'the style of the second epoch marks these charac teristics in their full display: the former feebleness be gins to disappear; and in the few remaining examples, though we cannot trace improvement in all its stages, it may be ascertained that melioration commenced by adding boldness to the relief. The cause of this it is perhaps easy to discover in the practice of engraving on precious stones, to which the artists of Etruria were attached from an early period. These works being executed, as they now are, by means of a wheel, depth of depression could be easily made on the ground, while the figures were thus more fully relieved. Ob serving the powerful effect obtained, the application of the improvement to works of sculpture generally was obvious. But by such a style of execution, the former defects in design would be rendered only the more apparent. Hence would quickly follow improve ment in the forms, in the study of nature, and in truth of expression. It is difficult in art, as in every human pursuit, to preserve the just mean. The Tuscans car ried to an extreme the discovery which had conduct ed to bolder practice. All soon becomes forced, vio lent, and exaggerated. The action is constrained, the movement unnatural; the whole aim is effect, and to this every feeling of truth or of simplicity is sacrific ed. The proportions are robust beyond those of na ture; the muscles are constantly in action, and the retiring curves are so deeply impressed, that breadth of parts is every where cut up by alternate ridges and hollows. The bones are learnedly, but so strongly pronounced, as to render the whole effect harsh, dry. and mannered. A want of character is the necessary consequence; for the forced and violent in art always proceed from inability to express the workings of the mind in any ()thee manner than by their most sensible and least intellectual signs. The Etruscan style of sculpture is in fact similar to their architecture. There is strength, and massiveness and power; there is also vigour or conception, and play of execution: hut there is wanting delicacy of proportion, nice dis crimination of character. and all the pleasing proprie ty and repose of the sweet and gracious in art.
The genuine style of sculpture among the ancient Etrnrians belongs to the second epoch. In examining its characteristics, we can hardly persuade ourselves that these are not derived from the works produced in the same country during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The analogy observable in the national genius at such a distance of time, and after so many vicissitudes, moral, intellectual, and political, is re markable, and may hereafter demand our notice.
The third epoch embraces that period which mark ed the gradual disappearance or the Etruscans from emong the nations of Italy. Their political empire merged in the rising dominion of the Romans; the discriminatiNe character of their genius was lost in• the arts cl the colonial Greeks. In the monuments of this era, the ancient style is still to be distinguished; fur though the Italians now become imitators of the past, and rivals of the living Greeks, yet the national style was never entirely abandoned. During the early portion of this division many excellent works appear to have been executed, and to these the Latin poets and historians seem to refer. Judging front the most perfect remains, the proportions were rendered more light and graceful, the forms and expression ()Effie heads more beautiful, the execution was softened indeed yet still retained a degree of exaggeration and harshness.
The melioration was temporary.; and perhaps it is not fancy alone which discerns, in the successions of sub sequent feebleness, the gradual approaches of politi cal depression.
In regard to the dates and duration of these divi sions in the history of art, they seem nearly to have coincided with as many revolutions in the political annals of the nation. From a small state on the north west coast, the Etruscan gradually extended its empire from sea to sea, and front one extremity of Italy to the other. This the era or their greatest dominion corresponded with the infancy of their arts, or at least with their first degree of refinement. By the expul sion or conquest of the Siculi, this complete subjuga tion of the Peninsula appears to have been effected about SO before the Trojan war. The Etruscan dominions then consisted of three portions, Etruria Circumpadana, Media, to properly belong the name, and Campania. The last, containing the whole of the country south of the Tiber, was neither a se cure nor a permanent conquest. The Dorians who landed in Italy about 130 years before the taking of Troy, together with the ancient inhabitants, attacked and gradually reduced the Etruscan power on this side. The Etrw.can medals, however, n hich are found in all the remotest parts of the present kingdom of Naples, attest the ancient dominion of that nation. In this southern portion of their empire the Etruscan first mingled their arts with those of Greece. To this union we ascribe the excellence of the sculptors of Magna Grecia, when, at a period long subsequent, the schools of Rhegium and Crotona supplied masters superior to those of the mother country. The Greeks rapidly improved, but discovered slowly. The pro gress already made by the Etruscan, was therefore early appreciated by the Dorian colonists of southern Italy; a foundation was thus obtained on which the fervent genius of the latter quickly raised a super structure of beauty and excellence surpassing any ex ample in the parent state. In the first era of their art then, the advantages were imparted, not received by the Etruscans.
On the north the Etruscans had continually to com bat against the Ligurians and Gauls. By those per severing enemies that division of their empire called Circumpadana was at length reduced. The coins, however, still found along the shores of the Adriatic, bear witness to the arts and sciences of Etruria. We thus arrive at the second epoch in the political histo ry of this interesting people, when shut up within the boundaries of Etruria Media, their ancient seat, and where their admirable polity was best organized. they enjoyed freedom and security. This era, which cor responds not with their political grandeur, coincides with their greatest and most original acquirements in the arts. This was the reign of their second style, hold, masculine, and energetic, it was calculated to awe and astonish, rather than to soot') or delight the mind. Their architecture partook of the same cha racter as their sculpture. The order, which still bears their name, sufficiently evinces the massive and powerful structures which it was destined to adorn or sustain. The noblest of all architectural inventions, the Grecian Dark, has been derived from this source. Even vet in modern Tuscany, the traces of her ancient inhabitants remain, like those gigantic skeletons of animals described by naturalists, but no longer exist ing among the orders of life, and which nature creat ed in her primeval strength.