eaves had begun to change their colour, and arrayed in the different tints of green, red, and yellow, were blended in the most grateful harmony. The day, though rather too cloudy, and inclined to rain, was more favourable to the beauty of the scenery than a broad glare of sunshine. The clouds sometimes entirely and sometimes half concealed the fine mountainous forms which rose around us. Their shadows passing over the plain afforded all the agreeable varieties of gloom and brilliance; and from their openings gleams of light shot down frequently and rested on the sides of the hills and the summits of the woods. Every thing presented the appearance of pastoral tranquillity. No towns were visible in the prospect to diturb its general stillness and repose. The peasants, habited in their picturesque dress, a coloured turban, a linen jacket, and a petticoat of snowy whiteness, and carrying in their hands a wooden crook, were quietly employed in following their large flocks of goats and sheep; or watched them as they fed, reclining under the shade of an ancient tree, and playing on their pipe of reed the rude airs of their country. The scenes forcibly recalled to my mind the passages of the poets who have celebrated the beauties of Arcadia, and I acknowledged at every step the justness of the taste which fixed upon it as the residence of rural happiness, and the abode of the sylvan gods. Pan was the favourite deity of Arcalia, and Mænalia the district which he was supposed principally

"" The situation of Leondari is romantic, on the side of a hill in a defile. It looks down below on an extensive plain. It is a small village, the houses, however, appeared rather better than those of most Turkish towns, being built chiefly of stone, and having some fine cypress trees intermingled with them. Oct. 13. We set out to view the rains of Megalopolis distant two hours ride. The country displayed scenery similar to what I had so much admired the day before. From some woody eminences which we passed over on leaving the town, we had a view of a very extensive plain expanded before us. It was not a perfect fiat, but agreeably broken by small knolls and gentle elevations, covered with trees. Mountains surround this plain of dif ferent altitudes, some bold and lofty, others rising gently from the level: their sides well wooded, and the whole view rich and magnificent.. For about an hour we rode along a plain, occasionally through woods of oak, or through dingles filled with plane trees. At the small village of Sinani we procured a guide to conduct us to the ruins of Megalopolis, distant about a quarter of a mile. Remains of this once magnificent town are visible on both sides of the river Helisson, which falls into the Alpheus. To the S. of the river, the theatre, which Pausanias says, was the largest in Greece,

Greece, is easily traced: part of the walls, the semicircular form, and the marks of the seats still existing. It is situated on a small eminence rising from the river. Near it to the S. E. a piece of ground of an oblong form is visible, perhaps the stadium. The river is serpentine in its course; its banks shaded with plane trees and willows. Its bed is wide and deep, and in winter probably full, though when we saw it, it did not contain much water. In the bed of the river and on its N. side are large blocks of stone still adhering together, the remains most probably of a bridge. On the N. bank of the river are the ruins of the temple of Jupiter. Part of the peribolus still remains, and near it are fragments of large stones and broken fluted columns. The traces of several other buildings are visible. The whole ground to some distance is strewed with broken fragments, which the peasants are collecting and laying in heaps. The situation of Megalopolis is very magnificent. It is in the middle of a plain, rich, fertile, and adorned with wood. Mountains of beautiful forms appear on every side, and to the S. W. is Mount Lycæus, celebrated in the fables of the poets as sacred to Jupiter:

Δικαιον αείσομεν ηε Λυκαίον.

"Oct. 16. We left Leondari for Caritena. The road lies the whole way along the plain in which Megalopolis is situated. The plain is rich and woody, watered by the Alpheus, along the banks of which we rode for a considerable distance. The bed of it is broad, and shaded with plane trees. There was great magnificence in the landscape curing the whole of our ride, and we passed

through some beautiful pastoral scenes, enlivened and adorned with the figures of peasants carrying crooks in their hands, and driving large flocks of sheep and goats. In four hours we reached Caritena, crossing the river (I think Alpheus) which here rolls over a rocky bed, by a bridge of five arches. Caritena is romantically situated on the sides of two rocky hills, on the summit of one of which are the ruins of a fortress. The scenery round it is wild and mountainons.

