SECTION I.
ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE.
If it were possible to place within an Ephesian Temple, every historic book, manuscript, and engraving in the world, and then the sacrilegious torch of a modern Erostratus should entirely consume them, whereby the only apparent knowledge to be obtained would be from tradition,—yet the marble and stone quarries of the earth have issued those volumes composed and fashioned by the hands of man, that would restore the progressive history of the arts and civilization.
Architecture has erected his lofty temples, palaces, and mansions; and Sculpture has, with her magic wand, charmed and adorned them with historic facts, legends, and romance: the former planned the porticoes, columns, and proportions; but the latter was the power whereby they were fashioned and embellished. Architecture by his peculiar characteristic gives intelligence as we wander amid his works, that we are on the land of Egypt, or the plains of Pæstum: on the Acropolis of Athens, or the land of Romulus and the Coliseum: and whether we gaze upon the sky-pointing Pyramid, the stern or the graceful Doric, the Ionic of the Ilissus, or the acanthus-crowned Corinthian,—they one and all have voices of oracular power, proclaiming to the classic scholar the Nation from whence they arose to life and beauty.
Even the horizontal and curved lines of Architecture have their especial records; for they state the time in the history of the Arts, when they were erected, even without a sculptured cipher;—for the level lines of the Cyclopean and Egyptian walls, with their attendant apertures, give certain knowledge that they were erected before the principle of the Grecian arch was known or practised.
Sculpture has a more harmonious voice than that of her stern consort;—the graceful bride, whose rock-ribbed cradle amid the Parian hills—whose virgin youth reposed upon the halcyon marble of Pentelicus, has a voice of warm, yet chaste simplicity,—her tones are as sweet, as from lips first nourished on Hymettus' Hill; yet at times they speak with all the solemnity of her consort, around whom she fondly clings, as the ivy around the oak; and like that plant and tree, the sculpture-vine preserves for ages the character of the marble monarch of the Arts, even after his broad-spreading authority has been broken and humbled to the earth by Time and Desolation; or these two destroying powers may be viewed as the Regan and the Goneril, while Architecture is the Lear, and Sculpture the Cordelia of the Arts!
Even as a note of music struck from a chord of Nature vibrates to the heart, in like manner does the voice of Sculpture reach and echo around the walls of Life: it is Poetry's diapason—it speaks of God and His works—of Man in his intellect and glory—of Woman in her charity and beauty: it speaks a language which the unlettered may translate, while to her more subdued or secret tones, the disciples of her heavenly power have but to listen, or behold her action of utterance, as developed in her free or drapered limbs, to give the history of her thoughts; nor have those thoughts or attitudes, chaste as the marble they inhabit, ever been conquered by lust or luxury,—that unworthy conquest was reserved for the false disciples of her faith, yet not over herself, but her fair handmaid—Painting. But Architecture and Sculpture have lived on—severe and chaste, stern and graceful, majestic and beautiful—as when they were first created from the Eden of the mind! No sword of wrath has driven them forth to wander as outcasts; but as Messengers of Peace they have visited every clime; they have raised their temples and cities in every land, subjected to one power only—the insatiate monster of the earth, Time—the twin-born with Creation, and who will be the last mourner of Nature and her name! Yet even when their children have been struck down—like Niobe's, by the shafts of fate—still how beautiful in Ruins! Although prostrate upon the earth, yet even in death, they have voices as speaking from the tomb:—but the Parents still live on, ever young and immortal, and can point to the proud remains of their fallen Children, and with the voice of historic truth proclaim their fadeless epitaph and character.
Egypt! My first-born and consort of the Nile!—while thy Pyramids and Temples shall remain—and they will even to the final tempest of the World—thou shalt be identified from among all the nations of the Earth!
Athens!—My favourite daughter! Until the Rock of the Acropolis shall fall,—thy classic beauties,—around which have gleamed the meridian splendour of the mind, will proclaim that Minerva, Plato, Pericles, and Phidias, were thy own!
Palmyra!—My third joy! Although the wild Arab sleeps within thy roofless dwelling, with the whirling sands for his nightly mantle—yet, while thy Porticoes, Arches, and Colonnades shall be seen, the City of the Desert will live in Memory; for the Spirits of Longinus and Zenobia will be there!