Martinsburg gazette. [volume] (Martinsburg, Va. [W. Va.]) 1833-1855, 1841-02-04
THURSDAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 4, IsaI.

ing among tntSe runs oil former aye,
feeling of melancholy, and Of reveren,ia
awe. To violate the remains Of ancient
grandeur, seemed to me like the sacrilegi-
GUS plumber Of the tomb. The poetic an.
aihemas Of Childc Harold have consigned
to an infamous immortality one of the
plunderers OF this fane-Lord Elgin.
"But mos, the modern Pic,'s ignoble boast
To rive what Goth and Turk and Time hath
spared;
Cold as the crags upon his native coast.
His mind "a barren and his heart hard,
10 he whose head conceived, whose hand pre-
pared,
Aught to displace A,hena's poor remains; !.
Her sons TOO weak the sacred shrine to guard,
Yet felt some portion OF their mothers pains,
And never knew till then the weight Of despo,'s
chains"
The Acropolis is prccipitous hill oil
rock rising from the bosom of the Alhe-
MAN plain. Like most ofthe other Greek
towns, Athens was built around the base
ofthe Acropolis, which served as ciia-
leagues around. The Acropols is abou,
eight hundred fee, high, and some four
hundred broad. DEFENDING the Acropols,
and passing across an intervening hollow,
we moanted 10 the hill Of the Arcopagus.
The Areopagus was the high court Of
Athens. Its sessions were held al night,
in the open air and in order to prevent
the Judges from being improperly BIASED,
the counsel were interdicted the use of
any rhetorical ornament or appeal in their
pleadings. Blu, here spoke a man, the
recollection oiwhose presence on this spot
moved us more than all the tabled nteg-
rity Of the Areopagus. Here the princi-
Piles Of christianity were first proclaimed
to the idolatrous Athenians, by the Apos-
tie Paul. Never did an orator more hap
PLY bring to his aid the genius loci. Stand.
ing in the midsto OF temples, and finding an
alter gro THE UNKNOWN GOD" he
"declarcd unto them HIN phom they igao-
rantly acorshpped. The LORD Of hearen
and Earth, pho dicelich mol IN temples
made By hands, and ,chose Godhead ,cas
not Ike gold or silrer, or stone graren by
art or mans derice."
To feel the force Of such illusions, we
must recollect that, on whatever side from
this point the spectator turned, below, a
round, and above, he beheld Pagan affairs
and temples. Full in sight was the Mi.
nerva of Phidas, which was OF gold, and
craven with all the skill Of cart and mans
DEVICE" As an author remarks, as mere
specimen Of appropriate oratory, it is not
surpassed by the celebrated appeal Of De.
mosthenes to ''tiosc Propyle, Parthenon,
Proticoes, and Harbors," pronounced from
the neighboring but lower eminence of the
Pnyx.
Leaving the Areopagus, we crossed
over to the hill Of the Pnyx. On this hill
were held the public assemblies Of the
Athcnian people. The ben,a, or pulpit Of
the orator, remains to this day. Ii is cut
from the rock. The audience occupied n
semi-circular space, which swept around
the bema. Here in full sight Of the har.
bofs, the nayics, the temples on the Aero
polls and in the plain, the city at his feet,
Marathon and Salamis almost in sight, the
orator had The most stirring objects Of APP.
peal at command. w hen, as Demosthcnes
once combined all these associations Of ma
tional pride and power, religion, and the
ties Of family and kindred, and wrought
them up into one magnificent burst of up.
peal, and hurled them like thunderboIt
upon his hearers, the effect must have been
sublime. Standing upon this interesting
spot, | could not refrain from repeating
from the very bema, where Demosihenes
had pronounced them some of those noble
passages in the Phiippics--
(Which fulmined over Mace,cn,
And shook the arsenal"
Here were held those assemblies, whose
ickleness and injustice, first felt in the con-
domination and banishment ofthe Socrates,
and Aristides, finally inflicted fatal blow
upon the liberty they so carelessly cher
ished and rendered a pure democracy as
great monster in the eyes OF mankind as
despotsm itself. And here the last words
of Athenian liberty fell upon the air from
the lips of her greatest orator.
f.. j. NJ.
The estimated cost OF the Parthenon, by Colonel
Leake, is SO 900 900.