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Over three hundred girls have recently been removed from the public schools of Lewiston, Me., and placed in a Catholic parochial school, and their withdrawal will involve the closing of at least six of the public schools.

Miss Ellen Warren, daughter of Bishop H. W. Warren, last year, in Philadelphia, painted the portrait of Christopher Herring, M. D., one of the men who introduced homoopathy into this country. She had nothing but an old photograph and word pictures of the man from the lips of his friends, to paint from. When her task was done the widow of Dr. Herring called to see the picture. She said, "It seems that I am in the presence of my husband," and she wept with mingled joy and sadness. A number of Dr. Herring's medical friends after seeing the portrait pronounced it the historic picture, and paid Miss Warren the high compliment of ordering it engraved at an expense of $2,000. Miss Warren visited Paris with her father on his recent trip abroad, where she will remain for some time to pursue the study of painting.

The Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage, D. D., has assumed the editorial management of Frank Leslie's Sunday Magazine, in which both his picture and the story of his life have recently appeared.

The entire subject of Christian evidences from the Catacombs, which has been so ably discussed by Rev. Mr. Withrow, in his lecture on the Catacombs of Rome, is treated with great fulness of detail and copious pictorial illustration in a work by the writer, "The Catacombs of Rome, and their Testimony Relative to Primitive Christianity." Cr. Svo., 560 pp, 136 engravings. New York: Phillips & Hunt. Price, $2.50. It discusses at length the structure, origin and history of the Catacombs, their art and symbolism; their epigraphy as illustrative of the theology, ministry, rites, and institutions of the primitive church, and Christian life and character in the early ages. The gradual corruption of doctrine and practice and introduction of Romanist errors, as the cultus of Mary, the primacy of Peter, prayers for the dead, the invocation of saints, the notion of purgatory, the celibacy of the clergy, rise of monastic orders, and other allied subjects are fully treated.

Twenty-four Mormon Missionaries have just started for Europe to enlist women for their church in Utah. When will Congress meet this system at this, one of its strongest but most vulnerable points?

It is announced by a Methodist paper in New York, that the Rev. Henry Baker, now pastor of St. Paul's Church, Newark, N. J., has been invited to take, next spring, the pastorate of Simpson Methodist Episcopal Church, Brooklyn, N. Y. We suspect the arrangement will be consummated. It is a wise arrangement that a bishop has charge of a conference six months before he presides over its deliberations. If the churches and pastors have a good deal to say about their relations, they will both do a good deal better work. There will be less lying down in the furrow, and a better csprit de corps in the army after the appointments are read off.

A Chautauqua Lake hunter captures wild fowls in the following manner: He scoops the inside out of a large pumpkin, cuts a couple of holes through which he can see, slips the shell over his head, wades out to where the flock are swimming all unconscious of danger, and grabbing a goose by the legs gently draws her under, and so proceeds until none are left to tell the tale.

The Attorney-General of Texas has decided that it is unlawful to employ boys about saloons in any capacity. Such a decision and its enforcement in other States would save a multitude of boys from ruin.

An over-zealous man is quite liable sometimes to embarrass himself and the friends of a good cause. We are told that during the revival meetings being conducted by the Rev. Mr. Harrison in San Francisco, two ministers, Messrs. Hemphill and Sprecher, recently attended, and when the meeting was about half over, started to go out, their exit being necessarily slow, on account of the great crowd. They had got but a little way when, to their astonishment, they heard themselves addressed thus: "There are two more sinners who are starting to go before they have got salvation. Hold on, there! Come right up to the altar, and have your sins, which are many, forgiven before leaving."

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[We solicit questions from our readers to be answered in this department.]

Q. Much was recently written about our criminal neglect in not having some kind of a guard to protect the person of the President when he appears in public. Is it probable that Congress will make some such provision?

