winds in doubling folds, and rests its flat head on the border. Its intelligent, cunning look tells that it is listening to what the god is saying to his messenger, the winged Griffon. The Griffon-emblem of blind obedience and alacrity-stands at the left side, with closed eyes and lifted paw, as if impatient to run, to fly, in order to execute swiftly the commands of the god. The drapery of the statue, which is a simple chlamys knotted on the right shoulder, crosses the upper part of the chest in straight lines, covers the left shoulder, and falls over the back. The lines of the figure and the grouping of the accessories are very harmonious; the modelling is broad and free; the lights and shadows, also, are singularly well balanced.

But the pose of the body and the expression of the face give this Torlonia Apollo an especial character. The form is slightly bent in one of those serpentine positions which the Greeks gave only to Apollo and to Bacchus-that god who also symbolised inspiration, verve, and that cerebral excitement which the Italians name so well, l'estro poetica. There is a fascinating freedom in this pose of the Torlonia Apollo, and also a cool high indifference, which, united to the expression of the face, creates its character of melancholy and disdain. The face is majestic and calm; but it is also sarcastic and sad, as if the god knew humanity would never have the good sense to profit by his revelations. This peculiar expression of melancholy and disdain is more powerfully accentuated in the Torlonia Apollo than in the most perfect statues that represent the god elsewhere-as, for instance, in the two or three of his fine statues of the Louvre, the Apollo Saurocthonos, the Apollo of the Villa Albani, and another Apollo in the Torlonia Museum, leaning against the trunk of a tree on which hangs the lyre. It is owing, in a great part, to the character of his look, which is fixed on his griffon, and whom he regards with a sad smile. This expression is deepened by the shadow which the thick piled-up hair throws over the face. The hair is not in the twist known as the Apollo knot, which distinguishes the Apollo Belvedere, but it rises up and over the forehead. The mouth in the Torlonia Apollo has a peculiarity worthy of remark, as it is rare in nature, still more rare in statues-the smile lifts the lips without making the corners of the mouth thin. There is always a sadness in the Apollo faces. In the statue we are describing this expression is mingled with a pitying look, which gives to this representation of the Pythian Apollo a character of sympathy and irony united, of splendid beauty; a condescension full of pity for the justice of the verdict hidden in the dark folds of the future. The Greeks alone possessed the secret of these subtle expressions. Never since their day has art repeated the attractive and mysterious sculptural word which this statue seems to utter so forcibly-a divine despair of a superhuman being, who cannot communicate to man the joy which comes only from celestial ecstasies.

III.

In the 1st gallery, 2d avenue, No. 98, stands the Prometheus. This admirable statue, which also belonged to the Giustiniani Collection, is

bold and original in conception, poetical in treatment, and remarkably fine in the modelling, especially of the legs and shoulders, the muscles of the right knee, and the joining of the arms to the shoulder-blades. It is undoubtedly a work of Greek art. The body of the Titan is nude, the form is slender, spiritual, expressive of intellectual longing and desire. The audacious god has finished the image of man-a small archaic figure that stands beside him, stiff and lifeless; there are also the little rolls of modelling clay just as they are used by modern sculptors. The arms of the Titan are lifted above the upraised head; the united hands hold a torch,-he is watching eagerly to catch a divine spark of life for his creation.

This statue takes an important place in the history of Greek art, because it shows to what a high point the peculiar character of this nation -so gifted by nature-could elevate itself, in the highest manifestations of its men of genius, above that materialism, sensuality, and love of sensible enjoyments, in which, however, its manners and intellects were finally submerged.

To express the superhuman force of a Titan, the artist has taken care to avoid the muscular strength which distinguished the Athletessuch admirable types of which we see in this very Torlonia gallery; still less has he thought of creating an ideal of physical power, always invincible and triumphant, as we are accustomed to see in all the statues of Hercules. The grandeur and force of this Prometheus is purely intellectual. To make us feel and comprehend the subject, he has modelled the body with such lightness and nervous elasticity, rendered it so slender and slight, that not only it seems to have the least possible materiality, but you might even say, in spite of the weight of the marble, that all the beautiful body is only an appearance-a soul -a spirit which has clothed itself with an apparent perfect human form in order to manifest itself to us; but at the same time, without that form being a veritable corporeal substance. All is vibrant, speaking, eloquent, full of feeling. Indeed, if the Titan were not in the act of robbing the sacred spark from heaven to animate the little form beside him-which he has modelled, and which characterises a Prometheus, makes of him a Titan-we might say that this admirable figure was meant for a Christian archangel. And so light is it, that although it has no wings, it seems ready to dissolve into the air by the sole act of its own will,

"And what seemed corporeal

Melt as breath into the wind.'

