settled 2s. 6d. a day on him, and took care to give him his allowance daily. On this small pittance, with a suit of old cloaths now and then, our hero contrives to get himself tipsy every day, and in this state I must leave him to lead the life of a gentleman during the remainder of his days.

But I cannot here forbear, nor do I think myself ill qualified, to make a few observations on genteel education, and to rectify a few common mistakes on that head. Genteel education is not, as is generally imagined, the production of the present day. On the contrary it was as eagerly sought after 50 years ago as at present. Our grammatical English and English accents have existed upwards of a century. Still I do not pretend to deny that genteel education has undergone many useful and important alterations, even within these few years.

In my younger days, it was foolishly imagined that some sort of capacity and application on the part of the pupil, with profound knowledge, and consummate attention on the part of the teacher, during the long course of at least ten years, was necessary. But at this period, education was a kind of chaos, or undefined mass, comprehending the semina of polite and vulgar, or (which is the same thing) of superficial and substans tial education. By this indigested system, which was generally pur sued till within these 15 years, many of our prime nobility. had the misfortune to become acquainted with the Greek and Roman classics, and contracted a certain solid way of thinking and reasoning, commonly called Pedantry, which they were never after able to shake off

The great merit of the present age consists chiefly in dissecting this chaos, and dividing it into two

distinct systems of education, the one calculated for the noble and genteel, and the other for the rude and barbarous part of mankind. By this means a gentleman, who is able to pay handsomely, may have his son educated in every branch of literature in as short a time as he pleases. Indeed those superior beings who are born to opulence, have no occasion to pore their brains out over musty books. They have little else to do in the world but to eat, drink, and propagate. Their stewart manages their estate, the housekeeper and cook their victuals, the groom their horses, the attor ney their charters, the butler their wines, &c. &c. The only plausible objection I have heard against the genteel system is, that it cannot qualify its votaries for Legislators ; but this a mere cavil, as the merits or demerits of any act of Parliament, are only known from the approbation, or snarling of the barbarous part of mankind. An act can be amended, till it is rendered palatable, or if radically wrong, the radical cure of repeal can be administered. Some people have remarked, that these genteel pupils have remarkably bad memories, and recollect no part of their education, after they come into the world. To this I shall only reply, that genteel people have no need either of education or memory. Lest, however, any vulgar fellow should think this argument inconclusive, 1 need only point out the noble invention of Mynheer Von Feinaigle, who will furnish artificial memories at the very low rate of L.5, 5s, each.

As to the industrious ranks of society I am sorry to observe, that they are fast treading in the steps of their superiors, and educating their children in so polite and superficial a manner, as totally to unqualify them for any useful purpose in life. So far indeed have they

carried

carried this propensity, that I know a taylor's cow, that will not give her milk unless soothed by English accents, and a carter's horse, who will not move one step, unless he receives his orders in grammatical English. So long as the useful part of mankind are well informed, and substantially educated, no administration can do us much harm. But if ever the industrious classes should reach the sublime pitch of gentility attained by many of our polite representatives, and (instead of being able to discriminate betwixt right and wrong,) become only capable of uttering the emphatical monosyllables Aye and No, in antiquum confundimur chaos. To prevent so direful a catastrophe, I would beg leave to recommend to the patriotic Sir John Sinclair to get a bill introduced into Parliament, making it felony without benefit of clergy, for any man to give his children a polite education who is not possessed of terra firma to the value of L. 5,000 per annum. This would be fixing a permanent barrier betwixt nobility and ignobility, and would have an infallible tendency to ensure the prosperity of the nation, and the stability of the throne. As to the higher ranks, I would propose no alteration. Many of our best kings, when granting charters, were obliged to bite the wax with their teeth, or add the impression of the crucifix. Polite education indeed comes very high, and costs at least twenty times as much as it did twenty years ago, but then it is accomplished in one twentieth part of the time. Mr Feinaigle has supplied one great desideratum in polite literature, viz. an artificial memory, and I have been labouring hard these six weeks past, in manufacturing an artificial head piece, and from some important experiments already made upon it, I can with confidence pledge myself to February 1812.

the public, that the one will in every respect answer the purpose as well as the other, though I can afford my head piece for half a crown.

Description of the Ruins of Sparta. From Chateaubriand's Travels.

