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Yet, in dismissing this subject of personal appearance, as the most plausible test now surviving for the claim of a pure Greek descent, we must not forget to explain–that it is far from our design to countenance the hypothesis of any abrupt supercession, at any period or by any means, to the old Grecian blood. The very phrase of ‘national type,’ which we used in the last paragraph, and the diffusion of a language essentially Greek, argue at once a slow and gradational transition of the population into its present physical condition. Mr. Mure somewhere describes, as amongst the characteristics of the present race, swarth-iness and leanness. These we suspect to have been also characteristics of the old original ton d’apameibomenoi Greeks. If so, the fact would seem to argue, that the changes, after all, had not been on a scale sufficient to obliterate the primitive type of Hellenic nature; whilst the existence of any diffused type marks a tendency to national unity, and shows that some one element has so much predominated as to fuse the rest into a homogeneous whole. Indeed, it is pretty certain that a powerful cross in any human breed, whatever effects it may have in other respects, leaves the intellect improved–if not in the very highest qualities, yet in mobility, activity, and pertinacity of attention. The Greek nation has also shown itself morally improved; their revolutionary war evoked and tried, as in a furnace, the very finest qualities of courage, both adventurous and enduring; and we heartily agree in the sentiment delivered so ably by Mr. Mure, that the struggles of these poor shepherds and herdsmen, driven into caves and thickets, and having no great rallying principle but the banner of the Cross against the Crescent, were as much more truly sublime in suffering and in daring, than the classical struggles against the Persians, as they are and will be more obscure in the page of general history. We do not at all question great stamina and noble elements in the modern Greek character–generations of independence will carry this character to excellence; but still we affirm, that he who looks for direct descendants from the race of Miliades, Pericles, or Epaminondas, is likely to be disappointed; and most disappointed in that Athens, which for all of us alike (as appealing to our imaginative feelings) still continues to be what it was for Cicero–true and very Greece; in which, therefore, of all cities locally recalling the classical times, we can least brook a disappointment.

If not the people of Greece, is it then the NATURAL SCENERY of Greece which can justify the tourist in this preference? Upon this subject it is difficult to dispute. What a man is likely to relish in scenery–what style or mode of the natural picturesque; and secondly, what weight or value he will allow to his own preferences–are questions exceedingly variable. And the latter of these questions is the more important; for the objection is far less likely to arise against this mode of scenery or that, since every characteristic mode is relished as a change, than universally against all modes alike as adequate indemnifications for the toils of travelling. Female travellers are apt to talk of ‘scenery’ as all in all, but men require a social interest superadded. Mere scenery palls upon the mind, where it is the sole and ever-present attraction relied on. It should come unbidden and unthought of, like the warbling of birds, to sustain itself in power. And at feeding-time we observe that men of all nations and languages, Tros Tyriusve, grow savage, if, by a fine scene, you endeavor to make amends for a bad beef-steak. The scenery of the Himalaya will not ‘draw houses’ till it finds itself on a line of good hotels.

This difference, noted above, between the knowledge and the power of a scenery hunter may be often seen illustrated in the fields of art. How common is the old sapless connoisseur in pictures, who retains his learned eye and his distinguished skill, but whose sensibilities are as dry as summer dust to the interests of the art. On the other hand, daily you see young people whose hearts and souls are in the forests and the hills, but for whom the eye is perfectly untutored. If, now, to the differences in this respect you add the extensive differences which prevail as to the kinds of scenery, it is easy to understand how rich in the materials for schism must be every party that starts up on the excitement of mere scenery. Some laud the Caucasus; some the northern and eastern valleys of Spain; some the Alpine scenery; some the Pyrenean. All these are different; and from all alike differs again what Mr. Mure classes as the classical character of scenery. For this, he thinks a regular education of the eye requisite. Such an education he himself had obtained from a residence in Italy. And, subject to that condition, he supposes the scenery on the Eurotas (to the eastern side of the Peloponnesus) the most delightful in Europe. We know not. It may be so. For ourselves, the obscure sense of being or moving under a vast superincumbency of some great natural power, as of a mighty forest, or a trackless succession of mountainous labyrinths, has a charm of secret force far better than any distinct scenes to which we are introduced. Such things ought not to be. But still so it is–that tours in search of the picturesque are peculiarly apt to break up in quarrels. Perhaps on the same principle which has caused a fact generally noticed, viz. that conchologists, butterfly-fanciers, etc., are unusually prone to commit felonies, because too little of a human interest circulates through their arid pursuits. The morbid irritation accumulates until the amateur rushes, out with a knife, lets blood in some quarter, and so restores his own connection with the vitalities of human nature. In any case, we advise the Greek tourist to have at least two strings to his bow besides scenery.