Raphael and other artists tried to obtain this same effect of incorporeal lightness in their conceptions of the Archangel Michael. But they fell far behind that which was attained by the ancient sculptor in this representation of the Greek Titan, because they did not know how to give to their creations that supernatural perpendicularity. Their bodies have horizontal lines, they are too fleshy, too clumsy, too heavy for a superhuman being, although the little St. Michael of Raphael,

Louvre gallery, compensates by the movement for its materiality, which recalls that of a bird coming down in a flight from above. And, by the way, the legend of the Titan was after all only one of the forms tradition took in order to teach man what had been revealed about the great combat in heaven between the good and bad angels, and which ended by the evil spirits being precipitated from the celestial spheres. In the same 1st gallery, 2d avenue, are two statues, Nos. 92 and 93, named Esculapius and Hygeia, which are indeed worthy of being mentioned among the works I have selected as types and illustrations of the remarkable excellence of the Lungara Torlonia Museum. They came from that marvellous Porto, the wonders of which I have already told. A learned archæologist visited the ruins of the imperial palace at the time these statues were discovered, and his description of the atrium with niches where they stood, reads like the story of an enchanted palace. "The niches," he writes, "were empty, but on the marble floor in front of them lay statues of exquisite chiselling, a Muse (Hygeia), an Esculapius, a stupendous bust of an Athlete, a half figure of Septimius Severus, a Leda, a Philosopher, a Slave, and a smaller Esculapius."

The Porto Esculapius of the Torlonia Museum has a majestic dignified character, and, as the writer above quoted says, “è di squisito scalpello;" for the well-arranged folds of the drapery and the beneficent face are skilfully executed. The Hygeia, goddess of mental as well as physical health, is admirable in pose; the transparent folds of the drapery show all the outlines of her body and its vigorous development. The neck-line is soft and tender, and the modelling of the throat is excellent. She is tending the holy serpent, and the sentiment expressed has in it something of maternal love, as if the Greek who created her had at that moment an intuition, a presentiment, of what Christian charity would be one day.

Esculapius and Hygeia were always placed by the ancients in healthy positions; but Ostia and its suburb Porto are no longer favoured sites of these children of Apollo. When their beautiful statues adorned the imperial atrium at Porto, however, it was a delicious spot, "where the spirit enjoyed repose and the body recovered health. Romans went there to give themselves up to the delight of trampling on the sand of the seashore, which yielded softly beneath their feet, and to breathe that light breeze which restored lost vigour to their fatigued limbs," as Minutius Felix says in his charming "Octavius," one of the most beautiful memories connected with the now desolate Tiberina coast.

The remarkable Hercules and Telephus group (Hercules Visconti) No. 296, 2d gallery, 7th hall, has been much talked of although it has never been seen by the public. It came from the temple of Hercules that was enclosed within the luxurious precincts of that great Porto palace of Trajan. This group presents to us a specimen of antique art which is very curious in development and meaning. Like Minerva and Apollo, Hercules has his attributes-the club and lion's skin.

The god holds his son Telephus most tenderly on one of his great broad hands. The hind that nursed the child stands to the right and gazes up eagerly at her charge. The pose of Telephus is delicious and full of nature: one knee is bent and rests on the huge hand of Hercules, the other baby foot braces against his father's body; his little hands grasp the lion's skin on which he is seated, and which forms the drapery and head-covering of Hercules. The lion's head makes a sort of helmet; the teeth rest on the hero's brows like an upraised visor or a strange crown. The body of the god is so muscular that it is meagre, but at the same time vigorous and bold. The face of Hercules is inexpressibly sad, indeed pathetic; he looks up as if imploring Jove to protect the child, knowing but too well the ingratitude of human hearts, and the vicissitudes of mortal destiny.