WE proceeded for an hour along

a road running direct southwest, when, at break of day, I perceived some ruins and a long wall of antique construction: my heart be gan to palpitate. The Janissary turning towards me pointed with his whip to a whitish cottage on the right, and exclaimed, with a look of satisfaction, "Palæochori!" I went towards the principal ruin, which I perceived upon an eminence. On turning this eminence by the northwest for the purpose of ascending it, I was suddenly struck with the view of a vast ruin of semicircular form, which I instantly knew to be an ancient theatre. I am not able to describe the crowd of feelings which overpowered me. The hill at the foot of which I stood, was consequently the hill of the citadel of Sparta, since the theatre was contiguous to the citadel; the ruin which I beheld upon that hill was of course the temple of Minerva Chalciccos, since that temple was in the citadel, and the fragments of the long wall which I had passed lower down must have formed part of the quarter of the Cynosuri, since that quarter was to the north of the city. Sparta was then before me; and its theatre, to which my good fortune conducted me on my first arrival, gave me at once the positions of all the quar ters and edifices. I alighted, and ran all the way up the hill of the citadel.

Just as I reached the top, the sun was rising behind the hills of Menelaion. How magnificent, yet

how

how melancholy a spectacle! The solitary stream of the Eurotas running beneath the remains of the bridge Babyx; ruins on every side, and not a living being to be seen among them. I stood motionless, in a kind of stupor, at the contemplation of this scene. A mixture of admiration and grief checked the current of my thoughts, and fixed me to the spot: profound silence reigned around me. Determined, at least, to make echo speak in a spot where the human voice is no longer heard, I shouted with all my might: "Leonidas! Leonidas!" No ruin repeated this great name: Sparta herself seemed to have forgotten her hero.

When my agitation had subsided, I began to study the ruins around me. The summit of the hill was a platform encompassed, especially to the north-west, by thick walls. I went twice round it, and counted one thousand five hundred and sixty, and one thousand five hundred and sixty-six ordinary paces; or nearly seven hundred and eighty geometrical paces; but it should be remarked, that in this circuit I comprehend the whole summit of the hill, including the curve formed by the excavation of the theatre. This was the theatre that Leroi examined.

Some ruins partly buried in the ground, and partly rising above the surface, indicate, nearly in the centre of this platform, the foundations of the temple of Minerva Chalciæcos, where Pausanias in vain sought refuge and lost his life. A sort of flight of steps, seventy feet wide, and of an extremely gentle descent, leads from the south-side of the hill down to the plain. This was perhaps the way that conducted to the citadel, which was not a place of any great strength till the time of the tyrants of Lacedæmon.

At the commencement of these steps, and above the theatre, I saw a small edifice of a circular form, three-fourths of which were destroyed: the nitches within it seem equally well adapted for the reception of statues or of urns. Is it a tomb? Is it the temple of the armed Venus? The latter must have stood nearly on this spot, and belonged to the quarter of the Egides. Caesar, who boasted of being descended from Venus, had the figure of the armed Venus engraved on his ring: it was in fact, the two-fold emblem of the weakness and glory of that great man.

If the reader will place himself with me upon the hill of the citadel, he will then see the following objects around him;

To the east, that is, towards the Eurotas, a hill, oblong and levelled at the top, as if for the purpose of a race course or hippodrome: two other hills, one on each side of that just mentioned, form with it two hollows, in which you perceive the ruins of the bridge Babyx, and the current of the Eurotas. yond the river, the view is bounded by a chain of reddish hills which compose Mount Menelaion, Beyond these hills, the high mountains which border the gulf of Argos, tower in the distance.

Be

In this space, seen to the eastward, between the citadel and the Eurotas, looking north and south by east, in a parallel direction to the course of the river, we must place the quarter of the Linmates, the tem-ple of Lycurgus, the palace of the king Demaratus, the quarters of the Egides and the Messoates, one of the Leschi, the monument of Cadmus, the temples of Hercules and Helen, and the Platanista. In this extensive space, I counted seven ruins standing, above ground, but absolutely shapeless and dilapidated. As I was at liberty to

choose,

choose, I gave to one of these ruins the name of Helen's Temple, and another I called the Tomb of Aleman. In two others I fancied I beheld the heroic monuments of Ageus and Cadmus; I thus determined in favour of fable, and assigned nothing to history but the temple of Lycurgus. I prefer, I must confess, to black broth and barley bread, the memory of the only poet that Lacedæmon has produced, and the garland of flowers gathered by the Spartan maidens for Helen in the isle of Platanistæ:

O ubi campi

by the bases of walls that have been razed to the ground. The stones of which they were composed, must have been removed, for they are not to be discovered any where round about. In this part stood the residence of Menelaus; and beyond it, on the road towards Amyclæ, rose the temple of the Dioscuri and the Graces. This description will be rendered more intelligible, if the reader will turn to Pausanias, or even to the Travels of Anacharsis.

