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the pleasures of a tyranny can never compensate for the pains of exile."

I remember to have heard Madame de Stael say, that no scene, she had ever beheld, affected her with so much admiration as a view from her father's house, at Copet; when she returned from the tumults and agitations of Paris. Nature seemed to make up to her for all she had suffered, by a beauty, which, after a long absence, associating with her earlier years, had all the charms of an old friendship, and all the freshness and vigour of youth and novelty.

VIII.

The Greeks were ardently attached to their soil; from natural affection; education; the beauty of the country; the amenity of its climate; the praises of their poets; the ceremonies of their religion; and the preference, which they gave to their own laws, customs, and manners. The Athenians even believed, that they originated out of the earth, on which their city stood. This made them preeminently proud. "Our origin," said Socrates, "is so beautiful, that none of the Greeks can give such pure appellations to their country, as we can. We can truly style the earth, on which we tread, our nurse, our mother, our father." The Greek writers, who affected to esteem every beloved spot as standing in the middle of the world,' seldom failed to allude to this hallowed sympathy. The Odyssey derives many of its charms from a

Euripides-Orestes.

display of it. Ulysses is miserable in the bower of Calypso; and he soothes the anguish of his heart by wandering, desolate and in tears,-along the seashore, Many passages in the Greek tragic poets are equally affecting. In a tragedy of Æschylus, Cassandra pathetically mourns the future fate of her country:

Ah! my poor country, my poor bleeding country,
Fall'n, fall'n for ever!—and you, sacred altars,
That blaz'd before my father's tower'd palace,
Not all your victims could avert your doom.

Eschylus.-Agamemnon.

In the Electra of Sophocles, that transcendent heroine, in mourning over the urn of her brother, laments, with all a Grecian bitterness of soul, that he should have died in a distant country.

By a stranger's hands

Those duties paid, thou com'st, a little dust
Clos'd in a little urn.

Oh, hadst thou died, e'er by these hands preserv'd,

And snatch'd from slaughter, to a foreign land

I sent thee. Hadst thou died in that sad day,

Some little portion of thy father's tomb

Thou would'st have shar'd; but thou hast perish'd now,

Far from thy house, and from thy country far,

A wand'ring exile!

Sophocles ;-Electra ;-Potter.

Many scenes are endeared to our feelings, also, when we are about to quit them, or after an absence of many years. Some captives have wept at leaving the prisons, in which they have been confined; and Phi

loctetes gave an affectionate farewell to the desolate island, in which he had lingered out ten years of solitude and wretchedness.

Ye jutting rocks, and you, ye dashing waves,
Ye fountains, waters, fields, and azure hills,
That have so often echoed with my sorrows,
And now endear'd by their remembrances,
Farewell! I leave you to return no more.

Euripides;-Philoctetes.

The modern Greeks, too, speak of their country with joy and affectionate admiration. The very mention of Greece is said to soften, to animate them, and even to inspire them with eloquence. When the Greeks were expelled from Belgrade, in 1739,2 the women were forced from the tombs of their children, parents, and husbands, with great difficulty. They clung to them with the greatest affection and agony ; but, being at length exhausted by their miseries, they could no longer contend against their enemies; and were dragged forcibly away.

"

No man loved his country better than Lucian. Why do we study the sciences," says he, "but that we may be useful to the country, in which we live? We have neither property nor talent, that is not essentially her's. Let her complexion be ever so coarse, yet we dread to be banished: and desire to return to her, even after we are dead. Bury me, therefore, in my own country.”

Virgil represents Helenus and Andromache indicating the same affection, by giving the name of Troy

1 De Guys, vol. iii. p. 108.

De Guys, vol. ii. p. 76.

2

to a river in Epirus': and in the celebrated storm scene he makes his hero lament, even with tears, that he was not fated to die in the sight of his parents, and under the walls of his native town. How natural!how pathetic!-how beautiful! And yet, this is the passage, which French critics-of all critics in the world, except some few leading ones of our own, the most presumptuous and superficial,-have presumed so frequently to ridicule !

Ceylon, a Cingalese will tell us, was part of the terrestrial paradise; Hamadel, the mountain, on which Adam was created; and the lake, which lies near its summit, formed by the tears, which Eve wept at the death of Abel.

The inhabitants of Tinian, being removed to Guam, in order to recruit the exhausted population of that island, pined for their country, and died of grief! The Portuguese Jews have an ardent affection for the kingdom of Portugal. For Lisbon they sigh, when called by business or necessity into other countries; and when settled far from their dear Portugal, they order a quantity of earth to be sent over, that, when they die, they may be buried in their native soil. The Dooraunes are so ardently attached to their country, that the bodies of their chiefs are always carried thither, when any of them die in Sind, Cashmeer, or any other empire. Nothing can exceed the reverence, they bear to the spots, which contain the ashes of their fathers.

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IX.

Henry the Fourth of France had always a peculiar regard for Pau; a small town in the province of Gascoigny, abounding in beautiful prospects: and it would be difficult to describe the pleasure, he received during the siege of Laon, from revisiting the forest of Folambray; where in his youth he had been accustomed to regale himself with milk, new cheese, and various kinds of fruit; and wandering about frequently without either bonnet or shoes.1

The late Lord Fife entertained a similar regard for Scotland. The house, in which his lordship resided, at Westminster, was built by himself. The earth, the stone, the timber, and the shrubs, were all brought from Scotland. So, though his lordship resided in England, his house stood on Scottish ground!

Castro, of Portugal, had a lively affection for Cintra. This was known to his master, the infant Don Lewis2; who, in a letter desiring him to continue his government of Goa, concluded with a hope, that, after he had performed the royal will, he would cover the rocks of Cintra with trophies and chapels, and long enjoy them in tranquillity.

1 Mem. Sully, vol. ii. p. 381. His chateau remains at this day as he left it his furniture, family portraits, library, &c. being all preserved. The revolution, which scarcely respected any thing, respected them.

The Duc de Biron retained so lively a regard for the chateau, in which he was born, situated in one of the most agreeable provinces of France, that the last words of regret, which escaped him, before he was led for execution, were expressive of his fear, that his park and woods would b ; confiscated and given to a stranger.

VOL. II.

2 Dissert. Portugueze Asia, p. clxv.

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