sweetest verses; all the stains of his past joy have left him. Thou'rt like a lovely floweret, So void of guile and art, And grief steals o'er my heart. I fain would lay devoutly My hands upon thy brow, And pray that God will keep thee Childhood with its purity and innocence fills them with sad longing. And so it is that the infant on the arm of the Hermes cannot inspire the vigorous young god with its own mirth, but evokes the sweetly-sad and pensive mood which we have noted in the statue. But the power of loving is placed deep in the heart of Hermes, and he is loveable in his beauty. Praxiteles, the sculptor of what is loveable, was ordered to fashion a Hermes, the protector of athletic sports, in a temple at Olympia, the sacred realm of all physical exercise; a strong god in the vast temple of strength. And how did he solve the task? He gave a strong god, but in a moment of tender pensiveness, and accentuated, even more than his strength, his amiable beauty. The man with his individual character shines forth through the artist. The Hermes, then, undoubtedly a work of Praxiteles, has enabled us to recognise the character of Praxitelean art, the character and genius of Praxiteles himself, and has thrown a new ray of light upon a 34 Leland's translation. period of Greek history. A work of art may elucidate an age as clearly as a chapter of written history. Who can know the history of the Italian Renaissance without studying Da Vinci, Raphael, and Michael Angelo? Royal Society of Literature. GENERAL ANNIVERSARY MEETING. APRIL 28th, 1880. THE Chair was taken at half-past four P.M. by SIR PATRICK DE COLQUHOUN, Q.C., LL.D., V.P., owing to the unavoidable absence of the President, His Royal Highness THE PRINCE LEOPOLD, K.G. The Minutes of the General Anniversary Meeting of 1879 having been read and signed, the following Annual Report of the Society's Proceedings, as prepared under the direction of the Council, was read. |