258 PROGRESS OF RUIN. 



as the active operations which are carried on in a 

 populous and busy city, reduce streets, and houses, 

 and furniture to dust, and prepare them for the 

 brickmakers and the builders ; so that the city may 

 partly do in fact what was fabled of the phenix 

 arise again out of its own ashes. If the brickmaker 

 and the builder were to stay their hands, the city 

 would soon become uninhabitable ; then it 'would be 

 a ruin ; and then, again, and not very long after, it 

 would become dust, and dust not to be known from 

 the other dust of the earth. The places of many 

 cities, of which the histories are fully recorded, 

 are now matters of uncertainty even to the most 

 believing of antiquaries ; and in cases where they 

 are determined, it is not done by that which has been 

 ruined, but by that which has escaped from ruin. 

 When we speak about seeing " the ruins" of Rome, 

 or of any city or edifice, we speak about that which 

 we cannot see. What is left is what we perceive, 

 not what is ruined, and to find a former city in the 

 dust is about the same as to predict a future one in 

 the quarry. And even that which we find tells us 

 of nothing but itself; and when we come to a brick 

 or part of a broken altar, we are no more warranted 

 in coming to the conclusion that " here there has 

 been a city or a temple," than that nearly extinct 

 race of hunters for marvels were warranted to 

 conclude, upon coming to the scoria of the old " beal 

 fires" at the " vitrified forts," that " here has been a 

 volcano." But it is with ancient cities as with their 

 inhabitants ; they cannot rise out of the dust and 

 contradict any thing that may be said about them, 

 however imaginary or incorrect that may be ; and 

 thus the antiquary, like the historian, gets credit for 

 telling the truth, simply because nobody can contra- 

 dict him by an appeal to observation. 



Those remarks may at first view seem foreign to 

 the purpose of these pages ; but that is by no means 

 the case ; for it is highly probable, nay, it is certain, 

 that, because the word " History" has been made 



