pagus, and terminating at the Propylæa. The Propylæa was a hexastyle colonnade, with two wings, and surmounted by a pediment. Whether the melopes and tympanum were adorned with sculpture, cannot now be ascertained; as the pediment and entablature have been destroyed,and the intercolumniations built up with rubbish, in order to raise a battery of cannon on the top. Although the plan of this edifice contains some deviations from the pure taste that reigns in the other structures of the Acropolis, yet each member is so perfect in the details of its execution, that Lord Elgin was at great pains to obtain a Doric and an lonic capital from its ruins. On the right hand of the Propylæa, was a temple dedicated to Victory without wings; an epithet to which many explanations have been given. This temple was built from the sale of the spoils won in the glorious struggles for freedom at Marathon, Salamis, and Platea. On its frize were sculptured many incidents of these memorable battles; in a style that has been thought by no means inferior to the metopes of the Parthenon. The only fragments of it that had escaped the ravages of barbarians, were built into the wall of a gun-powder magazine near it, and the finest block was inserted upside downwards. It required the whole of Lord Elgin's influence at the Porte, very great sacrifices, and much perseverance, to remove them; but he at length succeeded. They represent the Athenians. in close combat with the Persians, and the sculptor has marked the different dresses and armour of the various forces serving under the great king. The long garments and zones of the Persians, bad induced former travellers, from the basty and imperfect view they had of them, to suppose the subject was the battle be

tween Theseus and the Amazons, who invaded Attica, under the com. mand of Antiope; but the Persian tiaras, the Phrygian bonnets, and many other particulars, prove them to be mistaken. The spirit with which the groups of combatants are portrayed, is wonderful;-one remarks, in particular, the contest of four warriors to rescue the dead body of one of their comrades, which is expressed with uncommon animation. These bas-reliefs, and some of the most valuable sculpture, espe cially the representation of a marriage, taken from the parapet of the modern fortification, were embarked in the Mentor, a vessel belonging to Lord Elgin, which was unfortunately wrecked off the island of Cerigo: but Mr. Hamilton, who was at the time on board, and most providentially saved, immediately directed his whole energies to discover some means of rescuing so valuable a cargo; and, in the course of several months directed to that endeavour, he succeeded in procuring some very expert divers from the islands of Syme and Calymno, near Rhodes; who were able, with immense labour and perseverance, to extricate a few of the cases from the hold of the ship, while she lay in twelve fathoms water. It was impossible to recover the remainder, before the storms of two winters had effectually destroyed the timbers of the vessel.

"Near the Parthenon are three temples, so connected by their strueture, and by the rites which were celebrated in them, that they might be almost considered as a triple temple. They are of small dimensions, and of the lonic order: one of them dedicated to Neptune and Erectheus; the second to Minerva Polias, the protectress of citadels; the third to the nymph Pandrosos. It was

on

on the spot where these temples stand, that Minerva and Neptune were said to have contended for the honour of naming the city. Athenian superstition long showed the mark of Neptune's trident, and a briny fountain, which attested his having there opened a passage for his horse; and the original olive tree produced by Minerva was venerated in the temple of Pandrosos, as late as the time of the Antonines. "This temple of Minerva Polias is of the most delicate and elegant proportions of the Ionic order: the capitals and bases of the columns are ornamented with consummate taste; and the sculpture of the frize and cornice is exquisitely rich. It is difficult to conceive how marble has been wrought to such a depth, and brought to so sharp an edge: the palmetti, ovetti, &c. have all the delicacy of works in metal. The vestibule of the temple of Neptune, is of more masculine proportions; but its Ionic capitals have great merit. This beautiful vestibule is now used as a powder magazine; and no other access to it could be had but by creeping through an opening in a wall which had been recently built between the columns. Lord Elgin was enabled to keep it open during his operations within; but it was then closed, so that future travellers will be prevented from seeing the inner door of the temple, which is, perhaps, the most perfect specimen in existence of Ionic architecture. Both these temples have been measured; and their plans, elevations, and views, made with the utmost accuracy.— All the ornaments have been moulded; some original blocks of the frize and cornice have been obtained from theruins, as well as a capital and a base. "The little adjoining chapel of Pandrosos is a most singular speci

men of Athenian architecture: instead of Ionic columns to support the architrave, it had seven statues of Caryan women, or Caryatides. The Athenians endeavoured, by this device, to perpetuate the infamy of the inhabitants of Carya, who were the only Peloponnesians who sided with Xerxes in his invasion of Greece. The men had been reduced to the deplorable state of Helotes; and the women not only condemned to the most servile employments, but those of rank and family forced in this abject condition, to wear their ancient dresses and ornaments. In this state they are here exhibited. The drapery is fine, the hair of each figure is braided in a different manner, and a kind of diadem they wear on their head forms the capital. Besides drawings and mouldings of all these particulars, Lord Elgin has brought to England one of the original statues. The Lacedæmonians had used a species of vengeance similar to that above mentioned in constructing the Persian portico, which they had erected at Sparta, in honour of their victory over the forces of Mardonius at Platæa: placing statues of Persians in their rich oriental dresses, instead of columns, to support the entablature.