"Oct. 18. From Caritena we proceeded to Andruzzena, distant five hours ride. The views during the first part of the way was uncommonly grand and picturesque. We passed through deep and narrow glens surrounded with high mountains, the sides of which are covered with wood. At the bottom, over a rocky bed, flows a river, beneath the shade of wide-spreading plane trees. We ascended and descended steep paths, rugged and dangerous. The glen afterwards expanded, and we had extensive views of mountains receding behind mountains to a great distance. The situation of Andruzzena, which stretches up the side of a hill adorn ed with trees and vineyards, is striking. On our arrival we procured a guide to conduct us to the ruins called the Erykai, or columns, supposed to be the temple of Apollo Epicureus at Phygalea. Our path passed along glens filled with luxuriant oaks, and the bills, which rose around us on every side, were richly ornamented with wood: magnificent mountains appeared in the distance, and the scones during the whole ride presented an uncommon profusion of the grand and beautiful. As we approached the temple

we

a

we rode up a very narrow craggy path embrowned by trees, apparent ly the course of a winter torrent. The temple is most romantically situated on the brow of a steep hill, which descends abruptly into woody valley. Beyond the valley rises a bold chain of mountains; their summits are bare, and the sides partially clothed with wood. Beyond these another range of high mountains appears in the distance heaped together in the wildest confusion. The temple itself seated on the brow of the hill, is a most picturesque object. Thirty-four columns remain standing. They are of the Doric order, and fluted; of a darkk-grey stone, which is much worn and stained by the effects of the weather. The whole area of the temple and the parts adjacent are covered with loose broken stones and pillars. A more retired spot, and one more fitted for the purposes of devotion and meditation cannot be imagined. No sign of a human habitation or of human labour appears to break the solitude which reigns around. We viewed, this delightful scene under very favourable circumstances.

The sun

about three hours descending the side of a woody hill we had a very beautiful view of a fine valley, com pletely filled with shrubs of arbutus and myrtle, and with fir, Spanish chesnut, and plane trees. The woods in many places extended up the sides of the mountains nearly to the summit. The end of the valley was closed up with great majesty by a single mountain, whose sides, bare, rugged, and precipitous, formed a fine contrast to the richness and luxuriance of the vale below. In about five hours and a half we ascended a very steep road up the side of a hill, and from the summit had a magnificent prospect, reaching over the country of ancient Elis. It was a view of which it is difficult to give any conception, except by a drawing. It was very extensive, consisting of large vallies, well-wooded lines of hills traversing a vast tract of country in different directions, and beyond these a long range of lofty mountains terminating in numberless peaks. Our road lead us through close copses of myrtle and arbutus, interspersed with fir and plane trees. The arbutus presented a most beautiful appearance, with its leaves of vivid green, and its branches laden with the fruit now ripe, and of a deep red colour. This kind of scenery continued for two hours, when we stopped at the small Turkish village of Mandrusa for the night'-Journal.

"Pindar characterises Arcadia by its hills, and many-winding vallies:

४८

T

HE rules of the Romaic

language are by no means fixed, and in consequence, the modern authors of Greece vary much in the terms of expression which they use in their writings. The Italian construction of sentences is closely imitated in their prose works, and the ancient method of inversion, which gave such beauty and harmony to the Greek language, is laid aside. Words, how ever, not found in the Romaic lexicon, are frequently borrowed by the best writers from the ancient Greek, when their affinity to the modern language is such as to make them easily intelligible to the generality of readers.

"There are three different languages in use through Greece.

I. The ancient Greek 'Exλnx, in which the service of the church is written. It is used solely in ecclesiastical affairs. The letters of the patriarchs to the archbishops and bishops, their proclamations and excommunications are written in this language, corrupted, how ever, by the introduction of a few modern expressions.

