upon by the wind, tossed here and there, to and fro; and yet nothing but excess of hunger could make me look upon the pig as the more poetical of the two, and then only in the shape of a griskin. Will Mr. Bowles tell us that the poetry of an aqueduct consists in the water which it conveys? Let him look on that of Justinian, on those of Rome, Constantinople, Lisbon, and Elvas, or even at the remains of that in Attica. est, whatever his department, and will ever be so rated in the world's esteem. Had Gray written nothing but his Elegy, high as he stands, I am not sure that he would not stand higher; it is the corner-stone of his glory; without it, his odes would be insufficient for his fame. The depreciation of Pope is partly founded upon a false idea of the dignity of his order of poetry, to which he has partly contributed by the ingenuous boast, "That not in fancy's maze he wander'd long, What We are asked "what makes the venerable towers of Westminster Abbey more poetical, as objects, than the tower for the manufactory of patent shot, surrounded | He should have written "rose to truth." In my mind, by the same scenery?" I will answer-the architecture. the highest of all poetry is ethical poetry, as the high Turn Westminster Abbey, or Saint Paul's, into a powder est of all earthly objects must be moral truth. Religion magazine, their poetry, as objects, remains the same; does not make a part of my subject; it is something the Parthenon was actually converted into one by the beyond human powers, and has failed in all human 'Turks, during Morosini's Venetian siege, and part of it hands except Milton's and Dante's, and even Dante's destroyed in consequence. Cromwell's dragoons stalled powers are involved in the delineation of human pastheir steeds in Worcester cathedral; was it less poeti- sions, though in supernatural circumstances. cal, as an object, than before? Ask a foreigner on his ap-made Socrates the greatest of men? His moral truthproach to London, what strikes him as the most poetical his ethics. What proved Jesus Christ the Son of God of the towers before him; he will point out St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey, without, perhaps, knowing the names or associations of either, and pass over the "tower for patent shot," not that, for any thing he knows to the contrary, it might not be the mausoleum of a monarch, or a Waterloo column, or a Trafalgar monument, but because its architecture is obviously inferior. hardly less than his miracles? His moral precepts. And if ethics have made a philosopher the first of men, and have not been disdained as an adjunct to his gospel by the Deity himself, are we to be told that ethical poetry, or didactic poetry, or by whatever name you term it, whose object is to make men better and wiser, is not the very first order of poetry? and are we to be To the question, "whether the description of a game told this too by one of the priesthood? It requires of cards be as poetical, supposing the execution of the more mind, more wisdom, more power, than all the artists equal, as a description of a walk in a forest?" "forests" that ever were "walked" for their "descripit may be answered, that the materials are certainly tion," and all the epics that ever were founded upon not equal; but that "the artist," who has rendered fields of battle. The Georgics are indisputably, and, game of cards poetical," is by far the greater of I believe, undisputedly, even a finer poem than the the two. But all this "ordering" of poets is purely ar- Æneid. Virgil knew this; he did not order them to be bitrary on the part of Mr. Bowles. There may or may not be, in fact, different "orders" of poetry, but the poet is always ranked according to his execution, and not according to his branch of the art. the " burnt. "The proper study of mankind is man.' It is the fashion of the day to lay great stress upon what they call "imagination" and "invention," the two Tragedy is one of the highest presumed orders. commonest of qualities: an Irish peasant, with a little Hughes has written a tragedy, and a very successful one; whiskey in his head, will imagine and invent more Fenton another; and Pope none. Did any man, how-than would furnish forth a modern poem. If Lucretius ever,—will even Mr. Bowles himself rank Hughes and had not been spoiled by the Epicurean system, we Fenton as poets above Pope? Was even Addison (the should have had a far superior poem to any now in author of Cato), or Rowe (one of the higher order of existence. As mere poetry, it is the first of Latin dramatists, as far as success goes), or Young, or even poems. What then has ruined it? His ethics. Pope Otway and Southerne, ever raised for a moment to the has not this defect; his moral is as pure as his poetry sanie rank with Pope in the