230 THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA. 



area of the earth's surface have so many and such mighty 

 events been crowded together as within this extraordinary 

 basin. Every keel which now cleaves its waters traverses 

 the scene of some maritime struggle or adventure of old 

 times and earlier races of men ; or skirts shores hallowed 

 to the scholar or historian by the memory of genius or 

 grandeur which have passed away. Empires, kingdoms, and 

 republics, born to sway the destinies of the world, have 

 risen and declined upon its coasts. Schools of philosophy 

 and eloquence, to which we still recur for instruction and 

 example ; laws and languages, which are embodied in the 

 literature and social institutions of every later age, had 

 their earliest seats around this inland sea. It is difficult 

 to touch upon the subject thus generally without becoming 

 too rhetorical ; but we hope, in dwelling upon some of its 

 details, to show how copious and full of interest it is, and 

 how well meriting the special attention of some writer who 

 may make it, as a single picture, more complete and familiar 

 to our knowledge. The events of history are best bound 

 together by such local associations ; and none more so than 

 those of which the Mediterranean has been the scene and 

 centre during a long succession of ages. 



It may further be alleged as an argument for such a work, 

 that the interests of England are deeply concerned in all 

 that regards this Sea. Of late years certain foreign writers 

 and orators, rather political than geographical in their style 

 and spirit, have used the term of lake in describing it. The 

 Mediterranean is certainly not our lake ; nor can it, nor ought 

 it, ever to pass under the supremacy of any one Power. But 

 we have large insular possessions within its circuit ; we hold 

 the mighty rock-fortress, the Calpe of antiquity, which com- 

 mands its entrance from the Ocean ; and we crowd its waters 

 to their very extremity with our ships and commerce. That 

 single line of Mediterranean navigation, which ministers to 



