After these comes the Temple of Theseus, and here I must detain you a little; it is an almost perfect building of the best style of Grecian art; supposed to be just prior to the administration of Pericles. You have no conception of what a beautiful thing it is. It stands quite detached, on a little point of land running out from the hill of the Areopagus. The situation is admirable, better than that of the temple of Jupiter Olympus; the building is more perfect, the material as good, or indeed better; for this is of pure white marble, and the other has veins and defective blocks. The workmanship appears to have been superior, but the joints have been loosened, and some of the stones dislocated, probably by the shock of an earthquake: it falls far short in magnitude, but to make amends it is connected with the wonderful tale of Athenian glory; while what remains at least of the other, is the work of some later period. I have quite made up my mind, that the best situation for almost any sort of building is an advancing point of land; not an insulated summit, let that summit be high or low, sheltered or unsheltered, and never in a hollow. Prior park near Bath, though standing very high, is in a hollow, and loses half the praise its architecture would obtain, if it were better placed. Half way down, on the point forming one side of the little valley in which it stands, it would be better sheltered, have a more pleasing variety of view, be more accessible, and form incomparably a better object. The most admired buildings generally occupy situations of this sort, and they sometimes get a degree of credit for their architecture which should in fact be given to their position. But the architecture of the temple of Theseus is as beautiful as the site. The point it stands on is so little elevated, that a person might leave Athens without perceiving it to be placed on any hill at all, yet nobody can fail to observe that it is a conspicuous object, and looks well in every point of view. The cell of a Greek temple, is you know a simple, oblong building. In the earlier periods it was probably nearly destitute of ornament, and except for the cornice, and for the smallness of the dimensions, much like a barn. Afterwards a porch was added, supported by columns, and the entablature began to receive some embellishment. Even this disposition, when the front came into view, was highly beautiful, and more so when an additional range of columns was added to the portico. Afterwards columns were added at the back also, by which means the variety and contrast produced by them, would catch the attention from every point of view. The next step was to continue the columns all round, and this is the arrangement at the temple of Theseus.