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remarkably similar both in its own character and that of the surrounding scenery to some of the harbours in the west Highlands of Scot land. Many buildings have also been already erected there since the Constitution; and if modern Athens ever become a place of importance again the Pyræus will no doubt be the place where the commercial part of the community will chiefly reside. It is distant from Athens about five miles, and at this day there are still to be seen here and there fragments of the long walls which formerly united the port and the city. On approaching Athens the eye soon fixes on the Acropolis, although the view of this most noble rock and citadel is most provokingly interfered with, by the insignificant monument of Philopappus on the neighbouring hill. Notwithstanding this however the Acropolis when seen from this road is all that can be wished and the traveller only longs to be nearer. Nor has he to wait long; for soon after, he finds himself passing the Temple of Theseus; and soon after, he is in Athens. And what is the impressiou which the modern city makes on him who has a good idea of what the ancient city was? Nothing can be poorer or more insignificant than modern Athens when viewed in relation to the ruins which lies around and beneath. It looks like a mere incrustation or disease of the skin on the giant form of a most noble city whose rains are rising up every where. The streets are dirty and narrow, the houses generally very mean, and the shops in many of them only one degree better than Cingalese bazaars. How melancholy it must have been but a few years ago when the mighty dead, whose tombs beautified every rising ground, and the ruins of whose city around fill the soul of the beholder with such solemn yet delightful contemplatious, had no other representatives among the living, except the abject tenants of that most pitiful town. But a new era has opened upon Greece. Constitutional liberty has been restored. A monarchy has been established. There is public confidence in the state. Men of capital from other countries are coming to invest it and settle in Greece. An Athenian begins to feel himself again to be somebody. Education is so liberally encouraged by the Government that out of 20,000 which is the number of inhabitants of Athens, 2,000 are now in training either in the university, the Gynasium or inferior schools. And what it is most delightful to consider is the fact that the clergy of the Greek Church are among the foremost not only to countenance the spread of knowledge but to avail themselves of it Neither do they forbid the popular use of the Bible as the Romish clergy do. The English and American missionaries are also doing much for the elevation of the Athenians to a purer form of christianity. In a word nothing appears to be interfering with the progress of the nation, but Russian influ ence; which indeed may justly excite not a few anxieties, especially when it is considered that neither the King nor the Queen have proved themselves capable of much. Let us hope however that King Otho will yet prove himself worthy of the throne of Greece. The young man is certainly not destitute of spirit, as the

following anecdote will prove. One of the days we spent in Greece was the great festival-monday by which the Greek church usher in lent. All the Athenians, and all the peasantry of the neighbourhood were assembled in the fields and gardens which he around the temple of Jupiter Olympias, and there they danced and sang and played all day, in groups of friends consisting of from ten to twenty in number. When the fête was at the height the King and Queen accompanied by several ladies and gentlemen of the court rode over the ground, and when passing one of the happy groups a fine looking fellow stepped out of the circle, and with one hand a kimbo held out to the King as he passed a flask of wine with the other. It was a trying moment for an unpopular monarch. It was known that he was to visit the scene; and might it sot have been a cup of poison? However it was no sooner offered than he laid hold of it, and saying to the giver " viva" drank it gallantly off.

But let us spend a day among the ruins. And first let us visit the Acropolis. It is too painful to be kept off longer by that lofty Turkish embrazured wall, which surrounds the whole citadel like a curtain, and permit us to see the beautiful tops merely, of the Propylas the Erectlcium and the Parthenon. But in leaving the hotel we may as well visit the prison of Socrates and the Areopagus on the way. The former is an artificial cavern hewn out in the face of a rock which fronts the Acropolis, and which indeed is so unlike the place where one expects the philosopher (or rather the moralist) to have been confined, that one can scarcely prevent himself from being visited by fears that Socrates was never there. But indeed how often is it all over with association, if we venture to look at evidence in other cases as well as this? Certain it is however, that one sees a cave in a rock which is pointed out to the visitor as the prison of Socrates. And if one pleases he may make enquiries upon the spot. We did 80. But it cannot be said that the result was very satisfactory. At the door of the cave, when we were there, stood a picturesque old man feeding an ass, and within, there hung upon a string the raw skins of three goats; and this was all. In these circumstances we addressed onrselves to the old man and asked him if this was the prisoner of Socrates But he only grinned at us. Again making a change in the questioner we asked him in the best modern greek (for one of our party could speak it), but he only grinned the mote and shook his head; and when we were answering his silence by much conversation he stooped down and untied his ass and went off from us; and several times that we looked back in his direction, as we walked away, we still saw the old ass-keeper grinning at us. When standing at the mouth of this prison the Areopagus srtetches out before the eye, a rocky round-backed ridge, of which the highest part approaches so near the Areopagus that it is separated from it by a narrow ravine only. That is also the aspect of the gateway into the Acropolis. Let us than walk along and ascend. The door will be opened for a foreigner at any time but lest the visiter should carry away any of the relics a custode

