The

democracy, but out of a departure from the policy of the democracy, as for forty years it had been established by their most illustrious statesman. great ends of the Periklean administration, and in which he had been heartily sustained by the nation, were the cultivation of the people at home, the steady maintenance of Grecian unity, and the avoidance of foreign aggression. In the prosecution of these ends, they reached that pitch of greatness which has never been surpassed, and it was not until these were abandoned, as they were in the ill-fated expedition to Syracuse, that their prosperity began to wane. Up to that disastrous event, to which they were led, partly by a generous sympathy with the suffering democrats of the Sicilian cities, and partly by the ambitious counsels of the able, but dissolute Alkibiades, they had sustained the shock of the Peloponnesian civil war, with undismayed and invincible vigor. Though year after year the Attic territories had been ravaged, their olive-groves desolated, and their houses leveled to the ground; though a plague of unprecedented malignity had twice turned their chief city, where the fugitives from the country had gathered in festering multitudes, into a charnelhouse; though aristocratic intrigue and Persian gold had seduced colony after colony into revolt; though the most powerful states of Greece, led on by the revengeful Sparta, had combined in fierce and relentless hostility; though her treasury was exhausted, her industry paralysed, her best fleets dispersed, and her best armies beaten, Athens bore up against every misfortune, with an almost miraculous elasticity and self-reliance. But the extinction of her gallant navy, in the pent-up harbors of Syracuse, was the blow from which she never finally recovered. She protracted the war and fought bravely to the last, but the Athens of Nikias and Alkibiades was not the Athens of Perikles and Kimon. The sinews of her strength were relaxed, the stern democracy of a hundred years of glory yielded, and the Lacedemonian triumphed over the protectress of the world.

We cannot, however, pursue this subject; we have spoken in the highest terms of Mr. Grote's history, and yet we are bound to add, in closing, that we do not esteem it a perfect history. The style is clear, massive, and forci

ble, and the general method eminently lucid and judicious; but there are a great many needless repetitions in it, and the mechanicism of the construction, if we may so express ourselves, the skeleton, or frame-work of the structure, and the processes of the author in arriving at his results, are too frequently obtruded upon the current of the narrative. Nor is this narrative itself sufficiently relieved by those dramatic and scenic accompaniments of phrase and description, which the incidents, the locality, the glowing occasion often suggest, and which the gravest history not only admits, but demands. Mr. Grote tells a plain, straightforward, instructive story, but he paints few pictures; and those which he does sketch in outline, now and then, are deficient in local color. Greece is to him a land of great deeds, but not of enrapturing beauty and grandeur. Her serene skies and transparent atmosphere; her majestic mountains, that look upon the sea; her oracular cliffs, overhanging the sacred vales, in whose inmost recesses the nymphs are at play; the dark and broken precipices filled with monsters and dragons; the far-stretching plains, bright with the garlands which Persephone too heedlessly gathered; the flowery hills of Hy mettus, with the sound of bees; the groves hoary with olives; the whispering streams; in short, the objects which charmed the quick fancy of Milton have made no impression upon his imagination, and are nowhere inwrought or transfused into his language. He writes like one who is giving in his evidence, like a gentleman and scholar always; but a gentleman and scholar who seldom woos the soft delights of poetry.

This defect of imagination, apparent in his vocabulary and style, has been the cause, also, of a capital want in his whole conception. He has composed a history of political, but not of intellectual and imaginative Greece. With the exception of the few chapters on Homer, on lyric poetry, and on Sokrates and the sophists, we have no thorough or systematic view of the mental life of Greece. Her literature, her oratory, her arts are incidentally treated, of course, but are nowhere unfolded in all the greatness of their extent, or in their relations to each other, and to the growth of the people. The origin and progress of the drama,

To

OWARDS the close of our sojourn in Greece, we were presented at court. At the appointed hour, our party, sixteen in number, drew up at the north point of the palace. This structure is a great, dreary, square marble box, with holes in it, and entirely destitute of architectural beauty. The site is not badly chosen-on a slight elevation facing the Acropolis-and it has a garden on both points. One of them is planted over ruins of some antiquity, and, by great labor, irrigation, and expense, the leaves of shrubs and flowers are made tolerably green and bright.

We passed up a broad, winding marble staircase, and, traversing a long, lonely corridor, were shown into an ante-room; a square apartment, gaily painted on walls and ceilings, and the floor laid in mosaic of dark polished wood.

Presently the door opened, and in came a puny, bodkin-waisted gentleman, with a narrow head, and sharp, irregular features, who was announced as chamberlain to the queen. He spoke nothing but Greek; and as the education of most of us in that branch of learning had been neglected, that is, in a conversational way, a very few words were interchanged; we had time, however, to admire his costume, which was a master-piece of art.

