Page:Anecdotes of painters, engravers, sculptors and architects, and curiosities of art (IA anecdotesofpaint01spoo).pdf/32

 eyes on Argos, Athens, Corinth, and Sicyon, those ancient abodes of good taste and transcendent genius; each of them were commercial states and cities. The remains of their beautifully-sculptured marbles, which once were in profusion, and of which we now strive to possess even the fragments, at almost any cost, show evidently that their commercial pursuits and relations with other countries had not narrowed, if it had not rather developed, the powers, and given that elastic vigor to the human mind that can, under due encouragement, overcome the greatest difficulties, and produce the grandest or the most enchanting works of utility or imagination. The marble quarries of Paros and Pentelicus were by such encouragements transformed into the noblest temples and most exquisitely beautiful statues of deities, heroes, and men, that it is possible to conceive. Such was the case throughout all the cities on the coast of the Ægean sea and of the Cyclades. Their arts increased their commerce; this was the source of their wealth; and fully aware of these advantages, their wealth reacted again on their arts, and thus there was kept alive that healthful movement of the whole popular mind, directed to the useful and elegant purposes of life.

"Let us come down to much later times, and to states far less remote, and ask what it was that gave such wealth and consequence to Venice, Genoa, Holland, and Flanders, to Pisa, Florence, and Lucca, not one of which states possessed much extent