a difference which he imagined to exist between the Ithaca of his time and that of the poet. But Strabo, who was an uncommonly accurate observer with respect to countries surveyed by himself, appears to have been wretchedly misled by his informers on many occasions. "That Strabo had never visited this country is evident, not only from his inaccurate account of it, but from his citation of Apollodorus and Scepsius, whose relations are in direct opposition to each other on the subject of Ithaca, as will be demonstrated on a future opportunity." We must, however, observe that "demonstration" is a strong term. In his description of the Leucadian Promontory (of which we have a pleasing representation in the plate), the author remarks that it is "celebrated for the leap of Sappho, and the death of Artemisia." From this variety in the expression, a reader would hardly conceive that both the ladies perished in the same manner: in fact, the sentence is as proper as it would be to talk of the decapitation of Russell, and the death of Sidney. The view from this promontory includes the island of Corfu; and the name suggests to Mr. Gell the following note, which, though rather irrelevant, is of a curious nature, and we therefore conclude our citations by transcribing it : "It has been generally supposed that Corfu, or Corcyra, was the Phæacia of Homer; but Sir Henry Englefield thinks the position of that island inconsistent with the voyage of Ulysses as described in the Odyssey. That gentleman has also observed a number of such remarkable coincidences between the courts of Alcinous and Solomon, that they may be thought curious and interesting. Homer was familiar with the names of Tyre, Sidon, and Egypt; and, as he lived about the time of Solomon, it would not have been extraordinary if he had introduced some account of the magnificence of that prince into his poem. As Solomon was famous for wisdom, so the name of Alcinous signifies strength of knowledge; as the gardens of Solomon were celebrated, so are those of Alcinous (Od. 7. 112.); as the kingdom of Solomon was distinguished by twelve tribes under twelve princes (1 Kings, ch. 4.), so that of Alcinous (Od. 8. 390.) was ruled by an equal number; as the throne of Solomon was supported by lions of gold (1 Kings, ch. 10.), so that of Alcinous was placed on dogs of silver and gold (Od. 7. 91.); as the fleets of Solomon were famous, so were those of Alcinous. It is perhaps worthy of remark, that Neptune sate on the mountains of the SOLYMI, as he returned from Ethiopia to Egæ, while he raised the tempest which threw Ulysses on the coast of Phæacia; and that the Solymi of Pamphylia are very considerably distant from the route. - The suspicious character, also, which Nausicaa attributes to her countryman agrees pre seemingly in a very minute and accurate manner, the tour of the island. We can certainly recommend a perusal of this volume to every lover of classical scene and story. If we may indulge the pleasing belief that Homer sang of a real kingdom, and that Ulysses governed it, though we discern many feeble links in Mr. Gell's chain of evidence, we are on the whole induced to fancy that this is the Ithaca of the bard and of the monarch. At all events, Mr. Gell has enabled every future traveller to form a clearer judgment on the question than he could have established without such a "Vademecum to Ithaca," or a "Have with you, to the House of Ulysses," as the present. With Homer in his pocket, and Gell on his sumpterhorse or mule, the Odyssean tourist may now make a very classical and delightful excursion; and we doubt not that the advantages accruing to the Ithacences, from the increased number of travellers who will visit them in consequence of Mr. Gell's account of their country, will induce them to confer on that gentleman any heraldic honours which they may have to bestow, should he ever look in upon them again. Baron Bathi would be a pretty title: "Hoc Ithacus velit, et magno mercentur Atridæ." VIRGIL. For ourselves, we confess that all our old Grecian feelings would be alive on approaching the fountain of Melainudros, where, as the tradition runs, or as the priests relate, Homer was restored to sight. We now come to the "Grecian Patterson," or "Cary," which Mr. Gell has begun to publish; and really he has carried the epic rule of. concealing the person of the author to as great a length as either of the above-mentioned heroes of itinerary writ. We hear nothing of his "hairbreadth 'scapes" by sea or land; and we do not even know, for the greater part of his journey through Argolis, whether he relates what he has seen or what he has heard. From other parts of the book, we find the former to be the case: but, though there have been tourists and "strangers" in other countries, who have kindly permitted their readers to learn rather too much of their sweet selves, yet it is possible to carry delicacy, or cautious silence, or whatever