is always sent along with him. After entering the gate the visitor ascends by a tortuous path irregularly walled on both sides, and strewed beneath with fragments often sculptured of snow white marble, the Parian (which was used for the most exquisite parts) distinguishing itself from the Centelic by its greater transparency and larger granulations. The first object that arrests the eye on ascending is the Propylæ or ancient gateway, which has lately been so successfully uncovered that a distinct idea of its original beauty may be formed; and truly that beauty must have been exquisite. The Doric columns which still semain are at once so beautiful and so noble, so graceful and yet so manly, that for the moment one wonders why any other order save the Doric should ever be imitated in modern times. But yet beautiful as the Propylæ is, it sinks into utter insignificance when after walking on about a hundred yards the spectator finds himself looking up to the columus of the Parthenon. This truly noble temple even in its ruins is grand beyond comparison or description ; and all that it has lost in favour of the British museum scarcely alters its aspect or takes from its general appearance. Its structure is so well known that it need not now be described. It may be remarked, however, that no description or drawing can give any just idea of its grandeur, or of that peculiar aspect of solidity which impresses the beholder with the certainty that it had been designed for eternity, of which indeed it still seems to breathe. But all exquisite as the ruins of the Parthenon are, who will say they are more exquisite than those of the Erectheium which stands by its side. On gazing at the beautiful Ionic temple which forms part of this building one is tempted now to question whether the Ionic order be not after all more beautiful than the Doric. But let him not compare them as rivals nor think that he will ever decide such a question on such a theme; let hiin but muse while he descends and till he finds himself gazing on the beautiful Corinthian columns of the Temple of Jupiter Olympius, and when there possibly he will settle the question so far by declaring that the Corinthian is the most beautiful of all the three. The truth is that all the three are most beautiful, each has its own features which are all admirable, while there is not a bad point about any one of them. The Greeks appear to have exhausted the science of the beautiful in architecture and sculpture, if not in all the fine arts. So exquisite was the taste of that people, that they appear to have carried these arts to a degree of perfection which cannot be surpassed nor ever equalled otherwise than by a perfect imitation. In sculpture the moderns have excelled just in the proportion that they have approximated the Greek models, and in architecture the same is true-excepting in relation to the Gothic which is a new idea, altogether distinct from any which the Greeks appear to have worked upon, and which though very censurable in many points of view is yet singularly pictoresque, beautiful and grand, and worthy of being placed by the side as a rival in beauty of any thing that is Greek. There are Gothic buildings in England which though no doubt expressing quite another idea, are yet at once so venerable, and so noble, that

the eye when viewing them as they stand "Bosom'd high in tuited trees" would not turn away from them though the Parthenon itself standing on the Acropolis were placed by their side.

But here let us cut short our criticism and turn for a moment to the Greeks themselves. And shall we not say at once that we think very much may be expected if not from the present generation, yet certainly from their children? Now that they begin to breathe as freemen, and to be instructed in the patriotism and glory of their forefathers may we not safely expect, that that character for timidity and untruth, which they have been so accused of, will vanish, and something at least better than that of a Turk appear in its stead. The men even ΠΟΥ are certainly a very fine looking race. Their physical aspect is full of promise. Why it is that the Women are so inferior and indeed so plain that nothing entitled in any degree to the name of beauty was any where to be seen, was a problem which perplexed us all.