During a pause, a pair of foldingdoors opened, and the order of our procession being arranged, we followed our minister into the reception-room. It was of similar dimensions to the one we had left, except, that the light was thrown from the eastern angle through two lofty windows, between which stood a crowned, carved, and gilded chair of state. A magnificent Turkey rug and a few chairs constituted all the furniture.

We formed a semicircle. The queen stood in the centre, and a lady with skinny, bare arms, possibly of remote origin, was placed a few paces off, and did not budge during the ceremony. The queen was very becomingly attired in a simple half dress. She wore a high wreath of green buds and red flowers over the smooth bands of her

brown hair. The dress was cut low, with short sleeves, and in my fancy it seemed, to my inexperienced vision, rather tightly laced; but yet it developed a full bust and roundly-turned arms. The color of the dress was light green, and of the flimsy gossamer fabric that ladies usually wear in the summer. The feet were clothed in black satin shoes. The toilette was completed by a necklace and bracelet of fine pearls. I remembered when her majesty's waist was thinner; when a light, gay, sprightly, pretty, young bride she first came to Greece; but though twice seven years had drifted by since, she was still a very handsome woman, comfortably embonpoint, with fine teeth, eyes, hair, and complexion.

So soon as we had taken our position, the Queen glided gracefully up to our ambassador-for she had no one to assist her in the presentations and, with a very winning smile and animated face, began the conversation. She chatted easily and pleasantly on a variety of topics; the antiquities, the bathing, the views, the king's health, and the Turks. She spoke so sweetly, too, of the heat, that I almost wished myself a salamander, so as never to have the ungraciousness to complain again. From the minister, she moved on around the line of blue-jackets, complimenting the commander-in-chief, and making some little appropriate speech with infinite tact to

each.

At the end of her tour, she returned again to the ambassador, smiled, curtsied the reception over, and we all glipsied backwards with many a bow out of her presence.

As the doors to the ante-chamber were closing, I caught a glimpse of the Queen as she ran up to the antique attendant, and, throwing up her hands and laughing, evidently asked if she had not made a favorable impression upon the Yankees. In my opinion, she decidedly did; and I thought her majesty a very well-bred and captivating woman; though, 1 trust, I am not overstepping the limits of courtly phrase, by speaking of this royal personage as a mere mortal.

The chamberlain received our final adieus, and we left the palace.

It may not be out of place to mention here, that there was a dinner given a few days after at the Otho palace; but I regret to add, that I was not invited with the other distinguished persons who composed the party. I acquit her majesty, however, of all intentional blame or slight in the transaction. It was the lord chamberlain himself who deprived me of a good dinner, because I was not a major, he said. The delusion he appeared to struggle under was, that our marine was modeled upon the Mexican army system, more generals than troops-more captains than sailors; and, moreover, he forgot, that an aid-de-camp goes with his chief to battle or dinner, as the case may be.

Again, it was a piece of unmitigated cruelty on the part of the chamberlain functionary, who presumed, perhaps, on account of his own slimness and tightness of waist, which was a physical obstacle to taking food without violent effort, that I, too, would not be distressed at the loss of a dinner. In that belief he was mistaken, and I not only went off my usual nourishment at the gun-room mess-table for some days, out of pure chagrin, but I cherish to this moment a singular vindictiveness towards that chamberlain, and hope, when the matter is fully explained to his handsome, charming queen, she will disgrace him on the spot.

The dinner business, however, was only the beginning of my sorrows in Greece. I had a small piece of marble given to me by a gentleman in Athens, and, accordingly, it was boxed up and transported to the port. There it was stolen by a couple of rascally Greek boatmen, who believed it to be silver. The police seized the thieves and box; but, on applying for my property, I was informed that a commission would have to sit upon the marble, to see if there was any ancient carving upon the same. When this result was arrived at, a long negotiation ensued. Application was made to all branches of the government, including the conservator of public works; and it was not, I believe, until the matter had been discussed in cabinet council, and the assent of the prime minister obtained, that I was entitled to receive my own.

After all these troubles, we were not sorry to leave Greece; for where there is great heat, great dust, and nothing good to eat or drink, rational enjoyment

is at a discount; and, although we ate honey from Hymettus, had ice from Parnassus-may be from Helicon, because it was so muddy-bathed in the tomb of Themistocles, also, and had the ruins of Attica standing in bold relief against the sky at all times, yet we did not regret leaving the country.

We sailed from the Piraeus on the seventh of August, and we fluttered and waltzed between calms and perverse breezes, out of the Archipelago, where old Nick would have been obliged to have fanned himself, and where cool air was worth a guinea the mouthful.

At the expiration of a week we were rolling off Malta, and with an early seabreeze we entered the harbor of Valetta, between the frowning batteries of Saint Elmo and Saint Angelo. We moored well up the harbor, abreast Spencer's monument, and in full view of the rude mottoes which the sailors of various English men-of-war had painted in whitewash on the tufo sides of the hills, Happy Vengence," "Jolly Brittania,” and so forth.

