"
"Is it possible!" Lady Mabel exclaimed. "Have these people sunk so
low? Is so little taste, learning, and reverence for high art left
among them, that they can find no better use for this rare memorial of
the past."
"No people have proved themselves so destitute of taste, and of
reverence for antiquity, as the Portuguese," replied L'Isle. "They
seem to have found it a pleasure, or deemed it a duty, to erase the
footprints of ancient art. Monuments of all kinds, beautiful and rare,
and but lightly touched by the hand of time, have been ruthlessly
destroyed here. To give you a single instance: A gentleman of the
family of the Mascarenhas, who had traveled in Italy, and acquired a
taste for the arts, collected from different parts about the town of
Mertola, twelve ancient statues, with a view to place them on
pedestals in his country-house. But he dying before completing his
intention, these admirable productions of Roman art, the venerable
representations of heroes and sages, were hurled into a lime kiln to
make cement for the chapel of St. John. And such acts of Vandalism
have been perpetrated throughout Portugal."
"The barbarians!" exclaimed Lady Mabel.
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