His Marriage.—German Relatives.—Intention of visiting Siberia.—Goes to Greece instead.—Dalmatia.—Spolato.—Arrival at Athens.—His first View of the PropylÆa.—The Parthenon.—Excursion to Crete.—Earthquake at Corinth.—MycenÆ.—Sparta.—The Ruins of Olympia.—Visit to ThermopylÆ.—Aulis.—Return to Athens.—His Acquirements. Mr. Taylor was married in October following his return from Norway and Sweden, to Marie Hansen, whose father had already gained a world-wide reputation as an astronomer through his works on Physical Astronomy, and was then winning renown for his “Tables de la Lune,” for which he was given a prize by the English Government, as a public benefactor. He was a man of remarkable mathematical genius, universally respected, and the founder of the Erfurt Observatory near Gotha. It was a family of scholars which received Mr. Taylor as a son and brother, and a fortunate alliance for the world of letters. It would be interesting to our readers, no doubt, to know all about the ceremony, the guests, the letters, and the relatives. But that which at some future day may be elevated to the plane of history, would be mere gossip now; and could only serve, for the present, to bring more vividly Not even such an event as his marriage was allowed to interfere with his work. His travels in the North had been in a great measure described in detail from day to day, as he stopped for food and rest, and when he left Stockholm for Germany, a large pile of manuscript had accumulated, which needed correction and arrangement before being sent to his publishers in New York. To this he applied himself closely, and a month after his marriage, was in London making the closing arrangements for the appearance of his book on “Northern Travel,” published by G. P. Putnam & Sons, and containing a condensed account of his winter and summer in the Norse countries. Immediately after despatching the manuscript for the book, together with several letters for the press, he made his preparations for a winter’s sojourn in Greece. He had purposed to take a trip from St. Petersburg across the continent of Asia, through Siberia to Kamtschatka, and returning through Persia and by the shores of the Black Sea. But it appears that neither Mr. Greeley, nor Mr. Putnam, nor his German relatives approved of the undertaking, which, together with some unsatisfactory financial details, caused him to abandon the snows of Siberia for the sunshine of Attica. This arrangement must have been a far more pleasant one for him, as Mrs. Taylor and other friends could The party left Gotha in the early part of December, 1857, and going down the Dalmatian coast of the Adriatic Gulf, visited the ancient town of Spolato, where the ruins of the Emperor Diocletian’s palaces are still imposing and beautiful. Without losing the steamer, which put in at all the small ports along the route, they skirted the southern shores of the Gulf of Corinth; and, after crossing the Isthmus near Ancient Corinth, sailed direct for PirÆus. To a man of Mr. Taylor’s mental capacity and disposition, the country afforded the means for the highest enjoyment. Men may be as unsentimental as a beast, and as regardless of ancient greatness as a savage, and yet their lives will be influenced more or less by a sojourn in old Greece. Later philosophers declare, and attempt to prove it on scientific principles, that the typography of the country, added to the influences of the climate, produced the great minds of ancient Mr. Taylor made the most of his winter in Greece, and visited every place of ancient renown which was accessible to travellers. He scarcely waited for the dawn of his first day in Athens before he hastened to the Acropolis, and admired its marvels and historical suggestions. At the PropylÆa, which crowns the mountain with beauty and majesty, where all the destructive inventions of two thousand years have failed to annihilate the monument which Phidias and Calicrates erected to their genius, Mr. Taylor was overwhelmed with emotions, and gazed with wonder at the chaste sculpture which adorns the most graceful structure ever made of marble, and in silent awe contemplated the pillars, cornices, tablets, pavements, and broken ornaments with which he was surrounded. Where was the Coliseum he had praised so much when a boy? Where were the cathedrals, palaces, and castles he had regarded as so sublime? Everything he had seen sank into insignificance beside the ponderous yet exquisitely beautiful pile before him. He was so Mr. Taylor often remarked that he should never have been a successful traveller had he not been a poet; and it might be added that persons, in whom the power to recall the past through the debris of the present is wholly lacking, had better not travel at all. There are hills in Pennsylvania, or New Hampshire, far more picturesque than the Acropolis, and on them might be erected a tolerably accurate copy of the PropylÆa, Erechtheum, and Parthenon as they now stand, and the curious might visit them to observe the beauty of the architecture and remark the foolishness of those who constructed them. Unconnected with any history, and the originals unheard of, they would be nothing but mere monuments to folly, with all their symmetry. Take away from Athens the records of its grand We mention these things, not to excuse Mr. Taylor for his strong assertions concerning the effect these ruins had upon him, but to give to the student a clearer insight into the nature and life of the poet, Bayard Taylor. From Athens, after visiting the king and queen, Mr. Taylor made excursions into the interior, and to the Island of Crete, visiting, in his various tours, Candia, Rhithymnos, Corinth, Leuetra, MycenÆ, Arcadia, Sparta, Parnassus, Platea, ThermopylÆ, and various other fields, mountains, and ruins connected with ancient Greece. At Crete he was most graciously welcomed by the Turkish governor, and was treated with the most generous hospitality by the people and officials, throughout a somewhat lengthy journey about the island. It was there that he met the American consul who was going to start the commerce of Crete by bringing in a cargo of rum to exchange for the products of the island, and who was so startled by Mr. Taylor’s frankly avowed hope, that the ship would be wrecked before the curse of drunkenness was added to the other Cretan vices. Mr. Taylor gave a somewhat different version of the affair, not changing however At Corinth he had a startling experience in an earthquake, feeling the earth rise and fall with that sickening movement, creating a nausea like the sea-sickness of a whole voyage concentrated into a few minutes, and saw the stone walls of the house crumbling and splitting about him. He arrived after the greatest shock had passed, or he would have seen whole streets of buildings thrown down, for the village was half in ruins when he reached the place. Near Corinth he saw the plain whereon were celebrated the Isthmian games and repeated sections of Schiller’s poem, “The Gods of Greece.” At Argolis he saw the gateway of MycenÆ, guarded by the celebrated stone lions, and tried to connect Agamemnon and Orestes with the landscapes. At Sparta he trod the sward above the buried palaces, and having no poets’ names to rhyme with Lycurgus and Leonidas, he hurried on to scenes less suggestive of mere physical endurance and bloody encounters. In Mania, within the boundaries of ancient Sparta, he was delighted to find the descendants of the ancient At Thebes he recalled the deeds of Pindar, Epaminondas, and the heroes of the Trojan War. At Delphi he looked over the forests that clothe the lofty Parnassus, gazed into the rocky cleft from which the priestesses received their communications, and saw the sites of temples used for gardens, and blocks from the sacred shrines used for cellar walls. At ThermopylÆ he marked the spot where the heroes fought and the narrow gorge where they fell, with feelings of respect and pride. He said that the story of such deeds should never be allowed to die. At “Aulis” he saw where Jason launched his ships to sail in search of the Golden Fleece, and repeated a part of the Argonautic story in modern Greek. On all these journeys Mr. Taylor displayed the same fearless, adventurous spirit, and was frequently in danger. By fortunate accidents he was prevented When he left Athens in the spring for Constantinople, he had become acquainted with all parts of ancient Greece, and was able to give to his readers a fund of valuable information concerning the country and its products, the people and their industries. He had kept up that triple life which characterized all his later travels in Europe and Asia, and saw everything modern in the way of manners, races, products, commerce, government, and everything that remained of the ancient days in the shape of monuments, temples, or ruins, together with those undefinable yet real suggestions which come to the poet, and to him alone. |