by Bach or a psalm by Marcello on the piano, you would think of the poor miserable piano-notes which you hear with your ears, instead of the mass of voices which you hear with your fancy. Think of this Niobe group, twice humansized, standing on the weather-mellowed, delicately painted marble temple front; the amber-tinted figures against the dark hollow formed by the projecting roof; the sunshine drawing on the black back-ground, as with a luminous pencil, the great solemn masses of light and shadow, the powerfully rhythmed attitudes, the beautiful combinations of lines and light and shade produced by the gesture, which now raises, now drops the drapery, opposing to the large folds, heavy and severe, the minute, most supple, and most subtle plaits; and to the strong broken shadows of the drapery, the shining smoothness of the nude. Think of that, and remember then the single figures in their best examples, the mother and eldest daughter of Florence, the headless younger daughter of the Vatican, the exquisite dying boy of Munich; and think, by recollecting these dispersed noblest copies, what must the lost original have been. And thus, looking at the little rough terra-cotta model, and magnifying it in fancy into the great superb group such as it must have stood on the temple, there comes home to us, filling, expanding our mind, an almost ineffable sense of perfection of line and curve, and light and shade, perfection as of the sweeping wave of some great mountain, distant and deep blue against the pale sky; perfection as of the pearled edge of the tiny pink cyclamen petal; as of the single small voice, swelling and diminishing in crisp exquisiteness every little turn and shake, and again as of the many chords of multitudinous voices rolling out in great joyous sound billows; perfection of whole in harmony and graduation of perfect parts: perfection of visible form.

But by the side of this overwhelming positive sense of beauty there creeps into our consciousness an irritating little sense of negation. For the more intense becomes our perception of the form, the vaguer becomes our recollection of the subject; the strong imaginative realization of the story of Niobe, conjured up by the mere mention of her name, dwindles to nothing in the presence of the group representing the chief incident of history; the skrieks and desperate scuffling of feet, which we had heard in our fancy, gradually die into silence; our senses cease to shrink with horror, our sympathies cease to vibrate with pity, as we look upon this visible embodiment of the terrible tragedy. We are no longer feeling emotion; we are merely perceiving beauty. How has this come to pass? Shall we look into ourselves and analyze in the darkness of our consciousness? Nay, rather first look for an explanation in the materially visible, the clear, easily examined work of art. Come and look at the group once more: this time not to understand its beauty, but to understand why there is in it nothing beyond this beauty.

Certainly, the group answers very well to the general idea of the massacre of the Niobides: the figures have the attitudes of men and women overtaken by a sudden danger against which they seek, but vainly, to shield themselves: the mother clasps the cowering, clinging, youngest girl, and tries to cover her with her mantle, her arms, her whole body, to let the child melt into herself and be lost; the youngest son sinks, panting and helpless, on to one knee; the eldest daughter bends forward to throw her veil over a dead brother; the younger daughter mechanically raises her draped arm to ward off the shafts from her face; another son hastens away, looking bewildered around him, trying to see from which side come the arrows, which come from all sides. All this is perfectly correct in expression; we are bound to admit that these are the probable movements and gestures of people situated like Niobe and her children. We cannot find fault with anything, yet we feel a vague sense of unreality. Unreality to ourselves? Nay, rather, unreality to the artist: we perceive, little by little, that everyone of these evident indications of a catastrophe is connected with a grand gesture, a noble fold, a harmonious combination of masses: the mother raising the arm covered with her cloak and clasping the child with the other, produces thereby a magnificent contrast between the round, bunched fold of the mantle, and the straight, narrow folds of her skirt, nay, between the simple and ample drapery covering her own bosom, and the minute clinging crinkles on the back of the little one; the wounded youth sinks down in such a way as to display the grand muscles of his throat and shoulders; the girl covering her naked dead brother, forms with him, a powerfully-balanced mass of brightly-lit nude and broken, shadow-furrowed drapery; and all the remaining children stoop and cower and stretch forth their arms in such a way as to produce the inclination of the two sides of the triangle crowning the temple. Moreover, the pathetic, upward movement of the mother's head, by slightly drawing down the jaw, and in upturning the eyes, contracting the brows into a triangular furrow, accentuates the grandeur of the grand features, and prevents the light from above falling upon a mere flat expanse of cheek and forehead; the eldest daughter stooping tenderly over the dead boy produces, in so doing, an incomparable curve of neck and shoulders; and thus, with all the other figures, the gesture is invariably productive of a definite beauty of form. And, on the other hand, there is not present a single one of the gestures or attitudes which would certainly produce definite ugliness of form, and would yet be as appropriate and inevitable to the situation as these. There is not, in this group, any movement, any effect, of which we could decidedly say that it would not arise in a scene like this; but, in a scene like this, there would certainly be a great many movements and effects which cannot be found in the group. Hence, the dramatic expression of the work is essentially negative: in the mind of the artist the realisation of the scene, the bringing home of the story, has been a purely secondary thing, and therefore the realisation of the scene, the bringing home of the story, is secondary also to us, the spectators. The impression produced in us is exactly corresponding to the interest dominant in the artist: he has cared for the subject only inasmuch as it afforded suggestions for beautiful forms; and we therefore have perceived the beautiful forms, and forgotten the subject. The object of the artist has been, whether or not he formulated it clearly to himself, not to bring home the situation to the fancy; not to awaken an emotion; but to present to the eye and the mind a mere beautiful form. And that such has been his object, is the first and main lesson which we have learned from the Niobe group, as it was the first and main lesson learned by the child of our fairy tale from the innumerable statues which, during those long years in the Vatican, were its silent teachers.

To present to the eye and the mind a mere beautiful form, this seems a terrible low and limited definition of the aim of a great artist, of a whole great national art. Surely not this. The aim of the artist, of the innumerable artists constituting antique art, must have been nobler: the form for them must have been the mere physical embodiment of the ideas and the presentation of the beautiful