abylonian architects was grand and imposing. Even now,
in their desolation and ruin, their great size renders them impressive;
and there are times and states of atmosphere under which they fill
the beholder with a sort of admiring awe, akin to the feeling which is
called forth by the contemplation of the great works of nature. Rude
and inartificial in their idea and general construction, without
architectural embellishment, without variety, without any beauty
of form, they yet affect men by their mere mass, producing a direct
impression of sublimity, and at the same time arousing a sentiment
of wonder at the indomitable perseverance which from materials so
unpromising could produce such gigantic results. In their original
condition, when they were adorned with color, with a lavish display of
the precious metals, with pictured representations of human life, and
perhaps with statuary of a rough kind, they must have added to
the impression produced by size a sense of richness and barbaric
magnificence. The African spirit, which loves gaudy hues and costly
ornament, was still strong among the Babylonians, even after they had
been Semitized; and by the side of Assyria, her colder and more
correct northern sister, Babylonia showed herself a true child of the
south--rich, glowing, careless of the laws of taste, bent on provoking
admiration by the dazzling brilliancy of her appearance.

It is difficult to form a decided opinion as to the character of
Babylonian mimetic art. The specimens discovered are so few, so
fragmentary, and in some instances so worn by time and exposure, that
we have scarcely the means of doing justice to the people in respect of
this portion of their civilization. Setting aside the intaglios on
seals and gems, which have such a general character of quaintness and
grotesqueness, or at any rate of formality, that we can scarcely look
upon many of them as the serious efforts of artists doing their best, we
possess not half a dozen specimens of the mimetic art of the people in
question. We have one sculpture in the round, one or two modelled clay
figures, a few bas-reliefs, one figure of a king engraved on stone,
and a few animal forms represented the same material. Nothing more has
reached us but fragments of pictorial representations too small for
criticism to pronounce upon, and descriptions of ancient writers too
incomplete to be of any great value.

The single Babylonian sculpture in the round which ha