1821.] Account of the antient City of Agrigentum. on his return to the city, with 300 white horses. Phalaris usurped the Sovereignty of Agrigentum in the 2d year of the 52d Olympiad (before Christ 571), and having possessed it about 16 years, shared the common fate of tyrants, and is said to have been put to death by his own buli. After the death of Phalaris, the Agrigentines enjoyed their liberty about 50 years; at the end of which, Theron assumed the sovereign authority. Under his government, which was just and moderate, Agrigentum was tranquil and secure; and in consequence of his union with his son-inlaw, Gelon, King of Syracuse, in a war against the Carthaginians, Sicily was for a time delivered from her African oppressors. He was succeeded by his son, Thrasybulus, who was deprived of the royal authority; and Agrigentum was restored to her old democratical government. Its tranquil lity was interrupted by Ducetius, a chief of the mountaineer descendants of the Siculi, but restored by the co-operation of the Syracusans. The union of the Agrigentines and Syracusans did not long continue; and the former, after an unsuccessful contest, were obliged to submit to humiliating terms of peace. The enemies with whom they had next to contend were the Carthaginians, who routed their armies, took their city, and almost extirpated their race. The situation of Agrigentum, on that Coast of Sicily which faced Africa, and its prodigious wealth, induced Hannibal (in the 92d Olympiad, before Christ 410) to open his campaign with the siege of that city, and the event was peculiarly distressing to the inhabitants. Those who were able to remove during the progress of the siege, which lasted eight months, went to Gela; those who were left behind were put to the sword by the orders of Himilco; and the riches of a city, which had contained 200,000 inhabitants, and which had never been plundered, were rifled by the conquerors. The city itself was reduced to ruins. Agrigentum remained 50 years buried under its own ruins, till Timo * A name familiar to most, on account of his cruelty, and the brazen bull in which he tortured his enemies. 115 leon, after vanquishing the Carthaginians, and restoring liberty to Sicily, collected the descendants of the Agrigentines, and sent them to reestablish the habitations of their ancestors. Such was the vigour and success of their exertions, that Agrigentum was soon in a condition to arrogate supremacy over all the Sicilian republics. At length they and their leader, Xenodices, after some favourable operations against Agathocles, who was supported by the Carthaginians in his usurpation of the sovereignty of Syracuse, were reduced to the necessity of humbly suing to him for peace. afterwards This Commonwealth took a strong part with Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, in his attempt upon Italy; and when he left Sicily to the mercy of her enemies, threw itself into the arms of Carthage. During the first Punic war Agrigentum was the bead quarters of the Carthaginians; it was defended by a numerous garrison, under the command of Hanno; and, after resisting a blockade of seven or eight months, was at last surrendered to the Consul Lævinus, in consequence of the treachery of Mulines, about the year before Christ 198. This officer being deprived of his commission by Hanno, because he envied and dreaded his increasing reputation, meditated revenge; and conspiring with the Numidians, who were attached to him, against Hanno, he placed himself at their head, and having seized one of the gates, put the Romans in possession of it. Hanno and a few officers made their escape; but the rest of the army were murdered by the guards, which Lavinus had posted in all the avenues to intercept their flight. The Chiefs of the Agrigentines were, by the Consul's order, first scourged with rods, and then beheaded. The common people were made slaves, and sold to the best bidder. der. The spoils of the pillaged city were put up to sale, and the money returned to the public treasury +. After this period Agrigentum is seldom mentioned in History; nor is it easy to ascertain the precise time of the destruction of the old city, and the building of Girgenti. W. R. + Livy, lib. xxvi. cxl. vol. III. p. 1138. Ed. Drakenb. Polybius, lib. i. 15-19. pp. PROGRESS 116 Progress of Literature in different Ages. PROGRESS OF LITERATURE IN DIF- N (Resumed from p. 16.) ATURE, diversified throughout all her productions, as well in. tellectual as material, has, at certain intervals, unveiled her fecundity in the cotemporary existence of a race of intellects, who, to their severe walks of intellectual lucubration, add beauty, dignity, and elevation of thought, and by their joint influence, throw around their country and their age a halo of literary splendour, which by its unusual blaze, draws the eyes of mankind, and arrests, in after ages, the progress and the reflections of all-while, at others, she has in periods, on the whole equally refined, exhibited a lamentable dearth of every thing which stands characterized by invention or genius. Greece first, either through the native invention of her embryo minds, broke the gloom of ignorance and rudeness which before