recalls, after the lapse of years, the fading tints of the original on the memory. "To understand the view from the Acropolis, you must figure to yourself all the plain at its foot; bare and clothed in a dusky heath, intersected here and there by woods of olives, squares of barley, and ridges of vines; you must conceive the heads of columns, and the ends of ancient ruins, emerging from the midst of that cultivation; Albanian women washing their clothes at the fountain or the scanty streams; peasants leading their asses, laden with provisions, into the modern city: those ruins so celebrated, those isles, those seas, whose names are engraven on the memory, illumined by a resplendent light. I have seen from the rock of the Acropolis the sun rise between the two summits of Mount Hymettus: the ravens, which nestle round the citadel, but never fly over its summit, floating in the air beneath, their glossy wings reflecting the rosy tints of the morning: columns of light smoke ascending from the villages on the sides of the neighbouring mountains marked the colonies of bees on the far-famed Hymettus; and the ruins of the Parthenon were illuminated by the finest tints of pink and violet. The sculptures of Phidias, struck by a horizontal ray of gold, seemed to start from their marble bed by the depth and mobility of their shadows: in the distance, the sea and the Piræus were resplendent with light, while on the verge of the western horizon, the citadel of Corinth, glittering in the rays of the rising sun, shone like a rock of purple and fire.”—Vol. i. 149. These are the colours of poetry; but beside this brilliant passage of French description, we willingly place the equally correct and still more thrilling lines of our own poet. "Slow sinks, more beauteous ere his race be run, Along Morea's hills the setting sun, Not as in northern clime obscurely bright, But one unclouded blaze of living light; O'er the hushed deep the yellow beams he throws, The God of Gladness sheds his parting smile; Their azure arches through the long expanse, The columns of the temple of Jupiter Olympius produced the same effects on the enthusiastic mind of Chateaubriand as they do on every traveller. But he has added some reflections highly descriptive of the peculiar turn of his mind. "At length we came to the great isolated columns placed in the quarter which is called the city of Adrian. On a portion of the architrave which unites two of the columns, is to be seen a piece of masonry, once the abode of a hermit. It is impossible to conceive how that building, which is still entire, could have been erected on the summit of one of these prodigious columns, whose height is above sixty feet. Thus this vast temple, at which the Athenians toiled for seven centuries, which all the kings of Asia laboured to finish, which Adrian, the ruler of the world, had first the glory to complete, has sunk under the hand of time, and the cell of a hermit has remained undecayed on its ruins. A miserable cabin is borne aloft on two columns of marble, as if fortune had wished to exhibit, on that magnificent pedestal, a monument of its triumph and its caprice. "These columns, though twenty feet higher than those of the Parthenon, are far from possessing their beauty. The degeneracy of taste is apparent in their construction; but isolated and dispersed as they are, on a naked and desert plain, their effect is imposing in the highest degree. I stopped at their feet to hear the wind whistle through the Corinthian foliage on their summits; like the solitary palms which rise here and there amidst the ruins of Alexandria. When the Turks are threatened by any calamity, they bring a lamb into this place, and constrain it to bleat, with its face turned to heaven. Being unable to find the voice of innocence among men, they have recourse to the new-born lamb to mitigate the anger of heaven.”—Vol. i. 152, 153. He followed the footsteps of Chandler along the Long Walls to the Piræus, and found that profound solitude in that once busy and animated scene, which is felt to be so impressive by every traveller. "If Chandler was astonished at the solitude of the Piræus, I can safely assert that I was not less astonished than he. We had made the circuit of that desert shore; three harbours had met our eyes, and in all that space we had not seen a single vessel! The only spectacle to be seen was the ruins and the rocks on the shore-the only sounds that could be heard were the cry of the seafowl, and the murmur of the wave, which, breaking on the tomb of Themistocles, drew forth a perpetual sigh from the abode of eternal silence. Borne away by the sea, the ashes of the conqueror of Xerxes repose beneath the waves, side by side with the bones of the Persians. In vain I sought the Temple of Venus, the long gallery, and the symbolical statue which represented the Athenian people; the image of that implacable democracy was for ever fallen, beside the walls where the exiled citizens came to implore a return to their country. Instead of those superb arsenals, of those Agora resounding with the voice of the sailors; of those edifices which rivalled the beauty of the city of Rhodes, I saw nothing but a ruined convent and a solitary magazine. A single Turkish sentinel is perpetually seated on the coast; months and years revolve without a bark presenting itself to his sight. Such is the deplorable state into which these ports, once so famous, have now fallen. Who has overturned so many monuments of gods and men? The hidden power which overthrows everything, and is itself subject to the Unknown God whose altar St Paul beheld at Phalera."