point of Ceos; and nearer to the eye, à mountain extending across the promontory of Attica from sea to sea, being opposed to Hymettus, (perhaps that called Elimbo). Still nearer, beneath the view, the Great Valley which lies between the two mountains, composing the three grand features of all Attica, south-east of Athens. South-Cape Sunium, bearing into the sea, in a line from north-east to south west. South and by West.-A lofty cape, with lower islands so much resembling the Cape and Precipice of Samos, with the Samian Boccaze, and the Isles of Fourni and Nicaria, that nothing but its situation by the compass could convince us to the contrary. Between South and by West, and SouthSouth-West.-An island at an immense distance, perhaps Caravi: it had some resemblance to Patmos ; and our stupid guide insisted upon it that it was actually Patmos; calling it also 'Ayianos, *Holy Island." South South-West.The open sea. Close to the eye, upon the coast of Attica, a large mountain, forming, on this side of Hymettus, a profound and magnificent valley with precipitous sides. South-West and by South.-An island somewhat resembling Amorgos, in its shape, but quite in a different situation, appearing beyond the south eastern point of Hydra; perhaps Belo Poulo. South-West-Ariftera, now called Hydra; extending in a line from the southeast towards the north-west. South-West and by West.-The ScylJean Promontory, and entrance to the Gulph of Argos; a small island lying in the mouth of it: the whole territory of Argolis being visible in this direction its mountainous ridges exhibiting vast irregular undulations, like the boiling of a troubled sea. West South-West.Sinus Saronicus; the Island of gina, backed by the Mountains of Epidaurus. West and by South.-Mcre distant suinmits of Peloponnesus, even to Arcadia, seen between two small islands north-west of gina. West. Smaller Isles, and Rocks, to wards the north of the Saronic Gulph; and distant Mountains of Pelopon nesus. West and by North.-Phalerum; and, beyond it, the south-west part of the Jeland of Salamis. West North-West.-Piraeus; the Island of Salamis; the Acropolis of Corinth, backed by very lofty mountains, separating Arcadia and Achaia, in the interior of Peloponnesus. North-West and by West.-Megara; Mons Geranea; and other high mountains more distant. North-West-Eleusis, backed by a mountainous territory: the extremity of the Saronic Gulph: and in this di rection the point of galeos is visible where Xerxes is supposed to have sat during the battle of Salamis. Then succeeds the Plain of Athens, covered, on the northern side, by extensive olive-plantations: afterwards, still nearer to the eye, appear the Acropolis and City of Athens, and all the Athenian Plain at the foot of Hymettus. Athens, as viewed from this situation, makes a most beautiful ap. pearance: a description of it may be written as from a model. It lies in a valley, having Phalerum and the Sea to the west; Mount Pentelicus to the east; the mountainous range of Parnes, or Nozia, to the north; and Hymettus upon the south. North-West and by North.-Exceeding high mountains of Boeotia and Phocis; one, nearer to the eye, fhaped like a saddle, forming a range with Parnes from E.N.E. to w.s.w. In this direc tion, and immediately under the view, lies the double-rock of Anchesmus, in the Athenian Plain, to the east of Athens. With regard to the distant mountains, they are probably Helicon, now Zagara, and Citharon, now Elatæa. Wheler lays the first N. w. by w. and the second, he says, begins N.w. by w. and ends N.w. by N. North North-West.-Another distant and very lofty mountain, appearing with its blue peak towering behind the range of Mount Parnes, and possi bly Parnassus. North and by West.-Part of the range of Parnes; and, nearer to the eye, the fine valley or plain of Athens. North.-Has been already noticed. The Circle is therefore here completed. This person was by birth a Calmuck, of the name of Theodore; he had distinguished himself among the painters at Rome, and had been brought to Athens to join the band of artists employed by our ambassador, over which Lusieri presided. With the most decided physiognomy of the wildest of his native tribes, although Greece, Egypt, and the Holy Land. 8 much humanized in his appearance as it was possible to make him by the aid of European dress and habits, he still retained some of the original characteristics of his countrymen; and, among others, a true Scythian relish for spirituous liquor: by the judicious administration of brandy, Lusieri could elicit from him, for the use of his patron, specimens of his art, combining the most astonishing genius with the strictest accuracy and the most exquisite taste. Theodore presented a marvellous example of the force of natural genius unsubdued by the most powerful obstacles. Educated in slavery; trained to the business of his profession beneath the active cudgels of his Russian masters; having also imbibed with his earliest impressions the servile propensities and sensual appetites of the tyrants he had been taught to revere; this extraordinary man arrived in Athens like another Euphranor, rivalling all that the fine arts had produced under circumstances the most favourable to their birth and maturity. The talents of Theodore, as a painter, were not confined, as commonly is the case among Russian artists, to mere