t the walls; especially, as a very few men might, with
very little labour, soon tumble it into a heap of rubbish.

The _Amphitheatre_ has a thousand marks of violences committed upon it,
by fire, sledges, battering rams, &c. which its great solidity and
strength alone resisted.

The _Temple of Diana_ is so nearly destroyed, that, in an age or two
more no vestige of it will remain; but the _Maison Carree_ is still so
perfect and beautiful, that when _Cardinal Alberoni_ first saw it, he
said it wanted only _une boete d'or pour le defendre des injures de
l'air_; and it certainly has received no other, than such as rain, and
wind, and heat, and cold, have made upon it; and those are rather marks
of dignity, than deformity. What reason else, then, can be assigned for
its preservation to this day; but that the savage and the saint have
been equally awed by its superlative beauty.

Having said thus much of the perfections of this edifice, I must however
confess, it is not, nor ever was, perfect, for it has some original
blemishes, but such as escape the observation of most men, who have not
time to examine the parts separately, and with a critical eye. There
are, for example, thirty modillions on the cornice, on one side and
thirty-two on the other; there are sixty-two on the west side, and only
fifty-four on the east; with some other little faults which its aged
beauty justifies my omitting; for they are such perhaps as, if removed,
would not add any thing to the general proportions of the whole. No-body
objected to the moles on Lady Coventry's face; those specks were too
trifling, where the _tout ensemble_ was so perfect.

_Cardinal Richlieu_, I am assured, had several consultations with
builders of eminence, and architects of genius, to consider whether it
was practicable to remove all the parts of this edifice, and re-erect it
at _Versailles_: and, I have no doubt, but Lewis the 14th might have
raised this monument to his fame there, for half the money he expended
in murdering and driving out of that province sixty thousand of his
faithful and ingenious subjects, merely on the score of Religion; an
act, which is now equally abhorred by Catholics, as well as Protestants.
But, Lord Chesterfield justly observes, that there is no brute so
fierce, no criminal so guilty, as the creature called a Sovereign,
whether King, Sultan, or Sophy; who thinks himself, either by divine or
human right, vested with absolute power of destro