lost  the  character  impressed  on  them  by  their  first  teachers:
their  sculpture,  at  a  very  early  period,  far  from  bearing  any
resemblance  to  the  timid  and  lifeless  productions  of  the
Egyptian  artists,  was  carried  to  the  opposite  extreme;  all
is  energy,  and  spirit  and  nature  are  in  a  manner  burlesqued
by  distorted  action  and  violent  gesticulation.  This  entire
change  was  owing  to  the  same  active  and  enterprising
mind,  which  had  enabled  them  still  more  rapidly  to  advance
their  poetry  to  perfection,  and  which  arose  probably  from
the  general  freedom  of  their  governments,  and  the  constant
communication  between  numerous  independent  states.  Yet,
even  in  Greece,  there  was  a  time  in  which  sculpture
unquestionably  partook  of  that  stiff  columnar  style,  which,
from  the  remotest  antiquity,  prevailed  on  the  banks  of  the
Nile,  unimproved  and  unchanged  by  succeeding  ages.  The
Daedalean  statues,  notwithstanding  the  exaggeration  of
ancient  writers,  appear  to  have  been  of  this  kind,  and  the
existing  descriptions  of  the  earliest  representations  of  the
deities,  with  the  imitations  of  these  works  still  remaining
to  our  times,  place  the  resemblance  beyond  all  doubt.
Architecture  too,  although  it  quickly  ceased  to  be  solely
employed  in  the  erection  of  operose  and  tasteless  fabrics,
and  became  in  the  hands  of  the  Greeks  distinguished  for
propriety,  elegance,  and  grandeur,  may  yet  be  said  to  have
been,  in  some  measure,  indebted  to  the  practical  endeavours
of  this  contemptible  people.
In  thus  mentioning  the  obligations  of  Grecian  architecture
to  the  practice  of  Egypt,  the  statement  must  be  understood
as  limited  to  the  mere  mechanism  of  the  art,  and  not  as