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would be to build a church like St Andrew's or St George's; a very desirable object, no doubt, with reference to the people of Edinburgh, but with reference to the nation at large, an entire dereliction of the design of the Monument, which, as the Duke of Atholl observed, should be so splendid," that every Scotchman should feel a pride in saying, that he had a share in its construction!"

In the next place, even if 'ample funds for the formation of the most splendid Monument, and the endow ing of the clergy who are to officiate, were in existence, there are strong and apparently insurmountable reasons against giving it such a destina

tion.

There is a feeling very generally prevalent in this country, and which pervades many of the most respectable and enlightened of its inhabitants, that there is an inconsistency between a Monument of martial glory, and the Temple of a pacific religion. There was no inconsistency in such a union in Athens, when the people erected a Temple to Minerva the Goddess of War, and the Protectress of the Republic; or in Rome, when the spoils of the world were dedicated by a strange yet venerable superstition, to the protecting and avenging Deities; but in this country, and amongst a people impressed with the feelings of our religion, there does appear to be an irreconcileable inconsistency in these things. The sentiments with which a National Monument should be regarded are those of national exultation; and the feelings which it is intended to awaken among a people, are those of gratitude to the great men by whom past glory has been obtained, and determination to uphold the fortunes of the state in future times. These are noble, and animating, and incalculably important feel ings, and absolutely essential to the welfare of the state; but are they the feelings which befit a place of daily worship, in which the ardent passions which the interests of this world excite are to be subdued, in which humility and forgiveness of injuries is to be enforced; and the irascible feelings of our nature are to be softened by the influence of a mild and beneficent religion? And is it not certain that if this intention be persisted in, the purpose either of the Church

or of the Monument will be frustrated; that either the Monument will be regarded with sentiments unfitting for a church, or the Church be regarded with sentiments foreign to those which the Monument should awaken; and that thus by aiming at blending objects which are inconsistent with each other, the attainment of both will ultimately be sacrificed?

Farther, experience has shown, that when a building is destined to an ordinary and weekly use, it comes to be regarded merely as subservient to that purpose, in consequence of which the original ends for which it was erected are gradually forgotten. If the proposed edifice be converted into an ordinary church, divided into pews, and attended every Sunday for divine service, it will soon cease to be regarded as a public object, and the National Monument of Scotland will merge, as has been well observed, in the Calton Kirk of Edinburgh. Of the truth of this there cannot be a better proof than is afforded in the city of Venice, where one of the finest churches in that superb capital, dedicated to the Madonna della Salute, was built by the people to testify the public gratitude for the stopping of the plague, but by being used as an ordinary place of worship, its peculiar origin and destination was soon forgotten, and is known now only to a few travellers, who inquire in vain from the inhabitants where the church built in commemoration of the deliverance from the pestilence is to be found. It is well worthy of consideration, therefore, whether the design of the undertaking will not be defeated if this plan be persisted in, and whether, if the main object really be the erection of an Edinburgh church, it would not be the honester course at once to solicit subscriptions on that ground, than to hold out a different object, and then adopt a plan which must unavoidably lead to its destruction.

In making these observations, nothing is farther from our intention than to depreciate in the slightest degree the importance of multiplying places of public worship in this city. or to throw the slightest imputation on the motives of those benevolent persons by whom this plan was originally proposed. It is just because this object is so important, and those motives so upright, that it becomes

necessary to reconsider well whether the measure proposed is likely to forward the one, or answer the expectations of the other.

Churches will unquestionably be provided for the people in Edinburgh, if they require it. The Magistrates are legally bound to build an additional place of worship for every 5000 that is added to the population; and at this moment they are taking measures to erect one in one of the most central points of the city. The public spirit of the inhabitants so strong ly evinced of late years in the furtherance of these objects, forbids us to fear that any deficiency in this respect will exist. By applying the subscriptions for the National Monument to the building and endowing of a church, therefore, no addition to the number of places of public worship in the metropolis will be made; the only effect will be, that, instead of this object being effected by the town, who are both able and willing to accomplish it, it will be obtained at the expence of all the national objects for which the proposed Monument is destined.

3. It is, in the last place, well worthy of consideration, that, by making it a church, we shall be entirely prevented from attaining a most important object, and one of hardly less importance, both with a view to the progress of art and the maintenance of right public feeling, than the Monument itself; viz. the formation of a magnificent hall for the reception of MONUMENTS TO THE ILLUSTRIOUS

DEAD.