A. We apprehend that the old-time simplicity and unostentation will continue to characterize the public appearances of our chief magistrate. More precaution may be and should be taken to protect him from "cranks" and lunatics, but beyond this, nothing better can be attained than the affection and esteem of an enlightened and free people. History shows that an ever present body-guard is but an invitation to the assassin. So long as bad men and wicked motives exist, presidents, like all other men, are liable to be murdered. The man most liable to be struck down the next moment is he at St. Petersburg, who sleeps in the inner room with doors barred and bolted, and with thousands of soldiers surrounding his castle night and day to protect him.

Q. I heard a minister say that he did not believe that Jesus ever smiled. Does the New Testament present the Savior as always sad and gloomy in spirit?

A. "For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say he hath a devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, behold a man gluttonous and a wine-bibber." Matthew xi. 18, 19. We do not believe that the New Testament justifies any such statement concerning Christ. Our Savior shared both the joys and the sor

rows of men. He wept over Jerusalem and at the grave of Lazarus, but he was invited and accepted the invitation to the joyous occasion of a wedding. His message was good news, and he bade men rejoice. It is not a sin to smile, and no man ought to caricature the religion of Christ by cultivating a spirit of sadness under the impression that such a spirit is pleasing to God. Better bring the power of cheerfulness and hope to bear on the work of the world's conversion.

Q. Is it plagiarism for a minister to adopt the plan or outline of another's sermon, filling out the details with his own thoughts and illustrations?

A. Yes, if he presents it as all his own. Thoughts and words are public property. The world has very few new thoughts, and not many new words. No man has a right to assert his ownership of either. But order, arrangement, plan, whether of thought or words, are private property, the creation of an individual mind. These no minister ought to steal. He may borrow them, but he should avow the borrowing. In truth, he who has furnished the skeleton of a sermon or lecture has performed the chief labor, has provided its brains if it have any. The minister whose laziness or lack of ability leads him to adopt the plans of other men's sermons had better carefully reconsider the evidences of the supposed call to his work.

Q. Who were the seven wise men of Greece?

A. Bias, Chilo, Cleobulus, Periander, Pittacus, Solon and Thales.

Q. I find allusion made in an English magazine to the "Cockney Poets." Will you inform me what poets are referred to?

A. Some English critics applied the above epithet to a literary sect whose works were said "to consist of the most incongruous ideas in the most uncouth language." It ineluded Keats, Shelley, Leigh Hunt and others.

Q. Where is Mason and Dixon's line, and how was the name derived?

A. It lies in north latitude 39° 43′ 26.3". With the exception of small portions of Delaware and Virginia it formed the northern limit of the original slave states, and hence was much mentioned in the old slavery controversies. It is so called from Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, English surveyors, who run the line between the years 1763 and 1767.

Q. What would THE CHAUTAUQUAN advise concerning the reading of books known to be heterodox and skeptical? May such books be read, or is it better to abstain from them entirely?

A. The question is an important one and difficult to answer in general terms. Circumstances may make a great difference. Parents and teachers are responsible for the reading of the undeveloped minds committed to their care, and can not be too watchful over their reading. It is their duty to shield the young from such books as tend to unbalance faith or sophisticate the mind.

The case of the reading of such books by adult minds is different. Very often we may not choose to read such works on the ground that such reading is unprofitable and time may be much better spent. Such a view of the case is very true and just. But to refuse to look into such works lest our foundations be unsettled, savors of cowardice and seems like a confession of the weakness of our position. Besides, if we are unwilling to examine the views of the unbeliever, we can hardly with consistency ask his attention to the claims of religion. It ought, however, never to be lost sight of, that if we would escape unharmed from our investigations, we must make them not in the spirit of controversy, but of earnest truth seeking.

