feet in height, and derives its name from its having a china or por celain coating. Of its founder, antiquity, or the cause of its erection, we have no information. It was the Portuguese who first gave to these edifices the name of pagodas, and attributed them to devotional purposes; but there can be little doubt that in many instances they have been rather erected as public memorials or ornaments, like the columns of the Greeks and Romans.

[Editor.

SECTION XVII.

Colossus of Rhodes.

This enormous building has justly been classed among the wonders of ancient architecture. It was a vast structure of brass, or statuary metal, erected in honour of Apollo or the sun, the tutelary god of the island; whose stride was fifty feet asunder, each foot being placed on a rock at this distance from each other, and which bounded the entrance into the haven: its height, according to Pliny, was not less than a hundred and five feet, or seventy cu bits; and hence ships of considerable burden were capable of sailing between its legs. It is said to have been erected by the Rhodians with the money produced by the sale of the engines of war which Demetrius Poliorcetes employed in fruitlessly besieging the city for a twelvemonth, and which he gave to them upon his reconciliation. Pliny affirms that it was commenced by Chares of Lindus, a disciple of Lysippus, and finished upon his death by Laches of the same town. It was thrown down by an earthquake sixty years after its completion. [Plin. Euseb. Editor.

SECTION XVIII.

Italian Monuments and Architecture.

ITALY, like Egypt, abounds so largely with magnificent ruins. and relics of different ages, that we can only indicate a few of the most singular or most celebrated.

From the former we may select for description the famous campanill or leaning tower, erected in a square close to the great church at Pisa. It is composed wholly of white marble, and was built for the purpose of containing the bells. Its height is about two hundred feet, and its inclination nearly fifteen feet from the

perpendicular. The cause of this very extraordinary inclination is supposed to be a want of care in the laying the foundation. Upon which subject the reader may consult Mr. Tappen, who has given a very interesting description of this town in his "Archi. tecture of France and Italy."

Of far higher antiquity is the celebrated column of Trajan at Rome, which we have selected for representation from an infinite multiplicity of superb remains which yet mark the universal sway which the mistress of the world once exercised. This was erected together with a long list of other public and magnificent edifices by the emperor whose name it bears; but it is regarded as his masterpiece. It stands in the middle of a square, to form which he levelled a hill of a hundred and forty feet high, and intended it both as a tomb for himself, and to show the height of the hill he had thus levelled, as appears from the inscription on its base, bear. ing date the seventeenth year of his tribunitial power, equivalent to the year of Christ, 114. The emperor Constantius, two centuries and a half afterwards, regarded this column and square as the most magnificent edifice by which Rome was even at that time embellished.

Nor can we avoid, while thus treading on classic ground, glan. cing at the far-famed colosseum or amphitheatre, the stately remains of which are to be seen in our own day, commenced by Vespasian, and finished by Titus, in the eighteenth year of the Christian æra. Upon its dedication, by this last emperor, on account of its completion, he gratuitously indulged the Roman people with public spectacles of the utmost magnificence, which lasted more than a hundred days. According to Dio Cassius, this sump. tuous building was erected in what then constituted the heart of the city; but such are the changes which Rome has since undergone, that its ruins are in the present day in the outskirts. [Ammiam. Dio. Editor.

SECTION XIX.

Temple of Sancta Sophia, at Constantinople.

CONSTANTINE designed the metropolis that was built by himself and still bears his name, as the rival of Rome; and his successors pursued the same intention. With this view, Justinian in the sixth century, erected the venerable and magnificent monument before