SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

CLASSICAL ILLUSTRATION,

The History of the Manners and Customs of Ancient Greece. By J. A. St. John. In three volumes TRAVELS,

Recollections of Siberia. in the Years 1890 and 1841. By Charles Herbert Cottrell, Esq. Parker.

ST. JOHN'S ANCIENT GREECE.

Fitom a feeling dedication to his son, we learn that this work has not only occupied the author many years of research among books, and some time in a pilgrimage to the countries connected with his subject, but that, like other writers of higher celebrity, his sight has sunk under the demands upon it, and that towards the con- elusion of his volumes his children have served him as amanuenses and readers in foreign tongues.

The object of The History of the Manners and Customs of An- cient Greece is to describe the institutions, moral character, and private life of the Greeks. " It has been my aim," says Mr. Sr. JOHN, " to open up, as far as possible, a prospect into the domestic economy of a Grecian family ; the arts, comforts' conveniences, and regulations, affecting the condition of private life i • and those customs and manners which communicated a peculiar character and colour to the daily intercourse of Greek citizens. For, in all my investigations about the nature and causes of those ancient lush. tutions which during so many ages constituted the glory and hap- piness of the most highly-gifted race known to history, I found my attention constantly directed to the circumstances of their private life, from which, as from a great fountain, all their public prospe, rity and grandeur seem to spring." The plan of the work, or rather the choice and succession of its topics, is not altogether founded upon this view. In the earlier chapters Mr. ST. JOHN discusses more public subjects,—as, who were the original inhabitants of Greece ? what was the moral and intellectual character of the Greeks as a people ?—besides describing the geographical character of the country, and the prominent fea- tures of the two principal cities, Athens and Sparta. At a more advanced part of the work, he passes in review the literary, philo- sophical, and artistical character of the Grecians, as displayed generally and in particular persons ; and gives an account of their religion, agriculture, navigation, and commerce, as well as the prac- tice of infanticide, and the condition of the slaves and of the poor. With these rather large exceptions, the subjects of the work are pretty closely confined to what is understood by private or domestic life, and that literally from before the cradle to the grave ; the Birth of Children opening the second book, and Funeral Ceremonies closing the third volume. Between these two extremes, he de scribes the nursery, with the toys, sports and pastimes of child- hood, elementary instruction and school-days, with the exercises of youth, and the field-sports of all ages. Turning from these mas- culine matters to the ladies, Mr. Sr. Joniv describes, but it strikes us too panegyrically, the condition, accomplishments, and ac- quirements of women, both in married and single life, with a slight notice of that class of which ASPASIA was the head. Fol- lowing these are many other topics of a very miscellaneous natilre, but relating to private life,—as furniture food, entertainments ; and the trades contributing thereto,—as bakers, vintners, barbers, goldsmiths, musical-instrument-makers ; together with a few sub- jects, that, embracing classes or embodying some general principle, probably belong to a higher grade,—as the descriptions of villas and private houses, the management of the farm, the orchard, and the garden.

It will be seen from this account, that the idea of the work cannot in strictness be called original; a notice of some of its topics being found in various writers, who have treated of the institutions and manners rather than of the history of the Greeks. The general arrangement, and the fulness with which each subject is treated, give it, however, a cast of novelty. But perhaps the true originality of the work consists in its execution; which is of a much more popular and readable character than books professing to describe the life and man- ners of the classical ages usually are. To great research, as well among original authorities as modern commentators, Mr. Sr. Jona conjoins the habits and art of popular composition, which POTTER, ADAMS, and the German archseologists, certainly do not possess. Our author has the further advantage over some of these scholars, of having travelled in Greece and Egypt, with his atten- tion directed to ancient remains and modern practices ; which often enables him to throw a kind of living light upon the customs of anti- quity. Hence, The History of the Manners and Customs of Ancient Greece is far more amusing than any work of a similar description, so long as it confines itself to manners and customs. Even a cer- tain diffuseness of style, and (upon such subjects) an unwonted pleasantry of manner, contribute to this end, without in any de- gree detracting from the force of the facts, in a clear and ex- tremely agreeable exhibition of which these sections of the work chiefly consist. The character of the larger and better portion of Ancient Greece is, however, more readily exhibited by specimens than de- scribed by terms. Here we have

GREEK NURSERIES.

