so curious and so rare, whose images are only visible when liquor is poured into it.' Upon the whole it was his opinion, from the specimens which they had heard, and which, he begged to say, were the most tiresome part of the journey, that whatever other merits this well-dressed young gentleman might possesspoetry was by no means his proper avocation: and indeed,' concluded the critic, from his fondness for flowers and for birds, I would venture to suggest that a florist or a bird catcher is a much more suitable calling for him than a poet.' They had now begun to ascend those barren mountains, which separate Cashmere from the rest of India; and, as the heats were intolerable, and the time of their encampment limited to the few hours necessary for refreshment and repose, there was an end to all their delightful evenings, and Lalla Rookh saw no more of Feramorz. She now felt that her short dream of happiness was over, and that she had nothing but the recollection of its few blissful hours, like the one draught of sweet water that serves the camel across the wilderness. to be her heart's refreshment during the dreary waste of life that was before her. The blight that had tanen upon her spirits soon found its way to her cheek, and her ladies saw with regret-though not without some suspicion of the cause-that the beauty of their mistress, of which they were almost as proud as of their own, was fast vanishing away at the very moment of all when she had most need of it. What must the King of Bucharia feel, when, instead of the lively and beautiful Lalla Rookh, whom the poets of Delhi had described as more perfect than the divinest images in the House of Azor,1 he should receive a pale and inanimate victim, upon whose cheek neither health nor pleasure bloomed, and from whose eyes Love had fled,-to hide himself in her heart! If anything could have charmed away the melancholy of her spirits, it would have been the fresh airs and enchanting scenery of that Valley, which the Persians so justly called the Unequalled. But neither the coolness of its atmosphere, so luxurious after toiling up those bare and burning mountains-neither the splendour of the minarets and pagodas, that shone out from the depth of its woods, nor the grottos, hermitages, and miraculous fountains which make every spot of that region holy ground;-neither the countless waterfalls, that rush into the Valley from all those high and romantic mountains that encircle it, nor the fair city on the Lake, whose houses, roofed with flowers,3 appeared at a distance like one vast and variegated parterre ;-not all these wonders and glories of the most lovely country under the sun could steal her heart for a 1 More perfect than the divinest images in the House of Azor.-An eminent carver of idols, said in the Koran to be father to Abraham. 'I have such a lovely idol as is not to be met with in the house of Azor.'-Hafiz. The grottos, hermitages, and miraculous fountains.The pardonable superstition of the sequestered inhabitants has multiplied the places of worship of Mahadeo, of Beschan, and of Brama. All Cashmere is holy land, and miraculous fountains abound.'-Major Rennell's Memoirs of a Map of Hindostan. Jehan-Guire mentious a fountain in Cashmire called Tirnagh, which signifies a snake; probably because some large snake had formerly been seen there. During the lifetime of my father, I went twice to this fountain which is about twenty coss from the city of Cashmeer. The vestiges of places of worship and sanctity are to be traced without number amongst the ruins and the caves, which are interspersed in its neighbourhood.'-Toozek Jehangeery. Vide Asiat. Misc. vol. ii. There is another account of Cashmere by Abul-Fazil, the author of the Ayin-Acbaree, Who,' says Major Rennell, appears to have caught some of the enthusiasm of the Valley, by his descriptions of the holy places in it.' 3 Whose houses, roofed with flowers.-On a standing roof of wool is laid a covering of fine earth, which shelters the building from the great quantity of snow that falls in the winter season. This fence communicates an equal warmth in winter, as a refreshing coolness in the summer season, when the tops of the houses, which are planted with a variety of flowers, exhibit at a distance the spacious view of a beautifullychequered parterre.'-Forster. minute from those sad thoughts, which but darkened and grew bitterer every step she advanced. The gay pomps and processions that met her upon her entrance into the Valley, and the magnificence with which the roads all along were decorated, did honour to the taste and gallantry of the young King. It was night when they approached the city, and, for the last two miles, they had passed under arches. thrown from hedge to hedge, festooned with only those rarest roses from which the Attar Gul, more precious than gold, is distilled, and illuminated in rich and fanciful forms with lanterns of the triple-coloured tortoise-shell of Pegu. Sometimes, from a dark wood by the side of the road, a display of fireworks would break out so sudden and so brilliant, that a Bramin might think he saw that grove, in whose purple shade the God of Battles was born, bursting into a flame at the moment of his birth.