estimation of the reader is glorious. In speaking of artificial objects, I have or the critic, before his death or since? If Mr. Bowles omitted to touch upon one which I will now mention. will contend for classifications of this kind, let him re- Cannon may be presumed to be as highly poetical as collect that descriptive poetry has been ranked as among art can make her objects. Mr. Bowles will, perhaps, the lowest branches of the art, and description as a mere tell me that this is because they resemble that grand ornament, but which should never form "the subject" natural article of sound in heaven, and simile upon of a poem. The Italians, with the most poetical lan-earth-thunder. I shall be told triumphantly, that guage, and the most fastidious taste in Europe, possess Milton made sad work with his artillery, when he armed now nve great poets, they say, Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, his devils therewithal. He did so; and this artificial Tasso, and lastly Alfieri; and whom do they esteem one object must have had much of the sublime to attract of the highest of these, and some of them the very his attention for such a conflict. He has made an highest? Petrarcn, the sonnetteer: it is true that some of absurd use of it; but the absurdity consists not in his Canzoni are not less esteemed, but not more; who using cannon against the angels of God, but any ever dreams of his Latin Africa? material weapon. The thunder of the clouds would Were Petrarch to be ranked according to the "order" have been as ridiculous and vain in the hands of the of his compositions, where would the best of sonnets devils, as the "villanous saltpetre :" the angels were as place him? with Dante and the others? No: but, as I impervious to the one as to the other. The thunderhave before said, the poet who executes best is the high-bolts became sublime in the hands of the Almighty, not As a man as such, but because he deigns to use them as a means tation of Mi'ton's style, as burlesque as the “ Splendid of repelling the rebel spirits; but no one can attribute Shilling." These two writers (for Cowper is no poet) their defeat to this grand piece of natural electricity: come into comparison in one great work-the transthe Almighty willed, and they fell; his word would have lation of Homer. Now, with all the great, and manibeen enough; and Milton is as absurd (and in fact, fest, and manifold, and reproved, and acknowledged, blasphemous) in putting material lightnings into the and uncontroverted faults of Pope's translation, and hands of the Godhead as in giving him hands at all. all the scholarship, and pains, and time, and trouble, and The artillery of the demons was but the first step of blank verse of the other, who can ever read Cowper? his mistake, the thunder the next, and it is a step lower. and who will ever lay down Pope, unless for the It would have been fit for Jove, but not for Jehovah. original? Pope's was "not Homer, it was Spondanus ;" The subject altogether was essentially unpoetical; he but Cowper's is not Homer, either, it is not even Cowhas made more of it than another could, but it is be- per. As a child I first read Pope's Homer with a rapyond him and all men. ture which no subsequent work could ever afford; and In a portion of his reply, Mr. Bowles asserts that children are not the worst judges of their own lanPope "envied Phillips" because he quizzed his pastorals guage. As a boy I read Homer in the original, as we in the Guardian in that most admirable model of have all done, some of us by force, and a few by irony, his paper on the subject. If there was any favour; under which description I come is nothing to thing enviable about Phillips, it could hardly be his the purpose, it is enough that I read him. pastorals. They were despicable, and Pope expressed I have tried to read Cowper's version, and I found it his contempt. If Mr. Fitzgerald published a volume of impossible. Has any human reader ever succeeded? sonnets, or a "Spirit of Discovery," or a "Missionary," And now that we have heard the Catholic reproached and Mr. Bowles wrote in any periodical journal an with envy, duplicity, licentiousness, avarice-what was ironical paper upon them, would this be "envy?" The the Calvinist? He attempted the most atrocious of authors of the "Rejected Addresses" have ridiculed the crimes in the Christian code, viz. suicide--and why? sixteen or twenty "first living poets" of the day; but Because he was to be examined whether he was fit for do they "envy" them? "Envy" writhes, it don't laugh. an office which he seems to wish to have made a sineThe authors of the "Rejected Addresses" may despise cure. His connexion with Mrs. Unwin was pure enough, some, but they can hardly "envy" any of the persons for the old lady was devout, and he