Q. What do you regard as the prominent weak point in the position of Mr. Ingersoll in his attack upon Christianity?

A. Chief among the many weaknesses which pertain to Mr. Ingersoll in his assault upon Christianity, is the flippant, exultant spirit which pervades all his utterances. The man who can declare with flippancy that those things which have been the anchorage of human hopes in all the past are but empty delusions, who can indulge an unsympathetic smile while attempting to destroy the house that has sheltered and still shelters millions of human hearts, such a man forfeits his claim upon the respect and sympathy of mankind. The philosopher, the scientist, the thoughtful man whose conclusions lead him with sadness into the realm of doubt, deserves our sympathy and help, and has a claim upon our respect. The flippant sneerer has none whatever. Herein is Mr. Ingersoll very weak, and time is making it more and more apparent.

Q. Will you give your readers a brief view of the early life of Louis Napoleon. Some members of the C. L. S. C., myself among the number, do not have access to standard. histories or cyclopædias.

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A. We quote what Madame Cornu says in a recent number of Fraser's Magazine: "Louis Napoleon is a strange being; one who did not know him, would think that he had enough to do without wasting a day in looking for the cover of a vase. But it is just like him. His mind wants keeping. A trifle close to his eyes hides from him the largest object at a distance. .. We lived together from our births till I was about fourteen and he about eighteen. During the first seven years of the time he was surrounded by all the splendor of a court. During the last eight he was in Germany, looked down on by the Germans, who would scarcely admit the Buonapartes to be gentry, and would call him 'Monsieur Buonaparte. ... His long exclusion from the society of the higher classes of his countrymen, and, in great measure, from the higher classes of the foreigners among whom he resided did him harm, in. many ways. It is wonderful that it did not spoil his man-ners. He was saved perhaps by having so admirable a model before him as his mother. But it made him something of a parvenu--what you would call a tuft-hunter. He looked up to people of high rank with a mixture of admiration, envy, and dislike. . . The great progress in pol-itical knowledge made by the higher classes in France between 1815 and 1848 was lost to him. When we met in 1826, after three years separation, I was struck with his backwardness as to political matters. In France he has never lived except as a child, a prisoner and a sovereign. It will seem a paradox to you, that it is to his want of sympathy with the feelings of the higher classes in France that I attribute much of his success. His opinions and feelings are those of the French people from 1799 to 1812, as they were fashioned by Napoleon during his thirteen years of despotism, war, and victory. Now these opinions and feelings, all modified or abandoned by our higher classes, are still those of the multitude. They despise parliamentary government, despise the Pope, despise the priests, delight in profuse expenditure, delight in war, hold the Rhine to be our rightful frontier-that it is our duty to seize all that is within it—and have no notion of any foreign policy except one of aggression and domination. The people, and he, therefore, perfectly agree. It is not that he has learned their sentiments-how could he, in prison or in exile? But they are his own. I have no doubt that the little he heard, and the less he attended to, from the persons he saw between 1848 and 1852 about liberty, self-government, economy, the supremacy of the Assembly, respect for foreign nations and fidelity to treaties, appeared to him to be the silliest trash. So it would have appeared to all the lower classes in France, so it would have appeared to the army, drawn from those classes, and exaggerating their political errors."

BOOK NOTICES.

Every form of error is quickly met in our times, by some champion of the truth. No sooner does a false view of philosophy or Christian doctrine appear than some Christian scholar confronts the false teacher, prepared to expose his mistakes and to tear off the mask from his hypothesis or system of sophistry he has built. Spiritualism is next to Mormonism in its infamous teachings and practices. In this book' the author exposes a multitude of delusions, such as "Superstitions of Philosophers" and "Superstitions of the uncultured concerning the spirit world;" "The sleep of reason;" "The power of the excited imagination;" "Deception by natural phenomena;" "Legerdemain ;""Alchemy;" "The witch mania;" "Animal magnetism;" "The origin of modern spiritualism;" "Mediums exposed;" "Tricks explained;" "The Bible and modern spiritualism." The above are titles of some of the chapters in this book. The Rev. A. N. Craft (not W. F. Craft) is the author. They are different men, and have chosen different specialties as subjects of study in connection with their work as ministers. The author of this work has met some of the ablest advocates of spiritualism in seven public debates, and in every instance, the people gave their verdict in favor of his logical presentation of the case. He is an able preacher and a talented writer. He is thoroughly qualified to prepare a work on the delusions he discusses on these pages. In over three hundred pages he has brought together a mass of information which has required years to gather. It is presented in a systematic and scholarly, yet popular style, so that the common people who are troubled with any of the errors he combats, will find it not only an entertaining and instructive book, but a sufficient antidote for the evils it is sent out to cure. It is sure to take rank among the authorities on the subjects in question, and while it is the author's maiden effort in the book world, we feel confident that its reception will inspire him to appear very soon again with other publications.

