The Waverley Novels (Volume 45)

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1894. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER II. Olhus. This superb successor Of the earth's mistress, as thou vainly speakest, Stands midst these ages as, on the wide ocean. The last spared fragment of a spacious land, That in some grand and awful ministration Of mighty nature has engulfed been, Doth lift aloft its dark and rocky cliffs O'er the wild waste aronnd, and sadly frowns In lonely majesty. Consiantine Paleologus, Scene I. Our scene in the capital of the Eastern Empire opens at what is termed the Golden Gate of Constantinople; and it may be said in passing, that this splendid epithet is not so lightly bestowed as may be expected from the inflated language of the Greeks, which throws such an appearance of exaggeration about them, their buildings, and monuments. The massive and seemingly impregnable walls with which Constantine surrounded the city were greatly improved and added to by Theodosius, called the Great. A triumphal arch, decorated with the architecture of a better, though already a degenerate, age, and serving, at the same time, as a useful entrance, introduced the stranger into the city. On the top, a statue of bronze represented Victory, the goddess who had inclined the scales of battle in favour of Theodosius; and, as the artist determined to be wealthy if he could not be tasteful, the gilded ornaments with which the inscriptions were set off readily led to the popular name of the gate. Figures carved in a distant and happier period of the art, glanced from the walls, without assorting happily with the taste in which these were built. The more modern ornaments of the Golden Gate bore, at the period of our story, an aspect very different from those indicating the conquest brought back to the city, and the eternal peace which the flattering inscriptions recorded as having been extorted by the s...