The characteristic beauty of the nation displayed itself in every stage of life, only assuming new phases in its progress from the beauty of infancy to the beauty of old age, inspiring the mingled feelings of love and admiration; and notwithstanding the effects of time, and inter-marriage with barbarous races, the same is the case still. For nowhere in Europe do we meet with infants so lovely, with youths so soft, so virginal, so beautiful in their incipient manliness, with old men so grave, stately, and with countenances so magnificent, as among the living descendants of the Hellenes, whose destiny may yet be, one day, as enviable as their forms.

To push our enquiry one step further; it may be questioned, whether the glorious organisation we have been describing was not itself an effect of air, climate, and soil.[[152]] Certain at any rate it is, that the atmosphere of Greece is clearer, purer, more buoyant and elastic, than that of any other country in our hemisphere. At night, particularly, there is a transparency in the air, which appears to impart additional lustre and magnitude to the stars and moon. Its mountain tops, the intervening space being, as it were, removed, seem to mingle with the constellations which cluster in brightness on the edge of the horizon.

A principal cause of this clearness and pellucidness is the great prevalence of the north wind,[[153]] which brings with it few or no vapours, but gathers together the clouds in heaps and rolls them from the land towards the Mediterranean. The reason why this wind so often prevails may be discovered in the geographical configuration of the country, which is not, like Italy, divided from the rest of the continent by a range of Alps that might have screened it from the colder blasts, but lies open like an elevated threshing-floor, to be purged and winnowed on all sides by the winds, which in many parts are so violent that no tree can attain to any great height, while the stunted woods throw all their branches in one direction, and the vines and other climbing shrubs are laid prostrate along the rocks. These winds, however, prevail not constantly, but the southern and western breezes, blowing at intervals, bring along with them the warm atmosphere of Syria or Egypt, or the cooling freshness of the ocean. Another cause, which greatly tends to promote the purity of the air, is the lightness, friability, and dryness of the soil, which, distributed for the most part in thin layers over ledges of rocks, permits no stagnation of moisture, but enables the rain that falls to trickle through, collect in rills and brooks, and find its way rapidly to the sea. The plains and irregular valleys, which form an exception to this rule, are not numerous enough, or of sufficient magnitude to affect the general proposition. There appear, moreover, to be many peculiar properties and virtues in the soil itself, causing all fruits transplanted thither to attain to speedy ripeness and superior flavour, while odoriferous plants and flowers, as the jasmine, the wild thyme, and the rose exhale sweeter and more delicious fragrance. This is more particularly the case in Attica, which accordingly produced in antiquity, where due care was bestowed on gardening and agriculture, the finest fruits and sweetest honey in the world.[[154]]

The same qualities in soil and climate which affect vegetation, likewise powerfully influence the character and temperament of men and animals. It is, for example, well known in the Levant, that the Bedouins inhabiting Arabia Proper and the Eastern Desert degenerate both in character and physical organisation when transplanted to the Libyan wastes on the western banks of the Nile. But if particular soil and situation engender particular diseases; if the air of fens and marshes blunt the senses and paralyse, to a certain degree, the intellectual faculties, the converse of the proposition must also hold good; so that it is conceivable that the light soil and pure air of Greece may have produced corresponding effects on the bodies and minds of its inhabitants. The experiment, in fact, is made daily; for strangers arriving there with the germs of disease in their constitution, are, in most cases, speedily destroyed by the force of the climate; while the healthy and vigorous acquire the vivacity, the cheerfulness, the nervous and impetuous energy of the natives themselves, and, like them, extend the term of life to its utmost span. Greece, indeed, has always been the habitation of longevity; its philosophers in antiquity,—its monks, anchorites, and rural population in modern times, furnishing, perhaps, more examples of extreme old age than could be found on the same extent of territory in any other part of the globe.

Now this excess of vitality, this superabundance of the principle of life, which constitutes what we intend by physical or moral energy, almost inevitably produces, among an ill-governed, ill-educated people, a large harvest of crime, and, accordingly, the modern Greeks have often been distinguished for audacious villany; the intrepid vigour of their character, controlled neither by religion nor philosophy, easily breaking through the restraints of tyranny and unjust laws in the chase after power or excitement. That Frenchman spoke more truly than he thought, who said the Greeks were still the same “canaille” as in the days of Themistocles: for, give them the same laws, the same education, the same incentives to virtue and to heroism, and they will probably be again as virtuous, as wise, and as heroic as their illustrious ancestors. I judge in this way partly from my own experience, for I have seldom become acquainted with a Greek,—and I have known many,—who has not improved upon acquaintance, won my esteem, and, in most cases, my affection, and impressed me with the firm belief that there is no nation in the varied population of Europe which, if ruled with wisdom and justice, would exhibit loftier or more exalted qualities. In these views I am happy to be borne out by the testimony of Monsieur Frederic Thiersch, whose facilities for studying the modern Greek have been far more ample than mine, and whose opinions are marked by the cautious acuteness of the statesman with the depth and originality of the philosopher.

