of one of the best Roman generals permitting himself to be unnerved at the beginning of a battle! XXVI. Does the traveller stand at the foot of Mount Pindus,' or among the groves and rocks of Helicon?— They seem almost worthy to be residences for the divine spirit of wisdom. Sapientia dia Hinc roseum accendit lumen, vultuque sereno Gray: de Principiis cogitandi. Nor is it possible to behold Mount Oeta without reflecting on the conduct of Dejanira, as described by The "In my life," says a recent traveller,* " I was never so enchanted, as by the vast extent of prospect, that I enjoyed from this justly celebrated mountain. The sublimity of the tremendous mountains around, and the softer beauties of the valleys, formed a striking contrast. boundless extent of the view, till the eye was lost in rocks, whose shrubs were confused in the distance; the path winding in every direction, on which was occasionally seen a passing villager, or a flock of frolicksome goats, formed a magnificent whole that none can conceive, who have not seen. Before us, at the extreme distance, lay Olympus; beneath it, was Thermopyla; and to the right Parnassus. On the plain before mé winded the Achelous, and the Peneus. I dare not enter on the feelings, with which I was inspired by these famous spots. I was gazing on a mountain, to which many an ancient Greek had turned an eye of devotion; on the scene of one of the most splendid actions of human valour; and on the hill, that had been so often invoked by the poets of antiquity." *Turner, Levant, vol. i, p. 150. Sophocles, in his Tragedy of the Trachinian Virgins.Learning the death of Hercules; She conceal'd herself Where none might see her. Then she wail'd aloud, Prostrate before the altar, that her state Was become desolate.-And if she touch'd Aught which before her hands had us'd, she wept. Then she visited her nuptial bed; and beholding the coverings, once pressed by Hercules, she seated herself upon the bed, and pathetically addressed it. Then with dispatchful hand unloos'd The golden clasp, which o'er her swelling breasts When the attendants came, They saw her side deep wounded ;—to her heart Sophocles.-The Trachinian Virgins. Do we stand upon the spot, once dignified by the presence of the Pythian oracles? Instantly we recur to a passage in one of our sublimest poets, in which he traces the march 'of Poésy to the shores of our own delightful, energetic, land! Woods, that wave o'er Delphi's steep, Fields, that cool Ilyssus laves, Or where Mæander's amber waves In lingering labyrinths creep; How do your tuneful echoes languish, Mute, but to the voice of anguish ! Where each old poetic mountain Every shade and hallow'd fountain Till the sad Nine, in Greece's evil hour, And coward vice, that revels in her chains. They sought, oh Albion! next-thy sea-encircled coast! XXVII. Gray. It is impossible for any one, that has contemplated the ignorance of savage, or the vanity of half civilized nations, to contemplate the map of Greece without the liveliest emotion. There is an eloquence, residing in the very lines and letters of its various parts. Contemplated, as a whole, what a magnificent mental panorama is presented to the imagination! The very thought of this country refreshes the soul;-particularly in an age, when wealth is the great god of almost every man's idolatry; from the beggar, who wants every thing, to the peer, who wants nothing essential to the purposes of life, but the mind to estimate the grace, and the heart to enjoy the bounty of his fortune. If, in the map of the world, from the peninsulas, promontories, islands, and coasts of Greece, we turn to the north-west coast of Africa, all our associations, except those attached to Carthage and the temple of Jupiter Ammon, present images of ferocious rapacity. Scythia, to the north, awakens some recollections of a people hardy, but rude and VOL. IV. H uncivilized. Asia presents pictures of despotism; and America detached groups of savages, in comparison with whom the Goths, the Huns and the Vandals, were Greeks and Romans. Greece, then, monopolizes most of our ideas of taste, elegance, patriotism, the elegant arts, and the domestic virtues. As to the Archipelago, there is not such a cluster of islands in the world. Let us, for a moment, cast our eyes upon the Archipelago, of the North Pacific; or of the Indian Ocean -what nests of comparative barbarians monopolize their soils and climates! In those of Greece what beauty! what grace! what science! and, above all, what a multitude of virtues! There is scarcely a city, or even a town, that is not hallowed by some great action; by the memory of some model of art; or by having been the cradle, or the grave, of an eminent man. Not a mountain is there, that has not been celebrated; and not a river, but what is almost as familiar to us, as the Wye, the Avon, the Thames, or the Severn. In fact, the islands, capes, bays, and promontories of Greece are the mental properties of the whole world. To this splendid country Rome is indebted for many of its best laws; and for almost the entire circuit of its literature. For Roman literature is little more than Greek; divested of the Greek dress. Even the generals of Rome imitated the generals, of Greece. Who has not read, and who has not admired, the example of arrogance, afforded to Antiochus by Popilius?-Yet the thought was originally taken from Greece. In the Peloponnesan war, the Spartans and Athenians equally sought an alliance with the Persians. When the Athenian ambassador had finished his oration, the Spartan drew two lines;-one crooked and the other straight;-but both finishing in the same point.-These lines the Spartan exhibited to Tissaphernes, and exclaimed "chuse." CHAPTER IX. Places thus impart a charm to the pages of poets and historians. Who, that has perused the Greek and Roman writers with pleasure, would not read them with still greater delight on the spots, which they commemorate; or in the places, in which they were written. Hence it would be a gratification of the first order to read Virgil's Episode of Orpheus and Eurydice on the banks of the Hamus:-Lucan's Pharsalia in Thessaly; Cæsar's Commentaries on the Lake of Geneva; and Plutarch's Lives in Rome, at Athens, at Corinth, on the hillocks of Sparta, or upon the plains of Mantinea. ..Former ages, says Quintilian, seem as if they had laboured only for us:-antiquity having left us so many examples, that we have little more to do, than quietly enjoy the advantages, she has bequeathed to us. If such remarks were applicable in the time of Quintilian, how much more so are they in the present! When we stand among the African architraves, capitals and pillars, sent to the Regent of England by the Dey of Tripoli: when we cast our eyes on |