9. Attica.--Bordering Bœotia on the south-east was the district of Attica, nearly in the form of a triangle, having two of its sides washed by the sea, and the other--the northern--shut off from the east of Central Greece by the mountain range of Cithæron on the north-west, and Par'nes on the east. Its other noted mountains were Pentel'icus (sometimes called Mende'li), so celebrated for its quarries of beautiful marble, and Hymet'tus, celebrated for its excellent honey, and the broad belt of flowers at its base, which scented the air with their delicious perfume. It could boast of its chief city, the favored seat of the goddess Minerva-- Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts And eloquence-- as surpassing all other cities in beauty and magnificence, and in the great number of its illustrious citizens. Yet the soil of Attica was, on the whole, exceedingly barren, with the exception of a few very fertile spots; but olive groves abounded, and the olive was the most valuable product. The general sterility of Attica was the great safety of her people in their early history. "It drove them abroad; it filled them with a spirit of activity, which loved to grapple with danger and difficulty; it told them that, if they would maintain themselves in the dignity which became them, they must regard the resources of their own land as nothing, and those of other countries as their own." Added to this, the situation of Attica marked it out in an eminent manner for a commercial country; and it became distinguished beyond all the other states of Greece for its extensive commercial relations, while its climate was deemed the most favorable of all the regions of the civilized world for the physical and intellectual development of man. It was called "a sunny land," and, notwithstanding the infertility of its soil, it was full of picturesque beauty. The poet BYRON, in his apostrophe to Greece, makes many striking and beautiful allusions to the Attica of his own time: Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild; Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields, Thine olive ripe as when Minerva smiled, And still its honeyed wealth Hymettus yields. There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds, The freeborn wanderer of thy mountain air; Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds, Still in his beam Mendeli's marbles glare; Art, Glory, Freedom fail, but Nature still is fair.