Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

learned Chamberlain during the journey. In the first place, those couriers stationed, as in the reign of Shah Jehan, between Delhi and the Western coast of India, to secure a constant supply of mangoes for the Royal Table, had, by some cruel irregularity, failed in their duty; and to eat any mangoes but those of Mazagong was, of course, impossible. In the next place, the elephant, laden with his fine antique porcelain, had, in an unusual fit of liveliness, shattered the whole set to pieces : -an irreparable loss, as many of the vessels were so exquisitely old, as to have been used under the Emperors Yan and Chun, who reigned many ages before the dynasty of Tang. His Koran, too, supposed to be the identical copy between the leaves of which Mahomet's favourite pigeon used to nestle, had been mislaid by his Koran-bearer three whole days; not without much spiritual alarm to FADLADEEN, who, though professing to hold with other loyal and orthodox Mussulmans, that salvation could only be found in the Koran, was strongly suspected of believing in his heart, that it could only be found in his own particular copy of it. When to all these grievances is added the obstinacy of the cooks, in putting the pepper of Canara into his dishes instead of the cinnamon of Serendib, we may easily suppose that he came to the task of criticism with, at least, a sufficient degree of irritability for the purpose.

"In order," said he, importantly swinging about his chaplet of pearls, "to convey with clearness my opinion of the story this young man has related, it is necessary to take a review of all the stories that have ever- "-"My good FADLADEEN!" exclaimed the Princess, interrupting him, "we really do not deserve that you should give yourself so much trouble. Your opinion of the poem we have just heard, will, I have no doubt, be abundantly edifying, without any further waste of your valuable erudition."-"If that be all," plied the critic,-evidently mortified at not being allowed to show how much he knew about everything but the subject immediately before him"if that be all that is required, the matter is easily despatched." He then proceeded to analyse the poem, in that strain (so well known to the unfortunate bards of Delhi), whose censures were an infliction from which few recovered, and whose

re

1"The celebrity of Mazagong is owing to its mangoes, which are certainly the best fruit I ever tasted. The parent-tree, from which all those of this species has been grafted, is honoured during the fruit-season by a guard of sepoys; and, in the reign of Shah Jehan, couriers were stationed between Delhi and the Mahrutta coast, to secure an abundant and fresh supply of mangoes for the royal table." Mrs. Graham's Journal of a Residence in India.

2 This old porcelain is found in digging, and "if it is esteemed, it is not because it has acquired any new degree of beauty in the earth, but because it has retained its ancient beauty; and this alone is of great importance in China, where they give large sums for the smallest vessels which were used under the Emperors Yan and Chun, who reigned many ages before the dynasty of Tang, at which

very praises were like the honey extracted from the bitter flowers of the aloe. The chief personages of the story were, if he rightly understood them, an ill-favoured gentleman, with a veil over his face ; — a young lady, whose reason went and came, according as it suited the poet's convenience to be sensible or otherwise; and a youth in one of those hideous Bucharian bonnets, who took the aforesaid gentleman in a veil for a Divinity. "From such materials," said he, "what can be expected?-after rivalling each other in long speeches and absurdities, through some thousands of lines as indigestible as the filberts of Berdan, our friend in the veil jumps into a tub of aquafortis; the young lady dies in a set speech, whose only recommendation is that it is her last; and the lover lives on to a good old age, for the laudable purpose of seeing her ghost, which he at last happily accomplishes, and expires. This, you will allow, is a fair summary of the story; and if Nasser, the Arabian merchant, told no better, our Holy Prophet (to whom be all honour and glory!) had no need to be jealous of his abilities for storytelling." s

With respect to the style, it was worthy of the matter; it had not even those politic contrivances of structure, which make up for the commonness of the thoughts by the peculiarity of the manner, nor that stately poetical phraseology by which sentiments mean in themselves, like the blacksmith's apron converted into a banner, are so easily gilt and embroidered into consequence. Then, as to the versification, it was, to say no worse of it, execrable: it had neither the copious flow of Ferdosi, the sweetness of Hafez, nor the sententious march of Sadi; but appeared to him, in the uneasy heaviness of its movements, to have been modelled upon the gait of a very tired dromedary. The licences, too, in which it indulged, were unpardonable; — for instance this line, and the poem abounded with such ;

-

Like the faint, exquisite music of a dream. "What critic that can count," said FADLADEEN, "and has his full complement of fingers to count withal, would tolerate for an instant such syllabic superfluities?" He here looked round, and discovered that most of his audience were asleep;

time porcelain began to be used by the Emperors" (about the year 142). Dunn's Collection of Curious Observations, &c. ;- a bad translation of some parts of the Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses of the Missionary Jesuits.

