GREECE.
and its inhabitants, after a long period of oblivion, have at length become objects of profound and general interest to the most enlightened nations of Europe. It was singular, indeed, that while clas sical scholars were immersed in the study of its poets, Orators, and historians, the country that gave birth to so many literary treasures, though neither distant nor Inaccessible, seemed to have been as completely for gotten, as if it had been blotted from the map of Eu rope. The learned contented themselves with sup posing, that the modern country was inhabited by runs and unknown tribes, governed by fanatical Turks, whose barbarous rule exposed travellers to continual insults and pillage, and had swept away all traces and memorials of the ancient glory of Greece. Besides, the country was not known to be distin guishedby its natural beauties ; and being confound ed with the torpid mass of the Ottoman empire, its political importance was reduced to nothing. Till a very late period,' the only intelligible accounts we had of the country were drawn from Strabo and Pau sanias. The inquiries of Spon and Wheler, Le Roy, and Stuart, which at length brought some of its pre cious antiquities to light, were chiefly addressed to artists and scholars. Chandler's Travels were not much better adapted for general use. But the work which, more than any other, contributed to render all subjects connected with Greece and its antiqui ties popular, was the Travels of Anacharsis. Pre vious to the appearance of this work, however, vari ous circumstances had contributed to bring the Greeks more conspicuously forward on the theatre of European affairs. While the general diffusion of education was increasing the number of those who felt an interest in classical subjects, the rise of the power of Russia, the connection she endeavoured to form with the Greeks, and her projects against Tur key, held out a probability, that Greece might spee dily regain some share of political importance. The Greeks themselves, by the desperate efforts they made in 1770, and again in 1790, gave a proof to the world, that their existence as a people, and their national feelings, had survived those destructive revolutions which were supposed to have overwhelmed them. When the political enthusiasm, created by the French Revolution, made the most gigantic plans of politi cal change appear easy, the emancipation of this long neglected country from the Turkish yoke was looked to as one of the most certain and gratifying triumphs of the new principles. Before the interest arising from this state of things had expired, circumstances of a different kind directed public attention more im mediately to Greece. The host of English travel
lers who had been accustomed to roam over the Con tinent, shut out from their usual routes by an extra ordinary combination of events, were forced into less frequented tracts, and numbers of them visited Greece. By these, and by a few individuals from other parts of Europe, a great part of the country has been explored, and a vast mass of information given to the public. Its topography and statistics are now better known than those of many of the nearer and more accessible parts of Europe. The revolutionary schemes, though not forgotten, have lost their im portance; but the classical interest of the country has been augmented tenfold, by vivid descriptions of its monuments and its scenery, which have rendered• many of the great events in its history familiar, as it were, to eye. It is now found, that Greece may be visited with as much ease and ,security as Italy, or any other country in the south of Europe ; that the modern Greeks, instead of being the mixed pzo geny of obscure and barbarous tribes, possess a re spectable degree of civilization, and great capacities of improvement ; that they have preserved the fea tures and national character of their ancestors with surprising distinctness ; and that their dialect does not deviate much farther from the language of Plato and Demosthenes, than that of Chaucer does from the English of the present day. Independently, too, of its other attractions, Greece surpasses Italy, and perhaps every other country in the world, in the beauty of its scenery. Its antiquities are not like those of the latter country, accumulated chiefly up on a single spot. They are scattered over a wide surface,—associated with a variety of scenery,—pre senting memorials of many separate people, distin guished by differences of character, habits, and civi lization. Its monuments, compared, with those of Rome, breathe a purer taste, a finer moral spirit, and bespeak a sublimer genius ; they tell of brighter and better times ; of characters and actions, more sur prising, generous, and romantic. Some of them transport the mind back to those remote times, where truth and fable are blended,—to those delightful fic tions which bear the impress of the genius of the people more distinctly than the real events of their history. No country, in short, presents greater attractions to a well informed traveller; and as, in future, it will certainly be included in every classi cal tour, we may reasonably expect that, in a short .time, every part of it will be completely explored.