part of the world could edifices be placed in so strong a light, or in such picturesque situations. The history of the religious and military architecture of Athens goes very far back. Homer calls it well built, and speaks of its temples. The accomplished usurper Pisistratus began the Temple of Jupiter Olympius; and the Gallery of Painting was in existence before the battle of Marathon. When the troops of Xerxes laid Athens waste, they had many structures on which they could wreak their barbarity: but, as barbarians are lazy, it is probable that they rather injured than destroyed many places; for, before the use of gunpowder, it was a work of labour to annihilate massive buildings. Pausanias, indeed, mentions several monuments that were older than the Persian war. And the Persians made full amends for the mischief which they had done, by the spoils which they left behind them, and by the spirit and pride, immeasurably more precious than spoils, which their defeat roused in the hearts of their conquerors. The injury done to their city was only a challenge to the Athenians to rebuild it more superbly. Themistocles urged them to structures of gigantic strength and usefulness. Cimon and Pericles, afterwards, directed their architectural views more to magnificence; though Cimon also promoted works of security. Hence, in a century, the walls of Athens, extending to a circuit of eighteen miles, inclosed the most matchless statues and structures that were ever looked upon by man; galleries of transcendant paintings, immense sweeps of marble porticoes, and a theatre, where a young and fresh muse held up a new mirror of life to society. The private houses of Athens were exceedingly poor, in comparison with those in the country; and the streets, overcrowded with trees, must have made a disagreeable contrast with the magnificent public buildings. But viewed at a distance, that effect, on the collective appearance of the city, must have been greatly diminished. What a view must the sunny morning of an Attic festival have afforded from the top of Mount Hymettus. The Cephisus, it is true, was but a narrow stream, yet it must have seemed at least delightful to the "poet's eye," when Euripides describes Venus breathing beauty over the land after she had tasted its waters. The eye could trace from the top of Hymettus all the ten great roads on the Pedion, or plain of Athens, which, like the radii of a circle, diverged into the country, amidst forests of olivetrees, appearing in their bloom like a white veil, sustained by branches of dusky green. As far as Eleusis the sacred way was visible, through rows of statues, and temples, and mausoleums. To the north,lay the Diacri, the poorest but the gayest of a happy people; vine-dressers and shepherds for ever enjoying the dance and song. Over the tracts of their mountains, the road lay, all the way to Oropus, through thickets of laurel roses. On the other side, the eye could reach to Sunium, where the mariners of Parali plied their nautical games on the swelling waves. The sensations which the nearer prospect of the Acropolis, and of the vast walls stretching down to the Piræus, were calculated to awaken in the breast of a patriotic Athenian, and the glorying homage which he must have paid to the image of his tutelary Minerva, in front of the Parthenon, whilst that building blazed above an hundred others of resembling beauty on the city beneath, form a subject, which it is sufficient to leave to the reader's imagination. THE HORSEMAN'S SONG, FROM KÖRNER. My horse, my horse-to arms! to arms! Our foes, with threats and loud alarins, Away! away! my charger, bear Come, hasten to the bridal feast, And him to whom that bride is dear- What if he fall! Oh soft the place And as the leafless oak in spring Howe'er, my charger, fate decree, Follow the path to liberty, Though through the grave it lead O'er conquest's blood-red summit high What reck we how it speed! My horse, my horse, to victory! The storm roars through our land; Charge through the foeman's band! L. THE THOMPSON PAPERS. To the Editor of the New Monthly Magazine. London, Feb. 19, 1825. SIR, I take leave to address you on a subject which to me seems of some importance, and although our acquaintance is confined to a mere bow of recognition when we meet, I have very little difficulty in addressing a gentleman of ability and liberality, when I think, by doing so, I may render a service to society now, and hereafter. No person of common perception can be unconscious of the present rage for collected literary correspondence: chests and closets, bags and boxes, are emptied of the dusty documents, which have slumbered within their confines for ages, to gratify the popular appetite; and the wisest and wittiest amongst us, hesitate not to undertake the task of editing those precious relics, the letters of our great-grandfathers, and illustrating their contents with the valuable fruits of deep research and intricate inquiry. It is impossible to read these collections without intense interest; the private actions of public men are always food for general curiosity; and to see how ill a hero spelt his love-letters, or how sillily a sage addressed his mistress, are sufficient inducements to purchase as many quartos and octavos as Messrs. COLBURN or MURRAY may choose to put forth;-but still there is a reigning obscurity, a prevalent unintelligibility, in all these Miscellanea, which never can be cleared up or explained away, at so great a distance of time, as that from the period at which they were written to the present moment. Even the bestread and best-informed annotators are often puzzled for the meaning of a nick-name, or the nature of an amusement, and of course by many of the allusions, which were, most probably, freemasonry even at the hour. It appears therefore to me, upon the principle that he who sows acorns deserves gold medals, that any man collecting during his life the letters of his contemporaries, publishing them as he receives them, and making annotations wherever marginal remarks may seem necessary to their elucidation, would deserve extremely well of his country.Such a proceeding would naturally contribute, in an eminent degree, to lighten the labour of future editors, whose intelligence and assiduity would otherwise be doubtlessly put to the test, not only in rescuing the letters themselves from positive oblivion, but in endeavouring to explain to our great-grandchildren the observations and remarks upon customs now prevalent, which in another century shall have fallen into utter disuse; upon fashions now in full vigour, which then shall be obsolete; and even upon persons whose names sound mightily well at the present moment in the circles of fashion and literature, but which, in the course of an hundred years, will become as obscure, and be as much forgotten, as the histories of the birth, parentage, and education of the worthies who strained canvass