The whole of the territory round Lacedæmon is uncultivated: the sun parches it in silence, and is

Taygeta!

cænis

Now looking towards the north, as you still stand on the site of the citadel, you see a hill of considerable height, commanding even that on which the citadel was erected, though this contradicts the text of Pausanias. The valley formed by these two hills must have been the site of the public place and the structures that adorn it, as the buildings appropriated to the meetings of the Gerontes and Ephori, the portico of the Persice and other edifices. On this side there are no ruins. To the north-west extended the quarter of the Cynosuri, by which I had entered Sparta, and where I observed the long wall and some other remains.

Let us now turn to the west, and we shall perceive upon a level spot in the rear and at the foot of the theatre, three ruins, one of which is of considerable height, and circular, like a tower. In this direction must have lain the quarter of the Pitanates, the Theomelis, the tombs of Pausanias and Leonidas, the Lesche of the Crotanes, and the temple of Diana Isora.

Lastly, if you turn your eye to the south, you will see an uneven space, intersected here and there

of the tombs. When I beheld this desert, not a plant adorned the ruins, not a bird, not an insect, not a creature enlivened them, save millions of lizards, which crawled without noise up and down the sides of the scorching walls. A dozen half-wild horses were feeding here and there upon the withered grass; a shepherd was cultivating a few water-melons in a corner of the theatre; and at Magoula, which gives its dismal name to Lacedæmon, I observed a small grove of cypresses. But this Magoula, formerly a considerable Turkish village, has also perished in this scene of desolation: its buildings are overthrown, and the index of ruins is itself but a ruin.

I descended from the citadel, and, after walking about a quarter of an hour, I reached the Eurotas. Its appearance was nearly the same as two leagues higher, where I had passed it without knowing what stream it was. Its breadth before Sparta, is about the same as that of the Marne above Charenton. The bed of the river, nearly dry in summer, is a sand intermixed with small pebbles, overgrown with reeds reeds and rose-laurels, among which run a few rills of a cool and limpid water. I deank of it abund

antly,

antly, for I was parched with thirst. From the beauty of its reeds, the Eurotas certainly deserves the epithet of xxxdove given it by Euripides; but I know not whether it ought to retain that of olorifer, for I perceived no swans upon its surface. I followed its current, hoping to meet with some of these birds, which, according to Plato, have, before they expire, a view of Olympus, on which account their dying notes are so melodious: but I was disappointed. Perhaps, like Horace, I am not in the good graces of the Tyndarides, and they would not permit me to discover the secrets of their cradle.

Famous rivers share the same fate as famous nations; at first unknown, then celebrated throughout the whole world, they afterwards sink into their original obscurity. The Eurotas, at first denominated Himera, now flows forgotten under the appellation of Iri; as the Tiber, more anciently Albula, now rolls to the sea the unknown waters of the Teverone. I examined the ruins of the hridge Babyx, which are insignificant. I sought the island of Platanistæ, and imagine that I discovered it below Magoula; it is a piece of ground of a triangular form, one side of which is washed by the Eurotas, while the other two are bounded by ditches full of rushes, where in winter flows this river Magoula, the ancient Cnacion. In the island are some mulberry-trees and sycamores, but no plantains. I perceived no indication of the Turks continuing to make this spot subservient to pleasure; I observed there a few flowers, among others blue filies, some of which I plucked in memory of Helen: the perishable crown of the beauty yet exists on the banks of the Eurotas, but the beauty herself has disappeared.

The view enjoyed, as you walk

along the Eurotas, is very different from that commanded by the hill of the citadel. The river pursues a

winding course, concealing itself, as I have observed, among reeds and rose-laurels, as large as trees; on the left side, the hills of Mount Menelaion, of a bare and reddish appearance, form a contrast with the freshness and verdure of the channel of the Eurotas. On the right, the Taygetus spreads his magnificent curtain; the whole space comprehended between this curtain and the river, is occupied by small hills, and the ruins of Sparta. These hills and these ruins have not the same desolate aspect as when you are close to them; they seem, on the contrary, to be tinged with purple, violet, and a light gold colour. It is not verdant meads and foliage of a cold and uniform green, but the effects of light, that produce admirable landscapes. On this account the rocks and the heaths of the bay of Naples will ever be superior in beauty to the most fertile vales of France and England.

Thus, after ages of oblivion, this river, whose banks were trodden by the Lacedæmonians whom Plutarch has celebrated, this river, I say, per-, haps rejoiced, amid this neglect, at the sound of the footsteps of an obscure stranger upon its shores. It was on the 13th of August 1806, at nine in the morning, that I took this lonely walk along the Eurotas, which will never be erased from my memory. If I hate the manners of the Spartans, I am not blind to the greatness of a free people, neither was it without emotion that I trampled on their noble dust. One single fact is sufficient to proclaim the glory of this nation. When, Nero visited Greece, he durst not enter Lacedæmon. What a magnificent panegyric on that city!

I began to write down my observations, and to take a view of the

different