objects only for melancholy research, and barely testify to the uninformed traveller, that such cities once existed. But there is a light in which they may be viewed as emblematic of the evidence afforded to the truth of the sacred oracles, by mythology. These are like a noble temple, majestic in their plan, and perfect in their several proportions; while divine inspiration burns within, as the hallowed fire upon the altar. The heathen had heard of this temple, and had even beheld parts of it; but in attempting to rear one similar, the glory of the original was forgotten, and enough alone remained to prove beyond all doubt, the previous existence and perfections of the model they had intended to imitate, but could not. Yet even this stolen imitation of the heavenly structure has fallenthe dromos-the pillar-the propylon-all is one vast cheerless ruin; and if here and there a column be found standing, cloud and darkness rest upon its capital! There is, however, a voice heard from the mighty wreck, which hypothetically lies before us;-It is the voice of tradition, and heard more perceptibly, from the surrounding silence of the scene whence it proceeds: and there is, too, at the same time, a grandeur and fading majesty hovering over these ruins of antiquity, at once both affecting and awful. Indeed, it could not have been chance that reared such a fabric; and the lines are yet discoverable of its likeness to the greater prototype after which it was designed, and doubtless for the collateral evidence of whose perfection it is even yet thus partially preserved: the form hath not yet lost All its original brightness; nor appears FINIS. J. CHILCOTT, Printer, 6, High Street, Bristol. |