Note 33 — ESSAYS.

I am aware that it is unusual to place Italy before Greece in any ancient historical question; but I am induced to do this because the real ancient Italian art, namely that of the Etruscans, was coeval with the oldest Greek schools, if not anterior to them; and that as the Roman conquests destroyed the arts of old Italy before the most brilliant periods of Greek painting, I may well look upon Italian or Etruscan painting as having an earlier life and death than that of Greece.