A. D. 1704. taken delight in the work of destruction: and war has, in almost every country, occasioned ravages which, while they have ruined the inhabitants, have at the same time disfigured all the monuments of their better days. Athens alone, either accidentally, or from that respect which must necessarily be commanded by a city, once the seat of the sciences, and to which the whole world is under obligation-Athens, I say, was alone spared in the universal destruction. In every part of it you meet with marbles of astonishing beauty and magnitude; they were profusely introduced; and at every step you discover columns of granite and of jasper."

A. D. 1718.
Pellegrin.

A. D. 1528.
Fourmont.

Athens is very populous; houses are not given away there, neither are columns of granite and jasper to be met with at every step: in a word, seventeen years prior to 1704, the monuments of that celebrated city had been demolished by the Venetians. The most singular circumstance is, that we were already in possession of M. de Nointel's drawings and Spon's travels, when Paul Lucas printed this account, worthy of a place in the Arabian Nights.

The narrative of the travels of the Sieur Pellegrin, in the kingdom of Morea, is dated 1718. The author seems to have been a man of little education and still less science. His paltry pamphlet of one hundred and eighty-two pages is a collection of anecdotes of gallantry, songs and wretched poetry. The Venetians had remained masters of the Morea from 1685; they lost it in 1715. Pellegrin has sketched the history of this last conquest of the Turks, which is the only interesting part of his work.

The abbé Fourmont went to the Levant, by order of Louis XV, in quest of inscriptions and manuscripts. I shall have occasion to mention in the present work some of the discoveries made at Sparta by that learned antiquary. His travels have remained in manuscript, and only some fragments of them are known; their publication would be highly desirable as we pos

sess ntohing complete respecting the monuments of

the Peleponnese.

Pocoke.

Pocoke visited Athens on his return from Egypt. A. D. 1759. He has described the monuments of Attica with that accuracy which communicates a knowledge of the arts, but excites no enthusiasm for them.

Wood, Dawkins, and Bou

Wood, Dawkins, and Bouverie were just then A. D. 1740 making their literary tour in honour of Homer. The first picteresque tour of Greece was that Leroi.

of verie

A. D. 1758.

Chandler accuses the French artist of a vio- Leroi. lation of truth in some of his drawings; and I have myself remarked in them superfluous ornaments. Leroi's sections and plans have not the scrupulous fidelity of Stuart's; but taking it altogether, his work is a monument honourable to France. Leroi was at Lacedæmon, which he clearly distinguishes from Misitra, and where he recognized the theatre and the dromos.

I know not, if the Ruins of Athens by Robert Sayer, A. D. 1759. be not an English translation of Leroi's book with Sayer. new engravings of the plates. I must likewise acknowledge my ignorance of Pars' work, which Chandler mentions with commendation.

In 1761, Stuart enriched his country with his celebrated work, intituled, Antiquities of Athens. It is a grand undertaking, particularly useful to artists, and executed, with that accuracy of admeasurement, which is, at the present day, considered such a high recommendation: but the general effect of the prints is not good; the whole together is deficient in that truth which pervades the details.

A. D; 1761.

Stuart.

Chandler.

Chandler's Travels, which speedily followed Stu- A. D. 1764. art's Antiquities, might enable us to dispense with all the others. In this work the doctor has displayed uncommon fidelity, a pleasing and yet profound erudi- A. D. 276ă. tion, sound criticism and exquisite taste. I have only one fault to find with him, which is, that he frequently mentions Wheeler, but never introduces the name of Spon without a marked reluctance. Spon certainly

A. D. 1773.
Reidesel.

A. D. 1778.
Choiseul.
Chabert,

A. D. 1780. Foucherot and Fauvel.

A. D. 1780.
Villoison.

A. D. 1785.
Lechevalier.

A. D. 1794.
Scrofani.

deserves to be noticed when the partner of his labours is spoken of; Chandler, as a scholar and a traveller, ought to have forgotten that he was an Englishman. In 1805, he published his last work on Athens, which I have not been able to procure.

Riedesel visited the Peloponnese and Attica in 1773. He has filled his little work with many grand reflections on the manners, laws, and religion of the Greeks and Turks. The baron travelled in the Morea three years after the Russian expedition. A great number of monuments had perished at Sparta, at Argos, and at Megalopolis, in consequence of this invasion; in the same manner as the antiquities of Athens owed their final destruction to the expedition of the Venetians.

