Which in my spirit dwelt is fluttering, faint, and low. If such there were-with you, the moral of his strain THE little village of Castri stands partly on the It is a well known fact, that in the year 1809 the site of Delphi. Along the path of the mountain, assassinations in the streets of Lisbon and its from Chrysso, are the remains of sepulchres hewn vicinity were not confined by the Portuguese to in and from the rock. "One," said the guide, "of their countrymen; but that Englishmen were daily a king who broke his neck hunting." His majesty butchered: and so far from redress being obtained, had certainly chosen the fittest spot for such an we were requested not to interfere if we perceived any compatriot defending himself against his allies. achievement. A little above Castri is a cave, supposed the I was once stopped in the way to the theatre at Pythian, of immense depth; the upper part of it is eight o'clock in the evening, when the streets were paved, and now a cow-house. not more empty than they generally are at that On the other side of Castri stands a Greek hour, opposite to an open shop and in a carriage monastery; some way above which is the cleft in with a friend; had we not fortunately been armed, the rock, with a range of caverns difficult of ascent, I have not the least doubt that we should have and apparently leading to the interior of the mountain; probably to the Corycian Cavern mentioned by Pausahias From this part descend the fountain and the "Dews of Castalie." 2. And rest ye at our "Lady's house of wo." adorned a tale instead of telling one. The crime of assassination is not confined to Portugal; in Sicily and Malta we are knocked on the head at a handsome average nightly, and not a Sicilian or Maltese is ever punished! 4. Behold the hall where chiefs were late convened! The Convent of "Our Lady of Punishment," Nossa Senora de Pena, on the summit of the rock. palace of the Marchese Marialva. The late exploits Below, at some distance, is the Cork Convent, of Lord Wellington have effaced the follies of where St. Honorius dug his den, over which is his epitaph. From the hills, the sea adds to the beauty of the view. Since the publication of this poem, I have been informed of the misappre hension of the term Nossa Senora de Pena. It was owing to the want of the tilde, or mark over the n, which alters the signification of the word: with it, Pena signifies a rock; without it, Pena has the sense I adopted. I do not think it necessary to alter the passage, as, though the common acceptation affixed to it is "Our Lady of the Rock," I may well assume the other sense from the severities practised there. Cintra. perhaps changed the character of a nation, recon He has, indeed, done wonders; he has ciled rival superstitions, and baffled an enemy who never retreated before his predecessors. 5. Yet Mafra shall one moment claim delay. Stanza xxix. line 1. The extent of Mafra is prodigious; it contains a 16. When Cara's traitor sire first call'd the band Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings. 8. 17. Luc. A traitor only fell beneath the feud. 18. "War even to the knife!" No! as he speeds, he chants, "Viva el Rey!" Stanza xlviii. line 5. "Viva el Rey Fernando!" Long live King Ferdinand is the chorus of most of the Spanish patriotic songs: they are chiefly in dispraise of the Stanza lxxxvi. line last. ld king Charles, the Queen, and the Prince of Peace. I have heard many of them; some of the "War to the knife." Palafox's answer to the airs are beautiful. Godoy, the Principe de la Paz, French general at the siege of Saragoza. was born at Badajoz, on the frontiers of Portugal, and was originally in the ranks of the Spanish Guards, till his person attracted the queen's eyes, and raised him to the dukedom of Alcudia, &c. &c. It is to this man that the Spaniards universally impute the ruin of their country. 19. And thou, my friend! &c. Stanza xci. line 1. The Honorable I*. W**. of the Guards, who died of a fever at Coinbra. I had known him ten years, the better half of his life, and the happiest part of mine. who gave me being, and most of those who had In the short space of one month I had lost her made that being tolerable. To me the lines of Young are no fiction: "Insatiate archer! could not one suffice? Thy shaft flew thrice, and thrice my peace was slain, I should have ventured a verse to the memory of the late Charles Skinner Matthews, Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge, were he not too much above all praise of mine. His powers of mind, shown in the attainment of greater honors, against the ablest candidates, than those of any graduate on record at Cambridge, have sufficiently established his fame on the spot where it was acquired: while his softer qualities live in the recollection of friends who loved him too well to envy his superiority. CANTO II. 1. -despite of war and wasting fire Stanza i. line 4. PART of the Acropolis was destroyed by the explosion of a magazine during the Venetian siege. 