Parthenon, and the no less splendid Propylæa, astonish all modern architects by the deep scientific knowledge implied in these structures. Phidias distinctly contributed to the support of dying paganism by the majesty of his Olympian Zeus. These men brought their arts from clumsiness of proportion, from the stereotyped curls and smile, into the simplicity and majesty which we may worship, not only at Athens, but in the ruins of Bassæ, or in the wondrous pediment of Alkamenes, lately drawn from oblivion under the sands of Olympia. A great enthusiasm for art seized on the public mind at Athens. Men of after days knew not whether to wonder most at the feverish hurry or the eternal solidity with which these great monuments were built. No contractor, with all the resources of modern mechanics, would undertake to rebuild the Parthenon, with new material, on its site in the time taken for its original construction. Every year saw some statue produced which all the sculptors, from the next generation to this day, cannot rival in all these centuries of time. If ever a people were educated, or could be educated to perfect taste and refinement by contemplating ideal beauty in art, the Periclean Athenians enjoyed that unique privilege. It was, in fact, so essential a part of their life that the authors of that time only mention it in passing allusions.
11. In literature their condition was hardly less favourable. The common use of writing was so lately diffused, and the materials so limited, that they were not flooded, as we are, with spring tides of common and worthless books. But still they were able to procure, and they were taught at school, the poems of Homer and the other early epics, the greatest of the lyric and elegiac poets, and of late years the masterpieces of Æschylus and Phrynichus. It was such an education as Englishmen might have obtained in poetry tn the end of the 17th century, if Shakspere had taken the place of the Bible, with Chaucer, Spenser, and Milton as familiar to men as nursery rhymes to our children. But we
