may impeach the moral justice of God, &c." Was there ever a more impudent statement of a palpable untruth?——How often must we repeat that the sole design of those who object to his translation is, to maintain the true sense of Scripture, and to prevent its being grossly perverted and misrepresented? What to say more we hardly know:-but we are almost tempted by this inveterate persistance in detected falsehood, to suspect (and we speak it with equal seriousness and sorrow) that Mr. Bellamy labours under some deficiency of understanding; that he has not, in short, sufficient matter for reason and argument to work upon, and that, therefore, all human means must fail to produce in him any conviction of his error, or to turn him from the evil of his proceeding. ART. II.—1. An Essay on certain Points of Resemblance_between the Ancient and Modern Greeks. By the Hon. Frederick Sylv. North Douglas. 2. Travels in the Ionian Isles, Albania, Thessaly, Macedonia, &c. during the Years 1812 and 1813. By Henry Holland, M.D. F.R.S. &c. 1819. 3. Greece, a Poem; with Notes, Classical Illustrations and Sketches of the Scenery. By William Haygarth, Esq. A.M. IT is a remark of Lord Byron, that of the ancient Greeks we know more than enough—of the moderns we are perhaps more neglectful than they deserve.' We do not quite agree with the first part of his lordship's proposition, for we think that we have still much to learn respecting them. Leaving this, however, we readily admit that a multitude of 'classical' volumes on Greece has issued from the since the middle of the seventeenth century: nor press ought we perhaps to wonder that a portion of the globe so intensely interesting to the scholar, the artist, and the antiquary, should, by reviving ancient recollections and associations, exert an influence on the feelings, and so completely absorb the eye and the mind of the traveller as to leave him unconscious almost of the present race of mortals, and careless of the existing state of Greece. 'Yet are her skies as blue, her crags as wild, Sweet are her groves and verdant are her fields, It is true that, in most of the accounts of modern travellers, we find, mixed up with the remains of ancient glory,' incidental notices of the habits, manners, and condition of the present degraded race of Greeks, more especially in those of our own countrymen. Yet, strange as it may appear, no two maps of Greece are found to agree, nor is there one that is not shamefully defective in all the great features of a country-the mountains, promontories, bays, harbours, creeks, and rivers. We may be allowed, indeed, to notice it as a proof, if not of ignorance, at least of want of taste and feeling, in the compiler of a modern system of geography (Pinkerton) that he has deemed one of the 2565 pages of his three huge quarto volumes sufficient for all Greece, about half a dozen lines for Attica, and half a line for Athens, just to inform the simple reader that ' Atini, the ancient Athens, is of small population.' In the cursory view which it is our intention to take of this interesting country, we have no design to swell our pages with notices of ruined cities, temples and tombs; of sacred fountains, hallowed groves, and mysterious caverns; or to seek for coincidences with what Homer and Herodotus may have said, or Strabo and Pausanias described. The task we propose to ourselves is the more humble, though perhaps not the less instructive endeavour of looking at Greece and its inhabitants as they now exist; and of exhibiting, from personal acquaintance, and with the aid of the writers whose names stand at the head of this article, in conjunction with the valuable collections of Mr. Walpole, a general, though necessarily an imperfect sketch of the present condition and state of society among the Greeks. The peninsula of Greece, properly so called, is a tongue of land jutting into the Mediterranean, like the peninsula of Italy, from which it is separated by the Ionian sea on the west, and from Asia Minor by the Archipelago on the east. In the former sea are situated the Seven Islands constituting the Ionian Republic, which may strictly be considered as a component part of Greece; in the latter, about one hundred islands of various size. All these, together with the peninsula lying between them, compose a territory whose chief population consists of the legitimate descendants of the ancient Greeks. Assuming the peninsula to commence at the head of the gulf of Salonica on the east, and at that of Avlona on the west, or, about the parallel of 403° of north latitude, we shall find it extended in the direction of S.S. E. to Cape Colonna (the ancient Sunium) in latitude 373° N. being about 200 English miles in length, and 100 in mean breadth, and containing an area of about 20,000 square miles. Connected with it on the S. W. by the narrow narrow isthmus of Corinth, is the sub-peninsula of the Morea (the ancient Peloponnesus), containing a surface somewhat less than half the former country. The islands may be estimated roughly as equal in extent to the Morea; and thus the whole will amount to about 40,000 square miles. The population is more difficult to be ascertained; but by taking an average of that which is stated by various writers, we may assume the following estimate. The Peninsula of Greece Making a total of Of these the Greeks may be computed at not less than three millions; the rest being composed of Turks, Musselman Albanians, Jews, and the mixed descendants of Romans, Venetians, Neapolitans, and other Europeans known generally by the name of Franks.