3"La lecture de ces Fables plaisoit si fort aux Arabes, que quand Mahomet les entretenoit de l'Histoire de l'Ancien Testsment, ils les méprisoient, lui disant que celles que Nasser leur rscontoient étoient beaucoup plus belles. Cette préférence attira à Nasser la malédiction de Mahomet et de tous ses disciples."-D'Her belot.

4 The blacksmith Gao, who successfully resisted the tyrant Zohak, and whose apron became the Royal Standard of Persia.

while the glimmering lamps seemed inclined to low their example. It became necessary, therefore, however painful to himself, to put an end to Es valuable animadversions for the present, and he accordingly concluded, with an air of dignified candour, thus: "Notwithstanding the observatons which I have thought it my duty to make, it is by no means my wish to discourage the young man:- so far from it, indeed, that if he will but ally alter his style of writing and thinking, I Lave very little doubt that I shall be vastly pleased with him."

beauty of this passage, to dwell upon the charms of poetry in general. "It is true," she said, "few poets can imitate that sublime bird, which flies always in the air, and never touches the earth': -it is only once in many ages a Genius appears, whose words, like those on the Written Mountain, last for ever2:- but still there are some, as delightful, perhaps, though not so wonderful, who, if not stars over our head, are at least flowers along our path, and whose sweetness of the moment we ought gratefully to inhale, without calling upon them for a brightness and a durability beyond their nature. In short," continued she, blushing, as if conscious of being caught in an oration, "it is quite cruel that a poet cannot wander through for ever, like the old Man of the Sea, upon his his regions of enchantment, without having a critic back!"-FADLADEEN, it was plain, took this last luckless allusion to himself, and would treasure it up in his mind as a whetstone for his next criticism. A sudden silence ensued; and the Princess,

Some days elapsed, after this harangue of the Great Chamberlain, before LALLA ROOKH could venture to ask for another story. The youth was a welcome guest in the pavilion-to one heart, perhaps, too dangerously welcome;-but all menof poetry was, as if by common consent, avoided. Though none of the party had much pect for FADLADEEN, yet his censures, thus meisterially delivered, evidently made an impres-glancing a look at FERAMORZ, saw plainly she

0 on them all. The Poet himself, to whom criticism was quite a new operation, (being wholly known in that Paradise of the Indies, Cashre,) felt the shock as it is generally felt at first, tae has made it more tolerable to the patient; -the Ladies began to suspect that they ought not to be pleased, and seemed to conclude that there must have been much good sense in what FADLADEFX said, from its having set them all so soundly sleep; while the self-complacent Chamberlain was left to triumph in the idea of having, for the Landred and fiftieth time in his life, extinguished a Poet. LALLA Rоокн alone—and Love knew why-persisted in being delighted with all she had heard, and in resolving to hear more as speedily as possible. Her manner, however, of hrst returning to the subject was unlucky. It was We they rested during the heat of noon near a fountain, on which some hand had rudely traced those well-known words from the Garden of Sadi, -"Many, like me, have viewed this fountain, but they are gone, and their eyes are closed for ever!" -that she took occasion, from the melancholy 1*The Huma, a bird peculiar to the East. It is supposed to fly enestantly in the air, and never touch the ground; it is looked 150 as a bird of happy omen; and that every head it overshades Win time wear a crown."- Richardson.

In the terms of alliance made by Fuzzel Oola Khan with Hyder 750, one of the stipulations was, "that he should have the distition of two honorary attendants standing behind him, holding fats exposed of the feathers of the humma, according to the praeLot of his family."— Wilks's South of India. He adds in a note; -The Humma is a fabulous bird. The head over which its sha coce passes will assuredly be circled with a crown. The plendid Ettle bird suspended over the throne of Tippoo Sultaun fat Seringapatam in 1799, was intended to represent this poeRoxi fancy."

To the pilgrims to Mount Sinai we must attribute the in#criptions, figures, ke, on those rocks, which have from thence acred the name of the Written Mountain."- Volney. M. Gebelin adhere have been at much pains to attach some mysterious and tant meaning to these inscriptions; but Niebuhr, as well as

must wait for a more courageous moment.

