ABSTRACT
It has been said by a celebrated poet that “the proper study of mankind is man.” This sweeping proposition was accepted as an axiom by the contemporaries of the ingenious Mr. Pope; but to our nineteenth century ears it sounds, perhaps, too much like an epigram. We should, I think, prefer to say that the most interesting study of mankind is man. Certain it is, that whatsoever concerned man in the past concerns and interests ourselves in the present. Hence the eagerness with which we track his footsteps down the path of the centuries. From that far-distant age when we catch our first glimpse of the prehistoric cave-dweller chipping flint arrow-heads wherewith to wage war against the hyena and the mammoth, down to the pleasant “teacup time” of the day before yesterday, when Adam carried a clouded cane and Eve wore hoops and patches, we are always eagerly curious to know what our forefathers were like, how they lived, and wherewithal they were clothed. This is why the art of portraiture touches us more nearly than any other. It brings us literally face to face with those who lived and loved and died “in the old time before us.” It preserves for us the features, the expression, the costumes of Pharaohs and Cæsars discrowned, of orators long silent, of beauties long faded, of heroes whose swords are rust, of poets whose lutes are dust, and who, but for the accidental preservation of a bas-relief, a bust, a coin, or a painting, would have passed away like shadows and been.no more seen.