Our readers, we trust, will not be reluctant to enter a Greek nursery, where the mother, whatever might be the number of her assistants, generally suckled her own children. Their cradles were of various forms ; some of which, like our own, re9uired rocking, while others were suspended like sailors' hammocks from the ceiling, and swung gently to and fro when they desired to pacify the child, or lull it to sleep—as Tithonos is represented in the mythology to have been suspended in his old age. Other cradles there were in the shape of little por- table baskets, wherein they were carried from one part of the harem to another. It is probable, too, that, as in the East, the children of the opulent were rocked in their cradles wrapped in coverlets of Milesian wool.. Occasionally in Hellas, as everywhere else, the nurse's milk would fail or be scanty ; when they had recourse to a very original contrivance to still the in- fant's cries—they dipped a piece of sponge in honey which was given it to suck. It was probably under similar circumstances that children were indulged in figs; the Greeks entertaining an opinion that this fruit greatly contributed to render them plump and healthy. They had further a superstition, that by rubbing fresh figs upon the eyes of children they would be preserved from optbalmia.

The Persians attributed the same preventive power to the petals of the new- blown rose. When a child was wholly or partly dry-nursed, the girl who had charge of it would under pretence of cooling its pap, commonly made of fine flour of spelt, put the spoon into her own mouth, swallow the best part of the nourishment, and give the refuse to the infant ; a practice attributed by Aristo- phenes to Cleon, who swallowed, he says, the beet of the good things of the state himself; and left the residue to the people.

CLASSICAL TOYS AND GAMES.

Among the Hellenee the earliest toy consisted, as in most other countries, of

the rattle ; said to be the invention of the philosopher Archytas. To this suc- ceeded halls of many colours, with little chariots, sometimes purchased at Athens in the fair held during the feast of Zeuus. The common price of a plaything of this kind would appear to have been an obolos. The children themselves, as without any authority might with certainty be inferred, employed their time in erecting walls with sand, in constructing little houses, in building and carving ships, in cutting carts or chariots out of leather, in fashioning pomegranate rinds into the shape of frogs, and in forming with wax a thousand diminutive images, which, pursued afterwards during school .hours, subjected them occasionally to severe chastisement. Another amusement, which the children of Hellas shared with their elders,

was that afforded by puppets; which were probably an invention of the remotest antiquity. Numerous women appear to have earned their livelihood by carry- ing round from village to village these ludicrous and frolicsome images, which were usually about a cubit in height, and may be regarded as the legitimate ancestors of Punch and Judy. By touching a single string, concealed from the spectators, the operator could put her mute performers in action, cause them to move every limb in succession, spread forth the hands, shrug the shoulders, turn round the neck, roll the eyes, and appear to look at the audience. After this, by other contrivances within the images, they could be made to go through many humorous evolutions resembling the movements of the dance. These exhibitors', frequently of the male sex, were known by the name of Near°-

sputa. , The game of Ascoliaennos branched off into several varieties, and afforded the

Athenian rustics no small degree of sport. The first and most simple form consisted in hopping on one foot, sometimes iu peke, to see which in this way could go farthest. On other occasions the hopper undertook to overtake cer- tain of his companions who were allowed the use of both legs. If he could touch one of them he came off conqueror. This variety of the game appears to have been the Empuese ludas of the Romans, "Scotch hoppers," or "Fox to thy hole," in which boys, bopping on one leg, beat one another with gloves or pieces of leather tied at the end of strings, or knotted handkerchiefs, as in the "Diable bolteux" of the French. At other times victory depended on the number of hops, all hopping together and counting their springs—the highest of course winning. But the most amusing variety of the game was that practised during the Dionysiac festival of the Askolia. Skins filled with wine or inflated with air, and extremely well oiled, were placed upon the ground, and on these the shoeless rustics leaped with one leg and endeavoured to maintain a footing, which they seldom could on account of their slipperiness, However, he who

succeeded carried off the skin of wine as his prize. • • * Playing at ball was common, and received various names—Episkyros,

