Elgin marbles.

These marbles have become celebrated throughout the civilised world, and the name of Elgin is inseparably connected henceforth with the finest extant specimens of the power of Phidias.  The artistic excellencies of these relics of a remote civilisation have been so frequently explained to the public, and their beauties are so generally felt, that it suffices to introduce the general visitor to the room, and to guide him about it, without bidding him halt to learn the estimation set upon these works by great art authorities.  After he has received the natural impression which these works cannot fail to produce on his mind, he may wish to know something of the times and men which these represent; he may be glad to learn so much as is known of Phidias.  No man even with the poorest sense of the beautiful can, we apprehend, wander about this saloon without being touched.  Therefore we proceed at once to guide the visitor on his journey.  But it is necessary that he should know something of the building, of which these fragments formed parts:—­“The Parthenon,” says Colonel Leake, “was constructed entirely of white marble, from Mount Pentelicus.  It consisted of a cell, surrounded with a peristyle, which had eight Doric columns in the fronts, and seventeen in the sides.  These forty-six columns were six feet two inches in diameter at the base, and thirty-four feet in height, standing upon a pavement, to which there was an ascent of three steps.  The total height of the temple above its platform was about sixty-five feet.  Within the peristyle at either end, there was an interior range of six columns, of five feet and a half in diameter, standing before the end of the cell, and forming a vestibule to its door.  There was an ascent of two steps into these vestibules from the peristyle.  The cell, which was sixty-two feet and a half broad within, was divided into two unequal chambers, of which the western was forty-three feet ten inches long, and the eastern ninety-eight feet seven inches.  The ceiling of the former was supported by four columns, of about four feet in diameter, and that of the latter by sixteen columns of about three feet.  It is not known of what order were the interior columns of either chamber.  Those of the western having been thirty-six feet in height, their proportion must have been nearly the same as that of the Ionic columns of the vestibule of the Propylaea, whence it seems highly probable that the same order was used in the interior of both those contemporary buildings.  In the eastern chamber of the Parthenon, the smallness of the diameter of the columns leaves little doubt that there was an upper range, as in the temples of Paestum and AEgina.  It is to be lamented that no remains of any of them have been found, as they might have presented some new proofs of the taste and invention of the architects of the time of Pericles.