him who would not behold nature with the eyes of - Fenelon and of Homer.

The wind having lulled about eight o'clock in the evening, and the sea being perfectly smooth, the ship remained motionless. Here I enjoyed the first sun-set, and the first night beneath the sky of Greece. To the left we had the island of Fano, and that of Corcyra stretching away to the east: beyond these were seen the high lands of the continent of Epire; the Acroceraunian mountains which we had passed formed to the northward behind us a circle which terminated at the entrance of the Adriatic; on our right, that is, to the west, the sun went down beyond the coast of Otranto; and before us was the open sea, extending to the shores of Africa.

The colours produced by the setting sun were not brilliant; that luminary descended between clouds which he tinged of a roseate hue; he sunk below the horizon, and twilight supplied his place for half an hour. During this short interval, the sky was white in the west, light blue at the zenith, and pearl grey in the east. The stars, one after another, issued from this admirable canopy; they appeared small, not very bright, but shed a golden light, so soft that it is impossible for me to convey any idea of it. The horizon of the sea, skirted with a slight vapour, was blended with that of the sky. At the foot of Fano, or the island of Calypso, was seen a flame, kindled by fishermen.

With a

little stretch of imagination, I might have seen the Nymphs setting fire to the ship of Telemachus; and had I been so disposed I might have heard Nausicaa sportively conversing with her companions, or Andromache's lamentation on the banks of the false Simoïs, since I could perceive at a distance, through the transparent night, the mountains of Scheria and Buthrotum.

Prodigiosa veterum mendacia vatum.

The climate operates more or less upon the taste of nations. In Greece, for instance, a suavity, a softness, a repose pervade all Nature, as well as the works of the ancients. You may almost conceive, as it were by intuition, why the architecture of the Parthenon has such exquisite proportions; why ancient sculpture is so unaffected, so tranquil, so simple, when you have beheld the pure sky, and the delicious scenery of Athens, of Corinth, and of Ionia. In this native land of the Muses, Nature suggests no wild deviations; she tends, on the contrary, to dispose the mind to the love of the uniform and of the harmonious.

The calm continued on the 6th, and I had abundant leisure to survey Corfu, in ancient times, alternately called Drepanum, Macria, Scheria, Corcyra, Ephisa, Cassiopea, Ceraunia, and even Argos. Upon this island Ulysses was cast naked after his shipwreck. Would to God that the country of Alcinous had never been celebrated, but for fictitious misfortunes! In spite of myself, I called to mind the troubles of Corcyra, which Thucydides

has so eloquently related. It seems, however, as if Homer, in singing the gardens of Alcinous, had attached something poetical and marvellous to the destinies of Scheria. There Aristotle expiated, in banishment, the errors of a passion which philosophy has not always the strength to surmount. Alexander, in his youth, having quitted the court of his father Philip, landed at Corcyra, and the islanders beheld the first step of the armed stranger, who was destined to visit all the nations of the globe. Several natives of Corcyra won crowns at the Olympic games; their names were immortalized by the verses of Simonides, and the statues of Polycletus. Consistently with its twofold destiny, Corcyra continued to be, under the Romans, the theatre of glory and of misfortune. Cato, after the battle of Pharsalia, met Cicero at Corcyra. What a fine subject to work upon would be the interview between these two Romans! What men! what sorrows! what vicissitudes of fortune! We should behold Cato offering to relinquish to Cicero the command of the last republican legions, because Cicero had been consul. They would then separate; the one to tear out his bowels at Utica, the other to carry his head to the triumvirs. Not long afterwards Anthony and Octavia celebrated at Corcyra that fatal marriage which proved the source of so much affliction to the world; and scarcely had half a century elapsed when Agrippina repaired to the same place to pay funeral honours to Germanicus: as if this island

were destined to furnish two historians, rivals in genius as in language,* with the subject of the most admirable of their pictures.

Another order of things and events, of men and manners, frequently brings forward the name of Corcyra, at that time Corfu, in the histories of Byzantium, of Naples, and of Venice, and in the collection entitled: Gesta Dei per Francos. It was from Corfu that the army of crusaders, which seated a French gentleman on the throne of Constantinople, took its departure. But, were I to say any thing concerning Apollidorus, bishop of Corfu, who distinguished himself by his doctrine at the council of Nice, concerning St. Arsenius and George, likewise prelates of this island; were I to observe that the church of Corfu was the only one which escaped the persecution of Dioclesian, or that Helena, the mother of Constantine, set out from Corfu on her pilgrimage to the east ; I should be afraid of exciting a smile of compassion in the face of the free-thinker. How is it possible to bring in the names of St. Jason and St. Sopistratus, apostles of the Corcyræans, during the reign of Claudius, after having mentioned Homer, Aristotle, Alexander, Cicero, Cato, and Germanicus? And yet is a martyr to independence a greater character than a martyr to truth? Is Cato, devoting himself for the liberties of Rome, more heroic than Sopistratus, suffering himself to be burned in a brazen bull, for proclaiming to men that they are brethren;

* Thucydides and Tacitus.

that they ought to love and succour one another, and exalt themselves to the presence of the true God, by the practice of virtue?

I had abundant leisure for these reflections on beholding the shores of Corfu, off which we were detained by a profound calm. The reader perhaps wishes for a favourable wind to waft me to Greece, and to relieve him from my digressions: such a wind we had on the morning of the 7th. A breeze from the north-west sprung up, and we passed Cefalonia. On the Sth, we had, on our left, Leucate, now St. Maura, which was blended in the view with a lofty promontory of the island of Ithaca and the low-lands of Cefalonia. You no longer discover in the country of Ulysses either the forest of Mount Nereus, or the thirteen peartrees of Laertes. These last have disappeared as well as the two still more venerable trees of the same kind, which Henry IV. gave for a watchword to his army at the battle of Ivry. I paid my distant salutations to the cottage of Eumæus, and to the tomb of the faithful dog. We know of but, one dog celebrated for his ingratitude; he was called Math, and belonged, if I recollect rightly, to one of the kings of England, of the house of Lancaster. History has been at the pains to record the name of this ungrateful animal, as she preserves that of a man who continues faithful amidst adversity.

On the 9th, we coasted along Cefalonia, and rapidly approached Zante, the nemorosa Zacynthos.