Rome!—My Warrior Son! Thy ancient glory lives in the recorded evidences of thy Parent's Art; for amid the ruined columns of thy Forum glide the spectral forms of Romulus, Junius, Virginius, Brutus, Cato, and of Cicero! Through thy Arches move those of Septimus, Vespasian, Titus, and of Constantine!—And dost thou not speak to all the world from the solemn historic voice of thy giant Coliseum? But beyond all this, from the ashes of thy former magnificence—like the Phœnix upon the spot of Martyrdom, thou hast risen in double splendour to the Glory of THE Saviour and the Faith of an Apostle; and to the triple-fame of Bramante, Raphael, and Angelo!
These are the still-living metropolitan records of by-gone days—from the Heathen to the Christian—they cannot be rejected—from them we trace and prove the æras of the world.
Sculpture has also her own prerogative, apart and separate from her Lord, as a dower-right, a jointure power of instruction; and what immortal pupils has she not produced? They stand as the models of art and intellect—each unapproached—solitary and beautiful,—the human eye contemplates them with the chaste wonder of Creation's daughter—Eve, when from the banks of Eden's limpid waters, she first gazed upon the mirrored image of herself! The Jupiter of Elias,—the Minerva and the Triple-Fates of the Parthenon,—the Medicean Venus and her sister of the Bath,—the gentle Antinöus,—the Athenian Phocian,—The Pythonian Victor—Sun-clad Apollo,—the Serpent-strangled Priest and Sons of Troy, all speak the intellectual power of their mistress: and even the poor Roman captive—the death-struck Gladiator—has been raised by her magic wand from the sandy deathbed of the Coliseum, to live on, unconquered to all posterity!
Sculpture is a title not only applicable to statuary, but to every kind of architectural stone-ornament, and in every stage towards its completion—from the rough-quarried block to the polished marbles of the frieze and pediment: this being admitted, how vast and almost unlimited is the field for historic contemplation! The Antiquary when he removes the trodden earth from the mouldering tomb to trace the deeds of heroes: or from an antique Gem or Medal, raises to light from beneath the dark dust of ages, the bold outline of an imperial head: or, when within the lava-coloured city, a hidden statue from beneath the veil of centuries bursts upon his bewildered sight, he still remembers that Sculpture was the creative power. The traveller who pauses in silent wonder as he views the Egyptian Pyramids (blocks of stone raised to perpetuate a nameless king), turns with redoubled pleasure to contemplate the sculptured marble of Tentyra—in the sight of whose shrines the followers of Napoleon felt amply repaid "for the dangers they had passed." Although the Assyrian Kings have for ages been covered with the sands of their desert, and the wandering Arab sleeps unmolested in the shade of Palmyra's columns, unconscious of his mighty mansion, yet her temples and porticoes speak loudly for the living truth of historic marble.
Greece!—the wonder of the classic age,—the key-stone in the arch of intellect,—owes her glory to Marathon and Salamis, but her living name breathes from the Sculpture of the Acropolis. The proportion given by Ictinus to the body of the Parthenon is fast falling to decay, while the sculptured mantle of Phidias which adorns it adds regality to splendour, and every stone that falls produces but another graceful fold to the gorgeous drapery! Sculpture still preserves Syracuse amid the wreck of time, as when Marcellus wept tears of joy at beholding his mighty conquest: it still points out Carthage, the fatherland of Hannibal, as when Marius upon a prostrate column mourned her desolation. Mysterious Pæstum has no other monument, for her deeds have perished with her records. From Istria to Dalmatia may be traced the historic progress of the art,—the gate of the Sergii, Theatre of Pola, and the Palace of Dioclesian, whose columned wall is mirrored in the Adriatic, all bear convincing testimony. And for ancient Rome!