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tion, why the architecture of the Parthenon has such exquisite proportions; why ancient sculpture is so unaffected, so tranquil, so simple, when you have beheld the pure sky, and the delicious scenery, of Athens, of Corinth, and of Ionia. In this native land of the Muses, nature suggests no wild deviations; she tends, on the contrary, to dispose the mind to the love of the uniform and of the harmonious.' V. I. p. 85.

He does not stay to make any explanation or apology in be half of this delicious and plastic climate, for now producing or permitting such men as the Turks, and such buildings as Mosques. There is not time: for he has hardly ended these observations, before he is carried off, probably by the last of the nymphs or demigods that may have lingered unseen in Greece, and suddenly conveyed into the company of the shades of Homer and Simonides, Aristotle, Philip, Alexander, Cato, Cicero, and other famous personages.

The traveller had reached this station by a circuitous course,in which he skirted Mount Ithome, passed through a town supposed to stand on the site of Leuctra, had a rude rencontre with two Turkish soldiers, in which he displayed great spirit, and was introduced at Tripolizza, the capital of the Morea, to Osman Pacha, the worthy robber-hunter and chief guardian of the peninsula, from whom he obtained the firman necessary for passing the Isthmus of Corinth. Tripolizza is a modern town which appears to have been erected between Mantinea, Tegea, and Orchomenus;' with no local recommendations but that of being central,-the Turks 'being perfectly indifferent, in their choice of situations, to the beauties of nature;' in this respect very unlike the Arabs, for whom the charms of climate and position have strong allurements, and who, to this day, deplore the loss of Granada.' The travelling firman confers privileges which our author was too equitable to exercise:

6 You pay for no horses; the weight of your baggage is fixed; and wherever you go, you may insist on being gratuitously supplied with provisions. I would not avail myself of these magnificent but odious privileges, which press heavily on a people unfortunate enough without them, but paid wherever 1 went for my horses and entertainments, like a traveller without protection and without firman.' p. 123.

He passed a small river, bordered with tall reeds, and beautiful rose-laurels in full flower,' without knowing, at the time, that this river was the Eurotas, and arrived at Misitra. Before entering on the scene that was to excite emotions which will awaken the sympathy and envy of all his readers that have felt the enchantment of Grecian history, but have never trodden the field on which its events and characters were once realities, he gives a very curious description of the heterogeneous assemblage of people among whom he passed the night, in the apartment appropriated to strangers in the house of a principal Turk, Vol. VIII.

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and of the wonder, perplexity, and contempt, shewn by a learned and inquisitive minister of the law,' at the traveller's first attempt to explain the object of his journey-' to see foreign nations, and especially the Greeks, who were dead.' In a second attempt it occurred to him to say, he was a pilgrim going to Jerusalem;' on which the doctor of law exclaimed, "Hadgi! hadgi!" (a pilgrim! a pilgrim!) and was perfectly satisfied.' On which our author observes, Religion is a sort of universal language understood by all mankind; this Turk was unable to conceive how I could quit my country from the mere motive of curiosity; but that it was perfectly rational that I should undertake a long journey with a view to offer up my prayers at a tomb, to pray to God for some blessing, or for deliverance from some affliction.' It does not happen to occur to him, even though he says he has been in England, that there is a very considerable section of the civilized world to which the portion of the universal language' he has been reciting would be by no means so familiarly intelligible.

At Misitra, the traveller supposed himself to be in Sparta; but, in order to take his gratifications by climax, he chose to spend the first day in visiting some situations of inferior interest, Amycle, and other points in the vicinity. And now he was to survey the site and vestiges of a city the mere name of which has been enough to awaken so many magnificent ideas through so many ages. He had read all the controversies of the geographers and travellers relative to its locality; and had adopted the opinion of those who have maintained, contrary to D'Anville, that Misitra is on the site of the ancient city. With great enthusiasm, therefore, but intensely inquisitive notwithstanding, and well prepared to examine and verify each part of the town, he ascended to the top of the castle. Ön looking eagerly a little while, he became extremely perplexed and mortified, from the impossibility of arranging the parts into such a locality as he absolutely knew the site of Sparta to have been: he could not even find the Eurotas. Besides, there was not the smallest appearance of the remains of any very ancient structures. He had a guide, a janissary, and other attendants, whom he impatiently questioned, with great difficulty to make them understand his language, and to understand theirs in reply.

