He studied the human shape for his conceptions of the divine.

Intent upon the natural, he ascended to the ideal.

[61] If such the effect of the Grecian religion upon sculpture, similar and equal its influence upon poetry.

The earliest verses of the Greeks appear to have been of a religious, though I see no sufficient reason for asserting that they were therefore of a typical and mystic, character.

However that be, the narrative succeeding to the sacred poetry materialized all it touched.