2. But worse than steel and flame, and ages slow, bestow. Stanza i. line 6. common with many of his countrymen-for, lost as they are, they yet feel on this occasion-thus may Lord Elgin boast of having ruined Athens. An Italian painter of the first eminence, named Lusieri, is the agent of devastation; and like the Greek finder of Verres in Sicily, who followed the same profession, he has proved the able instrument of We can all feel, or imagine, the regret with plunder. Between this artist and the French Conwhich the ruins of cities, once the capitals of snl Fauvel, who wishes to rescue the remains for empires, are beheld; the reflections suggested by his own government, there is now a violent dispute such objects are too trite to require recapitulation. concerning a car employed in their conveyance, the But never did the littleness of man, and the vanity wheel of which-I wish they were both broken upon of his very best virtues of patriotism to exalt, and it has been locked up by the Consul, and Lusieri of valor to defend his country, appear more con- has laid his complaint before the Waywode. Lord spicuous than in the record of what Athens was, Elgin has been extremely happy in his choice of and the certainty of what she now is. This theatre Signor Lusieri. During a residence of ten years in of contention between mighty factions, of the Athens, he never had the curiosity to proceed as far struggles of orators, the exaltation and deposition as Sunium, till he accompanied us in our second of tyrants, the triumph and punishment of gen; excursion. However, his works, as far as they go, erals, is now become a scene of petty intrigue and are most beautiful; but they are almost all untinperpetual disturbance, between the bickering agents ished. While he and his patrons confine themof certain British nobility and gentry. "The wild selves to tasting medals, appreciating cameos, foxes, the owls and serpents in the ruins of Baby- sketching columns, and cheapening gems, their lon," were surely less degrading than such inhab- little absurdities are as harmless as insect or foxitants. The Turks have the plea of conquest for hunting, maiden speechifying, barouche-driving, or their tyranny, and the Greeks have only suffered any such pastime; but when they carry away three the fortune of war, incidental to the bravest; but or four shiploads of the most valuable and massy how are the mighty fallen, when two painters relics that time and barbarism have left to the most contest the privilege of plundering the Parthenon, injured and most celebrated of cities; when they and triumph in turn, according to the tenor of each destroy, in a vain attempt to tear down, those works succeeding firman! Sylla could but punish, Philip which have been the admiration of ages, I know no subdue, and Xerxes burn Athens; but it remained motive which can excuse, no name which can desigfor the paltry antiquarian, and his despicable nate, the perpetrators of this dastardly devastation. agents, to render her contemptible as himself and It was not the least of the crimes laid to the charge his pursuits. The Parthenon, before its destruction in part, by Drest in a little brief authority, 3. Far on the solitary shore he sleeps. Stanza v. line 2. of Verres, that he had plundered Sicily, in the manner since imitated at Athens. The most unblushing impudence could hardly go farther than to affix the name of its plunderer to the walls of the Acropolis; while the wanton and useless defacement of the whole range of the basso-relievos, in one compartment of the temple, will never permit that name to be pronounced by an observer without execration. On this occasion I speak impartially: I am not a collector or admirer of collections, consequently no rival; but I have some early prepossession in favor of Greece, and do not think the honor of England advanced by plunder, whether of India or Attica. Another noble Lord has done better, because he has done less; but some others, more or less noble, yet "all honorable men," have done best, because, after a deal of excavation and execration, bribery to It was not always the custom of the Greeks to burn their dead; the greater Ajax, in particular, was interred entire. Almost all the chiefs became gods after their decease; and he was indeed negfected, who had not annual games near his tomb, or Marathon, there is no scene more interesting than Cape Colonna. To the • Now Cape Colonna. In all Attica, if we except Athens itself, and festivals in honor of his memory by his countrymen, antiquary and artist, sixteen columns are an inexhaustible source of observaas Achilles, Brasidas, &c., and at last even Anti-tion and design; to the philosopher, the supposed scene of some of Plato's nous, whose death was as heroic as his life was in- conversations will