were set forth with an eloquence and intensity of description which had a contagious effect. On the copy sent to Scott, Lord Byron inscribed-"To the Monarch of Parnassus, from one of his subjects; " and Scott, on the other hand, observed to Ballantyne, "Byron hits the mark where I don't pretend to fledge my arrow." With his usual manliness he hastened to acknowledge, that, from the publication of "Childe Harold," his star had paled before the lurid light of this flaming meteor. While the Tales of Scott had lost the freshness of novelty, and his later performances had not kept to the pitch of his earlier pieces, Lord Byron was displaying the firstfruits of a genius that in poetic power was the superior of the two. In the prodigality of his images; in the luxuriance, vigour, and polish of his style; in the thrilling representation of agonising passion; Lord Byron was unapproached by the Minstrel of the North. But by no one was he welcomed more warmly to the course, and with heart and hand Scott joined with the public to place the chaplet from his own brow on the head of his rival. Lord Byron disposed of the copyright of the "Giaour" for 500 guineas.

THE GIAOUR.

No breath of air to break the wave
That rolls below the Athenian's grave,
That tomb' which, gleaming o'er the cliff,
First greets the homeward-veering skiff,
High o'er the land he saved in vain ;
When shall such hero live again?

Fair clime! where every season smiles
Benignant o'er those blessed isles,
Which, seen from far Colonna's height,
Make glad the heart that hails the sight,
And lend to loneliness delight.
There mildly dimpling, Ocean's cheek
Reflects the tints of many a peak
Caught by the laughing tides that lave
These Edens of the eastern wave:
And if at times a transient breeze
Break the blue crystal of the seas,
Or sweep one blossom from the trees,

How welcome is each gentle air

That wakes and wafts the odours there!?

1 A tomb above the rocks on the promontory, by some supposed the sepulchre of Themistocles.

2

["There shine the bright abodes ye seek,

Like dimples upon Ocean's cheek,
So smiling round the waters lave
These Edens of the eastern wave.

For there the Rose, o'er crag or vale,
Sultana of the Nightingale,'

The maid for whom his melody,

His thousand songs are heard on high,
Blooms blushing to her lover's tale:
His queen, the garden queen, his Rose,
Unbent by winds, unchill'd by snows,
Far from the winters of the west,
By every breeze and season blest,
Returns the sweets by nature given
In softest incense back to heaven;
And grateful yields that smiling sky
Her fairest hue and fragrant sigh.
And many a summer flower is there,
And many a shade that love might share,
And many a grotto, meant for rest,
That holds the pirate for a guest;
Whose bark in sheltering cove below
Lurks for the passing peaceful prow,
Till the gay mariner's guitar'
Is heard, and seen the evening star;
Then stealing with the muffled oar,
Far shaded by the rocky shore,
Rush the night-prowlers on the prey,
And turn to groans his roundelay.

Strange that where Nature loved to trace,

As if for Gods, a dwelling place,

And every charm and grace hath mix'd

Within the paradise she fix'd,

There man, enamour'd of distress,
Should mar it into wilderness,

Or if, at times, the transient breeze
Break the smooth crystal of the seas,
Or brush one blossom from the trees,

How grateful is the gentle air

That waves and wafts the fragrance there."-MS.

The whole of this passage, from line 7 down to line 167, "Who heard it first had cause to grieve," was not in the first edition.]

3 The attachment of the nightingale to the rose is a well-known Persian fable. If I mistake not, the "Bulbul of a thousand tales" is one of his appellations.

4 The guitar is the constant amusement of the Greek sailor by night; with a steady fair wind, and during a calm, it is accompanied always by the voice, and often by dancing.

And trample, brute-like, o'er each flower
That tasks not one laborious hour;
Nor claims the culture of his hand
To bloom along the fairy land,
But springs as to preclude his care,
And sweetly woos him-but to spare!
Strange that where all is peace beside,
There passion riots in her pride,
And lust and rapine wildly reign
To darken o'er the fair domain.
It is as though the fiends prevail'd
Against the seraphs they assail'd,

And, fix'd on heavenly thrones, should dwell
The freed inheritors of hell;

So soft the scene, so form'd for joy,

So curst the tyrants that destroy!

He who hath bent him o'er the dead

Ere the first day of death is fled,
The first dark day of nothingness,

The last of danger and distress,
(Before Decay's effacing fingers

Have swept the lines where beauty lingers,)
And mark'd the mild angelic air,

The rapture of repose that's there,"

The fix'd yet tender traits that streak
The languor of the placid cheek,
And-but for that sad shrouded eye,

That fires not, wins not, weeps not, now,
And but for that chill, changeless brow,
Where cold Obstruction's apathy

6

Appals the gazing mourner's heart,”
As if to him it could impart

5 ["And mark'd the almost dreaming air,

Which speaks the sweet repose that's there."-MS.]

6 'Ay, but to die and go we know not where,

To lye in cold obstruction?"

Measure for Measure, Act iii. sc. 2.

["Whose touch thrills with mortality,

And curdles at the gazer's heart."-MS.]

The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon;
Yes, but for these and these alone,
Some moments, ay, one treacherous hour,
He still might doubt the tyrant's power;
So fair, so calm, so softly seal'd,
The first, last look by death reveal'd!"
Such is the aspect of this shore;
'Tis Greece, but living Greece no more!
So coldly sweet, so deadly fair,
We start, for soul is wanting there.
Hers is the loveliness in death,

That parts not quite with parting breath;
But beauty with that fearful bloom,
That hue which haunts it to the tomb,
Expression's last receding ray,

A gilded halo hovering round decay,

The farewell beam of Feeling past away!

Spark of that flame, perchance of heavenly birth,
Which gleams, but warms no more its cherish'd earth!

Clime of the unforgotten brave!'
Whose land from plain to mountain-cave
Was Freedom's home or Glory's grave!
Shrine of the mighty! can it be,
That this is all remains of thee?
Approach, thou craven crouching slave:
Say, is not this Thermopyla?

8 I trust that few of my readers have ever had an opportunity of witnessing what is here attempted in description; but those who have will probably retain a painful remembrance of that singular beauty which pervades, with few exceptions, the features of the dead, a few hours, and but for a few hours, after "the spirit is not there." It is to be remarked in cases of violent death by gun-shot wounds, the expression is always that of languor, whatever the natural energy of the sufferer's character; but in death from a stab the countenance preserves its traits of feeling or ferocity, and the mind its bias, to the last.

9 [There is infinite beauty and effect, though of a painful and almost oppressive character, in this extraordinary passage; in which the author has illustrated the beautiful, but still and melancholy aspect of the once busy and glorious shores of Greece, by an image more true, more mournful, and more exquisitely finished, than any that we can recollect in the whole compass of poetry.-JEFFREY.]

1 [From hence to the conclusion of the paragraph, the MS. is written in a hurried and almost illegible hand, as if these splendid lines had been poured forth in one continuous burst of poetic feeling, which would hardly allow time for the pen to follow the imagination.]