LITERARY SPECTATOR.
GREECE—COLONEL LEAKE'S TRAVELS.*
IT is a long time since, nevertheless we remember making the dis- covery, that Jerusalem and Jericho were earthly cities, in their time tangible and inhabitable. Such had been the veneration with which their names had always been pronounced in our presence, and such their close connexion with the sacred truths of Holy Writ, that the innocence of childhood conceived that it could not be of this world that the story was told. Similar to this feeling of quiet wonder is it when we find ourselves with WILLIAM MARTIN LEAKE, wandering in the valfies of Arcadia, or stone-lifting down the hill-sides on which Sparta once flourished. We read the books of the classical ages of lite- rature, at school and college, with so little reference to actual existences or to modern experience, that we are almost astonished when we hear of and see an individual discussing their position, their remains, and present appearance. Classical reading assumes a place in English education which almost takes c:assical subjects out of mortal sphere. The history of Lacedemon is not merely a tale of other times, it be- comes to the imagination an Utopia—one of those fictions that might have been true but were not. Colonel LEAKE, however, another classical antiquary who writes of Greece and its ancient glories on the spot, brings every thing to the test: to read his book is something, as we have said, like the child discovering that Jerusalem is a place on earth : it gives a local habitation to that which had only a settle- ment in the imagination. To read THUCYDIDES at college is one thing, but to read him on the site of the long walls of Athens, or in the is- land of Sphacteria, is something very different : it is the dead come to life : the work which before was °regarded as a mere curiosity, be- comes part and parcel of the existing order of things, connecting the past and the present. At school we might as well have been reading the history of a lunar volcano, as the history of the Peloponnesian war. Colonel LEAKE'S work is little More than &learned and laborious itinerary ; but then, it is an itinerary over ground where every foun- tain has been celebrated, every stream sacred, and where every broken column or half-buried cornice is eloquent of other times. To turn up a brick in Greece, is a different thing from turning up a brick else- where. It is true that, in Rome, some of C.ESAR'S dust may be forming a part of the bung which secludes from the air the barrelled wine of an effeminate cardinal ; but in Greece every grain of rubbish must have entered into the composition of a hero. Unrivalled country ! What other confined and rocky spot of the earth's surface ever made such a turmoil as it has done in human affairs ! What restless spirits did it give birth to ! how they sung, and fought, ran, wrestled, danced, and wrote ! Up to this very moment, the inhabi- tants of northern and distant regions deem it of the first necessity that their youth should learn its tongue, that they should read its au- thors, examine their customs, and dwell upon their sayings. The ruins of the buildings of ancient Greece are obvious enough; for the
* Travels in the Mores, with a Map and Plans. By Martin William Leake, F.R.S. &c. 3 vole. Elvo. London, 1155).
interesting that they possess every similarity, not as in the more re- WALTER COLYTON.0 All through the revolution, the great obstacle in the way of success was It is a frisk duty to perform, nevertheless, as it will be expected of dissension ; and after the Turks had been driven out, it was the chief us, we will give some idea of the conduct of the story. The scene cause of the years of anarchy and confusion that have followed. lies chiefly in Somersetshire ; which gives the author an opportunity HASSAN BEY, the Turkish Governor of Mani, at the time of Colonel, of showing his learning in the provincial tongue of this pretty but LEAKE'S fiiSt visit to the Morea, told him, that whenever he wished stupid county. The dialect of the peasantry is perhaps the most dis- to destroy a village, he had no difficulty in finding a neighbouring agreeable and the least curious in England s partaking of the cha- village to assist in the work, and generally under the guidance of a racter of the people, it is drawling and clumsy, and, when printed, as priest, upon condition of his having the stones of the ruins for a per- • nearly as possible unintelligible. For these good reasons, and out of quisite. The professional peacemakers of Greece have always been rivalry, we presume, with the Scotch of the Northern novelist, the the most active fomenters of discord, and have carried on their own work is thickly strewed with the jargon of the Somersetshire peasants. feuds with a rancorous violence which respected nothing. In the When the character and conversation of the people are marked by following anecdote, we see the priest officiating at the altar behind strong features—a shrewdness of remark, a highly figurative mode of which he had concealed his arms, and shot at and shooting in his expression, or 1:rat vivacils of the imagination—it may be excusable ministerial robes. to transfer fac-similes of their (halt:gales to print, though it may have " An affair, which happened two months since at Vathy, shows the state of a very unseemly effect to pure eyes : hut in the instance of Zummer- society in Mani. The son of a priest had by accident killed a boy, a relation zetshire, God forfeml we should have any more long conversations of another priest. The latter papas declared war against the former ; which between Teddy Cluil.b and Tommy Comb. Tile opening dialogue is done in Mani in a formal manner, by crying out in the streets. The first papii..s went to his church to say mass with his pistols in his girdle, such we speak ohs -between two ancient persons in a churchyard over the being a common custom in Mani ; but, as is usual in such cases, he laid them newly-opened grave of young Richard Colyton.