-Vol. i. 157, 158. The fruitful theme of the decay of Greece has called forth many of the finest apostrophes of our moralists and poets. On this subject Chateaubriand offers the following striking observations : "One would imagine that Greece itself announced, by its mourning, the misfortunes of its children. In general, the country is uncultivated, the soil bare, rough, savage, of a brown and withered aspect. There are no rivers, properly so called, but little streams and torrents, which become dry in summer. No farm-houses are to be seen on the farms; no labourers, no chariots, no oxen, or horses of agriculture. Nothing can be figured so melancholy as to see the track of a modern wheel, where you can still trace in the worn parts of the rock the track of ancient wheels. Coast along that shore, bordered by a sea hardly more desolate; place on the summit of a rock a ruined tower, an abandoned convent; figure a minaret rising up in the midst of the solitude as a badge of slavery-a solitary flock feeding on a cape, surmounted by ruined columns--the turban of a Turk scaring the few goats which browse on the hills, and you will obtain a just idea of modern Greece. "On the eve of leaving Greece, at the Cape of Sunium, I did not abandon myself alone to the romantic ideas which the beauty of the scene was fitted to inspire. I retraced in my mind the history of that country; I strove to discover in the ancient prosperity of Athens and Sparta the cause of their present misfortunes, and in their present situation the germ of future glory. The breaking of the sea, which insensibly increased against the rocks at the foot of the Cape, at length reminded me that the wind had risen, and that it was time to resume my voyage. We descended to the vessel, and found the sailors already prepared for our departure. We pushed out to sea, and the breeze, which blew fresh from the land, bore us rapidly towards Zea. As we receded from the shore, the columns of Sunium rose more beautiful above the waves their pure white appeared well defined in the dark azure of the distant sky. We were already far from the Cape; but we still heard the murmur of the waves, which broke on the cliffs at its foot, the whistle of the winds through its solitary pillars, and the cry of the sea-birds which wheel round the stormy promontory; they were the last sounds which I heard on the shores of Greece."-Vol. i. 196. "The Greeks did not excel less in the choice of the site of their edifices than in the forms and proportions. The greater part of the promontories of Peloponnesus, Attica, and Ionia, and the Islands of the Archipelago, are marked by temples, trophies, or tombs. These monuments, surrounded as they generally are with woods and rocks, beheld in all the changes of light and shadow, sometimes in the midst of clouds and lightning, sometimes by the light of the moon, sometimes gilded by the rising sun, sometimes flaming in his setting beams, throw an indescribable charm over the shores of Greece. The earth, thus decorated, resembles the old Cybele, who, crowned and seated on the shore, commanded her son Neptune to spread the waves beneath her feet. "Christianity, to which we owe the sole architecture in unison with our manners, has also taught how to place our true monuments: our chapels, our abbeys, our monasteries, are dispersed on the summits of hills; not that the choice of the site was always the work of the architect, but that an art which is in unison with the feelings of the people, seldom errs far in what is really beautiful. Observe, on the other hand, how wretchedly almost all our edifices copied from the antique are placed. Not one of the heights around Paris is ornamented with any of the splendid edifices with which the city is filled. The modern Greek edifices resemble the corrupted language which they speak at Sparta and Athens: it is in vain to maintain that it is the language of Homer and Plato; a mixture of uncouth words, and of foreign constructions, betrays at every instant the invasion of the barbarians. "To the loveliest sunset in nature succeeded a serene night. The firmament, reflected in the waves, seemed to sleep in the midst of the sea. The evening star, my faithful companion in my journey, was ready to sink beneath the horizon; its place could only be distinguished by the rays of light which it occasionally shed upon the water, like a dying taper in the distance. At intervals, the perfumed breeze from the islands which we passed entranced the senses, and agitated on the surface of the ocean the glassy image of the heavens."-Vol. i. 182, 183. The appearance of morning in the sea of Marmora is described in not less glowing colours. "At four in the morning we weighed anchor, and as the wind was fair, we found ourselves in less than an hour at the extremity of the waters of the river. The scene was worthy of being described. On the right, Aurora rose above the headlands of Asia; on the left was extended the sea of Marmora; the heavens in the east were of a fiery red, which grew paler in proportion as the morning advanced; the morning star still shone in that empurpled light; and above it you could barely descry the pale circle of the moon. The picture changed while I still contemplated it; soon a blended glory of rays of rose and gold, diverging from a common centre, mounted to the zenith these columns were effaced, revived, and effaced anew, until the sun rose above the horizon, and confounded all the lesser shades in one universal blaze of light."