it may be called, to the contrary extreme. We think that Mr. Gell has fallen into this error, so opposite to that of his numerous brethren. It is offensive, cisely with that which the Greeks and Romans gave of indeed, to be told what a man has eaten for din the Jews." ner, or how pathetic he was on certain occasions; but we like to know that there is a being yet living who describes the scenes to which he introduces us; and that it is not a mere translation from Strabo or Pausanias which we are reading, or a commentary on those authors. This reflection leads us to the concluding remark in Mr. Gell's preface (by much the most interesting part of his book) to his Itinerary of Greece, in which he thus expresses himself: The seventh chapter contains a description of the Monastery of Kathara, and several adjacent places. The eighth, among other curiosities, fixes on an imaginary site for the Farm of Laertes but this is the agony of conjecture indeed ! - and the ninth chapter mentions another Monastery, and a rock still called the School of Homer. Some sepulchral inscriptions The tenth of a very simple nature are included.. and last chapter brings us round to the Port of Schoenus, near Bathi; after we have completed, of places in this volume is absolutely unavoidable; they "The confusion of the modern with the ancient name are, however, mentioned in such a manner, that the reader will soon be accustomed to the indiscriminate use respect; and the prospect of Larissa, &c. is barely equal to the former. The view from this last of them. The necessity of applying the ancient appella-place is also indifferent; and we are positively as tions to the different routes, will be evident from the total ignorance of the public on the subject of the modern names, which, having never appeared in print, are only known to the few individuals who have visited the country. "What could appear less intelligible to the reader, or less useful to the traveller, than a route from Chione and Zaracca to Kutchukmadi, from thence to Krabata to Schonochorio, and by the mills of Peali, while every one is in some degree acquainted with the names of Stymphalus, Nemea, Mycenæ, Lyrceia, Lerna, and Tegea?" We Although this may be very true inasmuch as it relates to the reader, yet to the traveller we must observe, in opposition to Mr. Gell, that nothing can be less useful than the designation of his route according to the ancient names. might as well, and with as much chance of arriving at the place of our destination, talk to a Hounslow post-boy about making haste to Augusta, as apply to our Turkish guide in modern Greece for a direction to Stymphales, Nemea, Mycena, &c. &c. This is neither more nor less than classical affectation; and it renders Mr. Gell's book of much more confined use than it would otherwise have been :- but we have some other and more important remarks to make on his general directions to Grecian tourists; and we beg leave to assure our readers that they are derived from travellers who have lately visited Greece. In the first place, Mr. Gell is absolutely incautious enough to recommend an interference on the part of English travellers with the Minister at the Porte, in behalf of the Greeks. "The folly of such neglect (page 16. preface), in many instances, where the emancipation of a district might often be obtained by the present of a snuff-box or a watch, at Constantinople, and without the smallest danger of exciting the jealousy of such a court as that of Turkey, will be acknowledged when we are no longer able to rectify the error." We have every reason to believe, on the contrary, that the folly of half a dozen travellers, taking this advice, might bring us into a war. "Never interfere with any thing of the kind," is a much sounder and more political suggestion to all English travellers in Greece. Mr. Gell apologises for the introduction of "his panoramic designs," as he calls them, on the score of the great difficulty of giving any tolerable idea of the face of a country in writing, and the ease with which a very accurate knowledge of it may be acquired by maps and panoramic designs. We are informed that this is not the case with many of these designs. The small scale of the single map we have already censured; and we have hinted that some of the drawings are not remarkable for correct resemblance of their originals. The two nearer views of the Gate of the Lions at Mycenæ are indeed good likenesses of their subject, and the first of them is unusually well executed; but the general view of Mycena is not more than tolerable in any sured that there are no windows at Nauplia which look like a box of dominos,—the idea suggested by Mr. Gell's plate. We must not, however, be be too severe on these picturesque bagatelles, which, probably, were very hasty sketches; and the circumstances of weather, &c. may have occasioned some difference in the appearance of the same objects to different