Qu'on goûte avec transport cette faveur des cieux! Des beaux jours qu'il promet, des beaux jours qu'il rappelle." After having indicated to descriptive poets what is to be seen in Europe that is worthy of their attention, from the summit of the highest mountain to the lowest abyss, the author leads them to South America;-to the immense rivers of Oroonoko and the Amazons, proud offsprings of the mountains, and rivals of the sea,' which water half the globe; sometimes flowing in silent tranquillity, then deafening nature with the roar of cataracts. Having pointed out the grand, imposing, and sublime features of nature, compared with-which the Appenines are but hillocks, the Danube a rill, and the forests of Europe but bushes,' he comes to free-born animals, sheep without a shepherd, cattle without herdsmen, and to harvests without a plough. He then conducts his élèves to the deserts of Africa, where no men abide,' but which are peopled by lions, tigers, serpents, and hyenas; and laftly to the utmost limits of the earth, bound in eternal frost, but where the Aurora borealis elicits the most vivid radiance of brilliant colours from gigantic prisms. Thus having viewed the extremes of nature, the author brings back his followers to climes more mild and habitable, to temperate skies, green fields, woods, shrubs, rivers, rills, and nightingales ending his beautiful performance with an éloge on his great master, Virgil, the model of all didactic poets. To conclude. This poem does not indeed contain any alluring nor any terrible story: but it comprehends poetry of the most interesting kind. The author's descriptions of volcanos, lavas, basaltes, coal-mines, springs, the formation of mountains, and domestic animals, (characterising their virtues, vices, passions, and instinctive morality; and reminding us of the honour done to them by the muses of Homer, Lucretius, and Virgil;) are deserving of high praise. Even vegetation, or whatever has life, belongs to poetry, and may be personified. His visit to the place of his nativity, his reminiscences of infantine and adolescent happiness, and his description of the luxury and misery of the capital, are short, and happily expressed. Infancy and old age are perhaps equally fond of the country since there the first enjoys more liberty, and the latter more tranquillity. It is in the middle period of his existence, when curious, restless, active, and full of health, vigour, APP. REV. VOL. XXXIII. I i and and ambition, that man prefers the noise and rivalry of cities to the peaceable cultivation of his fields, to the study of nature, to domestic comfort, and to such social enjoyments as his situation affords. We perceive that the great poetical merit of this work has led us insensibly to dwell more on its beauties than its defects, for that defects may be found we are not ignorant: but, as all the critics in Europe, particularly those of France, have been and still are employed in seeking for and examining spots in this sun, we shall resign to them the gratification of proving that the magnifying power of their reflectors is superior to our's in these cynical observations. We must, however, observe, in justice to those foreign critics whose remarks we have yet seen, that, with whatever severity they arraign the want of plan, of episodes, of arrangement, and of originality, they unanimously allow the poetry in general to be exquisite. The notes, which occupy more than half of the volume, will be curious and instructive to young students in natural history. T ART. IV. Voyage de Dimo et Nicolo Stephanopoli, &c. i. e. Travels of DIMO and NICOLO STEPHANOPOLI in Greece, during the Years 1797 and 1798, in consequence of two Missions; one by order of the French Government, and the other by that of the General in Chief Bonaparte, drawn up from their Materials by a Professor of the Prytaneum. With Plates of Drawings, Plans, and Views taken on the Spot. 8vo. 2 Vols. pp. 300 each. Paris. 1799. HE publication of travels in Greece, by Greeks, might naturally lead us to hope for an acquisition to letters, and a treat for curiosity. A late British labourer had entered the same field, and had reaped diligently: but, in the midst of his toils, fate cut the slender thread of his existence, and deprived the world of the valuable fruits of his exertions. She gave his ashes to his favorite Attica, leaving to us nothing but regret;that regret which must ever flow from the recollection of his rare qualities, of the industry which would have left no promising track unbeaten, of the judgment which was able to select and appreciate, and of the bosom which could foster neither fantastic prepossessions nor intentional deceit! Such were the qualifications of a traveller whose researches would Mr. John Tweddell, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge; of whose juvenile proficiency in classical literature, some specimens appeared in our xiith vol. N. S. p. 327, &c. We then with pleasure hailed the dawn of his literary career, and it is with real regret that we now record its early termination, have benefited the age, and added to the lustre of British learning. These reflections suggested themselves on looking at the title of the work before us; and we formed hopes that it might, in part, retrieve the loss which we had sustained: but we were soon undeceived. We found that the present travellers were political missionaries, professed propagandists, more amateurs of revolutions than of antiquities, and fonder of subverting governments than of exploring antient monu ments. In such hands, a voyage into Greece, like every thing else, is wholly political: but the information of this sort, contained in these volumes, might be curious and important, if we could strip it of its disguise, repress the distortions, and reduce the exaggerations. Without the power of doing all this completely, we must read with caution and report with doubt. These travellers are natives of Corsica, descended from the Greeks who settled in that island in the course of the last century; and who, it seems, in their intercourse with each other, still make use of the language of their original country. It was obviously this circumstance which led to the appointnent whence these volumes have resulted; the authors of which are uncle and nephew: the former, Dimo, acts the political part; and the latter, Nicolo, communicates the little information which this work contains relative to antiquities. From an interesting conversation, which Dimo professes to have held with Bonaparte, at the head quarters at Milan in July 1797, on the subject of the peace then negociating between France and the Emperor, we shall make the following short extract. "Do you, (asked Dimo) as it is rumoured, cede Dalmatia to the Emperor?" Bonaparte. "Does that astonish you?" D.