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Demosthenes, the sweet modulations of Anacreon, or the sublime descriptions of the bard of Ilion, read by a Greek even of the present times. It is by associating this pronunciation with the happy rhythm of the antient Greeks, that one can conceive how an orator could captivate an audience by merely reading his productions.' Great diversity in pronunciation, however, exists between the Chian, Smyrnian, and Constantinopolitan accent; the consequence of which is that the modern language apYoung pears to differ more from the antient than it does in fact. Greeks of good family occasionally travel into foreign countries for the study of medicine, and generally return considerably improved. The books hitherto translated into their language, from the publications of the rest of Europe, are insignificant: they have been printed chiefly at Venice and Vienna, and have passed through a double ordeal, the Inquisition, and the Turkish police. The true method of aiming at the re-establishment of Grecian independence is to improve the system of education; and their priests seem the only persons likely to be efficient in promoting this desirable object. A corresponding progress in manufactures, and in agriculture, would be a necessary preliminary : how property of but it is no easy matter to say kind can be increased, under such a government as that which at present rules these people; it being a fact that the magistrates and soldiers, who are appointed to restrain disorders, are themselves frequently the authors of them. Can we wonder, therefore, that the peaceful arts should be neglected, in spite of one of the most favourable climates in the range of the temperate zone? medium beClimate. The air of the Morea holds a tween the scorching heat of Egypt and the cold of the northern part of Europe; its winter is short, and a beneficent dew fertilizes the soil in the early days of spring. The prevalence of unhealthiness is local, and is chiefly to be ascribed to the long and miserable neglect of cultivation. While in the course of ages the rivers have overflowed and formed vast marshes, the woods have been destroyed by the shepherds, and the hills consequently deprived in a great measure of fructifying showers. The winter in Greece comes on with falls of rain, and thunder-storms; the cold beginning to be felt in December, but not being severe until January. In February, vegetation returns, and spring may be said to begin with the first days of March. The summer is fully set in by the At this time, much month of May, and continues to October. unhealthiness prevails in particular situations; such as the low grounds of Elis, or the valley of Argos, with its rice-grounds, and poppy-fields. Other places, such as Coron on the coast of Messenia, Caritena in the interior, and elevated spots in

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Laconia,

Laconia, are in general exempt from the visitation of maladies. In October, the rains come on, and seem to bring with them a kind of new spring. Unfortunately, the water in many parts of Greece is not pure, the wells being frequently shallow, and having the bad qualities of marsh-waters. In winter, they are troubled, and overflow; in the dry season, they are either exhausted or fetid. The water of the rivers is fit for use only in the latter part of winter and the early part of spring; the channels being at one time filled with quantities of sand and mud, at another almost dry, or affording little else than stagnant pools.

The state of medical knowlege in Greece is very ill calculated to counteract the effects of unhealthy situations; the chief practitioners being travelling doctors, of Italian origin, who assume the plausible name of aλoi iaτço, or "good physicians :"

They are very expert at making widows and orphans; but the indolent Turk, though he is the daily witness of their feats in this way, regards them only as the ministers of fate, feasts them and pays them, nor thinks of imputing their want of success in the healing art to any thing but an immutable fatality. Under the shelter of this prejudice, the caloiatros continues to practise his art, and to reap the harvest of it. He is accompanied by a servant, who executes the several offices of interpreter, page, steward, and puffer; and who, trained up in the secrets of his master's art, after a few years sets up for himself as a successor of the great Hippocrates.'

