Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6: With His Letters and JournalsMoore, Thomas
General
Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6: With His Letters and Journals
Moore, Thomas
Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron, 1788-1824; Poets, English -- 19th century -- Biography
which the traveller intends to sleep, is indispensable to comfort:
but no tourist should be misled by the author's advice to suffer the
Greeks to gratify their curiosity, in permitting them to remain for
some time about him on his arrival at an inn. They should be removed
as soon as possible; for, as to the remark that "no stranger would
think of intruding when a room is pre-occupied," our informants were
not so well convinced of that fact.
Though we have made the above exceptions to the accuracy of Mr.
Gell's information, we are most ready to do justice to the general
utility of his directions, and can certainly concede the praise which
he is desirous of obtaining,--namely, "of having facilitated the
researches of future travellers, by affording that local information
which it was before impossible to obtain." This book, indeed, is
absolutely necessary to any person who wishes to explore the Morea
advantageously; and we hope that Mr. Gell will continue his Itinerary
over that and over every other part of Greece. He allows that his
volume "is only calculated to become a book of reference, and not of
general entertainment:" but we do not see any reason against the
compatibility of both objects in a survey of the most celebrated
country of the ancient world. To that country, we trust, the
attention not only of our travellers, but of our legislators, will
hereafter be directed. The greatest caution will, indeed, be
required, as we have premised, in touching on so delicate a subject
as the amelioration of the possessions of an ally: but the field for
the exercise of political sagacity is wide and inviting in this
portion of the globe; and Mr. Gell, and all other writers who
interest us, however remotely, in its extraordinary _capabilities_,
deserve well of the British empire. We shall conclude by an extract
from the author's work: which, even if it fails of exciting that
general interest which we hope most earnestly it may attract, towards
its important subject, cannot, as he justly observes, "be entirely
uninteresting to the scholar;" since it is a work "which gives him a
faithful description of the remains of cities, the very existence of
which was doubtful, as they perished before the aera of authentic
history." The subjoined quotation is a good specimen of the author's
minuteness of research as a topographer; and we trust that the credit
which must accrue to him from the present performance will ensure the
completion of his Itinerary:--
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