learning and abilities as a scholar and a gentleman are too well known to need any encomium.

In the following work the footsteps of our blessed Saviour and his aposties are traced out, many dis-. putes between historians and travellers adjusted and determined, and the doctrines of our holy religion illustrated and confirmed; and that in a style so polite, pure, and delicate, so easy and familiar, that the learned readers will be agreeably entertained, while the unlearned are both delighted and instructed.

The account of the Holy Land will naturally excite our piety and devotion, when we consider it as the theatre of the greatest part of scripture history, and the place where the glorious work of man's redemption was accomplished. When we take a view of Jerusalem, every heap of ruins make us reflect on the instability of human grandeur, and remind us that we are strangers and pilgrims upon earth, seeking a city which hath (everlasting) foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Our Author's accurate description of this country, and his judicious remarks will be of great service towards a thorough understanding of the Old and New

Testament.

More time need not be spent in shewing the bene. · fit and pleasure of reading books of this nature; since it is evident, that the geographer and the historian, the architect and the statuary, the poet and the painter, the philosopher and the divine; in a word, persons of every art and profession, of every rank and station in life, may draw great advantages from the labours of a wise and judicious traveller.

1

> WE sailed from Constantinople on the 2dof September, 1733, on board a vessel bound for Smyrna, and in eight days time arrived at the Dardanelles, where we were obliged to stop, as all outward-bound ships are, in order to be searched whether we had any slaves belonging to the Turks; notwithstanding which caution, scarce a day passes but some of these poor creatures find means to escape. No ship of war, of whatever nation, is exempted from being thus visited, without express orders from the Porte; but indeed the search is little more than a ceremony. Having passed by the island of Tenedos on the 13th, the next day we were forced by contrary winds to put into the port of Castro, the capital of the island of Metelin, anciently called Lesbos; where we went ashore to make some observations on a place so fainous in antiquity.

It is pretty plain from Strabo's description of the two ports of Mitylene, that Castro was built on its ruins; and how large and magnificent that city was, appears from Cicero, Stephanus Byzantius,

Vitruvius*, and other authors. The remains of its ancient grandeur are still abundantly visible; for every where about it we meet with pieces of marble columns, most of them white or ash-coloured, some fluted in a direct, and others in a spiral manner. We were really surprised at the great number of chapiters, frizes, and pedestals, other fragments, with scraps of inscriptions scarcely legible, though in several of them we could discern the word gymnasiarch. These perhaps are as ancient as Epicurus's time, who at the age of thirty-two years read public lectures at Mitylene, as we are informed by Diogenes Laertius; and Aristotle resided here two years, according to the same author.

The ancient Mitylene has produced many illustrious persons, and among the rest Pittacus †, one of

* Cicero (de Leg. Agrar.) commends the ancient Mitylene for its situation, the beauty of its buildings, and the fertility and pleasantness of the adjacent country: «Et natura, et situ, et descrip. ❝tione ædificiorum, et pulchritudine in primis nobilis Mitylena; "agri jucundi et fertiles," &c. But Vitruvius, (Lib. 1. cap. 6.) though he allows the elegance and magnificence of its buildings, does not approve of its situation, as not enjoying a very healthful air: "In ea (urbe) quippe, dum flat Auster, incolæ ægrotant, dum "Caurus, tussiunt; cum Septentrio, in salubritatem restituuntur.”

+ Pittacus was a true patriot, and did great service to his country. Joining with the Brothers of Alexus, the famous lyric poet, and with Alcæus himself, who was at the head of an exiled party, he drove the tyrants out of Lesbos, who had usurped the government of that island. The inhabitants of Mitylene, being at war with the Athenians, gave the command of their army to Pittacus; who, to spare the blood of his fellow-citizens, offered to fight Phrynon, the enemy's general, in single combat; which challenge was

the seven sages of Greece, whose sentences were written on the walls of Apollo's temple at Delphos. The poet Alcæus and the poetess Sappho were also of Mitylene, and lived at the same time; and the inhabitants struck medals in honour of these three ornaments of their country, several of which are still to be seen in the cabinets of the curious. On one of them Pittacus is represented on one side, and Alcæus on the other. Upon another medal we meet with Sappho sitting with a lyre in her hand, and the reverse is the head of Nausicæ, daughter of Alcinous, whose orchards were so famed for their excellent fruits. Sappho composed a considerable number of poems, of which there are but two remaining; but these are sufficient to satisfy us, that the praises giv-. en her in all ages, for the beauty, pathetic softness, harmony, and infinite graces of her poetry, are not without foundation. The Ancients had such a great

excepted, and Pittacus was victorious, having killed his adversary. The Mitylenians, out of gratitude, conferred the sovereignty of the city upon Pittacus, which he accepted, and governed with great wisdom and moderation. In the mean time Alcæus, who was a declared enemy to all tyrants, did not spare Pittacus, in his verses, notwithstanding the mildness of his government and temper; but when the poet afterwards fell into his hands, he was so far from taking his revenge, that he gave him his liberty, and shewed by that act of clemency and generosity, that he was a tyrant only in name. After having governed ten years with great equity and wisdom, he voluntarily resigned his authority and retired. He used to say, That the proof of a good government was to engage the subjects not to be afraid of their prince, but to be afraid for him. And it was a maxim with him, That no man should ever give himself the liberty of speaking ill of a friend, or even of an enemy. See Rollin's Ancient History, Vol. 11.

opinion of her merit, that they called her the tenth Muse: but the purity of her manners was not at all equal to the beauty of her genius. The rhetorician Diophanus, according to Strabo, was also a native of Mitylene; and in the age of Augustus, Potamon, Crinagoras, and the historian Theophanes, well known on account of his friendship with Pompey, whose acts he wrote, and was by him presented with the freedom of Rome.

Not only Mitylene, but other towns of Lesbos, have produced men famous for their genius and learning. It is reckoned there are still above a hundred towns and villages in this island, one of which, called Erisso, is undoubtedly the ancient Eressus, the birth-place of Theophrastus and Phanias, two disciples of Aristotle. According to Plutarch, the Lesbians were the greatest musicians of all the Grecians. The famous Arion* was of Methymne, another town of Lesbos, the ruins whereof are visible to ..this day; and Terpander, who was the first that fitted seven strings to the lyre, was also a native of this country. We may add to all these, upon the authority of Strabo, Hellenicus the historian, and

*This excellent musician and poet was in great esteem with Feriander king of Corinth, by whose recommendation he went over to Italy, and gained great wealth by his art: But returned from thence to Corinth, he was stripped of his money by the mariners, who also threatened to kill him: whereupon he desired leave to play one tune upon his harp before he died, and this being granted, he is said to have leaped into the sea, where he was received on the back of a dolphin, charmed with his music, which carried him safe to shore.