when speaking of the Hebrus, has allowed his zeal to outrun his accuracy. Perhaps,' he continues, the old mythological story of its bearing the head of Orpheus, which was converted into stone, originated in an appearance presented by one of the extraneous fossils common to the banks of this river.' Now, the truth is, that no passage can be found in any ancient writer which describes the head of Orpheus as turned into stone. The account which Ovid gives of the transaction is that a serpent which attempted to bite the head of Orpheus was turned into stone, (Metam. xi. Fab. 1.) And Dr. Clarke's reference to Servius to prove that the head was thus changed, is such that it is well for him that he did not make it while he was in the under forms at school. Cum caput ejus,' says Servius, ad ripam delatum serpens mordere voluisset, est conversus in lapidem! For the omission of the serpens,' (which does not occur in Dr. Clarke's quotation,) the blame may, to a certain ex-: tent, be laid on Reiske, from whose note on Plutarch de Fluviis, in the place already mentioned, Dr. Clarke has, apparently, taken the passage. But, both Reiske and Dr. Clarke would have been in grievous danger if they had been called up in their juvenile days to shew cause why sentence should not pass on them for making caput agree with conversus; and what has happened may be a salutary warning to critics and professors, while gathering extraneous fossils,' to beware of snakes in the grass. Since the days of Euridice herself, indeed, your real Thracian serpent has been singularly subtle and dangerous to those who are not careful to look where they tread, and he is an enemy against whom the rarest genius is but a weak defence unless it be accompanied with caution. But, surely, Dr. Clarke was bewitched while he trod on Thracian. ground, for a few pages afterwards we meet with a learned statement to prove that the whole Pantomime of Harlequin was originally derived from Greece,' and that it 'still preserves, among modern nations, a very curious mythological representation, founded upon the dramas of the ancients. Thus we see Harlequin, as Mercury, with the harpè in his hand, to render himself invisible, and to transport himself from one end of the earth to the other; wearing at the same time, his petasus or winged cap; and being accompanied by Columbine, as PSYCHE or the soul; an old man, who is CHARON, and a clown, MOMUS the son of Nox!'—' Indeed, some of the representations of Mercury upon antient vases, are actually taken from the scenic exhibitions of the Grecian theatre, and that these exhibitions were also the prototypes of the modern pantomime, requires no other confirmation than a reference to one of them, taken from D'Hancarville, and engraved for this work, where Mercury, Momus, and Psyche, are delineated exactly as we see Harlequin, the Clown, and Columbine upon the English stage!'-pp. 459, 460. On an opinon of this kind it is not easy to speak with gravity, or we might, perhaps, observe, that, though there is no deficiency of 04 infor information respecting the Grecian stage, we may challenge Dr. Clarke to produce a single instance in which the departure of the soul, under the guidance of Mercury and Charon, is mentioned as being represented on that stage in the manner which he supposes, or in which any of the distinctive peculiarities of Harlequin appear to have found a place in the spectacles of the ancient mimi or comedians. As for the whimsical delineation which, properly castrated, he has transferred from D'Hancarville and Winkelman to the head of his fourteenth chapter, we are persuaded that if he himself will once more examine it, he will perceive, as all the world perceived before, that the bearded figure with the ladder on his neck, is marked out, by the kingly crown which he wears, as no less a personage than Jupiter himself,-that the lady at the window is Alcmena, and that the whole caricature is taken, indeed, from the Grecian -stage, but from a play in which neither Momus, Charon, nor Psyche was of the dramatis personæ. The eastern part of Thrace resembles the steppes of Russia, and, to add to the similitude, there are here tumuli precisely similar to those of Tartary. Such tumuli, indeed, are always most abundant in countries of this description, as a visit to our own downs may convince us. Not that open plains were peculiarly selected for these kind of sepulchres, but because that which was the most ancient form of sepulchre every where, has remained in these situations unlevelled by the plough and unconcealed by the growth of brushwood. Our travellers ascertained the site of the ancient Heraclea to be not at Eski Eregli as generally supposed, but at Buyuk Eregli, about two hours distant, and on January the 12th passed, for the second time, through Constantinople in their way to their former lodgings at Pera. Of Pera, its climate, its water, its society, Dr. Clarke speaks in terms at least sufficiently unfavourable: the fountains are conducted through cemeteries, and charged with all the impurity which such a medium implies,-the sudden changes of temperature from heat to cold place a man in hourly risk of a fever or a locked jaw, the streets and houses swarm with rats like a rabbit-warren, and yet cats are so abundant and so much in the habit of entering the houses through their ill-made roofs, that the bed-chambers smell much more offensively than dunghills. It is true that Dr. Clarke was, at the time, in a state of health which was likely to quicken his apprehension of the disagreeable. But his description of the streets, the markets, and manufactures, and, above all, the antiquities of Constantinople, is full of novelty and strength of colouring, not the less entertaining for being tinctured with the same species of humour which we find in Smollet's Matthew Bramble. It should be above all observed, that so zealous is Dr. Clarke for the increase of of knowledge, and so much is he at home in the works of ancient and modern travellers, that where he himself has made no discovery, he often gives directions, by the observance of which succeeding adventurers