spectators. We shall therefore return to Mr. Gell's preface; endeavouring to set him right in his directions to travellers, where we think that he is erroneous, and adding what appears to have been omitted. In his first sentence, he makes an assertion which is by no means correct. He says, "We interior of Africa." Surely not quite so ignoare at present as ignorant of Greece, as of the have travelled in vain, and some very sumprant; or several of our Grecian Mungo Parks tuous works have been published to no purpose! As we proceed, we find the author observing that "Athens is now the most polished city of Greece," when we believe it to be the most barbarous, even to a proverb — Ω 'Αθηνα, πρώτη χώρα, Τι γαιδάρες τρέφεις τώρα ; 1 is a couplet of reproach now applied to this once famous city; whose inhabitants seem little worthy of the inspiring call which was addressed to them within these twenty years, by the celebrated Riga: — Δεύτε παίδες των Ελληνων - κ. τ. λ. Iannina, the capital of Epirus, and the seat of Ali Pacha's government, is in truth deserving of the honours which Mr. Gell has improperly bestowed on degraded Athens. As to the correctness of the remark concerning the fashion of wearing the hair cropped in Molossia, as Mr. Gell informs us, our authorities cannot depose: but why will he use the classical term of Eleuthero-Lacones, when that people are so much better known by their modern name of Mainotes? "The court of the Pacha of Tripolizza" is said "to realise the splendid visions of the Arabian Nights." This is true with regard to the court but surely the traveller ought to have added that the city and palace are most miserable, and form an extraordinary contrast to the splendour of the court. - - Mr. Gell mentions gold mines in Greece: he should have specified their situation, as it certainly is not universally known. When, also, he remarks that "the first article of necessity in Greece is a firman, or order from the Sultan, permitting the traveller to pass unmolested," we are much misinformed if he be right. On the contrary, we believe this to be almost the only part of the Turkish dominions in which a firman is not necessary; We write these lines from the recitation of the travellers to whom we have alluded; but we cannot vouch for the correctness of the Romaic. since the passport of the Pacha is absolute within his territory (according to Mr. G.'s own admission), and much more effectual than a firman. Money," he remarks, "is easily procured at Salonica, or Patrass, where the English have consuls." It is much better procured, we understand, from the Turkish governors, who never charge discount. The consuls for the English are not of the most magnanimous order of Greeks, and far from being so liberal, generally speaking; although there are, in course, some exceptions, and Strune of Patrass has been more honourably mentioned. After having observed that "horses seem the best mode of conveyance in Greece," Mr. Gell proceeds: "Some travellers would prefer an English saddie; but a saddle of this sort is always objected to by the owner of the horse, and not without reason," &c. This, we learn, is far from being the case; and, indeed, for a very simple reason, an English saddle must seem to be preferable to one of the country, because it is much lighter. When, too, Mr. Gell calls the postillion " Menzilgi," he mistakes him for his betters: Serrugees are postillions; Menzilgis are postmasters. Our traveller was fortunate in his Turks, who are hired to walk by the side of the baggagehorses. They "are certain," he says, "of forming their engagement without grumbling." We apprehend that this is by no means certain : per but Mr. Gell is perfeetly right in preferring a Turk to a Greek for this purpose; and in his general recommendation to take a Janissary on the tour: who, we may add, should be suffered to act as he pleases, since nothing is to be done by gentle means, or even by offers of money, at the places of accommodation. A courier, to be sent on before to the place at which the traveller intends to sleep, is indispensable to comfort: but no tourist should be misled by the author's advice to suffer the Greeks to gratify their curiosity, in permitting them to remain for some time about him on his arrival at an inn. They should be removed as soon as possible; for, as to the remark that "no stranger would think of intruding when a room is pre-occupied," our informants were not so well convinced of that fact. Though we have made the above exceptions to the accuracy of Mr. Gell's information, we are most ready to do justice to the general utility of his directions, and can certainly concede the praise which he is desirous of obtaining, namely, "of having facilitated the researches of future travellers, by affording that local information which it was before impossible to obtain." This book, indeed, is absolutely necessary to any person who wishes to explore the Morea