THE Acropolis of Athens! It is difficult to conceive the perpetual and vivid interest, with which the stranger wanders around its scenery, inhaling, at every step, the air of ancient Athenian glory. Even now it is an object which one would never be wearied with gazing at; and in its perfection it must have been a combination of natural beauty of situation with the highest magnificence of art, such as would renew the admiration of the mind with every day's examination. Its Propylæa, its Parthenon, and its other temples, in solemn, melancholy ruins, make it an altar of THE PAST, magnificent beyond description. How glorious must it have been in the freshness of its early unity, and the unbroken symmetry of all its outlines, a vast white pile of fretted Pentelican marble, with every sculpture in the pediments and friezes of its temples breathing with life!

The Acropolis, before which we now stand, looks directly towards the port of the Piræus. Entering now the deep massive arched way which forms the only access to the citadel, we see beneath us on our right the remains of the Theatre of Herodes. Passing another dilapidated gateway, and presenting our passport, or permit, at the door of the cell of the keeper, a precaution, that, if it had been adopted at a much earlier period, would have saved the ruins of the Parthenon

from many a pilferer, we are conducted to the innermost gateway, through which, amidst broken pillars and pedestals lying in heaps around us, we pass upwards, directly in front of the grand ranges of columns, which constitute the centre of the Propylæa. A square marble tower, formerly crowned with an equestrian statue, rises on the north; and opposite on the south, the Temple of " Victory without Wings," is still visible, having been recently disinterred from the rubbish, and restored almost completely to its ancient proportions.

Here let us step back a little nearer to the brink of the massive western walls of the citadel; and, from this point, you will think it scarcely possible to conceive a design of purer majesty in architecture, than the remaining splendours of the Propylæa offer to the view. A huge square tower, erected by the Turks, at the southern wing, encumbers and disfigures the harmony of the picture; but originally it must have been a pile of surpassing magnificence and beauty.

By quoting a part of Col. Leake's accurate description of the plan and execution of this work under the administration of Pericles, you will have a better idea of the whole than I can otherwise convey. "The western end of the Acropolis," says this writer, "which furnished the only access to the summit of the hill, presented a breadth of only one hundred and sixty-eight feet, - an opening so narrow, that it appeared practicable to the artists of Pericles to fill up the space with a single building, which, in serving the main purpose of a gateway, should contribute at once to fortify and adorn the citadel. This work, — the greatest production of civil architecture in Athens, which equalled the Parthenon in felicity of execution, and surpassed it in boldness and originality of design, was begun 437 years before Christ, and completed in five years. The entire building, like others of the same kind, received the name of Propylæa from its forming a vestibule to the five gates or doors by which the citadel was entered."

The whole structure was entirely of Pentelican marble. There were six fluted Doric columns, in front; each five feet in diameter, and twenty-nine feet high. Behind this was a vestibule forty-three feet deep, with six Doric columns on each side. Marble beams, twenty-two feet long, covered the side-aisles. This vestibule leads to the five doors of the Propylæa; and through these you pass into the inner eastern portico, with its Doric colonnade.

Here, above all places at Athens," says Mr. Wordsworth,

"the mind of the traveller enjoys an exquisite pleasure. It seems as if this portal had been spared in order that our imagination might send through it, as through a triumphal arch, all the glories of Athenian antiquity, in visible parade. In our visions of that spectacle, we would unseal the long Panathenaic frieze of Phidias, representing that spectacle, from its place on the marble walls of the Parthenon, in order that, endued with ideal life, it might move through this splendid avenue, as it originally did of old.

"It was this particular point in the localities of Athens, which was most admired by the Athenians themselves; nor is this surprising. Let us conceive such a restitution of this fabric as its surviving fragments will suggest; let us imagine it restored to its pristine beauty; let it rise once more in the full dignity of its youthful stature; let all the architectural decorations be fresh and perfect, let their moulding be again brilliant with their glowing tints of red and blue; let the coffers of its soffits be again spangled with stars, and the marble antæ be fringed over, as they were once, with their delicate embroidery of ivy leaf; let it be in such a lovely day as the present day of November; and then let the bronze valves of these five gates of the Propylæa, be suddenly flung open, and all the splendours of the interior of the Acropolis burst at once upon the view!