characterized the apprehensions of mankind, and may be said to have given birth to Philosophy, the Muses, and polite Literature. Although Shaftesbury, and various other writers have attempted to trace the causes which generated in the sons of Greece a standard of thinking, at once, compared with other nations, polished and profound, and founded a literary æra ;-the succession of Orators, Sages, Poets, and Historians, which have not yielded to any who have since striven for fame in the empire of intellect, together with the eminent Artists, Statesmen, and Legislators which, either contemporaries or within a short interval of each other, trod the small extent of her classic ground, have never perhaps received that complete elucidation which some investigators, who delight to mark the progress of manners and of mind, and the circumstances which are auxiliary or pernicious to the growth of each, could desire. The genius of those in antient Greece who made it their concern to examine causes and trace effects, rather turned to hypotheses connected with the study of Nature, in her wide dominions, or to moral philosophy, than employed in contemplating the degrees of capacity in the human [Feb. genius, or by what means it rose to such unexampled brilliancy and celebrity, in a comparatively short space of time after letters had been known and cultivated in Greece. The progression of the human mind, as far as concerns the inventive faculty of the Poet, or the profound investigating capacity of the Philosopher, did not, among the antients, appear to be an object of serious attention, and yet it has, doubtless, in succeeding ages, been frequently a subject of curiosity and admiration with posterity, that the flame and the ardour of inspiration was lighted up with such generous emulation and effect in the breast of Homer, Archilochus, and Pindar; and invigorated with such comprehension and force, the minds of Thales, and Anaximander, before society had assumed her settled form and polish,before the enlightened patronage of Pericles had commenced, or ere the wise laws of Solon had fully operated to add strength to the Government, and security to the Citizen. But although genius and intellect among the Greeks seem, in those ages of antiquity, to have been plants more spontaneously generated, and of quicker growth than on most other soils, their æra of letters and of science has repeatedly, in after-times, been paralleled, in the existence of men of the first eminence, who have flourished contemporaries. These periods in which Nature has been thought, and with reason, to have ripened into more than usual fecundity, are usually designated the ages of Ptolemy, of Augustus, of Leo, of Lewis, and of Anne; aud, how ever through the favour of contemporaries, or the gratitude of poste rity, the claims of some of the individuals who then respectively flourished, may appear sometimes to be overrated, still it will by the caudid student be admitted, that the brilliancy of talent in those, who then strove together for literary immortality, far eclipsed in the aggregate similar exhibitions of a prior or succeeding age. Whoever, then, attentively considers the subject, will see sufficient reason for adopting at least the received hypothesis,-that men of bril liant, extensive, and commanding genius have often flourished contemporaries, or within a short time of each other, 1821.] Progress of Literature in different Ages. other, whereas, on the other hand, certain periods of society, which rank equally high in point of civilization, manners, and advantages of an outward kind, present little more than what may be termed a blank in the advances of the human mind, and are certainly unillumined by any brilliant orextensive displays of mental energy. Although not entirely unexplored, -a pretty extensive field for speculative disquisition may be here thought to open to the mind fond of investigating causes, and of tracing effects to their source-(if such sources be indeed within the compass of human activity and research,)—a field whose boundaries are yet uninclosed, and the nature of whose productions may detain the traveller for a time without the charge of idle or unprofitable speculation. That one particular age should abound in talent, and become the concentrated seat of the Muses above another, must, doubtless, arise from causes foreign to those of education. -Although Education, or a perceptive cause of training,-the constant and salutary exercise of the mental powers, a meliorating example,-and all the numerous aids attendant upon a constant and intimate intercourse with intelligent society, are very powerful instruments for expanding the faculties, and even of giving them force, still those faculties must originally exist in the germ, in order to be so improved ;-the seeds must be first engendered, or the fruit will scarcely be matured by any culture of art. When we revert to the History of Literature, and contemplate the biographical annals of past times, it is scarcely to be conceived that the long succession of celebrated men, whether eminent for brilliancy of taste, and acumen of genius, who then stood arrayed in imperishable laurels, arrived at this eminence solely through excellency of those rules and exercises inculcated and enforced upon their youth. The intelligences which animated and inspired a Homer, a Plato, a Milton, or a Newton, -and even the fine taste and captivating graces of sentiment and of style which shone forth in a Xenophon, a Virgil, or an Addison-all will immediately allow to have emanated from causes foreign to those of the polish imbibed from others.