employed on a great scale except in the service of religion; nor has
it ever been otherwise employed, except in declining periods. I do not
mean to draw any severe conclusion from this fact; but it is a fact
nevertheless, which ought to be very distinctly stated, and very
carefully considered. All _progressive_ art hitherto has been
religious art; and commencements of the periods of decline are
accurately marked, in illumination, by its employment on romances
instead of psalters; and in painting, by its employment on mythology
or profane history instead of sacred history. Yet perhaps I should
rather have said, on _heathen mythology_ instead of _Christian
mythology_; for this latter term--first used, I believe, by Lord
Lindsay--is more applicable to the subjects of the early painters than
that of "sacred _history_." Of all the virtues commonly found in the
higher orders of human mind, that of a stern and just respect for
truth seems to be the rarest; so that while self-denial, and courage,
and charity, and religious zeal, are displayed in their utmost degrees
by myriads of saints and heroes, it is only once in a century that a
man appears whose word may be implicitly trusted, and who, in the
relation of a plain fact, will not allow his prejudices or his
pleasure to tempt him to some colouring or distortion of it. Hence the
portions of sacred history which have been the constant subjects of
fond popular contemplation have, in the lapse of ages, been encumbered
with fictitious detail; and their various historians seem to have
considered the exercise of their imagination innocent, and even
meritorious, if they could increase either the vividness of conception
or the sincerity of belief in their readers. A due consideration of
that well-known weakness of the popular mind, which renders a
statement credible in proportion to the multitude of local and
circumstantial details which accompany it, may lead us to look with
some indulgence on the errors, however fatal in their issue to the