-While, at other times, a quick and playful irradia tion continued to brighten all the fields and gardens by which they passed, forming a line of dancing lights along the horizon; like the meteors of the north as they are seen by those hunters who pursue the white and blue foxes on the confines of the Icy Sea. These arches and fireworks delighted the ladies of the Princess exceedingly; and, with their usual good logic, they deduced from his taste for illuminations that the King of Bucharia would make the most exemplary husband imaginable. Nor, indeed, could Lalla Rookh herself help feeling the kindness and splendour with which the young bridegroom welcomed her;-but she also felt how painful is the gratitude which kindness from those we cannot love excites; and that their best blaudishments come over the heart with all that chilling and deadly sweetness which we can fancy in the cold, odoriferous wind3 that is to blow over this earth in the last days. The marriage was fixed for the morning after her arrival, when she was, for the first time, to be presented to the monarch in that imperial palace beyond the Lake, called the Shalimar. Though a night of more wakeful and anxious Chought had never been passed in the Happy Valley before, yet, when she rose in the morning and her ladies came round her, to assist in the adjustment of the bridal ornaments, they thought they had never seen her look half so beautiful. What she had lost of the bloom and radiancy of her charms was more than made up by that intellectual expression, that soul in the eyes, which is worth all the rest of loveliness. When they had tinged her fingers with the henna leaf, and placed upon her brow a small coronet of jewels, of the shape worn by the ncient Queens of Bucharia, they flung over her head the rose-coloured bridal reil, and she proceeded to the barge that was to convey her across the lake ;first kissing, with a mournful look, the little amulet of cornelian which her father had hung about her neck at parting The morning was as fair as the maid upon whose nuptials it rose, and the shining Lake, all covered with boats, the minstrels playing upon the shores of the islands, and the crowded summer-houses on the green hills around, with shawls and banners waving from their roofs, presented such a picture of animated rejoicing, as only she, who was the object of it all, did not feel with transport. To Lalla Rookh alone it was a melancholy pageant; nor could she Lanterns of the triple-coloured tortoise-shell of Pegu.-Two hundred slaves there are, who have no other office than to hunt the woods and marshes for triple-coloured tortoises for the King's Vivary. Of the shells of these also lanterns are made.'- Vincent le Blanc's Travels. 2 The meteors of the north as they are seen by those hunters. For a description of the Aurora Borealis as it appears to these hunters, vide 3 The cold, odoriferous wind. - This wind, which is to blow from Syria Damascena, is, decording to the Mahometans, one of the signs of the Last Day's approach. Another of the signs is, Great distress in the world, so that a man when he passes by another's have even borne to look upon the scene, were it not for a hope that, among the crowds around, she might once more perhaps catch a glimpse of Feramorz. So much was her imagination haunted by this thought, that there was scarcely an islet or boat she passed, at which her heart did not flutter with a momentary fancy that he was there. Happy, in her eyes, the humblest slave upon whom the light of his dear looks fell!-In the barge immediately after the Princess was Fadladeen, with his silken curtains thrown widely apart, that all might have the benefit of his august presence, and with his head full of the speech he was to deliver to the King, 'concerning Feramorz, and literature, and the chabuk, as connected therewith.' They had now entered the canal which leads from the Lake to the splendid domes and saloons of the Shalimar, and glided on through gardens ascending from each bank, full of flowering shrubs that made the air all perfume; while from the middle of the canal rose jets of water, smooth and unbroken, to suck a dazzling height, that they stood like pillars of diamond in the sunshine. After sailing under the arches of various saloons, they at length arrived at the last and most magnificent, where the monarch awaited the coming of his bride; and such was the agitation of her heart and frame, that it was with difficulty she walked up the marble steps, which were covered with cloth of gold for her ascent from the barge. At the end of the hall stood two thrones, as precious as the Cerulean Throne of Koolburga, on one of which sat Aliris, the youthful King of Bucharia, and on the other was, in a few minutes, to be placed the most beautiful Princess in the world.-Immediately upon the entrance of Lalla Rookh into the saloon, the monarch descended from his throne to meet her; but, scarcely had he time to take her hand in his, when she screamed with surprise and fainted at his feet. It was Feramorz himself that stood before her!