not be unwelcome; and the traveller will be struck with famous. the beauty of the prospect over "Isles that crown the Egean deep:” but for an Englishman, Colouna has yet an additional interest, as the actual spot of Falconer's Shipwreck. Pallas and Plato are forgotten, in the recol lection of Falconer and Campbell: "Here in the dead of night by Lonna's steep, The seaman's cry was heard along the deep,' This temple of Minerva may be seen at sea from a great distance. In two either side, by land, was less striking than the approach from the isles. In Journeys which I made, and one voyage to Cape Colonna, the view from our second land excursion, we had a narrow escape from a party of Minotes, concealed in the caverns beneath. We were told afterwards, by one of their prisoners subsequently ransomed, that they were deterred from attacking us by the appearance of my two Albanians: conjecturing very sagaciously, but falsely, that we had a complete guard of these Arnaouts at hand, they remained stationary, and thus saved our party, which was too small to have opposed any effectual resistance. Colonna is no less a resort of painters than of pirates: there "The hireling artist plants his paltry desk, (See Hodgson's Lady Jane Grey, &c.) But there Nature, with the aid of Art, has done that for herself. I was fortunate enough to engage a very superior German artist; and hope to At this moment, (January 3, 1809,) besides what has been already deposited in London, an Hydriot vessel is in the Pyræus to receive every portable relic. Thus, as I heard a young Greek observe, in arrival of his performances. renew my acquaintance with this and many other Levantine scenes, by the the Waywode, mining and countermining, they have and adds Pyrrhus to the list, in speaking of his exdone nothing at all. We had such ink-shed, and wine-ploits. shed, which almost ended in bloodshed! Lord E.'s Of Albania Gibbon remarks, that a country prig "-see Jonathan Wild for the definition of "within sight of Italy is less known than the inte "priggism"-quarrelled with another, Gropius by rior of America." Circumstances, of little consename, (a very good name too for his business,) and quence to mention, led Mr. Hobhouse and myself muttered something about satisfaction, in a verbal into that country before we visited any other part answer to a note of the poor Prussian: this was of the Ottoman dominions; and, with the exception stated at table to Gropius, who laughed, but could of Major Leake, then officially resident at Joannina, eat no dinner afterwards. The rivals were not no other Englishmen have ever advanced beyond reconciled when I left Greece. I have reason to re- the capital into the interior, as that gentleman very member their squabble, for they wanted to make me lately assured me. Ali Pacha was at that time (Octheir arbitrator. tober, 1809), carrying on war against Ibraham 7. Pacha, whom he had driven to Berat, a strong fortress which he was then besieging: on our arrival at Joannina we were invited to Tepoleni, his highness's birthplace, and favorite Serai, only one day's had made it his head-quarters. distance from Berat; at this juncture the Vizier Her sons too weak the sacred shrine to guard, I cannot resist availing myself of the permission of my friend Dr. Clarke, whose name requires no comment with the public, but whose sanction will add tenfold weight to my testimony, to insert the following extract from a very obliging letter of his to me, as a note to the above lines. followed; but though furnished with every accom- "When the last of the Metopes was taken from the Parthenon, and in moving of it, great part of On our route we passed two cities, Argyrocastro the superstructure with one of the triglyphs was and Libochabo, apparently little inferior to Yanina thrown down by the workmen whom Lord Elgin in size; and no pencil or pen can ever do justice to employed, the Disdar, who beheld the mischief the scenery in the vicinity of Zitza and Delvinachi, done to the building, took his pipe from his mouth, the frontier village of Epirus and Albania Proper. dropped a tear, and, in a supplicating tone of voice, said to Lusieri, Teλos!-I was present." The Disdar alluded to was the father of the pres ent Disdar. 8. Where was thine Egis, Pallas! that appall'd On Albania and its inhabitants I am unwilling to descant, because this will be done so much better by my fellow-traveller, in a work which may probably precede this in publication, that I as little wish to follow as I would to anticipate him. But some few observations are necessary to the text. The Arnaouts, or Albanese, struck me forcibly by their resemblance to the Highlanders of Scotland, According to Zosimus, Minerva and Achilles in dress, figure, and manner of living. Their very frightened Alaric from the Acropolis; but others mountains seemed Caledonian, with a kinder clirelate that the Gothic king was nearly as mischiev-mate. The kilt, though white; the spare, active ous as the Scottish peer.