The increasingly rich discoveries of original works on Greek soil have lately somewhat thrown into the shade the study of the copies, for which we are mainly indebted to Italy, not to the advantage of our science. The original sculptures from Greece are, with those rare exceptions to which I have already alluded, works of the second or even inferior rank. The Roman copies, on the other hand, have preserved that pick from the masterpieces of the classical epoch which pleased ancient taste and connoisseurship in the times of highest culture. It is the pick of the best and the most famous that antiquity possessed. Among these copies it is that we must look for the masterpieces mentioned by the authors, for the statues that made epochs or initiated movements. \vere we to possess only copies of the noble creations of a Raphael, a Michelangelo, or a Rembrandt, these would certainly be better worth one's study than the hosts of other originals of the time.