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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
a notion that the naturally adapted tone of a capacious ( I do not , b y that word , mean boisterous ) voice , will paint better than brush ana colours will do . *
Now , pass on , if you please , across the old bed of the stream at this point , and , a few steps more , enter the ruins of the chateau , under the architrave of a dilapidated window ; destruction has facilitated
access , it has removed all barriers of bolts , locks , and doors . You may walk in with a little clambering over the heaps ; but look first along the line of wall , and all that remains of its architectural design and beauty . Is it a work of Palladio ? I should so think it , though I cannot show that he ever -visited Istria , or that his genius threw its splendour across the Adriatic , in a plan which others executed while he lived . No , there is a date which marks that portion of the
erection at least to have taken place nearly a century after the marshalling of his self-superintended triumphs—mdclxiii . There is yet the partial blackening of the smoke , as if a current of air had just now brushed it across the numbers , which themselves look not a month old . In , press through the rank weeds ; they grow in rough and rude luxuriance about the whole extent of the enclosure , forcing themselves between the fragments , and clipping and entwining them in
fellowship . Here , mount on this cemented mass ; it is but a stretchy step ; here , hence the eye may range over the whole . You cannot spring up ? Give me your hand then—now . Stop , what means this ? A cross cut deeply in the face of the marble , and as fresh as if the chisel had wrought on it but yesterday . A memento ! surely not a tombstone ? There is a meaning for this ; we may know it soon , perhaps . Happiness may once have found a home here . Wealth
and abundance , certainly , have been residents ; perhaps luxury , or splendour without luxury , for time and fire have not effaced the gorgery entirely . You can trace , even now , the dim remains of the fresco which ornamented the walls ; but it is impossible to say to what story that beautiful head , looking back , as if flying in fear , belongs ; there is a hand , too , pouring * water from an amphora down on a foot , the sandal of which is loosened , on another compartment , and the foot
and hand belong to two different sexes . No , this is not a Palladio , nor the architecture of his disciples , for that long line of wall is broken by a recess , in the fashion of an oriel window , containing remnants of what we usually call gothic shafts . At least I can remember nothing in the works of Palladio or his disciples in which that style of building is adopted . Elsewhere that golden ray from the morning ' s sun would be cheering in its effect ; but here , on this fire-haggarded and time-shaken monument of calamity , it seems to scoff , and stands a derisive laugh at misery . Or , reader , did you ever see that slowly-moving or moveless smile , which curls the lip , and pales the cheek , and makes paleness wan , while the heart beneath is breaking ? I have seen it . Like it is the sun-light on that wall . Or is it not the ray of a prosperous star , which shines too late to cheer , for the temple of hope is in ruins , and heeds not , for it cannot feel the
* But we have ' changed all this * in England ; which is one cause of our not perceiving how the oratory of Demosthenes produced such wonderful effects as are ascribed to it *
Untitled Article
680 Autobiography of Pel . Verjuice .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1833, page 630, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2622/page/46/
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