-Feramorz was, himself, the Sovereign of Bucharia, who in this disguise had accompanied his young bride from Delhi, and, having won her love as an humble minstrel, now amply deserved to enjoy it as a king. The consternation of Fadladeen at this discovery was, for the moment, almost pitiable. But change of opinion is a resource too convenient in courts for this experienced courtier not to have learned to avail himself of it. His criticisms were all, of course, recanted instantly; he was seized with an admiration of the King's verses, as unbounded as, he begged him to believe, it was disinterested; and the following week saw him in possession of an additional place, swearing by all the saints of Islam that never had there existed so great a poet as the monarch, Aliris, and ready to prescribe his favourite regimen of the chabuk for every man, woman, and child that dared to think otherwise. Of the happiness of the King and Queen of Bucharia, after such a beginning, there can be but little doubt; and, among the lesser symptoms, it is recorded of Lalla Rookh, that to the day of her death, in memory of their delightful journey, she never called the King by any other name than Feramorz. grave shall say, "Would to God I were in his precious stones of immense value. Every prince place!"-Sale's Preliminary Discourse. of the house of Bhamenee, who possessed this The cerulean throne of Koolburga.-On Mo-throne, made a point of adding to it some rich hammed Shaw's return to Koolburga (the capital of Dekkan), he made a great festival, and mounted this throne with much pomp and magnificence, calling it Firozeh or Cerulean. I have heard some old persons, who saw the throne Firozeh in the reign of Sultan Mamood Bhame nee, describe it. They say that it was in length nine feet, and three in breadth; made of ebony, covered with plates of pure gold, and set with stones, so that when in the reign of Sultan Mamood it was taken to pieces, to remove some of the jewels to be set in vases and cups, the jewellers valued it at one corore of oons (nearly four millions sterling.) I learned also that it was called Firozeh from being partly enamelled of a sky-blue colour, which was in time totally concealed by the number of jewels.'-Ferishta. THE FUDGE FAMILY IN PARIS. 1818. EDITED BY THOMAS BROWN, THE YOUNGER. AUTHOR OF THE TWOPENNY POST BAG. Le Leggi della Maschera richiedono che una persona mascherata non sia salutata per nome da uno che la conosce malgrado il suo travestimento-Castiglione, PREFACE. IN what manner the following Epistles came into my hands, it is not necessary for the public to know. It will be seen by Mr. Fudge's Second Letter, that he is one of those gentlemen whose Secret Services in Ireland, under the mild ministry of my Lord C-gh, have been so amply and gratefully remunerated. Like his friend and associate, Thomas Reynolds, Esq., he had retired upon the reward of his honest industry; but has lately been induced to appear again in active life, and superintend the training of that Delatorian Cohort which Lord S-dm-th, in his wisdom and benevolence, has organized. Whether Mr. Fudge himself has yet made any discoveries, does not appear from the following pages; but much may be expected from a person of his zeal and sagacity; and, indeed, to him, Lord S-dm-th, and the Greenland-bound ships, the eyes of all lovers of discoveries are now most anxiously directed. I regret that I have been obliged to omit Mr. Bob Fudge's Third Letter, concluding the adventures of his Day with the Dinner, Opera, &c. &c.; but in consequence of some remarks upon Marinette's thin drapery, which it was thought might give offence to certain well-meaning persons, the manuscript was sent back to Paris for his revision, and had not returned when the last sheet was put to press. It will not, I hope, be thought presumptuous if I take this opportunity of complaining of a very serious injustice I have suffered from the public. Dr. King wrote a treatise to prove that Bentley was not the author of his own book; and a similar absurdity has been asserted of me, in almost all the best informed literary circles. With the name of the real author staring them in the face, they have yet persisted in attributing my works to other people; and the fame of the Twopenny Post Bag-such as it is-having hovered doubtfully over various persons, has at last settled upon the head of a certain little gentleman, who wears it, I understand, as complacently as if it actually belonged to him, without even the honesty of avowing, with his own favourite author (he will excuse the pun), Εγω δ' 'Ο ΜΩΡΟΣ αρας I can only add, that if any lady or gentleman, curious in such matters, will take the trouble of calling at my lodgings, 245, Piccadilly, I shall have the honour of assuring them, in propriâ personá, that I am-his, or her, Very obedient and very humble servant, April 17, 1818. THOMAS BROWN, THE YOUNGER. THE FUDGE FAMILY IN PARIS. FROM MISS BIDDY FUDGE ΤΟ MISS DOROTHY IRELAND. OF CLONSKILTY, IN In vain, at Dessein's, did I take from my trunk That divine fellow, Sterne, and fall reading The Monk! In vain did I think of his charming dead Ass, And remember the crust and the wallet--alas! No monks can be had now for love or for money (All owing, Pa says, to that infidel Boney); And, though one little Neddy we saw in our drive Out of classical Nampont, the beast was alive! By the by, though, at Calais, Papa had a touch Of romance on the pier, which affected me much. At the sight of that spot, where our darling Set the first of his own dear legitimate feet1 (Modelled out so exactly, and-God bless the mark ! 'Tis a foot, Dolly, worthy so Grand a M-que), To commemorate the landing of Louis XVIII. from England, the impression of his foot is marked on the pier at Calais, and a pillar with an inscription raised opposite to the spot |