Phseninda, Aporraxis, and Ourama. The first of these games was also known by the names of the Ephebike and the Epikoinos. It was played thus : a number of young men assembling together in a place covered with sand or dust, drew across it a straight line, which they called Skyros, and at equal dis- tances, on either side, another line ; then placing the ball on the Skyros, they divided into two equal parties, and retreated each to their lines, from which they immediately afterwards rushed forward to seize the ball; the person who picked it up then cast it towards the extreme line of the opposite party, whose business it was to intercept and throw it back ; and they won who by force or cunning compelled their opponents to overstep the boundary line. Daniel flouter contends that this was the English game of football, into which perhaps it may, in course of time, have been converted. This rough and, it must be confessed, somewhat dangerous sport, originally, in all probabi- lity, introduced into this country by the Romans, may still on Shrove Tuesday be witnessed in certain towns of South Wales.

SUPERSTITIONS.

There was not in later times, perhaps, that boundless faith in spells and transformations still subsisting in the East. But in the earlier ages, and in the gloomy mountain-recesses of Arcadia, events equally strange were sup- posed to have happened. Thus Lycaon having sacrificed an infant to Zeus Lycssoe, and sprinkled the blood upon the altar, immediately became a wolf; and it was reported that any one who performed this dreadful sacrifice, and afterwards by accident tasted any of the human entrails, when mingled with those of other victims, forthwith underwent the same transformation. Thus we find the gloomy legend of the Breton forests existing in the heart of the Peloponnesos where there can, I fear, be little doubt, that human victims were habitually Offered up. Another ancient superstition, which found its way into Italy, was, that a person first seen by a wolf lost his voice; whereas if the man obtained the prior glimpse of the animal no evil ensued.

The belief in ghosts, coeval no doubt with man, flourished especially among

the Greeks. Heeled entertained peculiar notions on this subject, which some suppose to have been borrowed from the East; that is, he believed that the good men of former times became, at their decease, guardian spirits, and were intrusted with the care of future races. Plato adopts these ghosts, and gives them admission into his Republic, where they perform an important part and receive peculiar honours. When they appeared, as sometimes they would, by day, their visages were pale and their forms unsubstantial like the creations of a dream. But, as among us, they chiefly affected the night for their gambols, and in Arcadia particularly, would appear to honest people returning home We in cross-roads and such places; whence they were not to be dislodged but by being pelted, apparently by pellets made from bread-crumb, on which men had wiped their fingers, carefully preserved for this purpose by the good folks shout Phigaleia.

The most remarkable prank played by any ancient ghosts, however, with

whose history I am acquainted, did not take place in Greece, but in the Cam- pagna di Horns; where, after a bloody battle between the Romans and the Huns, in which all but the generals and their staff bit the dust, two spectral armies, the ghosts of the fallen warriors, appeared upon the field to enact the contest over again. During three whole days did these valiant souls of heroes, as the Homeric phrase is carry on the struggle ; and the historian who relates the fact is careful to observe that they did not fall short of living soldiers either in fire or courage. People saw them distinctly charge each other, and heard the clash of their arms. Similar exhibitions were to be seen in different parts of the ancient world. In the great plain of Bogda, for example, spectral armies of mighty courage, but voiceless, were in the constant habit of engaging in mortal combat at the break of day. Carla likewise possessed a favourite haunt of these warlike phantoms. But here the apparition was only Ism. alone], and all its evolutions were performed in the air; which was the case in England, as we have been assured by very old people, before the breaking-out of the American war.

