The attention of its earlier adventurers was directed not only to the shores of Italy, but to the gorgeous cities of the East, and the wise and hoary institutions of Egypt.

If from other nations they borrowed less than has been popularly supposed, the very intercourse with those nations alone sufficed to impel and develop the faculties of an imitative and youthful people;--while, as the spirit of liberty broke out in all the Grecian states, producing a restless competition both among the citizens in each city and the cities one with another, no energy was allowed to sleep until the operations of an intellect, perpetually roused and never crippled, carried the universal civilization to its height.

Nature herself set the boundaries of the river and the mountain to the confines of the several states--the smallness of each concentrated power into a focus--the number of all heightened emulation to a fever.

The Greek cities had therefore, above all other nations, the advantage of a perpetual collision of mind--a perpetual intercourse with numerous neighbours, with whom intellect was ever at work--with whom experiment knew no rest.

Greece, taken collectively, was the only free country (with the exception of Phoenician states and colonies perhaps equally civilized) in the midst of enlightened despotisms; and in the ancient world, despotism invented and sheltered the arts which liberty refined and perfected [99]: Thus considered, her greatness ceases to be a marvel--the very narrowness of her dominions was a principal cause of it--and to the most favourable circumstances of nature were added circumstances the most favourable of time.
If, previous to the age of Solon, we survey the histories of Asia, we find that quarter of the globe subjected to great and terrible revolutions, which confined and curbed the power of its various despotisms.