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feet in height, and derives its name from its having a china or por. celain coating. Of its founder, antiquity, or the cause of its erection, we have no information. It was the Portuguese who first gave to these edifices the name of pagodas, and attributed them to devotional purposes; but there can be little doubt that in many instances they have been rather erected as public memorials or ornaments, like the columns of the Greeks and Romans.

[Editor.

SECTION XVII.

Colossus of Rhodes.

THIS enormous building has justly been classed among the won. ders of ancient architecture. It was a vast structure of brass, or statuary metal, erected in honour of Apollo or the sun, the tutelary god of the island; whose stride was fifty feet asunder, each foot being placed on a rock at this distance from each other, and which bounded the entrance into the haven: its height, according to Pliny, was not less than a hundred and five feet, or seventy cubits; and hence ships of considerable burden were capable of sailing between its legs. It is said to have been erected by the Rhodians with the money produced by the sale of the engines of war which Demetrius Poliorcetes employed in fruitlessly besieging the city for a twelvemonth, and which he gave to them upon his reconciliation. Pliny affirms that it was commenced by Chares of Lindus, a disciple of Lysippus, and finished upon his death by Laches of the same town. It was thrown down by an earthquake sixty years after its completion. [Plin. Euseb. Editor.

SECTION XVIII.

Italian Monuments and Architecture.

ITALY, like Egypt, abounds so largely with magnificent ruins and relics of different ages, that we can only indicate a few of the most singular or most celebrated.

From the former we may select for description the famous campanill or leaning tower, erected in a square close to the great church at Pisa. It is composed wholly of white marble, and was built for the purpose of containing the bells. Its height is about two hundred feet, and its inclination nearly fifteen feet from the

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