"The architects have also made a ground plan of the Acropolis, in which they have not only inserted all the existing monuments, but have likewise added those, the position of which could be ascertained from traces of their foundations. Among these are the Temple and Cave of Pan; to whom the Athenians thought themselves so much indebted for the success of the battle of Marathon, as to vow him a temple. All traces of it are now nearly obliterated'; as well as of that of Aglauros, who devoted herself to death to save her country. Here

the

the young citizens of Athens received their first armour, enrolled their names, and swore to fight to the last for the liberties of their country. Near this spot the Persians scaled the wall of the citadel, when Themistocles had retired with the remainder of the army, and the whole Athenian navy, to Salamis. The remains of the original wall may still be traced in the midst of the Turkish and Venetian additions, and they are distinguishable by three modes of construction at very remarkable epochs,-the Pelasgic, the Cecropian, and that of the age of Cimon and Pericles. It was at this last brilliant period, that the Acropolis, in its whole extent, was contemplated with the same veneration as a consecrated temple; consistent with which sublime conception, the Athenians crowned its lofty walls with an entablature of grand proportions, surmounted by a cornice. Some of the massy triglyphs and motules still remain in their original position, and producing a most imposing effect.

"The ancient walls of the city of Athens, as they existed in the Peloponnesian war, have been traced by Lord Elgin's artists in their whole extent, as well as the long walls that led to the Munychia and the Piræus. The gates, mentioned in ancient authors, have been ascertained: and every public monument, that could be recognised, has been inserted in a general map; as well as detailed plans given of each. Extensive excavations were necessary for this purpose, particularly at the Great Theatre of Bacchus; at the Pnyx, where the assemblies of the people were held, where Pericles, Alcibiades, Demosthenes, and Eschines, delivered their orations, and at the theatre built by Herodes Atticus, to the memory of his wife Regilla.

The supposed Tumuli of Antiope, Euripides, and others, have also been opened; and from these excavations, and various others in the environs of Athens, has been procured a complete and valuable collection of Greek vases. The colonies sent from Athens, Corinth, &c. into Magna Græcia, Sicily, and Etruria, carried with them this art of making vases, from their mother country; and, as the earliest modern collections of vases were made in those colonies, they have improperly acquired the name of Etruscan. Those found by Lord Elgin at Athens, Eginæ, Argos, and Corinth, will prove the indubitable claim of the Greeks to the invention and perfection of this art. Few of those in the collections of the King of Naples at Portici, or in that of Sir William Hamilton, excel some which Lord Elgin has procured, with respect to the elegance of the form, the fineness of the materials, the delicacy of the execution, or the beauty of the subjects delineated on them; and they are, for the most part, in very high preservation. A tumulus, into which an excavation was commenced under Lord Elgin's eye during his residence at Athens, has furnished a most valuable treasure of this kind. It consists of a large marble vase, five feet in circumterence, enclosing one of bronze thirteen inches in diameter, of beautiful sculpture, in which was a deposit of burnt bones, and a lachrymatory of alabaster, of exquisite form; and on the bones lay a wreath of myrtle in gold, having, besides leaves, both buds and flowers. This tumulus is situated on the road which leads from Port Piræus to the Salaminian Ferry and Eleusis. May it not be the tomb of Aspasia ?

"From the Theatre of Bacchus, Lord Elgin has obtained the very

ancient

ancient sun-dial, which existed there during the time of Aschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides; and a large statue of the Indian, or bearded Bacchus, dedicated by Thrasyllus in gratitude for his having obtained the prize of tragedy at the Panatheniac festival. A beautiful little temple near it, raised for a similar prize gained by Lysicrates, and commonly called the Lantern of Demosthenes, has also been drawn and modelled with minute attention. It is one of the most exquisite productions of Greek architecture. The elevation, ground-plan, and other details of the octagonal temple, raised by Andronicus Cyrrhestes to the winds, have also been executed with care; but the sculpture on its frize is in so heavy a style, that it was not judged worthy of being modelled in plaister.

