eBooks Base 2000

. . . .
Whatever beauty there may be in a Roman ruin is the remnant of what was
beautiful originally; whereas an English ruin is more beautiful often in
its decay than even it was in its primal strength. If we ever build such
noble structures as these Roman ones, we can have just as good ruins,
after two thousand years, in the United States; but we never can have a
Furness Abbey or a Kenilworth. The Corso, and perhaps some other
streets, does not deserve all the vituperation which I have bestowed on
the generality of Roman vias, though the Corso is narrow, not averaging
more than nine paces, if so much, from sidewalk to sidewalk. But palace
after palace stands along almost its whole extent,--not, however, that
they make such architectural show on the street as palaces should. The
enclosed courts were perhaps the only parts of these edifices which the
founders cared to enrich architecturally. I think Linlithgow Palace, of
which I saw the ruins during my last tour in Scotland, was built, by an
architect who had studied these Roman palaces.


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