was deranged; but whom they have parodied; and Pope could have no why then is the infirm and then elderly Pope to be remore envied Phillips than he did Welsted, or Theobalds, proved for his connexion with Martha Blount? Cowor Smedley, or any other given hero of the Dunciad. per was the almoner of Mrs. Throgmorton; but Pope's He could not have envied hiin, even had he himself not charities were his own, and they were noble and exbeen the greatest poet of his age. Did Mr. Ings "envy" tensive, far beyond his fortune's warrant. Pope was Mr. Phillips, when he asked him, "how came your Pyrrhus to drive oxen, and say,.I am goaded on by love?" This question silenced poor Phillips; but it no more proceeded from "envy" than did Pope's ridicule. Did he envy Swift? Did he envy Bolingbroke? Did he envy Gay the unparalleled success of his "Beggar's Opera?" We may be answered that these were his friends-true; but does friendship prevent envy? Study the first woman you meet with, or the first scrib-me of a saying of Sheridan's. Soon after the "Rejected Adbler, let Mr. Bowles himself (whom I acquit fully of dress" scene, in 1812, I met Sheridan. In the course of dinsuch an odious quality) study some of his own poetical writers of addresses was Whitbread himself?" I answered ner, he said, “Lord Byron, did you know that amongst the intimates: the most envious man I ever heard of is a by an inquiry of what sort of an address he had made. "Of poet, and a high one; besides it is an universal passion. that," replied Sheridan, "I remember little, except that there A phoenix!! Well, how did he deGoldsmith envied not only the puppets for their danc- was a phenix in it." scribe it?" "Like a poulterer," answered Sheridan "it was ing, and broke his shins in the attempt at rivalry, but green, and yellow, and red, and blue: he did not let us off was seriously angry because two pretty women re- for a single feather." And just such as this poulterer's acceived more attention than he did. This is envy; but count of a phoenix, is Cowper's stick-picker's detail of a wood, where does Pope show a sign of the passion? In that with all its petty minutiae of this, that, and the other. One more poetical instance of the power of art, and even case, Dryden envied the hero of his Mac Flecknoe. Mr. its superiority over nature, in poetry, and I have done :-the Bowles compares, when and where he can, Pope with bust of Antinous! Is there any thing in nature like this Cowper (the same Cowper whom, in his edition of Pope, marble, excepting the Venus? Can there be more poetry gathered into existence than in that wonderful creation of perne laughs at for his attachment to an old woman, Mrs. fect beauty? But the poetry of this bust is in no respect deUnwin: search and you will find it; I remember the rived from nature, nor from any association of moral exalted passage, though not the page); in particular he re-ness; for what is there in common with moral nature and the quotes Cowper's Dutch delineation of a wood, drawn like a seedsman's catalogue,' with an affected imi up 1 I will submit to Mr. Bowles's own judgment a passage from another poem of Cowper's, to be compared with the same writer's Sylvan Sampler. In the .ines to Mary, “Thy needles, once a shining store, contain a simple, household, “indoor," artificial, and ordi nary image. I refer Mr. Bowles to the stanza, and ask if these three lines about "needles" are not worth all the boasted twaddling about trees, so triumphantly re-quoted? and yet in fact what do they convey? A homely collection of images and ideas associated with the darning of stockings, and the hemming of shirts, and the mending of breeches; but will any one deny that they are eminently poetical and pathetic as addressed by Cowper to his nurse? The trash of trees reminds 66 male minion of Adrian? The very execution is not natural but super-natural, or rather super-artificial, for nature has never done so much. Away, then, with this cant about nature and invariabio principles of poetry!" A great artist will make a block of stone as sublime as a mountain, and a good poet can imbue a pack of cards with more poetry than inhabits the forests of America. It is the business and the proof of a poet to give the lie to the proverb, and sometimes to "make a silken purse out of a sow's ear;" and to conclude with another homely proverb, "a good workman will not find fault with his tools the tolerant yet steady adherent of the most bigoted of will not. You, sir, know how far I am sincere, and sects; and Cowper the most bigoted and despondent whether my opinion, not only in the short work insectary that ever anticipated damnation to himself or tended for publication, and in private letters which others. Is this harsh? I know it is, and I do not assert can never be published, has