LXXXI. Glanced many a light caique along the foam, Or gently prest, returned the pressure still : LXXXII. But, 'midst the throng in merry masquerade, Even through the closest searment half-be- How do they loathe the laughter idly loud, And long to change the robe of revel for the shroud! LXXXIII. This must he feel, the true-born son of Greece, Commingling slowly with heroic earth, Save where some solitary column mourns LXXXVII. Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild; Thine olive ripe as when Minerva smiled, The freeborn wanderer of thy mountain air; LXXXVIII. Where'er we tread,' tis haunted, holy ground; Yet with smooth smile his tyrant can accost, And wield the slavish sickle, not the sword: Ah, Greece! they love thee least who owe thee most[cord Of Mount Pentelicus, from whence the marble was dug Their birth, their blood, and that sublime re- that constructed the public edifices of Athens. The modern name is Mount Mendeli. An immense cave formed by the Of hero sires, who shame thy now degenerate quarries still remains, and will till the end of time. horde? In all Attica, if we except Athens itself and Marathon, there is no scenes more interesting than Cape Colonna. To the antiquary and artist, sixteen columns are an inexhaustible source of observation and design; to the philosopher, the supposed scene of some of Plato's conversations will not be unwelcome; and the traveller will be struck with the beauty of the prospect over 'isles that crown the Agean deep; but, for an Englishman, Colonna has yet an additional interest, as the actual spot of Falconer's shipwreck. Pallas and Plato are forgotten, in the recollection of Falconer and Campbell: 'Here in the dead of night by Lonna's steep,. The seaman's cry was heard along the deep.' This temple of Minerva may be seen at sea from a great distance. In two journeys which I made, and one voyage to Cape Colonna, the view from either side by land was more striking than the approach from the isles. In our second land excur sion we had a narrow escape from a party of Mainotes concealed in the caverns beneath. We were told afterwards by one of their prisoners, subsequently ransomed, that they were deterred from attacking us by the appearance of my two Albanians: conjecturing very sagaciously, but falsely, that we had a complete guard of these Arnaouts at hand, they remained stationary, and thus saved our party, which was too small to have opposed any effectual resistance. Colonna is no less a resort of painters than of pirates: there The hireling artist plants his paltry desk, And makes degraded nature picturesque.'(See HODGSON'S Lady Jane Grey, &c.) But there Nature, with the aid of Art, has done that for her. self. I was fortunate enough to engage a very superior German artist, and hope to renew my acquaintance with this and many other Levantine scenes by the arrival of his perform. ances. 'Siste Viator-heroa calcas!' was the epitaph on the famous Count Merci;-what, then, must be our feelings when standing on the tumulus of the two hundred (Greeks) who fell on Marathon? The principal barrow has recently been opened by Fauvel: few or no relics, as vases, &c., were found by the excavator. The plain of Marathon was offered to me for sale at the sum of sixteen thousand piastres, about nine hundred pounds! Alas!-Expende-quot libras in duce summo-in; venies!'-was the dust of Miltiades worth no more? It could scarcely have fetched less if sold by weight. Or thou hast : XCVII. Then must I plunge again into the crowd, And follow all that Peace disdains to seek? Where Revel calls, and Laughter, vainly lond, False to the heart, distorts the hollow check. To leave the flagging spirit doubly weak; Still o'er the features, which perforce they cheer, To feign the pleasure or conceal the pique? Smiles form the channel of a future tear, raise the writhing lip with ill-dissembles sneer. |