This collection of articles analyses the interests and experiences in the Levant of a number of leading western scholars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with an emphasis on the networks of learned friends throughout Europe with whom they corresponded.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1813 edition. Excerpt: ... 196 LETTER XXV. Athens, March 17. . I HAVE been a light to you in the Lantern of Demosthenes so long, that I think you must be anxious to receive some account of the lantern itself. In Stuart's Antiquities, every thing about Athens is so well represented, that it is unnecessary for me to attempt to convey, by words, what is so effeqtually done already by visible representation: therefore, both for the antient and present state of this edifice, as well as of every other relic in the town, I cannot do better than refer you to Stuart. The proper name of the building is, The monument of Lysicrates. It was erected to perpetuate the applause with which a theatrical entertainment, given by him, had been received by the Athenian people. The subject of the entertainment, probably, related to the story of Bacchus, as the frieze exhibits a series of figures which are supposed to represent the adventures of the God among the Tyrrhenian pirates. The story is certainly not very perspicuously told; but, as the work was executed long before the days of Ovid, it would be absurd to expect, that the sculptures should tally with the description in the Metamorphoses; unless, indeed, the Poet had only copied from the Sculptor. However, it is surely reasonable to believe, that the adventures, exhibited on the monument, formed the subject of the spectacle in the theatre. It seems a very strange thing, that-any person should ever, in any age, have thought of constructing so beautiful and so permanent an edifice as this, merely to commemorate the success of a dramatic performance. But in the days of Lysicrates the theatre was in some respects scarcely less hallowed than the temple; and the exhibitions given there, were in honour of the Gods, particularly of...