32 
SCENES IN INDIA, 
in these wonders, as they may truly be called, of 
human art and industry. The sculpture on the ex- 
terior of these temples has suffered greatly from Ma- 
homedan violence ; many large masses have also been 
separated by lightning; still these stupendous edifices 
will never cease to be majestic even in ruins. Close 
by one of them are two statues, representing an ele- 
phant and a lion, the one about as large as life, the 
other much larger. They are both, especially the ele- 
phant, admirably executed, and afford specimens of 
manual skill in the use of the chisel, as well as of taste in 
design and conception, unrivalled by modern art. There 
never has been any thing like a correct representation 
given of these noble efforts of human ingenuity. The 
plates in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society 
are miserable failures ; they are positive libels upon 
the truth and spirit of the originals ; the figures are 
monstrous exaggerations; the grouping is stiff and 
awkward. One would imagine, by consulting these 
plates, that the temples at the Seven Pagodas were 
most barbarous in design and execution, whereas they 
are admirable in both. It is really to be lamented 
that these imperfect, not to say false, representations 
should be suffered to come before the world under 
the sanction of such a highly respectable body as the 
Asiatic Society, only because they are transmitted 
to the library of that valuable institution by bungling 
amateurs in art, who are glad to have an importance 
attached to their imperfect designs, and therefore offer 
them without any other recompense, when really 
authentic information is to be purchased. The ab- 
surd importance which has been attached to the rude 