advantageously; and we hope that Mr. Gell will continue his Itinerary over that and over every other part of Greece. He allows that his volume "is only calculated to become a book of reference, and not of general entertainment:" but we do not see any reason against the compatibility of both objects in a survey of the most celebrated country of the ancient world. To that country, we trust, the attention not only of our travellers, but of our legislators, will hereafter be directed. The greatest caution will, indeed, be required, as we have premised, in touching on so delicate a subject as the amelioration of the possessions of an ally: but the field for the exercise of political sagacity is wide and inviting in this portion of the globe; and Mr. Gell, and all other writers who interest us, however remotely, in its extraordinary capabilities, deserve well of the British empire. We shall conclude by an extract from the author's work: which, even if it fails of exciting that general interest which we hope most earnestly it may attract, towards its important subject, cannot, as he justly observes," be entirely uninteresting to the scholar;" since it is a work "which gives him a faithful description of the remains of cities, the very existence of which was doubtful, as they perished before the æra of authentic history.' The subjoined quotation is a good specimen of the author's minuteness of research as a topographer; and we trust that the credit which must accrue to him from the present performance will ensure the completion of his Itinerary: "The inaccuracies of the maps of Anacharsis are in many respects very glaring. The situation of Phlius is marked by Strabo as surrounded by the territories of Sicyon, Argos, Cleonæ, and Stymphalus. Mr. Hawkins observed, that Phlius, the ruins of which still exist near Agios Giorgios, lies in a direct line between Cleonæ and Stymphalus, and another from Sicyon to Argos; so that Strabo was correct in saying that it lay between those four towns; yet we see Phlius, in the map of Argolis by M. Barbie du Bocage, placed ten miles to the north of Stymphalus, contradicting both history and fact. D'Anville is guilty of the same error. A "M. du Bocage places a town named Phlius, and by him Phlionte, on the point of land which forms the port of Drepano; there are not at present any ruins there. The maps of D'Anville are generally more correct than any others where ancient geography is concerned. mistake occurs on the subject of Tiryns, and a place named by him Vathia, but of which nothing can be understood. It is possible that Vathi, or the profound valley, may be a name sometimes used for the valley of Barbitsa, and that the place named by D'Anville Claustra may be the outlet of that valley called Kleisoura, which has a corresponding signification. "The city of Tiryns is also placed in two different positions, once by its Greek name, and again as Tirynthus. The mistake between the islands of Sphæria and Calaura has been noticed in page 135. The Pontinus, which D'Anville represents as a river, and the Erasinus, are equally ill placed in his map. There was a place called Creopolis, somewhere toward Cynouria; but its situation is not easily fixed. The ports called Bucephalium and Piræus seem to have been nothing more than little bays in the country between Corinth and Epidaurus. The town called Athenæ, in Cynouria, by Pausanias, is called Anthena by Thucydides, book 5. 41. "In general, the map of D'Anville will be found more accurate than those which have been published since his time; indeed, the mistakes of that geographer are in general such as could not be avoided without visiting the country. Two errors of D'Anville may be mentioned, lest the opportunity of publishing the itinerary of Arcadia should never occur. The first is, that the rivers Malætas and Mylaon, near Methydrium, are represented as running toward the south, whereas they flow northwards to the Ladon; and the second is, that the Aroanius, which falls into the Erymanthus at Psophis, is represented as flowing from the lake of Pheneos; a mistake which arises from the ignorance of the ancients themselves who have written on the subject. The fact is that the Ladon receives the waters of the lakes of Orchomenos and Pheneos; but the Aroanius rises at a spot not two hours distant from Psophis." In furtherance of our principal object in this critique, we have only to add a wish that some of our Grecian tourists, among the fresh articles of information concerning Greece which they have lately imported, would turn their minds to the language of the country. So strikingly similar to the ancient Greek is the modern Romaic as a written language, and so dissimilar in sound, that even a few general rules concerning pronunciation would be of most extensive use. PARLIAMENTARY SPEECHES. DEBATE ON THE FRAME-WORK BILL, IN THE the frames obnoxious to the rioters, and all persons supposed to be connected with