A HOLIDAY AMONG SOME OLD O' FRIENDS. UR own poets have described, far too minutely to need repetition here, the charms and glories of Grecian scenery:-the chains of lofty peaks, their summits crowned with snow, and their lower slopes clad with dwarfoak and arbutus ;-the valleys running from the shore into the heart of the mountains ;-the bold headlands alternating with shady creeks, the haunt of nymphs in the days of Hesiod, and the lair of pirates in the days of Byron. This fair region is now for the most part deserted and neglected, brown and arid from the disuse of artificial irrigation. The traveller paces across the market-place of Sparta revolver in hand, and with side-long glances into the bushes that fringe his path; and amidst the ruins of Thebes the sportsman may shoot in a forenoon woodcocks enough to make the fortune of ten Norfolk battues. But it was not so always. There was once another and far different Greece, which can no longer be visited by steamer, and diligence, and railway;—which can be viewed only through the medium of her own eternal literature. In the old time every one of those valleys swarmed with cattle, and blushed with orchards, and glowed with harvests. Every one of those innumerable creeks was the site of some proud city, whose name, and history, and legendary lore are familiar to the British school-boy long before he can name within fifty miles the locality of one in three among the great seats of industry enfranchised by the bill of Mr. Disraeli. Each of these cities was a little state in itself, governed by its own laws, its own interests, and its own traditions. It is difficult for the member of a great European nation to realize such a condition of things. These notable communities, whose names have been household words to the educated men of fourscore generations,-Argos and Mycenæ, Corinth and Megara,-were mere parishes compared with the smallest kingdoms of our epoch;-mere bits of territory, seven, ten, or fifteen miles square, with a walled town planted somewhere towards the centre of the region. Athens was the most populous among the whole cluster of Grecian states, and the Athenian citizens who were capable of bearing arms in the field numbered only sixteen thousand in the days of Pericles. She was by far more opulent than any of her neighbours; and yet her public revenue at no time reached half a million sterling. And, nevertheless, these tiny republics carried matters with a high hand. They waged war, and despatched embassies, and concluded alliances with a solemnity and an earnestness which would do credit to the government of the most extensive modern empires. They had their Cavours, and their Palmerstons, and their Bismarcks. They swore to treaties of guarantee as readily, and violated those treaties as complacently as any European statesman of our days. One little nationality would invade the confines of another with a host of seven hundred foot and two or three and twenty cavalry; while the invaded party would retaliate by despatching a fleet of a dozen cock-boats to lay waste the seaboard of the aggressors. A homely illustration will give a better conception of Grecian international policy than pages of antique statistics. Imagine a jealousy to spring up between the boroughs of the Falkirk district and the boroughs of the Stirling district, O A HOLIDAY AMONG SOME OLD FRIENDS. UR own poets have described, far too minutely to need repetition here, the charms and glories of Grecian scenery::—the chains of lofty peaks, their summits crowned with snow, and their lower slopes clad with dwarfoak and arbutus ;-the valleys running from the shore into the heart of the mountains;-the bold headlands alternating with shady creeks, the haunt of nymphs in the days of Hesiod, and the lair of pirates in the days of Byron. This fair region is now for the most part deserted and neglected, brown and arid from the disuse of artificial irrigation. The traveller paces across the market-place of Sparta revolver in hand, and with side-long glances into the bushes that fringe his path; and amidst the ruins of Thebes the sportsman may shoot in a forenoon woodcocks enough to make the fortune of ten Norfolk battues. But it was not so always. There was once another and far different Greece, which can no longer be visited by steamer, and diligence, and railway;—which can be viewed only through the medium of her own eternal literature. In the old time every one of those valleys swarmed with cattle, and blushed with orchards, and glowed with harvests. Every one of those innumerable creeks was the site of some proud city, whose name, and history, and legendary lore are familiar to the British school-boy long before he can name within fifty miles the locality of one in three among the great seats of industry enfranchised by the bill of Mr. Disraeli. Each of these cities was a little state in itself, governed by its own laws, its own interests, and its own traditions. It is difficult for the member of a great European nation to realize such a condition of things. These notable communities, whose names have been household words to the educated men of fourscore generations,-Argos and Mycenæ, Corinth and Megara,—were mere parishes compared with the smallest kingdoms of our epoch;—mere bits of territory, seven, ten, or fifteen miles square, with a walled town planted somewhere towards the centre of the region. Athens was the most populous among the whole cluster of Grecian states, and the Athenian citizens who were capable of bearing arms in the field numbered only sixteen thousand in the days of Pericles. She was by far more opulent than any of her neighbours; and yet her public revenue at no time reached half a million sterling. And, nevertheless, these tiny republics carried matters with a high hand. They waged war, and despatched embassies, and concluded alliances with a solemnity and an earnestness which would do credit to the government of the most extensive modern empires. They had their Cavours, and their Palmerstons, and their Bismarcks. They swore to treaties of guarantee as readily, and violated those treaties as complacently as any European statesman of our days. One little nationality would invade the confines of another with a host of seven hundred foot and two or three and twenty cavalry; while the invaded party would retaliate by despatching a fleet of a dozen cock-boats to lay waste the seaboard of the aggressors. A homely illustration will give a better conception of Grecian international policy than pages of antique statistics. Imagine a jealousy to spring up between the boroughs of the Falkirk district and the boroughs of the Stirling district, in consequence of the authorities of the latter community having assessed to poor-rates the sacred soil of Bannockburn. On a misty drizzling night towards the end of November some burgesses of Linlithgow, who are not satisfied with the result of the late municipal elections, open one of the gates to a party of the enemy. The Stirling men enter the town stealthily, penetrate to the Grassmarket, and then blow a bugle, and invite the citizens of Linlithgow, on pain of sack and massacre, to separate themselves from the neighbouring boroughs. The inhabitants are at first taken by surprise; but presently they recover themselves, and stand on their defence. They overturn waggons, tear up the pavement, man the walls, and send off posthaste for assistance. Down come fifty score stout fellows from Lanark and Airdrie. The invaders make a gallant resistance, but are overpowered and slaughtered to a man. Then the cry for vengeance rises over the whole Stirling district. Hostilities are at once proclaimed. The town council assembles, and passes a war-budget. A duty of five per cent. is laid on butter, and ten per cent. on woollen cloth. There is to be a loan of twenty thousand pounds, and a vote of credit for three thousand five hundred. The local Tories object to this lavish expenditure; upon which two leading Conservatives are banished, and two more are slain in a popular tumult. The Stirling people take into their pay three hundred Perthshire Highlanders, commanded by the Duke of Athol's head forester; but, on the other hand, two companies of the City of Edinburgh Volunteers march out of their own accord to the aid of the men of Falkirk. Presently there is a pitched battle under the walls of Queensferry. Mr. Oliphant breaks the right wing of his opponents, and drives it as far as Dalmeny. But, in another part of the field, the discipline and valour of the Edinburgh contingent carries everything before it. Some of the Stirling men fly to Leith; some take refuge in Queensferry. Their leader, |