We shall now be treated to new commentaries on the new version of the Scriptures. This is reasonable and proper. The changes made by the revision will make i necessary that new editions of the old commentaries be issued, while publishers who are about to issue a commentary will be careful that both the new and old versions are carefully commented upon. The second volume of Dr. Shaff's comments on the New Testament' cover the Gospel according to Mark. It is scholarly, enterprising, and like everything from the Doctor's pen, able. It is a convenient size and will prove a valuable help to the Bible student. The third volume of a large commentary edited by the Canon of Exeter, according to the authorized version (A.D. 1611) contains explanatory and critical notes, together with a revision of the translation, by bishops and other clergy of the Angelican Church, from Romans to Philemon.

Cyclopædias and dictionaries are useful books in a library. McClintock and Strong have done a noble work in their "Cyclopædia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature," the tenth volume of which is just out from the press. This volume commences with S and ends with Z. It will be followed in due time by a supplement. Besides the copious index and thorough work done by Dr. Strong, upon whom most of the labor of preparing the later volumes has devolved since the death of Dr. McClintock, it contains a large colored pocket- map of the Temple of Jerusalem.

THE BIBLE AND SCIENCE; By T. Lander Branton, M. D., D. Sc., F. R. S.

This is a recent 12mo British publication of 401 pages,

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printed on beautiful white paper, and with new, clear, and open type. The author ranks high among the learned savants of Europe, and whatever he publishes is worthy of careful attention. In the work before us he undertakes to harmonize the teachings of Scripture with modern science, and especially with the doctrine of evolution. The work is written in a clear, dispassionate spirit, with a profound conviction that both the Bible and the hypothesis of evolution as interpreted by Spencer are based upon demonstrable facts. The looseness and wide latitude required in the interpretation or reconstruction of Scripture does not embarrass the argument in the least. In every case the Bible bends to evolution, evolution to the authority of the Bible never. The great problem to be solved is the existence of the organic world. Has matter worked itself into organic structures or how came they to be? And why does one organism differ from another? The Bible teaches that vitality is the basis of all organic bodies; evolution teaches that matter is endowed with forces which cause the evolution of organism. Dr. Branton occupies the platform of materialism, and makes no account of vital substances. He is not, however, a materialist, but a devout Christian believer. But his concessions to materialism leave him, logically, no standing ground of his own. He teaches that matter develops itself into bioplasm and that the sun is the source of life. If matter has worked itself into the organic world it is useless for us to talk of a vital world. Space, matter, and force constitute the universe. The Bible presupposes the existence of life, but in the presence of a universe of mere matter and its forces it has no meaning or value. Infidel materialists will thank Dr. Branton for his defense of the theory of evolution, but disregard its bearing upon the truth of the Bible. Strange that whilst Dr. Tyndall doubts the theory of evolution, Christian scientists are eager to endorse it and bold to bend and torture the Bible into harmony with it.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

"The Outbreak of Rebellion," by John G. Nicolay. "From Fort Henry to Corinth," by M. F. Force. Both by Charles Scribner's Sons, 743 Broadway, New York.

"Views of Vexed Questions," by William W. Kinsley. "The Honey Ants," by Henry C. McCook, D. D.,both published by J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia, Pa.

Scribner's Sons have just issued a new edition of Dr. Holland's works-"Timothy Titcomb's Letters," "Gold Foil," "Bittersweet;" also, "Books and Reading," by Noah Porter, D. D., LL. D.

