XLI.

THE MEMNONIUM.

THERE is a satisfaction in the entire desolation of Thebes. It is not a ruin, but a disappearance. The Libyan suburb, which seems to have been all tombs and temples, is now only a broad and deep green plain, ending suddenly in the desert, at the foot of the mountains. Thereon Memnon and his mate, the Memnonium and Medeenet Haboo, are alone conspicuous. Exploration reveals a few other temples and some mighty statues, which, as they lie broken at Titan length-their sharp outlines lost by the constant attrition of the sand-seem to be returning into rock.

This plain, making a green point in the river, is by far the most striking situation for a city. Yet we see it, deducting the few ruins, as men lost in the past saw it. Nor shall the American-whose history is but born-stand upon this plain of Thebes which has outlived its history, without a new respect for our mother earth who can so deftly

destroy, sand-grain by sand-grain, the most stupendous human works.

Step westward and behold a prairie. Consider the beginnings of a world metropolis there-its culmination in monuments of art-its lingering decay and desolation, until its billowy, tumultuous life is again smoothed into a flowery prairie. With what yearning wonder would the modern, who saw it, turn to us, lost in antiquity. Then step eastward and behold Thebes.

The Memnonium is not the remains of the temple before which Memnon sat. It was a temple-palace of Ramses the Great. It is a group of columns now with fallen and falling pylons, a few hundred rods from Memnon. You will find it one of the pleasantest ruins; for the rude, historical sculptures are well-nigh erased. There are no dark chambers, no intricacy of elaborate construction to consider, and the lotus-capitaled columns are the most graceful I saw.

We must be tolerant of these Egyptian historical sculptures upon pylons and temple walls for the sake of history and science. But the devotee of art and beauty will confess a secret comfort in the Memnonium, where the details are fast crumbling, and the grandeur of the architecture stands unencumbered. Here is an architecture perfect in its

grand style in any age. Yet, on the truly rounded columns, palm-like below, and opening in a lotus cup to bear the architrave, are sculptures of a ludicrous infancy of art. It is hard to feel that both were done by the same people. Had they then no feeling of symmetry and propriety? It is as if the Chinese had sculptured the walls of St. Peter's or the Vatican.

In the midst of the Memnonium, lies the shattered Colossus of Ramses-a mass of granite equal to that of Memnon. How it was overthrown and how broken will never be known. It is comfortable to be certain of one thing in the bewildering wilderness of ruin and conjecture, even if it be only ignorance. Cambyses, the unlucky Persian, is here the scapegoat, as he is of Memnon's misfortune and of Theban ruin in general. Cambyses, or an earthquake," insists untiring antiquarian speculation, clearly wishing it may be Cambyses. An earthquake, then, and oh! pax!

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This Colossus sat at the temple gate. His hands lay upon his knees, and his eyes looked eastward. And even the tumbled mass is yet serene and dignified. Is art so near to nature that the statue of greatness can no more lose its character than greatness itself?

Behind the statue was a court surrounded with

Osiride columns, and a few shattered ones remain. I fancy the repose of that court in a Theban sunset, the windless stillness of the air, and cloudlessness of the sky. The king enters, thoughtfully pacing by the calm-browed statue, that seems the sentinel of heaven. In the presence of the majestic columns humanly carved, their hands sedately folded upon their breasts-his weary soul is bathed with peace, as a weary body with living water.

Ramses' battles and victories are sculptured upon the walls—his offerings to the gods, and their reception of him. There is an amusing discrepancy between the decay and disappearance of these, and the descriptions in Sir Gardner. Spirited word-paintings of battle-scenes, and scenes celestial, or even animated descriptions of them, are ludicrously criticized by their subjects. That, too, is pleasant to the Howadji, who discovers very rapidly what his work in the Memnonium is; and stretched in the shadow of the most graceful column, while Nero silently pencils its flower-formed capital in her sketch-book, he looks down the vistas and beyond them, to Memnon, who, for three thousand years and more, has sat almost near enough to throw his shadow upon this temple, yet has never turned to see it.

There sat the Howadji many still hours, looking now southward to Memnon, now eastward to gray

Karnak, over the distant palms. Perchance, in that corridor of columns, Memnon and the setting sun their teachers, the moments were no more lost than by young Greek immortals in the porch of the philosophers. Yet here can be slight record of those hours. The flowers of sunset-dreams are too frail for the herbarium.

There dozed the donkeys, too, dreaming of pastures incredible, whither hectoring Howadji come no more. Donkeys! are there no wise asses among you, to bid you beware of dreaming? For we come down upon your backs, like stern realities upon young poets, and urge you across the plain to Medeenet Haboo.

Ah! had you and the young poets but heeded the wise asses!