11 OCTOBER 1890, Page 43

Greek Pictures, Drawn with Pen and Pencil. By J. P.

Mahaffy. (Religious Tract Society.)—This is, as may be supposed, not the least interesting of a series of which we have spoken more than once with well-deserved praise, the "Pen and Pencil" series of illustrated books of travel. Professor Mahaffy begins by quoting from his own "Rambles and Studies in Greece" his first ins-

pressions of the country, felt and recorded about twenty years ago. He goes on to repeat the very interesting remark that, with the exception of Ithaca and Corcyra (perhaps he might have added Sphacteria), "all the importance of Greece looks eastward ; and the Ionian or the Adriatic side is the out-of-the-way, the back- ward, the forgotten part of the country." The third chapter treats of Corinth, the fourth of Megara, Eleusis, and Daphne (this last a Byzantine convent not far from Athens). To Athens three chapters are given, the last of them dealing with" Christian Athens." Chaps. viii. and ix. treat of Bceotia, Phocis, and Delphi; Chaps. x. to xiii. describe the Peloponnese; the fourteenth, "Northern Greece ;" and that which concludes the volume, "The Greek Aspects of Macedonia." This last gives a brief account of the monasteries of Mount Athos. All through Professor Mahaffy gives us a judicious admixture of the ancient and modern, about both of which he is, indeed, thoroughly competent to write. The illus- trations, taken in a large degree from photographs, are numerous and interesting; but, as Professor Mahaffy remarks, "there is much yet to be done in the way of making the fine scenery of Thessaly, Laconia, and Arcadia, as familiar by means of sketches and photographs, as Norway or Russia or Spain." Unhappily, the "terror of the Greek brigand" is not wholly unfounded, as we are painfully reminded by the fact that some of the engravings reproduce photographs taken by Mr. Michael Macmillan. The terror is increased when one seas that ordinary shepherds may be quite as dangerous as brigands.