hended between this curtain and the river, is occupied by small hills, and the ruins of Sparta. These hills and these ruins have not the same desolate aspect as when you are close to them; they seem, on the contrary, to be tinged with purple, violet, and a light gold colour. It is not verdant meads and foliage of a cold and uniform green, but thé effects of light, that produce admirable landscapes. On this account the rocks and the heaths of the bay of Naples will ever be superior in beauty to the most fertile vales of France and England.

Thus, after ages of oblivion, this river, whose banks were trodden by the Lacedæmonians which Plutarch has celebrated; this river, I say, perhaps rejoiced, amid this neglect, at the sound of the footsteps of an obscure stranger upon its shores. It was on the 18th of August, 1806, at nine in the morning, that I took this lonely walk along the Eurotas, which will never be erased from my memory. If I hate the manners of the Spartans, I am not blind to the greatness of a free people, neither was it without emotion that I trampled on their noble dust. One single fact is sufficient to proclaim the glory of this nation. When Nero visited Greece, he durst not enter Lacedæmon, What a magnificent panegyric on that city!

I returned to the citadel, stopping to survey the ruins which I met with on my way. As Misitra has probably been built with materials from the ruins of Sparta, this has undoubtedly contributed much to the destruction of the edifices of the latter

city. I found my companion exactly where I left him he had sat down, and fallen asleep; having just awoke, he was smoking his pipe, after which he went to sleep again. The horses were peacefully grazing in the palace of King Menelaus; but "Helen had not left her distaff laden with wool dyed of a purple colour, to give them pure corn in a magnificent manger,' * Thus, though a traveller, I am not the son of Ulysses; but yet, like Telemachus, I prefer my native rocks to the most enchanting foreign regions.

It was noon, and the sun darted his rays perpendicularly on our heads. We retired to the shade in a corner of the theatre, and ate with a good appetite some bread and dried figs, which we had brought from Misitra: Joseph had taken care of all the rest of our provisions. The janissary was delighted; he thought himself once more at liberty, and was preparing to start, but soon perceived to his no small mortification that he was mistaken. I began to write down my observations, and to take a view of the different places: this occupied me two full hours, after which I determined to examine the monuments to the west of the citadel. I knew that in this quarter the tomb of Leonidas must be situated. We wandered from ruin to ruin, the janissary following me, and leading the horses by the bridle. We were the only living human beings among such numbers of illustrious

* Odyss.

dead: both of us were barbarians, strangers to each other, as well as to Greece; sprung from the forests of Gaul and the rocks of Caucasus, we had met at the extremity of the Peloponnese, the one to pass over, the other to live upon tombs which were not those of our forefathers.

In vain I examined the smallest stones to discover the spot where the ashes of Leonidas were deposited. For a moment I had hopes of succeeding. Near the edifice, resembling a tower, which I have described as standing to the west of the citadel, I found fragments of sculpture, which I took to be those of a lion. We are informed by Herodotus, that there was a lion of stone on the tomb of Leonidas; a circumstance which is not recorded by Pausanias. I continued my researches with increased ardour, but all my efforts proved fruitless.*

* On this subject my memory deceived me. The lion spoken of by Herodotus was at Thermopylæ. It is not even related by that historian that the bones of Leonidas were carried to his native land; he asserts, on the contrary, that Xerxes caused the body of the hero to be crucified: consequently the frag ments of the lion which I saw at Sparta cannot mark the tomb of Leonidas. It may be supposed that I had not an Herodotus in my hand on the ruins of Lacedæmon: I carried with me from home nothing but Racine, Tasso, Virgil, and Homer, the latter interleaved for the purpose of writing notes. It cannot, therefore, appear surprising that, being obliged to draw upon the resources of my memory, I may have been wrong in regard to the place, without, however, being mistaken re, specting the fact. Two neat epigrams on this stone lion, at Thermopyla, may be seen in the Anthology.

I know not whether this was the spot where the Abbé Fourmont discovered three curious monuments. One of them was a cippus, on which was engraven the name of Jerusalem; perhaps a memorial of that alliance between the Jews and the Lacedæmonians which is mentioned in the Maccabees. The two others were the sepulchral inscription of Lysander and Agesilaus. I shall observe that to my countrymen Europe is indebted for the first satisfactory accounts of the ruins of Sparta and Athens.* Deshayes, who was sent to Jerusalem by Louis XIII. passed through Athens about the year 1629: we possess his travels, with which Chandler was not acquainted. In 1672, Father Babin, a Jesuit, published his relation of the Present State of the City of Athens. This relation was edited by Spon, before that honest and ingenious traveller had commenced his tours with Wheeler. The Abbé Fourmont and Leroi were the first who threw a steady light upon Laconia, though it is true that Vernon had visited Sparta before them: but nothing of his was published except a single letter, in which he merely mentions that he had seen

*On the subject of Athens, we have certainly the two letters from the collection of Martin Crusius, written in 1584; but not only do they contain scarcely any information, but they were written by Greeks, natives of the Morea, and consequently are not the fruit of the researches of modern travellers. Spon like. wise mentions the manuscript in the Barberini Library at Rome, which is dated two hundred years anterior to his travels, and in which he found some drawings of Athens.

Lacedæmon, without entering into any details. As for me, I know not whether my researches will be transmitted to posterity, but at least, I have joined my name to that of Sparta, which can alone rescue it from oblivion. I have fixed the site of that celebrated city; I have, if I may so express myself, re-discovered all these immortal ruins. A humble fisherman, in consequence of shipwreck, or rather by accident, often determines the position of rocks which had escaped the observation of the most skilful pilot.

There were at Sparta a great number of altars and statues dedicated to Sleep, to Death, to Beauty (Venus Morpho), divinities of all mankind; and to Fear armed, probably that with which the Lacedæmonians inspired their enemies. Not a vestige of these is now left, but I perceived upon a kind of socle these four letters ΛΑΣΜ. Could they have formed part of the word гEAAEMA? Could this have been the pedestal of the statue of Laughter which Lycurgus erected among the grave descendants of Hercules? The altar of Laughter, existing alone in the midst of entombed Sparta, would furnish a fair subject of triumph for the philosophy of Democritus.

Night drew on apace, when I reluctantly quitted these renowned ruins, the shade of Lycurgus, the recollection of Thermopyla, and all the fictions of fable and history. The sun sank behind the Taygetus, so that I had beheld him commence and finish his course on the ruins of Lacedæmon. It