Chap, viii.] The Excavation of the Athenian Acropolis. 263

There is still in some quarters a mistaken notion, fostered
by the poems of Byron, and encouraged by Greek Chau-
vinists, that one of the worst spoilers of later ages was
Lord Elgin. But the facts of history not only justify
the action of Elgin, but prove that he must be classed
among public benefactors. He knew that in all pro-
bability if the sculptures of the Parthenon were left
where they were, they would shortly perish. And in
fact had they been left they would have suffered severely
in the troubled days of the Greek revolt. The west end
of the Parthenon which he had stripped of its sculptures
was exposed for a year in 1826 to the repeated blows
of Turkish cannon-balls. The so-called Caryatid of the
Erechtheum which Elgin carried off has been preserved
intact, the five which the left in situ suffered severely in
the revolutionary war. The reliefs of the Choragic
Monument of Lysicrates which he spared have since
been so much defaced, that the cast taken in Elgin's
time preserves many details which they have lost. And
in addition the art of Europe received the impulse im-
parted by the exquisite Pheidian sculptures many years
earlier than would have been the case had they remained
at Athens. The visitor at Athens cannot help a moment's
regret when he looks at the blank spaces in the pedi-
ments and on the cella walls of the Parthenon, and in
imagination fills them with the sculptures which repre-
sent the birth of Athena and the Panathenaic Procession.
But a little reflection shows him that it was a wise
prudence which removed the jewels from a casket ex-
posed to a hundred risks, and not then guarded by any
strong national feeling. Beyond doubt had Elgin left the
sculptures on the temple, the Greeks themselves would
before now, in justifiable zeal for their better preserva-
tion, have transferred them to the galleries of their new
and spacious museums. Moreover, Michaelis and Boet-