the general appearance of the scene, by a sensible British traveller. "It is difficult to describe the noble and stupendous ruins of Thebes. Beyond all others they give you the idea of a ruined, yet imperishable city; so vast is their extent, that you wander a long time, confused and perplexed, and discover at every step some new object of interest. From the temple of Luxor to that of Karnac is a mile and a half; and they were formerly connected by a long avenue of sphinxes, the mutilated remains of which, the heads being broken off the greater part, still line the whole path. Arrived at the end of this avenue, you come to a lofty gateway of granite, quite isolated. About fifty yards further, you enter a temple of inferior dimensions; you then advance into a spacious area, strewed with broken pillars, and surrounded with vast and lofty masses of ruins, all parts of the great temple. A little on your right, is the magnificent portico of Karnac, the vivid remembrance of which will never leave him who has once gazed on it. Its numerous colonnades of pillars, of gigantic form and height, are in excellent preservation, and without ornament; the ceiling and walls of the portico are gone; the ornamented platstone still connects one of the rows of pillars with a slender remain of the edifice attached to it. Passing hence, you walk amidst obelisks, porticoes, and statues; the latter without grace or beauty, but of a most colossal kind. If you ascend one of the hills of rubbish, and look around, you see a gateway standing afar, conducting only to solitude; and detached roofless pillars, while others lie broken at their feet; and the busts of gigantic statues appearing above the earth, while the rest of the body is yet buried, or the head torn away.

"The length of the great temple of Karnac is estimated at 1200 feet, and its breadth at 400; and among its hundred and fifty columns are two rows, each pillar of which is ten feet in diameter. On the left spread the many deserts of the Thebais, to the edge of which the city extends. In front is a pointed and barren range of mountains. The Nile flows at the foot of the temple of Luxor; but the ruins extend far on the other side of the

river, to the very foot of those formidable precipices, and into the wastes of sand."*

The whole character of Egyptian architecture is that of gloomy grandeur and sublime vastness. Every thing indicates the ambition of taxing the human powers to the utmost in producing these effects; and the success of the effort is truly astonishing, especially if we take into account what we are bound to believe of the imperfect state, at that early period, of the mechanical arts. Modern machinery, if applied to such an object, might easily be made to effect greater wonders; but how man could, without the use of those powers, which have bestowed upon him a strength immensely surpassing his own, detach from the living rock, convey to great distances, and erect on high buildings, those immense blocks which baffled the vindictive rage of the destroyer, or wearied his perseverance,—has in every age, and not less in our own, confounded the conjectures of the most learned and ingenious antiquaries, and eluded the calculations of the most scientific artists.

TENTH WEEK-TUESDAY.

ARCHITECTURE.-ITS

ANCIENT HISTORY AND PRACTICEEGYPT, THE PYRAMIDS.

THE most peculiar and remarkable of all architectural efforts, whether we consider their nature, or the toil expended in their erection, are assuredly the Egyptian Pyramids. For thousands of years those huge masses of solid masonry have withstood the ravages of time, and the rage of hostile armies. They continue, and to the end of time will continue, imperishable monuments of human power and vanity.

There is something very marked and characteristic in Egyptian architecture. Its peculiar feature, as we have

* Carne's Travels in the East."

said, is an awful and stern sublimity; but its mysterious vastness, and severe simplicity, are without grace and without beauty. From these properties, however, the most powerful, if not the most refined and agreeable emotions are experienced. "Long withdrawing lines," says a talented writer in the Edinburgh Encyclopedia,'" unbroken surfaces, large masses, simple contours, even should the individual forms be destitute of proportion and grace, will always produce grand and solemn effects, capable of being carried to the majestic and sublime. Thus, in viewing the temples scattered over the Thebaid, those very edifices characterized by Strabo, as barbarous monuments of painful labor;' and in contemplating the pyramids, whose outline is without variety and contrast, the imagination is exalted to a high pitch of awe and astonishment. But these lofty efforts arise from a principle merely accidental; they are not the fruits of intrinsic science or refined art."

The writer we have quoted, justly attributes this pecu liar style of architecture to the predominant influence of the Egyptian priesthood, whose policy it was to perpetuate their power by investing themselves, and the productions of their domination, with a character of immensity and of permanence. The eternal durability to which, in all their designs and institutions, they aspired, necessarily pointed out a style, retaining, as the most substantial, only the simplest forms and the largest masses.