-See CHANDLER. 9. -the netted canopy. form; their dialect, Celtic in its sound, and their hardy habits, all carried me back to Morven. No nation are so detested and dreaded by their neighbors as the Albanese; the Greeks hardly regard them as Christians, or the Turks as Moslems; and in fact they are a mixture of both, and sometimes The netting to prevent blocks or splinters from neither. Their habits are predatory-all are armed; falling on deck during action. 10. Stanza xviii. line 2. But not in silence pass Calypso's isles Stanza xxix. line 1. Goza is said to have been the island of Calypso. 11. and the red-shawled Arnaouts, the Montenegrins, Chimariots, and Gegdes, are treacherous; the others differ somewhat in garb, and essentially in character. As far as my own experience goes, I can speak favorably. I was attended by two, an Infidel and a Mussulman, to Constantinople and every other part of Turkey which came within my observation; and more faithful in peril, or indefatigable in service, are rarely to be found. The Infidel was named Basilius, the Moslem, Dervish Tahiri; the former a man of middle age, and the latter about my own. Basili was strictly charged by Ali Pacha in person to attend us; and Dervish-was one of fifty who accompanied us through the forests of Acarnania to in Etolia. There I took him into my own service, the banks of Achelous, and onward to Messalonghi and never had occasion to repent it till the moment of my departure. Land of Albania! let me bend mine eyes On thee, thou rugged nurse of savage men! Stanza xxxviii. lines 5 and 6. Albania comprises part of Macedonia, Illyria, Chaonia, and Epirus. Iskander is the Turkish word for Alexander; and the celebrated Scander berg (Lord Alexander) is alluded to in the third and fourth lines of the thirty-eighth stanza. I do not know whether I am correct in making Scanderberg the countryman of Alexander, who was born at Mr. H. for England, I was seized with a severe fever When, in 1810, after the departure of my friend Pella in Macedon, but Mr. Gibbon terms him so, in the Morea, these men saved my life by frightening away my physician, whose throat they threat • This Sir Gropius was employed by a noble Lord for the sole purpose of ened to cut if I was not cured within a given time. sketching, in which he excels; but I am sorry to say, that he has, through To this consolatory assurance of posthumous retrithe abused sanction of that most respectable name, been treading at humble distance in the steps of Sr. Lusieri. A shipfull of his trophies was detained, bution, and a resolute refusal of Dr. Romanelli's and I believe confiscated, at Constantinopl, in 1810. I am most happy to prescriptions, I attributed my recovery. I had left be now enabled to state, that this was not in his bond;" that he was employed solely as a painter, and that his noble patron disavows all connex ion with him, except as an artist. If the error in the first and second edition of this poem has given the noble lord a moment's pain I am very sorry for it; Br. Gropius has assumed for years the name of his agent: and though I cannot much condemn myself for sharing in the mistake of so many, I am happy in being one of the first to be undeceived. Indeed, I have as much pleasure in contradicting this as I felt regret is stating it. my last remaining English servant at Athens; my dragoman was as ill as myself, and my poor Ar naouts nursed me with an attention that would have done honor to civilization. They had a variety of adventures; for the Moslem, Dervish, being a remarkably handsome man, was always squabbling with the husbands of Athens; maika, the dull round-about of the Greeks, of which insomuch that four of the principal Turks paid me a visit of remonstrance at the Convent, on the subject of his having taken a woman from the bathwhom he had lawfully bought, however-a thing tivators of the earth in the provinces, who have quite contrary to etiquette. also that appellation, but the mountaineers), have Basili, also, was extremely gallant among his own a fine cast of countenance; and the most beautiful persuasion, and had the greatest veneration for the women I ever beheld, in stature and in features, we church, mixed with the highest contempt of church-saw levelling the road broken down by the torrents men, whom he cuffed upon occasion in a most het-between Delvinachi and Libochabo. Their manner erodox manner. Yet he never passed a church of walking is truly theatrical; but this strut is without crossing himself; and I remember the risk probably the effect of the capote, or cloak, dependhe ran in entering St. Sophia, in Stambol, because ing from one shoulder. Their long hair reminds it had once been a place of his worship. On remon- you of the Spartans, and their courage in desultory strating with him on his inconsistent proceedings, warfare is unquestionable. Though they have some he invariably answered, "our church is holy, our cavalry amongst the Gegdes, I never saw a good priests are thieves;" and then he crossed himself Arnaout horseman; my own preferred the English as usual, and boxed the ears of the first "papas saddles, which, however, they could never keep. who refused to assist in any required operation, as But on foot they are not to be subdued by fatigue. was always found to be necessary where a priest had any influence with the Cogia Bashi of his village. Indeed, a more abandoned race of miscreants cannot exist than the lower order of the Greek clergy. 