But the glories of Nature, and her wild, fragrant airs, playing freshly over the current of youthful spirits, will soon heal even deeper wounds than the dull Fadladeens of this world can inflict. In an evening or two after, they came to the small Valley of Gardens, which had been planted by order of the Emperor, for his favourite sister Rochinara, during their progress to Cashmere, some years before; and never was there a more sparkling assemblage of sweets, since the Gulzare-Irem, or Rose-bower of Irem. Every precious flower was there to be found, that poetry, or love, or religion, has ever consecrated; from the dark hyacinth, to which Hafez compares his mistress's hair, to the Cúmalatá, by whose rosy blossoms the heaven of Indra is scented. As they sat in the cool fragrance of this delicious spot, and LALLA ROOKH remarked that she could fancy it the abode of that Flower-loving Nymph whom they worship in the temples of Kathay, or of one of those Peris, those beautiful creatures of the Volney, thinks that they must have been executed at idle hours by the travellers to Mount Sinai, "who were satisfied with cutting the unpolished rock with any pointed instrument; adding to their names and the date of their journeys some rude figures, which bespeak the hand of a people but little skilled in the arts."Niebuhr.

3 The Story of Sinbad.

4 See Nott's Hafez, Ode v.

5 The Camalatá (called by Linnæus, Ipomea) is the most beautiful of its order, both in the colour and form of its leaves and flowers; its elegant blossoms are celestial rosy red, Love's proper hue,' and have justly procured it the name of Cámalatá, or Love's Creeper."- Sir W. Jones.

"Cámalatá may also mean a mythological plant, by which all desires are granted to such as inhabit the heaven of Indra; and if ever flower was worthy of paradise, it is our charming Ipomea." -Ib.

6" According to Father Premare, in his tract on Chinese Mythology, the mother of Fo-hi was the daughter of heaven, surnamed

air, who live upon perfumes, and to whom a place like this might make some amends for the Paradise they have lost,-the young Poet, in whose eyes she appeared, while she spoke, to be one of the bright spiritual creatures she was describing, said hesitatingly that he remembered a Story of a Peri, which, if the Princess had no objection, he would venture to relate. "It is," said he, with an appealing look to FADLADEEN, "in a lighter and humbler strain than the other:" then, striking a few careless but melancholy chords on his kitar, he thus began:

PARADISE AND THE PERI.

ONE morn a Peri at the gate
Of Eden stood, disconsolate;
And as she listen'd to the Springs
Of Life within, like music flowing,
And caught the light upon her wings
Through the half-open portal glowing,
She wept to think her recreant race
Should e'er have lost that glorious place!

"How happy," exclaim'd this child of air, "Are the holy Spirits who wander there,

"Mid flowers that never shall fade or fall; "Though mine are the gardens of earth and sea, "And the stars themselves have flowers for me, "One blossom of Heaven outblooms them all!

66

Though sunny the Lake of cool CASHMERE, "With its plane-tree Isle reflected clear,'

"And sweetly the founts of that Valley fall; "Though bright are the waters of SING-SU-HAY, "And the golden floods that thitherward stray," "Yet-oh, 'tis only the Blest can say

"How the waters of Heaven outshine them all! "Go, wing thy flight from star to star, "From world to luminous world, as far

"As the universe spreads its flaming wall: "Take all the pleasures of all the spheres, "And multiply each through endless years,

"One minute of Heaven is worth them all!"

Flower-loving; and as the nymph was walking alone on the bank of a river, she found herself encircled by a rainbow, after which she became pregnant, and, at the end of twelve years, was delivered of a son radiant as herself."- Asiat. Res.

"Numerous small islands emerge from the Lake of Cashmere. One is called Char Chenaur, from the plane trees upon it."-Foster. 2 The Altan Kol or Golden River of Tibet, which runs into the Lakes of Sing-su-hay, has abundance of gold in its sands, which employs the inhabitants all the summer in gathering it." - Description of Tibet in Pinkerton.

3 "The Brahmins of this province insist that the blue campac flowers only in Paradise."-Sir W. Jones. It appears, however, from a curious letter of the Sultan of Menangcabow, given by Marsden, that one place on earth may lay claim to the possession of it. "This is the Sultan, who keeps the flower champaka that is blue, and to be found in no other country but his, being yellow elsewhere."-Marsden's Sumatra.

