1890-91.] CELTIC, ROMAN AND GREEK TYPES. 203 



Drooping lashes, long and dark 

 Clearly on the picture mark. 

 Then, her glances well to match 

 Sparks from glowing furnace catch. 



Bright as Athene's own her eyes, 

 Limpid blue like Cythera's skies. 

 Milk with roses duly mix, 

 On her cheek its blush to fix. 



Ruby lips, love's own delight, 



Chin and throat as marble white, • 



In their curves all Graces hovering, 



Charms at every move discovering. 



Give her robes of purple glowing, 

 Hints of gleaming softness shewing — 

 Stop ! Her very self I see 

 Speak, fair image, speak to me ! 



Such are the features which to this day you may see in the byways of 

 Marseilles. The people are vivacious, voluble, free in manner as in car- 

 riage, active in business, sharp at a bargain, and as for their excitable 

 interest in politics — need I do more than mention the song of that modern 

 Tyrtceus, Rouget de Lille, the Marseillaise, which has had no little to do 

 with the recent revolutions of the world, and owes its name to the fact 

 that the Marseilles troops of militia were the first to take it up ? It suited 

 their ardent temperament ; they carried it to the army of the Rhine, 

 and as a flame it swept over France, and therefore over Europe. All 

 these are Greek characteristics, and I doubt if there are purer Greeks in 

 Greece than in this great historic town.* Alas! that I must admit that 

 at an age when in our clime matronly beauty is but fairly developed, 

 these Marseilles ladies have increased to anything but a poetic weight. 

 Greek again. For is there not in my Byron a note ungallantly informing 

 me that the Maid of Athens, Zmt] ixou aaq ayanw^ had come to be weighed 

 in avoirdupois .-• There is one singular survival which I noticed with 

 great delight. The strawberry pickers do not put their luscious berries 

 in bass-wood boxes, as we do, but in lecytJii of true antique shape, of thin 

 red pottery. They cost perhaps less than our baskets, but though I 

 hoped to shew you one it broke. 



Visitors to Marseilles are not allowed to forget its earliest history, for 

 in the fine Musde, on the landings of the grand stairway, are frescoes of 

 the landing of the Phoceans. I have since seeing these refreshed my 



* It is clear too that these Greeks had the character always attributed to the lively and artistic 

 Ionian tribe, so distinct from that of the serious, grave, and heavier witted Dorians. 



