The religion of the Greeks, in harmony with their climate, their customs, and their minds, was one of striking and brilliant ceremonies, formed to excite the passions and dazzle the imagination; with more show than feeling, more elegance than solemnity.
The architecture of their temples was consonant both to the nature of the people and their religion, light, rich, and graceful, and full of forms more calculated to excite pleasure and admiration, than thought or devotion, it had far more grace but less grandeur than the Gothic. Its very perfection is the cause of its wanting solemnity. The pillars are exactly proportioned to the building, and the ornaments to the parts which they adorn; every thing is gradual and easy; but in Gothic architecture, all is abrupt and striking. The minute ornaments which are too small to distract the attention from general effect, give, by contrast, an additional vastness to the high pointed arches, and enormous columns. The very disproportion of the parts makes the whole appear larger than it really is, the soul of man seems to have power to expand amidst the gigantic vaults, under which he walks as an insect; and his mind naturally takes a tone from the solemn vastness of the building.
To you, who are almost as great a Goth as myself in these points, I am not afraid to express my opinions; although I have no architectural knowledge to support them. I am apt to judge alone from my feelings, and certainly I never experience the same sensation of awe in any other building that I do in a Gothic cathedral.
Nothing has occurred to myself worth commemorating since our arrival in this city, if I except some suspicions which have assailed me regarding my worthy servant Essex. You remember the fellow and his extreme plausibility. Amongst other points of his character he affected no slight dislike to his former master, your acquaintance Wild; representing him as the most violent and malevolent of human beings. On going to the post-office myself, the other day, I saw fixed up amongst the letters which have not been forwarded for want of postage, one addressed to no other person than Alfred Wild, Esquire, and that address, too, written in the precise hand which delivers me my weekly accounts. What, this means I do not know; but I mentioned to my friend B----, while the fellow was in the room, the fact of having seen a letter addressed to Wild, but not forwarded for want of postage. The next day the letter was no longer there. This, however, might be nothing, did I not feel very sure that--at whose instigation I know not--the rascal gives himself the trouble of watching me in my various rambles through the town. If I detect him, he will return to England with a broken head, although he can find out but little in my goings forth which can injure
Your's ever,
J---- Y----
THE JOURNEY.
Quatuor hinc rapimur viginti et millia rhedis
Mansuri oppidulo quod versu dicere non est
Signis perfacile est. Venit vilissima rerum
Hic aqua. Horace.
What can it be? It can not be food, nor climate, nor customs, which make two races of people, living side by side, so very different from each other. Certain it is, that beauty stops short at the gates of Rouen; and that from thence to Berney, they are the ugliest, ill-looking generation that ever I beheld. Not a pretty face was to be seen for love or money. Nature seemed to have expended all her beauty upon the scenery.
About three leagues from Rouen we stopped at the foot of a high hill, and climbing amongst some fine oaks to the left, arrived at the top of a pinnacle, which commanded the whole country round. It was as beautiful a view as can be conceived. One vast forest, with innumerable valleys winding away towards the horizon covered with rich wood; but as the withering touch of time had not affected all the trees alike, the thousand autumnal tints of the foliage, and the various shadows thrown by the undulations of the country, offered a variety and richness of colouring seldom to be equalled.