works of imitation: although he could copy every thing, he could invent also; and his mind partook largely of the superior powers of original genius. With the most surprising ability, he restored and inserted into his drawings all the sculpture of which parts only remained in the mutilated bas-reliefs and buildings of the Acropolis. Besides this, he delineated, in a style of superior excellence, the same sculp tures according to the precise state of decay in which they at present exist. CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF Athens, Argos, Nauplia, Corinth, and many more, had each their lofty citadel, with its dependent burgh and fertile plain in this they resembled each other; but in certain characteristics they all differ. Athens appears as a forsaken habitation of holiness: for a moment, unmindful of the degrading character of its divinities, the spectator views, with a degree of awe, its elevated shrines, surrounded on every side by a mountain barrier, inclosing the whole district as within one consecrated Peribolus. Argos, with less of a priestly character, but equal in dignity, gits enthroned as 633 the mistress of the seas: facing the sun's most powerful beams, she spreads her flowery terraces, on either side, before the lucid bosom of the waters, in regal majesty. Nauplia, stretching out upon a narrow tongue of land, and commanded by impregnable heights, rich in the possession of her port, "the most secure and best defended in the Morea," but depending always upon Argos for supplies, was fitted, by every circumstance of natural form, to become a mercantile city, and the mart of Grecian commerce. Corinth, the Gibraltar of the Peloponnesus, by its very nature a fortress, is marked by every facility that may conduce to military operations, or render it conspicuous for its warlike aspect. In every part of Greece there is something naturally appropriate to the genius and the history of the place; as in the bubbling fountains and groves of Epidauria, sacred to Esculapius; the pastoral scenes of Arcadia, dedicated to the muses and to Pan; the hollow rocks of Phocis, echoing to Pythian oracles; and perhaps the custom of making offerings to all the Gods, upon the summits of Olympus and Parnassus, did not so much originate in any Eastern prac tice, as in the peculiar facility wherewith the eye commanded from those eminences almost every seat of sanctity in Greece. In various parts of Greece, where the labours of man have been swept away,-where time, barbarians, nay, even earthquakes, and every other moral and physical revolution, have done their work, an eternal city seems still to survive; because the acropolis, the stadium, the theatre, the sepulchres, the shrines, and the votive receptacles, are so many sure and firmset" rocks; slightly modified indeed by the hand of man, but upon which the blast of desolation passes like the breath of a zephyr. Argos is conspicuous in this class of cities: and if, in the approach to it from Tiryns, where Art seems to have rivalled Nature in the eternity of her existence, the view be directed towards the sea, a similar and not less striking object is presented in the everlasting citadel of Nauplia. THE TEMPLE AT CORINTH. We then visited the temple. It has been described by all travellers for near a century and a half. In Wheler's time it had eleven Doric Pillars pillars standing; the same number remained when Chandler visited the place. We found only seven remain ing upright: but the fluted shaft may originally have belonged to this building, the stone being alike in both; that is to say, common limestone, not marble; and the dimensions are, perhaps, exactly the same in both instances, if each column could be measured at its base. When Wheler was here, the pillars were more exposed towards their bases; and being there measured, he found them to equal eighteen feet in circumference, allowing a diameter of six feet for the lower part of the shaft of each pillar. Only five columns of the seven now support an entablature. We measured the circumference of these, (as we conceived, about three feet from their bases) and found it to equal seventeen feet two inches. Each column consists of one entire piece of stone; but their height, instead of being equal to six diameters, the true proportion of the Doric shaft, according to Pliny, does not amount to four. The destruction that has taken place, of four columns out of the eleven seen by Wheler and Chandler, had been accomplished by the governor, who used them in building a house; first blasting them into frag. ments with gunpowder. CLIMATE OF CORINTH. When we reached the house where we were to pass the night, the author was again attacked with a violent paroxysm of fever, and remained until the morning stretched upon the floor in great agony. The air of Corinth is so bad, that its inhabitants abandon the place during the summer months. They are subject to the malaria fever, and pretend to remove it by all those superstitious practices which are common in every country where medicine is little known. We procured here some terra-cottas of very indifferent workmanship, and much inferior to those found near Argos; also a few medals and gems. There were no inscriptions; nor was there to be seen a single fragment of ancient sculpture. Such is now the condition of this celebrated seat of ancient art-this