PRINCIPLES OF SACRED FIGURES RUINS-PASSION FOR THE MARVELLOUS BAAL-PEOR FUNERAL FEASTS HERMES PSYCHOPOMPOS GODDESS OF NIGHT AND DARKNESS GROUP TIANS- APARTMENTS AND CORRIDORS- - BRUCE'S TOMB — CULTURAL SUBJECT -MILITARY WEAPONS AND STANDARDS. Sunday, Feb. 10. Thebes. CCCCXXX. IN one of the tombs of Gournou, excavated high in the face of the mountain, I found Mr. Hay and his family, whose superior politeness and urbanity are well known to all European travellers in Egypt. Mr. Bonomi, an English artist of great talent, inhabited a neighbouring tomb, where he had lived several years. Upon my arrival, they 38 ENGLISH IN THEBES. very obligingly invited me to take up my abode with them during whatever stay I should make at Thebes, pointing out the inconveniences of remaining in my kandjia on the river, far from the principal ruins, and the royal tombs of Biban el Melook. Influenced more, however, by the pleasure of their society than by the advantages of the position, I accepted their polite invitation, and removed with the Hajji to the tombs. Our society was numerous: in addition to the two gentlemen above mentioned, and Monro, whom I found waiting for me at Gournou, there were Mr. Catherwood and M. Dupuis, both artists, who resided in our neighbourhood. Two other artists, Messrs. Gouri and Jones, were living at Luxor, where Messrs. Welsted and Carlis, officers in the Indian navy, who during nearly two years had been employed in making a survey of the Red Sea, had arrived a few days previously. Mr. Arundale, the editor of the works of Palladio, likewise joined us, from Déndera, in the course of the week. therefore, during the whole of our sojourn, had rather the air of an English colony, than of an ancient and deserted metropolis. The day was spent among the ruins; the evening, with the greater part of the night, in conversation; the majority being men of talent, and enlarged experience, in whose company time passed unobserved; so that independently of the numerous monuments of ancient art, there found crowded together, Thebes presented to us many motives for prolonging our stay. Thebes, EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 39 CCCCXXXI. The ruins of this great capital, the earliest seat of the Egyptian monarchy, have in all ages deservedly excited the admiration of travellers. Excepting the labyrinth and the pyramids, the greatest works of its greatest princes were erected here, where the architecture, invariably aiming at sublimity, has an air of vastness, of simplicity, of ponderous massiveness, which irresistibly strikes and elevates the imagination. This must be allowed. It may, moreover, be added, as a strong presumption in favour of its originality, that the impression left upon the mind by these monuments, is not transient, like the effect of mere singularity, but is recurred to, again and again, in after time, as a source of permanent satisfaction; a test which nothing but the creations of genius will bear; inferior productions, to whatever department of the mimetic arts they may belong, always failing in this one essential requisite. Deluded, perhaps, at first, by meretricious ornaments and a spurious manifestation of power, we admire and praise; but afterwards, when our cooler judgment has been consulted, the warmth we experienced, and perhaps exhibited, causes us shame; and the snare, in which we were entangled, being regarded with contempt, we pass hastily to the antipodes of our first decisions. CCCCXXXII. When others, whose judgments we have esteemed and adopted, are found to stand in the above predicament, the conduct of the mind is not greatly dissimilar. Like most travellers who visit Egypt, I had read and admired the relations of the 40 GRANDEUR OF THE RUINS. magnificence of Thebes which enthusiastic persons had compiled, some in their closets, others on the spot. Above all things the brief but nervous sketch of Tacitus, in his account of the voyage of Germanicus, dwelt upon my memory, tending to cast over those vast fragments of an antique age, a solemn air of grandeur and perfection, greatly beyond what, if viewed without preoccupation, might perhaps belong to them. I will not deny that I arrived at Thebes with a mind under such influence; and my first impressions, as generally happens, were not unfavourable to the continuance of this feeling. Columns, obelisks, sphynxes, propylæa of gigantic proportions, colossal statues, mysterious sculpture, subterranean palaces, or halls of death, rendered doubly venerable by the marks everywhere left by the hoary hand of time, and war, and barbarism; all these, picturesquely grouped, and viewed by an eye not unwilling to admire, failed not to move powerfully, and fill the mind with images of gorgeous magnificence and costly labours. CCCCXXXIII. But those hurried emotions subsiding, the love of truth, whose naked majesty, more sublime than the creations of the architect, possesses, when we follow the real bias of our nature, charms so irresistibly pleasing, soon recovered its ascendency, and left me free to exercise my judgment conscientiously. As my ultimate opinions differed materially from those of many other travellers, I considered it my duty to investigate the probable causes ANTIQUARIAN SPIRIT. 41 of this dissimilitude; and shall here venture to state the results of my inquiry. In every pursuit which men follow continuously and with eagerness, it usually happens, that they ultimately invest it with an undue importance, discovering beauties and excellencies which others, absorbed by different studies, perceive not at all, or in a very inferior degree. Such persons, devoted exclusively to their favourite subject, omit to make those discursive flights, those healthful pauses and diversions, those numerous approximations and comparisons, without which it is impossible, even for the acutest minds, to judge sanely. The greater number of Egyptian antiquarians stand in this predicament; and many, unbiassed by peculiar studies, appear to surrender their judgments to the direction of others, by whose eloquence they are bound in fetters. Others again, whose sole pretensions are based on their acquaintance with the practice and ordinary routine of the arts, presume, without any other qualification, to decide magisterially in a question more connected with the abstract principles of all art, than with the traditional and manual processes in which the lives of such persons is ordinarily consumed. Besides, the peculiar intellectual character possessed by different men, must necessarily introduce much variety into their decisions. And thus, ruined structures, the sight of which has caused in some travellers extraordinary raptures and ecstasies, from whose influence they seem never to have escaped, may produce on others, as on me, effects far less marvellous. |