650 REMARKS ON THE RUINS. 
been a business of so much trouble and contrivance to ignite 
stone walls and pillars with the simple brands in their hands, 
that Alexander could not but have had ample time to come to 
his senses, before the mischief was at all effected. But instead 
of any such elaborate process, we find that the whole was the 
action of an instant; and therefore nothing is so likely as that 
Thais and the king would light the draperies of the hall with 
their torches, and then rush out, with the mad crew at their 
heels, dancing and shouting, as the historian describes, till the 
rising spires of the flames reminded Alexander that he was a 
king, and his most royal prerogative that of mercy. That the 
ruin was not cleared away for the purpose of rebuilding, is not 
a surprising circumstance, when we consider the brevity of 
Alexander’s life, and the periods of confusion which followed 
his death. The city gradually fell into neglect, and consequent 
decay after this, its first recorded calamity; but such neglect 
was not the effect of the destruction then wrought, but of the 
previous conquest by a foreign power. A long succession of 
stranger princes, for so we may call both the Greeks and the 
Parthians, naturally inclined to prefer any city as their residence 
before the capital of the ancient race, promoted the abandon¬ 
ment of these walls and towers, which the cruel devastation of the 
Arabs in after-ages utterly accomplished. Hence it is very 
probable, that this very spot has remained in almost the same 
state from the night of its “ stately palace’s” destruction, which 
took place three hundred and twenty-nine years before the 
birth of our Saviour, to the day in which I stood by its mound, 
and made my notes for these observations. 
The next subject of remark, is the terrace to the south of this 
(I wish for the honour of a really great man we might say) 
