to be fostered, not indeed by bounties and high protective duties, but by the generous patronage of the people, and the liberal aids of the capitalists. No branch of human industry is of sufficient importance however, to justify or palliate injustice of any sort, far less the tyranny which Coleridge denounces, of taxing one part of the people for the benefit of another. Another subject of great importance to the Southern States, is a comprehensive system of internal improvement. The value, to the country generally and to the Atlantic cities especially, of a rail-road communication with the great country of inexhaustible wealth now so nearly reached, cannot be over-estimated. The most sanguine calculations will fall short of the reality. See what the rivers of the West have done for the cities on their banks. St. Louis, Cincinnati, New-Orleans have risen like exhalations. But what the Mississippi and Ohio accomplish for them, the iron Mississippi now stretching out its continuous course to the West, will perform as effectually for Savannah and Charleston. How immense would be the influence of a navigable stream, reaching from these cities to Nashville, on their commerce, growth, wealth and general prosperity. But the iron channel of trade, fast extending itself to the Cumberland, furnishes a mode of intercourse more quick, safe, certain and convenient. What may we not hope from it. Trains of cars, miles in extent will be seen at no distant day, threading their way through the mountain region hitherto inaccessible to commerce, loaded with the productions of every department of industry. The coast of Georgia and Carolina is nearer, by many miles, to the centre of the great Western valley, than that of any other State. The climate is better. Every thing invites to the enterprise. To ensure incalculable success, nothing is wanting but the hearts and hands of resolute men. To this topic, and many others which our space will not permit us to note, the Review will invite and endeavor to enforce attention by every means within the power of its conductors. They pledge themselves to the patrons of the work, that they will devote to it all their ability and industry. A compensation such as the resources of the Review allow, will be given for approved contributions. Everything shall be done, which they can do, to make the Southern Review a powerful engine for the advancement of learning, the cultivation of genius, the vindication of moral and religious truth, and the preservation of the rights and liberties of the country, its progress in all that can elevate, adorn, refine, and honorably distinguish a great and growing people. SOUTHERN QUARTERLY REVIEW. No. XXII APRIL, 1847. Author ART. I.-ATHENS AND THE ATHENIANS. 1. A History of Greece. By the Right Rev. CONNOP THIRLWALL, Lord Bishop of St. David's. New-York: Harper & Brothers. 1845. 2 vols. 8 vo. 2. Athens; its Rise and Fall, &c. By EDWARD LYTTON BULWER, Esq., M.P. M.A. New-York: Harper & Brothers. 1838. 2 vols. 12 mo. 3. The Historical Antiquities of the Greeks, with reference to their Political Institutions. By WM. WACHSMUTH, Professor of History in the University of Leipsig. Translated from the German, by EDMUND WOOLRYCH, Esq. Oxford: D. A. Talboyo. 1837. 2 vols. 8 vo. 4. A Manual of the Political Antiquities of Greece, historically considered. From the German of CHARLES FREDERICK HERMANN, Professor in the University of Heidelberg. Oxford: D. A. Talboyo. 1836. 1 vol. 8 vo. In the whole course of history, ancient and modern, there is no period to which we revert with fresher interest or more undying enthusiasm, than to the short era of Athenian ascendancy in Greece. The annals of Rome, or the Chronicles of later times, may offer to the student the hope of greater practical utility, but to the glories of Athens and the Athenians, during that brief period in their career, the heart ever turns back with all the fondness and enduring affection of first and early love. It is in vain to tell us that VOL. XI. NO. 22. 