That this object is quite inconsistent with the forms of the Presbyterian worship, and the rules of Presbyterian discipline, is quite evident; and, therefore, if the interior of the Monument be intended for a church, it must be entirely abandoned. Yet how irreparable a loss would it be to this nation if the present opportunity of forming a great structure, capable of containing monuments to all the illustrious men whom the country has produced, were to be suffered to escape? It has often been a subject of regret, that no such edifice exists in this kingdom, to commemorate the gratitude of its inhabitants to the great and the good of past ages, or to impress upon strangers a sense of the remarkable combination of talent, by

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which its fortunes have been maintained. While the inhabitants of Florence conduct the traveller with exultation to the tombs of Galileo and Machiavelli, and Michael Angelo and Alfieri, assembled under one sacred roof;-while the English patriot points with pride to Westminster Abbey, where the poets, the philosophers, and the statesmen of England sleep with her kings, and dignify the scene;" the citizen of this capital is ashamed to confess that its long line of illustrious men has not yet called forth any similar mark of public gratitude;-that Adam Smith and Robertson still lie in undistinguished graves,-and that no monument exists to tell the foreign traveller that Duncan and Abercromby were Scottish men. The rules of the Presbyterian Church, more than any defect in national gratitude, have hitherto prevented this most desirable object from being accomplished; but that renders it the more essential, that the present opportunity, the only one which may ever occur, of forming a noble structure for monuments to the great and good of future or past times, should not be neglected.

The importance of this object, in a national point of view, is too obvious to require any illustration; but it may, perhaps, not be equally selfevident that this measure would be beyond any other conducive to the improvement of the art of Sculpture. The strong feeling of family attachment, however, which distinguishes the people of this country,-the just exultation which is felt by the relations of those who have fallen in the service of the country,-the vast numbers of eminent men who already grace its annals,-all conspire to convince us that the interior of the edifice would rapidly be filled with monuments to the great men whom Scotland has produced, or who, in our own time, have spread its glories over distant states. And thus, while the exterior, if the Parthenon be adopted, would afford a matchless advantage to the architectural genius of this country, the ornament of the interior would give a not less important impulse to the sister art of SCULPTURE, and call forth its powers in their noblest employment, that of recording the virtues of the past, and testifying the gratitude of the present age.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE TOPOGRA

which constitutes the bottom of the val

PHY OF TROY, WITH A REVIEW ley, but is almost entirely on the western

OF THE OPINIONS OF PRECEDING

WRITERS.

(Concluded from page 209.)

Changes on the Face of the Country.-THERE is one circumstance connected with these rivers that requires explanation. Strictly speaking, they can scarcely be said to unite at all, as will be observed in the map. But we think there is every reason to believe, that they formerly occupied different channels. The country along the banks of the Mendere, which is described as a dead level, especially on the east side, is evidently an alluvial plain, formed in a great measure by the river. The river bearing along in its course stones, trees torn up by the roots, mud and rubbish, (Wood, p. 327,) deposits these in its bed and on its banks, the heavier matter higher up, the lighter lower down, while the finest sands are carried to the sea, and spread a circle of a yellow colour round the estuary. As the Mendere inundates the plain to a considerable distance, part of the matter is deposited there, and of course gradually raises the surface. The Thymbrek, water of Califat, and all the other torrents which come from the hills, produce the same effects upon a smaller scale; and thus the beds of the rivers and the bottom of the valley experience a continual clevation, and there is a continual accretion of soil along the coast. Strabo bears witness to the same natural process in his time, but he certainly over-estimates its effects, when he supposes, that it had added six or seven stadia to the coast since the time of the Trojan war, (p. 890, 894.) The banks of rivers, in such circumstances, being often raised above the adjacent ground, are burst through by the pressure, and new channels scooped out. Chandler found the ground to the eastward of the Mendere, near its mouth, furrowed by channels worn by floods or torrents, (Travels, p. 40,) and the blind mouth mentioned by Strabo, (p. 890,) probably was an old channel of the Scamander on this side. But without relying much on these indications, we may observe, that the Mendere, during the two or three last miles of its course, does not flow through the middle of the dead level

TOL. VI.

