The
mansion therefore was his principal point of view from this situation.
It stood upon a bold and upright brow that beetled over the plain below.
The ascent was by a large and spacious flight of marble steps. Its
architecture was grand, and simple, and commanding. It was supported by
pillars of the Ionic order. They were constructed of ivory and jet, and
their capitals were overlaid with the purest gold. An object like this
to one who had never before seen any nobler edifice than a shepherd's
cot, or the throne of turf upon which the bards were elevated at the
feast of the Gods, was surprising, and admirable, and sublime in the
highest degree.
"And this," exclaimed the gallant shepherd, "is the residence prepared
for infamy and lust. The sun pours upon it his light with as large a
hand, the herbage, the flowers and the fruits as fully partake of the
bounteous care of nature, as the vales of simplicity and the fields of
innocence. How venerable and alluring is the edifice I behold! Does not
peace dwell within, and are not the hours of its possessor winged with
happiness? Had my youth been spent among the beasts of the forests, had
not my ears drank in the sacred instructions of the godlike Druids, I
might have thought so.
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