'expedition of the French to Cairo; and the generality of the people being 'fond of ascribing every thing for which they cannot account to a superna'tural power, have not failed to set this down in the catalogue of miracles. 'Others give the following solution; that in the vicinity of Cairo was a large 'lake of stagnant water, which was esteemed pestiferous. The French during 'their stay in Ægypt drained the lake, and exterminated the source of the 'disease.' Journal. According to the latest accounts the plague has resumed its ravages, and is nów (January, 1813) devastating Constantinople. It has not appeared at Athens for twenty-five years. The modern Greeks, like their ancestors, personify the plague. They represent it under the form of an old woman clothed in black, who during the night breathes from her lips a mortal poison, on every house which she passes. D'Ohsson has given a very striking and affecting picture of the horrors of the plague.* Il est impossible (he says) de rendre le tableau que présente une ville attaquée de ce mal contagieux. Il y a des années où en moins de six mois il enlève à Constantinople plus de soixante mille ames. Souvent des familles entières s'éteignent en quinze ou vingt jours; la désolation se promène de maisons en maisons; le deuil et les pleurs des unes, l'effroi continuel des autres: cette file de convois funèbres qui remplissent les rues, ces visages pales et livides que l'on rencontre à chaque pas, ces hommes mourans que ne peut souvent éviter de toucher dans les passages étroits et obstrués, la stagnation du commerce et des affaires courantes, la nécessité de poursuivre des droits d'hérédité qui se compliquent chaque jour par de nouvelles morts, tout enfin contribue à empoisonner les jours de ceux mêmes qui paroissoient les plus attachés au dogme de la prédestination. l'on 1. 431. His eyes blood-shot.] This and the other symptoms of the plague I have taken from Thucydides: Των οφθαλμων ερυθημαία και φλοίωσις ελαμβανε. 1. 435, Foul ulcers.] Σωμα εκ αίαν θερμον ην εξε χλωρον, αλλ' υπερυθρον, πελιδνον, φλυκταιναις μικραις και έλκεσιν εξήνθηκος 4 Guys, i. p. 152. 2 Tableau Général de l'Empire Othoman, T. iv. p. 390. 1. 438. On Anchesmus.] A hill near Athens. 1. 447. Around each fount.] Και εν ταις όδοις εκαλινδενο και περι τας κρηνας άπασας, ἡμιθνήτες τη τε ύδατος επιθυμία. 1. 447. Every temple's porch.] Ta Te iεga, e dis coxnunilo, vexgav πλeα nv, Τα τε ίερα, εν οις εσκηνηνίο, νεκρων εναποθνησκονων. 1. 454. Ye venerable woods of Academe.] A road passing from the gate Dipylon through the Ceramicus, and near the tombs of the illustrious statesmen and warriors, led to the Academy, distant six stadia, or three quarters of a mile, from the city." 'Without the city, in the Demoi,' are temples of the Gods, and monuments ' of heroes and men placed near the road. Close to it is the Academy, for'merly the abode of an individual, but in my time a gymnasium. As you 'enter, there is a precinct sacred to Diana, and statues of the Best and most 'Beautiful; appellations, in my opinion, (which is confirmed by Sappho,) appropriated to Diana.' 98 The site of the ancient Academy is now laid out in gardens. It is overshadowed by woods of olive, interspersed with planes and cypresses, and watered by the Cephissus. The Collis Coloneus, an abrupt rocky knoll, rises at a short distance from it, ten stadia (a mile and a quarter) from the city.' We meet with many illustrations of the scenery of the Academy and Colonean hill in the ancient poets, particularly in the tragedians, one of which I shall transcribe. The immediate vicinity is thus beautifully described by Sophocles.' Διονυσος εμβατεύει Θείαις αμφιπόλων τιθήναις. Κρηναι μινύθεσι Κηφισε νομάδες ρεέθρων, Αλλ' αιεν επ' ήματι Ωκύλοκος πεδιων επινίσσεται Ακηρατῳ ξυν ομβρῳ Στερναχε χθονος. Here tells the tuneful nightingale, At fall of eve, her mournful tale, In grassy dell conceal'd beneath Where no bright-glancing sunbeams glare, With matin dews of Heav'n o'erspread, Round mossy stone, and craggy steeps, In pebbly murmurs soft and low It seeks the arid plain below, Its waters' fertilising show'rs. The neighbourhood was adorned with woods of olive and groves of laurel.' The Lacedæmonians in their different invasions of Attica always spared the olive groves of the Academy.' Athens (it may be observed) had olive woods when they were unknown in other parts, and two centuries after the foundation of Rome both Italy and Africa were strangers to that useful plant." The olive, according to Pindar," was brought from the shores of the Danube to those of the Alpheus by Hercules. The Furies who were invited by Minerva to settle at Athens' had a precinct near the Academy and Colonean hill consecrated to them. Neptune also and Prometheus were worshipped there: The low rock situated near the Collis Coloneus must be the Thorician rock or the hill of Ceres.' The view of the Academy suggested to Cicero one of the finest passages in his philosophical works, upon the influence of local scenery on the association of ideas.❜ 1. 465. Cicada's note.] The TT, or cicada, the cicala of the Italians, and the xlixo of the modern Greeks, every schoolboy has been taught to translate Grashopper. Dr. Thomas Brown' is, I believe, the first person who pointed out the error, and his account is further elucidated by Dr. Shaw's description.* "Of this genus (Cicada) the most common European species is the Cicada 'plebeia of Linnæus. This is the insect so often commemorated by the ancient ' poets, and so generally confounded by the major part of translators with the grashopper. It is a native of the warmer parts of Europe, and particularly of Italy and Greece, appearing in the hotter months of summer, and continuing 'its chirping during the greatest part of the day, generally sitting amongst 'the leaves of the trees.' The TT is a great favourite with the Greek poets, but for my own part I feel more inclined to admire it on account of the many very beautiful verses to which it has given occasion than for its own merits. The chirping of one of these insects is tolerable; we perhaps even listen to it with pleasure in remembrance of its classical celebrity; but a chorus of them is insufferable, and is worse than the stridulous voluntary of a Turkish orchestra. During the heat of the day the woods re-echo with the united chaunts of these indefatigable songsters. Their dissonant shrillness sounded always to my ear like the noise which we may suppose to be produced by a thousand hurdygurdies, accompanied by the rattling of shot in a thousand bottles. The TT has received its greatest commendation from the minor poets whose compositions are preserved in the Anthologia; and a very pretty poem is found in that collection,' in which a musician relates that when he had the misfortune to break one of the strings of his cithara during the performance of a piece of music, a cicada with its voice instantly supplied the place of the note that was wanting. Hesiod mentions it twice, but assigns it no praise, characterising it merely as the noisy rari, an epithet in the propriety of which I perfectly agree. Ημος δε χλοερῳ κυανόπτερος ηχεια τετίιξ But when the noisy tettinx, fed with dew, 5 Anthol. iii. Hes. Scut. Herc. 1. 393, and Op. et Dies, 1. 582. |