Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

A TALE OF ISPAHAN.

BY MISS JANE PORTER.

Far in the East,-behold, in letters, arms,
Fair mien, discourses, civil exercises,
All the full blazon of a gentleman.

WHEN Robert, the young and aspiring brother of Sir Anthony Shirley, the first noted British traveller in Persia, arrived there,-also bearing a special mission from the King of Engiand to that court,-he was lost in wonder at the magnificence of Ispahan; then the most celebrated city of the East, for regal splendor, chivalric spectacle, and a display of merchandise unrivalled in the proudest emporiums of Europe.

Robert Shirley had left the British metropolis, under a conviction, that nothing in architecture could be more august, than the embattled towers, and gothic pinnacles, which adorned its structures, public and private; nothing more refreshingly de

lightful, than the elms' walks in Saint James's Park, or the holly vistas in the old Palace, and Temple Gardens, sloping their smooth green terraces down to the river side. Then, for the gaiety of festival, what could transcend the lists in the tilt-yard of Westminster, where a maiden queen sat, amidst her ladies, dispensing the rewards of knightly prowess! That was, indeed, passed away;-the sometime waning star of the royal Elizabeth had set in the grave; but a prince, reported wise and brave, now held the sceptre, and what might not be expected of gallantry and grace from the son of Mary Stuart! His first acts honored the hopes of men.

Elizabeth having taken note of Anthony, the elder brother of Robert Shirley, for good service to his country, in useful observation, and happy influence at the court of the young Shah Abbas, even while only a traveller,-first signalized him by the honour of knighthood, and then created him her ambassador with the Persian king. And, such was the brave knight's sway with that accomplished prince, by the power of character alone, founded in spotless faith and romantic heroism, that Elizabeth held no ally more enthusiastically devoted than the Sophi Shah. He wore her picture (painted, indeed, when she was very young, with something of a flattering pencil,) upon his heart. It was fair, and smiling; seeming a lovely girl, who might have placed a crested diadem

upon her head in sport, had not the jewelled garter round it borne a sterner assurance. Cœur de Lion was its motto; and the gallant Abbas was fond of calling her his "Lion Bride." The present mission of the younger brother of the British resident-minister, could not, then, be very acceptable to the Persian monarch, when it brought intelligence that, instead of this bright and cherished object of his chivalric idolatry, a successor of "beard and batôn" now sent him greeting.

Abbas, however, received the herald of so illustrious a decease, and worthy an heirship, with every distinction due to his own dignity, and that of the sovereign whence he came; and Robert Shirley first beheld the great Shah of Persia in his hall of audience, on a throne of such splendor, mingling with his diamond-set corslet, that he shone one blaze of light. All his people bowed at sight of him, in like manner with their ancestors before the noon-day sun. But, to the messenger of his new ally, to the brother of his personal friend, this earthly successor to the solar deity gave a welcome, in which majesty and graciousness were so blended that Shirley felt his imagination dazzled, even more than his eyes. To him it was a day of wonders; and, in the evening, he retired from the palace of the Heste Beheste, or Seven Paradises, in speechless admiration of all which he had seen and heard.

The palace, itself, was more like a vision of fairyland than a fabric raised by mortal hands. Every kind of marble, of gorgeous painting, burnished gold and silver, precious stones, carved work, and compartments of mirror reflecting those components in every possible direction, gave so endless a variety and infinity of parts, that the gazer hardly knew where to look for the grand reality or the splendid, bewildering illusion. Then, for the gardens, so aptly named after that of Eden, every thing that nature or art could do with the sylvan world,— from the magnificent cedar to the elegant chenar, from the pomegranate, laden with fruit, to the rose of Shiraz, perfuming the air from forests of fragrance, --all were collected there; mingling with grottoes, fountains, streams, and every luxury of coolness and shade that make earth feel like heaven, to the senses of the sun-burnt Asiatic. Indeed, the traveller from England hailed such soft freshness, in such a hemisphere, with delighted surprise.

But the tournament which he was, next day, taken to see, in the Moidan Shah, or Great Royal Square of Ispahan, was, to his taste, who had lately won his own spurs in the list,—a yet more amazing and interesting spectacle. The place itself is a quadrangle, about two thousand six hundred feet in length, surrounded by ranges of building adapted to the different purposes for which they were designed. A portion of

each side of the square, is occupied by a double arcade, beneath which, every rich commodity, from all quarters of the globe, was disposed for sale ; while, in the centre, an immense area presented itself, where the royal guards exercised, or the nobility exhibited their chivalry. But, the features of this celebrated Square which more particularly distinguished it, beyond all other similar objects in the noted cities of Asia, were four majestic edifices, each occupying parallel situations in the sides of the quadrangle. Two were dedicated to religion; two were called Gates,-the Gates of the East,— meaning structures erected for public uses,―immense as palaces. One of the mosques,-and, certainly, the most superb,-stood in the south-east. Having been finished under the command of the reigning monarch, it received the title of Mesjed Shah, (literally, the Mosque of the King). Its ample cupola, and four towering minarets, each at the extremities of a grand porch-way leading from the Square to the domed body of the building, were all decorated with a brilliancy of exterior ornament that time cannot injure, in that pure atmosphere. The second, and more ancient mosque, though of less imposing dimensions, occupied the north-east point of the Moidan Shah; while the north-west presented the great gate of entrance from the Bazaar-the mercantile world of Ispahan; and, over its rainbow-stretching arch, shone

S

« ForrigeFortsæt »