or has not been the same. t as my opinion of Cowper personally, but to show I look upon this as the declining age of English poetry; what might be said, with just as great an appearance of no regard for others, no selfish feeling, can prevent me truth and candour, as all the odium which has been from seeing this, and expressing the truth. There can accumulated upon Pope in similar speculations. Cow-be no worse sign for the taste of the times than the per was a good man, and lived at a fortunate time for depreciation of Pope. It would be better to receive for his works. proof Mr. Cobbet's rough but strong attack upon Mr. Bowles, apparently not relying entirely upon his Shakspeare and Milton, than to allow this smooth and own arguments, has, in person or by proxy, brought "candid" undermining of the reputation of the most forward the names of Southey and Moore. Mr. Southey perfect of our poets and the purest of our moralists. "agrees entirely with Mr. Bowles in his invariable Of his power in the passions, in description, in the principles of poetry." The least that Mr. Bowles can mock-heroic, I leave others to descant. I take him on do in return is to approve the "invariable principles of his strong ground, as an ethical poet: in the former Mr. Southey." I should have thought that the word none excel, in the mock-heroic and the ethical none “invariable” might have stuck in Southey's throat, like equal him; and, in my mind, the latter is the highest Macbeth's "Amen!" I am sure it did in mine, and I of all poetry, because it does that in verse, which the am not the least consistent of the two, at least as a greatest of men have wished to accomplish in prose. voter. Moore (et tu Brute!) also approves, and a Mr. If the essence of poetry must be a lie, throw it to the J. Scott. There is a letter also of two lines from a dogs, or banish it from your republic, as Plato would gentleman in asterisks, who, it seems, is a poet of "the have done. He who can reconcile poetry with truth highest rank "—who can this be? not my friend, Sir and wisdom, is the only true "poet" in its real sense; Walter, surely. Campbell it can't be; Rogers it won't "the maker," "the creator"—why must this mean the be. "liar," the "feigner," "the tale-teller?" A man may make and create better things than these. "You have hit the nail in the head, and **** [Pope, I presume] on the head also." I remain, yours, affectionately, I shall not presume to say that Pope is as high a poet as Shakspeare and Milton, though his enemy, (Four Asterisks.) Warton, places him immediately under them. I would And in asterisks let him remain. Whoever this person no more say this than I would assert in the mosque may be, he deserves, for such a judgment of Midas, (once St. Sophia's), that Socrates was a greater man that "the nail" which Mr. Bowles has hit in the than Mahomet. But if I say that he is very near them, head should be driven through his own ears; I am it is no more than has been asserted of Burns, who is sure that they are long enough. "To rival all but Shakspeare's name below." The attention of the poetical populace of the present day to obtain an ostracism against Pope is as easily ac- I say nothing against this opinion. But of what" order," counted for as the Athenian's shell against Aristides; according to the poetical aristocracy, are Burns's poems? they are tired of hearing him always called "the Just." These are his opus magnum, "Tam O'Shanter," a tale; They are also fighting for life; for if he maintains his the "Cotter's Saturday Night," a descriptive sketch; station, they will reach their own falling. They have some others in the same style; the rest are songs. So raised a mosque by the side of a Grecian temple of the much for the rank of his productions; the rank of purest architecture; and, more barbarous than the Burns is the very first of his art. Of Pope I have ex- barbarians from whose practice I have borrowed the pressed my opinion elsewhere, as also of the effect figure, they are not contented with their own grotesque which the present attempts at poetry have had upon edifice, unless they destroy the prior and purely beauti- our literature. If any great national or natural conful fabric which preceded, and which shames them and vulsion could or should overwhelm your country, in theirs for ever and ever. I shall be told that amongst such sort as to sweep Great Britain from the kingdoms those I have been (or it may be still am) conspicuous of the earth, and leave only that, after all the most true, and I am ashamed of it. I have been amongst living of human things, a dead language, to be studied the builders of this Babel, attended by a confusion of and read, and imitated, by the wise of future and far tongues, but never amongst the envious destroyers of