"Our Brother in Black." Phillips & Hunt, New York.

(1) Epidemic Delusions. By the Rev. A. N. Craft, A. M. Walden & Stowe, Cincinnati, O.

(2) The International Revision Commentary on the Gospel by Mark. By Philip Schaff, D. D. LL. D. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.

(3) The Bible Commentary-from Romans to Philemon. By F. C. Cook, M. A., Canon of Exeter, England. Published by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.

(4) Cyclopædia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature, tenth volume. Edited by McClintock and Strong. Published by Harper Bro's. New York.

(5) The Bible and Science. By T. Lander Branton, M. D., D. Sc., F. R. S. McMillan & Co. publishers, London, England.

NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS.

We have received more postage stamps than we will be able to use for the next two years. We therefore must decline to receive any more on subscriptions to THE CHAUTAUQUAN. Send drafts on New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore or Pittsburgh, or Post-office Money Order.

THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE PROMOTION OF TRUE CULTURE. ORGAN OF THE CHAUTAUQUA LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC CIRCLE.

VOL. II.

JANUARY, 1882.

No. 4.

Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle. consequence of the statement of Aristotle it has been in

President, J. H. Vincent, D. D., Plainfield, N. J.
General Secretary, Albert M. Martin, Pittsburgh, Pa.
Office Secretary, Miss Kate F. Kimball, Plainfield, N. J.

Counselors, Lyman Abbott, D. D.; J. M. Gibson, D. D.; Bishop H. W. Warren, D. D.; W. C. Wilkinson, D. D.

REQUIRED READING.

MOSAICS OF HISTORY. IV.

GREECE-I.

Fair clime! where every season smiles
Benign o'er those blessed isles,
Which, seen from fair Colonna's height,
Make glad the heart that hails the sight,
And lends to loneliness delight.
There mildly dimpling, ocean's cheek
Reflects the tint of many a peak,
Caught by the laughing tides that lave
These Edens of the eastern wave;
And if at times a transient breeze
Break the blue crystal of the seas,
Or sweep one blossom from the trees,

How welcome is each gentle air

That wakes and wafts the odors there!

NAME. The word Hellas was used originally to signify a small district of Phthiotis in Thessaly, containing a town of the same name. From this district the Hellenes gradually spread over the rest of Greece; but even in the time of Homer their name had not become common to the whole Greek nation. The poet usually calls the Greeks by the name of Danai, Achæi, or Argeii; and the only passage in which the name of Pan-Hellenes occurs was rejected by Aristarchus and other ancient commentators as spurious. But at the commencement of Grecian history we find all the members of the Hellenic race distinguished by this name, and glorying in their descent from a common ancestor, Hellen. The reason why the Romans gave to Hellas the name of Græcia, and to the Hellenes the name of Græci, can not be ascertained; but it is a well-known fact that a people are frequently called by foreigners by a name different from the one in use among themselves. The word Græci first occurs in Aristotle, who states that the most ancient Hellas lay about Dodona and the Achelous, and that this district was inhabited by the Selli, and by the people then called Græci but now Hellenes. We do not know what authority Aristotle had for his statement; but it was in opposition to the general opinion of the Greeks, who supposed the original abode of the Achæans in the Achæan Phthiotis, between Mounts Othrys and Oeta. According to another authority Græcus was a son of Thessalus. In

ferred that the name of Græci was at one period widely spread on the western coast, and hence became the one by which the inhabitants were first known to the Italians on

the opposite side of the Ionian sea. After the conquest of Greece by the Romans, the country was reduced into the form of a province, under the name of Achaia, and did not bear the name of Græcia in official language.*

