DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11448#0516
202
THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS.
[chap. xix.
playing at statesmen and soldiers, and no place will serve for
their game but Athena's own sacred precincts. Behold the first
fruits of resuscitated Grecian art—the palace of King Otho.
Full in the sight of the Acropolis, in the same plain with the
Temple of Theseus, and in the solemn presence of that of Olympian
Jove, there stands a huge, white, cubic edifice that would dis-
grace Trafalgar Square : of the Pirceus, I have already spoken :
on the Hill of the Musseum, within a stone's throw of the Acrop-
olis, there has just been erected an observatory, that stands in
as hideous contrast to the Parthenon as Caliban to Ariel. Such
are the first and most prominent objects that strike a stranger's
eye, and they are characteristic of all modern Greece. No one
can blame this people for wishing to become a nation ; but their
ambition to become ancient Greeks, and to make the Athens of.
Otho identical with that of Pericles, is fraught with embarrass-
ment and difficulty.
Athens is rather a neat, little, modern town; with shops, and
market-places, and porters, and hand-barrows, and horse-boys,
and all that sort of thing. There are fortunately but few vestiges
of antiquity enclosed within these modern walls, and the two
most remarkable, the Porch of Adrian and the Temple of the
Winds, do not suffer much from their position. The residences
of the ministers of foreign courts form a quarter by themselves;
and suburban buildings of the truest cockney fashion are rapidly
extending in all directions.
My first impressions of Athens, it is unnecessary to say, were
anything but satisfactory; but when 1 walked a few hundred
paces out of the noisy city, and found myself in a solitude as deep
as that of the Desert, I was appeased ; the " religion of the
place" came over me once more as I stood under those magnifi-
cent columns of the Temple of Jupiter Olympus, " that plead so
haughtily for times gone by." Few of these mighty pillars re-
main, and these are but partially connected by architrave and
entablature, yet they form the most imposing ruin I have ever
seen. The vast and massy monuments of Egypt are wanting in
the majesty and grace which unite that beauty to sublimity, with,
out which the latter repels, rather than invites or creates, the
sympathy of the spectator. Around this ruin there was the
THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS.
[chap. xix.
playing at statesmen and soldiers, and no place will serve for
their game but Athena's own sacred precincts. Behold the first
fruits of resuscitated Grecian art—the palace of King Otho.
Full in the sight of the Acropolis, in the same plain with the
Temple of Theseus, and in the solemn presence of that of Olympian
Jove, there stands a huge, white, cubic edifice that would dis-
grace Trafalgar Square : of the Pirceus, I have already spoken :
on the Hill of the Musseum, within a stone's throw of the Acrop-
olis, there has just been erected an observatory, that stands in
as hideous contrast to the Parthenon as Caliban to Ariel. Such
are the first and most prominent objects that strike a stranger's
eye, and they are characteristic of all modern Greece. No one
can blame this people for wishing to become a nation ; but their
ambition to become ancient Greeks, and to make the Athens of.
Otho identical with that of Pericles, is fraught with embarrass-
ment and difficulty.
Athens is rather a neat, little, modern town; with shops, and
market-places, and porters, and hand-barrows, and horse-boys,
and all that sort of thing. There are fortunately but few vestiges
of antiquity enclosed within these modern walls, and the two
most remarkable, the Porch of Adrian and the Temple of the
Winds, do not suffer much from their position. The residences
of the ministers of foreign courts form a quarter by themselves;
and suburban buildings of the truest cockney fashion are rapidly
extending in all directions.
My first impressions of Athens, it is unnecessary to say, were
anything but satisfactory; but when 1 walked a few hundred
paces out of the noisy city, and found myself in a solitude as deep
as that of the Desert, I was appeased ; the " religion of the
place" came over me once more as I stood under those magnifi-
cent columns of the Temple of Jupiter Olympus, " that plead so
haughtily for times gone by." Few of these mighty pillars re-
main, and these are but partially connected by architrave and
entablature, yet they form the most imposing ruin I have ever
seen. The vast and massy monuments of Egypt are wanting in
the majesty and grace which unite that beauty to sublimity, with,
out which the latter repels, rather than invites or creates, the
sympathy of the spectator. Around this ruin there was the