In alluding to the causes which pervert the feelings and misdirect the energies of the existing race, I have touched also at the great source of crime among their ancestors,—I mean, defective laws and institutions; for although the Greek character was, in force and excellence, all that I have said, and more, it, nevertheless, contained other elements than those I have described, which it now becomes my duty to speak of. From a very early period there existed in Greece two political parties, variously denominated in various states, but upholding,—the one, the doctrine that the many ought to be subjected to the few; the other, that the few ought to be subjected to the many: in other words, the oligarchical and democratical parties. From the struggles of these two factions the internal history of Greece takes its form and colour, as to them may be traced most of the fearful atrocities, in the shape of conspiracies, massacres, revolutions, which, instructing while they shock us, stain the Greek character with indelible blots.[[155]] Ambitious men are nowhere scrupulous. To enjoy the delight imparted by the exercise of power, individuals have in all ages stifled the dictates of conscience; and where, as in modern Italy and in ancient Greece, numerous small states border upon each other, sufficiently powerful to dream of conquest though too weak to achieve it, the number of the ambitious is of necessity greatly multiplied. In proportion, however, to the thirst of power in one class was the love of freedom and independence in the other, so that the process of encroachment and resistance, of tyranny and rebellion, of usurpation and punishment, was carried on perpetually,—the oligarchy now predominating, and cutting off or sending into exile the popular leaders, while the democratic party, triumphing in its turn, inflicted similar sufferings on its enemies. By degrees, moreover, there sprang up two renowned states to represent these opposite principles, and the contests carried on by them assumed consequently many characteristics of civil war,—its obstinacy, its bitterness, its revenge.

In these struggles seas of blood were shed, and crimes of the darkest dye perpetrated. Cities, once illustrious and opulent, were razed to the ground; whole populations put to the sword or reduced to servitude; fertile plains rendered barren; men most renowned for capacity and virtue made a prey to treachery or the basest envy; the morals of great states corrupted, their glory eclipsed, their power undermined, and a way paved for the inroads of barbarian conquerors who ultimately put a period to the grandeur of the Hellenes.

Examples without number might be collected of these horrors. It will be sufficient to advert briefly to a few, more to remind than to inform the reader. In the troubles of Corcyra[[156]] the nobles and the commons alternately triumphing over each other, carried on with the utmost ruthlessness the work of extermination with abundant baseness and perfidy, some portion of which attached to the Athenian generals: the wrongs and sufferings inflicted by the Spartans on the brave but unfortunate inhabitants of Messenia, with the annual butchery of the Helots, the treacherous withdrawal of suppliants from sanctuary, and their subsequent slaughter,[[157]] the extermination of the people of Hysia,[[158]] the precipitating of neutral merchants into pits,[[159]] the betrayal of the cities of Chalcidice and the islands, the massacre in cold blood of the Platæans, of four thousand Athenians in the Hellespont,[[160]] the reduction of innumerable cities to servitude: by the Athenians, the extermination of the people of Melos,[[161]] the slaughter of a thousand Mitylenians, the cruelties at Skione, Ægina, and Cythera;[[162]] but beyond these, and beyond all, the fearful excesses of civil strife at Miletos where the common people called Gergithes having risen in rebellion against the nobles and defeated them in battle, took their children and cast them into the cattle stalls where they were crushed and trampled to death by the infuriated oxen; but the nobles renewing the contest and obtaining ultimately the victory, seized upon their enemies,—men, women, children, and covered them with pitch, to which setting fire they burnt them alive.[[163]]

From these glimpses of guilt and suffering, we may learn to what extremes the Greek was sometimes hurried by passion and the thirst of power. But propensities so wolfish were not predominant in his nature.[[164]] On the contrary, in private life, even the Spartans and the Dorians generally put off their cruel and severe habits, and relaxed on all proper occasions into joviality and mirth. In their social intercourse, in fact, few nations have been more cheerful or addicted to jokes and pleasantry than the Greeks, and above all the Athenians, whose hours of leisure were one continued round of gossip, sport, and laughter.[[165]] Never in any city were news-mongers, or even news-forgers, so numerous. In the mouth of young and old no question was so frequent as, “What is the news?” These were the sounds that circulated from rank to rank in the assembly of the people before the orators began their harangues, that were bandied[bandied] to and fro in the Agora, that filled by their incessant repetition the shops of barbers and perfumers.[[166]] Akin to this itching ear was the passion for show and magnificence, every man, from highest to lowest, affecting as far as possible spacious dwellings, superb furniture and costly apparel. Even the bravest of the brave, the heroes of Marathon, were petits-maîtres[maîtres] at their toilette, and went forth to the field in purple cloaks, their hair curled, adorned with golden ornaments, and perfumed with essences. The study of philosophy itself failed in most cases to subdue this ostentatious spirit. Plato loved rich carpets and splendid raiment. Even Aristotle was an exquisite, and Æschines an acknowledged coxcomb.

From several of these weaknesses the Spartans were free. They cared little for news, still less for dress, and less still for cleanliness; so that their beautiful long hair and waving beards swarmed with those autochthonal beasts, for the expulsion of which there was no law in Sparta. Though neither a knowing nor cleanly race, however, their wit was bright and piercing. No people uttered pithier or finer sayings, and their taste both in music and poetry was cultivated and refined. Probably, therefore, the dining halls and gymnasia and public walks of Sparta were enlivened by as much mirth as those of any other Grecian city, where usually cheerfulness was so prevalent, that “to be as merry as a Greek,” has become a proverb in all countries.