Among the barbarous nations of the East, where the whole resources of the country lay at the disposal of the monarch or of the priestly caste, as in Hindùstân, Persia, and Egypt, full scope, on the contrary, was given to the imagination of the architect, who, if his invention were equal to it, might give his structures the elevation of a mountain and the spaciousness of a vast city. Hence, the grandeur arising from magnitude, is, in most cases, found to belong to the sacred edifices of Egypt;[268] and in some instances a feeling of symmetry, a sense of the beautiful, appears to have restrained the artist within due bounds, as in the great temple of Apollinopolis Magna, which, whatever may be the imperfections of its architectural details, is invested, as a whole, with an air of genuine magnificence and sublimity. Proceeding from the contemplation of these to the religious structures of Greece, there would be found, I imagine, in most minds a slight feeling of disappointment, and though afterwards, the delight imparted by the presence of extreme beauty,—a delight serene, soft, and inexpressibly soothing, may more than compensate for the want of awe and wondering admiration, their absence will still be felt. Footnote 268: Of these temples Lucian says: ὅμοιαι ... τοῖς Αἰγυπτίοις ἱεροῖς: κᾀκεῖ γὰρ, αὐτὸς μὲν ὁ νεὼς κάλλιστός τε καὶ μέγιστος, λίθοις τοῖς πολυτελέσιν ἠσκημένος, καὶ χρυσῷ, καὶ γραφαῖς διηνθισμὲνος. ἔνδον δὲ ἢν ζητῆς τὸν βεὸν ἢ πιθηκός ἔστιν, ἢ ἴβις, ἢ τράγος, ἢ αἴλουρος. Imagin. § 11.