12. and pass'd the barren spot, Where sad Penelope o'erlook'd the wave. Stanza xxxix. lines 1 and 2. Ithica. 13. Actium, Lepanto, fatal Trafalgar. Stanza xl. line 5. Actium and Trafalgar need no further mention. The battle of Lepanto, equally bloody and considerable, but less known, was fought in the Gulf of Patras. Here the author of Don Quixote lost his left hand. When preparations were made for my return, my Albanians were summoned to receive their pay. Basili took his with an awkward show of regret at my intended departure, and marched away to his quarters, with his bag of piastres. I sent for Dervish, but for some time he was not to be found; at last he entered, just as Signor Logotheti, father to the ci-devant Anglo-consul of Athens, and some other of my Greck acquaintances, paid me a visit. Dervish took the money, but on a sudden dashed it to the ground; and clasping his hands, which he raised to his forehead, rushed out of the room, weeping bitterly. From that moment to the hour of my embarkation, he continued his lamentations, And hail'd the last resort of fruitless love. and all our efforts to console him only produced this Stanza xli. line 3. answer, "Má peivel," "He leaves me.' Signor LoLeucadia, now Santa Maura. From the promontheti, who never wept before for anything less than tory (the Lover's Leap) Sappho is said to have the loss of a para, melted; the padre of the con- thrown herself. vent, my attendants, my visitors and I verily believe that even Sterne's "foolish fat scullion" would have left her "fish-kettle," to sympathize with the unaffected and unexpected sorrow of this barbarian. 14. 15. -many a Roman chief and Asian king. Stanza xlv. line 4. 16. It is said, that on the day previous to the battle For my own part, when I remembered that, a of Actium, Anthony had thirteen kings at his levce. short time before my departure from England, a noble and most intimate associate had excused himself from taking leave of me because he had to attend a relation to a millineis," I felt no less surprised than humiliated by the present occurrence and the past recollection. Look where the second Cæsar's trophies rose! Stanza xlv. line 6. Nicopolis, whose ruins are most extensive, is at some distance from Actium, where the wall of the Hippodrome survives in a few fragments. 17. -Archerusia's lake. Stanza xlvii. line 1. That Dervish would leave me with some regret was to be expected; when master and man have been scrambling over the mountains of a dozen provinces together, they are unwilling to separate; but his present feelings, contrasted with his native ferocity, improved my opinion of the human heart. I believe this almost feudal fidelity is frequent] among them. One day, on our journey over Par- According to Pouqueville the lake of Yanina; nassus, an Englishman in my service gave him a but Pouqueville is always out. push in some dispute about the baggage, which he unluckily mistook for a blow; he spoke not, but sat down, leaning his head upon his hands. Foreseeing the consequences, we endeavored to explain away the affront, which produced the following answer-I have been a robber; I am a soldier; The celebrated Ali Pacha. Of this extraordinary no captain ever struck me; you are my master, I man there is an incorrect account in Pouqueville's have eaten your bread, but by that bread! (an usual oath) had it been otherwise, I would have stabbed the dog your servant, and gone to the mountains.' So the affair ended, but from that day forward he never thoroughly forgave the thoughtless fellow who insulted him. Dervish excelled in the dance of his country, conjectured to be a remnant of the ancient Pyrrhic: be that as it may, it is manly, and requires wonderful agility. It is very distinct from the stupid Ro • Para, about the fourth of a farthing, Travels. Yet here and there some daring mountain band Disdain his power, and from their rocky hold Hurl their defiance far, nor yield, unless to gold. Stanza xlvii. lines 7, 8 and 9. Five thousand Suliotes, among the rocks and in the castle of Suli, withstood thirty thousand Albanians for eighteen years; the castle at last was taken by bribery. In this contest there were several acts performed not unworthy of the better days of Greece. |