he regions of the South,
where certainly much sunshine was to be had of undeniable quality, but
not much of anything else. The Greeks were never absolute paupers,
because, however slender their means, their social usages never led to
any Irish expansion of population; but under no circumstances of
government were they or could they have been rich. Plunder therefore,
that could be worth packing and cording, there was little or none in
Greece. People do not march seven hundred miles to steal old curious
bedsteads, swarming, besides, with fleas. Sculptured plate was the
thing. And, from the times of Sylla, _that_ had a strange gravitation
towards Rome. It is, besides, worth noticing--as a general rule in the
science of robbery--that it makes all the difference in the world which
end of a cone is presented to the robber. Beginning at the apex of a
sugar-loaf, and required to move rapidly onwards to the broad basis
where first he is to halt and seek his booty, the robber locust advances
with hope and cheerfulness. Invert this order, and from the vast base of
the Danube send him on to the promontory of Sunium--a tract perpetually
dwindling in its breadth through 500 miles--and his reversion of booty
grows less valuable at every step. Yet even this feature was not the
most comfortless in the case. That the zone of pillage should narrow
with every step taken towards its proper ground, this surely was a bad
look-out. But it was a worse, that even this poor vintage lay hid and
sheltered under the AEgis of the empire. The whole breadth of the empire
on that side of the Mediterranean was to be traversed before one cluster
of grapes could be plucked from Greece; whereas, upon all the horns of
the Western Empire, plunder commenced from the moment of crossing the
frontier. Here, therefore, lies one objection to the supposed excellence
of Grecian institutions: they are valued, upon Mr. Finlay's scale, by
their quality of elastic rebound from violence and wrong; but, in order
that this quality might be truly tested, they ought to have been equally
and fairly tried: now, by comparison with the Western provinces, that
was a condition not capable of being realized for Greece, having the
position which she had.

2ndly. The reader will remark that the argument just used is but
negative: it does not positively combat the superiority claimed for the
Greek organization; that superiority may be all that it is described to
be; but it is submitted