THE GREEK PEOPLE.-Whether the Greeks were the first Aryan people to settle in Europe, or in Eastern Europe, we can not tell for certain. But we do know for certain that they were the first Aryan nation whose deeds were recorded in written history; and there never was any nation whose deeds were more worthy to be recorded. For no nation ever did such great things, none ever made such great advances in every way, so wholly by its own power and with so little help from any other people. Yet we must not look on the Greeks as a nation quite apart by themselves. We have already seen that the Greek people were part of a great Aryan settlement which occupied both the two eastern peninsulas, and that the forefathers of the Greeks, and the forefathers of the Italians must have kept together for a good while after they had parted company from the other branches of the Aryan family. There is some reason to think that some of the other nations bordering near upon Greece, both in the eastern peninsula and in the western coast of Asia, in Illyria, Thrace, Phrygia, and Lydia, were not only Aryan, but were actually part of the same swarm as the Greeks and Italians. However this may be, it seems quite certain that most of the nations lying near Greece, as in Epirus and Macedonia, which lie to the north, in Sicily and Southern Italy, and in some parts of the opposite coasts of Asia, were very closely akin to the Greeks, and spoke languages which came much nearer to Greek even than the languages of the rest of Italy. The people of all these countries seem to have had a power beyond all other people of adopting the Greek language and manners, and, so to speak, of making themselves Greeks. The Greeks seem, in fact, to have been one among several kindred nations which shot in advance of its kinsfolk, and which was therefore able in the end to become a sort of teacher to the others. And one thing which helped the Greeks in thus putting themselves in advance of all their kinsfolk and neighbors was the nature of the land in which they settled. +

SITUATION OF GREECE.-At that period in the history of the world when the Mediterranean was the great highway of commerce and civilization, no position could be more favorable than that of Hellas. It is separated from Asia by a sea, studded with islands within sight of one another, which even in the infancy of navigation, seemed to allure

*William Smith, D. C. L., LL. D. Edward A. Freeman, D. C. L.

the timid mariner from shore to shore, and rendered the intercourse easy between Hellas and the East. Toward the south it faces one of the most fertile portions of Africa; and on the west it is divided from Italy by a narrow channel, which in some parts does not exceed forty geographical miles in breadth. The sea on the eastern side bore the general name of the Ægean, of which the southern portion was called the Cretan; the sea at the southern end of the Peloponnesus was called the Libyan; and the sea on the western side of Greece usually bore the name of the Ionian, of which the northern extremity was called the Adriatic

Gulf, while its southern end opposite Sicily was frequently

named after that island.*

SIZE.-Greece proper lies between the thirty-sixth and fortieth parallels of north latitude, and between the twentyfirst and twenty-sixth degrees of east longitude. Its greatest length, from Mount Olympus to Cape Tænarus may be stated at two hundred and fifty English miles; its greatest breadth, from the western coast of Akarnania to Marathon in Attica, at one hundred and eighty miles; and the distance eastward from Ambrakia across Pindus to the Magnesian mountain, Homole, and the mouth of the Peneius is about one hundred and twenty miles. In regard, however, to all attempts at determining the exact limits of Greece proper, we may remark, first, these limits seem not to have been very precisely defined even among the Greeks themselves; and next, that so large a proportion of the Hellenes were distributed among islands and colonies, and so much of their influence upon the world in general produced though their colonies as to render the extent of their original domicile a matter of comparatively little moment to verify.†

air of Attica was supposed to sharpen the faculties of its inhabitants.*

COLONIES.-The Grecian colonies may be arranged in four groups: (1) Those founded in Asia Minor and the adjoining islands; (2) those in the western part of the Mediterranean, in Italy, Sicily, Gaul and Spain; (3) those in Africa; (4) those in Epirus, Macedonia, and Thrace.

The earliest Greek colonies were those founded on the

western shores of Asia Minor. They were divided into three great masses. The Eolic cities covered the northern part of this coast; the Ionians occupied the center, and the Dorians the southern portion. The origin of these colonies is lost in the mythical age. It is sufficient to state on the present occasion that the Ionic cities were early distinguished by a spirit of commercial enterprise, and soon rose superior in wealth and power to their Æolian and Dorian neighbors.

