522 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



[MAY, 



coast examining the ruins taking plans 

 wherever they admitted it and they have 

 produced enough to shew they made the best 

 use of their time and opportunities. 



From Tripoli to Mesurata, it can scarcely 

 be said that any one spot, with all the care 

 and labour spent in research, has been iden- 

 tified with the position assigned in the ac- 

 counts of the ancients except Leptis Magna, 

 now called Lebida, the place from which 

 came the columns now lying in the court of 

 the British Museum. From that point, 

 which may be considered as the western 

 entrance of the gulf, to Muktar, at the very 

 bottom of it, nothing whatever can be ascer- 

 tained ; and, indeed, through this portion 

 ruins are rare, and what there are, are pro- 

 bably of comparatively modern origin ; but 

 from the bottom of the gulf up to Bengazi, 

 the eastern entrance of it, and onward to 

 the east, along the coast of Cyrenaica and 

 the ancient Pentapolis, to Derna, ruins are 

 more numerous more important and 

 more successfully ascertained ; and of some, 

 particularly Tucheira, Ptolemeta, and Cy- 

 rene, the authors were able to detect and 

 exhibit something like plans of the original 

 cities. But, generally, the hand of destruc- 

 tion has been actively at work almost every 

 thing is levelled with the ground and if 

 any thing is to be found, it must be dug 

 for. The party, too, had the mortification 

 of witnessing the destruction of more than 

 one beautiful fragment of sculpture, by the 

 wantonness of the children, and the spite of 

 an Arab, who could not get the price he 

 wanted. 



Mr. Beechey has spared no labour, and 

 nothing can exceed the fairness with which 

 he has stated the discrepancies between 

 Herodotus and the old geographers, and 

 actual appearances. The discussions are 

 some of them intolerably wearisome for 

 instance, the etymology of Tripoli, the an- 

 cient admeasurements of the Syrtis, the 

 sources of the Cinyphus the Hills of the 

 Graces the laser and laserpilium, to which 

 he recurs we know not how many times; 

 but one thing we are glad to learn what 

 the laserpitium, or silphium, as the Greeks 

 call it, is like it is, it seems, like celery, 

 root and stem, particularly boiled or stewed. 

 With respect to all these matters, and 

 many more, what was necessary to be said, 

 might with advantage have been brought 

 within a smaller compass but any thing, 

 doubtless, is better than precipitation in 

 criticism. 



Mr. Beechey has very little leaning, we 

 observe, towards wonders. Speaking of the 

 sweeping and whelming sands of Africa, he 

 says 



We arc not inclined to attribute quite so much 

 to the overwhelming properties of sand, as many 

 other travellers have done ; and we do not think 

 that the danger of being actually buried, will ap- 

 pear, on consideration, to be altogether so great 

 to those who are crossing sandy deserts, as wri- 



ters of high respectability have asserted. The 

 sand which encounters a body in motion, would 

 pass it, we should imagine, without accumula- 

 tion; and the quantity which might even be heaped 

 upon sleepers could scarcely be more than they 

 might easily shake off in waking. We shudder 

 at the dreadful accounts which have been re- 

 corded of whole caravans and whole armies de- 

 stroyed by these formidable waves of the desert; 

 and when our pity is strongly excited by such 

 relations, we are seldom inclined to analyze them 

 very deeply. But a little reflection would pro- 

 bably convince us that many of them are greatly 

 exaggerated some, because the writers believed 

 what they related, and some because they wished 

 their readers to believe what they might not be 

 quite convinced of themselves. In fact, we think 

 it probable that they who have perished in deserts, 

 from the time of the Psylla and Cambyses to the 

 present, have died, as is usual, before they were 

 buried, either from violence, or thirst, or ex- 

 haustion. 



Again, speaking of the Greater Syrtis 

 The idea entertained by the ancients of its soi^ 

 is not confirmed by inspection. Cato is described , 

 by Strabo, as having marched his army across the 

 Syrtis through deep and burning sands; and Lu- 

 can has given so exaggerated an account of the 

 same march, as to make his description almost 

 wholly poetical. Sallust, also, in his account of 

 the Philaeni, describes the level and sandy plain, 

 in which these monuments were erected, without 

 either river or mountain by which they might be 

 distinguished. But there is no sandy plain of 

 this description in the bottom of the Syrtis ; and 

 although there is no river, there are certainly 

 mountains, if hills of solid stone, of from 400 to 

 600 feet in height, may be entitled to that dis- 

 tinction. Again, if it be true that Cato marched 

 his army over the sand hills, it was certainly no 

 very good proof of the patriot's generalship, for, 

 with the exception of one place, where the passage 

 is occasionally impeded by marshy ground, reach- 

 ing close up to the foot of the sand hills on the 

 beach, there could have been no occasion for 

 crossing the sand at all, since the country to the 

 southward of it is clear, &c. 



The Man of Ton, a Satire; 1828 

 This satire, if the term be not a misnomer, 

 is at least equal to any production, pro- 

 fessedly satirical, which has appeared of 

 late. It is the tale of a young man of for^ 

 tune an only son humoured and petted 

 by a foolish mother passing through Eton 

 and Cambridge with all the honours of an 

 idle man plucked at Newmarket fleeced 

 at Epsom pigeoned at Crockford's, and 

 betrayed into post-obits by a Fidus Achates 

 who had kindly undertaken to initiate him 

 into the esoteric mysteries of the fashion- 

 able world. This profligate course breaks 

 the old father's heart, and the post-obits, 

 Melton, a mistress, and a dog-cook, break 

 up the estate into atoms, and disperse it to 

 the four winds of heaven. Absenteeism 

 becomes imperative ; and just as he is con- 

 templating an immediate flirting, a lady, 

 between whom and himself some intense 

 flirtation had been for some time going on, 



