The blocks of stone with which the co lumns are formed, being six feet in dia meter, are so nicely and accurately wrought, that the most strict scrutiny is required to discover the joints, being no thicker than the finest hair. In order to attain this perfection, the marble is re duced to the proper size by the chisel, after which two pieces are rubbed one upon the other, with sand and water placed between them as a cutting medi um, until the top and bottom beds come so closely in contact, as to exclude the atmosphere, and bed themselvestogether. After which process, they were regulated by a square pivot of olive wood with as toriishing accuracy ; so much so, as to give the whole pillar the effect of having passed through a lathe.
Chauteaubriand, seated on a fragment at the summit of the Acropolis, describes the ruins of the Parthenon with all the enthusiasm of a poet and artist: "From the summit of the Acropolis, I beheld the sun rise between the two peaks of mount Hymettus. The crows, which build their nests around the citadel, but never soar to its summit, hovered below us ; their black and polished wings were tinged with roseate hues by the first ra diant beams of Aurora. Columns of light blue smoke ascended in the shade along the sides of the Hymettus. Athens, the Acropolis, and the ruins ofthe Parthe non, were coloured with the most beautiful tints of peach blossom. The sculptures of Phidias, struck horizontally by a ray of gold, started into life, and seemed to move upon the marble, from the mobility of the shadows of relief." Athens abounds with numerous and prodigious relices of the works of art. Adjacent to the Parthenon stands the temple of Neptune and Minerva Polias, the temples of Theseus, Propylea, and Jupiter Olympus, which was composed of 128 columns, sixty feet in height ; the dis, tance round this temple is said to be half a mile. The walls of the city extended over a space of nine leagues, and broad enough to admit of two chariots to run abreast, being equal to the huge fortified walls of the Romans.
Many of these masterpieces of antiqui ty, which excite the veneration of the modern world, 120 years ago were per fect, and had suffered but little dilapida tion from the attacks of time, until some penetrative and investigating travellers paid them a visit, more from curiosity than information, and, not unlike children with a new tov, broke off the ptrlly parts, in order to discover how it was made, and, like Ulysses with his presents from the Phoenicians, return home with large chests full of stones, to enrich museums, and tickle connoisseurs.
The most daring outrage of this kind was committed by Lord Elgin, who em ployed the Turks to break off, and throw down part of the frize and pediment of the Parthenon. His sole object in bear ing off the works of Phidias was, merely to show the British nation the wonderful degree of perfection the Greeks had ar rived to in the art of sculpture ; and, as a further extenuation of his conduct, to preserve them unimpaired by the hand of ignorant barbarism, so peculiar tci Mus selinen and Frenchmen : for which his zeal and judgment, in literally robbing a church, has received the warmest ac knowledgments of the British artists, who still suffer him to keep an Italian merce nary in Greece, destroying and pilfering what is termed the " Elgin Marbles." Such inconsiderate love ofthe arts, con trasted with the laudable exertions of the scientific Stuart, is truly disgusting. This ingenious traveller was indefatigable in drawing, measuring, and accurately de scribing these interesting works of anti quity, and devoted seven years in the ac complishment of a work that does honour to the British arts, by transmitting to posterity- the genius and taste of the Greeks, under the influence of Pericles and .A.drian ; in the perusal of whose pages we may exclaim, "There was a thne, when Greece, when Athens, existed : now neither is there an Athens in Greece, nor is Greece itself any longer to be found." And wh en we search for architec ture, we may find it buried in its own ruins.
The Romans were humble copiers of Greek Architecture in every thing but its simplicity; they- laboured in compli cated forms, and dressed out the chaste orders into umneaning frivolities. Columns 'were coupled, and piled on columns, enormous basements were erected on the tops of Porticoes, crushing all beneath .with the superincumbent weight, plane surfaces were intersected with fluted pilasters, and the intermediate space filled up, and enriched with tablets of fes toons, and perforated with stories of small windows.
The Romans acquired all their know ledge of' the arts by the prowess of their arms; and, not possessing any native taste, acquired by the unremitting attempts of rival artists, they could not be supposed to select the most chaste features, but eagerly seized upon the Corinthian, be ing the most sumptuous of the Greek orders, and applied it in their public buildings, almost to the total exclusion of all others, inventing au order still more rich and profuse, called the Composite, which is compounded of the Corinthian leaves, surmounted by the Ionic Echinus and Volutes.