The charming group of Cupid and Psyche, which I have already casually mentioned, is in the 1st gallery, 4th avenue, No. 172. It is also a work unknown to the public, and was found near Castro Prætorio. The children are winged. Cupid holds Psyche's head back, and her arms are around him. The expression of the two faces is delicious. They gaze at each other intently; it is a look of deep spiritual felicity, which arises from the certainty of knowing and belonging to one another in eternal union and happiness.

The celebrated Capitoline Cupid and Psyche is evidently a recapito of the Torlonia group, with this difference-the Torlonia figures must have been an exact copy of some Greek masterpiece, executed by an inferior artist, while the Capitoline group was made by a most skilful executant who gave up the spirituality of the original conception in order to obtain the greatest perfection of corporeal beauty for his figures. The sentiment of the Torlonia group is far superior. The Capitoline is a masterpiece in the voluptuous style of one of those artists of antiquity who worked only to gratify the depraved, corrupt tastes of rich libertines, and suggested new pleasures by the representations of charming love-scenes. The Torlonia group is probably only a copy, and, as compared with the Capitoline, in mere execution an inferior one of the original conception, which the artist of the Capitoline Cupid and Psyche translated into a common love-scene. In the Torlonia figures, Cupid and Psyche gaze in each other's eyes; their souls seem to pass from one to the other in that supreme look which does not need a kiss to find in it their highest bliss. But in the Capitoline group Love does not seek for Psyche's look and soul, he only strives to find her lips; indeed she seems really to have no soul to give in a look.

In the 1st gallery, at the end of the 2d avenue, No. 62, is an interesting and beautiful portrait-statue of a woman. The famous Agrippinas of Naples and Rome (Capitoline) are rough-hewn works in comparison with this finely-executed figure. It is probably one of the most valuable statues in the Museum, not only for execution and excellence as an art-work, but for its history and rarity. It is a seated portrait-statue of the Empress Livia Augusta, the famous and mys

terious wife of Octavius Augustus, the mother of Tiberius. Notwithstanding the long reigns of her husband and son, her unbroken power and influence during an unusually full period of life, there seem to have been but few portrait-statues made of her; there is none existing in this position.

It was found in the Villa Gordiana of tragic history, the vast heap of ruins now known as the Torre dei Sctriavi on the Via Prenestina, where its opulent but ill-fated masters collected so many treasures. The peristyle of the villa had two hundred columns of the rarest marbles, three basilica were within its enclosure, luxurious baths which equalled those of Rome, a superb theatre, a large library of 60,000 volumes, galleries of the most precious works of art, all that wealth and luxurious desires could collect together. The Gordiani claimed descent from Scipio and Trajan; but in the degenerate third century, when they lived, they were so steeped in the enjoyment of ignoble pleasures that they refused the empire of the Roman world; and when obliged to accept it at the point of the sword, father and son cowardly committed suicide to relieve themselves of the cares and perils of imperial power. From the ruins of their magnificent villa came this remarkable statue of Livia Augusta in the Torlonia Museum.

The pose is that of a woman, tenant salon, as the French say. Livia was one of the first among the Roman women of rank who attempted this difficult social task-one that was rendered more easy to her by her imperial position. She assembled around her the learned men of the court, to the great pride of her husband, who often held her up as an example to his fascinating but grossly immoral daughter Julia, Agrippa's wife, who, on the contrary, drew about her the idle and licentious wits of Rome. So lifelike is this beautiful statue, that when you are sitting in front of it admiringly, it will seem to you that you also are a silent member of her court, and you will wonder-as did undoubtedly many of her courtiers-how much was good and how much bad of that sphinx-like woman, who unrelentingly, with horrible silence, secrecy, and pertinacity removed all who interfered with her aspirations for her son Tiberius-and yet who died full of years and honour-"the type of all that was noble and virtuous in woman," as the historian Tacitus tells us.

This statue has the attributes of an empress; the semblance of the golden footstool and golden sandals; imperial diadem and veil over the head. The attitude is noble and majestic, more erect than the Agrippina pose; very conscious-not vain or conceited, but a sort of knowledge of being on grand parade. The position of the fine hands adds to the listening, observing character of the face. She is evidently directing the current of conversation silently, by her strong look and influence, not leading it by word of mouth. The deep-set eyes seem to be noticing her audience and penetrating to their most hidden thoughts. You can readily imagine her circle: the emperor and Mæcenas; Horace, and the tragic poet Asinius Pollio; and Virgil, inspired by the dark, subdued glow of her beautiful eyes, is reciting