84 
which 
the 
King 
had given to the arts. 
CG 
Let 
those," said he, " who have traced the progress 
of the fine arts, say among what people did the 
arts rise, from such a. state as that in which they 
were 
in 
this 
country 
about 
years 
forty 
ago, 
to 
the height which they have attained here in so 
short a period. In ancient Greece,  from the 
retreat of Xerxes, when they were in their in- 
fancy, to the age of Alexander the Great, when 
they reached their maturity, we find a. period of 
no lese than one hundred and fifty years elapsed. 
In Rome we can make no calculation directly 
applicable; for among the Romans the habit of 
employing Greek artists, and the rage of collect- 
ing; suffered no distinct traces to be left of the 
progress of the arts among them. Even in 
architecture, to which their claims were most 
obviously decided, we see not sufficiently the 
gradations of their own peculiar" taste and 
genius. But in modern Italy, leaving out of 
view the age of Cimabue, and even that of 
Giotto, and dating from the institution of the 
Academy of St. Luke at Florence, it required a 
hundred and fifty 'yea'rs- to produce a "Michael 
Angelo, :1 Raphael, and a Btamante."