TO PRESENT EDITION. VJj 
" Dans un intervalle de six d, sept ans, V inscription 
peut-elle pas estre detachee, on par un scrupule des 
Turcs, ou par I' injure du temps. Je luy citerois en- 
core vingt changemens plus considerables dans la 
masse de nos Bdtimens de Paris. Falloit-il pour 
cela donner le titre d'lmposteur a La GuilletiereP At 
this distance of time, being appealed to for the 
probability of the existence of such an inscrip- 
tion, any impartial traveller, who has witnessed 
the frequent instances of forgeries exhibited 
under the name of reliques by the Eastern Chris- 
tians, would surely say it was highly probable 
that the Monks of Athens, who made use of the 
Parthenon as a Church, before it became a Mosque, 
had left a legend of this nature in the temple ; 
which they had been accustomed to exhibit as 
the real inscription observed by St. Paul. It 
was exactly the sort of imposition which would 
have been characteristic of the priests of that age 
and country, and of their ignorant followers : and 
such, perhaps, was the inscription read by Guille- 
tiere and his companions ; but which had disap- 
peared when Span was at Athens, having been 
removed by some traveller, or destroyed by the 
Turks. The most curious part of Spons answer 
to Guillet, is that in which he undertakes to 
prove that the famous Eleusinian fragment was in 
reality the Statue of Eleusinian Ceres, and not one 
