CLARE'S PELOPONNESES. * ESSENTIALLY Mr. Clark's "Notes of Study and Travel"
in Polo- ponnesus is a topographical tour. With -Pausanias and Leake in hand, and other classics or classical illustrations, as an Irishman would say " convenient," he wanders through the country, now examining the present condition of an ancient city, identifying its acknowledged remains and discussing those which are doubtful, a vein of description, however, running through the most disqui- sitional parts. Anon a mere site claims his attention, where little or nothing remains to mark its ancient prosperity or even exist- ence, and argument ensues thereupon. A similar plan is observed -with the scenes of memorable events, or the incidents and occur- rences which Homer and the tragic poets have embalmed in the memory of posterity with perhaps more distinctness than apper- tains to history itself. But these things though discussed learnedly are not handled dryly. Strong common sense and an innate vigour of mind induce Mr. Clark to look at archmology from a rational, and often, a practical point of view. His reason tells him that things impossible in themselves were as impossible in ancient times as now, that even Homer's power must fail in overcoming the laws of vision or changing the points of the compass. An his- torical or geographical statement we must reconcile with the real- ity as best we may, though by the by historians and geographers err in fact by repeating the errors of others without examination. Real poets considering only poetical effects are not very scrupulous about topographical exactness when they can fib without detec- tion. The argument frequently turns up in the course of the tour, leading, indeed, to a curious digression on Homer as a geo- grapher. These remarks touching " place " in the ancient poets are briefer, and more specific in their brevity, than some of the other illustrations.
" If the Argive topography of Aschylus is thus indefinite and negative, i that of Sophocles is elaborately wrong. In the opening scene of the Electra, the Pcedagogue,' addressing Orestes, says : Here is the ancient Argos you were longing for, and this the Lycean agora of the wolf-slaying god' (to wit, the market-place of the town of Argos) ; and this on the left is the renowned temple of Hera, and, at the place we are come to, believe that you have before your eyes Mycenw, rich in gold, and here the blood- stained house of the Pelopidm. No one reading this description would infer that Argos was between five and six miles distant, and the llemum nearly two. The truth was that neither Sophocles nor his Patdagogue ' thought of administering a lecture on topography under the guise of a dramatic entertainment—as Milton or Ben Ionson might have done ; so far from it, he held the entertainment to be all in all, and made topography and every- thing else give way to it. He wanted to produce an effect by bringing Argos, Mycenie, and the Hermum within the compass of a single coup d' wit, and I warrant that not one of the spectators was pedantic enough to quarrel with him for it. He would not have taken similar liberties with the neigh- bourhood of Athens—on the contrary, in the CEdipus at Colonus he is rigorously exact, because the audience were too familiar with the scene not to be shocked at any departure from fact ' - and in that case the most power- ful effect was to be obtained by adhering to it. I remember to have read a play of M. Victor Hugo's, called, I think, .Marie Dtdor, where the scene opens with the following stage direction : Palais de Richmond : thins le fond a gauche rEglise de Westminster, a droitc in Tour de Londres.' Not one of the audience would be shocked by this impossible compression, and therefore the poet was quite justified in annihilating space to make a thou- sand people happy. If either play would have gained a tittle by the change, M. Victor Hugo would not have hesitated a moment to make the Abbey and the Tower change places, nor Sophocles to transfer the Temple of Hera from the left hand to the right. But France is the only country which in these days has a living drama, and whose poetry is not cramped by pe- dantry."
Although classical topography is the main substance of the fabric, a variety of other matters will be found. Historical al- lusions and actual descriptions are frequently connected with the antiquarian discussions. There is also a good deal of the actual present. There is no carriage-travelling through Greece, because there are no continuous roads for wheeled vehicles. Saddle and pack horses are the only modes of progression, save on your feet, and a few travellers form a sort of cavalcade, because you must carry with yon your provisions and your cook, there being no inns ; indeed your bedding must form part of your impedimenta, • Petoponnesus : Notes of Study and Thsvel. By William George Clark, MA( Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College, Cambridge. Published by Parker and Eva.
if you cannot dispense with that luxury. This style of travel na- turally gives rise to more of incident, throws you more among the people, and brings out more strongly-marked characters than is the case in the railway or the diligence. Many things of this kind are noted by Mr. Clark, from the solemnity of Constantine the capital cook of the company, to the characteristics of the mo- dern Greeks ; the signs—slender enough—which they exhibit of improvement; and the hopes that in Mr. Clark's opinion they offer of further advance. These hopes, however, are rather in the material than the moral or mental way. The Greek Lent, kept as rigidly as the Turks keep their Rhamazan, and probably in imitation or rivalry of their former masters, was frequently observed by the travellers, and the facts give rise to some judi- cious remarks from which we quote a few passages.
