ADVERTISEMENT.

"THE grand army of the Turks (in 1715), under the "Prime Vizier, to open to themselves a way into the "heart of the Morea, and to form the siege of Napoli di "Romania, the most considerable place in all that coun

try*, thought it best in the first place to attack Corinth, "( upon which they made several storms. The garrison "being weakened, and the governor seeing it was impos"sible to hold out against so mighty a force, thought fit "to beat a parley: but while they were treating about the articles, one of the magazines in the Turkish camp, "wherein they had six hundred barrels of powder, blew

* Napoli di Romania is not now the most considerable place in the Morea, but Tripolitza, where the Pacha resides, and maintains his government. Napoli is near Argos. I visited all three in 1810-11; and in the course of journeying through the country from my first arrival in 1809, I crossed the Isthmus eight times in my way from Attica to the Morea, over the mountains, or in the other direction, when passing from the Gulf of Athens to that of Lepanto. Both the routes are picturesque and beautiful, though very different: that by sea has more sameness, but the voyage being always within sight of land, and often very near it, presents many attractive views of the islands Salamis, Ægina, Poro, &c. and the coast of the continent.

"

up by accident, whereby six or seven hundred men

were killed: which so enraged the infidels, that they "would not grant any capitulation, but stormed the

place with so much fury, that they took it, and put "most of the garrison, with Signior Minotti, the governor, to the sword. The rest, with Antonio Bembo, "" proveditor extraordinary, were made prisoners of war."

History of the Turks, vol. iii. p. 151.

THE

SIEGE OF CORINTH.

I.

MANY a vanished year and age,
And tempest's breath, and battle's rage,
Have swept o'er Corinth; yet she stands

The land-mark to the double tide

That purpling rolls on either side,

As if their waters chafed to meet,

Yet
pause and crouch beneath her feet.
But could the blood before her shed

Since first Timoleon's brother bled,

10

Or baffled Persia's despot fled,

15

Arise from out the earth which drank

The stream of slaughter as it sank,
That sanguine ocean would o'erflow
Her isthmus idly spread below:

Or could the bones of all the slain,

Who perished there, be piled again,

That rival pyramid would rise

More mountain-like, through those clear skies,

Than yon tower-capt Acropolis

Which seems the very clouds to kiss.

II.

On dun Citharon's ridge appears

The gleam of twice ten thousand spears;
And downward to the Isthmian plain

20

25

From shore to shore of either main,

The tent is pitched, the crescent shines
Along the Moslem's leaguering lines;

30

And the dusk Spahi's bands advance
Beneath each bearded pasha's glance;
And far and wide as eye can reach

The turban'd cohorts throng the beach;

35