'In this way, too, a singular degree of reality | ers. The following extract contains one attaches to a fine scene of the Odyssey, where, of these, which we select the more willingly during the debate in the agora, a pair of eagles because it relates to a passage in the Iliad. suddenly descend from the mountain, and, after It is well known that all the scepticism hovering with ominous cries and gestures above the assembly, rush screaming through the air, over the habitations of the city to the right. The right hand, in the primitive language of Hellenic divination, is synonymous with the east or south-east. Supposing, therefore, the

agora to have been situated in the centre of the city, the course of the eagles over the houses to the right would have lain directly towards their native mountain, whither, after executing their divine commission, they might naturally be expected to return.

The walls are in many places well preserved, especially those of the citadel, which remain to a considerable height in almost their whole circumference. They are chiefly of polygonal masonry, with a tendency here and there to the ruder Tirynthian or Cyclopian style. In several portions of the area both of the city and acropolis, the line of the streets, and the form of the buildings, are also distinctly traceable, in rows of contiguous square compartments, chiefly of the lastmentioned ruder style of structure.

"The peculiarities of this situation seem to mark it out by nature as the spot which the lord of the Cefalonian isles, if he preferred Ithaca as his place of residence, would have selected as, in a military point of view at least, the most appropriate for his seat of government. On a narrow isthmus, connecting, or rather separating, the two subdivisions of the island, it commands the channel, together with a prospect of the whole east coast of Cefalonia, and possesses a tolerable port on each side, giving ready and speedy communication with both the eastern and western portions of his little empire.'-pp. 71–74.

with regard to the unity and the authorship of these two great poems rests on the subtile observation of minute points, betraying either that discrepancy of design, of opinions, of manners, and of age, which separates each poem into discordant fragments of different bards and different times; or, according to the views of more modest doubters, assigns different though individual authors to each poem, and considers one, perhaps, an Ionian or an Eolo-Thessalian, the other a Peloponnesian, at least an inhabitant of European Greece. It is fair, therefore, that all the slight incidental touches which seem to indicate similarity as to mode of life, habits and feelings, in the poet of the Iliad and Odyssey, and so to reassert the one Homer, should be collected with the same industry, and exhibited with the same fulness. Now, if there were one author of the Odyssey, it is quite clear that he was well-skilled, and, it should seem, personally versed in the navigation of his day; he could not possibly have ventured constantly, before an audience many of them no doubt mariners, and probably honourable pirates,' to be so minute on nautical matters, on everything relating to the ship, its rigging, its management, its perils and its escapes, if he had not been perfectly confident in his own acquaintance with seamanship. Of course of these matters there is much less in the Iliad; but observation which indicates familiarity with the sea will, as far as it goes-and we admit that the present illustration does not go far-tend to show that the poet of the Iliad was no idle, luxurious landsman, but that he too had occasionally at least, ploughed the dark blue waters of the Egean or the Ionian sea :

any

We must not, however, linger upon Ithaca, though we have not yet exhausted Mr. Mure's Homeric illustrations. It was certainly a happy adventure for a genuine worshipper of the old bard to find himself, in these days of steam-boat rapidity, or at least of bold British seamanship, navigating, as Mr. Mure did at a later period of his travels, a part of the Grecian seas, with all the delay, the timidity, of old Ulysses himself, 'We sailed about eight on the morning of the vainly struggling with baffling or adverse 27th, and for the first few hours were becalmed, winds, making some way, then driven back, being indebted for what little progress was made coming to an anchor every night, and dis- to the oars of three men and a boy, who comembarking on every shore. We trust that posed the crew of the caïque. The water at our traveller at the time derived as much first was level and smooth as glass; but on adamusement and consolation from his poetic there was still not a breath of wind, the tranquilvancing a mile or two into the open sea, although reminiscences as he imparts to hisreader, lity gave place to a heavy rolling swell. While and that his parallel of Homeric and modern considering what could be the cause of this sudGreek navigation compensated for the se- den agitation of the water amid the perfect stillvere trial of his patience. The whole pas-ness of the atmosphere, I observed towards the sage (vol. ii., p. 33) is full of interest to the classical student.

