252 A Walk from 



the East, ancient or modern, come and sit here, and 

 look at this lofty corridor, and mark the orders and 

 graces of its architecture. What did the Ptolemies, 

 their predecessors or successors in Egypt, or sovereigns 

 of Chaldaic names, in Assyria, or ambitious builders 

 in the ages of Pericles or Augustus, in Greece or 

 Rome ? Their structures were the wonders of the 

 world. Mighty men they were, whose will was law, 

 whose subjects worked it out to its wildest impulse 

 without a murmer or a reward. But who built this 

 sixty-columned temple, and bent these lofty arches ? 

 Two or three centuries ago, two men in coarse garb, 

 and, it may be, in wooden shoes, came here with a 

 donkey, bearing on its back a bundle of little elms, 

 each of a finger's girth. They came with the rude 

 pick and spade of that time ; and, in the first six 

 working hours of the day, they dug thirty holes 

 on this side of the aisle, and planted in them half 

 the tiny trees of their bundle. Then they sat down 

 at noon to their bread and cheese and, most likely, 

 a mug of ale, and talked of small, home matters, just 

 as if they were dibbling in a small patch of wheat or 

 potatoes. Then they went to work again and planted 

 the other row ; and, as the sun was going down, 

 they straightened their backs, and, with hands stayed 

 upon their hips, looked up and down the two lines 



