ATHENS. 
Looking up, we saw with regret the gap that 
had been made ; which all the ambassadors of 
afterwards gradually prevailed upon to allow all the finest pieces of 
sculpture belonging to the Parthenon to he taken down ; and succeed- 
ing travellers speak with concern of the injuries the building has 
sustained, exclusively of the loss caused by the removal of the metopes. 
One example of this nature may be mentioned; which, while it shews 
the havoc that has been carried on, will also prove the want of taste 
and utter barbarism of the undertaking. In one of the angles of the 
pediment which was over the eastern facade of the temple, there was 
a Jiorse's head, supposed to be intended for the horse of Neptune 
issuing from the earth, when struck by his trident, during his alterca- 
tion with Minerva for the possession of Attica. The head of this 
animal had been so judiciously placed by Phidias, that, to a spectator 
below, it seemed to be rising from an abyss, foaming, and struggling 
to burst from its confined situation, with a degree of energy suited to 
the greatness and dignity of its character. All the perspective of the 
sculpture (if such an expression be admissible), and certainly all the 
harmony and fitness of its proportions, and all the effect of attitude and 
force of composition, depended upon the work being viewed precisely 
at the distance in which Ph'dias designed that it should be seen. Its 
removal, therefore, from its situation, amounted to nothing less than 
its destruction : take it down, and all the aim of the sculptor is in- 
stantly frustrated ! Could any one believe that this was actually done ? 
and that it was done, too, in the name of a nation vain of its distinc- 
tion in the Fine Arts ? Nay more, that in doing this, 'finding the 
removal of this piece of sculpture could not be effected without destroy- 
ing the entire angle of the pediment, the work of destruction was 
allowed to proceed even to this extent also ? Thus the form of the 
temple has sustained a greater injury than it had already experienced 
from the Venetian artillery ; and the horse's head has been removed, 
to be placed where it exhibits nothing of its original effect : like the 
acquisition said to have been made by another Nobleman, who, being 
delighted at a puppet-show, bought Punch, and was chagrined to find, 
when he carried him home, that the figure had lost all its humour. 
Yet 
VOL. VI. Q 
