Another change—and lo! in the fourth picture, the Vicious State, or State of Destruction. Behold the consequences of luxury, in the weakened and debased condition of mankind. A savage enemy has entered the once proud and happy city; a fierce tempest is raging; walls and colonnades are lying in the dust, and temples and palaces are being consumed by the torch of the incendiary. The fire of vengeance is swallowing up the devoted city. An arch of the bridge over which the triumphal procession had before passed, has been battered down, and broken pillars, ruins of war-engines, and the temporary bridge which had been thrown over, indicate that this has been the scene of direst contention. Now there is a terrible conflict on the bridge, whose insecurity accelerates the horror of the conflict. Horses, and men, and chariots, are precipitated into the raging waves. War-galleys are contending; others in flames; and others still, sinking beneath the prow of a superior foe. Smoke and flames are issuing from the falling and prostrate edifices; and along the battlements and in the blocked-up streets the conflict is dreadful indeed. The foreground is strewed with the bodies of the dead and dying. Some have fallen into the basin of a fountain, tinging the water with blood. One female is sitting in mute despair over the dead body of her son; another leaping over a battlement, to escape the grasp of a ruffian soldier; and other soldiers drag a woman by the hair down the steps, that form the pedestal of a mutilated colossal statue, whose shattered head lies on the pavement below. A barbarous enemy has conquered the city; Carnage and Destruction have asserted their frightful Empire. The last and most impressive picture of this series is the scene of Desolation. The sun has just departed, and the moon is ascending the twilight sky over the ocean, near the place where the sun rose in the first picture. The shades of evening are gradually stealing over the shattered and ivy-grown ruins of that once great city. A lonely column rises in the foreground, on whose capital a solitary heron has built her nest, and at the foot of it her mate is standing in the water, both of them apparently conscious of being a living mockery. The Doric temple and triumphal bridge may still be identified among the ruins, which are laved by the waters of the tranquil sea. But though man and his works have perished, the steep promontory with its isolated rock, still rears itself against the sky, unmoved, unchanged. Time has consumed the works of man, and art is resolving into its elemental nature. The gorgeous pageant has passed, the roar of battle has ceased, the multitude has mingled with the dust, the Empire is extinct.