And he was free!-and she for him had given But varying oft the color of her cheek To deeper shades of paleness-all its red He clasped that hand-it trembled—and his own XVIII. They gain by twilight's hour their lonely isle: Greets like the welcome of his tuneless beak! He snatch'd the lamp-its light will answer all- XX. He turn'd not-spoke not-sunk not-fix'd his look, And set the anxious frame that lately shook : Oh! o'er the eye Death most exerts his might, XXI. He ask'd no question-all were answer'd now Like Hope's gay glance from Ocean's troubled foam? By the first glance on that still marble brow. XIX. The lights are high on beacon and from bower, "Tis strange-of yore its welcome never fail'd, Ascends the path familiar to his eye. He reach'd his turret door-he paused-no sound It was enough-she died-what reck'd it how? XXII. By those, that deepest feel, is ill exprest It was the very weakness of his brain, XXIII. His heart was formed for softness-warp'd to wrong; The gentle plant hath left no leaf to tell XXIV. 'Tis morn-to venture on his lonely hour And fair the monument they gave his bride: Link'd with one virtue, and a thousand crimes.18 NOTES TO THE CORSAIR. 5. While dance the Almas to wild minstrelsy. Page 141, line 42. Dancing girls. 6. A captive Dervise, from the Pirate's nest. Page 141, line 55. It has been objected that Conrad's entering disguised as a spy is out of nature.-Perhaps so. I find something not unlike it in history. "Anxious to explore with his own eyes the state of the Vandals, Majorian ventured, after disguising the color of his hair, to visit Carthage in the character of his own ambassador; and Genseric was entertained and dismissed the Emperor of the Roafterwards mortified by the discovery, that he had mans. Such an anecdote may be rejected as an improbable fiction; but it is a fiction which would not have been imagined unless in the life of a hero."-Gibbon, D. and F., vol. vi. p. 180. That Conrad is a character not altogether out of nature I shall attempt to prove by some historical coincidences which I have met with since writing "The Corsair." "Eccelin prisonnier," dit Rolandini, "s'enfer moit dans un silence menaçant, il fixoit sur la terre The Kiosk is a Turkish summer-house: the palm son visage feroce, et ne donnoit point d'essor à sa is without the present walls of Athens, not far from profonde indignation.-De toutes parts cependant the temple of Theseus, between which and the tree les soldats et les peuples accouroient; ils vouloient the wall intervenes.-Cephisus' stream is indeed voir cet homme, jadis si puissant, et la joie univer- scanty, and Ilissus has no stream at all. selle éclatoit de toutes parts. 219, 220. 15. That frown *—where gentler ocean seems to smile. "Eccelin étoit d'une petite taillie; mais tout l'aspect de sa personne, tous ses mouvemens, indiquoient un soldat.-Son langage étoit amer, son deporteThe opening lines as far as Section II. have, perment superbe et par son seul égard, il faisoit trembler les plus hardis." Sismondi, tome III. page unpublished (though printed) poem; but they were haps, little business here, and were annexed to an "Gizericus (Genseric, king of the Vandals, the written on the spot in the spring of 1811, and—I scarce know why-the reader must excuse their apconqueror of both Carthage and Rome) statura mediocris, et equi casu claudicans, animo profundus, pearance here if he can. sermone rarus, luxuriæ contemptor, ira turbidus, habendi cupidus, ad solicitandas gentes providentissimus," &c., &c. Jornandes de Rebus Geticis, c. 33. 24. 9. He tore his beard, and foaming fed the fight. 16. His only bends in seeming o'er his beads. 17. And the cold flowers her colder hand contain’d. Page 150, line 75. the bodies of the dead, and in the hands of young In the Levant it is the custom to strew flowers on persons to place a nosegay. 18. Link'd with one virtue, and a thousand crimes. Page 151, line 43. That the point of honor which is represented in one instance of Conrad's character has not been carried beyond the bounds of probability may per A common and not very novel effect of Mussul-haps be in some degree confirmed by the following man anger. See Prince Eugene's Memoirs, page "The Seraskier received a wound in the thigh; he plucked up his beard by the roots, because he was obliged to quit the field." 10. Brief time had Conrad now to greet Gulnare. Page 142, line 117. Gulnare, a female name; it means, literally, the flower of the pomegranate. 11. Till even the scaffold echoes with their jest! Page 144, line 87. In Sir Thomas More, for instance, on the scaffold, and Anne Boleyn, in the Tower, when grasping her neck, she remarked that it was too slender to trouble the headsman much." During one part of the French Revolution, it became a fashion to leave some "mot as a legacy; and the quantity of facetious last words spoken during that period would form a melancholy jest-book of a considerable size. anecdote of a brother Buccaneer in the year 1814. Our readers have all seen the account of the enterprise against the pirates of Barrataria; but few, we believe, were informed of the situation, history, or nature of that establishment. For the information of such as were unacquainted with it, we have procured from a friend the following interesting narrative of the main facts, of which he has personal knowledge, and which cannot fail to interest some of our readers. Barrataria is a bay, or a narrow arm of the Gulf of Mexico: it runs through a rich but very flat country until it reaches within a mile of the Mississippi River fifteen miles below the city of New Orleans. The bay has branches almost innumerable, in which persons can lie concealed from the severest scrutiny. It communicates with three lakes which lie on the southwest side, and these, with the lake of the same name, and which lies contiguous to the sea, where there is an island formed by the two arms of The east and west points of this lake and the sea. this island were fortified, in the year 1811, by a band of pirates under the command of one Monsieur La Fitte. A large majority of these outlaws are of that class of the population of the State of Louisiana who fled from the Island of St. Domingo durThat closed their murder'd sage's latest day. ing the troubles there, and took refuge in the Page 145, line 100. Island of Cuba: and when the last war between Socrates drank the hemlock a short time before France and Spain commenced, they were comsunset, (the hour of execution,) notwithstanding pelled to leave that island with the short notice the entreaties of his disciples to wait till the sun went down. 13. 