The historian of Sculpture, therefore, lyho desires to render his labours useful. will, with judicious hu mility, limit inquiry to a simple endeavour to trace the progress and improvement of the art among the different nations of antiquity. To amuse with theo ries of its origin, however ingenious or profound these inay appear, is in reality to stop short with a partial view of facts, when a general law is within reach. But in one respect is observed a very marked distinc tion in the claims of separate states. In the relative degrees of excellence attained there is found a strik ing diversity; as also in the length of time passed in realizing the same advances. This inequality it will he especially requisite to notice, while an attempt to explain the cause may lead to results of utility in the philosophy of art, exhibiting the union which exists between moral improvement and the lofty exercises of genius, as depending on the political happiness and condition of man.
In arranging the historical details of any art also. or of any intellectual pursuit, the simple order of time will generally be found most congenial with the connection of events, and the most instructive to the reader. The epochs and eras of art, according to which writers have too frequently divided, rather than classed their materials, where discernible at all, may more commodiously be resolved into gradual changes, while not unfrequently they seem altogether imagin ary. The influence of some strong and determining impulse, operating a sudden effect on the style and character of invention or improvement, is to be found occasionally in the progress of individual eminence: but the advance or decline of general acquirement is 'on the whole equable and consecutive—less dependent on particular occurrences, whether felicitous or ad verse, than on the richness or poverty of successive discovery.
In the spirit of these observations, it shall be our object in the following pages to trace the history of Sculpture through the divisions of ancient and modern art. The first part will be occupied with the narra tive of its neglect or encouragement, of excellence and decay, in Egypt and the East, among the Greeks, in Etruria, under the Cxsars, till the extinction of letters and refinement in Europe. With the rise of the Italian republics we hail the reappearance of Sculpture, and from the 10th to the 19th century, a series of interesting, but often melancholy events, will form the subject of the second part, and close the his tory with the labours of contemporaries. Our limits necessarily impose brevity in all instances. In many we shall merely touch upon the leading facts; and in that particular section the state of the art in Greece will include every thing valuable in the ages of anti quity. In part second, the 15th and 16th century, and our own times, adorned by the names of Canova, Flaxman, Tho•waldson, will demand pre-eminent regard.