behind the altar, on assuming the robe in which the priest performs divine " 'What zay, Jan Chervil,' croaked the dame, in a broad Somersetshire service. The other papas entered the church with some of his party, and the dialect, and a voice that was frequently interrupted by a deep cough—' Old. instant the office was concluded, walked up to his enemy, who was still in his Adam Chubb be a gwon dead at last, be 'en ? Fags ! what o' that ? Adam robe, and fired a pistol at him, which flashed in, the pan ; the latter then Chubb 's been dead theease vive year, only 'a.never drapp'd. I zeed 'en my running behind the altar, seized his arms, shot his enemy and one of his ad. own zel last Milemas, when 'a was as blind as a wont, an as dunch as a pooast.' herents, and drove all the rest out of the church. The affair was then set- Arian cried Chervil, not hearing her observation. tied by the interposition of the Bey himself, in whose village it had happened. " Begummers ! ' shrieked his companion, at the top of her cracked voice ; A composition in money for the balance of blood is the only efficient mode zim to I thee beest betmettled theezel, almost as bad as old Adam.'
of making peace in these cases. When one of a family is slain, the person " Old Adam, dame? 'a worn't zo old a'ter all; 'a worn't above your your
who takes upon him to revenge the injury, often vows not to change his score, war 'en. And what does thee make zich a daddering noise vor ? I can clothes, Or shave, or eat meat, till his revenge is satisfied. hear 'ee vast enough yif thee 'ool speak up.' "
" Next to the captains, the priests are chief men in the Maniate wars, both This is certainly very edifying. in council and field: and in the quarrel which so frequently occurs between Walter Colyton is fhe son of an old cavalier, who resides near separate villages or families, they are generally the promoters and leaders of Bridgewater ; a jolly old f:llow, sucit as we have seen described so the strife. To pull down the adversary's house, is generally the object and end of the war. The sufferer is then conquered, and seldom ventures to pro- often, fond of buts of claret and but-ends of songs, rich and hen- secute hostilities." pecked, and altogether a worthy subject of James the Second. His In this warlike region, the women, true descendants of their Laco- son falls in love with an humble companion of his sister ; an event so nian ancestors, are, or were warriors. There are instances recorded common in novels, that we never see a poor and humbly-born maiden of the vigorous sieges they have sustained in their pyrgos, or castel- introduced into a book, but we are sure that she is the destined bride lated towers, in the absence of their liege lords. They are generally of the hero. Old Colyton, however, like other parents, does not ap- good shots. The wife of a capitano said to Colonel LEAKE, who prove the scheme, and sends off his son With a captain's commission in was making some inquiries on the subject, "Set up your hat there Lord Dover's guards. On entering into life, Walter Colyton meets With (a hundred and fifty yards off), and see if I cannot put a musket-ball an Alsatian bully, such as is also of frequent occurrence in similar through it." Colonel LEAKE had too much regard for his only works, who leads him into a variety of scrapes : but detecting him in hat, and too great confidence in her still, to risk the trial, a plot to cause himself (Colyton) to many Lord Sunderland's cast- The fertility of Greece cannot be said to be generally treat; but off mistress, he strikes him on parade. Now this bully happens to where the surface does not show itself in rock, the plains, vallies, be his superior officer, and there is the Devil to pay. Colyton is and hill-sides, are productive, and have been as abundant as the condemned to death, and is only saved by the personal intercession wretched government would permit. Moreover, the productions of of his lady-love with the King, who escapes out of Somersetshire in Greece are of avalnable and Commercial description; and, previous to boy's clothes, in order to throw herself at the feet of the Monarch. the revolution, supplied a great part.of Europe with olive oil, raw silk, • By the Author of BrembletsieBouse. 3 vols. London, 1880. Greeks were a people to whom the elegant arts were among the arts galls, :honey, resin, %%Monies cheese, currants. The wine Of GreeeV,, of life: pillar and frieze and metope seem to have been as great ne- more carefully prepared, 'would be capable of rivalling the best produed cessities to them as port wine and bullocks to us. Creatures of taste of Spain : its malmsey, though now obsolete, was once fit to be a whatever they touched sprung into beauty ; and every doorway or wins poet's reward, and a royal dukes death. Colonel LEAKE has given the dow-frame that they have left and we can find is a monument to quantity of exports from some of the ports of the Morea in other their genius, in marble, which makes the fortune of a museum lucky times, which will surprise those who have forgotten the commercial enough to possess it. A fragment is a treasure. Babylon leaves fame of Greece. The productions, the situation, and advantages of bricks : a Grecian town is to be traced by its fallen columns, its the country, and the character of its inhabitants, more particularly broken statues, its votive armour, which we instal in niches, as the islanders—all lead to believe, that, if properly directed, the Greeks objects of study and admiration. might become one of the most flourishing and wealthy little nations
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