"II. The ME-Bag Bagos or *Aπλo-Eλλ3⁄43⁄4×ŋ, a language possessing not the purity of the ancient, nor the corruption of the modern Greek. The authors of the Byzantine History wrote in this idiom. This work ends in 1462, nine years after the taking of Constantinople,

1814.

"It is only within these twentyfive or thirty years that the Greeks have begun to pay attention to their ancient language. The tyranny of the Turks having about that time become more oppressive, compelled great numbers to take refuge in Germany, Venice, Hungary, &c. This intercourse with the natives of those countries naturally enlarged their ideas, and led them to cultivate learning. Few of them return, and the most learned of the modern Greeks are to be sought for out of their own country.

The

"With regard to the present style of poetry, and race of poets: it is impossible for a person accustomed to the harmony of the ancient Greek verse to endure the produc tions of the Romaic bards. accent being almost always laid on a different syllable from what an Englishman has been used to, has a most disagreeable effect; in addition to which, all the modern Greek poetry is written in rhyme, in verse of different metre, so that instead of the beautiful harmony and regular cadence of the ancient Greek verse, we have in the modern compositions the jingle of an English ballad. I have talked with some Greeks, of learning and information, on their method of reading, and have endeavoured to persuade them that

P

it

ear.

it must be wrong, for this reason, that it makes no distinction in rhythm between prose and poetry. A page of Demosthenes and of Homer, according to their pronunciation, conveys the same effect to the The rules of ancient metre are totally repugnant to the system of accents, and the Greeks understand nothing of the laws by which the verses of their old poets are constructed; so that when they read an Hexameter verse they make as many false quantities as there are feet. As may be expected, they are not willing to give up their method of reading, and laugh at the idea of an Englishman coming to teach the Athenians Greek. The only point that I could bring them to allow was, that it was certainly a defect in their manner of pronunciation, not to make a sufficient distinction between the rhythm of prose and poetry.

"I shall make an extract from the preface to a translation of Fontenelle's Plurality of Worlds, by Kopixas, an Athenian at present resident in Paris, and formerly Dragoman to the Turkish ambassador at that court. It contains some information respecting the decay of the Greek language, and its present state: it is also exceedingly curious, as shewing the feelings of a Greek of the present day at the view of the degradation of his country; and, Jastly, it deserves notice as exhibit ing a lamentable proof how much the ancient simplicity of style has degenerated.

་

Unhappy Greece, that most favoured climate, the habitation of the arts, and the soil of erudition, from the time that she began to fall from her former glory and splendour, foresaw her own ruin in the fate of

other nations, or rather in the una voidable connection of different circumstances; and by degress lost her glorious liberty, her arts, her manners, her writings, and with them her ancient nobleness of language. The successive inroads and subjections which she endured from different nations, from the Macedonians, the Romans, and the Goths, brought upon ber (according to that certain law of our nature by which the slave imitates the master) a savageness of manners, a barbarity of customs, and a debasement of language. These nations, and particularly the Romans, in order to profit by the subjugation of Greece, not merely for political purposes, as far as regarded the mere capture of her towns, but also in a moral point of, view, by the possession of her science and knowledge, made themselves masters, as much a possible, of the language, the manners, arts, customs, erudition, and laws of the unhappy Greeks, her captives. This was the way in which the conquered vanquished their conquerors, species of triumph preserved only amongst civilised nations, except indeed in the last subjugation of Greece; a triumph indeed consoling to the vanquished, if any consolation can be found for the slavery which now oppresses a noble nation. The Grecian language, transported from Greece to Rome, and in a manner joined with its mistress the Latin, in part changed its construction, according as the fancy and disposition of its masters adapt ed it to the expression of their ideas; adding a multitude of terms, and varying the phrases, either for the explication of some political custom, or of some new Roman discovery. Thus was produced that

monstrous