municated, without reserve or mystery, to those only who were properly initiated.-From the nature of the climate and soil of Egypt, it is evident that agriculture must have been early understood, as the Nile, by its inundations, prevented the possibility of pasturing the ground, or raising any other productions than corn and other annual plants. Of these, in favourable seasons, the produce was great, and admitted of exportation to other countries less bountifully supplied. Phoenicia, with which an intercourse by sea had been early established, seems to have taken off the redundant supply of these productions in exchange for other commodities, particularly timber, with which the contiguous country abounded, and which was an article of great scarcity in Egypt. By this mutual communication between the two countries, an impulse was given to the commerce of both; and the art of navigation, confined at first, as we may suppose, to short attempts along the coasts, was thereby greatly improved. By degrees, the Phoenicians extended their voyages along the coast of the Mediterranean, and even as far as the Atlantic Ocean; bartered their own goods, which were more calculated for shew than real use, for the natural productions of the countries which they visited; planted colonies and formed permanent settlements in places most favourable for commerce. While Egypt and Phoenicia were thus opening an intercourse with each other and with various tribes along the coast, the inhabitants of Greece, probably migrating hordes from the deserts of Scythia, were ignorant of the most necessary arts; lived upon the spontaneous fruits of the earth; clothed themselves with skins of animals which they happened to kill in the chace, and sheltered themselves from the inclemency of the seasons and incidental storms in thickets or caverns. In this state, or but little removed from this state, they were discovered by the Phoenician and Egyptian navigators, who found in the natural productions of the soil, among the rude arts of the natives, and even the natives themselves, objects of commercial profit, which tempted them to renew their visits at different times. The advantages, however, to be derived from such a transient intercourse must have operated slowly towards civilizing the Greeks, had other circumstances not combined in their favour. Colonies from Egypt, whether forced to quit their native country from intestine discord, or actuated by the restless spirit of adventurers, or obliged to seek for other settlements through a redundant population, established themselves in various parts of Greece and the adjacent islands. Of these

islands, Crete seems to have been the first where any permanent settlement was made. It early exhibited a civilized state of society, a regular internal policy, and a system of laws far superior to any thing of the kind upon the continent. The want of written records at that period prevents us from ascertaining, with any degree of certainty, the causes, means and instruments, by which all these improvements were effected. Tradition refers us to Minos, a king of the island, who appears to have been a prince of extraor dinary wisdom, vigour, and decision. By some he is supposed to have been a native of Crete; by others, with more probability, a leader of adventurers from Phoenicia. Actuated by the ambition of a conqueror, he not only reduced the whole island of Crete to subjection, but cleared the Archipelago of those pirates which had long infested it, and plundered the inhabitants of the continent and islands.

The laws established by this prince are remarkable for being the model upon which Lycurgus, the Spartan legislator, formed his institutions. They rested upon two principles that all free men were equal, and that slaves were necessary to relieve them from every servile employment.' The profession of arms was the only business suited to the high spirit of the former, while the latter, far superior in numbers, consisting probably of the original inhabitants of the island, or captives taken in war, were doomed to labour and toil. Plato remarks, that the Cretan constitution did not so much resemble a civil community as a military station. Hence the education of the youth was directed to make them soldiers. The strictest discipline was enforced. Modesty and temperance were particularly inculcated, and merit alone obtained distinction. The free citizens were not allowed any private property in land, and but little of any thing else, as their wants and necessities were provided for out of the public stock. That their manners and habits might be as uniform as possible, they were obliged to eat together at the public tables; and that they might be restrained from every kind of vice or excess, a severe moral code was enacted, which reached to many of those small deviations from rectitude, that are supposed in other countries to be checked by public opinion. In these institutions may be observed the germ of that more extended system which Lycurgus is said to have framed for the Spartans, and which shall afterwards be detailed at greater length.

The early period of Grecian history is so much involved in uncertainty and fable, owing to the want of written records, that we find it almost impossible to obtain any rational account of various tribes whose names alone survived, to shew that they had once inhabited the country. It is extremely probable that the original inhabitants were wandering tribes of Scythians, who, having quitted their mountains and forests, proceeded along the western coast of the Black Sea, established themselves in Thrace, and spread by degrees through Macedonia to Thessaly and other parts of Greece. These barbarians obtained the general name of Pelasgi; from what origin is uncertain. It may seem strange that the Pelasgi, who were supposed to have occupied the whole of Greece, should have left so few memorials of their having possessed the country, and that even their name should have been obliterated at a very early period. Whether it was owing to their unsettled mode of life, which induced them to migrate to other places, or that they were forced to give way to other tribes of barbarians, cannot now be well ascertained. A more likely supposition is, that the general name of the Pelasgi, given to those who first established themselves in the mountainous country of Thessaly, was gradually lost when bands of adventurers proceeded to other parts of Greece in quest of new settlements, as it was a common custom to assume the name of their respective leaders, and bestow it upon the province or district where they fixed themselves. As long as the remembrance of their common origin remained among them, they would still consider themselves as belonging to the Pelasgic nation: but when time and other causes had effaced that impression, they would uniformly be called by the names of their respective leaders, assumed, it is probable, at first to distinguish them from other adventurers, but afterwards retained through familiar use, and as a mark of nationality. A portion of the Greeks were, from this circumstance, called Hellenes, from Hellen the son of Deucalion, a prince of Thessaly, who, putting himself, as was supposed, at the head of a confederacy of the Pelasgi, to repel the invasion of strangers, gave to the people who composed it, his own name. His sons and grandsons, by conducting the overflowing population of the country to other places, were honoured by their particular adherents, with the assumption of their respective names. Thus the inhabitants of Greece, whether they went by the name of Pelasgi or Hellenes, or were called Dorians, Eolians, Ionians and Achaians, were all sprung from the same stock, and had one com