There are, however, one or two minute illustrations of the Homeric poetry which we are unwilling to withhold from our read

south, at some miles distance, a dark line on the surface of the sea, gradually spreading in the direction of our vessel, and in a quarter of an hour a fresh breeze filled the sails. This phenomenon was new to me, and I was the more struck with it, from its bringing home to my mind at once

the swineherd, is fiercely assaulted by the dogs, but delivered by the master of the establishment, who pelts them off with stones. Pope's translation, with the exception of one or two expressions, here conveys with tolerable fidelity the spirit of the original :—

the full power of a fine simile of Homer, which | guised as a beggar, in approaching the farm of hitherto I had never properly understood or appreciated. The veteran hero Nestor while engaged with a wounded comrade in his tent, hearing the tumult of battle thickening around the Greek entrenchment, goes forth to reconnoitre; and the effect produced on his mind by the dismal spectacle of national discomfiture that presents itself is thus figuratively illustrated:

ὣς δ' ὅτε πορφύρη πέλαγος μέγα κύματι κωφή, ὀσσόμενον λιγέων ἀνέμων λαιψηρά κέλευθα, αὕτως, οὐδ' ἄρα τι προκυλίνδεται οὐδ ̓ ἑτέρωσε, πρίν τινα κεκριμένον καταβήμεναι ἐκ Διὸς οὗρον.

1. xiv. 16.

"So doth the darkly-rolling sea presage,
With hollow swell, the coming tempest's rage;
While yet nor here nor there its waves are driv-

en,

Till Jove send down the threatened gale from heaven."

Soon as Ulysses near the enclosure drew,
With open mouths the furious mastitis flew;
Down sat the sage, and, cautious to withstand,
Let fall the offensive truncheon from his hand.
Sudden the master runs-aloud he calls,
And from his hasty hand the leather falls;
With showers of stones he drives them far away
The scatter'd dogs around at distance bay."
Odyss. xiv. 29.

This whole scene, together with many others that follow, both as regards the character of the establishment and the habits of its inmates, corresponds very closely to many a one which I 'The effect here described is precisely what myself have witnessed in the course of my jourI now witnessed. It is one of familiar occurrence ney. But there is one curious point in the dein narrow seas and archipelagos. The wind scription which more especially demands atwhich freshens in one portion of a maritime re- tention; where Ulysses, alarmed at the fury of gion of this nature-often, perhaps, behind a the assault, is said to have "sat down, cunningcape or island, and at such a distance as to be ly dropping the stick from his hand." I am unobserved by the navigator in another-sends probably not the only reader of the poem who across the otherwise smooth surface of the wa- has been puzzled to understand the object of ter the sort of undulation so aptly described by this manœuvre on the part of the hero. I was the phrase rendered hollow swell, literally mute first led to appreciate its full value in the folwave, in the above passage. The whole phenom-lowing manner. At Argos, one evening, at the enon has been dramatised, as it were, by Homer, under the admirable figure of the sea itself darkly foreboding, by the heaving of its bosom, the coming disturbance of its waters, while yet uncertain as to the direction in which they are to be impelled; as the old hero gloomily presages the approach of the adverse tide of war, though as yet doubtful as to the mode in which he may be affected by it, or the measures to be adopted for stemming its course. It was the more gratifying to have the full value of this fine image real ized to the senses on the very spot, perhaps, where it may have been first presented to the poet.'-pp. 82-84.

Our second illustration is more homely, but curious in its minute truth, and may be inserted for the benefit of future travellers in Greece, who, like Ulysses and Mr. Mure, may run the danger of being worried by the inhospitable dogs of the country:

'Among the numerous points of resemblance with which the classical traveller cannot fail to be struck, between the habits of pastoral and agricultural life as still exemplified in Greece, and those which formerly prevailed in the same country, there is none more calculated to arrest his attention than the correspondence of the shepherd's encampments scattered here and there over the face of the less-cultivated districts, with the settlements of the same kind whose concerns are so frequently brought for ward in the illustrative imagery of the Iliad and Odyssey. Accordingly, the passage of Homer, to which the existing peculiarity above described affords the most appropriate commentary, is the scene of the latter poem where the hero, dis

table of General Gordon, then commanding-inchief in the Morea, the conversation happened to turn, as it frequently does where tourists are in company, on this very subject of the number and fierceness of the Greek dogs; when one of the company remarked that he knew of a very simple expedient for appeasing their fury. Happening, on a journey, to miss his road, and being overtaken by darkness, he sought refuge for the night at a pastoral settlement by the wayside. As he approached, the dogs rushed out upon him, and the consequences might have been serious had he not been rescued by an old shepherd (the Eumæus of the fold,) who sallied benighted traveller, after pelting off his assailforth, and, finding that the intruder was but a ants, gave him a hospitable reception in his hut. His guest made some remark on the watchfulness and zeal of his dogs, and on the danger to which he had been exposed from their attack. The old man replied that it was his own fault for not taking the customary precaution in such an emergency; that he ought to have stopped and sat down until some person whom the animals knew came to protect him. As this expedient was new to the traveller, he made some further inquiries, and was assured that if any person in such a predicament will simply seat himself on the ground, laying aside his weapon of defence, the dogs will also squat in a circle round him; that as long as he remains quiet they will follow his example; but that as soon as he rises and moves forward they will renew their assault. This story, though told without the least reference to the Odyssey, with which it had not connected itself in the mind of the narrator, at once brought home to my own the whole scene at the fold of Eumæus with the most vivid reality. The existence of

Mr. Mure entered the mainland of Greece by the mouth of the Achelous, and thus traversed the Homeric Dulichium, whether we place the wealthy kingdom of Penelope's most powerful suitors on the islands at the mouth of the river or on the continent. His own observation, and the intelligence which he obtained from his boatmen, induced him to concur with Colonel Leake in doubting the formation of the new land, or the junction of the isl-sonry of the arch, the piers, and the portions of ands (the Echinades) to the Continent, by the accumulation of the deposits of the Achelous.