them, have been liable to insult and violence. During the short time I recently passed in Nottinghamshire, not twelve hours elapsed without some fresh act of violence; and on the day I left the county I was informed that forty frames had been broken the preceding evening, as usual, without resistance and without detection. Such was then the state of that county, and such I have reason to believe it to be at this moment. But whilst these outrages must be admitted to exist to an alarming extent, it cannot be denied that they have arisen from circumstances of the most unparalleled distress: the perseverance of these miserable men in their proceedings tends to prove that nothing but absolute want could have driven a large, and once honest and industrious, body of the people, into the commission of excesses so hazardous to themselves, their families, and the community. At the time to which I allude, the town and county were burdened with large detachments of the military; the police was in motion, the magistrates assembled; yet all the movements, civil and military, had led to-nothing. a single instance had occurred of the apprehension of any real delinquent actually taken in the fact, against whom there existed legal evidence sufficient for conviction. But the police, however useless, were by no means idle: several Not THE order of the day for the second reading of notorious delinquents had been detected,— men, this Bill being read, Lord BYRON rose, and (for the first time) addressed their Lordships as follows: liable to conviction, on the clearest evidence, of nefariously guilty of lawfully begetting several the capital crime of poverty; men, who had been children, whom, thanks to the times! they were My Lords,- The subject now submitted to unable to maintain. Considerable injury has your Lordships for the first time, though new been done to the proprietors of the improved to the House, is by no means new to the country. frames. These machines were to them an I believe it had occupied the serious thoughts advantage, inasmuch as they superseded the neof all descriptions of persons, long before its cessity of employing a number of workmen, who introduction to the notice of that legislature, were left in consequence to starve. By the whose interference alone could be of real service. adoption of one species of frame in particular, As a person in some degree connected with the one man performed the work of many, and the suffering county, though a stranger not only to superfluous labourers were thrown out of emthis House in general, but to almost every indi- ployment. Yet it is to be observed, that the vidual whose attention I presume to solicit, I work thus executed was inferior in quality; not must claim some portion of your Lordships' in-marketable at home, and merely hurried over dulgence, whilst I offer a few observations on a question in which I confess myself deeply inte rested. To enter into any detail of the riots would be superfluous: the House is already aware that every outrage short of actual bloodshed has been perpetrated, and that the proprietors of 1 [Lord Byron's immediate impressions with respect to the success of his first speech in parliament may be collected from the following passage in a letter to his friend Hodgson:-"Lords Holland and Grenville, particularly the latter, paid me some high compliments in the course of their speeches. I have had many marvellous eulogies repeated to me since, in person and by proxy, from divers persons ministerial — yea, ministerial! as well as oppositionists; of them I shall only mention Sir Francis Burdett. He says it is the best speech by a lord with a view to exportation. It was called, in the cant of the trade, by the name of "Spiderwork." The rejected workmen, in the blindness of their ignorance, instead of rejoicing at these improvements in arts so beneficial to mankind, conceived themselves to be sacrificed to improvements in mechanism. In the foolishness of since the Lord knows when. Lord H. tells me I shall beat them all if I persevere; and Lord G. remarked that the construction of some of my periods are very like Burke's!! And so much for vanity. I spoke very violent sentences with a sort of modest impudence, abused every thing and every body, and put the Lord Chancellor" (Eldon)" very much out of humour. As to my delivery, loud and fluent enough, perhaps a little theatrical."] But, ad and sign death-warrants blindfold. Such mayor and corporation of Garratt. marchings and countermarchings!