* What may be the number of Greek families spread over the inland provinces of Turkey in Europe, in Asia Minor, in Russia and Germany, it would be idle to offer any conjecture. They have been stated as high as 80,000. The population of the seven Ionian islands, now under the protection of Great Britain, has been estimated at 200,000, of a very mixed race, but the majority of them Greeks. Of these Corfu may contain from 60 to 70,000; Cephalonia 60,000; Zante 40,000; Santa Maura 18,000; Ithaca and Cerigo, each 8,000; and Paxo 3 or 4,000. Of these islands Zante is by far the most beautiful and fertile, the greater part of its surface consisting of an immense plain of one continued vineyard, interspersed and broken by groves of olives, oranges, and other fruit trees; but the other islands are also exceedingly picturesque and beautiful. Down the middle of the peninsula, and parallel nearly to its two coasts, runs a continuous range of lofty mountains, varying in height from seven or eight thousand feet in the northern and central part, to as many hundred feet about the southern extremity. Of the former height may be reckoned the loftiest ridge of Pindus and Parnassus; while Parnes, Pentelicus, and Hymettus, in Attica, do not exceed the latter. Other branches are thrown off towards either coast from this central chain; to the eastward the celebrated Olympus, rising near the head of the * Professor Carlyle reckons the proportion of the Greeks in Europe to the Turks as three or four to one; and the former to amount to three and a half millions. gulph gulph of Salonica to the height of 6,000 feet, forms the northern extremity of an inferior chain, consisting of Ossa and Pelion, Eta and Othrys, and continuing through the island of Negropont, of which Mount Delphis is the most remarkable. To the westward are the rugged and mountainous countries of Epirus, Ætolia, and Acharnania, forming that part of Greece now generally known by the name of Albania. The highest mountains of the Morea are the Cyllenian range near the western coast, and the Taygetus near the southern extremity. Extensive plains of considerable elevation above the level of the sea are encircled by the mountain ranges. Of these, Thessaly, Boeotia, and Arcadia, still preserve their ancient character. The rivers by which these plains are watered are little more than mountain streams, with the exception of the Peneus or Salympria, whose numerous branches, after intersecting the plain of Thessaly, unite and discharge themselves through the celebrated defile of Tempe into the gulf of Salonica; and the Alpheus,* which waters the verdant plains of Arcadia and Elis and Achaia. The Spercheius, or Hellada, the Cephisus, the Asopus, the Ilyssus, and many other streams celebrated in ancient story, would scarcely be deemed worthy of notice in any country but Greece-where every rivulet and rill, as well as every stone, have their verse-for, as Spon has justly observed, these smaller rivers make more noise ' dans les livres, que dans leurs lits.' The climate of Greece might be supposed, from its situation with regard to latitude and its surrounding sea, to be similar to that of the south of Italy. It is, however, much more severe in winter, and in many parts warmer in summer. The plain of Ioannina, at an elevation of 1200 feet above the level of the sea, and at an equal distance nearly from the central chain of mountains and the western coast, though in the latitude of 3940, is stated by Dr. Holland to experience a degree of cold in winter not less on the average than that of the western parts of England. On the elevated plains of the Morea, in a latitude yet more southerly, the intensity of the cold is still greater, and snow sometimes covers the plain of Tripolitza to the depth of eighteen inches. I had little expected,' says Dr. Holland, that Arcadia, which fancy and poetry picture as the abode of spring, of softness, and of beauty, would have presented a scenery of this description; nor did I, in the instant of surprize, recollect that Pausanias speaks of its cold dense air, and of the effect it has in giving austerity to the *It is a remarkable circumstance, noticed by several travellers, that not a year passes in which several ancient helmets are not floated down the Alpheus; from whence, remains yet to be discovered. manners manners of the inhabitants.' At no great distance from Tripolitza (the capital) he found the temperature, at six in the morning, down to 16° of Fahrenheit. 'In short,' he adds,' the degree and continuance of the cold were such as I scarcely recollect to have experienced in England, and this in the very centre of Arcadia ;'-but this was in 1813, a winter remarkable for its severity over every part of Europe. In summer, however, the blooming vales of Arcady' assume a very different aspect, and present a continual succession of scenery equal to any thing which has been described or imagined in poetic song. Luxuriance and beauty may be pronounced to be the general characteristics; flowering vallies, winding streams, and hills shrouded nearly to their summits with wood, are the objects which commonly awaken our admiration.'* In the lower region of Attica the atmosphere is more moderate and equable than in most other parts of Greece; the air being generally clear, dry, and temperate; the cold less severe, the heat less oppressive, and the fall of rain less copious. To this difference in the state of the atmosphere was ascribed, as we all know, the difference of character between the Boeotian and the Athenian. The temperature of Athens seldom exceeds 88° or 90°, and as seldom descends to the freezing point. Athens is generally healthy; many parts of Greece are just the reverse during the heat of summer, especially the marshy grounds and rice-fields. The whole coast of Achaia,' says Mr. Haygarth, is very unwholesome, abounding in marshes; and the sickly appearance of the natives whom I met is very striking. It is the most depopulated part of Greece.' The peaked summits of the central chain of mountains are covered with snow for nine months of the year, and in the caverns and recesses of some of them patches of snow may always be discovered. The ascent of Parnassus was supposed to be impracticable on account of its perennial snow; but Dr. Sibthorp crossed the summit in the month of July, when he found it perfectly free.+ *Haygarth. Notes, p. 252. The + Dr. Clarke, who asserts that he reached the summit of this mountain at the wintersolstice, most assuredly labours under some mistake. We find it as difficult to follow him here as in his discovery of the Corcyrian cave which he did and did not see. This celebrated cave, however, was explored by Col. Leake and Mr. Hamilton, and is thus described by Mr. Raikes. 'The narrow and low entrance spreads at once into a chamber of 330 feet long by nearly 200 wide; the stalactites from the top hung in the most graceful forms the whole length of the roof, and fell, like drapery, down the sides. The depth of the folds was so vast, and the masses thus suspended in the air were so great, that the relief and fulness of these natural hangings were as complete as the fancy could have wished. They were not like concretions or incrustations, mere coverings of the |