I saw no spot of land, at least on this part of the continent, the natural features of which could justify the hypothesis of its ever having belonged to the group of islands that extend along its shore; existing appearances would seem to corroborate the testimony of our mariners, in spite of the strong argument which the general conviction of the ancients, and the amount and nature of the alluvial deposit, afford to the contrary.'-Vol. i., p. 86.

He visited the extensive ruins of Eniadæ, his engravings of which are chiefly remarkable, as showing the repeated occurrence of the arch in buildings unquestionably of ancient Grecian structure. This assertion of Mr. Mure, as tending to prove that it was not from ignorance of its principle, or difficulty as to its construction, that the Greeks neglected or declined to employ this great element of later architecture, runs directly counter to the general opinion. This, however, is not the only instance which he has adduced in his text, and illustrated by his drawings. In the second volume of his work he describes a still more curious, and we may add, very picturesque, arched bridge, over a tributary of the Eurotas :

an

'No entire ancient bridge of any kind-still less an arched bridge of a genuine Hellenic period-had hitherto been known to exist within the limits of Greece; and even the ability of the Greek masons to throw an arch had been very generally questioned. Here I saw arched bridge of considerable size and finished structure, and in a style of masonry which guarantees it a work of the remotest antiquity-probably of the heroic age itself. This monument, therefore, while it tangibly connects us with a period of society separated from our own by so wide a blank in the page of history, realizes to our senses a state of art to all appear

ance proper and peculiar to itself; and which, but for the existence of this and a few other venerable remains of the same class, might be considered (as the men by whom they were constructed have been, by some modern schools of skeptics) to be but the unreal visions of a poetical fancy. The beauty of its situation adds much to its general effect. It is built just where the stream it traverses, a respectable tributary of the Eurotas, issues from one of the deepest and darkest gorges of Taygetus. I could learn no other name for this river than that of the neighbouring village on its banks, which is called Xerokampo (Dry-field.) It brings down a considerable body of water, dammed up immediately below the bridge for the supply of the village fountain. The mawall immediately connected with either, are ancient, and in good preservation. The parapet is modern, of poor rubble work, and where the outer Cyclopian facing of the retaining wall at the extremity of each flank has fallen away, traces are also visible of Turkish repairs. The span of the arch is about twenty-seven feet; the breadth of the causeway, between the parapets, from six to seven. Each parapet is about one foot three inches in thickness, giving nine or ten feet for the whole breadth of the arch. There are no visible remains of pavement. Although the precipitous nature of the ground rendered it impossible to obtain any full view of the upper or western front of this monument, I was yet enabled to ascertain that the masonry is at least as well preserved on that side as on the one represented in the annexed engraving.

'The largest stones are those of the arch: some of them may be from four to five feet long, from two to three in breadth, and between one and two in thickness. In size and proportions they are nearly similar to those which form the interior lining of the heroic sepulchres of Mycenae, and the whole character of the work leads to the impression of its being a structure of the same epoch that produced those monuments. Even those who may not be willing to acquiesce in this view will scarcely venture to dispute its genuine Hellenic, or rather Spartan, antiquity. Apart from the style of the masonry, it is hardly in a situation to admit of its being a work either of the Mathis remote corner of the peninsula, where in cedonian or Roman periods, lying as it does in later times it is little likely there could have been a thoroughfare of sufficient importance to warrant such expensive undertakings. Its existence, therefore, seems sufficient in itself to establish the use of the arch in Greece at a very remote epoch.*—Vol. ii., pp. 248, 249.

buildings of the empire is clearly attributa-be little doubt that this is the line of route ble to the introduction of this uncongenial element into the regular Grecian form; and it will be curious if, at the sacrifice of occasional strength and solidity of structure, the Greeks at this very early period repudiated, on pure æsthetic grounds, that which might have been fatal to the majesty and the beauty of their peculiar style.

