SCULPTURE AND ARCHITECTURE OF ATHENS. 551 



conveyed to France, where they are held in the very highest esti. 

 mation, and some of them occupy conspicuous places in the gallery 

 of the Louvre. And the same agents were remaining at Athens 

 during lord Elgin's embassy, waiting only the return of French in. 

 fluence at the Porte to renew their operations. Actuated by these 

 inducements, lord Elgin made use of all his means, and ultimately 

 with such success, that he had brought to England, from the ruin, 

 ed temples at Athens, from the modern walls and fortifications, in 

 which many fragments had been used as so many blocks of stone, 

 and from excavations made on purpose, a greater quantity of ori. 

 ginal Athenian sculpture, in statues, alti and bassi relieri, capitals, 

 cornices, frizes, and columns, than exists in any other part of 

 Europe. 



Lord Elgin is in possession of several of the original metopes 

 from the Temple of Minerva. These represent the battles be- 

 tween the Centaurs and Lapithae, at the nuptials of Piritbous. 

 Each metope contains two figures, grouped in various attitudes ; 

 sometimes the Lapithae victorious, sometimes the Centaurs. The 

 figure of one of the Lapithae, who is lying dead and trampled on by 

 a Centaur, is one of the finest productions of the art ; as well as 

 the groupe adjoining to it, of Hyppodamia, the bride, carried off 

 by the Centaur Eurytion ; the furious style of whose galloping in 

 order to secure his prize, and his shrinking from the spear that 

 has been hurled after him, are expressed with prodigious animation. 

 They are all in such high relief, as to seem groups of statues ; and 

 they are in general finished with as much attention behind as be- 

 fore. They were originally continued round the entablature of 

 the Parthenon, and formed ninety-two groups. The zeal of the 

 early Christians, the barbarism of the Turks, and the explosions 

 which took place when the temple was used as a gun. powder ma- 

 gazine, have demolished a very large portion of them : so that, with 

 the exception of those preserved by lord Elgin, it is in general dif. 

 ficult to trace even the outlines of the original subject. 



The frize, which was carried along the top of the walls of the 

 cell, offered a continuation of sculptures in low relief, and of the 

 most interesting kind. This frize being unbroken by triglyphs, 

 had presented much more unity of subject than the detached and 

 the insulated groups on the metropes of the peristyle. It rrpre- 

 sented the whole of the solemn procession to the Temple of Mi- 

 nerva during the I'anathenaic festival : many of the figures are on 



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