Nothing can exceed the parched appearance of the island; foliage scarcely exists, and even without the hot siroccos from Africa, the climate in mid-summer is almost insupportable.

Before letting go the anchors, the ship was surrounded by a great flotilla of boats-gaily painted they are, with curving prows like Dutch skates-which attended us in floating procession to our berth at the anchorage. We were also beguiled by music; and little impish naked children without number, were screaming like cockatoos with the bronchitis, to attract our notice. "Offisar," they yelled, "won pennee for make little niggar dive," or, "won little niggar for dive pennee," ringing the changes on the niggar and confounding themselves with the penny incessantly, while at the same time they stood in troops on the gunwales of the boats, ready to plunge five fathoms under water at the merest symptom of a coin. There were also a horde of bigger savages with coal black hair and swarthy yellow features, who boarded the frigate by storm, and thought nothing of charging bare-breasted, full tilt, at the sentries on the gangboards, in spite of their bayonets, so eager were they to exhibit their testimonials for traffic.

We soon got pratique and I went on shore. Landing at the Custom-house,

I passed through the Lascaris gate, and found myself, with the thermometer at 100°, in the city of stairs.

Up, up, over the interminable smooth stone steps, as right and left the same long serrated ascents are visible, until on gaining the ridge of the town, with trembling calves, the toil is over. Descending again, I took boat and pulled across the narrow harbor to the dockyard; a slip of an inlet, the second on the left from the sea, flanking the terrible batteries of Saint Erasmus, the patron saint of seamen.

The water in these inlets is very deep, and, as at Venice, the houses rise from the brink. Here is a dry-dock, a magnificent steam bakery, and the public buildings of the arsenal.

I called upon the Admiral, a hale, hearty old gentleman, with white hair, but I had no idea of the years of the head it covered, until he mentioned having known some of our officers in the West Indies in '95. I could merely smile my incredulity.

The next morning I went on an official visit to the Governor of Malta. We rowed to the landing at Valetta, and found vehicles in waiting on the quay, of a genus quite distinct from the race elsewhere, and called calessos. They are solid square-bodied affairs, with one or two seats, resting on leather springs slung to heavy shafts, with a single pair of wheels stuck on behind. They are, in fact, magnified editions of wheelbarrows, though, I should judge, not near so pleasant for locomotion. Mounting or descending the steep streets from the lower town is at best an arduous undertaking, particularly should the horse lose foothold and the calesso get stern board; for then the retrograde movement must be very unpleasant indeed, until one happens to slide off into ever so deep water, or be pitched down a gaping dry moat, or over a precipitous parapet. Fortunately we escaped these not infrequent accidents, and got out within the palace court-yard in perfect safety.

The palace was formerly the residence of the Grand Master of the knights of Malta, and is a great quadrangular building of two stories, constructed of brown tufo sandstone. The exterior is not striking, but within are contained many valuable and interesting relics of the feats and exploits of the renowned conquerors of Jerusalem.

We passed up an easy, winding, but very broad stairway-where a troop of horse could easily mount, three abreast -as no doubt they did in times past, with mail-clad warriors on their backsand crossing a long, lofty frescoed corridor, we entered a reception chamber, and were presented by an aid-de-camp to the " storm king," Sir William Reid. He is a tall old gentleman, with a patrician style of face and figure, clear, intelligent eyes, and a very mild and pleasing expression. He was surrounded by what seemed to me a very happy and exceedingly handsome family.

The reception-room was of great size, with a smooth, glassy Venetian floor, while the spaces between the heavy beams of the high ceiling were emblazoned and carved in Maltese crosses and other emblematic devices of the Order. On the upper part of the walls were a series of historical frescoes, after the manner of the illustrations of Froissart, depicting the brilliant deeds of the Grand Masters, and below them, a collection of paintings-some of merit which filled the spaces between the deep embrasures of the windows.

After luncheon we walked through the western suite of apartments, where the walls were covered with paintings, by masters of repute, and among the portraits, a very fine one of Valetta. There were also a good many gems of old furniture, quaintly fashioned and richly carved, gilded and wormeaten, together with rare old Louis Quatorze clocks, like enormous brass spiders, with a webwork of transparent wheels. All of these articles perhaps had been presents from foreign princes to the knights.

Some distance beyond this suite, we entered the Library, a noble hall, of kingly dimensions, and well lighted from above. There was a tolerably large collection of old books, many of them ponderous tomes in white parchment,. loading the capacious shelves. From the library we went to lesser rooms, where the librarian, a learned and highly intelligent person, aided by Governor Reid, had commenced museum of antiquities of the island. Quite a number of interesting relics, such as sarcophagi, mummies, terracotta and Etruscan vases, Phenician and Arabic inscriptions on marble, already cluster around the walls.

From here we visited the most inter