Memnon and the distressed Ninevite.—"The afflicted lady led him into a perfumed chamber, where they both placed themselves opposite to each other, in the attitude of conversation; the one eager in telling her story, the other listening with devout attention."
[1] The above engraving from Chamber's Guide to the British Museum, represents a head and bust of Memnon, "formed of a single block of fine syene granite, one piece of which is red, while the rest is blue or grayish. The sculptor, with admirable taste, used the red part for the head, and the darker part for the breast. Although the statue has all the characteristics of Egyptian sculpture—the projecting eyes, thick lips, high ears, and small chin—yet such is the beauty of the execution, so much sweetness and mildness is there in the expression of the countenance, that the effect is, on the whole, extremely pleasing. Here, in short, we have the masterpiece of some Egyptian sculptor of superior genius, whose name has perished. Here also, if we are to accept the statue as a genuine likeness, we behold the features of the great Egyptian Pharaoh, at whose name, some fourteen centuries before Christ, the Mediterranean nations trembled. Doubtless on such a subject the sculptor would do his best; striving, while transmitting the features of the hero to posterity, to produce also a countenance that would be the ideal of Egyptian beauty."—E.
ANDRÉ DES TOUCHES AT SIAM.
André Des Touches was a very agreeable musician in the brilliant reign of Louis XIV. before the science of music was perfected by Rameau; and before it was corrupted by those who prefer the art of surmounting difficulties to nature and the real graces of composition.