"We are habituated from our schoolboy days to consider as one of the most interesting features of the history of Greece the contrast between the narrow limits of the country and the boundless influence on the destinies of mankind; the surpassing glory that encircles not only the tiny land herself in her integrity, but many of her petty subdivisions; the number and celebrity of the great men she produced, and the magnitude of the events enacted on so confined a theatre. It is, however, only through the medium of a visit to the country that the full force of this reflection can be brought home to the

known to fame than many a mighty empire,

mind; when one actually sees clustered, within [could build St. Peter's, might look withthe ordinary distance of English market-towns out shame upon the ruins of the Coliseum. from each other, the ruins of cities far better But will not modern Athens appear like with its countless myriads of square miles or of a foreign usurper, awakening unwelcome population. A ride of less than twelve hours, and humiliating thoughts of the Athens of at a foot-pace, enabled us to visit at least four old? She must crowd and choke up the places of distinction in Homer's age, with an venerable remains of antiquity by new ease and rapidity which cannot be better repre- and staring edifices; however skilfully sented than by the flowing lines in which he she may adopt the style of Attic architechas recorded their names:ture, she will at best be but a tame and servile imitator: if she departs from it, all will become incongruous. The remains of the Periclean edifices will stand in their simple majesty as a perpetual reproof to rivals, which cannot surpass, and probably will scarcely aspire to equal them: at all events, there will be that con

— Πυθῶνί τε πετρήεσσαν,
Κρῖσσαν τε ζαθέην, και Δαυλίδα, και Πανοπῆς.”

"The rocky Delphi, Crissa the divine,
Daulis and Panopea."

The three succeeding days would have sufficed a traveller more favoured by the elements than myself to traverse, with the same equipage, at the same pace-besides numerous other small stant jarring discordance between the two states of less distinction-the territories of periods which will desecrate the older and Thebes, Platæa, Eleusis, and Athens. Argos, more venerable, and disparage whatever Mycena, and Tiryns-the cities of Danaus, real architectural merit may be attained by Hercules, Perseus, Agamemnon-with their co- the new. Let us hear Mr. Muir's sober lossal walls, bearing living testimony to the gi- and dispassionate judgment: gantic energies by which those heroes so well deserved the renown that still attends their names-are all within the compass of a pleaThe selection of Athens as the capital-a sant day's walk to a tolerable pedestrian. The tribute partly to her pre-eminence in ancient whole population of the state of Athens, in its history, partly, no doubt, to the number and best ages, is computed to have been about one-beauty of her extant remains-was not probably third of that of London; while the whole of in any point of view, the most fortunate that that of Greece proper at the present day, which could have been made. That it was not so in during eight years resisted the concentrated en- either a political or military respect is a comergies of the Mahomedan empire, is considerably less than that of Constantinople.'-Vol. i., pp. 210, 211.

mon, if not a universal, opinion among those best qualified to judge in such matters, upon grounds which it were foreign to our purpose to recapitulate. But to the antiquary or the artist We proceed to Athens, where it is im- the selection is still more to be deplored. At possible any longer to preserve inviolate the conclusion of the war the whole area of the our classical reminiscences-where, be- city was one heap of rubbish, strewed over the tween the enthusiastic student of antiquity haps, to the depth of thirty or forty feet, of fragsurface of a soil composed, in many places, perand the shades of Themistocles, Socrates, ments of ancient Athenian magnificence. There and Demosthenes, arise the unidealized was never so favourable an opportunity offered forms of King Otho, his ministers, and his on so favourable a spot for antiquarian discovery; German professors. Modern buildings. and a well-conducted series of excavations, too, are springing up amid the sacred ruins however slowly carried into effect, would not of the great days of Athens; the commenceonly have brought to light many treasures of ancient art, but have uncovered to a great exment at least of a large marble palace con- tent the plan of the ancient city, its streets and fronts, though at respectful distance, the principal edifices. Here the circumstances are hallowed Acropolis, with its Parthenon and far more propitious than in the waste grounds other majestic relics of antiquity. We are of Rome. In her case after the destruction of disposed to agree with Mr. Muse in the the old city, the inhabitants removed into the regret which he expresses that Athens was open space of the Campus Martius, and the chosen to be the metropolis of the Græco- ruins of their former habitations became, and have more or less remained ever since, a quarry Bavarian kingdom. There is no inconsi- for the materials employed in the construction derable danger in provoking the glorious of a large and splendid modern city. At Athens, reminiscences of the past. The new on the other hand, as the buildings of the Rome, which was built upon, or, rather, old city mouldered into ruins, the hovels of by the side of the old, was still the mistress the modern town sprang up on the same site: of the world: she ruled by another author- and as the lightest materials were preferred ity, she swayed the world by other arms; the more valuable remains of antiquity have in their construction, it is to be supposed that but, in fame, in wealth, in power, she was been allowed to lie in a great measure undisstill the metropolis of the civilized nations: turbed. The selection of Athens as the seat of even as regards the arts, the Rome which government, followed up by the draft of a plan