24 other epochs and other nations are better entitled to our attention, consideration and regard: it is in vain to direct us to the darker and more complicated policy of other States; for the lips, that have once drunk from Attic fountains of the pure waters of their inspiration, will not suffer themselves to be weaned from the country and the era of their choice by any meaner spell. To the student and the scholar, every spot in the soil of Attica is consecrated ground: There each old poetic mountain, Every shade and hallowed fountain, Her olive groves and flowering hills appear ever green to the imagination. The lapse of centuries has only cast a brighter, though more mellow hue, over the shrines of our heart's idolatry. Every thing connected with that Queen of cities, is pregnant with sweet and imperishable associaAt the bare mention of her streets, her porticoes, her temples, her theatres, or her ports, a hundred cherished fancies wake from their slumber; a hundred visions of the bright times that are gone flit before us; and the voices of the departed sound familiarly in our ears. We look through the long vista of intervening ages, but so vividly does every thing re-appear to the mind, that whole centuries dwindle into minutes, and the wide chasm of time shrinks into a narrow and imperceptible ravine. The Athens of Pericles rises from the grave; the rust of ages, and the deep disgrace of Roman, Moslem, and Venetian rule are forgotten; the Olympian of the Agora shakes off his sleep of two thousand years-again wields at will that 'fierce democratie;' again 'shakes the arsenal and fulmines over Greece.t' We may * Well might Pericles speak of the Athenians, as, πανταχου μνημεια κακῶν τε κἀγαθῶν ἀΐδια ξυγκατοικίσαντεσ. Thuc. lib. ii, c. 41. We would quote the whole of this brilliant eulogy, but we may have another occasion to refer to it. + Milton's words are strong, but what are they to the original, the last and boldest line of which he has omitted. Εντεῦθεν ὀργῆ Περικλέης Ολύμπιος, ἤστραπτεν, ἐβρόντα ξυνεκύκα τὴν Ἑλλάδα, Aristoph. Ach. 504-6, Ed. Bch cast our gaze around, and say, here stood the Parthenon, the wonderment of art to all succeeding ages; here at the frequent festivals of Athens,* was congregated all that was noblest among the men, and brightest and most beautiful among the women within her rule. Here rose the Propylaea, the splendid entrance to the venerated Acropolis, which modern skill has endeavored to imitate but has not hoped to equal;† there was the Pnyx, hallowed by the thunders of Demosthenes; on this side, the Temple of Olympian Jove; on that the magnificent Theseum ; here the painted Stoa; beneath us lay the Odeum, roofed with the masts of the Persian Fleet, destroyed at Salamis; near it was the Theatre of Bacchus, remembered long after its crumbling materials have been resolved into dust, by the ever-living names of Eschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes. Beyond the walls is the Ceramicus, where were publicly buried, the heroes who had fallen in their country's cause; at the distance of little more than a mile is Colonus, the birth-place of the Attic Bee. Every spot from 'Suni's marble steep' to the defiles of Citharon, is sanctified by some pleasing or ennobling association: Where'er we tread, 'tis haunted, holy ground, No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould, But one vast realm of wonder spreads around, And all the Muses tales seemed truly told, Till the sense aches with gazing to behold The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon: Each hill and dale, each deepening glen and wold, Defies the power which crushed thy temples gone: Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares gray Marathon. Of all the cities of the earth, which, at different epochs in the world's history, have obtained honour and renown * The frequency of religious festivals at Athens is attested by Aristoph. Nub. 229, 312. Hor. Fr. 1, and the Scholiast: by Thuc. lib. ii, 38. Plato Menex. p. 237. Esch. Eum. 869. Isocrat. Panath. and Xenoph. de Rep. Ath. c. iii, § 8. To which may be added Paus. Att. p. 15, l. 12, p. 22, l. 13, Ed. Sylb, Acts xvii, 23, and Bloomf. ad. loc. Potter, Arch. Gr. B. ii, c. 19. Apollonius Tyaneus calls the Athenians φιλοθύται. It formed the model of one of the most splendid buildings recently erected at Munich. † Ὁρῶ τὴν ακρόπολιν, ὁρῶ τὴν Ἐλευσῖνα, καὶ τῶν ἱερῶν γέγονα μύστης ἐκεινο Λεοκόριον· τοῦτο Θησείον, οὐ δύναμαι δηλῶσαι καθ' ἐν ἕκαστον. Hegesias ap. Strab. lib. ix, c. 1. 5 Thuc. lib. viii, c. 67. Here was the tomb of Mardonius. Pausan Boot. p. 283, 1. 16, Ed. Sylburg, 1583. |