1 lage, which are large, and kept in good repair, are scattered in groups over the plain, embosomed in mulberry, orange, and cypress trees. The vines, which constitute the riches of this district, give a fresh and fertile appearance to the country; they do not climb in festoons upon trees, as in Italy, nor are they kept low, as in the vicinity of Paris. Each root forms a detached verdant bush, round which the grapes hang, in autumn, like crystals. The summits of Parnassus and Helicon, the Gulf of Lepanto, which resembles a magnificent canal, Mount Oneius covered with myrtles, form the horizon of the picture to the north and east; while the AcroCorinthus, and the mountains of Argolis and Sicyon, rise to the south and west. As to the monuments of Corinth, there is not one of them in existence. M. Foucherot has discovered among their ruins but two Corinthian capitals, the sole memorial of the order invented in that city. Corinth, razed to the ground by Mummius, rebuilt by Julius Cæsar and by Adrian, a second time destroyed by Alaric, again rebuilt by the Venetians, was sacked for the third and last time by Mahomet II. Strabo saw it soon after its reestablishment, during the reign of Augustus. Pausanias admired it in Adrian's time; and to judge from the monuments which he has described, it must have been at that period a magnificent city. It would be interesting to know in what condition it was in 1173, when it was visited by Benjamin of Tudela; but this Spanish Jew gravely relates that he arrived at Patras, "the city of Antipater, one of the four Grecian kings, who divided among themselves the empire of Alexander." He thence proceeded to Lepanto and to Corinth: in the latter he found three hundred Jews under the superintendence of the venerable rabbis, Leo, Jacob, and Hezekiah; and this was all that Benjamin concerned himself about. Modern travellers have made us better acquainted with what remains of Corinth after so many calamities. Spon and Wheeler here discovered the ruins of a temple of the highest antiquity; these ruins consisted of eleven fluted columns without bases and of the Doric order. Spon asserts', that these columns were not in height above four diameters more than the diameter of the foot of the column; by which I suppose he means that their height was equal to five diameters. Chandler says, that they were only half as high as they ought to have been, according to the correct proportions of their order, Spon is evidently mistaken, since he takes the diameter of the foot of the column instead of the diameter of the middle for the standard of the order. This monument, a drawing of which is given by Leroi, was worthy of being noticed here, because it proves either that the early Doric had not the proportions since assigned to it by Pliny and Vitruvius, or that the Tuscan order to which this temple bears a close resemblance did not originate in Italy. Spon thought that he recognised in this monument the temple of Diana of Ephesus, mentioned by Pausanias; and Chandler took it to be the Sisypheus of Strabo. I know not whether these columns still exist; I did not see them, but I have some confused recollection of hearing that they were thrown down, and that the last fragments of them were carried away by the English.* A maritime people, a king who was a philosopher and who became a tyrant, a Roman barbarian who fancied that the statues of Praxiteles might be replaced like soldiers' helmets; all these recollections render Corinth not very interesting: but to make some amends, you have Jason, Medea, the fountain of Pirene, Pegasus, the Isthmian games instituted by Theseus and sung by Pindar ; that is to say, fable and poetry, as usual. I shall say nothing of Dionysius and of Timoleon, one of whom was so cowardly as not to die, the other so unfortunate as to live. If I were to ascend a throne, I would not relinquish it but with my life; and never shall I be virtuous enough to kill my brother: I care not therefore about these two men; but I love that boy, who, during the siege of Corinth, melted Mummius himself into tears, by reciting these verses of Homer: * These columns were, or still are near the harbour of Schonus, and I missed them by not going down to the sea. 66 Τρὶς μάκαρες Δαναοὶ καὶ τετράκις οι τοτ ἄλοντο Τῶ κ ̓ ἔλαχον κτερέων, καὶ μευ κλέος ἦγον Αχαιοί "O, thrice, and four times blest, the Greeks who perished before the vast walls of Ilion, supporting the cause of the Atrides! Would to the gods, that I had met my fate on the day when the Trojan javelins showered upon me while defending the body of Achilles! Then should I have received the accustomed honours of the funeral pile, and the Greeks would have preserved my name! Now fate decrees that my life should end in an obscure and inglorious death!" Here is truth, nature and pathos! here we find a great reverse of fortune, the power of genius, and the feelings of man! Vases are still made at Corinth, but not such as Cicero so earnestly entreated his friend Atticus to send him. It seems, for the rest, as if the Corinthians had lost the partiality which they had for strangers. While I was examining a marble in a vineyard, I was saluted with a shower of stones; the descendants of Lais are probably desirous of keeping up the credit of the ancient proverb. When the Cæsars rebuilt the walls of Corinth, and the temples of the gods rose from their ruins more magnificent than ever, there was an obscure architect who was rearing, in silence, an edifice which remains standing amid the ruins of Greece. This architect was a foreigner, who gives this account of himself :---" Thrice was I beaten with rods; once was I stoned; thrice I suffered shipwreck. In journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness." This man, unknown to the great, despised by the multitude, rejected as "the offscouring of the world,” at first associated with himself only two companions, Crispus and Caius, with the family of Stephanas. These were the humble architects of an indestructible temple, and the first believers at Corinth. The traveller surveys the site of this celebrated city; he discovers not a vestige of the altars of paganism, but he perceives some christian chapels rising from among the cottages of the Greeks. The apostle might still from his celestial abode give the salutation of peace to his children, and address them in the words, "Paul to the church of God, which is at Corinth." It was near eight in the morning of the 21st, when we set out from Corinth, after a good night's rest. Two roads lead from Corinth to Megara: the one takes you over Mount Gerania, now Palæo |