Note 128 — ESSAYS. (continued 2)

The antique vulgar was no more exempt from the love of the marvellous rather than the beautiful, than the modern. When the pannel on which the rival lines were drawn, was afterwards carried to Rome, it attracted more visitors than the finest works of art which hung along with it in the palace of the Cæsars, where they and it were burned in one of those calamitous fires which destroyed the choicest libraries of Rome, as well as the most precious works of art, collected from the conquered countries.