'But ye shall see! for the opening doors I hear of the Propylæa!

Shout, shout aloud of the view which appears of the old timehonoured Athenæ,

Wondrous in sight and famous in song, where the noble Demus abideth!'

ARISTOPHANES.'

But let us pass upward, through this splendid portal, to the . grand interior object of interest on the Acropolis, -the Parthenon in ruins. A little more than one hundred years ago, this perfect temple stood almost entire. The Turks, who possessed the citadel, kept their powder-magazine within its chambers; and the Venetians under Morosini, on the evening of the 20th of September, 1687, destroyed by a bomb, in five minutes, what time, and genius, and history, and poetry, had consecrated; and what time, and ignorance, and barbarism, and decay, had spared for thousands of years. And it might have stood for thousands of years longer; for its destruction

was effected by none of the common agents of Nature in her work of decay, but by elements which were not even known when the fabric was erected. The middle portion of the temple was entirely destroyed by the explosion; but the eastern and western portions, with their fronts, remain, though the cupidity of civilized spoilers has stripped them of their sculptured metopes, friezes and pediments. The British Museum has been enriched at the expense of the dead body of Greece; and a sentiment of deep indignation burns in the mind at the contemplation of these ruins. It seemed to me, while gazing upon them, and thinking with what sort of feelings a man could fix his scaling-ladders, and point the levers of his workmen to wrench off the exquisite sculptures with which the temple was adorned, that the land-pirates, who strip the corpses cast ashore from shipwreck, show scarce a deeper insensibility to the sentiments of kindness and decency.

In part of the space of that portion of the Parthenon which was blown down by the explosion, a clumsy Turkish mosque was afterwards erected upon its marble pavement, and still remains, a barbarian deformity, between the eastern and western portions of the temple, surrounded by huge piles of columns, cornices, and blocks of marble; a great quantity of fragments of statues and sculptures have been collected from the ruins, and arranged within it as a sort of museum.

In spite of every injury, the beauty of the temple as it still stands, is wonderful; and the pleasure of gazing upon its majestic columns, and upon the lovely scenery on every side, from amidst its shattered piles, is very great. In this temple, as well as in that of Theseus and Jupiter Olympius, and also in the columns of the Propylæa, a singular effect of earthquakes is visible, showing at once the force of the shocks, and the solidity of fabrics which could have been thus moved by them and yet so little injured. The enormous grooved marble blocks in the pillars are not unfrequently wrenched round, notwithstanding the prodigious superincumbent weight, in such a manner that the corner of the groove in one lies directly in a line with the hollow or curve in the next. This is observable sometimes in the very middle of a column sixty feet high, and could have been produced by no other cause than the shock of an earthquake.

Many excavations have been made amidst the rubbish of the Acropolis, and will probably be continued as long as there is prospect of any new discoveries. It is made a question

among the literati of the modern city, whether any attempt ought to be made to restore the Parthenon with the fragments that lie in such immense piles around it: the preponderating opinion seems to be, that in its present situation it is an object of greater beauty and interest, than it ever could possess by any attempted restitution of the fabric. If the exquisite fragments of art pilfered from it could be snatched back from the spoilers, and replaced in their original beauty, then indeed, the effort would be desirable. But it would be difficult by any means to increase its power over the imagination, as a spectacle of decaying grandeur, and a memorial of past ages

The leaden tramp of thousands. Clarion-notes

Rang sharply on the ear, at intervals;

And the low, mingled din of mighty hosts
Returning from the battle, poured from far,
Like the deep murmur of a restless sea.
They came, as earthly conquerors always come,
With blood and splendour, revelry and woe!
The stately horse treads proudly,
The brow of death as well.

he hath trod

The chariot-wheels

Of warriors roll magnificently on,

Their weight hath crushed the fallen. Man is there, —
Majestic, lordly man, with his sublime

And elevated brow, and godlike frame;

Lifting his crest in triumph; - for his heel
Hath trod the dying, like a wine-press, down!

The mighty Jephthah led his warriors on
Through Mizpeh's streets. His helm was proudly set
And his stern lip curled slightly, as if praise
Were for the hero's scorn. His step was firm,
But free as India's leopard; and his mail,
Whose shekels none in Israel might bear,-
Was like a cedar's tassel on his frame.
His crest was Judah's kingliest; and the look