The calciatros in chief of Tripolitza, the father of the wandering faculty, was a Greek who sold tobacco at the bazar. He had been cook in a public-house at Montpellier, and had a variety of specifics and amulets for relieving pain. A good dose of jalap, of manna, or of Glauber salts, and above all bleeding, (for nothing is to be done without bleeding,) are their great weapons, so that one might conclude them to be of the same faculty with Moliere's physician. No less impudent than ignorant, they are continually boasting of the cures they have performed at such or such a place, taking care however that it shall always be one at a considerable distance; to hear them talk you would suppose that they bleed without its being perceived, and draw a tooth with the point of a stiletto. There is not a town in the Levant, be it ever so inconsiderable, that has not its Esculapius. In confidence and perjury they do not yield to the Greeks; and too much of the same species to have any complacency towards each other: no one ever mentions a brother but in terms of the most sovereign contempt. They are besides for the most part conjurors, nay, by an extraordinary combination of talents, almost any thing that may be desired of them.'

Albania.—We conclude our extracts from Dr. P.'s work with some passages in which he describes the character of the modern inhabitants of Epirus;

The

The Albanians, who may be called the Scythians of the Turkish empire, have but few wants. I speak here of the people in the country. Their houses are in general nothing more than a groundfloor; and they sleep upon mats or thick cloaks. Little sensible to the variations of the atmosphere, they lead an equally laborious life the whole year through. Contented with a little, they live principally upon milk, cheese, eggs, olives, and vegetables: they eat very little meat, occasionally fish, or salt-fish. Sometimes they make bread; but often eat their corn or maize only boiled.

The Albanian shepherds, who are equally warriors, are clothed in a sort of coarse woollen stuffs, for the most part never wearing linen; er, if worn, it is never changed, but left till it falls off in rags. Sober and active, they are contented in their journeys, or when at their labour, with a little boiled rice or corn, while singing, dancing, and gaiety seem all the relaxation they desire from fatigue.'

The Albanians are seldom less than five feet nine inches in height, and are extremely strong and muscular. They have oval faces, large mustachios, a great deal of colour in their cheeks, a brisk animated eye, a well-proportioned mouth, and fine teeth. The neck is long, and the chest broad; the leg slender, and with very little calf.

Thus formed to endure fatigue, and to engage in distant expeditions, the Albanians or Arnaouts form a part of the military corps in every province or district of the Turkish empire, from the shores of the Euphrates to the mouths of the Drino. In Egypt they have become celebrated. They are well known among the Barbary states; nor have they scrupled to associate themselves with the turbulent rebels who infest Romelia. The trade of a brigand excites no blush in them, since it is accompanied with danger; and they vaunt their prowess no less in these predatory expeditions, than in those to which real glory is attached.

The women who bring this race of semi-barbarians into the world partake in the vigour of their organization. They do not live in the indolence of harems, but labour hard; and no less than the men eat their bread with the sweat of their brow, frequently even sharing the dangers encountered by their husbands and their sons. Their features are strong; their muscles firm, and endowed with great elasticity: they are therefore little subject to disease, and preserve the freshness of youth much longer than the women of Greece. They continue to become mothers till an equally advanced period of life with the women in more northern countries. They sleep upon the same mats with their husbands, are like them clothed in coarse woollen garments, and often march with their legs naked during the most rigorous cold of Albanian winters.

⚫ Besides the bravery which is natural to the Albanians, they have a frankness of character not common among the eastern nations : they show their esteem or contempt for any one equally without disguise and reserve. -Their openness of character is carried so far, that they never think of dissembling their views when they endeavour to obtain any post. Money is their object, and this they freely avow.'As bad Mahometans as they are brave soldiers, they show extreme negligence with regard to the external ceremonies of their

worship,

worship, and believe as little in the Prophet as in Jesus Christ: they more frequently, indeed, make their asseverations in the august name of the latter. It seems not a little extraordinary to hear the words Maton Theon, Maton Christon, perpetually coming from the mouth of men who profess the faith of the Koran.'

The Greeks who inhabit Albania, though perfectly distinguishable from the native Albanians, have more of the habits of barbarism than the people of the southern provinces of Greece, and of the Greek islands. They even lose here a part of that duplicity and want of honour of which they are generally accused. This may probably arise from their feeling more strongly, among so independent a race, the dignity of their nature, and from their not being obliged to degrade themselves so low in crouching at the feet of an oppressor.'

