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Arbiter, an geminæ convertant æthera mentes.—101.
quæ flamma per auras
Excutiat rutilos tractus, aut fulmina velox
Torqueat, aut tristem figat crinita cometen.-110.
urbemque carinis

Vexit, et arsuras Medo subduxit Athenas.-151.

largo ditescat arena

Sanguine: consumant totos spectacula montes.-308.

With these two exceptions, Claudian's conclusions are in general rather lame.

Claudian's heroics, like Thomson's blank verse, frequently deviate into couplets;1 several instances of which occur in the above-quoted poem. He seldom admits more than three dactyls in a line; scarcely ever so many as five. It is not unfrequent with him to begin a line with a word consisting of a spondee; a practice to which Virgil is decidedly adverse, except in certain cases. He is fond of the pause on the first syllable of the fourth foot, which he not unfrequently repeats for several lines together.

We shall conclude with a few observations on the individual poems of Claudian.

In 1812 a translation of the Rufinus and the Rape of Proserpine was published in blank verse by Mr. Strutt. Blank verse, lofty and ornate as it is, is not susceptible of the peculiar march, or the style of ornament, which characterise Claudian's hexameters. If it were worth while to transfer his writings to our language, the heroic couplet, as modelled by Pope, would be a more appropriate vehicle. Hughes, Cowley, and others, have translated particular pieces; but besides the one mentioned in Gessner's catalogue of translations, as follows: " 1628. 4. translated by L. Digges, Harl. III. 365," we hear of a complete version of Claudian in our language, by a Mr. Hawkins.

"It is common with Virgil to include a sentence in three lines.

287

NOTICE OF

The Topography of Athens, with some Remarks on its Antiquities; with an Atlas of Plates: by LIEUT. COLONEL W. M. LEAKE, R. A. L. L. D. F. R. S, Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin. 8vo. Murray. London.

THAT we were justified in expecting more than common gratification from the work above-named, will be readily admitted by all who are acquainted with the author's powerful talents, his classical attainments, and the favorable opportunities of which he has so ably availed himself in the prosecution of his literary and geographical researches. We now acknowledge that this volume has most amply satisfied our expectations, with regard to its principal subject, the Topography of Athens; and afforded more instruction than we could have anticipated in the antiquarian remarks which its title-page professes, and in the historical, critical and philological observations incidentally scattered throughout its various sections. There are, most probably, few among our readers who have not experienced certain feelings, which we shall not attempt to describe, arising from the contemplation of ancient ruins; but these feelings are in a particular manner awakened by the remains of cities long since fallen to decay. Of some, the existing monuments may claim admiration by their beauty; they may surprise or even astonish by their magnitude or uncommon style of architecture; and they may excite our curiosity by the mysterious inscriptions and devices which they exhibit. Thus the Egyptian city of an hundred gates,' and the Persepolitan hall of a thousand columns.'We can feel, however, but little interest concerning those who founded, or in former ages inhabited either Thebes or Persepolis, until, by deciphering the hieroglyphical or cuneiform characters in which their inscriptions consist, or from some other source of information not yet discovered, we have learned who they were and what memorable actions they performed. But to the very name of Athens are associated the most delightful recollections; and amidst its ruins our imagination peoples every spot with illustrious heroes, legislators, philosophers, orators and poets; whose forms the ancient artists have rendered

familiar to our eyes, while from early youth we have been intimately acquainted with the minute anecdotes of their public history or private life. We almost forget that twenty or thirty centuries have elapsed since they existed; we tread the ground marked by their footsteps; the edifices and sculptures on which we gaze, are those which they daily beheld; the same inscriptions that attracted their eyes, we read and understand; perhaps the marble fragment on which we recline, once served to support the person of Themistocles or Alcibiades; perhaps the modern dwelling which we occupy covers that spot, where once stood the mansion of Pericles, or of the fascinating Aspasia. But we must check such excursions of imagination, and proceed to the notice of Colonel Leake's valuable work.

In the Introduction (which fills above an hundred pages, and forms a highly interesting portion of this volume) our learned author calls the reader's recollection to such passages in the history of Athens, whether real or fabulous, as seem most necessary to the illustration of its Topography and Antiquities; and he takes a rapid, but masterly view of the city's progressive ruin.

'There can be no stronger proof,' says he, (p. i.) 'of the early civilisation of Athens than the remote period to which its history is carried in a clear and consistent series. We have some reason to believe that Cecrops, an Egyptian, who brought from Sais the worship of Neith (by the Athenians called 'Ahvn) was contemporary with Moses. It is probable that even before that time the worship of Jupiter had been introduced into Athens from Crete. The rock of the Acropolis, which at that early period contained all the habitations of the Athenians, received from Cecrops the name of Cecropia.'

