s turn
supported by a solid pedestal, exhibiting on each of its four sides a
bas relief corresponding to the respective arch. There is great spirit
and fine grouping in the bas reliefs, which represent battles of cavalry
and infantry. The standing figures before-mentioned, to whose honour the
mausoleum may be supposed to have been erected, are in the civil garb:
and there is an ease and repose in their attitudes, corresponding with
the grave, calm expression of the heads, of which necessary appendage
the merciless French Itineraire has guillotined them without warrant.
The colour of the freestone of which it is built is as fresh as that of
the castle of Tarascon. The building is constructed with a thorough
knowledge of what the human eye requires, tapering and becoming more
light towards its conical top. It is also of size sufficient for all
purposes of effect, though not too large for a private monument. The
situation in which these relics stand is sufficient to add beauty to
objects of less merit. They are placed, as I mentioned, on a cultivated
rising ground, at the foot of the wild gray rocks which ran parallel to
the former day's route, and which assume from this spot a more
castellated appearance than when viewed from the road. On the other side
a fine and boundless view opens into the great plain of Avignon and the
Rhone, almost perplexing to the eye by its variety and number of
objects: in which we distinguished Avignon itself, and Mont Ventou many
leagues behind it, rising in height apparently undiminished, with light
hazy clouds sailing along its middle, and backed by the wild Dauphine
mountains, near Chateau Grignan. We could also distinguish Beaucaire,
Tarascon, and a large part of the former day's route, to the extreme
left; and the right opened into various vistas of the hilly country
which we had to cross in our road to Marseilles. The whole scene was
lighted up and perfumed by the effects of the shower of rain which had
fallen in the night, and without which a summer landscape in this
country is a dusty mass oppressive to the eyes. The thyme and lavender
on which we sat, and the mulberries and standard peaches which shaded
us, seemed, as well as the vineyards, to be actually growing; and the
catching lights were thrown in such a manner as to make every distant
object successively distinct. After a couple of hours survey, we took
leave of the ancient Glanum Livii, convinced that we had as yet seen
nothing