• We all spoke at once, we bawled, we gesticulated: with our different dresses, language, and physiognomy, we looked like an assembly of demons, perched at sun-set on the summit of these ruins. The woods and cascades of Taygetus were behind us, Laconia was at our feet, and over our heads the most lovely sky. This Misitra, said 1 to the Cicerone, is Lacedæmon: Is it not?-Signor! Lacedæmon! What did you say?—rejoined he. Is not this Lacedæmon or Sparta ?-Sparta! What do you mean?I ask you if Misitra is Sparta.I don't understand you.-What, you a

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Greek! you a Lacedæmonian and not know the name of Sparta?Sparta! Oh, yes! Great republic: celebrated Lycurgus!-Is Misitra then Lacedæmon?The Greek nodded in affirmation. I was overjoyed.Now, I resumed, explain to me what I see. What part of the town is that? I pointed at the same time to the quarter before me a little to the right. Mesochorion, answered he.-That I know perfectly well, but what part of Lacedæmon is it?-Lacedæmon! I don't know.-I was beside myself. —At least shew one the river, cried I, and repeated, Potamos, Potamos. My Greek pointed to the stream called the Jew's River.—What! is that the Eurotas? Impossible! Tell me where is the Vasilipotamos?The Cicerone, after many gestures, pointed to the right towards Amycle. -I was once more involved in all my perplexities.'

He was very naturally in extreme vexation to think it should be impossible to find the object of his enthusiasm, even whell perfectly certain he must be at least very near it; and that he might, after all his expectations, be baffled in his search. He had read, but forgotten, D'Anville's assertion that the true site of Sparta is a place now called Palaochori. As he was going down from the castle, the Greek exclaimed, "Your lordship perhaps means Palæochori?"

At the mention of this name, I recollected the passage of D'Anville and cried out in my turn, "Yes, Palæochori! The old city! Where is that? Where is Palæochori?" "Yonder at Magoula," said the cicerone, pointing to a white cottage with some trees about it, at a considerable distance in the valley.'

His disappointment inspired additional eagerness; and in the morning before light, he set off at full galiop for Lace dæmon,' attended by a Janissary.

I We had proceeded at that pace for an hour, when at break of day, perceived some ruins, and a very long wall of antique construction: my heart began to palpitate. The Janissary turning towards me, pointed with his whip to a whitish cottage on the right, and exclaimed with a look of satisfaction, "Palæochori!" I made up towards the principal ruin which I perceived upon an eminence. On turning the eminence by the north-west for the purpose of ascending it, I was suddenly struck with the sight of a vast ruin of a semi-circular form, which I instantly recognized as an ancient theatre. I am not able to describe the confused feelings which overpowered me. The hill at the foot of which I stood, was consequently the hill of the city of Sparta, since the theatre was contiguous to the citadel. The ruin which I beheld on that hill, was of course the temple of Minerva Chalcioecos, since that temple was in the citadel; and the fragments of the long wall which I had passed lower down, must have formed part of the quarter of the Cynosuri, since that quarter was to the north of the city. Sparta was then before me, and its theatre, to which my good fortune had conducted me on my first arrival, gave me immediately the position of all the quarters and edifices. I alighted, and ran all the way up the hill of the citadel. Just as I reached the top, the sun was rising behind the hills of Menelaion. What a magnificent spectacle! but how melancholy! The solitary stream of the Eurotas running beneath the remains of the bridge

Babyx; ruins on every side, and not a creature to be seen among them. I stood motionless in a kind of stupor at the contemplation of this scene. A mixture of admiration and grief checked the current of my thoughts, and fixed me to the spot: profound silence reigned around me. Determined at last to make echo speak, in a spot where the human voice is no longer heard, I shouted with all my might, "Leonidas! Leonidas!" No ruin repeated this great name.' When my agitation had subsided, I began to study the ruins around me. The summit of the hill was a platform, encompassed, especially to the north-west, with thick walls. I went twice round it, and counted one thousand five hundred and sixty ordinary paces, or nearly seven hundred and eighty geometrical paces; but it should be remarked that in this circuit, I comprehend the whole summit of the hill, including the curve formed by the excavation of the theatre in this hill.—It was the theatre that Leroi examined.

