other hill, where Museus himself chose to inhabit. Here either a Democritus might sit, and laugh at the pomps and vanities of the world, whose glories so soon vanish; or an Heraclitus weep over the manifold misfortunes of it, telling sad stories of the various changes and events of fate. This would have been a place to inspire a poet, as the brave actions performed within his view have already exercised the pens of great historians. Here, like Virgil, he might have sate and interwoven beautiful descriptions of the rivers, mountains, woods of olives, and groves of lemons and oranges, with the celebrated harbours on the shore, and islands (sometimes kingdoms) in the Saronic Sea, all lying spread before him as on a map; which I was contented to do only in contemplation, and with a sea-compass to mark out the most considerable places on paper.' "* At Athens they spent a month;

Athens the eye of Greece, mother of Arts
And Eloquence, native to famous Wits.

(Milton's Par. Reg. IV. 241.)

There flowery hills, Hymettus with the sound

Of bees' industrious murmur oft invites

To studious musing.

Florea juga Hymetti.

(Id. Ib. 246.)

(Val. Flacc.)

* Wheler's Travels, V. 374, 375.

66

And there Mr. Wheler perfected himself in the modern Greek languge, beginning with the very elements of it, and learning to speak it according to the vernacular pronunciation, under the instruction of Ezechiel, Abbot of Cyriani, a convent situate on the side of Mount Hymettus, whom he represents as having more learning than he thought to meet with at Athens." The traveller, who is eager to augment his knowledge of natural history, will make Mr. Wheler his companion when he visits this celebrated city. He will walk with him in the environs of this ancient seat of science and the Muses; nobilissimum orbis gymnasium, now, alas! reduced to a state of barbarism and misery; with all the venerable remains of it's magnificent edifices, under the united assaults of time and European plunderers, mouldering into decay; and derive no small pleasure from embellishing his herbal with plants from the soil once trod by our young

and ardent botanist.

"We found not," he observes in his remarks upon Corinth," the tomb of Diogenes the Cynic, which was in times past by the entrance into the town coming from the Isthmus [as Diogenes Laërtius informs us, VI. 78.]; but we saw it, and copied his epitaph at Venice in the palace of Signor Erizzo upon a marble, under the basso relievo of a dog, which we suppose was brought

from hence when the Morea was under the dominion of that state." *

In the month of March, 1676, Mr. Spon embarked at Asprospitit, a port in the Corinthian bay, for Zante and Venice, and returned to Lyons. Mr. Wheler, who was unwilling to set forward upon a wintry sea, pursued his land-journey alone, with a resolution to revisit Athens as soon as he had finished his researches in Boeotia. plan, however, did not take place in the manner he had proposed. He arrived in safety at Zante; whence by the first occasion he departed for Italy,

This

*Travels, VI. 444, 445. The Inscription, as correctly given by Jacobs, in his Anthologia Græca, IV. 234. No. DLVIII. is as follows:

α Ειπε, κυον, τινος ανδρος εφεςως σημα φυλάσσεις,

β Το κυνος.

• Αλλά τις ην ετος ανηρ ὁ Κυων ;

β Διογένης. « Γενος ειπε. β Σινωπευς. « Ος πιθον ᾤκει

β Και μαλα· νυν δε θανων αςέρας οικον εχει.

See, also, Mus. Crit. I. 515, 516. In his comments upon this tetrastich, XII. 177, Jacobs has carefully noted the two or three slight inaccuracies of the traveller or of his engraver, and has also subjoined a version of this or a similar composition from Ausonius:

Dic, Canis, hic cujus tumulus? Canis. At Canis hic quis? Diogenes. Obiit? Non obiit, sed abît.

Diogenes cui pera penus, cui dolia sedes,

Ad Manes abiit? Cerberus ire vetat.

Quònam igitur? Clari flagrat quà stella Leonis,

Additus est justæ nunc canis Erigona. (Epitaph. xxxi.)

+ Travels, VI. 463

France, and England; and reached Canterbury on the fifteenth of November, 1676, "transported with unspeakable joy at the singular bliss of his country, far exceeding any nation he had seen beyond our British seas. There he offered to God the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, resolving for ever to call upon His great name, who is the only mighty preserver of mankind."* The lan

*He has thus expressed, elsewhere, his opinion of the superior excellence of England. "It hath been the most ordinary question asked me since my travels, whether there is any country I like better than England, or whether England is not as good as any other country I had seen while I was abroad. It therefore being a question so generally desired to be known, it will be expected I should give my reasons while I still answer that I like England yet best, after so much variety:' or else I may be suspected by those that admire the rare fruits and wines, the admirable architecture and pleasant building, the charming music and outward splendour of other countries, either to be partial in the praise of my own country, or rather strive to please my countrymen and auditors then to speak the truth. I will grant, that the land produceth not either wine or oil. We cannot show the gardens of the Hesperides, groves of orange-trees bedecked with their golden fruit that our Archbishop weareth not so rich a mitre as the Bishop of Rome, nor is our great Prince's palace a Louvre. But certainly it is less pains to hale the ropes in a ship than to dig in the rocky vineyard, to guide the rudder into our secure harbours than to tread in the wine-press. It is much more eligible, that we are governed by such wholesome laws, as we may say we ourselves have agreed upon among ourselves with our kings, and granted and enjoyed by their gracious clemency, than to live under the arbitrary power of one whose will is law and pride and ambition his reason. And surely those, that prefer

the

guage which he uses upon this occasion, while it vividly expresses his happiness, affords an indisputable proof of the native goodness of his heart: "I hasted to render myself to my country and to the long-wished for embraces of my parents, relations, and friends, and to give praise to God for the wonderful things he had done for my soul; THAT HE HAD PLACED THE LOT OF

MINE INHERITANCE IN A LAND, THAT HE HAD BLESSED AND HEDGED ABOUT FOR HIMSELF: WHERE NOTHING IS WANTING TO SUPPLY THE DEFECTS OF FRAIL NATURE, BUT WHERE PEACE AND PLENTY FOR THIS MANY YEARS HAVE SEEMED TO EMBRACE EACH OTHER; WHERE EVERY MAN'S RIGHT, FROM THE PRINCE TO THE PEASANT, IS SECURED TO HIM BY THE PROTECTION OF GOOD AND WHOLESOME LAWS; AND MORE, BY A KING WHO IS THE INDULGENT FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY, AND NOT A TYRANT: AND LASTLY RENDERED ME INTO THE BOSOM OF A CHURCH, THAT I HAD OFTEN HEARD BUT NOW KNEW TO BE THE MOST REFINED, PURE, AND ORTHODOX CHURCH IN THE WORLD; FREED FROM SLAVERY, ERROR, AND SUPERSTITION, AND WITHOUT NOVELTY AND CONFUSION ESTAB

the outward pomp and vanities of the Latin and Greek Church before the glorious splendour and brightness of the gospel shining in the Church of England, deserve again to be put into their hanging-sleeves, ranked among children, and have only rattles and puppet-shows to please them."