Alluding to his own pious habits of reflexion " upon the various events of things, and the phenomena of nature," and foreseeing that there were some to whom this serious turn of mind would not be pleasing, he says; "As to men of this irreligious temper, I make no other answer, but that I designed to write as a Christian traveller and philosopher; and if my book be unacceptable to them, because it savours of my religion, they may leave it (as they do their Bibles) to others, who will like it better upon that account.” What the effect was of such habits upon a temper naturally amiable, appears in the account which he has given of his state of mind, after being deserted by his companion Spon, the day of their separation at Turco-Chorio. I remember being much struck with the passage, having had the satisfaction of reading it upon the very spot where they parted:-" Thursday parted:"Thursday the ninth of March, † being separated from my companion, I left Turco-Chorio, bending my course eastward to go to Thalanda. The first thing that diverted me in that solitary condition was, that I soon found myself on a long straight way, fortified with a deep ditch on each side, leading to certain hills which I saw a good way off before me. This I took as a good omen, portending success to my undertakings: it seemed to admonish me, that I should not fail to be guarded by God's good Providence, so long as I travelled in the straight way of virtue and true piety to my heavenly country, which is on high." Some of Wheler's discoveries in Greece, although nearly a century and a half has elapsed since they were made, have not even yet been duly regarded. One of the most remarkable, as illustrating the ancient history of that country, was his finding the splendid remains of the Isthmian town, where the ISTHMIA were celebrated; a town not noticed by Mentelle in the work which he subsequently composed for the French Encyclopedie, nor mentioned (as far as I am informed) by any writer upon ancient Geography. Modern authors indeed, with the exception of Wheler, seem not to have

Ib. Pref. p. 3.

+Journey into Greece, p. 463, Lond. 1682.

Encyclopédie Methodique, Geographie Ancienne, par M. Mentelle, &c. 3 vols. 4to, Paris, 1792,

been aware that any such town existed; and after the description. which he has given of the place, and the remarkable inscription which he found upon the spot and published in his Travels,* such has been the oversight or neglect of the travellers who have followed him, that we have no account of any one of them having visited those ruins. Chandler even ventured to assert, that "neither the Theatre nor the Stadium were visible."† I arrived upon the spot in 1801, and found every thing that Wheler had said fully confirmed, in a view of the place. The Theatre remained, facing the Port Schoenus; together with the Stadium, and the ruins of the Temple of Neptune, upon an area two hundred and seventy-six paces in length and sixty-four in breadth. Many other reliques of the most magnificent buildings were, also, scattered about in promiscuous disorder. Among these ruins, the peasants of the neighbouring villages of Hexamillia discover ancient medals of almost all the States of Greece; nor is there perhaps any spot in the whole of that country, which would better answer the purposes of making excavations in search of antiquities. Since my return to England, I have constantly endeavoured to direct the attention of travellers toward those ruins; but even the site of them is not yet laid down in any other map than in the diminutive sketch prefixed, as a vignette, to the chapter of my Travels in which those ruins are described. A topographical chart of the whole Isthmian territory is much wanted, in order that the situation of the town where the ISTHMIA were celebrated, and it's relative position with regard to Corinth and the other cities of Peloponnesus and Achaia, may be assigned for the ancient geography of Greece.

Other obligations due to Wheler are better known. The valuable additions made to Natural History, by the number of rare plants described in his Travels, need not be enumerated; because

* Chandler says the marble has been removed, and is now preserved in the Museum at Verona. The inscription begins Θεοις Πατριοίς και τη Πατρίδι, T. (See Wheler's Journey into Greece, &c. p. 438. Lond. 1682.)

+ Travels into Greece, p. 243. Oxford, 1776.

See III. 18. p. 741. 4to Edit. Lond. 1814.

there is hardly any work of general Botany, in which his name and discoveries are not commemorated. His Geographical observations were highly valuable in the time when they were made. Before the appearance of his work, there was not a map of Attica upon which the smallest reliance for accuracy could be placed. He was the first traveller in Greece, who adopted the practice of taking a mariner's needle to the tops of mountains for the purpose of making observations of the relative positions of places, and thereby reducing those positions into triangles. "Although," said he, *this be but an ordinary rule in surveighing, yet in those countries where from a mountain one may see twenty, thirty, forty, and fifty miles about, it may prove of more use and certainty then all the rest of the geographical art of longitudes in the world."

The stile of his narrative possesses the quaintness characteristic of authors, who wrote English prose in the seventeenth century, and sometimes to a degree that reminds us of his predecessor George Sandys; as, for example, when in describing the Cameleon he says, † “One, that I opened, had guts.”

The Sculptures," as he terms the Copperplates, introduced into the text of the different pages of his narrative are wretched performances, seldom bearing any resemblance to the things they were intended to represent; with the exception only of the plants and medals which he has figured, and these are better done, considering the time when they were engraven. But as it is not my intention to point out the defects of his work, I shall pursue this subject no farther; being actuated only by a desire of rendering a just tribute of acknowledgement to a traveller, who at so early a period offering an example to his countrymen, voluntarily engaged in an enterprise of fatigue and danger, "CUPIDINE VETERES LOCOS ET FAMA CELEBRATOS NOSCENDI." I remain, my dear Wrangham, &c. &c.

Cambridge, June 11, 1819.

EDWARD DANIEL CLARKE.

Journey into Greece, &c. Pref. p. 3. Lond. 1682.

+ Journey into Greece, p. 249.

A SERMON,

PREACHED AT

THE PRIMARY VISITATION

OF THE RIGHT REVEREND FATHER IN GOD,

WILLIAM

Lord Bishop of CHESTER;

HELD AT RICHMOND, IN YORKSHIRE, AUGUST 21, 1789.

PUBLISHED AT HIS LORDSHIP'S REQUEST.

(Newcastle upon Tyne, 1789.)

VOL. I.

B