near this place, before
our departure for Orgon. A walk of ten minutes conducted us up a gentle
terrace on which they were situated, and which rises between the town
and the fantastic hills we had remarked the day before. Having heard but
little of these classical remains, we were most agreeably surprised to
find them in such perfect preservation, and so beautiful in themselves.
They consist of a mausoleum and an arch, which stand within a few yards
of each other, and appear to have formed the principal objects in a
public square or place; the area of which is evidently marked out by a
row of solid stone seats, well adapted for the accommodation of
gazers[46] at these beautiful gems. The arch has suffered the most decay
of the two: or rather, it most exhibits the effects of violence; for the
unmutilated parts are as sharp and bold as if fresh from the hand of the
sculptor. The human figures on each side have suffered the most, either
perhaps from some party commotion of past ages, or the same wanton
propensity which leads man to disfigure his fellow-creature's image in
preference to any other work of art; and to which we owe the demolition
of Andre and Washington's heads in Westminster Abbey. The fretted
compartments in the inside, and the border which surrounds the bend of
the arch, are in the highest preservation. The latter represents
clusters of grapes, olives, figs, and pomegranates with the accuracy of
a miniature, and in a free and natural style. One of the pomegranates
was represented as ripe and cracking, and every seed distinctly
expressed. The mausoleum is, I should venture to say, a building
perfectly unique in its way, as a remnant of antiquity; and therefore
more difficult to describe by a recurrence to any known work of art. I
cannot better, however, describe its effect on the mind than by saying,
that it ought to be removed to Pompeii in company with the arch. It is
certainly superior, as a work of art, to any thing yet discovered in
that singular place; while it possesses the same indescribable domestic
character which seems to bring you back to the business and bosoms of
the ancients, in a manner which nothing at Rome can do. As far as I
could judge by the eye, it is from forty to fifty feet in height. An
open circular lanthorn of ten Corinthian pillars, surmounted by a
conical roof of stone, and containing two standing figures, rests on a
square base, presenting an open arch on each side, which is in it