The Litchfield County post. [volume] (Litchfield, Conn.) 1826-1829, 1827-09-20

They discovered the finest Cf uurnIe dves
they traded throughout the whole of the then
known earth, and to parts oft that were known
only to themselves. The territory that gave
| birth to all this commerce, do you figure it to
yourselves as spacious and fertile, like the
Eastern empires? No, it was little hilly
stripe of coast, productive of scarcely more
than wood for ship building, about one hun
dred miles in length and four and twenty in
breadth. The natives, originally dwcllers in
caverns, were probably first driven by hunger
to face the dangers of the deep, in fishery
but growing bold and skilful mariners, they
left the land out of sight and steered their
courses by the stars. They discovered for
eign lands, to which they first exported the
produce of their richer neighbours, and next
that of their own mechanical arts. Bv degrees
the swarms of their bartering and manufactu-
| ring population hived from one splace to an
| other till they covered the whole range of
| their coast. Sidon was the mother eity--the
eldest-bOrn of Canaan. From her sprane
Tyre. that became the Queen of the Pheni-
clan league together with Tripolus and Byb-
lus, and Berytus and Serepta, and Orbasia
and other towns, "sohose merchants acre the
honorable Of the earth" To these the Phe-
nician fleets brought home the silver of Tar
tessus in Spain, (the Tarshish of Scripture)
the amber Of the Baltic, and the tin Of Britain.
| More than two hundred years before De
Cana, their marinerss had circumnavigated
Africa.
The very Scriptures that predicted the fall
OF Tyre, give us splendid conception of her
glory Ezekiel's genius glows in describing
the sagaclty of her pilots, and the pomp and
beauty of her military hosts: They of Per-
STA, and of Lud, and Phut, q. e.) of.Lydia
and l'ycia says the prophet, ,cere in thine ar
my, and cere thy men Of Oar-the,' hanged the
shield and helmet in thee--they set forth thu
comet'ness." Hence it appears that the Tyri-
ans armed their bulwarks with the nercenarv
troops of the most warlike nations. For thir-
teen years those bulwarks resisted Nebuchad-
nezzar; and after he had levelled them with
the ground, the transplanted ins,ilar Tyre,
with its new Notifications, had well nigh haf
fled the career ofAlexander himself.
But it is not merely our conception of the
wealthy commerce of Phencia. nor of the;
broidered cork Of Egypt schich she spreads for
her salts. nor of the Arabian incense and the
African gold which she gathered in,nor ofthe
| nations far and near that were her factors. nor
| OF the Arab or Midianite conducting her car
aVans over wastes more perilous than the o.
cean, nor of her pennon waving on every
shore, from the British island to Ceylon. that
! alone entities her memory to our Interest,"
The PhGnicians appear to have been the first
people In the world who exempted the natu-
raj connexion between peace, freedom and
commerce. Their particular states had he
redltary kings; but their monarchies were linn
J tied by the recognition of civic rights. Their
states too, though often at variance. generally-
formed great federal government, with Tyre
at their head, which received their deputies
and contingents for the common defence
! thus exhibiting the seeds of a Representatives
government at period when the surrounding
world was swayed by simple tyranny. More
over, though instances oftheir abuse of naval
power might be culled from history, it is clear
that their main policy was not bent on con-
quest. but Industrious and pacific. They o.
pened the mines of Spain, but left no such
| memory as the Spaniards in after times be-
queathed to Christianity in America. On the
contrary. the Bhenician Hercules marked the
progress of his triumphs by diffusing agricut-
ture and the useful arts, by planting settle
| ments, and ny raising the industry of nations;
and it was from this people that the Greeks
themselves received their alphabet
Thus were settled governments and -four
ishing nations in the world, at the time when
the Greeks were probably feeding upon a.
corns. Amidst the obscurity that envelopes
the primitive history of Greece, It is indisputa-
BILE that its main population came at different
epochs from Asia. The Pegasians, the frst
inhabitants who had collective name, ac-
knowledged the people of Asia Minor as their
brethren. Through Thrace, or over the Hell
lespont and Archipelago, one Asiatic tribe fo!-
lowed and pressed on another, till the HELEN
es gave new name to Greece, and in process
of time Grecian colonies again settled on the
Asiatic shores. Phenicians and Egyptian
colonies, no doubt, infused Some AfricaA
blood into the breed of the Greeks; but their
noble forms and harmonious language, SO UNI
like the homeIiness and haFshncss df Egypt
and Canaan, show that the mixture must have
been very inconsiderabIe. Their race was
mainly from Asia Minor |; and to the fineness
Of their physical organization may be much
attributed their taste and aptitude for moral
culture.
| Local and other circumstances, no doubt,
concurred to stamp their genius with original
ity. Ofall countries, nature had most propi-
tiously adapted Greece to be the seat OF pop
ular improvement, where knowledge should
burst from sacerdotal monopoly, where art
shonld throw off its formality and superstition
itself become majestic and graceful. The
islands and winding shores of Greece marked
1t out as the home Of mariners. The variety
of its soil and productions prompted exchange
and industry among its tribes. Its.mountains
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