PINE ARTS. 33& 



place of the Paysanne and her distaff, a fair Zelinda and her lute ; 

 and, by the same process, the stalwart personage, standing, love- 

 struck, in fringed gaiters and conical hat, with a fowling-piece 

 over his shoulder, may be transmuted to an Abdallah or other chi- 

 valric hero of the "oldenne ty me," with folded turban, and jewelled 

 scimitar, and robes of regal splendour. 



" The Tower of Comares" forms the subject of the twelfth plate, 

 and is, by far, the finest in the volume. The point of view is at 

 considerably more than half the height of the tower ; which lifts its 

 hoary and time-rifted battlements in lofty and massive grandeur 

 before you. On the left is an arcade-gallery of the light Moorish 

 arches, on their slender pillars, seeming as if hung in air : and to 

 the right, at a dizzy depth below, lies Granada, on which yoii look 

 down over the wood-girt hills of the once impregnable palace-for- 

 tress ; and bounding the view are the distant and dimly-seen moun- 

 tain-tops of the Sierra Nevada. This is a splendid drawing. 



The " Entrance to the Banos" is not so remarkable for beauty, 

 as for profuse and indiscriminate decoration. The " Sala de las 

 dos Hermanos," or Hall of the Two Sisters, is equally rich in em- 

 bellishment, and the lofty archways, leading into, and through, the 

 open court, give an extremely grand, yet light, appearance to this 

 beautiful apartment. In the following plate we have the entrance 

 to it, from the Court of Lions ; and a most graceful and stately ef- 

 fect do the slender columns and wide-springing arches give to por- 

 tions of the building, where the redundancy of arabesques and carv- 

 ings would otherwise appear extravagant, and even cumbrous. 



And now a maze of columns, and capitals, and arches, and ara- 

 besques, bursts on the eye — it is the " Patio de los Leones,'* the 

 Court of the Lions ; a very clever and masterly drawing, but re- 

 quiring an attentive perusal, before the reader can quite compre- 

 hend it. From one side of the Lion Court is the entrance 

 to the Hall of the Abencerrages, which is spiritedly sketched 

 in the next plate, with a very fine perspective view of the 

 colonnade: and, in the following one, the Hall itself appears, 

 with its marble fountain, once crimson with the life-blood of 

 Granada's best and noblest — the brave Abencerrages — now nearly 

 empty, a guitar resting against it, and the fair owner calmly sitting 

 at work beside. This is not the way to people Sketches of the Al- 

 hambra. Either it should be invested with all of glory and romance 

 that has been ever said or sung ; or given to us in its desolation and 

 decay. Glorious even then, if not disenchanted by the presence of 

 things and persons, w^hich destroy every illusion of fancy, and thrust 

 away the very memory of the past. In looking at the really fine plate 

 before us, we lay our hand over the lady and her knitting, and then 

 we can call up visions fitting to the place. 



The next plate gives a view of the celebrated Fountain of Lions, 

 taken from the Hall of the Abencerrages, and with its rich carving 

 and the long vista of arches seen across the court, would make it 

 a fine picture, did not the white touches, so frequently mentioned, 

 destroy much of the effect, by bringing the buildings, seen at a 



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