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Show THE VITAL FORCE ; OR, THE RHODIAN GENIUS. THE Syracusans, like the Athenians, had their Precile, in which representations of gods and heroes, the works of Grecian and Italian art, adorned the halls, glowing with varied colors. The people resorted thither continually; the young warriors to contemplate the exploits of their ancestors, the artists to study the works of the great masters. Among the numerous paintings which the active zeal of the Syracusans had collected from the mother country, there was one which, for a century past, had particularly attracted the attention of spectators. Sometimes the Olympian Jove, Cecrops, the founder of cities, and the heroic courage of Harmodius and Aristogiton, would want admirers, while men pressed in crowded ranks around the picture of which we speak. Whence this preference? Was it a rescued work of .A pelles, or of the school of Callimachus? No; it possessed, indeed, grace and beauty; but yet neither in the blending of the colors, nor in the character and style of the entire picture, could it be compared with many other paintings in the Precile. The multitude (comprehending therein many classes of society) often regard with astonishment and admiration what they do not comprehend: this picture had occupied its place for a hundred years; but though Syracuse contained within the narrow limits enclosed by its walls more of the genius of art than the whole of the remainder of sea-surrounded Sicily, no one had yet divined the hidden meaning of the design. It was even uncertain to what temple the painting had originally belonged, for it had been rescued from |