We shall briefly enumerate those whom Athenian tradition has recorded as the successors of Cecrops.-1. Amphictyon.— 2. Erectheus the first, whose identity with Ericthonius our author establishes.-3. Pandion the first, in whose reign it is supposed the Eleusinian mysteries were instituted by Triptolemus.4. Erectheus the second.-5. Ægeus, and 6. Theseus, who by founding the Prytaneium as a court of judicature common to all Attica, and establishing the Panathenæa as a festival for the whole province, rendered Athens pre-eminent above the other eleven cities of that country, about the year 1300 before Christ.

To the Pelasgi, a people of uncertain origin, who came to Athens from the northward (about 1192 years before Christ), Col. Leake thinks the Athenians indebted for the fortifications of their Acropolis, although they had themselves already built several temples; and it is not improbable, he adds, that they taught the Greeks that polygonal masonry which distinguishes

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some of their most ancient works of defence, and which it has been customary to denominate Cyclopian, but without much propriety. (P. vii.) In the sixth century before Christ Athens attained a high degree of splendor and civilisation under the ambitious, but humane, enlightened and patriotic Pisistratus, who, and his sons, fixed the muses there by establishing a public library and editing the works of Homer. Our author is not very willing to believe that, as Herodotus (ix. 13.) relates, all the streets and public buildings of Athens had been completely ruined by the Persians, and subsequently renewed from their foundations. It appears according to Pausanias, 'that there still remained at Athens, at a late period, several monuments of an age anterior to the Persian war.' (P. xii.) The barbarians probably directed their vengeance against the works of defence, and some of the most important public edifices. We may believe that they so completely destroyed the great Temple of Minerva, that Themistocles did not scruple to use its ruins in repairing the Acropolis; but of the Odeium, the Erectheium, Lenæum, Anaceium, the Temples of Venus, Vulcan and Apollo Pythius, the destruction was confined to the roofs and combustible parts only; so that they were probably left, together with a great number of the smaller fanes and heroa, in such a state that it was not difficult to restore them. The new buildings which rose at Athens in the half century of her highest renown and riches, may be divided into those erected under the administrations of Themistocles, of Cimon, and of Pericles.' (P. xii.) Among these were the Temple of Theseus, the Pocile, the Dionysiac theatre, the Stoæ, Gymnasia, and others. Pericles completed the military works which Themistocles had conceived and Cimon partly executed; but we must regard as his chief work the entire construction, from their foundations, of those magnificent buildings, the mystic Temple of Eleusis, the Parthenon, and the Propylæa; in all which we are at a loss whether most to admire the rapidity or the perfection of the execution.' (P. xiv.) In the first century before Christ the military importance of Athens expired with the destruction of the Peiraic fortifications by Sylla; and within the next century her navy was almost extinct, and the maritime city was reduced to a cluster of habitations round each of the ports.

'But the respect which the arms or the political influence of Athens could no longer command, was still paid to the recollection of her former glory: to her having been from the era of the battle of Marathon almost the sole depository of the science and literature of Greece, and to her still continuing to be the school in which were found the most

skilful artists, and the best productions in architecture, sculpture and painting.' (P. xxii.)

ness.

The Romans (even in some degree Sylla himself) treated Athens with filial respect and indulgence; Julius Cæsar, Antony, Augustus, Germanicus, and others protected, favored or embellished the city-but Hadrian is conspicuous among her illustrious benefactors. Athens was most splendid in the age of the Antonines, when she exhibited the accumulated magnificence of eight or ten centuries, and whilst the Pericleian monuments were still unimpaired. Plutarch describes the works of Ictinus, Mnesicles, and Phidias, which had been already exposed to the attacks of six hundred winters, as still possessing all their original freshNot many years after Plutarch Greece was explored by another writer, to whom we chiefly owe our knowledge of its ancient topography, and of the treasures which it contained in various productions of the arts of design. The classical reader will anticipate our allusion to Pausanias; concerning whose age, travels and compositions, Col. Leake offers many curious and interesting observations, and an estimate of his excellencies and defects compared with those of Strabo. It appears (from p. xxxviii.) that Greece Proper did not suffer so much from Roman spoliation as either Sicily or Asiatic Greece. Impressed with veneration for a common religion, the Romans respected Athens as almost sacred; they regarded her as the mother of learning and the arts; and as they advanced in Grecian civilisation an opinion prevailed among the opulent at Rome that their education was incomplete without the study of Greek literature, and a residence at Athens.' (P. xliii.) The only Roman emperors who took from Greece the productions of art, are Caligula and Nero; but Pliny informs us that there still remained at Athens, after Nero's spoliation, three thousand statues: few were probably taken from that city; for superstition rendered him afraid to visit a place reputed the abode of those Furies, whose vengeance he dreaded on account of the same crime for which they had tormented Orestes. In overthrowing Pagan temples and destroying statues, the early Christians appear to have almost confined their excesses within the Asiatic provinces; Athens was particularly favored by the Byzantine emperorsConstantine gloried in being appointed σrparnyòs of that city; the schools of philosophy and literature were protected-the Church of Athens, though said to have been founded by St. Paul, was still one of the most obscure in Greece; but little opposition was made to Polytheism in its strong hold; from the spirit of tolerance inherent in the Athenian religion,

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