" The Greek Church prescribes far more rigid rules for Lenten fasts than the Church of Rome, and the rules are also much more rigidly observed, at
least in public. I one day offered an egg to Alcibiades—a careless, good- for-nothing gamin as could be ; but he rejected it with an expression of the most sanctimonious horror. Fish, too, is forbidden. Only one exception is made in favour of the cuttle-fish, which has been pronounced to be, in an ecclesiastical point of view, a reptile, and lawful food accordingly. In Pas- sion-week the more rigid abstain even from oil ; but this is a supererogatory privation. In Athens there are many freethinkers, who openly disregard all these rules, and doubtless many more who privately break them. In the country, too, the educated men groan under the infliction, but are forced to submit. So far as I could learn, it is not so much fear of ecilesiastical censure which enforces this reluctant submission, but the strength, of public opinion among the men and women of the poorer class, and the women of all classes. One gentleman of high respectability complained bitterly of his wife's superstition, in starving herself, and consequently half-starving her infant. He showed us, with tears in his eyes, how pale and thin its cheeks were, and uttered in his wrath certain adjurations of a by no means ortho- dox' character. ' Invalidi matrum referuut jejunia nati.' It is indeed a hard case for the' invalid' children, who share the privation without the merit.
" But the subject is really too serious to be jested about. These rigid rules, which tax poor human nature to the uttermost in the observance of outward formalities, crush and destroy all vital and spiritual religion. All the faculties of the soul are concentrated on the achievement of formal obedience, and area blank so far as regards moral teaching. Ceremonial cleanness is all in all; inward purity is not thought of. The Pharisaism which our Lord denounced could not be more abominable than the Phari- saism which the Greek Church enforces in His name. I speak thus strongly not from my own observation, which, though tending always to confirm what I have said, was not extended enough to justify so sweeping a conclu- sion, but from the unanimous testimony of all persons qualified to judge, Greeks as well as foreigners."
Opinion seems agreed that education and general progress will abolish this and other superstitious observances, but differs as to what will succeed. Mr. Clark doubts the conclusion. The Greek religion is not merely a belief but a type of nationality. " It was for ages the sole bond of union among them—the one national institution which remained to remind them that they had once been free." He thinks the upshot will be that the ignorant and the women will cling to its superstitions, while the educated will become complying infidels.
" It will not be the first time in the world's history that the frightful spectacle has been presented of a divorce between the national faith and the national reason, resulting in grovelling superstition among the lower classes, and cynical indifference among the upper. The wonder is that a state of things so rotten should have any permanence. And yet there are examples enough to prove that it may last long, and that the crisis, which seems every moment imminent, may be indefinitely delayed."
Conjoined to fasting, though not exactly by Mr. Clark, is the disputed question of what race can best bear privation and fa- tigue—the Northern or the Southerns—the spare or the full fed. An incident of travel in crossing Mount Taygetus, suggests the question which the tourist decides in favour of the south.
" Below this we came to a halt, nothing loth, in a shady place by the bed of a stream, close to a picturesque little water-mill, overgrown, like all the water-mills of the country, with a profuse vegetation of feathery ferns and flowering cyclamen. Here we lay down to rest, while the cook gathered slicks, lit a fire, and prepared our usual midday meal—tea with a slice of lemon in it, Russian fashion, where milk was not to be had—a dish of cut- lets or fried eggs, bread and honey. Our dragoman-in-chief spread the table and served as waiter; and the horses were left to graze, under the eye ofirtwo agoyates, Pericles and Alcibiades. The rigid abstinence which thee two observed, in spite of the. heterodox example of their elders, did not seem in the least to impair their strength and activity. They had been six hours on foot without breaking their fast, and after all they broke it with nothing stronger than bread and olives, their constant diet for six weeks before. The most stalwart Englishman would have broken down under such a regimen. All the nations of southern Europe—Spaniards, Italians, Greeks—endure privations much better than northern nations ; a fact which must be borne in mind when, in the history of ancient Greek warfare, we read of armies marching longer distances in shorter time than would be possible with French, or German, or English troops even without a train of artillery. Our troops require more elaborately prepared food, and more of it. The food for three days' which an old Greek soldier carried in his knapsack would scarcely serve a modem English soldier for one day."
The facts may be true but some circumstances necessary to a right conclusion are possibly omitted. The southern sets about his work " in light marching order." Put a musket on his shoulder, a knapsack on his back, and load him with the other accoutrements of a soldier, and he might not get on so fast or so far ; especially if he were transported to a changeable climate where the nights are almost always cold, and he himself was kept upon lenten fare. However the Italians are said to have borne up better than some of the German troops during the retreat from Moscow.
Mr. Clark possesses a ripe scholarship which well fitted him for .exploring a land so rich in historical reminiscences. But his mind, as our readers will have seen, is far from being exclusively engrossed with the associations of classical antiquity. He makes reference quite as frequently to the recent history of Greece, and vividly depicts its present social condition. The same vigour of mind which shows itself in his judgments on antiquities gives you and vivacity to his style. The variety of allusion, and the fight pleasantry which relieves the graver parts of the volume, make it most agreeable reading, even apart from the peculiar interest which it possesses for the classical scholar. One admirable feature of the work is its accuracy, the determination to tell the truth exactly as it appears to the writer, without any undue deference to authorities, old or new.
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