Page:Greek Buildings Represented by Fragments in the British Museum (1908).djvu/207

 THESEUM, ERECHTHEUM, AND OTHER WORKS. 191 and Haussoullier * have sought to collect every slightest reference to it. I shall only here note one or two points from English sources unknown to them. There is in the British Museum MSS. Room an account of a visit to the temple in 1679 by Dr Covel, once chaplain to the Levant Company. This, the earliest modern description, is accompanied by a sketch, of which a poor rendering is given in an engraving in the account of Spon and Wheler's travels. They did not visit the site but obtained the view from Dr Pickering, physician to the Company, who, with Mr Salter, visited the temple in 1673. Wheler, Pickering, and Covel all met in Con- stantinople, and travelled thence to Smyrna together. Fig. 195. — Miletus, Capitals of Pilasters. Covel's account of his visit in 1679 is as follows: — "This morning, not long after five, pitch our tent near ye Temple of Apollo Didymeus, called by the Turks Yoran. The remains of this building shows ye greatest pomp and magnificence of all I have seen in Asia. The stones are all pure white marble, most of them very large. On many of them a few letters are cut, particularly in one place. On certain of them are certain figures, carved most curiously, such as images of griffins, in some defaced, in others remaining almost entire. On a large chapter is a fair image of an angel [a winged figure, now in the Louvre]. last year, and much light has been thrown on the destruction of the temple.
 * See Anderson and Spiers for abstract. This site was cleared further