CLASSICAL, in the Fine Arts, a term denoting such an arrangement of a sub ject that all the accessories or parts are suitable to the general design, and such that nothing be introduced which does not strictly belong to the particular class under which it is placed. In antiquity, the Roman people were divided into classes, and the highest order were, by prc-eminenee, termed classical. Hence the name came to signify the highest and purest class of writers in any language ; although, down to a comparatively recent period, the term was used merely to de note the most esteemed Greek and Latin authors. Nothing marks more strongly the increased attention to modern liter ature, than the now universal applica tion of the term to modern languages also, and the establishment, in this man ner, of a line between those authors whom we regard as models and authorities in point of style, and those who are not so highly esteemed. An author is said to be classical if public opinion has placed him in the former order ; language, or an expression, to be classical, if it be such as has been used in a similar sense and un der similar rules of construction by those authors. The epithet classical, as ap plied to ancient authors, is determined less by the purity of their style than by the period at which they wrote. Thus see speak of the classical age of Greek or Latin writing. With respect to the for mer, the classical age begins with Homer, the earliest Greek writer with whom we are acquainted. The purest age of Greek classical literature may be said to end about the time of the Macedonian con quest, or about 300 B.C. ; but, in a wider
sense, it extends to the time of the An tonincs, and embraces a much larger catalogue of authors ; while the centuries subsequent to that time produced a few, who, by the purity of their style, deserve to be ranked with earlier classics. The Latin classical period is shorter; its earliest writer is Plant:ifs, and the lan guage may be said to have lost its classi cal character about the same time with the Greek, i. e. the reigns of the Auto nines ; although this limit is arbitrary, and some later writers, even down to Claulian, are generally included among classics. Within the Latin classical era there is a more restricted period of the purest Latintty, comprising the age of Cicero and that of Augustus.
CLASS'l FICA'TI ON, in the Fine Arts, an arrangement by which objects of the fine arts are distributed in classes; as, for instance, in galleries of paintings, the works should be arranged in schools, each school being subject to a chrono logical order of the masters. In numis matology, the coins should be arranged by countries, and these again in chrono logical order of the monarchs; and the like of other branches of the Arts.
CLAlJi E, in law, an article in a con tract or other writing; a distinct part of a contract, will, agreement, charter, ,te.—In language, a subdivision of a sen tence, in which the words are insepara bly connected with each other in sense, and cannot, with propriety, be separated by a point.