hose classical associations of which the French are so fond.
The grave Patavinian is still designated by the tom-tit appellation of
Tite Live; and the majestic arch, whose history would have been so well
illustrated by his lost annals, is tricked out with a poplar avenue,
like a summer-house on Clapham-common.
[Footnote 24: See the Spectator.]
The townsmen of Orange, however, deserve credit for the substantial
style in which they have repaired one end of it, to prevent farther
dilapidation, and for the manner in which the road is diverted from it
on both sides in a handsome sweep, leaving a green space in the middle,
in which the arch stands. We returned to it immediately after breakfast,
and our second impressions were fully equal to the first. As[25] a work
of art, it is certainly worthy of one of the proudest places in the
Campo Vaccino, though of course its effect is more striking in the
neighbourhood[26] of the victory which it commemorates. The bas relief
on the side facing Orange, would not be unworthy of a place between the
well-known statues of Dacian captives, which ornament the arch of
Constantine. Different as were their respective aeras, the stern
thoughtful dignity of the barbarian chiefs, and the spirit which
animates
"The fiery mass
Of living valour, rolling on the foe,"
as represented in the battle of Marius, appear to have been conceived by
the same powerful mind, and embodied by the same master hand. The same
chastened energy and unaffected greatness of design which characterizes
the poetry of Milton, the painting of Michael Angelo, and the music of
Handel, is conspicuous in both. The bas relief which I have mentioned
forms the principal ornament of the arch; but the trophies, the rostra,
&c. which appear in other parts, are in a style of simple and
soldier-like grandeur corresponding with its character and the
achievement which it commemorates. I do not pretend to consider this
monument as comparable on the whole to the arch of Constantine; but
still it is of a very different school of art from that which produced
the arch of Severus. On the bas relief representing Marius's victory,
one might fancy the most high born and athletic of Achilles's Myrmidons
in the full "tug of war;" whereas the swarms of crawling pigmies which
burlesque the triumph of Severus might be supposed the original Myrmidon
rabble, just hatched, as the fable reports, from their native ant-hills,
and basking in th
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