renowned city, once so vain of its high reputation, and of the rank it held among the Pagan States! the unfinished canal begun by Nero, exactly as the workmen had left it, in a wide and deep channel, extending N.W. and S.E. and reaching from the sea to the N.E. of Lechæum, about half a mile across the Isthmus. It terminates on the S. E. side, where the solid rock opposed an insurmountable obstacle to the work; and here the undertaking was abandoned. PROSPECT FROM THE ACROCO- We reached this gate just before sun-set; and had, as is always usual from the tops of any of the Grecian mountains, à more glorious prospect than can be seen in any other part of Europe. Wheler calls it "the most agreeable prospect this world can give." And as from the Parthenon at Athens we had seen the Citadel of Corinth, so now we had a commanding view, across the Sinus Saronicus, of Salamis and of the Athenian Acropolis. Looking down upon the Isthmus, the shadow of the Acrocorinthus, of a conical shape, extended exactly half across its length, the point of the cone being central between the two seas. Towards the north we saw Parnassus covered with snow, and Helicon, and Citharon. Nearer to the eye appeared the mountain Gerania, between Megara and Corinth. THE TOWN OF ISTHMUS. On Saturday, November the 14th, we again mounted our horses, and set out for a village still bearing the name of Hexamillia, being situated where the Isthmus is six miles over, and where the ancient town of the same name formerly stood. We had been told that we should be able to purchase medals here of the Albanians; accordingly we provided ourselves with a quantity of newly-coined parahs, to barter in exchange for them. When we arrived, the number of medals brought to us, and their variety, were so great, that we demanded of the peasants where they had found them in such abundance ? One of the inhabitants, who spoke the modern Greek, said they all came from a Palæo-Castro, to which they often drove their flocks; described by them as being situated near a small port at the extremity of the Isthmus, upon the side of the Gulph of Engia, towards Megara. This could be no other than the Port Schoenus; and the Greece, Egypt, and the Holy Land. the r mere mention of this important appellation, Palæo-Castro, filled us with the most sanguine expectations that we should here find, what we had sought with so much earnestness, the site of the Isthmian so, lemnities. We then rode directly towards the port and the mountain; and, crossing an artificial causeway over a fosse, we arrived in the midst of the ruins. A speedy and general survey of the antiquities here soon decided their history; for it was evident that we had at last discovered the real site of the Isthmian town, together with the ruins of the Temple of Neptune, of the Stadium, and of the Theatre. The earth was covered with fragments of various-coloured marble, grey granite, white limestone, broken pottery, disjointed shafts, capitals, and cornices. Just at the place where the Isthmian Wall joins Mount Oneius, is a tumulus, perhaps that which was supposed to contain the body of Melicertes; in honour of whose burial the Isthmian games were instituted, above thirteen hundred years before the Christian æra. But among all the remains here, perhaps the most remarkable, as corresponding with the indications left us by Pausanias of the spot, is the living family of those pine-trees sacred to Neptune, which he says grew in a right line, upon one side, in the approach to the temple; the statues of victors in the games being upon the other side. Many of these, self-sown, are seen on the outside of the wall, upon the slope of the land facing the port. They may also be observed farther along the coast; which exactly agrees with a remark made by the same author, who relates, that in the beginning of the Isthmus there were pine-trees, to which the robber Sinis used to bind his captives. Every thing conspires to render their appearance here particularly interesting. 1 The vicinity of these ruins to the sea has very much facilitated the removal of many valuable antiquities, as materials for building; the inhabitants of all the neighbouring shores having long been accustomed to resort hither, as to a quarry: but no excavations have hitherto taken place. MART FOR GRECIAN MEDALS. As soon as we arrived at Hexamillia, the inhabitants of both sexes, 635 and of all ages, tempted by the sight which they had already gained of the new parahs, flocked around us, bring ing carpets for us to sit upon in the open air and a very curious market was opened for the sale of a single commodity; namely, the ancient medals found at different times among the ruins we had visited. The young women wore several silver medals mixed with base coin as ornaments, in a kind of cap upon their foreheads, and among their hair. These they were not very willing to dispose of; but the temptation offered by the shining parahs was not to be resisted, and we bought almost all we saw. The bronze coins were in great number: but we obtained many very curious medals in silver; and among these, the most ancient of the city of Corinth, in rude globular forms, exhibiting the head of Pallas in front, within a square indented cavity; and upon their observe sides, those antique figures of Pegasus, in which the wings of the horse are inflected towards the mane. The