old, of summer and of winter, an elastic,
fresh, and bracing atmosphere, a diversity in the aspects of nature,
these develop a vivacity of temperament, a quickness of sensibility as
well as apprehension, and a versatility of feeling as well as genius.
History marks out the temperate zone as the seat of the refined and
cultivated nations.

[Footnote 22: Guyot, "Earth and Man," p. 181.]

[Footnote 23: _Encyc. Brit._, art. "Greece."]

[Footnote 24: The influence of climatic conditions did not escape the
attention of the Greeks. Herodotus, Hippocrates, and Aristotle speak of
the climate of Asia as more enervating than that of Greece. They
regarded the changeful character and diversity of local temperature in
Greece as highly stimulating to the energies of the populations. The
marked contrast between the Athenians and the Boeotians was supposed to
be represented in the light and heavy atmosphere which they respectively
breathed.--_Grote_, vol. ii. pp. 232-3.]

The natural scenery of Greece was of unrivalled grandeur--surpassing
Italy, perhaps every country in the world. It combined in the highest
degree every feature essential to the highest beauty of a landscape
except, perhaps, large rivers. But this was more than compensated for by
the proximity of the sea, which, by its numerous arms, seemed to embrace
the land on nearly every side. Its mountains, encircled with zones of
wood, and capped with snow, though much lower than the Alps, are as
imposing by the suddenness of their elevation--"pillars of heaven, the
fosterers of enduring snows."[25] Rich sheltered plains lie at their
feet, covered with an unequally woven mantle of trees, and shrubs, and
flowers,--"the verdant gloom of the thickly-mantling ivy, the narcissus
steeped in heavenly dew, the golden-beaming crocus, the hardy and
ever-fresh-sprouting olive-tree,"[26] and the luxuriant palm, which
nourishes amid its branches the grape swelling with juice. But it is the
combination of these features, in the most diversified manner, with
beautiful inland bays and seas, broken by headlands, inclosed by
mountains, and studded with islands of every form and magnitude, which
gives to the scenery of Greece its proud pre-eminence. "Greek scenery,"
says Humboldt, "presents the peculiar charm of an intimate blending of
sea and land, of shores adorned with vegetation, or picturesquely girt
with rocks gleaming in the light of aerial tints, and an ocean beautiful
in the play of th