The colonies of whose origin we have an historical account began to be founded soon after the first Olympiad. Those established in Sicily and the south of Italy claim our first attention. The prosperity of the Greek cities in Sicily received a severe check from the hostilities of the Carthaginians; but for two centuries and a half after the first Greek settlement in the island, 735 B. C., they did not come into contact with the latter people, and were thus left at liberty to develop their resources without any opposition from a foreign power. The Grecian colonies in Italy began to be planted at nearly the same time as in Sicily. They eventually lined the whole southern coast, as far as Cumæ on the one sea, and Tarentum on the other. They even surpassed those in Sicily in number and importance; and so numerous and flourishing did they become that the south of Italy received the name of Magna Græcia. The Grecian settlements in the distant countries of Gaul and Spain were not numerous. The most celebrated was Massilia, the modern Marseilles, founded by the Ionic Phocæans in B. C. 600. The commerce of the Massiliots was extensive, and their navy sufficiently powerful to repel the agressions of Carth

CHARACTER OF THE COUNTRY.-The geographical features which most distinctly characterize the Hellenic peninsula are the number of its mountains and the extent of its seaboard. Numerous deep bays strongly indent the coast, while long and narrow promontories run out far into the sea on all sides, causing the proportion of coast to area to be very much greater than is found in any other country of Southern Europe. Excellent harbors abound; the tide-age. less sea has few dangers; off the coast lie numerous littoral islands of great beauty and fertility. has done her utmost to tempt the population to maritime pursuits, and to make them cultivate the art of navigation. Communication between most parts of the country is shorter and easier by sea than by land, for the mountain chains which intersect the region in all directions are for the most part lofty and rugged, traversable only by a few passes, often blocked by snow in the winter time.;

Nature

The northern coast of Africa between the territories of Carthage and Egypt was also occupied by Greek colonists. About the year 650 B. C., the Greeks were for the first time allowed to settle in Egypt and to carry on commerce with the country. They founded the city of Cyrene about B. C. 630. Cyrene planted several colonies in the adjoining district, of which Barca, founded about B. C. 560, was the most important.

There were several Grecian colonies situated on the eastern side of the Ionian sea, in Epirus and its immediate CLIMATE.-The climate of Greece appears to have been neighborhood. Of these the island of Corcyra, now called more healthy in ancient times than it is at present. Owing Corfu, was the most wealthy and powerful. The colonies to the inequalities of its surface, to its lofty mountains and in Macedonia and Thrace were very numerous, and exdepressed valleys, the climate varies greatly in different dis-tended all along the coast of the Ægean, of the Hellespont, of tricts. In the highlands in the interior the winter is often the Propontis, and of the Euxine, from the borders of Theslong and rigorous, the snow lying upon the ground till late saly to the mouth of the Danube.* in the spring, while in the lowlands, open to the sea, severe weather is almost unknown. The rigor of winter is frequently experienced in the highlands of Mantinea and Tegea in the month of March, while at the same time the genial warmth of spring is felt in the plains of Argos and Laconia, and almost the heat of summer in the low grounds

at the head of the Messenian Gulf. To this difference in

climate the ancients attributed the difference in the intellectual character of the natives of various districts. Thus

the dullness of the Boeotians was ascribed to the dampness and thickness of their atmosphere, while the dry and clear

*William Smith.

+ George Grote.

+ George Rawlinson.

COMMERCE.-Grecian commerce was necessarily trifling and restricted. The Homeric poems mark either total ignorance or great vagueness of apprehension respecting all that lies beyond the coast of Greece and Asia Minor and the islands between or adjoining them. Libya and Egypt are supposed so distant as to be known only by name and hearsay. The mention of the Sikels in the Odyssey, lead us to conclude that Corcyra, Italy and Sicily, were not wholly unknown to the poet. Of the Euxine Sea no knowledge is manifested in Homer, who, as a general rule, presents to us the names of distant regions only in connection with romantic or monstrous accompaniments. Such was

*William Smith.

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