Some ruins partly buried in the ground, and partly rising above the surface, indicate, nearly in the centre of this platform, the foundations of the temple of Minerva Chalcioecos, where l'ausanias in vain sought refuge and lost his life. A sort of flight of steps, seventy feet wide, and of an extremely gentle descent, leads from the south side of the hill down to the plain. This was perhaps the way that conducted to the citadel. At the commencement of these steps, and above the theatre, I saw a small edifice of a circular form, three-fourths destroyed: the niches within it seem equally well adapted for the reception of statues or of urrs. Is it a tomb? Is it the temple of the Armed Venus?

After enumerating various other ruins, chiefly the bases of walls, and assigning them to their proper quarter of the city, he continues,

The whole site of Lacedæmon, is uncultivated: the sun parches it in silence, and is incessantly consuming the marble of the tombs. When I beheld this desert, not a plant adorned the ruins, not a bird, not an insect, not a creature enlivened them, save millions of lizards which crawled up and down the sides of the scorching walls. A dozen half wild horses were feeding here and there upon the withered grass, and a shepherd was cultivating a few water-melons in a corner of the theatre.

Night drew on apace, when I reluctantly quitted these renowned ruins, the shade of Lycurgus, the recollection of Thermopyla, and all the fictions of fable and history. The sun sank behind the Taygetus, so that I had beheld him commence and finish his course on the ruins of Lacedaemon. It was three thousand five hundred and forty-three years since he first rose and set over this infant city.'

His enthusiasm is not however to be engrossed by the illustrious pagans,—as the sight of Corcyra, (now Corfu) recalls to him names and events filled to awaken some emotions proper to a Christian, and more that are proper to a Catholic. He recollects that this island was an important station in the march of crusades and pilgrimages; but recollects too, that he has the misfortune to live in an age, when such times as these cannot be mentioned without exciting a smile of compas sion in the face of the free-thinker.' He must be left to settle

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this point of disagreement with the unbelieving generation as he can, with the aid of whatever authority remains to the conclave and the inqusition. But we wish all to join zealously in his quarrel against the age, so far as there is truth in the allegation conveyed in the following questions: How is it possible to bring in the names of St. Jason and St. Sopistratus, apostles of the Corcyreans, during the reign of Claudius, after having mentioned Homer, Aristotle, Alexander, Cicero, Cato, and Germanicus? Yet is a martyr to independence a greater character than a martyr to truth? Is Cato, devoting himself for the liberties of Rome, more heroic than Sapistratus, suffering himself to be burned in a brazen bull, for proclaiming to men that they are brethren, that they ought to love and succour one another?'

Our adventurer began his inroad on the Morea, or (Peloponnesus), at Modon, anciently Methone, in Messenia.

"I trod,' says he, the classic soil of Greece, I was but ten leagues from Olympia, thirty from Sparta, on the road which Telemachus followed when repairing to Menelaus to make inquiries respecting his father: and it was not yet a month since I quitted Paris.'

Thus far we shall be highly pleased with his rapidity; and we shall thank him for not having staid to accumulate notes and transcriptions, to the amount of a hundred or two of printed pages, at Venice, Malta, or any such intermediate well known station. But we are not quite so much gratified to see the impetus which has carried him with such velocity to the coast of Greece, continuing to operate, with little remission, for hundreds of leagues.

An Aga at Modon, assured our traveller that he would find no difficulty in traversing the Morea, because the roads were clear, since examples had been made of three or four hundred of the banditti.' While he was amazed to think what a horrible place this Morea must have been a few months before, he received an explanation, which affords a most striking illustration of the benefits derived to a country from the simplicity and effi cacy of a Turkish system of police.

The history of these three or four hundred banditti is as follows :Near Mount Ithome there was a band of about fifty robbers, who infested the roads. The Pacha of the Morea, Osman Pasha, repaired to the spot; he surrounded the villages where the robbers were accustomed to take up their quarters. It would have been too tedious for a Turk to distinguish between the innocent and the guilty: all within the Pasha's inclosure were dispatched like wild beasts. The robbers, it is true, were exterminated; but with them perished three hundred Greek peasants, who were accounted as nothing in this affair. v. p. 93.

At night he went into a chamber prepared for his repose; but really we should have thought the worse of him if he had

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