, as ever she had been.

Many a more fruitful coast or isle is washed by the blue Aegean, many a
spot is there more beautiful or sublime to see, many a territory more
ample; but there was one charm in Attica, which in the same perfection
was nowhere else. The deep pastures of Arcadia, the plain of Argos,
the Thessalian vale, these had not the gift; Boeotia, which lay to its
immediate north, was notorious for its very want of it. The heavy
atmosphere of that Boeotia might be good for vegetation, but it was
associated in popular belief with the dulness of the Boeotian
intellect: on the contrary, the special purity, elasticity, clearness,
and salubrity of the air of Attica, fit concomitant and emblem of its
genius, did that for it which earth did not;--it brought out every
bright hue and tender shade of the landscape over which it was {138}
spread, and would have illuminated the face even of a more bare and
rugged country.

A confined triangle, perhaps fifty miles its greatest length, and
thirty its greatest breadth; two elevated rocky barriers, meeting at an
angle; three prominent mountains, commanding the plain,--Parnes,
Pentelicus, and Hymettus; an unsatisfactory soil; some streams, not
always full;--such is about the report which the agent of a London
company would have made of Attica. He would report that the climate
was mild; the hills were limestone; there was plenty of good marble;
more pasture land than at first survey might have been expected,
sufficient certainly for sheep and goats; fisheries productive; silver
mines once, but long since worked out; figs fair; oil first-rate;
olives in profusion. But what he would not think of noting down, was,
that that olive tree was so choice in nature and so noble in shape,
that it excited a religious veneration; and that it took so kindly to
the light soil, as to expand into woods upon the open plain, and to
climb up and fringe the hills. He would not think of writing word to
his employers, how that clear air, of which I have spoken, brought out,
yet blended and subdued, the colours on the marble, till they had a
softness and harmony, for all their richness, which in a picture looks
exaggerated, yet is after all within the truth. He would not tell, how
that same delicate and brilliant atmosphere freshened up the pale
olive, till the olive forgot its monotony, and its cheek glowed like
the arbutus or beech of the Umbrian hills. He would say nothing of the
thyme and