The first volume of M. de Choiseul's magnificent work appeared at the beginning of 1778. This performance I shall have frequent occasion to mention with deserved commendation. I shall merely remark in this place, that M. de Choiseul has not yet published the monuments of Attica and of the Peloponnese. The author was at Athens, in 1784; and it was the same year, I believe, that M. Chabert determined the latitude, and longitude of the temple of Minerva.

The researches of Messrs. Foucherot and Fauvel began about 1780, and were prosecuted in the succeeding years. The memoirs of the latter describe places and antiquities heretofore unknown. M. Fauvel was my host at Athens, and of his labours I shall speak in another place.

Our great Greek scholar d'Anse de Villoison travelled over Greece nearly about this period, but we have not reaped the benefit of his studies.

M. Lechevalier paid a hasty visit to Athens in

1785.

The travels of M. Scrofani bear the stamp of the age, that is to say, they are philosophical, political, economical, &c. To the study of antiquity they contribute nothing; but the author's observations on the

soil, population, and commerce of the Morea are excellent and new.

At the time of M. Scrofani's travels, two Englishmen ascended the most elevated summit of the Taygetus.

In 1797, Messrs. Dixo and Nicolo Stephanopoli A. D. 1797. Dixo and Ni. were sent to the republic of Maina by the French colo Stephagovernment. These travellers highly extol that re- popoli. public, which has been the subject of much discussion. For my part, I have the misfortune to consider the Mainottes as a hord of banditti, of Sclavonian extraction, and no more the descendants of the ancient Spartans, than the Druses are the offspring of the Count de Dreux. I cannot therefore share the enthusiasm of those who behold in these pirates of Taygetus, the virtuous heirs of Lacedæmonian liberty.

M. Poucqueville would certainly be the best guide A. D. 1798. Poucqueville. for the Morea, if he had been able to visit all the places that he has described. He was unfortunately a prisoner at Tripolizza.

ravages to

Swinton, &
Hawkins.

About this time lord Elgin, the English ambassador Lord Elgin, at Constantinople, caused researches and be made in Greece, which I shall have occasion to praise and to deplore. Soon after him, his countrymen Swinton and Hawkins visited Athens, Sparta and Olympia.

The fragments designed to contribute to the Know- A. D. 1803. Bartholdi. ledge of Modern Greece conclude the list of all these travels. They are indeed but fragments.

Let us now sum up, in a few words, the history of the monuments of Athens. The Parthenon, the temple of Victory, great part of the temple of the Olympian Jupiter, another monument denominated by Guillet the lantern of Diogenes, were seen in all their beauty by Zygomalas, Cabasilas, and Deshayes.

De Monceaux, the marquis de Nointel, Galland, father Babin, Spon, and Wheeler, also admired the Parthenon while yet entire ; but the lantern of Diogenes had disappeared, and the temple of Victory had been

F

A. D. 130.

blown up by the explosion of a powder magazine;* so that no part of it was left standing but the pedi

ment.

Pococke, Leroi, Stuart, and Chandler, found the Parthenon half destroyed by the bombs of the Venetians, and the pediment of the temple of Victory demolished. Since that period the ruins have kept continually increasing. I shall relate in what manner they were augmented by lord Elgin.

The learned world consoles itself with the drawings of M. de Nointel, and the picturesque tours of Leroi and Stuart. M. Fauvel has taken casts of two cariatides of the Pandroseum and some basso-relievos of the temple of Minerva. A metope of the same temple is in the hands of M. de Choiseul. Lord Elgin took away several others which, perhaps, perished with the ship that foundered at Cerigo. Messrs. Swinton and Hawkins possess a bronze trophy found at Olympia. The mutilated statue of Ceres Eleusina is also in England. Lastly, we have in terra cotta the choragic monument of Lysicrates. It is a melancholy reflection, that the civilized nations of Europe have done more injury to the monuments of Athens in the space of one hundred and fifty years than all the barbarians together in a long series of ages: it is cruel to think that Alaric and Mahomet II respected the Parthenon, and that it was demolished by Morosini and lord Elgin.

*This accident happened in 1656.