may be more fortunate, and we know not whether most praise is due to his description of what he has seen, or his hints for further discovery. Dr. Clarke's volume does not end here, though it is here that he concludes the second part of his travels. A Supplement follows, containing a hasty journal of his progress through Wallachia, Transylvania and Hungary, to Vienna, and copious remarks on the mines of Nagybania, Cremnitz, and Schemnitz. But for this part of his journey we have no space. His mineralogical observations are not of a kind to bear abridgment, and he had in Hungary little leisure or inclination for other inquiries. He arrived at Vienna, May 29th, and thence continued his journey through Germany and France to England. In the Appendix is given a translation, by the Rev. G. Browne of Trinity College, Cambridge, of the famous fragment of Nicetas the Choniate, describing the well known devastations of the Franks when they took Constantinople, A. D. 1205. A list of the plants collected during the tour, containing no less than sixty new species; a diary of the temperature of the atmosphere in the different regions which he visited in Europe, Asia, and Africa; and an itinerary of his course from Athens to Boulogne, together with a map of his journey, on too small a scale to be useful, and two plans of Constantinople and the sea of Marmora, conclude the volume, of which our opinion may be gathered in part from the strictures which it has called forth, though it would be an act of great injustice to appreciate its merit from those strictures only. It has been often supposed to be the delight of critics to find fault. It might, with more truth, be said to be their peculiar and most urgent employment, and the more necessary does it become in proportion to the general ability and previous reputation of the writers under their scrutiny. But while we can say with great truth that we have not knowingly passed over a single mistake in Dr. Clarke's long work, without its due reprehension, we should despise ourselves if we were to represent such errors as detracting in any serious degree from the general value and authority of his statements; or if we were slow to acknowledge that an equally careful selection of those passages which have pleased and instructed us would have far exceeded the limits of our Review. Few men have seen so much as he has done, still fewer have described what they have seen so well; and we hardly know any writer with whose character and feelings we become so well acquainted from the perusal of his work, or where, bating a little prejudice, peevishness and impetuosity, the impression is more thoroughly favourable. ᎪᎡᎢ. ART. VIII.-Paris in 1815. A Poem. 8vo. pp. 75. London. 1817. THIS is the work of a powerful and poetic imagination; but the style and expression are of very unequal merit. Occasionally uncouth, and frequently obscure, they nevertheless are often, perhaps we might say generally, suitable to the ardent inspirations which they are destined to convey. The subject of the poem is a desultory walk through Paris, in which the author observes, with very little regularity, but with great force, on the different objects which present themselves. It is evident that he visited Paris already well imbued with the local history of the town, and more particularly with that of those most interesting events which for five-and-twenty years have rendered that capital equally the object of horror and curiosity. The bias of the author's mind, both in religion and politics, is strongly adverse to the revolution and the revolutionists, and when he enters the scenes on which so many atrocious crimes have been committed, his descriptions are tinged with the deep and mellow colours of an enthusiasm against which no reader, we think, can easily defend himself. Approaching from Mont Martre, the first object that strikes our poetical traveller is the British flag which, from that remarkable eminence, floated over the haughty capital of France. The hurried fortifications raised here by Buonaparte, symbols of What terror on the boastful land has been, are well delineated; but the stanzas, which describe the feelings of the British army when they first scaled Mont Martre, and glutted their eyes with the view of conquered PARIS, appear to us to be of a still higher strain: IX. 'War has its mighty moments:-Heart of Man! Prouder than through those gallant bosoms ran X. For this, had bled their battle round the world; And And some, a matchless band, from swarthy Spain— Were sport, and all their trophies to this trophy vain.'—p. 5, 6. Before we proceed, we must take the opportunity of stating, once for all, that the author is sometimes extremely negligent in the construction of his Alexandrines. It requires more management than he is entitled to demand, on the part of his readers, to modulate the closing lines of the two stanzas just quoted (and there are many others ejusdem farina) into any thing like verse. This is a fault which no authority can sanction, and which, therefore, like the errors of Hamlet's strolling players, should be reformed all-together. On entering Paris, the author changes his metre, (on which we shall say a word hereafter,) and gives the following striking picture of the first impressions created by a sight so new to his eyes. 'The barrier's reach'd-out reels the drowsy guard; A scowl-a question-and the gate's unbarr'd. And this is Paris! The postilion's thong Rings round a desert, as we bound along Winds o'er the shrinking head the dangerous strait : Through the dark dimness of the Faubourg day; In vain the wearied eyeball strains to scale That squalid height, half hovel and half jail: Projections sudden, black, and angular, Streak'd with what once was gore, deep rent with shot, Grim loneliness!—and yet some wasted form Will start upon the sight, a human worm Clung to the chapel's wall-the lank throat bare, Or, from the portal of the old hotel, Gleams on his post the victor-sentinel,— Briton or German,-shooting round his ken, From its dark depth,- If, as we suspect, this passage should remind our readers of Mr. |