-The 117 able and illustrious men of all ages, whose writings we are accustomed to contemplate with respect and admiration, were, doubtless, greatly assisted by those principles of knowledge inculcated by their various masters;-it will not be denied, that their intellectual improvement, respectively, was much accelerated, and their talents unfolded through the precepts of those who were intrusted with the direction of their youth ;but these precepts were only operating means, they were not the ultimate efficient cause; they were only, so to speak, the tool for polishing the precious metal, which, yet it must be assumed, previously possessed the same value and lustre, although concealed from observation. If the same care and attention had been bestowed upon narrow capacities, the world for ever in vain might have looked for those bright and elevating ideas which, as it now remains, have so often formed, and must ever form, a source of much intellectual delight. The rude and unlettered savage, let his gifts of nature be what they may, is palpably unfit for the exertions of literature; a proper edu. cation, in which he must acquire a world of new ideas, is imperiously requisite to his assuming the character and office of a man of genius ;but even here, nothing can be clearer than that an individual of strong natural talents would be infinitely more qualified to move in the highest sphere, both of science and the Muses, than one of his countrymen of a mean and slender understanding. It can scarcely be owing, (which hypothesis, however, Helvetius, when he speaks of the different excitability in men, must be understood to teach,) to that emulative disposition to become distinguished, and to excel, which is generally observed to rule in minds of any unusual endowments, that men of extraordinary intellectual accomplishments associate and mutually reflect lustre upon their numerous possessors at particular periods; and after long intervals of comparative ignorance; as this disposition is reducible to the same spring or source as education, which, although it greatly assists in cultivating and forming the understanding, appears, of itself, wholly inadequate to sup, ply 118 Progress of Literature.-Palia Gadh, described. [Feb. ply that parsimony of mental endowments which often seems, among men, capriciously to distinguish Nature's productions. Neither can it be, with any degree of feasibility, pronounced to be the effect merely of a general and excessive refinement in national manners, which is often observed to result from habits of luxury and a super-abundance of wealth. Repeated instances may be selected in the history of the polite nations in the various parts of the world, where all these requisites have been possessed, in which, nevertheless, no signs of attachment to the arts, or a generous and emulative progress in intellectual attainments, have been visible; but where mind bas rather, compared with some other epochs, assumed an aspect of shameful imbecility. That the political form of government, under which any particular people associate, has sometimes a material influence upon the general aspect of its literature;-that, as are the degrees of liberty and wisdom which characterize its laws, so, in proportion, is the successful progress of genius displayed,-the most eminent speculators on these subjects have readily acknowledged. History needs only to be examined with that attention which every reflective mind is wont to bestow upon it, in order to be convinced that such influences have indeed been sometimes felt, and have had more than a fancied share in the intellectual exercises of a nation. Although it may be justly doubted whether all the ingenious hypotheses which Dr. Warton, among others, has advanced on this subject, are conclusive, it may, yet, perhaps be safely assumed that some of the most celebrated æras of human genius, knowledge, and the arts, have each displayed, in their general character, a complexion somewhat suited to their different political situations and circumstances. The wide range of thought,-the boldness of invention,-the sublimity of sentiment,-the speculative turn of mind, which distinguished the Greeks in philosophy, in poetry, and in morals, the liveliness and freedom which characterized most of their compositions in the fine arts, and in eloquence, may in a considerable degree be traced to the laws and independence, which, with all its defects, distinguished their republics. The delicacy of thought, and of sentiment, the warmth of fancy,and the force and varied beauty of expression conspicuous among the Romans, bespeak them to be in the highest state of refinement; but, nevertheless, subject to powers whom they held it their duty to conciliate, or saw it their interest to please. Melksham. E. P. (To be continued.) PALIA GADH. I