e ever-changing brightness of its deep-toned wave."[27]
And over all the serene, deep azure skies, occasionally veiled by light
fleecy clouds, with vapory purple mists resting on the distant mountain
tops. This glorious scenery of Greece is evermore the admiration of the
modern traveller. "In wandering about Athens on a sunny day in March,
when the asphodels are blooming on Colones, when the immortal mountains
are folded in a transparent haze, and the AEgean slumbers afar among his
isles," he is reminded of the lines of Byron penned amid these scenes--

[Footnote 25: Pindar.]

[Footnote 26: Sophocles, "oedipus at Colonna."]

[Footnote 27: "Cosmos," vol. ii. p. 25.]

"Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild;
Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields,
Thine olives ripe as when Minerva smiled,
And still his honeyed wealth Hymettus yields;
There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds,
The freeborn wanderer of the mountain air;
Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds,
Still in his beams Mendeli's marbles glare;
Art, Glory, Freedom fail, but nature still is fair."[28]

[Footnote 28: Canto ii., v. lxxxvi., "Childe Harold."]

The effect of this scenery upon the character, the imagination, the
taste of the Athenians must have been immense. Under the influence of
such sublime objects, the human mind becomes gifted as with inspiration,
and is by nature filled with poetic images. "Greece became the
birth-place of taste, of art, and eloquence, the chosen sanctuary of the
muses, the prototype of all that is graceful, and dignified, and grand
in sentiment and action."

And now, if we have succeeded in clearly presenting and properly
grouping the facts, and in estimating the influence of geographical
position and surroundings on national character, we have secured the
natural _criteria_ by which we examine, and even correct the portraiture
of the Athenian character usually presented by the historian.

The character of the Athenians has been sketched by Plutarch[29] with
considerable minuteness, and his representations have been permitted,
until of late years, to pass unchallenged. He has described them as at
once passionate and placable, easily moved to anger, and as easily
appeased; fond of pleasantry and repartee, and heartily enjoying a
laugh; pleased to hear themselves praised, and yet not annoyed by
criticism and censure; naturally generous towards those who