FACTS- ABOUT FISEL

But the Heeled of Euthydemos (a creation, probably, of his own) is but very poor authority compared with Archestratos, who made the pilgrimage of the world in search of good cheer, and afterwards, for the benefit of posterity. treasured up his experience in a grand culinary epic. In his opinion, a slice of Sicilian thunny was a rare delicacy, while the saperda, though brought from the Pontos Euxinos' he held as cheap as those who boasted of it. The scum- bros, by some supposed to be a species of thunny, though others understand by it the common mackerel, stood high in the estimation of this connoisseur. He directs that it be left in salt three days, and eaten before it begins to melt into brine. In his estimation, the horaion of Byzantium was likewise a great deli- cacy ; which he advises the traveller, who might pass through that city, to taste by all means. It seems to have been there what macaroni is at Naples. Alexis, in one of his comedies, introduces the Symposiarch of an Eranos, (president of a picnic,) accounting with one of the subscribers, who comes to demand back his ring ; and in the course of the dialogue, where something like Falstaff's tavern-bill is discussed, we find the prices of several kinds of salt- fish. An omotarichos (shoulder-piece of thunny) is charged at five chalci ; a dish of sea-mussels, seven chalci ; of sea-urchins, an obol; a slice of kybion, three obols ; a conger-eel, ten ; and another plate of broiled fish, a drachma. This comic writer rates the fish of the Nile very low : and he is quite right, for they are generally muddy and ill-tasted ; though the Copts, who have consider- able experience during Lent, contrive, by the application of mach archestratic skill, to render some kinda of them palateable. Sophocles, in a fragment of his lost drama of Phineas, speaks of salt-fish embalmed like an Egyptian mummy. Stock-fish, as I know to my cost, is still a fashionable dish in the Mediterra- nean, especially on board ship ; and, from a proverb preserved by Athenians,

we find it was likewise in use among the Athenians. • * • Like the sepia, of which excellent pilaus are made at Alexandria, the por- phyra or purple-fish was very good eating, and thickened the liquor in which it was boiled. There was a small delicate shelIfish caught on the island of Pharos and adjacent coasts of Egypt, which they called Aphrodite's ear; and there is still found on the same coast, near Canopos, a diminutive and beautiful rose-coloured conch, called Venus's nipple. On the same shore, about the rise of the Nile, that species of mussel called telline was caught in great abundance; but the best-tasted were said to be found in the river itself. A still finer kind were in season about autumn in the vicinity of Ephesos. The echinos, or sea- chestnut, cooked with oxymel, parsley, and mint, was esteemed good and whole- some eating. Those caught about Cephalonia, leaf* and Achaia were bitter- ish, those of Sicily laxative; the best were the red and the quince-coloured. A laughable anecdote is told of a Spartan, who, being invited to dine where sea-chestnuts were brought to table, took one upon his plate, and not knowing how they were eaten, put it into his mouth, shell and all : finding it exceed- ingly unmanageable, he turned it about for some time, seeking slowly and cautiously to discover the knack of eating it; but the rough and prickly shell still resisting his efforts, his temper grew ruffled: crunching it fiercely, he exclaimed, "Detestable beast! well, I will not let thee go now, after having thus ground thee to pieces; but assuredly I will never touch thee again."

Of the larger subjects, perhaps one of the best-handled is slavery ; though here, as elsewhere, the leaning of Mr. ST. JOHN to the Greeks, at least to the Athenians, is visible in the tender-

ness of his touch.

FOOD AND PHILOSOPHY OF sravEs.

Their food was commonly, as might be expected, inferior to that of their i

masters. Thus the dates grown n Greece, which ripened but imperfectly, were appropriated to their use ; and for their drink they had a small thin wine called Lora, by the Romans made of the husks of grapes, laid, after they had been pressed, to soak in water, and then squeezed again, like our bannel in the perry country. That they generally ate barley-bread in Attica was no pecu- liar hardship, since the citizens themselves frequently did the same. We find, moreover, that to give a relish to their coarse meal, plain broth, and salt fish, they were indulged with pickled gherkins. In the early ages of the common- wealth they imitated the frugal manner of their lords, so that no slave who valued his reputation would be seen to enter a tavern; but in later times they naturally shared largely in the general depravity of morals, and placed their summum bonum in eating Ind drinking. Their whole creed on this point has been summed up in a few words by the poet Sotion. "Wherefore," exclaims a slave, "dole forth these absurdities, these ravings of sophists, prating up and down the Lyceum, the Academy, and the gates of the Odeion ? In all these there is nothing of value. Let us drink, let us drink deeply, 0 Sicon, Sicon ! Let us rejoice, while it is yet permitted us to delight our souls. Enjoy thy- self, 0 Manes! Nothing s sweeter than the belly, which alone is to thee as thy father and thy mother. Virtues, embassies, generalships, are vain pomp, resembling the plaudits of a dream. Heaven, at the fated hour, will deliver thee to the cold grasp of death, and thou wilt bear with thee nothing but what thou haat drunk and eaten! All else is dust, like Pericles, Codros, and Cimon."