noticed Capt. Hodgson's disco N our preceding pages we have very of the sources of the Jumna and the Ganges *; and the following curious extract from Mr. Fraser's Tour to the sources of those celebrated rivers, may be considered as interesting. It is a description of a deep and dark glen, named Palia Gadh, which strongly reminds us of the celebrated Tale of the Vampire. "But it would not be easy to convey by any description a just idea of the peculiarly rugged and gloomy wildness of this glen: it looks like the ruins of nature, and appears, as it is said to be, completely impracticable and impenetrable. Little is to be seen except dark rock; wood only fringes the lower parts and the water's edge: perhaps the spots and streaks of snow, contrasting with the general blackness of the scene, heighten the appearance of desolation. No living thing is seen; no motion but that of the waters; no sound but their roar. Such a spot is suited to engender superstition, and here it is accordingly found in full growth. Many wild traditions are preserved, and many extravagant stories related of it. "On one of these ravines there are places of worship not built by men, but natural piles of stones, which have the said to be the residence of the dewtas, or appearance of small temples. These are spirits, who here haunt and inveigle human beings away to their wild abodes. It is said that they have a particular predilection for beauty in both sexes, and remorsely seize on any whom imprudence or accident may have placed within their power, and whose spirits become like theirs after they are deprived of their corporeal frame. Many instances were given of these ravishments: on one occasion, a young man, who had wandered near their haunts, being carried in a trance to the * See vol. LXXXIX. i. P. 350. valley, 1821.] Asiatic Superstitions. — Origin of Exchequer Bills. 119 valley, heard the voice of his own father, who some years before had been thus spirited away, and who now recognised his son. It appears that paternal affection was stronger than the spell that bound him, and instead of rejoicing in the acquisition of a new prey, he recollected the forlorn state of his family deprived of losses at sea, had drawn out of the bills did to many uses serve as well, and to some better, thau gold and silver; and this artificial currency, which necessity had introduced, did make us less feel the want of that real treasure, which the war, and our their only support: he begged and obtained the freedom of his son, who was dismissed under the injunction of strict silence and secrecy. He, however, forgot his vow, and was immediately deprived of speech, and, as a self punish ment, he cut out his tongue with his own band. This man was said to be yet living, and I desired that he should be brought to me, but he never came, and they afterwards informed me that he had very lately died. More than one person is said to have approached the spot, or the precincts of these spirits, and those who have returned have generally agreed in the expression of their feelings, and have uttered some prophecy. They fall, as they say, into a swoon, and between sleeping and waking hear a conversation, or are sensible of certain impressions as if a conversation were passing, which generally relates to some future event. Indeed, the prophetic faculty is one of the chiefly remarkable attributes of these spirits, and of this place." THE ORIGIN OF EXCHEQUER BILLS. nation. Is it unreasonable to ascribe to this circumstance, namely, the defect and want of coin, and the recoinage of silver in 1696, 1697, the origin of that system of paper circulation of the Bank of England, which recent events have carried to so great an extent an extent which our ancestors, at the period alluded to, whilst enjoying the comforts and accommodations arising from this artificial wealth, as described by D'Avenant, could never have contemplated; and to which we owe so much of our advance in the last century, in all the elements of national progression, in riches, power, and all the improvements of the human condition? The fate of nations is more commonly influenced by accidents in their habits, than by the reflected plans of Statesmen or Legislators, determining beforehand the courses which will lead to the general advantage. THE CENSOR.-No. V. value, Acts of Parliament were passed during the reign of Charles II. is "The Tales and Jests of Mr. Hugh Peters, collected into one volume. Published by one that hath formerly been conversant with the Author in his life-time; and dedicated to Mr. John Goodwin, and Mr. Phillip Nye. Together with his Sentence, and the manner of his Execution. London: printed for S. D. and are to be sold by most of the booksellers in London, 1660. Reprinted for J. Caulfield, and sold by all the booksellers in London, 1807." pp. 51, Life, &c. xxiv.-The original tract is of extremely rare occurrence, nor is a copy in the British Museum ; Mr. Caulfield, therefore, being induced to reprint it, prefixed a biographical memoir of Peters, in no way calculated to inspire the reader with a good opinion of him. In his High Court of Justice," however, he attempts to rescue this miserably notorious man from the obloquy of ages, |