66

The glorious Angel, who was keeping
The gates of Light, beheld her weeping;
And, as he nearer drew and listen'd
To her sad song, a tear-drop glisten'd
Within his eyelids, like the spray

From Eden's fountain, when it lies
On the blue flow'r, which-Bramins say -
Blooms nowhere but in Paradise."

Nymph of a fair but erring line!" Gently he said "One hope is thine. ""Tis written in the Book of Fate, "The Peri yet may be forgiv'n "Who brings to this Eternal gate

"The Gift that is most dear to Heav'n! "Go, seek it, and redeem thy sin""Tis sweet to let the pardon'd in."

Rapidly as comets run

To the' embraces of the Sun;-
Fleeter than the starry brands
Flung at night from angel hands
At those dark and daring sprites
Who would climb the' empyreal heights,
Down the blue vault the PERI flies,

And, lighted earthward by a glance
That just then broke from morning's eyes,
Hung hov'ring o'er our world's expanse.

[blocks in formation]

4 "The Mahometans suppose that falling stars are the firebrands wherewith the good angels drive away the bad, when they approach too near the empyrean or verge of the heavens."— Fryer.

5 The Forty Pillars; so the Persians call the ruins of Persepolis It is imagined by them that this palace and the edifices at Balbee were built by Genii, for the purpose of hiding in their subterraneous caverns immense treasures, which still remain there.—D'Herbelot, Volney.

6 Diodorus mentions the Isle of Panchaia, to the south of Arabis Felix, where there was a temple of Jupiter. This island, or rather cluster of isles, has disappeared, "sunk (says Grandpre in the abyss made by the fire beneath their foundations."-Voyage to the Indian Ocean.

7 The Isles of Panchaia.

8" The cup of Jamshid, discovered, they say, when digging for the foundations of Persepolis."- Richardson.

[ocr errors]

While thus she mus'd, her pinions fann'd
The air of that sweet Indian land,
Whose air is balm; whose ocean spreads
O'er coral rocks, and amber beds; 1
Whose mountains, pregnant by the beam
Of the warm sun, with diamonds teem;
Whose rivulets are like rich brides,
Lovely, with gold beneath their tides;
Whose sandal groves and bow'rs of spice
Might be a Peri's Paradise!

But crimson now her rivers ran

With human blood-the smell of death

1 Came reeking from those spicy bow'rs,
And man, the sacrifice of man,

Mingled his taint with ev'ry breath
Upwafted from the innocent flow'rs.
Land of the Sun! what foot invades

Thy Pagods and thy pillar'd shades 2-
Thy cavern shrines, and Idol stones,

[blocks in formation]

"It is not like the Sea of India, whose bottom is rich with pearls and ambergris, whose mountains of the coast are stored with red and precious stones, whose gulfs breed creatures that yield ivory, and among the plants of whose shores are ebony, red wood, and the wood of Hairzan, aloes, camphor, cloves, sandal-wood, and other spices and aromatics; where parrots and peacocks are hirds of the forest, and musk and civet are collected upon the lands."-Travels of two Mohammedans.

C

[blocks in formation]

The hended twigs take root, and daughters grow

About the mother-tree, a pillar'd shade,

High over-arch'd, and echoing walks between. MILTON.

For a particular description and plate of the Banyan-tree, see Ceylon.

"With this immense treasure Mamood returned to Ghizni, and the year 400 prepared a magnificent festival, where he displayed #the people his wealth in golden thrones and in other ornaments, is great plain without the city of Ghizni."- Ferishta.

4 Mahmood of Gazna, or Ghizni, who conquered India in the beginning of the lith century." See his History in Dow and J. Malcolm.

[blocks in formation]

66

It would not stain the purest rill,

"That sparkles among the Bowers of Bliss! Oh, if there be, on this earthly sphere,

"A boon, an offering Heav'n holds dear,

[blocks in formation]

5 "It is reported that the hunting equipage of the Sultan Mahmood was so magnificent, that he kept 400 greyhounds and bloodhounds, each of which wore a collar set with jewels, and a covering edged with gold and pearls."—Universal History, vol. iii.

6 Objections may be made to my use of the word Liberty in this, and more especially in the story that follows it, as totally inapplicable to any state of things that has ever existed in the East; but though I cannot, of course, mean to employ it in that enlarged and noble sense which is so well understood at the present day, and, I grieve to say, so little acted upon, yet it is no disparagement to the word to apply it to that national independence, that freedom from the interference and dictation of foreigners, without which, indeed, no liberty of any kind can exist; and for which both Hindoos and Persians fought against their Mussulman invaders with, in many cases, a bravery that deserved much better success.

