ART. XV. XVI. XVII. The Outlaw of Taurus, a Poem: to which are added, Scenes Tracts on the Divinity of Christ, and on the Repeal of the Statute against Blasphemy; to which is prefixed, a Preface containing Strictures on the Recent Publications of Mr. Belsham and Dr. Carpenter, with an Analysis of 1 John v. 20, &c. By the Bishop of St. David's Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice. An Historical Tragedy, in Page 422 434 · 439 Memoirs of the Life of the Right Honourable William Pitt. By LIST OF BOOKS INDEX 503 - 509 THE BRITISH REVIEW, AND LONDON CRITICAL JOURNAL. JUNE, 1821. ART. VIII.-GREECE, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 1. A Classical and Topographical Tour through Greece, in the Years 1801, 1805, and 1806. By Edward Dodwell, Esq. FRS. 4to. 2 Vols. Rodwell. London, 1820. 2. Travels to Sicily, Greece, and Albania. By the Rev. Thomas Sinart Hughes. 4to. 2 Vols. Mawman. London, 1820. THE raptures of those who visit places of ancient renown more frequently belong to affectation than to enthusiasm. Local associations have, it is true, an acknowledged influence over us; but we cannot help suspecting them, in general, of falling far short of that intensity of feeling, which it is the fashion of our day to ascribe to them. Of those who swell the tribe of Italian tourists, not a few, we apprehend, are at this moment toiling with their Cicerones, or their Vasi's Itinerary, through the monuments of ancient Rome, with no other recollections than those of the comforts on which they turned their backs when they left the pier of Dover. And some have scribbled their names in the Parthenon, or the temple of Theseus, and traversed the plains of Marathon, without one sentiment beyond that of disgust at the privations of their journey. It is fortunate, however, for the credit of our country, that scarcely more than half a dozen of professed idlers have betaken themselves to Greece as a refuge from themselves, or an escape from the oppression of existence. Restless nights on sleep-destroying beds, wretched dinners on a Turkish pilaff, wine impregnated with rosin, not to mention a long catalogue of other incommodities which beset a Grecian traveller-give the journey rather too much the aspect of a pilgrimage to be really attractive to the greater part of those whose opportunities and ambition might otherwise prompt them to undertake it. Those, therefore, who visit Greece, give some proof of the honesty of their enthusiasm; and our reverence for that seat of ancient freedom and art, prompts us to pardon the sentimental fervors which occupy for the most part so large a space in this description of travels. We have, accordingly, made most liberal allowances for the declamatory enthusiasm, and the freaks and curvettings of style, in which Mr. Hughes, in the course of this pleasing and instructive work, instead of proceeding in the regular and sober pace of his learned predecessor Mr. Dodwell, has thought fit to indulge himself. We can easily imagine, however, that he who traverses this sacred track, may witness a new tribe of sensations, while he breathes its purer and more ethereal atmosphere. Greece is endeared to us by our earliest associations. Its history is made the first stage in the progress of our moral and literary institution. It is there that we learn, as from an elementary tablet, our first lessons in civil and political prudence; that our early virtues receive their first breathings, and are trained and anointed for nobler exercises. It is in the story of Greece that we see our nature and its capacities in its greatest dimensions and most graceful attitudes. Her heroic figures exhibit the celestial mould and gigantic stature of moral prodigies. There is also a lively interest excited by the tour of Greece, in minds prepared for it by previous culture, by the striking resemblance between its ancient and modern inhabitants. The progeny of Solon and Themistocles are indeed to be traced no longer; (for there is not to be found at Athens, blood that has descended from higher sources than the nobles of Constantinople, the Notara, and Logotheti, familiar names to the Byzantine historians;) yet many circumstances contribute to keep up an identity of national character, and to sustain the charm which fascinates the lovers of antiquity. In this respect, the continuity is more perfect between ancient and modern Athens, than that of ancient and modern Rome. The Coliseum and the Pantheon tell us, in silent but impressive language, the tale of departed grandeur; but, amongst the present Italians, where are the resemblances that remind us of the old masters of the world? In Greece, on the other hand, we are perpetually put in mind of the domestic life and private manners of the ancients, by the habits and usages which still characterize the scene. But the existing language of that country, perhaps more than any other coincidence, keeps the chain unbroken. The Italian, on the other hand, though Latin is one of the elements out of which it has been formed, bears a much slighter relation to that tongue, and is less distinguished in that respect from the other idioms of An the west, which were built on the same foundations, than is generally supposed. Not that we are comparing the Italian which, by a singular fortune, after a series of foreign pollutions and a constant course of change, has