heard, and need hardly add, with some pride and pleasure, that parts of this work have been rendered into Persian, and have found their way to Ispahan. To this fact, as I am willing to think it, allusion is made in some lively verses, written many years since, by my friend Mr. Luttrell :— "I'm told, dear Moore, your lays are sung, (Can it be true, you lucky man?) By moonlight, in the Persian tongue, That some knowledge of the work may have really reached that region appears not improbable from a passage in the Travels of Mr. Frazer, who says, that "being delayed for some time at a town on the shores of the Caspian, he was lucky enough to be able to amuse himself with a copy of Lalla Rookh, which a Persian had lent him.” Of the description of Balbec, in "Paradise and the Peri," Mr. Carne, in his Letters from the East, thus speaks: "The description in Lalla Rookh of the plain and its ruins is exquisitely faithful. The minaret is on the declivity near at hand, and there wanted only the muezzin's cry to break the silence." I shall now tax my reader's patience with but one more of these generous vouchers. Whatever of vanity there may be in citing such tributes, they show, at least, of what great value, even in poetry, is that prosaic quality, industry; since, as the reader of the foregoing pages is now fully apprised, it was in a slow and laborious collection of small facts, that the first foundations of this fanciful Romance were laid. The friendly testimony I have just referred to, appeared, some years since, in the form in which I now give it, and, if I recollect right, in the Athenæum :— b "I embrace this opportunity of bearing my individual testimony (if it be of any value) to the extraordinary accuracy of Mr. Moore, in his topographical, antiquarian, and characteristic details, whether of costume, manners, or less-changing monuments, both in his Lalla Rookh and in the Epicurean. It has been my fortune to read his Atlantic, Bermudean, and American Odes and Epistles, in the countries and among the people to which and to whom they related; I enjoyed also the exquisite delight of reading his Lalla Rookh, in Persia itself; and I have perused the Epicurean, while all my recollections of Egypt and its still existing wonders are as fresh as when I quitted the banks of the Nile for Arabia :-I owe it, therefore, as a debt of gratitude (though the payment is most inadequate), for the great pleasure I have derived from his productions, to bear my humble testimony to their local fidelity. "J. S. B." Among the incidents connected with this work, I must not omit to notice the splendid Divertissement, founded upon it, which was acted at the Château Royal of Berlin, during the visit of the Grand Duke Nicholas to that capital, in the year 1822. The different stories composing the work were represented in Tableaux Vivans and songs; and among the crowd of royal and noble personages engaged in the performances, I shall mention those only who represented the principal characters, and whom I find thus enumerated in the published account of the Divertissement.* * Lalla Roûkh, Divertissement mêlé de Chants et de Danses, Berlin, 1822. The work contains a series of coloured engravings, representing groups, processions, &c. in different Oriental costumes. Besides these and other leading personages, there were also brought into action, under the various denominations of Seigneurs et Dames de Bucharie, Dames de Cachemire, Seigneurs et Dames dansans à la Fête des Roses, &c., nearly 150 persons. Of the manner and style in which the Tableaux of the different stories are described in the work from which I cite, the following account of the performance of Paradise and the Peri will afford some specimen : "La décoration représentoit les portes brillantes du Paradis, entourées de nuages. Dans le premier tableau on voyoit la Péri, triste et désolée, couchée sur le seuil des portes fermées, et l'Ange de lumière qui lui adresse des consolations et des conseils. Le second représente le moment où la Péri, dans l'espoir que ce don lui ouvrira l'entrée du Paradis, recueille la dernière goutte de sang que vient de verser le jeune guerrier indien. “La Péri et l'Ange de lumière répondoient pleinement à l'image et à l'idée qu'on est tenté de se faire de ces deux individus, et l'impression qu'a faite généralement la suite des tableaux de cet épisode délicat et intéressant est loin de s'effacer de notre souvenir." In this grand Fête, it appears, originated the translation of Lalla Rookh into German verse, by the Baron de la Motte Fouqué; and the circumstances which led him to undertake the task, are described by himself in a Dedicatory Poem to the Empress of Russia, which he has prefixed to his translation. As soon as the performance, he tells us, had ended, Since this was written, another translation of Lalla Rookh into German verse has been made by Theodor Oelckers (Leipzig, Tauchnitz). Lalla Rookh (the Empress herself) exclaimed, with a sigh, “Is it, then, all over? Are we now at the close of all that has given us so much delight? and lives there no poet who will impart to others, and to future times, some notion of the happiness we have enjoyed this evening?" On hearing this appeal a Knight of Cashmere (who is no other than the poetical Baron himself) comes forward and promises to attempt to present to the world "the Poem itself in the measure of the original :"-whereupon Lalla Rookh, it is added, approvingly smiled. The sixty-nine Illustrations are from Original Drawings by John Tenniel, engraved on wood by the Brothers Dalziel. The five Ornamental Title-pages of Persian design are by T. SULMAN, jun., and were engraved on wood by H. N. Woods. LALLA ROOKH. ILLUMINATED TITLE-PAGE. . [From several ancient MSS. in the Library of the East India House.] He was a youth about LALLA ROOKH's own age To precede page I PAGE I 8 THE VEILED PROPHET OF KHORASSAN. ORNAMENTAL TITLE-PAGE [Principally from a beautiful MS. in the British Museum.] There on that throne, to which the blind belief She saw that youth, too well, too dearly known, All fire at once the madd'ning zeal she caught;— Elect of Paradise; blest, rapturous thought! " She swore, and the wide charnel echoed, Never, never!" At length, with fiendish laugh, like that which broke From EBLIS at the Fall of Man, he spoke. 'Such the refin'd enchantress that must be This hero's vanquisher,—and thou art she!" He raised his veil,-the Maid turn'd slowly round, 40 Now, through the Haram chambers, moving lights 43 46 |