12. The queen of night asserts her silent reign. Page 145, line 112. The twilight in Greece is much shorter than in our own country: the days in winter are longer, but in summer of shorter duration. 14. The gleaming turret of the gay Kiosk. of a few days. Without ceremony, they entered the United States, the most of them the State of Louisiana, with all the negroes they had possessed in Cuba. They were notified by the Governor of that State of the clause in the constitution which forbade the importation of slaves; but, at the same time, received the assurance of the Governor that he would obtain, if possible, the approbation of the General Government for their retaining this property. The Island of Barrataria is situated about lat. See "Curse of Minerva." 29 deg. 15 min. lon. 92. 30. and is as remarkable for measure connected with the profession of the hero its health, as for the superior scale and shell-fish of the foregoing poem, I cannot resist the temptawith which its waters abound. The chief of this tion of extracting it. horde, like Charles de Moor, had mixed with his "There is something mysterious in the history many vices some virtues. In the year 1813, this and character of Dr. Blackbourne. The former is party had from its turpitude and boldness, claimed but imperfectly known; and report has even asthe attention of the Governor of Louisiana; and to serted he was a buccaneer; and that one of his break up the establishment, he thought proper to brethren in that profession having asked, on his arstrike at the head. He therefore offered a reward rival in England, what had become of his old chum, of five hundred dollars for the head of Monsieur La Blackbourne, was answered, he is archbishop of Fitte who was well known to the inhabitants of the York. We are informed, that Blackbourne was incity of New Orleans, from his immediate connexion, stalled sub-dean of Exeter, in 1694, which office he and his once having been a fencing-master in that resigned in 1702; but after his successor Lewis Barcity of great reputation, which art he learnt in net's death, in 1704, he regained it. In the followBonaparte's army, where he was captain. The re-ing year he became dean: and, in 1714, held with it ward which was offered by the Governor for the the archdeanery of Cornwall. He was consecrated head of La Fitte was answered by the offer of a re- bishop of Exeter, February 24, 1716; and translated ward from the latter of fifteen thousand for the head to York, November 28, 1724, as a reward, accordof the Governor. The Governor ordered out a com- ing to court scandal, for uniting George I. to the pany to march from the city to La Fitte's island, Duchess of Munster. This, however, appears to and to burn and destroy all the property, and to have been an unfounded calumny. As archbishop bring to the city of New Orleans all his banditti. he behaved with great prudence, and was equally This company, under the command of a man who respectable as the guardian of the revenues of the had been the intimate associate of this bold Cap- see. Rumor whispered he retained the vices of his tain, approached very near to the fortified island, youth, and that a passion for the fair sex formed an before he saw a man, or heard a sound, until he item in the list of his weaknesses; but so far from heard a whistle, not unlike a boatswain's call. being convicted by seventy witnesses, he does not Then it was he found himself surrounded by armed appear to have been directly criminated by one. In men who had emerged from the secret avenues short, I look upon these aspersions as the effects of which led into Bayou. Here it was that the mod-mere malice. How is it possible a buccaneer should ern Charles de Moor developed his few noble traits; have been so good a scholar as Blackbourne cerfor to this man, who had come to destroy his life tainly was? he who had so perfect a knowledge of and all that was dear to him, he not only spared his the classics, (particularly of the Greek tragedians,) life, but offered him that which would have made as to be able to read them with the same ease as he the honest soldier easy for the remainder of his could Shakspeare, must have taken great pains to days, which was indignantly refused. He then, acquire the learned languages; and have had both with the approbation of his captor, returned to the leisure and good masters. But he was undoubtedly city. This circumstance, and some concomitant educated at Christchurch College, Oxford. He is events, proved that this band of pirates was not to allowed to have been a pleasant man: this, howbe taken by land. Our naval force having always ever, was turned against him, by its being said, 'he been small in that quarter, exertions for the destruc-gained more hearts than souls."" tion of this illicit establishment could not be ex pected from them until augmented; for an officer of the navy, with most of the gunboats on that "The only voice that could soothe the passions that station, had to retreat from an overwhelming of the savage, (Alphonso III.) was that of an amiaforce of La Fitte's. So soon as the augmentation ble and virtuous wife, the sole object of his love; of the navy authorized an attack, one was made; the voice of Donna Isabella, the daughter of the the overthrow of this banditti has been the result; and now this almost invulnerable point and key to New Orleans is clear of an enemy, it is to be hoped the government will hold it by a strong military force. From an American Newspaper. In Noble's continuation of Granger's Biographical History, there is a singular passage in his account of Archbishop Blackbourne, and as in some 20 Duke of Savoy, and the grand-daughter of Philip II. King of Spain.-Her dying words sunk deep into his memory; his fierce spirit melted into tears; and after the last embrace, Alphonso retired into his chamber to bewail his irreparable loss, and to meditate on the vanity of human life.-Miscellaneous Works of Gibbon, New Edition. 8vo. vol. iii. page 473. ᏞᎪᎡᎪ ; A TALE. CANTO I. I. II. The chief of Lara is return'd again: And why had Lara cross'd the bounding main? III. And Lara left in youth his father-land; A hundred scutcheons deck with gloomy grace, IV. He comes at last in sudden loneliness, Of foreign aspect, and of tender age. |