A HINT FOR HOUSEWIVES.

In these arts they (the slaves) were regularly taught under masters, and there would likewise appear to have been a set of men who earned their sub- sistence by initiating slaves in household labours. An example is mentioned at Syracuse of a person who probably had an establishment of his own, where he instructed slaves in the whole round of their domestic duties, such as bread- making, cooking, washing, and so on. In the baker's business Anaxarchos, an Eudaimonist philosopher, one of the fitting companions of Alexander the Great, introduced an improvement by which modern times may profit: to preserve his bread pure from the touch, and even from the breath of the slaves who made it, he caused them to knead the dough with gloves on their hands, and to wear a respirator of some gauze-like substance over the mouth. Other individuals, who grudged their domestics a taste of their delicacies, obliged them, while em- ployed at the kneading-trough, to wear a broad collar,like a wheel, which pre- vented them from bringing their hands to their mouths. This odious practice, however, could not have been general, as it is clear, from an expression in Aris- tophanes and his scholiast, that slaves employed in making bread used to amuse themselves by eating the dough. This seems to be one of the principal causes of disgust to the rogues in the piece employed in preparing the delicacies with which Trygseos feeds the beetle whereon he is about to mount to the court of Zeus.

ANCIENT FOOTMEN.

Travellers among the higher Alps are almost invariably attended by Swiss guides, who, laden with their employer's baggage, climb before them up the rocks, and are less fatigued at the close of the day's journey than the rich pe- destrians who carry nothing beyond their own weight. This is an exact image of the style of travelling in antiquity. It was then common even for opulent

men to " make their own legs their compasses," as Scribblerus phrtuies it ; but, not to load their own delicate shoulders with a knapsack, they were attended, like Became in the Frogs, by a steady Wave, who carried the baggage mounted on a porter's knot upon his shoulders. To employ more than one valet in this service was esteemed a mark of luxurious habits; and therefore 2Escbines re- proaches Demosthenes that, during his embassy, he was attended by two do- mestics with each a carpet-bag. Both by Theophrastus and Xenophon this attendant is called an acoluthos, or follower, because it was his duty to walk behind his master ; but this name in general signified a youthful valet, kept in personal attendance on the great. The simplicity of republican manners at Athens condemned the habit of maintaining many of those elegant youths; which, moreover, was prohibited by law. From the severity of manners, [law, rather ] however, one evil arose—the single slave was sometimes condemned by vanity to carry the burden of two; and as their grumblings were proportioned to their hardship, their case was soon taken up by the comic poets; not, I fear, so much for the sake of humanity as because it often furnished them with a good joke or two. By degrees, as no writers dwell so constantly on a fruitful topic or so frankly imitate each other, it became the fashion of the stage to introduce a miserable devil into every comedy, whose misfortunes, like those of the clown in our pantomimes, usually kept the the- atre in a roar. The practice, however, had already grown stale in the time of Aristophanes, who both ridiculed and followed it ; for while his sneers at the grumbling valet are repeated argue ad nauseam, much of the humour and in- terest of the Frogs arise out of the tricks and adventure of a melancholy wag of this description, as Casaubon long ago observed. When men have usurped an undue dominion over their fellows they seldom know where to stop. The Syrians themselves, enslaved politically, and often sold into servitude abroad, affected when rich a peculiarly luxurious manner : female attendants waited on their ladies, who, when mounting their carriages, required them to crawl on all-fours, that they might make a footstool of their backs.

