orator's persuasive power, the historian's learning, the sage's
counsel, all these shall be her adornments; the colours shall be
imperishable, and laid on with no niggardly brush. It is not my
fault, if I am unable to point to any classical model for the
portrait: the records of antiquity afford no precedent for a
culture so highly developed.--May I hang this beside the other? I
think it is a passable likeness.

_Ly_. Passable! My dear Polystratus, it is sublime;
exquisitely finished in every line.

_Poly_. Next I have to depict Wisdom; and here I shall have
occasion for many models, most of them ancient; one comes, like the
lady herself, from Ionia. The artists shall be Aeschines and
Socrates his master, most realistic of painters, for their heart
was in their work. We could choose no better model of wisdom than
Milesian Aspasia, the admired of the admirable 'Olympian' [Footnote:
See _Pericles_ in Notes.]; her political knowledge and insight,
her shrewdness and penetration, shall all be transferred to our
canvas in their perfect measure. Aspasia, however, is only
preserved to us in miniature: _our_ proportions must be those
of a colossus.

_Ly_. Explain.

_Poly_. The portraits will be alike, but not on the same
scale. There is a difference between the little republic of ancient
Athens, and the Roman Empire of to-day; and there will be the same
difference in _scale_ (however close the resemblance in other
respects) between our huge canvas and that miniature. A second and