Page:History of the destruction of Troy (2).pdf/24

 24             The famous History of &c.

who were asleep and massacred them, kil- ling men, women, and children, so that the streets flowed with blood; they burnt all the palaces and other stately buildings and heaped up the treasure in the market place.

When the morning dawned, the Greek loaded their ships with the plunder. Fair Helen was taken out of Paris’s palace, and restored to Menelaus, who sharply rebuked her, and would have put her to death, had not the other princes interceded for her and excused her transgressions, Ihey then set fire to the city, beat down the towers and bulwarks, and laid the whole in a heap of rubbish, and it has never since been rebuilt

The ruins of Troy are yet to be seen, and strange it is. that as fate had foretold, after this fatal destruction, none ever attempted the rebuilding of it: Some say part of the stone laid over Hector’s tomb is yet remain- ing, and an eagle carved in stone, that was placed at his head : Now where Troy stood many wild grapes grow, and the famous rivers, Xanthus and Simonis, so often mentioned by Homer, are in a manner dried up.

PRINTED by J. and M. ROBERTSON

Saltmarket, 1799.