154 The Britiſh Merchant.[March

the weſtern ſhores of the Mediterranean ſea, The race of the people by whom it was inhabited, were widely diſperſed, on the one hand, throughout‘Aſia Minor, on the other, around the coaſts of Italy. On each fide, the continent of GREECE/ WaS befet with iſles, equally fertile and convenient for navigation. In Italy and the Italian Iſles, in the iſles of the Ionian and the Ægean ſeas, in the peninſulated ſhores of the Grecian Continent, and in their ſettlements in Thrace, Aſia, and Africa, the Greeks poſſeſſed an extent of ſea-coaſt, and a number of convenient barbours, incomparably greater than were occupied by any rival commercial people. The Continent of Greece was the very ¿entre of the weſtern empire of civilization. Circumſtances prior to the regular operation of commerce, had diftuſed the uſe of the Greek tongue, mpch more extenſively, than that of any other language which was ſpoken in the Weſt. Thoſe cir- cumſtances, which held the Greeks, in union as one great people, yet ſubdivided into numberleſs ſmall communities, rivals in every generous art,—and, indeed, the whole ſyſtem of their civil and political œconomy,—mingling them in continual intercourſe, ſharpening their ingenuity, ſimulating their in- duſtry, enlivening their ſenſes, refining their taſte,—conſpired to render them, at this time, eminently, the firſt commercial and ' manufaGuring people in the weſtern world. When ſo many other ‘cauſes concurred; the proſperity of Grecian commerce, could

-‘not but riſe, with great rapidity, to a Very high pitch.

From the eaſtern extremities of the Perſian Empire, to the coaſts of Italy and Gaul, Grecian commerce and curious enquiry, ‘¡now‘extended their range. The empire of Perſia,—from the time of the reign of Cyrus, embracing all the richer and more civilized parts of weſtern Afia,—was regarded by the Greeks, as the grand ſeat of wealth, of luxury, and of all the arts of ſumptuous accommodation. From it, they, long, continued to import both the knowledge of the moſt ingenious practices of induſtry, and the beſt models for imitation in their own attempts in the arts.‘Their gold and Gilver were obtained, chiefly, from Aſia. Their ſheep of the moſt valuable races, were from the ſhores of the Euxine. Their cows, their vines, their olive-ftreesz had been introduced from the caſt. In the arts of weaving and dyeing woollen cloth, they were the pupils of the T'yrians. It was from the Egyptians, they learned to work and to dye linen. Egyptians, to0, appear to have been their firſt inſtru&tors in AGRICULTURE: And agriculture,—or the culture of the vine, the fig-tree, the olive-trée, and grain-bearing plants,—Wa5S» certainly, the Arf ſource of that wealth in Greece, which was neceſlary to the increaſe of its population, as to the improvement of its commerce and its arts. W bere men are a little divided from one another, yet neceſlitated to continual intercourſe; there