If there be any thing that will prevent Greece from rising among the nations it will be the sterility of its soil, a state of things which seems to apply not only to a great part of Negropont, but also to a great part of the Kingdom north of the Isthmus. If any thing could be more wild and desolate-looking than the country round Cape Matapan with its piratical villages of Suliotes, it is that round Athens-Mount Penteticus and Hymettas, the island of Salamis and Egina are far more pleasing to the ear than the eye, and except a wood of stinted olive trees and two or three date palms there are no trees visible any where within the compass of the horizon. It may be however that the country looks very different on a summerday. When we were there, though it was the second of Mareh, it snowed almost without intermission, and the wind was so peircingly cold that we could not manage any how or any where to make ourselves comfortably warm. But yet we were in Athens, and the fact that when we were watching the thinning away of the snow showers it was the Temple of Theseus or the Parthenon, or some other exquisite ruin that the eye discovered, more than reconciled us to the weather-Yes, there is a charm about Athens which it is in vain to attempt to describe.

Notes from Home.

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LITERARY NOVELTIES.-The Cashmere Shawl; an eastern romance. By C. White Esq. A Year's Residence among the Circassians, By D. A. Longworth Esq. Journal of a Residence in Circassia. By J. S. Bell Esq. The Budget of the Bubble Family. By Lady Bulwer. The British Army as it was, is, and ought to be. By Lieut. Col: J. Campbell. The Indian Revenue System, as it is. By H. Tuckett Esq. An account of the recent persecution of the Jews at Damascus. By D. Solomons Esq. The Last Days of a Condemned: from the french of Victor Hugo. By Sir P. H. Fleetwood.

A German Journal states, that, M. de Kiegler of Perth has invented a Machine for composition in printing

which effects an entire revolution in that art.

The Machine which is of an Octagon form has as many divi

sions as there are letters in the alphabet, and on pressure the letters fall out and take their places in the required order. The composition goes on it is said with such rapidity, that a single workman can compose the matter for a large sheet in less than an hour and a half. The distribution of the type when done with, is said

to be carried on with still greater speed and facility. A Cylinder is turned, and the letters are restored in regular order to the divisions from which they were taken. It is asserted that a large sheet and a half of type may be thus distributed in one hour. The Journal from which we take this account says that the process has been witnessed by the University of Perth, and that the Russian Ambassador at Vienna having heard of the invention, and received the particulars of it, immedi ately ordered a Machine for the Emperor Nicolas. We give this extraordinary statement as we find it, and must wait for further accounts before we can give entire credit to it, for the mode of distribution alluded to sur

prizes us more than the composition. Something of the kind was attempted in England a great many years ago, and completely failed.

new invention at Pesth, in Hungary, for composing and distributing printing. types by means of mechanism, that two Frenchmen have invented a machine for the same purpose, by which' they say they have produced even su perior results to those which have been' obtained by the machine at Pesth.Patents for this discovery, says the Débats, were applied for in England and in France.

FATE OF POETS.-There thousand and twenty three poets in the are five, United States. Of these, ninety-four and eleven in the lunatic asylums, and are in the states prisons, five hundred two hundred and eighty in the debtors' prison.

NEW ENGINE OF WAR.-M. Billot

has invented a machine which discharges 2,000 balls, of half a pound each, every minute, or 120,000 per hour without

cessation. Its action may be continued or arrested at the will of the party in charge of it. The discharge takes place at four different points, and may be directed at as many objects, or united against one. The machine weighs about 85lb., and its range is about 3,280 feet; but, if one were constructed of about 8cwt., its range would be quad

rupled. The use of the machine does not depend upon gunpowder air, or steam, as a motive power.

Lieutenant Janvier, of the French navy, is said to have discovered the means of getting up the steam of engines with such rapidity, that in ten minutes from the first lighting of the fire, and although the water in the boiler be quite cold, a vessel may be set in motion. This is, it is added, to be accomplished without any additional apparatus, and very little expense.

BALLOONS.--The Paris papers give an account of a remarkable invention, which, if it be correctly described, there is nothing to prevent balloons being at once adopted in lieu of omnibusses. The experiment of which the papers have days ago, a small group of the learned cognizance is the following:- -a few

and noble, which included M. Chateaubriand, M. de Tocqueville, the Duc The Débats states, in allusion to the de Noailles, and M. Ampere, were as

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