A pilgrimage to the temples and tombs of Egypt, Nubia, and ...

THE PERSIAN CONQUEST. 311
they should be spared ; and the fires which had
been lighted at their bases were accordingly
quenched,—not, however, in time to save all, as
is evident from the beautiful fragments that strew
the ground at the eastern gate of Karnak.
Of the various foreign masters by whom Egypt
was in turns possessed, the Persians alone have
left no monuments of their double conquest and
occupation of the land of the Pharaohs. They
recorded their success in the ruins of the country
they had vanquished ; and the destruction of the
royal cities and the magnificent temples that
studded the Valley of the Nile would have
argued a blind insensibility to the wonders of
art, and a brutish ignorance of the advantages of
civilization, were it not a fact that they carried
off the principal artists and artizans of Egypt to
Persia, and forced them to devote their genius
and labours to the embellishment of that coun-
try ;
thereby demonstrating that their aim was to
destroy and debase the conquered land, while
they transplanted to the conquering one " the
learning and the wisdom of Egypt." From that
epoch dates the fall of Egyptian art ; the crea-
tive genius of Egypt expired when she ceased
to be free and independent ; and from thence-
forward she only attempted feeble imitations of