side of it, where the ground begins to slope upwards. From the natural direction of the ground, therefore, the course of the Mendere must have been farther east, when the surface of the valley was lower. Besides, it is easily shown, that the greatest deposition of new soil must take place on the east side of the river, for the debris brought down by the mountain torrents of the Thymbrek and Califat accumulate on that side, while there are no such torrents to produce a countervailing effect on the other. The rivulet of Bournabashi, the only opposing stream, has little current, is not increased by rains, and brings no stones or soil with it. While the Thymbrek and Califat thus force the bed of Scamander westward, the latter throwing out its congesta in greatest quantity on the south side of these two streams, pushes their estuaries farther and farther northward. The action is thus reciprocal, but the weaker stream of course suffers the greater change. Those who have seen the operations of mountain torrents in highland vallies, will easily perceive the force of this reasoning. When two such torrents meet at an angle of ninety degrees or less, each of them, if it descends from a height amidst loose rocks, spreads a cone of gravel and sand round its embouchure in the valley,' over which it rolls; when these increasing confes meet, the space included in the angle between the rivers receiving the debris thrown out by both, while each of the outer sides receives only half as much, the mass of rubbish increases fastest on the inside, the streams are deflected outward, a tongue or long bank of land pushes itself down between them; and the point of confluence is continually descending. The same process takes place in a plain, though the cause is less obvious; and hence, almost all rivers in alluvial vallies meet at very acute angles. The effect is visible, we think, on the map, in the new direction northwards which the Thymbrek and Califat water assume after entering the plain, and in the projecting points of land between the Scamander and these streams. Califat and the Scamander meeting at a considerable distance from the sea, the point of confluence had room to

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descend far below its original situation, but the Scamander and Thymbrek meeting near the coast, the extension of the neck of land between them was stopped when it advanced to the Hellespont; the rivers, after reaching this point, appear not to meet at all, but, by the constant accumulation of matter on the intervening ground, they would continue to recede from each other. A destroying operation accompanies this deposition of new soil. The eastern bank of the Scamander below F being placed rather in the eddy, would receive most of the deposited matter, while the western bank would be more worn away by the action of the current. And while every portion of soil taken from the eastern bank near the sea would be replaced by the Thymbrek, the waste of the western bank would never be repaired. We might also conclude, from the manner in which streams are generally deflected, from one side to the other, in alluvial vallies, that the Scamander, if not affected by the Simois, would have bent away from the point F towards the middle of the bay W. We cannot demonstrate physically that it was there; but in a valley formed by the river, we are sensible that the ancient channel may have differed widely from the modern; we know that the natural estuary should have been towards the middle of the valley between the hills at Sigeum and Rheteum, where it is not at present; and had it been there, we see clearly that, from the action of well ascertained causes, it would necessarily have travelled west to the point where we now find it. We may add, that it would most probably have left such a marsh in its tract as we now see on its east side. This is nearly all the proof we can expect in such cases.

But Strabo fortunately has left us measurements which establish the fact in a different manner. New Ilium, whose walls were forty stadia in circumference, was twelve stadia distant from the place vulgarly called the Portus Achæorum, (the bay V or W,) and twenty stadia from the nouth of the Scamander; and as this statement is twice repeated by Strabo, and is confirmed by Pliny, it is not liable to any suspicion of inaccuracy, (Strabo, p. 887, 891, 894. Pliny, Lib. v. cap. 30.) A circle, a mile and

a half in diameter, touching the end of the hill, may represent New Ilium, (marked by a dotted line on the map,) from the nearest part of which to the bay V in Mr Hobhouse's map, is twenty stadia, to the mouth of the Mendere thirty-two; in Mr Foster's map the distances are sixteen and twenty-four stadia; in Dr Clarke's vignette twenty-two and thirty-two stadia. The mean of the two former is twenty-eight and eighteen, showing an increase of from six to eight stadia upon the coast since the time of Strabo. For reasons too tedious to detail, we believe the actual increase to be rather less than this. But we wish these measurements to be received only as approximations, proving the fact of an increase, rather than ascertaining its precise amount. We wish also particularly to observe here, that, according to the present course of the river, we must ascend nearly two miles from its mouth before we can find a point within twenty stadia of New Ilium; and since an increase to this extent cannot be allowed upon the coast, we have no alternative but to admit, that the river since Strabo's time has shifted westward. Upon the strength of this reasoning we have ventured to delineate the supposed course of the rivers and sea-coast in Homer's time, by dotted lines upon the map, but these delineations must not be considered as any thing else than conjectural estimates of the effects of causes which certainly operated. +

