nople, he obtained permission from the Turkish
government to proceed to Athens for the purpose of procuring casts from
the most celebrated remains of sculpture and architecture which still
existed at Athens. Besides models and drawings which he made, his
Lordship collected numerous pieces of Athenian sculpture in statues,
capitals, cornices, &c., and these he very generously presented to the
English Government, thus forming a school of Grecian art in London, to
which there does not at present exist a parallel. In making this
collection he was stimulated by seeing the destruction into which these
remains were sinking, through the influence of Turkish barbarism. Some
fine statues in the Parthenon had been pounded down for mortar, on
account of their affording the whitest marble within reach, and this
mortar was employed in the construction of miserable huts. At one period
the Parthenon was converted into a powder magazine by the Turks, and in
consequence suffered severely from an explosion in 1656, which carried
away the roof of the right wing.

[Illustration: ATHENS.]

At the close of the late Greek war Athens was in a dreadful state, being
little more than a heap of ruins. It was declared by a Royal ordinance
of 1834 to be the capital of the new kingdom of Greece, and in the
March of that year the King laid the foundation-stone of his palace
there. In the hill of Areopagus, where sat that famous tribunal, we may
still discover the steps cut in the rock by which it was ascended, the
seats of the judges, and opposite to them those of the accuser and
accused. This hill was converted into a burial-place for the Turks, and
is covered with their tombs.

Ancient of days! august Athena! where,
Where are thy men of might--thy grand in soul?
Gone, glimmering through the dream of things that were--
First in the race that led to Glory's goal;
They won, and passed away. Is this the whole?
A schoolboy's tale, the wonder of an hour!
The warrior's weapon and the sophist's stole
Are sought in vain, and o'er each mouldering tower,
Dim with the mist of years, gray flits the shade of power.

Here let me sit, upon this massy stone,
The marble column's yet unshaken base;
Here, son of Saturn, was thy fav'rite throne--
Mightiest of many such! Hence let me trace
The latent grandeur of thy dwelling-place.
It may not be--nor ev'n can Fancy's eye
Restore what t