and I do not believe a minnow will live in it. "The fields that cool Ilissus laves" are therefore much cooler than it, and it is much as true in poetry as "Maeander's amber waves," which are muddier than any horsepond; I could certainly make a better river with a gravy spoon, and I'll back Robert against the God Ilissus for making a stream at any time.

Turning back from the stadium along the narrow gutter down which the river Ilissus should run, we remarked a few stones, once the ruined temple of Ceres; a little island that should be where I believe were the Ilissiad Muses; and near the town the more majestic remains, which some call Hadrian's Pillars, some the temple of Jupiter Olympius. Whatever they were, you will like better to hear what we saw than what we think about them. There has been here, then, a large building with three front rows of columns at least. Twelve of these only remain now, nine in three rows at one end and three in a line with one of the rows at the other. They are Corinthian, and of an immense height. This you will suppose when I tell you that my head reaches no higher than the base, and that they are (as Wheler measured) seventeen feet nine inches round, or five feet eleven inches diameter. We then came into the city (after remarking the immense terrace raised before these columns and supported by strong masonry), through a little Corinthian gateway built by Hadrian, and with the inscription on it mentioned by several authors. On one side is written, towards the town: "This is Athens, once the city of Theseus"; on the other, "This is the city of Hadrian, and not of Theseus." I tell you what you may read in fifty books-however, I tell you what I see; so I at least have the merit of letting you know other people don't tell lies.

Turning through the town northwards we called in our road on our French friend Monsieur Fauvel. He lives in a deserted convent of Capucins, in the wall of which is the little rotunda of Lysicrates, called

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foolishly the lanthorn of Demosthenes. It is surrounded by Corinthian columns and cupolaed, and it has supported a tripod, won by Lysicrates and his tribe in the Athenian contests of music, and consecrated as usual in a little building of marble. It is now built up in white mortared walls, but has been very elegant. Round the frieze are represented Bacchus and his fauns turning the Tyrrhenian mariners into dolphins, and the sculpture is of the best kind. The figures are about a foot high, and delicately treated. We looked over the statues, medals, and drawings Fauvel is surrounded with, and returned home by the little tower of the winds. I will not, however, describe more buildings; they shall be for another letter, as I am sure they must tire you.

It is very pleasant to walk the streets here. Over almost every door is an antique statue or basso-rilievo, more or less good though all much broken, so that you are in a perfect gallery of marbles in these lands. Some we steal, some we buy, and our court is much adorned with them. I am grown, too, a great medallist, and my collection increases fast, as I have above two hundred, and shall soon, I hope, have as many thousands. I buy the silver ones often under the price of the silver, and the copper ones for halfpence. At this rate I have got some good ones, and mean to keep them for the alleviation of Sir Dilberry's visits, as they will be as good playthings as the furniture and pictures for half an hour before dinner. Don't you think the whole family much indebted to me; I am sure you are sensible of the obligation. The conjecturing on defaced medals is very ingenious, and I begin to grow quite a connoisseur. Thus employed, guess with what spirit our tour goes on; I really fear I shall never get out of Greece. Our house, to be sure, is not so good as Rokeby, but what signifies a house here, where I am now really writing at ten o'clock at night without a fire, with half my clothes off because they were too hot, though our windows and door are

half an inch open at every chink. This is the case whenever the south wind blows, and the weather is really like May. We live here most luxuriously in other respects, and our larder contains hares, woodcocks, and wild ducks in abundance. We had two days ago eighteen woodcocks together, some of which fell by our own hands on a shooting-party. Amongst our other delicacies I must mention the famous honey of Hymettus, which is better than I can describe or you imagine easily, without I could enclose you some. We are very well with the Turks here, and particularly with the governor of the town, who has called on us, sent us game, made coursing-parties for us, offered us dogs, horses, etc., and is a very jolly, hearty fellow. We often go and smoke a pipe there, and are on the best of terms. I shall really grow a Mussulman. If they are ignorant it is the fault of their government and religion, but I shall always say I never saw a better disposed or manlier people. Their air, from the highest to the lowest, is that of lords and masters, as they are, and their civility has something dignified and hearty in it, as from man to man; while I really have English blood enough in me almost to kick a Greek for the fawning servility he thinks politeness. They salute you by putting their hand to their heart; and I should not have mentioned this trifle but that, as some of them do it, it has the most graceful air in the world.

The Greeks are, you will see, in très mauvaise odeur with us; and I would much rather hear that the Turks were improving their government than hear that the Empress had driven them out, for I am sure, if left to the Greeks in their present state, the country would not be passable. We have just breakfasted, and are meditating a walk to the citadel, where our Greek attendant is gone to meet the workmen, and is, I hope, hammering down the Centaurs and Lapithae, like Charles's mayor and aldermen in the "School for Scandal." Nothing like making hay when the sun

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shines, and when the commandant has felt the pleasure of having our sequins for a few days, I think we shall bargain for a good deal of the old temple.

Thank my mother for the advice she sent me from the Archbishop. I shall be proud to answer His Grace's learned questions anent Grecian antiquities, and to give Miss Markham any hints in my power on the varieties of Grecian dress, of which I shall bring a pattern from the Islands. I must observe, however, that the English ladies were very accurate in the shape of it, though the belles Grecques are much less exposed than my Lady Charlotte.

I am wanted by the Centaurs and Lapithae. Goodbye for a moment. Scruples of conscience had arisen in the mind of the old scoundrel at the citadel; that is to say, he did not think we had offered him enough. We have, however, rather smoothed over his difficulties, and are to have the marble the first opportunity we can find to send it off from Athens. I, only being sensible of the extreme awkwardness of Grecian workmen, tremble lest it should be entirely broken to pieces on taking it out; if any accident happens to it I shall be quite crazy, as now there is nothing damaged but the faces and one of the hands. If I get it safe I shall be quite happy, and long to show it you at Rokeby.

Yours,

J. B. S. MORRITT.

CHAPTER VIII

THROUGH THE MOREA, INCLUDING THE TERRITORY OF THE MAINOTES IN LACONIA

DEAR FRANCES,

TRIPOLIZZA, MOREA,

March 26, 1795.

I write to you once more from the very centre of the Peloponnesus, and with a pleasure you have scarce an idea of My head is full of what we see and hear, and so I will try to make you in some measure a partaker of our tour, and shall recall you so much to ancient times that you will possibly think me dreaming, and that I see things as they were a thousand years ago, when I talk of towns and places which you have considered as ancient names, vanished entirely in the course of time.

We set out from Athens on the 19th, and, passing by Eleusis, slept at Megara. There we found a little statue, half buried in the ground, which we dug up. You will laugh at me when I tell you that it had no head, and its arms were broken; however, it was a female figure, and the drapery and attitude pleased me so much that I took the trouble of packing it off on a mule for Corinth, and so to Zante. If I can get it well restored in Italy, it will figure in the Rokeby collection; and its greatest charm perhaps will be that I found it myself. At least, it was not expensive; for, giving half a crown to a priest that belonged to a chapel near it, we pretended to have a firman, and carried it off from the Greeks in triumph.