for HOGARTH, or stitched books for POPE. For the good of my country, and the advancement of literature, I, Mr. Editor, am willing to make myself a sacrifice,-I am ready not only to develope my own history, as far as it can be gathered from actual correspondence, my feelings, my failings, my wants, wishes and weaknesses, in the cause; but also the histories of all my friends and acquaintance, and all their feelings and failings, wants, wishes and weaknesses, by submitting to you once a month all the letters I have received during the preceding twenty-eight days. You will please to understand, Sir, that I have a large circle of acquaintance, (they call themselves friends,) who favour me most liberally with their opinions and observations upon things in general-lawyers, poets, painters, soldiers, sailors actors, doctors, clergymen, apothecaries, even ministers of state; and, what are still more important to a single gentleman, ladies, married and unmarried, are numbered amongst my numerous correspondents :-you will naturally imagine that I maintain the correspondence upon equal terms; but as I am, perhaps, the least vain person imaginable, and tremble at the sight of any production of my own in print (even an advertisement for a lost spaniel), never line of mine do you receive, if you accept my offer, except, now and then perhaps, a few words by way of note, whenever a person or pursuit mentioned, is so decidedly private as to render some little explanation absolutely necessary. I admit, since I wish to anticipate objections, that this proposal earries with it the air of something like a breach of confidence; but I perceive that you have already printed letters of persons dead and living, who certainly never expected to see their writings put openly before the world, and therefore I have less delicacy in making the offer, since all my friends will immediately see the use to which 1 apply their communications, and if they dislike my conduct, they may, in anger, desist from writing to me any more, or in revenge go the length of publishing whatever I write to them. And so, Mr. Editor, if you choose, you may untie the red tape which holds together the collection for part of January and February, and shaking the contents upon your table, arrange them in whatever order you think fit ;-you will perceive that I have carefully erased the names of the writers, having merely docketed the covers. In hopes that we may in course of time become better acquainted, pray permit me to subscribe myself, Yours faithfully, JOHN THOMPSON. Having accepted Mr. THOMPSON's strange offer, we submit the following correspondence to which he alludes; from a regular continuation of which, we hope to be able to furnish a monthly review of men and manners, and things in general, as they occur, with the different views taken of them by his various friends and acquaintances. ED.. No. I. Brighton, January 30, 1825. MY DEAR THOMPSON,-I received your letter of the 25th, (as it is natural I should,) on the 26th, but we have been so busy getting ourselves settled in our new residence on the Marine Parade, that I literally have had not a moment to reply to your questions about the Mine shares, or coming here, or your aunt's health, or indeed 'any thing else—but now, having at length gotten a room to sit down in, I hasten to make the amende honorable, and reply in due form to all your interrogatories. In the first place the shares ;-you surely must perceive that the game at which you evidently feel a strong desire to play, is one of mere chance it is extremely well to talk of certain profits, and look with the most amiable regards upon plans, elevations, shafts, sections, and the deuce knows what; but it requires a serious thought before you embark a property in such schemes, to the manifest injury of those nearest and dearest to you :-you say, you never can fail, because you make no engagements, but pay as far as your money goes, and if compelled to stop, why the total loss is the amount of your subscription, and there can be no farther claim upon you;-this may be true, and at all events, sounds plausible; but recollect the security you have upon such distant speculations, subject to all political contingencies, and to the moral responsibility of resident agents. You have seen the calculations of the amount actually vested in similar undertakings?-if you have not, get it, and impress upon your mind that upwards of one hundred and sixty-six millions of money are embarked: perhaps this will make you pause,-if it do not, believe me farther, that without application to Parliament, your transfers of shares are illegal, and that, with application to Parliament, you become responsible, not only for the sum you have subscribed, but for your share of the positive loss, as far as your whole property will go towards defraying it. This, however, smells of shop, and I will defer my farther arguments until we meet, and proceed now to tell you what I think of your coming here:-in the first place, my wife has got a tormenting toothache, under which affliction she is not so patient as I could wish-my eldest girl has a violent cold, and we are at the moment without a cookthe wind whistles through the bow window of the drawing-room, and seems to sound in my ears, as the London bells did to Whittington, a summons to my own comfortable house in Grosvenor-street: but Emily declares that she must stay here, because the Countess is here; not that she cares a straw for the Countess, nor the Countess a straw for her, but she thinks it extremely wrong to go to town before either Parliament sits or the Opera opens; I, having no seat in the one, and she no box at the other; staying here, however, is what she calls life; but which, I really apprehend, (so anomalous are all her proceedings,) is likely to be her death. Both she and my eldest girl caught their colds by going to the theatre the other night, which Emily was resolved on doing; not to hear the wind-whistling music of Der Freyschutz, which she had heard four times before in London, (by the way, what an illustrious specimen of Humbug that is!) but because the Countess had a box. She would not have the horses out at night, because the Countess would set her down; but, unfortunately for her schemings, the Countess had some singing-people down from town, and did not go; Emily was out of sorts the whole evening, and when the performance was ended, we discovered on the outside of the theatre, that of which there was not the remotest probability within-I mean an overflow:-the rain fell in torrents-no carriage there-and as flies are as scarce in bad weather at Brighton as any where else, we had no alternative but wading home with the wind in our faces, in as sharp a shower as ever gratified the eye of a thirsty farmer. Now, is it not marvellous, my dear Thompson, that people should act so completely under the influence of others, or suffer themselves 1 |