A. D. 1676 who chose to treat of Greece. Guillet's second work is full of the grossest blunders on the locality of Sparta. The author insists that Misitra is Lacedæmon, and it was he who first gained credit for that egregious error. "Nevertheless," says Spon, "Misitra does not stand on the site of Sparta, as I' know from M. Giraud, Mr. Vernon, and others. Giraud, Vernon Giraud had been the French consul at Athens for eighteen years when Spon travelled in Greece. He understood the Turkish and Greck languages, as well as the vulgar Greek. He had begun a description of the Morea, but as he afterwards entered into the service of Great Britain, his manuscript probably fell into the hands of his last employers. Vernon, an English traveller, has left nothing but a letter printed in the Philosophical Transactions for 1676. He gives a rapid sketch of his travels in Greece. 66 Sparta," says he, " is a desert place: Misitra, which is four miles off, is inhabited. You find at Sparta almost all the walls of the towers and the foundations of the temples, with many columns demolished, as well as their capitals. A theatre is yet standing, perfect and entire. It was formerly five miles in circumference, and is situated about a quarter of a mile from the river Eurotas." It should be observed, that Guillet, in the preface to his last work, mentions several manuscript memoirs on Lacedæmon. "The least defective," says he, "are in the possession of M. Saint Challier, secretary to the French embassy in Piedmont." We have now arrived at another epoch in the his tory of the city of Athens. The travellers whom we have hitherto quoted beheld some of the most beau tiful monuments of Pericles in all their integrity. Pococke, Chandler, and Leroi, admired them only A. D. 1687. in their ruins. In 1687, while Louis XIV. was erecting the colonnade of the Louvre, the Venetians were demolishing the temple of Minerva. I shall speak hereafter of this deplorable event, a consequence of the victories of Koningsmark and Morosini. In this same year, 1687, appeared at Venice the Pacifico. Notizia del Ducato d'Atene, by Pietro Pacifico, a small work which displays no marks of taste or pains. Coronelli. Father Coronelli, in his Geographical Description A. D. 168. of the Morca reconquered by the Venetians, has shewn erudition; but he furnishes no new information, and his quotations and his maps should not be implicitly relied on. The petty military transactions extolled by Coronelli form a striking contrast with the places which are the theatre of them. Among the heroes of this conquest, we remark, however, a prince de Turenne, who fought near Pylos, says Coronelli, with the intrepidity natural to all the members of his house. Coronelli confounds Sparta with Misitra. The Atene Attica of Fanelli takes up the history Fanelli of Athens from its origin, and brings it down to the period at which the author wrote. His work is of little importance as far as regards antiquities; but it contains curious particulars of the siege of Athens by the Venetians in 1687, and a plan of that city, of which Chandler seems to have availed himself. Paul Lucas, Paul Lucas enjoys a high reputation among the A. D. 1701. class of travellers, and I am astonished at it: not but that he amuses us with his fables; the battles which he fights single-handed against fifty robbers-the A. D.170 prodigious bones which he meets with at every step-the cities of giants which he discovers-the three or four thousand pyramids which he finds on a public road, and which nobody besides himself ever saw, are diverting stories enough: but then he mangles all the inscriptions that he copies; his plagiarisms are incessant, and his description of Jerusalem is taken verbatim from that of Deshayes. Lastly, 1 he speaks of Athens as if he had never been there, and what he says of that city is one of the most glaring falsehoods that ever traveller had the impudence to publish. "Its ruins," says he, "are, as may be supposed, the most remarkable part of Athens. In fact, though the houses are very numerous in that city, and the climate delicious, there are scarcely any inhabitants. Here you find an accommodation that you meet with no where else; whoever pleases may live here without paying any rent, the houses being given away for nothing. For the rest, if this celebrated city surpasses all those. of antiquity in the number of monuments which it has consecrated to posterity; it máy likewise be asserted that the excellence of its climate has preserved them in better condition than those of any other place in the world, at least, of all such as I have seen. It would seem as if elsewhere people had taken delight in the work of destruction; and war has, in almost every country, occasioned ravages which, while they have ruined the inhabitants, have at the same time disfigured all the monuments of their better days. Athens alone, either accidentally, or from that respect which must necessarily be commanded by a city, once the seat of the sciences, and to which the whole world is under obligation-Athens, I say, was alone spared in the A.D. 1704. universal destruction. In every part of it you meet with marbles of astonishing beauty and magnitude; they were profusely introduced; and at every step you discover columns of granite and of jasper.” Athens is very populous; houses are not given away there, neither are columns of granite and jasper to be met with at every step: in a word, seventeen years prior to 1704 the monuments of that celebrated city had been demolished by the Venetians. The most singular circumstance is, that we were already in possession of M. de Nointel's drawings and Spon's travels when Paul Lucas printed this account, worthy of a place in the Arabian Nights. Pellegria. The Narrative of the Travels of the Sieur Pelle- A. D. 1718. grin, in the kingdom of Morea, is dated 1718. The author seems to have been a man of little education, and still less science. His paltry pamphlet of one hundred and eighty-two pages is a collection of anecdotes of gallantry, songs, and wretched poetry. The Venetians had remained masters of the Morea from 1685; they lost it in 1715. Pellegrin has sketched the history of this last conquest of the Turks, which is the only interesting part of his work. Fourmont The Abbé Fourmont went to the Levant, by order A.D. 1798. of Louis XV. in quest of inscriptions and manuscripts. I shall have occasion to mention in the present work some of the discoveries made at Sparta by that learned antiquary. His travels have remained in manuscript, and only some fragments of them are known; their publication would be highly desirable, as we possess nothing complete respecting the monuments of the Peloponnese. A. D. 1799. Pococke visited Athens on his return from Egypt. Pocock D A. D. 1739. He has described the monuments of Attica with that A. D. 1740. kins, and A. D. 1758, A. D. 1759. A. D. 1761, A. D, 1764, accuracy which communicates a knowledge of the arts, but excites no enthusiasm for them. Wood, Dawkins, and Bouveric, were just then making their literary tour in honour of Homer. The first picturesque tour of Greece was that of Leroi. Chandler accuses the French artist of a violation of truth in some of his drawings; and I have myself remarked in them superfluous ornaments. Leroi's sections and plans have not the scrupulous fidelity of Stuart's; but taking it altogether, his work is a monument honorable to France. Leroi was at Lacedæmon, which he clearly distinguishes from Misitra, and where he recognized the theatre and the dromos. I know not, if the Ruins of Athens by Robert Sayer be not an English translation of Leroi's book, with new engravings of the plates. I must likewise acknowledge my ignorance of Pars' work, which Chandler mentions with commendation. In 1761, Stuart enriched his country with his celebrated work, intituled, Antiquities of Athens. It is a grand undertaking, particularly useful to artists, and executed with that accuracy of admeasurement, which is, at the present day, considered such a high recommendation: but the general effect of the prints is not good; the whole together is deficient in that truth which pervades the details. Chandler's Travels, which speedily followed Stu-. art's Antiquities, might enable us to dispense with all the others. In this work the doctor has displayed uncommon fidelity, a pleasing and yet profound erudition, sound criticism, and exquisite taste. I bave only one fault to find with him, which is, that 1 |