as they are usually called in the British Museum, are shown to be moving over the sea, by the fish, sea-bird, or shell, under their feet. It is, at the same time, right to state that the Victory has been supposed to be lighting on the earth, and the eagle to be a bird of some other kind. What this indefinite bird indicates is not said, and from want of a reasonable explanation of its function I should much prefer to retain it as an eagle, and to adhere to the description of its part in the composition I have just given. The Victory then is descending through the air, letting herself down with her wings, which have been raised in a vertical direction. What she has held in her hand, or what her face was like, cannot be ascertained. But it can be seen plainly that she is on the whole of a very noble form, and draped as no other ancient statues are draped, except those of the Parthenon. To say that she is much behind them both in form and drapery, is what everyone will admit. But by very general consent she is next to them, not, however, without considerable rivalry in some respects on the part of the Nereids just mentioned. They fail beside her in the impressiveness of a bold and large conception. But they are often delicate where she is coarse. For there is no other word to describe the treatment of the sculpture below her girdle in front, or the management of her drapery on the left side above the girdle. These are faults which are not to be explained away by Brunn's theory of the artist having been trained under pictorial influence. They are inherent vices, and are the more conspicuous from the largeness and boldness with which the figure altogether is conceived.

If it be asked where the sculptor had obtained this largeness of style, the most obvious answer would be, from contact with Pheidias at Olympia. But this, as has been seen, is only possible if we accept the date told to Pausanias, and decline that which he proposes in its stead. At the same time, there are other considerations involved. In the first place if the Victory had been made subsequent to the sculptures in the east front of the temple of Zeus, as Pausanias implies, it ought to present more affinity than they to the Athenian school. The case would stand thus: Pæonios arrives at Olympia, and is employed on the sculptures of the east front of the temple while Alkamenes is engaged on those of the west, and while Pheidias is occupied with his gold and ivory statue of Zeus. During the progress of the work Pæonios adapts his style to that of the Athenians, and after he has fairly succeeded, he makes the Victory. Now a considerable part of his work on the east front of the temple has been found, and though despised in comparison with that of Alkamenes, it is admitted to possess broadly the same style, and therefore to prove a community of artistic feeling between the two sculptors. How far this artistic feeling may have been shared by Pheidias also, is the question at issue.

It is a question which admits of illustration from the sculptures of the Parthenon, where there are, on the one hand, the statues of the

pediments and the bas-reliefs of the frieze representing, as has always been supposed, the true art of Pheidias, while, on the other hand, there is the series of metopes reflecting in many ways the training of a different, apparently an older, school. I refer to the metopes in the British Museum, which alone have been well preserved. They compare with the statues in the pediments at Olympia, just as the statues in the pediments of the Parthenon compare with the Victory at Olympia. Even the subject of these metopes is the same as that of the pediment by Alkamenes-that is to say, a combat of Centaurs and Lapiths. His two principal groups are formed each by a Centaur seizing a female Lapith, and in both cases the artistic conception is identical with that of one of the metopes of the Parthenon. Or again in his secondary groups, where the capture is effected in another way, we have the same design as on a very archaic silver coin found in Thrace. Probably enough, one or both of these conceptions had been familiar in art for some time, and for that reason the occurrence of one or other in two places would not justify the claim of one sculptor for both. Indeed, the execution at Olympia shows such a different degree of ability that this cannot well be thought of. But there are other points of contact between the Parthenon metopes and the temple sculptures, both those of Pæonios and of Alkamenes; above all, the singular and striking manner of realising such types of lower beings as Lapiths and river-gods, in whom the human physiognomy is made to express the phrase 'a child of nature,' with a completeness that does not occur elsewhere. For example, in the head of the river-god Kladeos found last year, every feature is normal according to the type of higher beings, and yet on the face altogether is an open simplicity which seems as if it could comprehend nothing beyond the obvious phenomena of nature, and was content with that— content with what the ever-flowing river told in its constant musings. This head was by Pæonios, but in point of its being a personification of nature, it is identical with the head of a female figure by Alkamenes, while in type of face it is essentially the same as the heads of the Lapiths on the Parthenon. These examples could be multiplied, but let us take another order of beings-the Centaurs. Here Alkamenes and the sculptor of the Parthenon metopes have chosen the same type. In that circumstance itself there may not be any strong argument, since this type of Centaur was perhaps common at the time. With no great variation it occurs on the frieze from Phigaleia which is attributed to Iktinos, one of the architects of the Parthenon. Yet how different the details, especially those of drapery. In the Phigaleian frieze the drapery may be described as florid. In the Parthenon and at Olympia it is the reverse, being not only very simple in its lines, but being also curiously constrained, as if perfect freedom in the treatment had not yet been reached. Reference to the eighth metope in the Museum series will make this clear. For

there the drapery of the Lapith, exquisitely beautiful though it be, does not fall freely, but clings to the background as in cases where a sculptor has not complete command of his art. At Olympia, whether in the work of Pæonios or of Alkamenes, we have the same effect with this difference-that the sculpture is there coarsely executed. How far this coarseness may be due to the want of skill in the subordinate artists employed at Olympia, or whether in the original marbles colour, now lost, may not have been so applied as to give refinement of detail, cannot at present be decided.