In the pyramids this character is peculiarly marked. Whatever was their immediate object, it is obvious that the whole resources of art were employed to render them indestructible. Standing on an immensely extended base; tapering to a narrow top; within, compact and solid; without, formed of heavy blocks of stone, whose

[They who have been in the habit of studying, with an impartial eye, the forms of Egyptian architecture, in good representations of them, will dissent from the opinion expressed above, and be disposed to maintain, that some of these forms, for instance, the lotus-like capitals, possess a large share of grace and beauty. The prevailing characters of this architecture, however, are, without doubt, solidity, solemnity, mystery. -AM. ED.]

+ Edinburgh Encyclopedia,' article 'Sculpture.'

size has excited the astonishment of all beholders; nothing seems to have been left unthought of, or undone, which could tend to produce that one object, durability, coextensive with that of the earth on which they were founded. What the more direct and particular intention of their erection was, seems still to be matter of doubt. Some persons have supposed, that they were temples erected in honor of a deity, and an attempt has been made to prove that this deity was the sun, the first and greatest god, in almost every heathen calendar. Considering them in this light, a fanciful writer remarks, that "it was natural to build them in that shape which the rays of the sun display when discovered to the eye, and which men observed to be the same in terrestrial flame; because this circumstance was combined in their imaginations with the attribute they adored. If they were temples dedicated to the sun," he adds, "it seems a natural consequence that they should likewise be places of sepulture for kings and illustrious men, as the space which they covered would be considered as consecrated ground."*

That one of the uses of these enormous buildings, was, to form receptacles for the dead, is generally believed; and that they were so employed, has been placed beyond conjecture, by the fact of sarcophagi and human bones having been found in them. Perhaps it is refining too much to look further for their object. It is well known, that the ancient Egyptians spared neither labor nor expense in preparing the tombs, and preserving the bodies of their dead. This was probably the only immortality to which they looked forward, and their prejudices ren-` dered it dear; for they imagined that so long as the body remained undecayed, the living principle continued to inhabit it. Near their chief cities, accordingly, are always found extensive ranges of tombs. In Upper Egypt, these were formed by excavations in the sides of the adjacent rocky mountains, which were executed with such laborious art, that to this day they form a striking contrast with

* Gentleman's Magazine,' for June, 1794.

the rudeness of the surrounding desert. The pyramids are erected in the northern extremity of this wonderful valley, in the neighborhood of Memphis, the second capital of that ancient kingdom; and may have been intended to supply the want of mountains in that immediate neighborhood, for the construction of mausoleums, if we are to believe that they are the work of this second period in the Egyptian history. They certainly are not unlike an imitation of mountains; and what might be supposed to favor this opinion, is, that a hill in the neighborhood of the pyramids, has been actually shaped by art into the pyramidal form, thus, by a kind of reaction, causing Nature to copy back from art, what art had originally copied from Nature.

The pyramids stand upon a plain about fifty miles long, stretching parallel to the Nile. This plain, which, beneath the soil, is composed of hard calcareous rock, is about eighty feet above the level of the river, and forms an elevated platform, which gives a more imposing effect to those immense masses, as the traveller ascends from the lower valley. The three largest pyramids are in the neighborhood of Ghizi,* and bear the name of this village. The dimensions of the largest are differently given by travellers; but it is probably between five and six hundred feet high, and about seven hundred feet square at the base. It is ascended by steps, diminishing in height from four to two and a half feet, in approaching the top. Upon the top there is a platform thirty-two feet square, consisting of nine large stones, each about the weight of a ton, though inferior to some of the other stones, which vary in length from five to thirty feet.

The

*[This place is spelled in different ways, sometimes Gizeh, and sometimes Djizeh. The difference probably arises from the difficulty of expressing the native word in our own alphabet with precision.—AM. ED.]

[The height of the Great Pyramid, sometimes called the Pyramid of Cheops, is more usually stated at from four hundred and fifty to five hundred feet. In Percival's edition of Malte-Brun's Geography,' it is fixed at four hundred and seventy-seven feet, which is forty feet higher than St. Peter's church at Rome, and one hundred and thirty-three feet higher than St. Paul's at London. The length of the base, is stated at seven hundred and twenty feet.-AM. ED.]