The chapters on the larger themes are not always equal to those on more domestic topics ; because Mr. Sr. JOHN'S acumen and sagacity are inferior to his industry, literary skill, and scholastic research. On great subjects his mind is not equal to his theme,

nor is his logic always very conclusive. From the paucity of authorities, or perhaps from a desire to add variety and relief, he sometimes mingles Roman practices with the Greek, or quotes authorities of later ages for practices of early times : and though these passages, with proper attention, will not mislead, the dis- tinction between principal and subordinate does not seem to have been always present to the writer's mind. Even in the critical portions, a want of distinct conception will sometimes be felt, as if the author were rather pouring out his own indefinite impres- sions, than seeking by an accurate description of forms and quali- ties to instruct others,—something as though an advocate should argue a case without stating it. There are, however, passages in his criticisms of a better kind ; from which we select the CHARACTER OF ARISTOPHANES.

Passing next to Comedy, of which Aristophanes must be regarded as the representative, we have a department of literature, peculiar to Greece, for its comedy resembles that of no other country. It has never, perhaps, been fairly characterized. They who take part with the poet against the philosopher exaggerate his merits; the admirers of Socrates, in revenge for the unjust death of that great man, generally undervalue them. Let us endeavour to be just. Aristophanes was a poet of vast genius, quick to perceive and powerful to paint the imperfections, vices, follies, weaknesses, miseries of man in society. Be was greedy, too, of reputation ; in the acquisition of which he spared neither men nor institutions. The youthful, the gay, the thoughtless, reckoning laughter and amusement among the real wants of life, (as to the weak and fri- volous perhaps they are,) he undertook to build his fame on easing the human character of those moral excrements which pass off in grinning and mirth. There is, in fact, 8, load of small malignity and mischief in most mental consti- tutions, which, if not expelled, might obstruct the healthful play of the facul- ties. Mirth is the form it assumes in its exit, and comedy is one of the means provided by nature for promoting its discharge. Aristophanes, who comprehended at least this part of philosophy, found an abundant harvest of follies in his fellow citizens. He saw, too, that of all men they possessed the most inexhaustible good-nature—to forgive if they could not profit by the satire which was directed against themselves. No one could complain of them on this score. Their risible muscles were at every man's service who could coin a joke, or make faces, or draw a caricature or enact one. Athens was, in fact, the home of laughter : it was the weak side of the na- tional character; and never since merry-making was invented did a more skilful manufacturer of this autochthonal production exist than Aristophanes. Be could make round things square, or straight crooked; he could invest the noblest and most sacred things with burlesque and ridicule ; he could convert patriotism into a laughable weakness, genius into puerility, virtue into a farce. He knew how to make the brave man (as Lamachos) seem a mere gasconader ; the man of genius (as Euripides) a dealer in rhythmical jingles; the possessor of highest wisdom and most unsullied integrity a babbling impostor and a thief. Such were his prodigious powers. Another excellence he had, not unakin to the former; he could, when it suited his purpose, place the most nefarious vices on the same level with very harmless foibles, so that both should appear equally laughable or equally odious.

But the Athenians must have been a base people bad these been the qua- lities which rendered him popular. They were not : on the contrary, they formed the great drawback on his reputation. His attack on Socrates caused the first cast of the Clouds to be hooted off the stage. But great and crying as were his delinquencies against morals and philosophy, his genius triumphed, and he became popular in spite of them ; and in spite of them he has continued to be a favourite among scholars down to the present day. No mean amount of creative power could have achieved a triumph like this. He possessed, in fact, the quality, whatever it be, which confers vitality on the offspring of the mind. Each of his plays, however extravagant its conceptions, however im- peobable the plot or wild the scene, or fantastic the characters, still develops a distinct cycle of existence, into which the breath of everlasting life has been breathed. To every individual whom he brings upon the stage has been as- signed a distinct type of character, a marked individuality, a moral and intel- lectual physiognomy as peculiar to himself as his mask. No man exhibits greater variety in a small compass. When he is working out a character, every Word tells; and his ease is infinite. Nothing appears to have proceeded from him in a hurry. Like the wind, which now rises in gusts, now sinks to a Whisper, but never suggests the idea of weakness, Aristophanes may trifle, but always because he desires to trifle. Moreover, however barren the subject may be, however rugged, bleak, in- tractable, he pours over it the dews of poetry, and clothes it magically with towers and verdure. Look at the comedies of the Frogs and the Birds. By Whom but Aristophanes could they have been rendered tolerable? And yet whatmarvellous effects grow out of them in his hands. How completely is the imagination detached from the common every-day world, and sent drifting