-Vol. i. 236. His journey into the Holy Land awakened a new and not less interesting train of ideas, throughout the whole of which we recognise the peculiar features of M. de Chateaubriand's mind: a strong and poetical sense of the beauties. of nature—a memory fraught with historical recollections—a deep sense of religion, manifested, however, rather as it affects the imagination and the passions than the judgment. It is a mere chimera to suppose that such aids are to be rejected by the friends of Christianity, or that truth may with safety discard the aid of fancy, either in subduing the passions or affecting the heart. On the contrary, every day's experience must convince us that, for one who can understand an argument, hundreds can enjoy a romance; and that truth, to affect multitudes, must condescend to wear the garb of fancy. It is, no doubt, of vast importance that works should exist in which the truths of religion are unfolded with lucid precision, and its principles defined with the force of reason; but it is at least of equal moment that others should be found in which the graces of eloquence and the fervour of enthusiasm form an attraction to those who are insensible to graver considerations; where the reader is tempted to follow a path which he finds only strewed with flowers, and he unconsciously inhales the breath of eternal life. VOL. III. "Cosi all Egro fanciul porgiamo aspersi "On nearing the coast of Judea, the first visitors we received were three swallows. They were perhaps on their way from France, and pursuing their course to Syria. I was strongly tempted to ask them what news they brought from that paternal roof which I had so long quitted. I recollect that, in years of infancy, I spent entire hours in watching with an indescribable pleasure the course of swallows in autumn, when assembling in crowds previous to their annual migration: a secret instinct told me that I too should be a traveller. They assembled in the end of autumn around a great fishpond; there, amidst a thousand evolutions and flights in air, they seemed to try their wings, and prepare for their long pilgrimage. Whence is it that, of all the recollections in existence, we prefer those which are connected with our cradle? The illusions of self-love, the pleasures of youth, do not recur with the same charm to the memory; we find in them, on the contrary, frequent bitterness and pain; but the slightest circumstances revive in the heart the recollections of infancy, and always with a fresh charm. On the shores of the lakes in America, in an unknown desert, which was sublime only from the effect of solitude, a swallow has frequently recalled to my recollection the first years of my life; as here, on the coast of Syria, they recalled them in sight of an ancient land resounding with the traditions of history and the voice of ages. sea. "The air was so fresh and so balmy, that all the passengers remained on deck during the night. At six in the morning I was awakened by a confused hum; I opened my eyes, and saw all the pilgrims crowding towards the prow of the vessel. I asked what it was? they all replied, Signor, il Carmelo.' I instantly rose from the plank on which I was stretched, and eagerly looked out for the sacred mountain. Every one strove to show it to me, but I could see nothing by reason of the dazzling of the sun, which now rose above the horizon. The moment had something in it that was august and impressive; all the pilgrims, with their chaplets in their hands, remained in silence, watching for the appearance of the Holy Land; the captain prayed aloud, and not a sound was to be heard but that prayer and the rush of the vessel, as it ploughed with a fair wind through the azure From time to time the cry arose, from those in elevated parts of the vessel, that they saw Mount Carmel, and at length I myself perceived it like a round globe under the rays of the sun. I then fell on my knees, after the manner of the Latin pilgrims. My first impression was not the kind of agitation which I experienced on approaching the coast of Greece, but the sight of the cradle of the Israelites, and of the country of Christ, filled me with awe and veneration. I was about to descend on the land of miracles -on the birthplace of the sublimest poetry that has ever appeared on earth -on the spot where, speaking only as it has affected human history, the most wonderful event has occurred which ever changed the destinies of the species. I was about to visit the scenes which had been seen before me by Godfrey of Bouillon, Raymond of Toulouse, Tancred the Brave, Richard Coeur-de-Lion, and Saint Louis, whose virtues even the infidels respected. How could an obscure pilgrim like myself dare to tread a soil ennobled by such recollections!"-Vol. i. 263-265. Nothing is more striking in the whole work than the description of the Dead Sea and the Valley of Jordan. He has contrived to bring the features of that extraordinary scene more completely before us than any of the numerous English travellers who have preceded or followed him on the same route. "We quitted the convent at three in the afternoon, ascended the torrent |