"Permission was obtained from the archbishop of Athens, to examine the interior of all the churches and convents in Athens and its neighbourhood, in search of antiquities; and his authority was frequently employed, to permit Lord Elgin to carry away several curious fragments of antiquity. This search furnished many valuable bas-reliefs, inscriptions, ancient dials, a Gymnasiarch's chair in marble, on the back of which are figures of Harmodius and Aristogiton, with daggers in their hands, and the death of Leana, who bit out her tongue during the torture, rather than confess what she knew of the conspiracy against the Pisistratidæ. The fountain in the court-yard of the English consul Logotheti's house was decorated with a bas-relief of Bacchantes, in the style called Græco Etruscan: Lord Elgin obtained this, as well as a quadriga in bas-relief, with a Victory hovering over the charioteer, probably an ex voto, for some victory at the Olym

pic games. Amongst the Funeral Cippi found in different places, are some remarkable names, particularly that of Socrates; and in the Ceramicus itself Lord Elgin discovered an inscription in elegiac verse, on the Athenians who fell at Potidæa, and whose eulogy was delivered with pathetic eloquence in the funeral oration of Pericles.

"The peasants at Athens generally put into a niche over the door of their cottages, any fragment they discover in ploughing the fields. Out of these, were selected and purchased many curious antique votive tablets, with sculpture and inscriptions. A complete series has also been formed of capitals, of the only three orders known in Greece, the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian; from the earliest dawn of art in Athens, to its zenith under Pericles; and, from thence, through all its degradations, to the dark ages of the lower empire.

"At a convent called Daphne, about half way between Athens and Eleusis, were the remains of an Ionic temple of Venus, equally remarkable for the brilliancy of the marble, the bold style of the ornaments, the delicacy with which they are finished, and their high preservation. Lord Elgin procured from thence two of the capitals, a whole fluted column, and a base.

.

"Lord Elgin was indebted chiefly to the friendship of the Captain Pacha, for the good fortune of procuring, while at the Dardanelles, in his way to Constantinople, the celebrated Boustrophedon inscription, from the promontory of Sigæum, a monument which several embassadors from Christian Powers to the Porte, and even Louis XIV. in the height of his power, had ineffectually endeavoured to obtain. Lord Elgin found it formning a seat or couch at

the

the door of a Greek chapel, and habitually resorted to by persons afflicted with ague; who, deriving great relief from remaining reclined upon it, attributed their recovery to the marble, and not to the elevated situation and sea air, of which it procured them the advantage. This ill-fated superstition had already obliterated more than one half of the inscription, and in a few years more it would have become perfectly illegible.

"By the aid of this valuable acquisition, Lord Elgin's collection of inscriptions comprehends specimens

of every remarkable peculiarity in the variations of the Greek alphabet, throughout the most interesting period of Grecian history.

"A few bronzes, cameos, and intaglios, were also procured: in particular, a cameo of very exquisite beauty, in perfect preservation, and of a peculiarly fine stone: it repre sents a female centaur suckling a young one. Lord Elgin was equally fortunate in forming a collection of Greek medals, among which are several that are very rare; others of much historical merit; and many most admirable specimens of art.

OT a little has been said

"NOTE with respect to the Library

at Iona. But, besides having to regret the loss of this very ancient collection, we have not even the slender consolation of certainly knowing what was its fate. It is more than probable, however, that, like other monuments of antiquity, which have fallen a sacrifice to the depredations of time, its value has been considerably overrated.

"The public," says Pennant, "was greatly interested in the preservation of this place, for it was the repository of most of the ancient Scotch records. The library here must also have been invaluable, if we can. depend upon Boethius, who asserts, that Fergus II. assist ing Alaric the Goth, in the sacking of Rome, brought away, as share of the plunder, a chest of books, which

he presented to the monastery of Iona. Aeneas Sylvius (afterwards Pope Pius II.) intended, when he was in Scotland, to have visited the library, in search of the lost books of Livy, but was prevented by the death of the King, James 1. A small parcel of them were, in 1525, brought to Aberdeen, and great pains were taken to unfold them, but, through age, and the tenderness of the parchment, little could be read; but, from what the learned were able to make out, the work appeared by the style to have rather been a fragment of Sallust, than of Livy."

"But the account given by Boece is clogged with difficulties. 1. It is said that, besides the chest of books, there fell to the share of Fergus sacra quedam vasa, " certain sacred vessels," which he also brought