--"Much; excuse my freedom; my alarms are founded on local and political information. In possession of Dalmatia, the Emperor, if he chooses it, will be soon master of Albania and Greece. The Sclavonians of the Mouth of the Cataro and Monte Negro, who can bring to the field thirty-five thousand men, inveterate enemies of Turkey, border on the Dalmatian frontier; these, and the Albanians of the adjoining parts, nearly all of whom are christians, will receive the Emperor with open arms; and, as his army will fortify itself as it advances, what can hinder him from extending his conquests to ConstanThe Emperor will not pass tinople?" B.-(somewhat moved,) these limits." The maps were then examined; and Dimo presumed, from Bonaparte's silence, that he yielded to his opinion. Did that General make a cession, of the consequences of which he was Ii 2 ignorant? ignorant? Does this account for the anxiety of the Emperor Paul to have the republic of Venice re-instated? Does it assign a principal cause of the variance between the two imperial courts? Curious instances of fanatical craft, in Italy, in Belgium, and in La Vendée, with remarks on the oppressions and per nicious effects of the papal civil administration, (the design of all which is very obvious,) follow the account of the above con versation. The shafts of the travellers are next directed against the late government of Venice, which their hero had just subverted. According to them, the Venetian proveditori of the Greek islands were inferior in no species of oppression to the pachas of the opposite coast. The governor of Cephalonia being always a poor knight, sent thither to retrieve his fortune, he offered every thing to sale, even the absolution of assassins. In a law suit, the rich man was generally sure of succeeding: but, if it happened otherwise, he appealed to the senate of Venice; where he either gained his suit, or was able to protract it to an endless length. In Zante, two thousand assassimations are said to have been committed in three not one assassin had suffered. years, and After sundry perils, the travellers arrived at Maina. Here they found that the person to whom they had been directed as the Bey had been displaced, and that his successor was in the Ottoman interest; they therefore sought the residence of the ex-Bey, where they met with a cordial reception.-They do not define the territory of Maina, but seem to confound it with the whole of Laconia; though D'Anville, speaking of it, says: "Elle est habitie par un peuple particulier, qui tire son nom de Mainoti d'un chateau nommé Maïna, situé sur le penchant qui regarde le couchant; mais dont il ne convient point d'étendre l nom, comme dans les cartes, à toute la Laconie." The soil of Maina is the least fertile in the Morea. Pure air, health, internal harmony and liberty, and labour, are the chief possessions of the Maïnotes; who are nevertheless among the richest because among the least ambitious nations. They are not the barbarous piratical people which they have been often supposed to be, but obliging, respectable, and honest; worthy descendants of the antient Spartans. Their bravery, and the fastnesses in their hills, preserved their independence till within the last twenty years; when, by treachery on the part of the Turks, they were obliged nominally to surrender it. They agreed to pay a small tribute to the Porte; and to chuse from among themselves a Bey, and fifteen Captains, who are subordinate to him, and who preside over the fifteen districts · 9 into into which the country is divided. Previously to this nominal subjection to the Porte, this people had customs and usages to which they conformed, but absolutely no civil government nor magistracy. They can send into the field 15,000 men capable of bearing arms. The failure of the Russian attempt on the Morea is here ascribed, not as hitherto it has been to the cowardice of the Greeks, but to the treachery of Count Orlof. It is said that he never wished to achieve this conquest, but that his invasion of the Morea was a feint to divert the Turk from sending the whole of his forces towards the Black Sea. The sacrifice of the miserable Greeks to this policy he did not regard; and many traits of horrible and wanton treachery on his part, towards this unhappy people, are here related. from a laboured account of the oppressions of the Ottoman government, and of the sufferings of its Greek subjects, stated by these travellers to have come from the mouth of a Mainote, we shall make the following extracts: If a Greek appears in a rich habit, the lowest Turk will take out his knife and cut it in pieces. Throughout Romelia, a Greek male child is no sooner born, than the first Turk who hears of it sends his handkerchief to the father, and from that moment the child is his slave; if the father refuses the handkerchief, the Turk soon finds out a method of ruining both father and child. A Turk, however low, considers every Greek whom he meets as being at his command, and orders him as he pleases. A Greek islander was lately measuring out corn from his boat; a Turk on the pier ordered him to fetch fire to light his pipe; the Greek stopped to fill his sack, which wanted very little of being full; and the Turk, because he did not obey him instantly, shot him dead. A late Sultan, having made a law that no christians should have any red in their clothing, walked the streets of Constantinople in disguise, accompanied by four attendants, in order to hunt out offenders; and his followers struck off the heads of all persons who were found A shoemaker's lad sat on his in the least to transgress his order. stall, working and singing, with a red cap on his head; the Sultan no sooner saw it, than immediately the head and cap were whirled off together. Ali Bey kidnapped eleven Greeks from Tripolezza, and had them impaled, to avenge himself of an insult which he had received from the Pacha of that district.'-- :- Stravachi, a Greek, while a sort of intendant to the Beys of Wallachia and Transylvania, accumulated a large fortune. Repeated -vexations, which his wealth had brought on him, induced him to present himself before the Grand Seignior, whom he thus addressed :"Please your Highness, I am worth twelve millions of piastres; I have no child; thou sha' be my heir; guarantee my fortune to me for life." The Sultan, pleased with the offer, laid his and on the other's shoulder, and said, "enjoy thy fortune in safety." For some years he was unmolested: but, at last, they thought that my Ii3 he |