become one of the most copious and harmonious languages of Europe, with the feeble and emasculated Romaic: but, inasmuch as the latter language, defective as it is, still retains the idiom, the phrase, and the terminations of the mother tongue, it operates more powerfully in recalling the recollection of the ages that are gone. Perhaps there is no modern language, with the single exception of the Arabic, that preserves more of its original structure. Athenian, of the age of Demosthenes, would find less difficulty in conversing with the present Greek, than a contemporary of Froissart, or of William of Malmsbury, would experience in conversing with ourselves. Much as it has degenerated from that wonderful idiom, which was a kind of music of the mind, swelling to every note of passion, and strengthening every precept of wisdom,-it still has tones and vocal inflexions which strongly bespeak its history. The lyre is not quite unstrung, though the master-hands are no more, that awakened it to melody. It still breathes a sweetness that transports us over the chasm of interposing years, and carries us back to those periods which have rendered it so dear to posterity. In truth, the chief difference is in the pronunciation. There is no doubt that if a Greek scholar would cast off his Gothic accentuation, and condescend to learn the tones of a modern Greek, he would be easily understood at Athens or Constantinople. Adverting to the short period during which Greek was the language of the Imperial Court, its existence, even in its present mutilated form, will strike us as nearly miraculous. Its impetuosity and vigour are gone; but the modern Greeks are still punctiliously nice about its cadences and its inflexions. The verbs have lost those changes of termination which imparted so much variety to the ancient diction, being now, as in the western dialects of Europe, conjugated with the auxiliary. The aorists also, which, by a wonderful refinement in the philosophy of grammar, denoted the minutest differences of time in human transactions, and the dual number,-these are gone but the declensions are not materially altered, and the frame of the language remains much as it was. It must be confessed, indeed, that even this identity of language, imperfect as it is, is scarcely to be traced at Athens; for it is a strange problem, but an undoubted fact, that the dialect which was once the discourse of Pericles and Aspasia, and the admiration of Greeks and barbarians, is now the most corrupt both in idiom and pronunciation, and the ridicule and opprobrium of the rest of Greece, being little better than a patchwork of Italian, Sclavonian, and Albanian, superinduced upon the old language. Nor is it easy to trace the causes and stages of this depravation. It is certainly not recent, for Meursius in 1578, nearly two hundred and fifty years ago, observed that of all the Grecian dialects, the Attic was the worst. A much purer diction is to be met with in some of the islands of the Archipelago and the Ionian Sea; but the best modern Greek is spoken in the Fanar* of Constantinople, where the ruined countries of the Moldavian and Wallachian governments still retain their palaces. The Greek that is written or spoken there is indeed depraved, but its chief corruptions may be traced to the Hellenic itself, without foreign admixtures; and the learned ear might dwell with delight on sentences of pure and unmixed diction from a Fanariot Beyzarde, of whose nobility and fashion the purity of . his language is deemed the surest criterion. Added to the charm of language, the classical tourist will experience, at every instant, the recurrence of the usages and institutions to which we have already alluded, and which bring ancient and modern Greece into contact with each other. Some of these interesting coincidences have been collected by the late Mr. Frederick Douglas, in his pleasing Essay on the Ancient and Modern Greeks. Many have been incidentally pointed out by Mr. Hughes. Of these customs, particularly those of their dress, &c. many still exist in the first freshness of antiquity; and many of them as they were depicted by Homer on the shield of Achilles. The marriage ceremonial, for instance, so minutely painted in that passage, is still, with due allowance for the change of religion, preserved amongst the present Greeks. It is a remarkable fact, that there is scarcely a circumstance in this ceremony, described by Catullus in his Epithalamium, which is not still practised. The tears of the bride, and her dissembled repugnance, to all appearance as strong as if the fate of Iphigenia awaited her the Fescennine licence of the hymeneal songs-the nuts showered on her as she moves in the procession, are still to be observed in every part of Grecia Propria. Homer's exquisite description also of the dance, is an image of festive delight still to be seen in the Islands. As to the beauty and elegance of the Romaica, there seems a great difference in the sentiments of travellers. "Graceful and splendid," says Mr. Douglas, after citing Homer's description from the fourteenth book of the Iliad, "it loses nothing by reality. The Romaica, the usual dance of the islanders in the Archipelago, has been faithfully represented by Homer; and any account which I can give of it will be little more than a feeble copy of that beautiful picture." *To parap, light-house. |