—it is her living history! The Statorian columns of the Forum, lifting high their leafy brows, proclaim the spot where Romulus checked the bold advance of the Sabine Tatius: the solitary shaft of Corinthian form and grace, gives fame to Phocas: the Ionic columns of Concordia's Temple, proudly point the place where Cicero impeached the blood-stained Catiline; while the triumvirate columns of the Tonans-Jupiter preserve the imperial name that witnessed the Redeemer's Birth! The arch of Titus (where the Composite first shone forth) heralds the Conquest of Jerusalem,—its sculpture, a Jewish basilisk, for none of that nation dare pass beneath its gateway. The arch of Constantine, robed in Sculptured history, records the battle with Maxentius, the first victory beneath the Banner of the Cross, and gained by the Christian Prince after his conversion by the vision of the Holy-sign! The column of Antoninus still preserves the deeds of the philosophic Marcus; and while the equestrian statue of the Capitoline Hill presents the figure of Aurelius, the grouped trophies of Marius make known the conquest of the Cimbri! The column of Trajanus blazons forth the wars of the Dacii, thereby transmitting to all ages the costume and weapons of the captives, and of the imperial victors. The circular and columned edifice speaks of Vesta,—her Virgins, and the heathen's perpetual altar-flame: the giant arches near the Forum, of a Temple to the God of Peace, while the earth-buried palace of the Esquiline contained the moving form of that Son of War, who fell beneath the patriot blow of Brutus! The Pantheon,—the Pyramid,—and the Tower,—perpetuate Agrippa, Cestius, and Mætella's fame! The triple-monument of the Appian-Way, tells the historic tale of the first victory that consolidated Rome in early freedom,—it speaks of the Curiatian Brothers who fell for Alba,—of the Horatii that fell for Rome:—the classic eye in viewing those time-honoured tombs looks through a vista of near three thousand years,—it gazes upon the Horatian triumph and his spoils,—it sees a widowed sister's upraised hands in malediction,—it beholds that sister's death from a brother's patriot sword! A sculptured frieze and cornice upon a lone pilastered house, in the most humble street of Rome, speak to the passer-by that within those shattered walls once dwelt the "Last of the Tribunes," Petrarch's friend—renowned Rienzi! Then the blood-cemented Coliseum! It is an history within itself! Commencing with its founders, Vespasian and Titus, and its builders, the poor captives from Jerusalem,—it encloses all the savage and succeeding emperors whose mantles of coronation were there dyed in human gore! Domitian, Commodus, Valerian, and the long line of insatiate murderers of the early Christians! And even Trajan suffered the sands of that arena to receive the mangled body of an Apostle's Minister,—Ignatius of Antioch,—who died like Polycarp of Smyrna, for that Faith which claimed death in cruel torments rather than Apostacy,—from whose lips may have passed the same sentiment as from his successor in martyrdom: "Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He has done me no injury: how then can I blaspheme my King and my Saviour?" Architecture erected the Coliseum, but Sculpture like a funeral pall, mantles this human slaughterhouse of Rome;—not a stone of which, from the base to the ruined cornice, but has an historic voice that speaks, as from the Arimathean Sepulchre of our Religion, of the final Resurrection of those early martyrs to the Faith of Christ!
The humble gravestone of the village churchyard is received as legal evidence of death,—it speaks a name, a date, and burial,—the Acropolis, as the tomb of Athens, can do no more, save that it is the record of a nation's downfall, and not a peasant's.
Sculpture can speak even of the Religious mind of the deceased,—bring it to memory, and instruct us as to the means whereby the departed attained his hope of Salvation,—it presents the transparent medium through which he gazed upon futurity, and believed in his approach to God: for the Cross or Crescent upon a tombstone, needs no other language to inform the passer-by, that the departed was a follower of Christ or Mahomet! If then the mind of a solitary corpse can, as it were again be vivified, by merely contemplating the sculptured emblem of the dead, and that from a single gravestone, may not entire nations be historically resuscitated, when the human eye and mind are brought to gaze upon, and investigate whole Cities of Ruins, with their sculptured Temples, Tombs, and Palaces? Yes! though they should be found amid the darkened forests of the Western Continent, where the panther and beasts of prey were thought alone to dwell. Yes! Palenque, Copan, Chiapas, and their muraled sisters, have historic voices for posterity from their "cities of the dead," the Pompeii and the Herculaneii of the Western Hemisphere,—yet more aged and venerable than even those victims of Vesuvius!
Architecture and Sculpture then claim the right to be received as undeniable evidences of historical record; and, as such, those two branches of the Fine Arts will be admitted by the reader in support, and in illustration of the Epoch now under investigation. Ictinus, Phidias, and Praxiteles,—Bramante, Jones, and Wren,—Canova, Chantrey, and Greenough, may justly be regarded as historians; for from the volumes of their art, events and æras can be traced and established.