Flow on, fair stream, thy course pursue
Beneath the shade of waving bowers,
Where sunbeams lightly glancing through,
Kiss the bright dew from off the flowers.
S.N.
NATIONAL VARIETIES.
(Continued from page 165.)
It is almost impossible to lay down any rule which would define the variations of national manners as having any reference to climate. We frequently find that the passage of a river, or a chain of mountains, dividing countries of the same natural features, brings us among an entirely new people, and presents us with a fresh scene in the melodrama of life. The inhabitants of Languedoc and Gascony, and the southern parts of France, are the gayest and most lively of the subjects of Charles X.; but the moment we have crossed the Pyrenees, we are among one of the gravest nations in the world, the Spaniards. Again, contrast the solemnity and deep sense of honour of the Turks, with the vivacity and, we regret to add, the deceit and bad faith of the unfortunate modern Greeks. The virtuous spirit will, we trust, revive in the Morea with the return of civilization and freedom; for, as no one will attribute the degradation of the modern Greeks from the high moral cultivation of their ancestors, to any alteration in the climate of their country, so let us never despair of the return of virtue, of poetry, of the arts and sciences, whilst Parnassus and Helicon still enjoy the same glorious sun, and whilst the Isles are still gilded by eternal summer. We want no proofs that patriotism still lives in Greece, and with that feeling will ever be associated the powers that are able to invigorate a nation.
Although a mountainous country like Greece, situated in the loveliest climate in the world, must of course have some effect on the spirit of the people, yet the degree of it seems extremely uncertain. The Swiss seem in a great measure to have lost their renown for patriotism, by their slavish submissions to foreign yokes during the late war, and by the apathy with which they allow their rights to be trampled on at this day by a tyrannical aristocracy at home. There is now a proverb of "Point d'argent, point de Suisse!"—a melancholy reflection for a land where Tell drew his unerring shaft in the cause of freedom—where, so late as 1798, a patriot of the canton of Schwyz concluded an address with these words:—"The dew of the mountain may still moisten its verdure—the sweets of the valley may still shed their fragrance around you—the purple grape may still mingle with the green vine—the note of the maiden may still sound sweetly to the ear of her lover—the soft cry of the infant charm the feelings of the father—the confiding wife may yet gladden the home of her husband—but the heart of man will be rotten—the spirit of your ancestors extinguished—Switzerland no more, if you submit to the French. If you love your country, and value your honour, be men, and resist. If not, prove cowards, and obey."