The Naval Station.-The difficulties with which this subject has been encumbered have been entirely gratuitous. Homer having mentioned" the two points, capes, or extremities," (anga) of the harbour, without naming them, (B. xiv. v. 33,) the Grecks of later times, to magnify the power of their ancestors, held these two points to be the promontories of

* Reckoning the stadium equal to an English furlong. If the mile of Strabo was 4905 English feet, as stated in tables of metrology, the stadium would be onefourteenth part less, and the present distance so much greater than we have computed it.

ancient line of the shore; f,f, the ancient In the map a, a, a, a, represent the boundary of the marsh; Ug, the ancient course of Simois; g h, of Scamander ; i, i, of the brook of Califat.

Sigeum and Rheteum, distant three miles and a half. Such fictions of national vanity and vulgar credulity are too common in every country to excite any surprise. But the absurdity was too striking to impose upon intelligent men. Pliny, indeed, whose account of the Troad is very superficial, adopts this vulgar error; but Strabo states expressly, that the naval station was not on the east side of the Scamander, but at Sigeum, (p. 894;) and this opinion seems to have been followed generally, till Chevalier revived the old tradition, apparently without any advantage to himself. Those who followed Pliny and Chevalier thus made the Greek camp extend over a space of three and a half miles, with the mouth of a large river and an impassable marsh in the midst of it. They held also, that the voice of Agamemnon, when standing in the centre of the fleet, was heard at both extremities of this line; that the 1200 barks of the Greeks, drawn up in many rcws, were crowded in a space which would hold as many East Indiamen, if placed in the same order; and it followed from their hypothesis, that one half of the Greeks who were on the east side of the river must have crossed the Simois on their way to Troy, though Homer speaks of crossing the Scamander only. The very nature of the ground eastward of the river refutes the idea of any part of the army being posted there. That ground is nearly an entire marsh at present; it was so wholly, or in part, in the time of Strabo, and from its situation, has been most probably a marsh at all times. We doubt if it would be possible to draw ashore even such small ships as those of the Greeks, amidst the slime, and reeds, and sandbanks which cover the coast here, (Chandler, p. 13. Hobhouse, p. 710,) or whether there is as much firm ground exempt from inundation between the Mendere, the Thymbrek, and the brook Kamara Sou, as would serve for any considerable body of troops to encamp on. At all events, the ground is such, as no leader of an army, ancient or modern, would

Hic (ad Sigeum oppidum et promontorium) Grecorum fuit statio navium, adversus Trojanos bellantium. Cluver. Geog. Lib. v. Cap. 18. Nota Bunonis.

choose as the seat of a permanent encampment.

The shore at Sigeum, which Strabo assigns as the naval station of the Greeks, extends from the promontory to the sandy point at the mouth of the Scamander, and is in all respects a station adapted to the purposes of the Greeks, and corresponding to the poet's description. It had two well marked points, or capes, (angar.) It was conveniently situated for those expeditions which the Greeks made up the Hellespont and down the Egean, and for drawing daily supplies from Thrace, (B. ix. v. 71.) Flanked by a hill on the right, which they would doubtless occupy, and a river, or probably a marsh on the left, it could only be attacked on one side, over which a fortification was run. The walls and ditch would certainly include the hill, without which the defences would have been very imperfect. They would extend to the river to insure a supply of fresh water, and as they had many horses and live cattle of other descriptions, a considerable space would be necessary. We have traced the supposed course of the wall on the map. We may add, that, so far as the evidence of the tumuli goes, it is here the greatest number are found within a limited space. It is also precisely at this spot, and to a spectator looking out of the harbour, that the epithet "boundless," (ag,) so inapplicable to the Hellespont every where else, becomes appropriate. The foaming," often bestowed epithet " upon the sea before the camp, is aptly enough used here, where the surges of the Egean break upon the shore, but cannot be so fitly applied to a bay where reeds are growing, like that east of the Scamander.

The ships, 1186 in number, were drawn up on the firm land, and supported with planks, (B. i. v. 486;) but we are told that " the shore, though broad, could not contain all the ships in one line, and the forces were crowded. The ships were therefore drawn up before one another like steps of a ladder, and filled all the long jaws of the shore comprehended between the points or extremities," (B. xiv. v. 30.) They were thus placed in rows, with their sterns to the shore, and their prows to the sea, and so close together, that Ajax stepped

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