Hymettus. Its site is sequestered and lonely. The ground is diversified by gray rocks overhung by tufted pines, and clusters of low shrubs, among which goats are feeding, some of them placing their forefeet on the boughs of the shrubs, and cropping the leaves with their bearded mouths. It is such a scene as this which proves that the religion of Greece knew how to avail itself of two things most conducive to a solemn and devotional effect, namely, silence and solitude." Athens and Attica, p. 268. Mr. Gifford and his companions, leaving Athens in a boat, proceeded to Ægina, and thence to Epidaurus, Napoli, Argos and Mycenae. We give his account of the ancient city of Agamemnon. After speaking of the cavern which is called both the Treasury of Athens and the Tomb of Agamemnon, but which, from a remark of Pausanias, he is inclined to consider the tombs of Clytemnestra and Ægisthus, he says: "From the second cavern a few minutes brought us to the Gate of Lions. Standing opposite to it, I could hardly believe it possible that it had existed for so many ages, notwithstanding the combined assaults of war and time. In its immediate neighborhood the walls are still entire, as well as in many other parts of the city; the lions, which are rampant, resting their forelegs against a low pillar, are, with the exception of their heads, perfect, though in the rudest style of sculp ture. "From the spot where we stood, the scene was full of interest. We were exceedingly struck by the presence of these Cyclopean monuments-the oldest authenticated work which we had ever seen in any intelligible shape-and their exact accordance with the description of Pausanias; while the ancient and jealous city of Argos, backed by its commanding citadel, seemed still to frown, at the distance of seven or eight miles, on the ruin of its annihilated rivals! There was not a sound to disturb the extreme solitude of a place once the wealthy capital of a powerful state; the conqueror of Troy was dust; his city rubbish; but his name and memory were as fresh as ever. This was the very scene to illustrate the full force of Horace's beautiful allusion: "But for the magic of the Grecian muse, the victors and the vanquished would have been lost in oblivion, and their monuments unintelligible ruins. Nor must we forget our obligation to the humbler labors of Pausanias; without such a guide, had any person stumbled on these mighty remains, the question of what they had been would simply afford matter of vague discussion to the antiquary, without exciting those feelings of historical reality, and that corresponding pleasure, which they now kindle even in the least enthusiastic. The Gate of Lions is choked with rubbish; but I managed, on my hands and knees, to crawl through a narrow opening, along the very spot by which the King of men had marched to accomplish the fate of Ilium, and had returned triumphant, only to be the victim of a domestic tragedy, which has for ages interested the feelings of mankind.” Gifford, 181. How different the feelings with which one visits the modern ruins of Tripolitza. This ill-fated city was the scene of some of the fearful atrocities of the Greek revolution. When taken by the Greeks under Colocotroni, the Turks were slaughtered by thousands, and when subsequently,-after having, by a gradual influx of people from all parts, become the most important and populous town in Greece, numbering 30,000 inhabitants, it was retaken by the Turks, the inhabitants that remained (at the approach of the army all fled who could get away) were butchered or carried into slavery, and the whole city devoted to the flames. Mr. Gifford arrived there in the night, and gives an interesting description of it, which we are obliged to omit. From Tripolitza the travellers proceeded south to Sparta, and found there an illustration of a remark of Thucydides, that if Sparta and Athens should be destroyed, the latter would, from the superior magnificence of its ruins, be supposed to have been the greater state of the two. Nothing can be truer. No ruins mark the situation of ancient Lacedemon-seges ubi Sparta. Even the foundations of a small temple, which are pointed out, and the theatre excavated from the side of a ploughed hill, belong not to the "Sparta of Menelaus, of Leonidas, of Greece, but to the modern Roman town, which has also disappeared in the lapse of ages." The Eurotas flows there still, and the wild and turbulent Mainotes rudely cultivate the fertile plains. Thence the travellers proceeded to Messene and along the western shore of the Morea by Phygaleia, across the Alpheus to Olympia, the scene of the sacred triumphs, and to Pyrgo on the sea, where they embarked to meet the English steam-boat at Zante. Had we not already drawn too copiously from the volumes before us, we should like to dwell a little longer on the character of the modern Greek, so like in its great features to that of his acute and flexible ancestor two thousand years ago, so unchanged by centuries of ignorance, degradation and slavery, and to * See Howe's Greek Revolution. gather from the view some seeds of hope for the future wellbeing of the race. His language too shows a remarkable similarity to the ancient. Striking changes have indeed been made, but fewer than in the Italian compared with the Latin, and we think we speak within limits in saying that the educated Greek ladies will read Plato and Euripides as easily as ours can read Chaucer. As to the pronunciation of modern Greek, much has been said, but we are not prepared even to state the question fully. We close with a single remark of Mr. Gifford. "It is hard to believe that the present pronunciation can be the same as the ancient; for besides the penury of sounds with which it narrows the language, we have at least one instance in which ancient authority seems to contradict modern practice; for an Aristophanic fragment talks of the Bη, βη προβατων βληχή ba, ba, the bleating of sheep; and we can witness that the modern sheep of Greece pronounce the B with as much distinctness as those of Salisbury plain. Nor can I give much credence to a system which reduces the noλuglóioßoio of Homer, a sound which we heard the sea itself articulating on the shores of Pylos, into pollyfleesveeo." 