We have thus in Athenian sculpture for which Pheidias was directly responsible two materially different styles of art, the one represented by the metopes, the other by the statues of the pediments. At Olympia, again, we have the same divergence of style, though attended with coarseness, between the pediment sculptures and the statue of Victory. The natural inference is that this double phase of artistic style was taken from Athens to Olympia by Alkamenes and Pheidias, and that Pæonios there adapted himself first to the one and next to the other, following Alkamenes in his sculptures of the pediments, and Pheidias in his figure of Victory.

These then are some of the questions which have arisen from the successful excavations at Olympia, and my object has been here to show that they involve considerations worthy of general interest apart from the extraordinary merits of the sculptures as works of art.

A. S. MURRAY.

THE PROBABLE RESULTS OF THE

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BURIALS BILL.

A LONG controversy, in the course of which a good deal of bitter feeling has been evoked and perhaps some angry words spoken on both sides, has resulted in a settlement which, in the view of the Primate, contains concessions to the claims of both sides. For the catholic spirit which he has brought to the discussion, for his anxious efforts to bring about a compromise, and for his desire that the passing of the Government measure may have a conciliating influence, the Archbishop deserves the thanks not only of the lovers of peace, but still more of the best friends of the Church. It must be very hard for one occupying his venerable position to yield one iota of the claims of the institution of which he is the head, and whose members look to him for an unflinching defence of all its privileges. The high tone of Church feeling which at present prevails, and to which he himself alludes as one of the least desirable results of the 'Catholic revival,' must have made such surrender even more difficult for Dr. Tait than it might have been for some of his predecessors. 'My predecessors in the episcopate had,' he says, 'I think, less difficulty than we should experience nowadays in welcoming the cooperation of such men as was Robert Hall in the days of our fathers, and wishing them God-speed in their labours to resist prevailing infidelity.' But it must be harder to concede a demand to a Dissenting agitation than to accept the help of Dissenting earnestness and ability in the defence of a common cause. The greater the credit which is due to an archbishop who does not hesitate to make what must have been for him a painful sacrifice, at the certain risk of misconstruction by those whose approval he is naturally most anxious to deserve. It needed the sagacity of a statesman to see that the time was come when a protracted resistance must be injurious to the Church itself, but when this conviction had been formed it required no little courage to own it and to act upon it. There may be very grave questionings as to the value of the 'compromise,' which, it may be assumed, is due to the combined wisdom of the Primate and Lord Selborne, but there will be a general agreement among all but the most heated partisans that the Archbishop, in his willingness to

make terms, has shown a far sounder judgment and a truer appreciation of his own duty as a loyal son of the Church, than if he had counselled a policy of 'No surrender' and so kept alive a controversy which while it lasted was only intensifying hostility to the Establishment itself. It would, as I believe and shall endeavour to prove, have been better for the Church and the clergy if there had been no attempt at compromise at all; but an unconditional acquiescence was scarcely to be expected even from so liberal a primate, and would certainly have made his relations with his clergy more embarrassing. There is, at all events, reason for congratulation, especially on the part of those who desire to prolong the existence of the Establishment, but also for all who do not wish that the battle of great principles should be fought on so narrow a field, that he did not play the part of the Bishop of Lincoln and put himself at the head of the Irreconcilables. Lord Beaconsfield's brilliant chaff' and the wild accusations of excited clergymen notwithstanding, the Archbishop has proved himself the best defender of the Church.

His conciliatory utterances in regard to Nonconformists are all the more to be commended because there is in them no suggestion that the settlement of this burials controversy ought to be the end. of all differences between us. On the contrary, he frankly recognises the antagonism of principle by which we are placed in opposition to each other. 'At home important questions of policy may keep us apart. Certainly it is our duty to resist all efforts for subverting the national constitution of our Church, which makes it the authorised teacher of all our people, and the mouthpiece through which our common Christianity speaks in all our public acts as a State.' The Archbishop is far too just and sensible a man not to admit that Dissenters who hold an opposite principle owe a duty to it which they are equally bound to discharge. Neither party has a right to ask the other to be silent, or to expect, or indeed to desire, anything more than that we should, to use the Archbishop's words, all feel that it is our duty to meet the inevitable state of circumstances in which we find ourselves in a tolerant Christian spirit.' The settlement of the burials difficulty may serve, at all events, to foster this temper. There have been incidents connected with this contention which have made it specially irritating, and now that it is ended it may be hoped that the discussion of the great principles which lie behind may be conducted with more moderation and good feeling.

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That the clergy will accept the law and obey it, and that Nonconformists will abstain from any proceedings calculated to produce needless irritation, may be taken for granted. Exceptions there may possibly be, but there is too much of Christian principle on both sides to allow of the perpetuation of the embittered feelings produced by a controversy on which Parliament has pronounced a definite verdict. So far as Nonconformists are concerned, I feel that I can