cities of Greece, and once the most learned, had known
nothing of the monument of its most deserving and ingenious citizen, had
it not been discovered to them by a native of Arpinum!"

The great French antiquary, Peiresc, exhibited a singular combination of
learning, patient thought, and luminous sagacity, which could restore an
"airy nothing" to "a local habitation and a name." There was found on an
amethyst, and the same afterwards occurred on the front of an ancient
temple, a number of _marks_, or indents, which had long perplexed
inquirers, more particularly as similar marks or indents were frequently
observed in ancient monuments. It was agreed on, as no one could
understand them, and all would be satisfied, that they were secret
hieroglyphics. It occurred to Peiresc that these marks were nothing more
than holes for small nails, which had formerly fastened little
_laminae_, which represented so many Greek letters. This hint of his own
suggested to him to draw lines from one hole to another; and he beheld
the amethyst reveal the name of the sculptor, and the frieze of the
temple the name of the god! This curious discovery has been since
frequently applied; but it appears to have originated with this great
antiquary, who by his learning and sagacity explained a supposed
hieroglyphic, which had been locked up in the silence of seventeen
centuries.[264]

Learned men, confined to their study, have often rectified the errors of
travellers; they have done more, they have found out paths for them to
explore, or opened seas for them to navigate. The situation of the vale
of Tempe had been mistaken by modern travellers; and it is singular,
observes the Quarterly Reviewer, yet not so singular as it appears to
that elegant critic, that the only good directions for finding it had
been given by a person who was never in Greece. Arthur Browne, a man of
letters of Trinity College, Dublin--it is gratifying to quote an Irish
philosopher and man of letters, from the extreme rarity of the
character--was the first to detect the inconsistencies of Pococke and
Busching, and to send future travellers to look for Tempe in its real
situation, the defiles between Ossa and Olympus; a discovery
subsequently realised. When Dr. Clarke discovered an inscription
purporting that the pass of Tempe had been fortified by Cassius
Longinus, Mr. Walpole, with equal felicity, detected, in Caesar's
"History of the Civil War," the name and the mission of