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material beauty into a sentiment of moral beauty . ' A * the &t £ Uwft $ > f Greece are displayed to the artist to inspire' him with the instinct of loveliness , the young mind should b $ initiated in the finer an 4 gtfctoder scenes of nature , that the image it may form to itself of the Author , of nature may be worthy of her and of him !'—Ibid . vol . ii . p , I 3 $ f There is a lovely description of the clothing of the rocky 9 i < £ 6 s of these valleys of Lebanon :
* It is a leafy carpet of one or two feet thick , a vegetable velvet strewed in all colours , with bouquets of flowers , unknown to us * of a thousand forms and a thousand odours , which sometimes sleep motiotiless , and sometimes , when the light breeze sweeps over them , take themselves with the herbs and branches from whence they issue *
becoming shaded with many tints , and resembling a river of flowers and verdure that Sows in perfumed waves . At those moments gusts o £ intoxicating odours load the air , and multitudes of insects with variegated wings fly out , and innumerable birds sing on the neighbouring tr * efc « # - Ibid . vol ii . p . 134 .
It is impossible , by means of short extracts , to give any idea of the magnificence of Balbec . Indeed , it is difficult foif the imagination toxonceive of it after reading the most elaborate description . We are told of a ' hill of architecture bearing a forest- of columns ; ' of an accumulation of ruins so vast that we must '
multiply in our fancy the temples of Jupiter Stator at Rome , of the Coliseum , and the Parthenon , to succeed in acquiring a notion of their extent ; " * of columns seventy feet high , formed out of only two or three blocks ; of successive generations of monuments belonging to different ages .
* Under our very feet , in the bed of the torrent , around the trutiks of the trees , were scattered blocks of red and grey granite , veined pbrphyry , white marble , and yellow stone as bright as Parian marble ; truncated columns , richly-wrought capitals , architraves , entablatures , aAd pedestals ; while portions of figures and whole statues , seemingly animated with life , lay around in confused masses , like the lava of ad the volcano which had vomited forth the relics of a mighty empire . 4
Beyond these masses , which may be truly called marble downs , rises the hill of Balbec , an elevation a thousand feet long , and seven hundred broad , entirely the work of human hands , and built of freestone , some blocks of which measured from fifty to sixty feet loftg , and from fifteen to sixteen feet high , but the average from fifteen td thirty . Three blocks of granite alone present a surface of nearly four thousatid feet . In the expansive hollows of the subterraneous vaults the river engulphs itself , and the wind , rushing in witli the water , produces a noise
like the distant peals of cathedral bells . Above this immense eminewce we descried the top 3 of the great temples , relieved from an horizon alternately azure , red , and gold colour . The eye is absolutely bewildered in surveying the brilliant avenues of the colonnades of the different temples ; and the horizon rising above them prevented us from discerning the point where this world of architecture terminated . The nix gigantic columns of the grand temple , still majestically supporting their rich and colossal entablature , tower over all the feat , and their fermhia-
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1835, page 791, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2652/page/35/
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