generations upon foreign shores; if your literature the classic temple of our predecessor. I have loved should become the learning of mankind, divested of and honoured the fame and name of that illustrious party cabals, temporary fashions, and national pride and unrivalled man, far more than my own paltry and prejudice; an Englishman, anxious that the posrenown, and the trashy jingle of the crowd of terity of strangers should know that there had been *schools" and upstarts, who pretend to rival, or even such a thing as a British Epic and Tragedy, might wish surpass him. Sooner than a single leaf should be turn from his laurel, it were better that all which these men, and that I, as one of their set, have ever written, should for the preservation of Shakspeare and Milton; but the surviving world would snatch Pope from the wreck, and let the rest sink with the people. He is the moral poet of all civilization, and, as such, let us hope that he will one day be the national poet of mankind. He "Line trunks, clothe spice, or, fluttering in a row, is the only poet that never shocks; the only poet whose Beftinge the rails of Bedlam or Soho!" |faultlessness has been made his reproach. Cast Cast your There are those who will believe this, and those who eye over his productions; consider their extent, and contemplate their variety:-pastoral, passion, mock-while the virtues he omitted from his catalogue- are heroic, translation, satire, ethics,—all excellent, and essential to the justice due to a man. often perfect. If his great charm be his melody, how comes it that foreigners adore him even in their diluted translation? But I have made this letter too long. Give my compliments to Mr. Bowles. Yours ever, very truly, BYRON. Mr. Bowles appears, indeed, to be susceptible beyond the privilege of authorship. There is a plaintive dedication to Mr. Gifford, in which he is made responsible for all the articles of the Quarterly. Mr. Southey, it seems, "the most able and eloquent writer in that Review," approves of Mr. Bowles's publication. Now, it seems To J. Murray, Esq. to me the more impartial, that, notwithstanding that the Post scriptum.--Long as this letter has grown, I great writer of the Quarterly entertains opinions opfind it necessary to append a postscript,—if possible, a posite to the able article on Spence, nevertheless that short one. Mr. Bowles denies that he has accused Pope essay was permitted to appear. Is a review to be deof "a sordid money-getting passion ;" but he adds "if voted to the opinions of any one man? Must it not I had ever done so, I should be glad to find any testi- vary according to circumstances, and according to the mony that might show me he was not so." This testi- subjects to be criticised? I fear that writers must take mony he may find to his heart's content in Spence the sweets and bitters of the public journals as they and elsewhere. First, there, is Martha Blount, who, occur, and an author of so long a standing as Mr. Bowles Mr. Bowles charitably says, "probably thought he did might have become accustomed to such incidents; he not save enough for her as legatee." Whatever she might be angry, but not astonished. I have been rethought upon this point, her words are in Pope's favour. viewed in the Quarterly almost as often as Mr. Bowles, Then there is Alderman Barber-see Spence's Anec- and have had as pleasant things said, and some as undotes. There is Pope's cold answer to Halifax, when he pleasant, as could well be pronounced. In the review proposed a pension; his behaviour to Craggs and to of "The Fall of Jerusalem," it is stated that I have deAddison upon like occasions; and his own two lines-voted "my powers, etc. to the worst parts of mani"And, thanks to Homer, since I live and thrive, Indebted to no prince or peer alive-" cheism," which, being interpreted, means that I worship the devil. Now, I have neither written a reply, nor letter to you, that I thought "that the critic might have praised Milman without finding it necessary to abuse me;" but did I not add at the same time, or soon after (apropos, of the note in the book of travels), that I would not, if it were even in my power, have a single line cancelled on my account in that nor in any other written when princes would have been proud to pen-complained to Gifford. I believe that I observed in a sion, and peers to promote him, and when the whole army of dunces were in array against him, and would have been but too happy to deprive him of this boast of independence. But there is something a little more serious in Mr. Bowles's declaration, that he "would have spoken" of his "noble generosity to the outcast, Richard Savage," and other instances of a compassionate and publication?