The Ruins | Page 6

but under the august
aspect of justice, poising in her hand the sacred balance, wherein are
weighed the actions of men at the gates of eternity.
O Tombs! what virtues are yours! you appal the tyrant's heart, and
poison with secret alarm his impious joys; he flies, with coward step,
your incorruptible aspect, and erects afar his throne of insolence.

LONDON TRANSLATION.
INVOCATION.
Solitary ruins, sacred tombs, ye mouldering and silent walls, all hail!
To you I address my invocation. While the vulgar shrink from your
aspect with secret terror, my heart finds in the contemplation a
thousand delicious sentiments, a thousand admirable recollections.
Pregnant, I may truly call you, with useful lessons, with pathetic and
irresistible advice to the man who knows how to consult you. A while
ago the whole world bowed the neck in silence before the tyrants that
oppressed it; and yet in that hopeless moment you already proclaimed

the truths that tyrants hold in abhorrence: mixing the dust of the
proudest kings with that of the meanest slaves, you called upon us to
contemplate this example of Equality. From your caverns, whither the
musing and anxious love of Liberty led me, I saw escape its venerable
shade, and with unexpected felicity, direct its flight and marshal my
steps the way to renovated France.
Tombs! what virtues and potency do you exhibit! Tyrants tremble at
your aspect--you poison with secret alarm their impious pleasures--
they turn from you with impatience, and, coward like, endeavor to
forget you amid the sumptuousness of their palaces.

PHILADELPHIA TRANSLATION.
INVOCATION.
Hail, ye solitary ruins, ye sacred tombs, and silent walls! 'Tis your
auspicious aid that I invoke; 'tis to you my soul, wrapt in meditation,
pours forth its prayers! What though the profane and vulgar mind
shrinks with dismay from your august and awe-inspiring aspect; to me
you unfold the sublimest charms of contemplation and sentiment, and
offer to my senses the luxury of a thousand delicious and enchanting
thoughts! How sumptuous the feast to a being that has a taste to relish,
and an understanding to consult you! What rich and noble admonitions;
what exquisite and pathetic lessons do you read to a heart that is
susceptible of exalted feelings! When oppressed humanity bent in timid
silence throughout the globe beneath the galling yoke of slavery, it was
you that proclaimed aloud the birthright of those truths which tyrants
tremble at while they detect, and which, by sinking the loftiest head of
the proudest potentate, with all his boasted pageantry, to the level of
mortality with his meanest slave, confirmed and ratified by your
unerring testimony the sacred and immortal doctrine of Equality.
Musing within the precincts of your inviting scenes of philosophic
solitude, whither the insatiate love of true-born Liberty had led me, I
beheld her Genius ascending, not in the spurious character and habit of
a blood-thirsty Fury, armed with daggers and instruments of murder,
and followed by a frantic and intoxicated multitude, but under the
placid and chaste aspect of Justice, holding with a pure and unsullied
hand the sacred scales in which the actions of mortals are weighed on
the brink of eternity.

The first translation was made and published in London soon after the
appearance of the work in French, and, by a late edition, is still adopted
without alteration. Mr. Volney, when in this country in 1797, expressed
his disapprobation of this translation, alleging that the translator must
have been overawed by the government or clergy from rendering his
ideas faithfully; and, accordingly, an English gentleman, then in
Philadelphia, volunteered to correct this edition. But by his endeavors
to give the true and full meaning of the author with great precision, he
has so overloaded his composition with an exuberance of words, as in a
great measure to dissipate the simple elegance and sublimity of the
original. Mr. Volney, when he became better acquainted with the
English language, perceived this defect; and with the aid of our
countryman, Joel Barlow, made and published in Paris a new, correct,
and elegant translation, of which the present edition is a faithful and
correct copy.

CONTENTS
Publisher's Preface Translator's Preface Preface of London Edition
Preface of the American Edition Advertisement of the American
Edition The Life of Volney A List of Volney's Works Invocation Chap.
I. The Journey II. The Reverie III. The Apparition IV. The Exposition
V. Condition of Man in the Universe VI. The Primitive State of Man
VII. Principles of Society VIII. Sources of the Evils of Societies IX.
Origin of Governments and Laws X. General Causes of the Prosperity
of Ancient States XI. General Causes of the Revolutions and Ruin of
Ancient States XII. Lessons of Times Past repeated on the Present XIII.
Will the Human Race Improve XIV. The Great