Gracefully waving, in her hand, With which, from time to time, she stirred The fragrant air, and coolly fanned The baby's brow, or brushed away The butterflies that, bright and blue As on the mountains of Malay, Around the sleeping infant flew. And now the fairy boat hath stopped Her golden anchor in the stream; A song is sung by the Peri in approaching, of which the fallowing forms a part: My child she is but half divine; Her father sleeps in the Caspian water; His funeral shrine, But he lives again in the Peri's daughter. To my own sweet bowers of Peristan On flowers of earth her feet must tread; So hither my light-winged bark hath brought her; Stranger, spread Thy leafiest bed, To rest the wandering Peri's daughter. In another of these inchoate fragments, a proud female saint, named Banou, plays a principal part, and her progress through the streets of Cufa, on the night of a great illuminated festival, I find thus described: It was a scene of mirth that drew A smile from even the Saint Banou, As, through the hushed, admiring throng, The rubies of her rosary. But none might see the worldly smile That lurked beneath her veil, the while :— Alla forbid! for, who would wait There are yet two more of these unfinished sketches, one of which extends to a much greater length than I was aware of; and, as far as I can judge from a hasty renewal of my acquaintance with it, it is not incapable of being yet turned to account. In only one of these unfinished sketches, the tale of The Peri's Daughter, had I yet ventured to invoke that most homefelt of all my inspirations, which has lent to the story of The Fire-worshippers its main attraction and interest. That it was my intention, in the concealed Prince of Ormuz, to shadow out some impersonation of this feeling, I take for granted from the prophetic words supposed to be addressed to him by his aged guardian: Bright child of destiny! even now And hail her native Lord in thee! In none of the other fragments do I find any trace of this sort of feeling, either in the subject or the personages of the intended story; and this was the reason, doubtless, though hardly known, at the time, to myself, that, finding my subjects so slow in kindling my own sympathies, I began to despair of their ever touching the hearts of others; and felt often inclined to say, Had this series of disheartening experiments been carried on much further, I must have thrown aside the work in despair. But, at last, fortunately, as it proved, the thought occurred to me of founding a story on the fierce struggle so long maintained between the Ghebers," or ancient Fire-worshippers of Persia, and their haughty Moslem masters. From that moment, a new and deep interest in my whole task took possession of me. The cause of tolerance was again my inspiring theme; and the spirit that had spoken in the melodies of Ireland soon found itself at home in the East. Having thus laid open the secrets of the workshop to account for the time expended in writing this work, I must also, in justice to my own industry, notice the pains I took in long and laboriously reading for it. To form a storehouse, as it were, of illustration purely Oriental, and so familiarize myself with its various treasures, that, as quick as Fancy required the aid of fact, in her spiritings, the memory was ready, like another Ariel, at her "strong bidding," to furnish materials for the spell-work,—such was, for a long while, the sole object of my studies; and whatever time and trouble this preparatory process may have cost me, the effects resulting from it, as far as the humble merit of truthfulness is concerned, have been such as to repay me more than sufficiently for my pains. I have not forgotten how great was my pleasure, when told by the late Sir James Mackintosh, that he was once asked by Colonel W-s, the historian of British India, "whether it was true that Moore had never been in the East." "Never," answered Mackintosh. "Well, that a Voltaire, in his tragedy of « Les Guèbres,” written with a similar undercurrent of meaning, was accused of having transformed his Fire-worshippers into Jansenists:-"Quelques figuristes," he says, "prétendent que les Guèbres sont les Jansenistes." shows me," replied Colonel W-s, "that reading over D'Herbelot is as good as riding on the back of a camel." I need hardly subjoin to this lively speech, that although D'Herbelot's valuable work was, of course, one of my manuals, I took the whole range of all such Oriental reading as was accessible to me; and became, for the time, indeed, far more conversant with all relating to that distant region, than I have ever been with the scenery, productions, or modes of life of any of those countries lying most within my reach. We know that D'Anville, though never in his life out of Paris, was able to correct a number of errors in a plan of the Troad taken by De Choiseul, on the spot; and, for my own very different, as well as far inferior, purposes, the knowledge I had thus acquired of distant localities, seen only by me in my day-dreams, was no less ready and useful. An ample reward for all this painstaking has been found in such welcome tributes as I have just now cited; nor can I deny myself the gratification of citing a few more of the same description. From another distinguished authority on Eastern subjects, the late Sir John Malcolm, I had myself the pleasure of hearing a similar opinion publicly expressed ;-that eminent person, in a speech spoken by him at a Literary Fund Dinner, having remarked, that together with those qualities of the poet which he much too partially assigned to me, was combined also the truth of the historian." Sir William Ouseley, another high authority, in giving his testimony to the same effect, thus notices an exception to the |