-Of course, I reserve to myself the privigenerous heart, "had they occurred to his recollection when lege of response when necessary. Mr. Bowles seems in he wrote." What! is it come to this? Does Mr. Bowles a whimsical state about the article on Spence. You sit down to write a minute and laboured life and edition know very well that I am not in your confidence, nor of a great poet? Does he anatomize his character, in that of the conductor of the journal. The moment moral and poetical? Does he present us with his faults I saw that article, I was morally certain that I knew the and with his foibles? Does he sneer at his feelings, and author "by his style." You will tell me that I do not doubt of his sincerity? Does he unfold his vanity and know him: that is all as it should be; keep the secret, duplicity? and then omit the good qualities which so shall I, though no one has ever entrusted it to me. might, in part, have "covered this multitude of sins?" He is not the person whom Mr. Bowles denounces. Mr. and then plead that "they did not occur to his recollection?" Bowles's extreme sensibility reminds me of a circumIs this the frame of mind and of memory with which the stance which occurred on board of a frigate, in which illustrious dead are to be approached? If Mr. Bowles, I was a passenger and guest of the captain's for a conwho must have had access to all the means of refreshing siderable time. The surgeon on board, a very gentle his memory, did not recollect these facts, he is unfit for manly young man, and remarkably able in his profes his task; but if he did recollect, and omit them, I know sion, wore a wig. Upon this ornament he was extremely not what he is fit for, but I know what would be fit tenacious. As naval jests are sometimes a little rough, for him. Is the plea of "not recollecting" such promi- his brother-officers made occasional allusions to this nent facts to be admitted? Mr. Bowles has been at a delicate appendage to the doctor's person. One day a public school, and, as I have been publicly educated young lieutenant, in the course of a facetious discusalso, I can sympathize with his predilection. When we sion, said, "Suppose, now, doctor, I should take off were in the third form even, had we pleaded on the your hat." "Sir," replied the doctor, "I shall talk no Monday morning, that we had not brought up the Satur- longer with you; you grow scurrilous." He would not day's exercise because "we had forgotten it," what even admit so near an approach as to the hat which would have been the reply? And is an excuse, which protected it. In like manner, if any body approaches would not be pardoned to a school-boy, to pass current Mr. Bowles's laurels, even in his outside capacity of an in a matter which so nearly concerns the fame of the editor, "they grow scurrilous." You say that you are first poet of his age, if not of his country? If Mr. Bowles about to prepare an edition of Pope; you cannot d› so readily forgets the virtues of others, why complain | better for your own credit as a publisher, nor for the res so grievously that others have a better memory for his demption of Pope from Mr. Bowles, and of the pubic own faults? They are but the faults of an author; taste from rapid degeneracy. A Fragment. June 17, 1816. duct of my intended journey. It was my secret wisn In the year 17-, having for some time determined that he might be prevailed on to accompany me: it was on a journey through countries not hitherto much fre- also a probable hope, founded upon the shadowy restquented by travellers, I set out, accompanied by a friend | lessness which I had observed in him, and to which the whom I shall designate by the name of Augustus Dar-animation which he appeared to feel on such subjects, vell. He was a few years my elder, and a man of con- and his apparent indifference to all by which he was siderable fortune and ancient family-advantages which more immediately surrounded, gave fresh strength. an extensive capacity prevented him alike from under- This wish I first hinted, and then expressed: his answer, valuing or overrating. Some peculiar circumstances in though I had partly expected it, gave me all the pleasure his private history had rendered him to me an object of surprise--he consented; and, after the requisite arof attention, of interest, and even of regard, which rangements, we commenced our voyages. After journeyneither the reserve of his manners, nor occasional indi-ing through various countries of the south of Europe, cations of an inquietude at times nearly approaching to our attention was turned towards the east, according alienation of mind, could extinguish. to our original destination; and it was in my progress through those regions that the incident occurred which will turn what I may have to relate. t upon present ner, which ill corresponded with his eagerness to proceed on what