tropolis of many, and indeed many of the best, of those illustrious monuments which have conferred on Greece, whether ancient or modern, its greatest charm. A few years ago, and even at the commencement of the present century, our island could scarcely boast of more than a few insulated relics of Grecian sculpture in private collections: the Arundelian marbles at Oxford, disposed in a manner wholly unworthy of their importance, were almost the only public collection of any considerable value.

It was in the year 1808, that the celebrated Townleian marbles were first thrown open for public inspection in the British Museum. Mr. Townley, it is well known, had employed half a century in perfecting his extensive collection, both Greek and Roman; and soon after his death, in 1805, they were purchased by Parliament for the sum of 20,000l.

The public effect, however, of these numerous, and some of them most exquisite specimens, was not immediately visible; and indeed it was not till within the last two years, and since the purchase of the Phygalian, and still more especially the Elgin collection, that the taste of the nation for sculpture began decidedly to display itself. Artists and amateurs, it is true, had visited and studied the latter, at the residence of their noble proprietor, long before; but the public at large were not only dead to their beauties, but even ignorant of their existence. Indeed, we are not sure, even now, that the ardour excited by the Elgin marbles was not, at first, more owing to the peculiar circumstances which attended their removal, and the controversy to which it gave rise, than to any public relish for ancient sculpture. But at all events, however the taste might originate, there can be no doubt that, with such inimitable models under constant inspection, it will continue to improve; and in examining the poem before us, which our readers will soon perceive has a close relation to the preceding remarks, we shall take occasion to make a few observations upon the effects which such collections may be expected to produce upon the public mind. Greece has become more than ever interesting to us; we not only imagine, but actually see those efforts of genius, which we were accustomed, even by the bare description, to admire, without ever hoping to behold. In our own metropolis are exhibited those very pieces which were the boast of antiquity, and the school of rival genius; a new Athens has arisen within the walls of the British Museum, open with a becoming liberality to persons of every age, and sex, and nation, where may be constantly seen a considerable number of young men, emulously studying from the purest models the graces and sublimities of Roman or Grecian art, and preparing to transfer to British

canvas, or infuse into modern marble, all that adorned and dignified the proudest cities of the ancient world.

The very elegant and classical poem before us opens with a description of the sensations experienced by a feeling and enthusiastic mind, at the recollections excited by this "land of Phidias, theme of lofty strains." The whole train of pensive ideas is very sweetly and tenderly brought before the mind:

"Where soft the sunbeams play, the zephyrs blow,
'Tis hard to deem that misery can be nigh;
Where the clear heavens in blue transparence glow,
Life should be calm and cloudless as the sky;
-Yet o'er the low, dark dwellings of the dead,
Verdure and flowers in summer-bloom may smile,
And ivy-boughs their graceful drapery spread
In green luxuriance o'er the ruined pile;

And mantling woodbine veils the withered tree,-
And thus it is, fair land, forsaken Greece! with thee.
"For all the loveliness, and light, and bloom,
That yet are thine, surviving many a storm,
Are but as heaven's warm radiance on the tomb,
The rose's blush that masks the canker-worm :-
And thou art desolate-thy morn hath past
So dazzling in the splendour of its way,

That the dark shades the night hath o'er thee cast
Throw tenfold gloom around thy deep decay.

Once proud in freedom, still in ruin fair,

Thy fate hath been unmatch'd-in glory and despair." (P. 5.) Our author proceeds to exhibit an affecting picture of a Grecian outcast bursting the link that attached him to his own enslaved country, and wandering in search of that liberty which he cannot enjoy at home. In vain would he look to the East, where, though" earth is fruitfulness, and air is balm," man is still wretched and insecure, and tyrant and slave are the only forms of human existence. From Syria's mountains, therefore, and Yeman's groves, and the genii-haunted waves of Tigris, he turns to that new fair world,

"Whose fresh unsullied charms

Welcomed Columbus from the western wave;"

A world where, amidst the wild magnificence of nature, he hopes to rear his lonely bower, in primæval woods, which despots have never trod. Chateaubriand expressly mentions that he found Greek emigrants, who had thus settled themselves in the forests of Florida, a circumstance of which our author has properly taken advantage.

3

"There, by some lake, whose blue expansive breast
Bright from afar, an inland-ocean, gleams,
Girt with vast solitudes, profusely drest

In tints like those that float o'er poet's dreams;
Or where some flood from pine-clad mountain pours
Its might of waters, glittering in their foam,
Midst the rich verdure of its wooded shores,
The exiled Greek hath fix'd his sylvan home:
So deeply lone, that round the wild retreat

Scarce have the paths been trod by Indian huntsman's feet.

"The forests are around him in their pride,
The green savannas, and the mighty waves;
And isles of flowers, bright-floating o'er the tide,
That images the fairy world it laves,

And stillness, and luxuriance-o'er his head
The ancient cedars wave their peopled bowers,
On high the palms their graceful foliage spread,
Cinctured with roses the magnolia towers,

And from those green arcades a thousand tones

Wake with each breeze, whose voice through Nature's temple

moans.

"And there, no traces left by brighter days,
For glory lost may wake a sigh of grief,

Some grassy mound perchance may meet his gaze,

The lone memorial of an Indian chief.