6 ARTICLE IX. REVIEW OF NORDHEIMER'S HEBREW CONCORDANCE. By Tayler Lewis, Esq., Professor of Greek in the University of New York. אוצר לשון הקדש A Complete Hebrew and Chaldee Concordance to the Old Testament, comprising also a condensed Hebrew-English Lexicon, with an Introduction and Appendices. By Dr. Isaac Nordheimer, Professor of Oriental Languages in the University of the city of New-York, assisted by William W. Turner. Part First, . New-York: Wiley & Putnam. BISHOP HORSELEY has somewhere expressed the opinion, that a careful study of parallel passages, even as they are imperfectly given in King James's Bible, would impart to a plain unlettered man, a better knowledge of Scriptural truth, than could be acquired by one of far superior literary attainments, but who should neglect the simple though powerful means, which the other had employed. If this be true in respect to so imperfect a process as the collation of parallel passages in our common version, or of the remote points of resemblance exhibited by an English concordance, how much more might be expected from the constant use of so powerful an auxiliary, as a finished and copious index of the original words of inspiration? Were it a new vocabulary, furnishing only concise references to all the passages, or a mere numerical list of texts, it would be, in fact, of more value, than the most accredited lexicon without it, and more deserving of a place in every clergyman's library. It might even be maintained, that in a certain stage of the student's course, and after he had become moderately familiar with the language, it would absolutely be better to deprive him for a season of his separate lexicon, and throw him upon the forced exercise of his own powers, in studying by the concordance, and determining the primary senses of words, from a careful observation of those associations which it presents. In fact no commentary, translation, or lexicon can supply its place. In the language of the author's prospectus, "it can teach nothing but what is true.” It may be styled a self interpreting lexicon. It guides to the knowledge of the Hebrew, through a process similar to that, by which we become familiar with our own tongue. Very few, comparatively, of the words we meet with in English authors have ever been examined by the aid of a dictionary, or directly explained to us by oral teaching, and yet we feel as much confidence in our knowledge of their correct application, as though one or the other of these means had been in every case employed. The understanding of a word is something more than a knowledge of its separate meanings, as remembered from a lexicon. It is not only true of connecting and qualifying particles, but also of all parts of speech, except the lowest class of nouns, that their whole meaning cannot be felt, or correctly given, when viewed as standing alone. We meddle not here with the grave philosophical question, whether general terms, even when directly contemplated by the mind, do ever present an independent conception of their own. There can be no doubt, however, that in ordinary reading and conversation, abstract terms of any kind, can only be said to be understood, by an apprehension of the fitness of their connection with the other members of a proposi tion. We recognise them rather by their company, than by their individual features. The primary sense, or what may be styled the spirit of a word, is not directly made an object of thought, without a special effort of abstraction; and yet this spirit of the word, although not distinctly exhibited in the forms of conscious intelligence, may be ever present to the soul, actively exercised in determining the fitness, or detecting the incoherence, of the terms employed. When this is the case in respect to a foreign language, the words may be said to be understood. Without this, their various secondary meanings are only remembered from the lexicon, and blunders of every kind may be committed, in determining which of them, whilst it maintains the primary sense, best coheres with the connection in each particular example. This apprehension of the spirit of words is the result of an habitual observation of the company in which they are found, and of the associations with which they are most naturally connected. In the use of our own native words we are engaged in this discipline from infancy, and in consequence of familiarity, are not distinctly aware of the great variety of secondary senses in which single terms are employed. To a foreigner, who takes thein at first, only as separate remembered senses from a lexicon, without the connecting soul of their primary idea, they convey the impression of confused and arbitrary diversity,—an impression similar to that which we derive, when learning the words of another language, and relying, as we necessarily must do at first, simply upon authority. In the case of a dead or foreign tongue, the concordance furnishes the means, by which the length of this process is shortened, and its results condensed. In respect to single words, it performs in a few hours, what in a course of reading alone, would require the critical observation of years. It does not merely give us a confused array of all possible meanings, leading to all possible interpretations, and adapted to the exigency of every dogma that seeks their support, but familiarizes the mind with the spirit of the word,-presents at a glance the one primary sensible image or action, which forms the uniting bond of all its various uses, and thus enables us to determine with confidence what is intended in each particular connection. But few persons, comparatively, can be expected to become such thorough masters of the Hebrew, as to be able to read every portion of the Old Testament Scriptures with ease, and thus to make it their sole and daily medium of communication SECOND SERIES, NOL. VII. NO. II. 19 |