This publication will be found to contain a great number of useful observations; and the mind that has dictated them is evidently calculated to feel the grandeur of the scenes which it contemplated. Unluckily, however, with Dr. P., as with many other Frenchmen, the exercise of intellect is not in proportion to that of the imagination; and the reader, who takes for granted all that the author chuses to believe, will have the mortification of frequently finding himself in error. In the very beginning, Dr. P. tells us (p. 1c.) of the massacre of the Lacedæmonians in the island of Sphacteria: though here was no massacre, but a regular attack, at the end of which the three hundred Lacedæmonians, who survived out of the four hundred and twenty that were originally cooped up in the island, were carried prisoners to Athens. In another passage, (p. 81.) Dr. P. gravely declares that Athens would have been utterly destroyed by the Spartans, if some verses from the Electra of Sophocles had not disarmed their general Lysander.' As well might he have said that the repetition from Ossian of Fingal's lamentation on the evils of war would have induced Bonaparte, in his days of success, to turn his sword into a ploughshare. Lysander was not less of a calculating politician than the Corsican ruler of France. In addition to these historical inaccuracies *, we observe various delinquencies of a minor cast: such as Taygetes for Taygetus, Pamissus for Pamisos, Menale for Mount Menelaus, and a woeful inaccuracy in Greek printing, (p. 102.) which must be shared, we apprehend, between the printer and the fair translator. Still, the volume will be read with interest; and it is satisfactory to find that the Morea exhibits to an attentive traveller a much richer field of observation, than we might expect from the depreciating tone and meagre reports of those who, like Mr. Galt, having passed through the country as they

We may have occasion to refer again to this point, in reviewing Mr. Hobhouse's Travels in Albania; that gentlemen having disputed some of M. Pouqueville's representations and conjectures.

would

would hasten through a province of Poland or Russia, pronounce at once that it contains very little worth notice. - The work is ornamented with eight engravings and a map; and the translation is, with some exceptions, generally well executed.

ART. II A Sketch of Modern and Antient Geography, for the Use of Schools. By Samuel Butler, D.D., Head Master of the Royal Free Grammar School of Shrewsbury. Second Edition. Svo. 9s. Boards. Longman and Co. 1813. IN our xixth Volume, p. 542., and in our xxvth Volume, p. 569., we gave an account of a German treatise on Antient Geography, which apeared to us the best recent work on the subject, and to deserve imitation in our own country for the use of our own schools. We have now the pleasure of seeing this wish realized, and can announce to our readers a respectable vernacular concise introduction to antient geography. The elementary work in common use is Patrick's Abridgement of the Notitia Orbis antiqui of Cellarius: but, as Cellarius attends too little to chronology, and describes, as if they were contemporaneous, various successive places of the antique world; and as the light thrown by D'Anville on classical geography had not shone on Cellarius, and is consequently not displayed in his Syllabus; it was certainly not superfluous to make another sketch of this region of literature. Besides, no English translation existed even of Patrick; and that which is to be learnt only in Latin escapes the inferior scholars of every school, and the inferior schools of every country. certain quantity of antient geography should be acquired even by ladies; so far at least as that they may know by their classical names the principal rivers, provinces, and cities of the world, when mentioned by the historian or the poet to them, therefore, an English volume on the subject will be welcome.

A

The quickest and clearest way of teaching antient geography would perhaps be to compose a series of chronological maps. Delineate, for instance, the Parthian peninsula, comprehending Natolia, Palestine, Arabia, Mesopotamia, &c., according to its earliest nomenclature and condition, as described in the Scriptures a thousand years before Christ: give a second map. of the same district, according to its nomenclature and condition five hundred years before Christ; and a third map as in the time of our Saviour. Thus the changes produced in the chosen seat of primeval civilization, first by the conquests of Cyrus and then by the conquests of Alexander, would be im

We should rather have said Antient and Modern Geography.

mediately

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