mon language, varied in progress of time, according to the pursuits of the different tribes, their intercourse with one another and with foreigners, and their improvements in the arts and sciences.

The Dorian seems to have been the primitive language of the Pelasgi, who dwelt in Thessaly, and remained with fewer changes. among the inhabitants of that mountainous district, than in other parts of Greece, where it underwent considerable alterations from the influx of strangers and progress of commerce. That it was the original language of the whole country, appears also from this, that the rustic songs, the ancient hymns in honour of the Gods, and the choruses of the tragic and comic poets, written in imitation of these hymns, were all in the Doric dialect. It continued to be spoken with a mixture of the Eolian, to which it had a near affinity, by the inhabitants of Peloponnesus, the Sicilians, the Cretans, the Rhodians and the people of Epirus, with a few variations in the change and addition of some letters. The Athenians, who belonged to the Ionian tribe, having got the start of their neighbours by their progress in the arts and cultivation of their language, formed a new dialect, denominated the Attic, while the Eolians, who were expelled from the Peloponnesus by the Dorians, having established colonies along the western coast of Asia Minor, diffused their language over that tract of country. The Ionian name, over which the Athenian had triumphed in Greece, was retained by those who had emigrated to Asia and the islands. Thus the language of the inhabitants of Greece, the islands and Asia Minor, was divided into the Doric, the Attic, the Æolic and the Ionic, a distinction uniformly observed by all the writers of the different countries where settlements had been made.

Before proceeding with a short account of the more particular states of Greece, whose history embraced actions and events of general importance, it may be necessary to describe the boundaries and divisions of the country. Ancient Greece was bounded on the east by the Egean sea, now called the Archipelago; and on the west by the Ionian sea, or Adriatic gulph. It is divided from Macedonia by a ridge of mountains, and from Thrace by the river Strymon. It extends southwards to the promontory of Tænarus, and is situated nearly in the middle of the northern temperate zone.-THESSALY, the most northern province, was an extensive and fruitful vale, completely surrounded by lofty mountains. On the north, Olympus divides it from Macedonia:

contiguous ridges extend to the Ceraunian mountains, and terminate in the high and stormy promontory of Acroceraunus. Mount Pindus forms the western boundary of Thessaly, and Oeta the southern. Between the foot of mount Oeta and the sea, lies the narrow defile of Thermopyla, the only entrance on the eastern side to the southern provinces of Greece. The river Peneus, after running between Ossa and Olympus, and winding through a romantic and fertile country, flows into the delightful vale of Tempe. The tract extending from Epirus and Thessaly, to the isthmus of Corinth and the gulphs on each side of it, contains seven provinces: ETOLIA and ACARNANIA, defended on one side by mountains almost impassable, and confined on the other by boisterous seas; DORIS, a mountainous and rocky region; LOCRIS and PHOCIS, fertile plains, but of small extent; BœOTIA, a rich vale, with many rivers and lakes, bounded on the north-east by the Opuntian gulph stretching southward to that of Corinth, and almost surrounded by the mountains Parnassus, Helicon, Citharon and Parnes; ATTICA is bounded on the north by the two latter of these mountains, and extends to the promontory of Sunium on the south. It is a rocky and barren region, producing little corn or pasture, but abounding in fruits, particularly figs and olives.

The Peninsula of PELOPONNESUS contains seven districts; the narrow but extensive cost of ACHAIA; the fruitful vale of ARGOS; the level countries of ELIS and MESSENIA; ARCADIA, the central district, is a cluster of mountains; LACONIA, a large and fertile territory, watered by the Eurotas, and divided by the lofty ridges of Taygetus and Xarex, which extend to the most southern promontories of Greece, Tænarus and Malia; and the isthmus of CORINTH, which is narrow and mountainous.

Such are the divisions of ancient Greece, and the names of the different states who inhabited the country. The greater part of them are too inconsiderable to deserve any particular mention, as they either mixed very little in the general affairs of Greece, or were soon reduced to a secondary rank by a few leading powers. Some, however, merit our attention, as being among the first that exhibited a regular form of government, and events of such importance as to be noticed in history. It was already stated, that various colonies from Egypt and Phoenicia settled in different parts of Greece, and instructed the rude inhabitants in the arts peculiar to the countries from which they came.