I regarded as a mere party of pleasure, little suited to a valetudinarian; but I opposed him no longer -and in a few days we set off together, accompanied only by a serrugee and a single janizary. I was yet young in life, which I had begun early; but my intimacy with him was of a recent date: we had been educated at the same schools and university; but The constitution of Darvell, which must, from his his progress through these had preceded inine, and he appearance, have been in early life more than usually had been deeply initiated into what is called the world, robust, had been for some time gradually giving way, while I was yet in my noviciate. While thus engaged, I without the intervention of any apparent disease: he had heard much both of his past and present life; and, had neither cough nor hectic, yet he became daily although in these accounts there were many and irre- more enfeebled: his habits were temperate, and he concilable contradictions, I could still gather from the neither declined nor complained of fatigue, yet he was whole that he was a being of no common order, and evidently wasting away: he became more and more one who, whatever pains he might take to avoid re-silent and sleepless, and at length so seriously altered, mark, would still be remarkable. I had cultivated his that my alarm grew proportionate to what I conceived acquaintance subsequently, and endeavoured to obtain to be his danger. his friendship, but this last appeared to be unattainable; We had determined, on our arrival at Smyrna, on whatever affections he might have possessed seemed an excursion to the ruins of Ephesus and Sardis, from now, some to have been extinguished, and others to be which I endeavoured to dissuade him, in his concentred: that his feelings were acute, I had suffi-state of indisposition-but in vain: there appeared to be cient opportunities of observing; for, although he could an oppression on his mind, and a solemnity in his mancontrol, he could not altogether disguise them: still he had a power of giving to one passion the appearance of another in such a manner that it was difficult to define the nature of what was working within him; and the expressions of his features would vary so rapidly, though slightly, that it was useless to trace them to their sources. We had passed half-way towards the remains of It was evident that he was a prey to some cureless dis- Ephesus, leaving behind us the more fertile environs of quiet; but whether it arose from ambition, love, re- Smyrna, and were entering upon that wild and tenmorse, grief, from one or all of these, or merely from antless track through the marshes and defiles which a morbid temperament akin to disease, I could not dis-lead to the few huts yet lingering over the broken colcover: there were circumstances alleged which might umns of Diana-the roofless walls of expelled Christihave justified the application to each of these causes; anity, and the still more recent but complete desolation but, as I have before said, these were so contradictory of abandoned mosques-when the sudden and rapid illand contradicted, that none could be fixed upon withness of my companion obliged us to halt at a Turkish accuracy. Where there is mystery, it is generally sup- cemetery, the turbaned tombstones of which were the posed that there must also be evil: I know not how this sole indication that human life had ever been a sojourner may be, but in him there certainly was the one, though in this wilderness. The only caravansera we had seen I could not ascertain the extent of the other-and felt was left some hours behind us; not a vestige of a town loth, as far as regarded himself, to believe in its exist- or even cottage, was within sight or hope, and this "city ence. My advances were received with sufficient cold- jof the dead" appeared to be the sole refuge for my unness; but I was young, and not easily discouraged, and fortunate friend, who seemed on the verge of becoming at length succeeded in ohtaining, to a certain degree, the last of its inhabitants. that commonplace intercourse and moderate confidence In this situation, I looked round for a place where he of common and every-day concerns, created and ce- might most conveniently repose:-contrary to the usual mented by similarity of pursuit and frequency of meet- aspect of Mahometan burial-grounds, the cypresses ing, which is called intimacy, or friendship, according to were in this few in number, and these thinly scattered the ideas of him who uses those words to express them. over its extent: the tombstones were mostly fallen, ard Darvell had already travelled extensively, and to him worn with age: upon one of the most considerable 、 f I had applied for information with regard to the con- these, and beneath one of the most spreading træes |