There man not yet hath marked the boundless plain
With marble records of his fame and power;

The forest is his everlasting fane,

The palm his monument, the rock his tower.
Th' eternal torrent, and the giant tree,

Remind him but that they, like him, are wildly free." (P. 8, 9.)

But who ever relinquished home, and especially such a home as Greece, without a pang; or who, therefore, can be astonished that our wanderer sighs for his native gales, and pines amidst his day-dreams for a land which, although oppressed and blighted, is still endeared to him by every tender association.

"In vain for him the gay liannes entwine,

Or the green fire-fly sparkles through the brakes,
Or summer-winds waft odours from the pine,
As eve's last blush is dying on the lakes.
Through thy fair vales his fancy roves the while,
Or breathes the freshness of Citharon's height,
Or dreams how softly Athens' towers would smile,
Or Sunium's ruins, in the fading light;
On Corinth's cliff what sunset hues may sleep,
Or, at that placid hour, how calm th' Egean deep! -

**What scenes, what sunbeams, are to him like thine?
(The all of thine no tyrant could destroy!)

È'en to the stranger's roving eye they shine,
Soft as a vision of remembered joy.
And he who comes, the pilgrim of a day,
A passing wanderer o'er each Attic hill,
Sighs as his footsteps turn from thy decay,
To laughing climes, where all is splendour still;
And views with fond regret thy lessening shore,
As he would watch a star that sets to rise no more.

"Realm of sad beauty! thou art as a shrine
That Fancy visits with Devotion's zeal,
To catch high thoughts and impulses divine,
And all the glow of soul enthusiasts feel
Amidst the tombs of heroes-for the brave
Whose dust, so many an age, hath been thy soil,
Foremost in honour's phalanx, died to save
The land redeem'd and hallow'd by their toil;
And there is language in thy lightest gale,

That o'er the plains they won seems murmuring yet their tale."

(P. 10, 11.)

Our author continues to wander in imagination through the calmly pensive scenes which Greece presents to the view, till, aroused by "many a sad reality," which the bright illusions of fancy cannot veil, we are summoned to more desolate and painful images.

"Hast thou beheld some sovereign spirit, hurl'd
By Fate's rude tempest from its radiant sphere,
Doomed to resign the homage of a world,
For Pity's deepest sigh, and saddest tear?
Oh! hast thou watch'd the awful wreck of mind,
That weareth still a glory in decay?

Seen all that dazzles and delights mankind-
Thought, science, genius, to the storm a prey,

And o'er the blasted tree, the withered ground,

Despair's wild nightshade spread, and darkly flourish round?
"So may'st thou gaze, in sad and awe-struck thought,
On the deep fall of that yet lovely clime:

Such there the ruin Time and Fate have wrought,
So changed the bright, the splendid, the sublime!
There the proud monuments of Valour's name,
The mighty works Ambition piled on high,
The rich remains by Art bequeath'd to Fame-
Grace, beauty, grandeur, strength, and symmetry,
Blend in decay; while all that yet is fair

Seems only spared to tell how much hath perish'd there!

"There, while around lie mingling in the dust,
The column's graceful shaft, with weeds o'ergrown,
The mouldering torso, the forgotten bust,
The warrior's urn, the altar's mossy stone;
Amidst the loneliness of shattered fanes,
Still matchless monuments of other years,
O'er cypress groves, or solitary plains,
Its eastern form the minaret proudly rears;
As on some captive city's ruin'd wall

The victor's banner waves, exulting o'er its fall." (P. 15, 16.) The capture of Byzantium by the Turks, which opened the way for the subjugation of the whole country, is described with considerable point; and is followed by an animated apostrophe to the ancient heroes and demi-gods of the classic ages, whose tombs are now mouldered and forgotten, or remain only as a reproach to a degenerate race, unworthy of such ancestors. Yet still the physical features of the country survive, and inspire the homage of liberty:

"There, in rude grandeur, daringly ascends

Stern Pindus, rearing many a pine-clad height;
He with the clouds his bleak dominion blends,
Frowning o'er vales, in woodland verdure bright.
Wild and august in consecrated pride,

There through the deep-blue heaven Olympus towers,
Girdled with mists, light-floating as to hide
The rock-built palace of immortal powers;
Where far on high the sunbeam finds repose,

Amidst th' eternal pomp of forests and of snows.

"Those savage cliffs and solitudes might seem

The chosen haunts where Freedom's foot would roam;
She loves to dwell by glen and torrent-stream,

And make the rocky fastnesses her home.
And in the rushing of the mountain-flood,

In the wild eagle's solitary cry,

In sweeping winds that peal through cave and wood,
There is a voice of stern sublimity,

That swells her spirit to a loftier mood

Of solemn joy severe, of power, of fortitude." (P. 24, 25.)

Thus about to depart for ever from her favourite land, Liberty still lingered for a short time longer, on "Suli's frowning rocks, where a romantic mountain war, accompanied with all those scenes of interest and terror which usually characterize that species of contest, continued to be waged. Even women fought with enthusiasm in defence of their craggy citadels, and Holland relates, as an authentic story, that "a group of them assembled on one of the precipices adjoining the modern seraglio, and threw their infants into the chasm below, that they might not