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HE Hecatompedon,' which many of the citizens begin to call the Parthenon, is now completed, and waits but for the Goddess. A small temple, raised by Cimon in honour of Theseus, is the model. This, until lately, was the only beautiful edifice in the Athenian dominions, Pericles is resolved that Athens shall not only be the mistress, but the admiration of the world, and that her architecture shall, if possible, keep pace with her military and intellectual renown. Our countrymen, who have hitherto been better architects than the people of Attica, think it indecorous and degrad

[1 In the 1st ed. this letter begins with the words "The Parthenon is now," etc. Plutarch, in the life of Pericles, says, "Ictinus built the Hecatompedon called the Parthenon," but the exact sense of the passage is uncertain, as indeed is the true relation of the Hecatompedon to the Parthenon. The Theseum was built after the Persian war by Cimon, when he brought back from Scyros the bones of the hero Theseus.Pausanias i. 17. 6.]

ing that Ionians, as the Athenians are, should follow the fashion of the Dorians, so inferior a race of mortals. Many grand designs were offered by Ictinus to the approbation and choice of the public. Those which he calls Ionian are the gracefuller. Craterus, a young architect, perhaps to ridicule the finery and extravagance of the Corinthians, exposed to view a gorgeous design of slender columns and top-heavy capitals, such as, if ever carried into execution, would be incapable of resisting the humidity of the sea-breezes or even the action of the open air, uninfluenced by them. These however would not be misplaced as indoor ornaments, particularly in bronze or ivory; and indeed small pillars of such a character would be suitable enough to highly ornamented apartments. I have conversed on the subject with Ictinus, who remarked to me that what we call the Doric column is in fact Egyptian, modified to the position and the worship; and that our noblest specimens are but reduced and petty imitations of those ancient and indestructible supporters, to the temples of Thebes, of Memphis, and Tentyra. He smiled at the ridicule cast on the Corinthians, by the name designating those florid capitals; but agreed with me that, on a smaller scale, in gold or silver, they would serve admirably for the receptacles of waxlights on solemn festivals. He praised the designs of our Ionian architects, and acknowledged that their pillars alone deserved the appellation of Grecian, but added that, in places liable to earthquakes, inundations, or accumulations of sand, the

solider column was in its proper situation. The architraves of the Parthenon are chiseled by the scholars of Phidias, who sometimes gave a portion of the design. It is reported that two of the figures bear the marks of the master's own hand; he leaves it to the conjecture of future ages which they are. Some of the young architects, Ionian and Athenian, who were standing with me, disputed not only on the relative merits of their architecture, but of their dialect. One of them, Psamiades of Ephesus, ill enduring the taunt of Brachys the Athenian, that the Ionian, from its open vowels, resembled a pretty pulpy hand which could not close itself, made an attack on the letter T usurping the place of S, and against the augments.

“Is it not enough,” said he, “that you lisp, but you must also stammer?

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Let us have patience if any speak against us, O Cleone! when a censure is cast on the architecture of Ictinus and on the dialect of Athens.

CXXXI.

CLEONE TO ASPASIA.

WHEN the weather is serene and bright, I think of the young Aspasia; of her liveliness, her playfulness, her invitations to sit down on the grass; and her challenges to run, to leap, to dance, and, if nobody was near, to gambol. The weather at this season is neither bright nor serene, and I

think the more of my Aspasia, because I want Fie upon me! And yet on the whole,

her more.

Happy to me has been the day,

The shortest of the year,

Though some, alas! are far away

Who made the longest yet more brief appear.

I never was formed for poetry: hate whatever I have written, five minutes afterward. A weakly kid likes the warm milk, and likes the drawing of it from its sources; but place the same before her, cold, in a pail, and she smells at it and turns

away.

Among the Tales lately come out here, many contain occasional poetry. In the preface to one, the scene of which lies mostly in Athens, the author says,

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My reader will do well to draw his pen across the verses: they are not good for him. The olive, especially the Attic, is pleasing to few the first time it is tasted."

This hath raised an outcry against him; so that of the whole fraternity he is the most unpopular.

"The Gods confound him with his Atticisms!" exclaim the sober-minded. "Is not the man contented to be a true and hearty Carian? Have we not roses and violets, lilies and amaranths, crocuses and sowthistles? Have we not pretty girls and loving ones; have we not desperate girls and cruel ones, as abundantly as elsewhere? Do not folks grieve and die to his heart's content? We possess the staple; and, by Castor and Pollux ! we can bleach it and comb it and twist it, as cleverly as the sharpest of your light-fingered locust-eaters."

You will soon see his works, among others more voluminous. In the meanwhile, I cannot end my letter in a pleasanter way than with a copy of these verses, which are nearer to the shortest than to the best.

I.

Perilla to thy fates resign'd,

Think not what years are gone,
While Atalantal lookt behind
The golden fruit roll'd on.

2.

Albeit a mother may have lost

The plaything at her breast,
Albeit the one she cherisht most
It but endears the rest.

3.

Youth, my Perilla, clings on Hope,
And looks into the skies

For brighter day; she fears to cope
With grief, she shrinks at sighs.

4.

Why should the memory of the past
Make you and me complain?
Come, as we could not hold it fast
We'll play it o'er again.

[ Cf." Atalanta's Race" in the "Earthly Paradise":-
"Though slackening once, she turned her head about,
But then she cried aloud and faster fled

Than e'er before, and all men deemed him dead.
But with no sound he raised aloft his hand
And hence what seemed a ray of light there flew
And past the maid rolled on along the sand."

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