down the dreamy intoxicating streams of poetry. Not in the Wand of Pros- pero or Philoctetes, not in the savage-encircled nest of Robinson Crime, not in the most visionary vale that opens before us its serene bosom in the Arabian Nights, do we breathe more at large, or more fresh and wholesome air, than among the fogs and fens of Acheron, or the eternal forests of the Bova, King.

With an art in which Shakepere was no mean proficient, he opens up a more culpable source of interest in the frequent satire of vices, condemned as commonly as they are practised. He unveils the mysteries of iniquity with a fearless and by no means an unreluctant hand. No abyss of wickedness was too dark for his daring muse. He ventured fearlessly upon themes which few since or before have touched on, despising contemporary envy and vindictive- ness and the stern condemnation of posterity.

It will be seen from these examples, that Mr. Sr. JOHN'S work is pretty much std generis—about the first successful attempt to popularize classical archaeology, in such a way as to make it attrac- tive to the general reader whilst it conveys learned information to all but the very learned.

The principal defect of the book is critical rather than practical : the execution does not lead the reader to the same conclusion as the examination of his subject impelled the writer. So far from the private life of the Greeks having directly conduced to their his- torical eminence, the facts, as exhibited by Mr. Sr. JOHN, seem to have resembled those of the privacy of a good many other nations, or perhaps mankind in general, allowing for times and circumstances. Of the nursery or the harem not much is known ; and what Mr. Sr. Jonat has collected proves nothing but that little Greeks were like other little folks. In more advanced years they seem to have enjoyed all the good things of this life they could get hold of, without being peculiarly refined in their modes or particularly strict in their morals ; suggesting the sort of life which the graver and more respectable Roman had to coin a word (" Grrecor ") to express. Mr. ST. JOHN, indeed, occasionally assumes that certain effects must have been produced ; but there are conclusions sometimes opposed to his facts, sometimes destitute of facts, and generally very opposite to the opinions of the majority of scholars. An admiration occasionally arising to enthusiasm is another general fault of the book; which is sometimes shown in undue panegyric, and sometimes in the evasion of points or the suppres- sion of obvious conclusions. Thus, to instance a trifle, after noticing in his account of the theatres the wonderful workmanship of the masks, and the effects they must have produced, he omits all re- mark upon their obvious fault—the impossibility of expressing the varying shades of feeling and passion. Occasional suppressions it is unnecessary to speak of, seeing that the practices of these gods of his idolatry could not be mentioned in a modern work intended for popular circulation. Sometimes his memory is treacherous. "If," says he in a rhetorical enumeration of the advantages enjoyed by an Athenian citizen, "if in war he performed any act of superior conduct or courage, a general's name was his reward" : and very often a barren one, as MILTIADES and THEMISTOCLES could testify. Again, says he of the hero, "if children remained behind him, the state would become their parent ; every Athenian would share with them his salt " : Cistort in gaol, for the fine levied upon his father MILTIADES, might have taken a more practical view of Athenian gratitude. This sort of schoolboy admiration occurs chiefly in the introductory parts, or in particular chapters on the larger subjects; and is the great blot of the book. For it is liable to infuse erroneous opinions into the minds of a certain class of readers, and may operate injuriously upon the work, as many, lighting upon such passages, would never give it credit for the information and interest it possesses upon other topics. The safe rule for a reader who is uncertain of his own power of forming a decision upon the merits of the Greeks, is to believe wherever Mr. ST. JOHN censures them, but to suspend his judgment wherever he praises them, unless it be for intellectual eminence or other ad- mitted merit.