—from Nottingham to Bullwell, from Bullwell to Banford, from Banford to Mansfield! And when at length the detachments arrived at their destination, in all "the pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war," they came just in time to witness the mischief which had been done, and ascertain the escape of the perpetrators, to collect the "spolia opima" in the fragments of broken frames, and return to their quarters amidst the derision of old women, and the hootings of children. Now, though, in a free country, it were to be wished that our military should never be too formidable, at least to ourselves, I cannot see the policy of placing them in situations where they can only be made ridiculous. As the sword is the worst argument that can be used, so should it be the last. their hearts they imagined that the maintenance and well-doing of the industrious poor were objects of greater consequence than the enrich ment of a few individuals by any improvement, in the implements of trade, which threw the workmen out of employment, and rendered the labourer unworthy of his hire. And it must be confessed that although the adoption of the enlarged machinery in that state of our commerce which the country once boasted might have been beneficial to the master without being detrimental to the servant; yet, in the present situation of our manufactures, rotting in ware-military, seemed on the model of those of the houses, without a prospect of exportation, with the demand for work and workmen equally diminished, frames of this description tend materially to aggravate the distress and discontent of the disappointed sufferers. But the real cause of these distresses and consequent disturbances lies deeper. When we are told that these men are leagued together not only for the destruction of their own comfort, but of their very means of subsistence, can we forget that it is the bitter policy, the destructive warfare of the last eighteen years, which has destroyed their comfort, your comfort, all men's comfort? That policy, which, originating with "great statesmen now no more," has survived the dead to become a curse on the living, unto the third and fourth and generation! These men never destroyed their looms till they were become useless, worse than useless; till they were become actual impediments to their exertions in obtaining their daily bread. Can you, then, wonder that in times like these, when bankruptcy, convicted fraud, and imputed felony are found in a station not far beneath that of your Lordships, the lowest, though once most useful portion of the people, should forget their duty in their distresses, and become only less guilty than one of their representatives? But while the exalted offender can find means to baffle the law, new capital punishments must be devised, new snares of death must be spread for the wretched mechanic, who is famished into guilt. These men were willing to dig, but the spade was in other hands: they were not ashamed to beg, but there was none to relieve them their own means of subsistence were cut off, all other employments pre-occupied; and their excesses, however to be deplored and condemned, can hardly be subject of surprise. : It has been stated that the persons in the temporary possession of frames connive at their destruction; if this be proved upon inquiry, it were necessary that such material accessories to the crime should be principals in the punishment. But I did hope, that any measure proposed by his Majesty's goverment for your Lordships' decision, would have had conciliation for its basis; or, if that were hopeless, that some previous inquiry, some deliberation, would have been deemed requisite; not that we should have been called at once, without examination and without cause, to pass sentences by wholesale, In this instance it has been the first; but providentially as yet only in the scabbard. The present measure will, indeed, pluck it from the sheath; yet had proper meetings been held in the earlier stages of these riots, had the grievances of these men and their masters (for they also had their grievances) been fairly weighed and justly examined, I do think that means might have been devised to restore these workmen to their avocations, and tranquillity to the county. At present the county suffers from the double infliction of an idle military and a starving population. In what state of apathy have we been plunged so long, that now for the first time the House has been officially apprised of these disturbances? All this has been transacting within 130 miles of London; and yet we, "good easy men, have deemed full sure our greatness was a ripening,” and have sat down to enjoy our foreign triumphs in the midst of domestic calamity. But all the cities you have taken, all the armies which have retreated before your leaders, are but paltry subjects of self-congratulation, if your land divides against itself, and your dragoons and your executioners must be let loose against your fellow-citizens.You call these men a mob, desperate, dangerous, and ignorant; and seem to think that the only way to quiet the "Bellua multorum capitum" is to lop off a few of its superfluous heads. But even a mob may be better reduced to reason by a mixture of conciliation and firmness, than by additional irrritation and redoubled penalties. Are we aware of our obligations to a mob? It |