medals with this die have been sometimes confounded with those of Sicily, but we obtained one whereon appeared, in Roman characters, the letters COR. One of the most curious things which we noticed among our acquisitions, was an ancient forgery, a base coin of Corinth, made of brass, and silvered over. The others consisted of silver and bronze medals, of Alexander the Great; of Phocis; of Tanagra in Boeotia; of Megara; of Alea in Arcadia; Argos; Sicyon; Egina; and Chalcis; together with a few Roman coins, and some of less note. PANDEAN HORN., On Sunday, November the 15th, there was a fair in Corinth. We saw nothing worth notice, except an Arcadian pipe, upon which a shepherd was playing in the streets. It was perfectly Pandaan; consisting simply of a goat's horn, with five holes for the fingers, and a small aperture at the end for the mouth. It is exceed. ingly difficult to produce any sound whatever from this small instrument; but the shepherd made the air resound with its shrill notes: and we bought his pipe. VIEW OF ATHENS AT SUN-SET. As the hills opened at the other extremity towards sun-set, such a prospect of Athens and the Athenian Plain,with all the surrounding scenery, cases mens which we have selected that Mr. E. has performed his Herculean task with singular taste and ability.] burst upon our view, as never has been, nor can be described. It presented from the mouth or gap, facing the city, which divides Corydallus upon the south, now talled the Laurel Mountain, from Ægaleon, a project-o the term "classic," as too inOSSIBLY exception may be taken ing part of Mount Parnes upon the north, immediately before descending into the extensive olive-plantations which cover all this side of the plain, upon the banks of the Cephissus. There is no spot whence Athens may be seen that can compare with this point of view; and if, after visiting the city, any one should leave it without coming to this eminence to enjoy the prospect here afforded, he will have formed a very inadequate conception of its unspeakable grandeur; for all that nature and art, by every marvellous combination of vast and splendid objects, can possibly exhibit, aided by the most surprising effect of colour, light, and shade, is here presented to the spectator. The wretched representations made of the scenes in Greece, even by the best designs yet published in books of travels, have often been a subject of regret among those who have witnessed its extraordinary beauties; and, in the list of them, perhaps few may be considered as inferior to the numerous delineations which have ap peared of this extraordinary city. But, with such a spectacle before his eyes as this now alluded to, how deeply does the traveller deplore, that the impression is not only transitory as far as he is concerned in its enjoyment, but that it is utterly incapable of being transmitted to the minds of others. SPECIMENS OF THE CLASSIC POETS, In a Chronological Series HOMER TO TRYPHIODORUS. Translated into English Verse, And Illustrated with BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL NOTICES; BY CHARLES ABRAHAM ELTON, Author of a Translation of Hesiod. In 3'vols. 21. 2s. In this work we have the pleasure to in troduce our readers to a production as elegant in its execution as interesting in its plan. It will be seen by the speci But discriminate in its acceptation. this is a question of taste, and the term itself is, at best, arbitrary. That fondin the mass by reigns and periods, and, ness for system, which marshals poets still more absurdly,by the metallic ages of gradual degeneracy, has led to much common-place declamation, and much tasteless injustice, as to the decay of poetry, and as to the claims of particu lar poets to the rank of classical. The word "classic" is not, how. ever, necessarily the symbol of the One of highest order of excellence. the senses affixed to it by Johnson is "relating to antique authors." It may therefore be used in simple contra-distinction to the modern Latin poets, such as Fracastorius, or Poli tian. The term "classic" seems also a convenient designation, as distinguishing the Pagan from the Christian poets. Prudentius is often slid in among the for this collection an extract from his classics; and I had in fact prepared occurred to me that I was equally "Essay against Symmachus." But it bound to include Gregorius of Naziantzen, and Prosper, and Fortunatus, and Synesius,and Sidonius Apollinaris: "a line stretching out to the crack of doom." I have therefore set aside the Latin poets of the Christian church, as forming a class by themselves. To the merits of rhyme I am not insensible. In didactic verse, when science is to be familiarized, or recondite philosophy unfolded and illustrated, the writer who discards rhyme will forego the valuable advantage of condensing and illuminating his mat ter, by that concise, perspicuous, and antithetic arrangement of language, which is favourable to the deductions of argument. The terse emphatical character of rhymed measure, the point of its close, and the uniformity of its structure, adapt it to round a period of sententious morality with im pressive effect; to place words and sentiments in that contrast of oppositi on, which consists with turns of wit, and strokes of satire; and to dress up a thought with neatness, in short effu sions of the elegiac or epigrammatic kind. 1 |