7 "The Mountains of the Moon, or the Montes Lunæ of antiquity, at the foot of which the Nile is supposed to arise."— Bruce's Travels.

"Sometimes called," says Jackson, “ Jibbel Kumrie, or the white or lunar-coloured mountains; so a white horse is called by the Arabians a moon-coloured horse."

[blocks in formation]

To watch the moonlight on the wings
Of the white pelicans that break
The azure calm of MERIS' Lake.
"Twas a fair scene-a Land more bright
Never did mortal eye behold!

Who could have thought, that saw this night
Those valleys and their fruits of gold
Basking in Heav'n's serenest light;-
;-
Those groups of lovely date-trees bending
Languidly their leaf-crown'd heads,
Like youthful maids, when sleep descending
Warns them to their silken beds;*—
Those virgin lilies, all the night

Bathing their beauties in the lake,
That they may rise more fresh and bright,
When their beloved Sun's awake;
Those ruin'd shrines and tow'rs that seem
The relics of a splendid dream;

Amid whose fairy loneliness Nought but the lapwing's cry is heard, Nought seen but (when the shadows, flitting Fast from the moon, unsheath its gleam,) Some purple wing'd Sultana sitting

6

Upon a column, motionless
And glitt'ring like an Idol bird!-

Who could have thought, that there, ev'n there,
Amid those scenes so still and fair,
The Demon of the Plague hath cast
From his hot wing a deadlier blast,
More mortal far than ever came
From the red Desert's sands of flame!
So quick, that ev'ry living thing
Of human shape, touch'd by his wing,
Like plants, where the Simoom hath past,
At once falls black and withering!
The sun went down on many a brow,
Which, full of bloom and freshness then,
Is rankling in the pest-house now,

And ne'er will feel that sun again.
And, oh! to see the' unburied heaps
On which the lonely moonlight sleeps-

1 "The Nile, which the Abyssinians know by the names of Abey and Alawy, or the Giant."-Asiat. Research, vol. i. p. 387.

2 See Perry's View of the Levant for an account of the sepulchres in Upper Thebes, and the numberless grots, covered all over with hieroglyphics in the mountains of Upper Egypt.

3 The orchards of Rosetta are filled with turtle-doves." Sonnini.

+ Savary mentions the pelicans upon Lake Maris.

5 The superb date-tree, whose head languidly reclines, like that of a handsome woman overcome with sleep."-Dafard el Hadad.

6 "That beautiful bird, with plumage of the finest shining blue, with purple beak and legs, the natural and living ornament of the temples and palaces of the Greeks and Romans, which, from the

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

Just then beneath some orange trees,
Whose fruit and blossoms in the breeze
Were wantoning together, free,
Like age at play with infancy—
Beneath that fresh and springing bower,
Close by the Lake, she heard the moan
Of one who, at this silent hour,

Had thither stol'n to die alone.
One who in life where'er he mov'd,
Drew after him the hearts of many;
Yet now, as though he ne'er were lov'd,
Dies here unseen, unwept by any!
None to watch near him-none to slake
The fire that in his bosom lies,
With ev'n a sprinkle from that lake,

Which shines so cool before his eyes;
No voice, well known through many a day,
To speak the last, the parting word,
Which, when all other sounds decay,
Is still like distant music heard;
That tender farewell on the shore
Of this rude world, when all is o'er,
Which cheers the spirit, cre its bark
Puts off into the unknown Dark.

Deserted youth! one thought alone

Shed joy around his soul in deathThat she, whom he for years had known, And lov'd, and might have call'd his own,

Was safe from this foul midnight's breath,—

stateliness of its port, as well as the brilliancy of its colours, has obtained the title of Sultana." — Sonnini.

7 Jackson, speaking of the plague that occurred in West Barbary, when he was there, says, "The birds of the air fled away from the abodes of men. The hyenas, on the contrary, visited the cemeteries," &c.

8"Gondar was full of hyaenas from the time it turned dark till the dawn of day, seeking the different pieces of slaughtered carcasses, which this cruel and unclean people expose in the streets without burial, and who firmly believe that these animals are Falashta from the neighbouring mountains, transformed by magic, and come down to eat human flesh in the dark in safety." Bruce.

9 Ibid.

« ForrigeFortsæt »