tered the whole set to pieces:· :- an irreparable loss, as many of the vessels were so exquisitely old, as to have been used under the Emperors Yan and Chun, who reigned many ages before the dynasty of Tang. His Koran, too, supposed to be the identical copy between the leaves of which Mahomet's favorite pigeon used to nestle, had been mislaid by his Koranbeater three whole days; not without much spiritual alarm to FADLADEEN, who, though professing to hold with other loyal and orthodox Mussulmans, that salvation could only be found in the Koran, was strongly suspected of believing in his heart, that it could only be found in his own particular copy of it. When to all these grievances is added the obstinacy of the cooks, in putting the pepper of Canara into his dishes instead of the cinnamon of Serendib, we may easily suppose that he came to the task of criticism with, at least, a sufficient degree of irritability for the purpose.

66

"In order," said he, importantly swinging about his chaplet of pearls, "to convey with clearness my opinion of the story this young man has related, it is necessary to take a review of all the stories that have ever -"—"My good FADLADEEN!" exclaimed the Princess, interrupting him, "we really do not deserve that you should give yourself much trouble. Your opinion of the poem we have just heard, will, I have no doubt, be abundantly edifying, without any further waste of your valuable erudition."-"If that be all," replied the critic, - evidently mortified at not being allowed to show how much he knew about every thing but the subject immediately before him"if that be all that is required, the matter is easily dispatched." He then proceeded to analyze the poem, in that strain (so well known to the unfortunate bards of Delhi) whose censures were infliction from which few recovered, and whose very praises were like the honey extracted from the bitter flowers of the aloe. The chief personages of the story were, if he rightly understood them, an ill-favored gentleman, with a veil over his face-a young lady, whose reason went and came, according as it suited the poet's convenience to be sensible or otherwise ;-and a youth in one of those hideous Bucharian bonnets, who took the aforesaid gentleman in a veil for a Divinity.

an

Collection of Curious Observations, &c.;-a bad translation of some parts of the Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses of the Missionary Jesuits.

1 "La lecture de ces Fables plaisoit si fort aux Arabes, que, quand Mahomet les entretenoit de l'Histoire de l'Ancien Testament. ils les méprisoient, lui disant que celles que Nasser

"From such materials," said he, "what can be expected? after rivalling each other in long speeches and absurdities, through some thousands of lines as indigestible as the filberts of Berdaa, our friend in the veil jumps into a tub of aquafortis; the young lady dies in a set speech, whose only recommendation is that it is her last; and the lover lives on to a good old age, for the laudable purpose of seeing her ghost, which he at last happily accomplishes, and expires. This, you will allow, is a fair summary of the story; and if Nasser, the Arabian merchant, told no better, our Holy Prophet (to whom be all honor and glory!) had no need to be jealous of his abilities for storytelling."

With respect to the style, it was worthy of the matter;-it had not even those politic contrivances of structure, which make up for the commonness of the thoughts by the peculiarity of the manner, nor that stately poetical phraseology by which sentiments mean in themselves, like the blacksmith's apron converted into a banner, are so easily gilt and embroidered into consequence. Then, as to the versification, it was, to say no worse of it, execrable: it had neither the copious flow of Ferdosi, the sweetness of Hafez, nor the sententious march of Sadi; but appeared to him, in the uneasy heaviness of its movements, to have been modelled upon the gait of a very tired dromedary. The licenses, too, in which it indulged, were unpardonable;—for instance this line, and the poem abounded with such ;

Like the faint, exquisite music of a dream. "What critic that can count," said FADLADEEM, "and has his full complement of fingers to count withal, would tolerate for an instant such syllabic superfluities?"-He here looked round, and discovered that most of his audience were asleep; while the glimmering lamps seemed inclined to follow their example. It became necessary, therefore, however painful to himself, to put an end to his valuable animadversions for the present, and he accordingly concluded, with an air of dignified candor, thus: Notwithstanding the observations which I have thought it my duty to make, it is by no means my wish to discourage the young man-so far from it, indeed, that if he will but totally alter his style of writing and thinking, I

leur racontoient étoient beaucoup plus belles. Cette préférence attira à Nasser la malédiction de Mahomet et de tous ses disciples."-D'Herbelot.

2 The blacksmith Gao, who successfully resisted the ty rant Zohak, and whose apron became the Royal Standard of Persia.

So days elapsed, after this harangue of the Greas Chamberlain, before LALLA ROOKH could venture to ask for another story. The youth was still a welcome guest in the pavilion-to one heart, perhaps, too dangerously welcome;-but all mention of poetry was, as if by common consent, avoided. Though none of the party had much respect for FADLADEEN, yet his censures, thus magisterially delivered, evidently made an impression on them all. The Poet, himself, to whom criticism was quite a new operation, (being wholly unknown in that Paradise of the Indies, Cashmere,) felt the shock as it is generally felt at first, till use has made it more tolerable to the patient; —the Ladies began to suspect that they ought not to be pleased, and seemed to conclude that there must have been much good sense in what FADLADEEN said, from its having set them all so soundly to sleep ;-while the self-complacent Chamberlain was left to triumph in the idea of having, for the hundred and fiftieth time in his life, extinguished a Poet. LALLA ROOKн alone-and Love knew why-persisted in being delighted with all she had heard, and in resolving to hear more as speedily as possible. Her manner, however, of first returning to the subject was unlucky. It was while they rested during the heat of noon near a fountain, on which some hand had rudely traced those well-known words from the Garden of Sadi, Many, like me, have viewed this fountain, but they are gone, and their eyes are closed forever!" -that she took occasion, from the melancholy beauty of this passage, to dwell upon the charms of poetry in general. "It is true," she said, "few poets can imitate that sublime bird, which flies always in the ai and never touches the earth:

1 "The Huma, a bird peculiar to the East. It is supposed to fly constantly in the air, and never touch the ground; it is looked upon as a bird of happy omen; and that every head it overshades will in time wear a crown."-Richardson.

In the terms of alliance made by Fuzzel Oola Khan with Hyder in 1760, one of the stipulations was, "that he should have the distinction of two honorary attendants standing behind him, holding fans composed of the feathers of the humina, according to the practice of his family."-Wilks's South of India. He adds in a note:-"The Humma is a fabulons bird. The head over which its shadow once passes will assuredly be circled with a crown. The splendid little bird suspended over the throne of Tippoo Sultaun, found at Seringa patam in 1799, was intended to represent this poetical fance"

To the pilgrims to Mount Sinai we must attribute the Inscriptions, figures, &c., on those rocks which have from thence acquired the name of the Written Mountain."Folney. M. Gebelin and others have been at much pains to

whose words, like those on the Written Mountain, last forever:2-but still there are some, as delighted, perhaps, though not so wonderful, who, if not stars over our head, are at least flowers along our path, and whose sweetness of the moment we ought gratefully to inhale, without calling upon them for a brightness and a durability beyond their nature. In short," continued she, blushing, as if conscious of being aught in an oration, "it is quite cruel that a poet cannot wander through his regions of enchantment, without having a critic forever, like the old Man of the Sea, upon his back!"-FADLADEEN, it was plain, took this last luckless allusion to himself, and would treasure it up in his mind as a whetstone for his next criticism. A sudden silence ensued; and the Princess, glancing a look at FERAMORZ, saw plainly she must wait for a more courageous moment.

But the glories of Nature, and her wild, fragrant airs, playing freshly over the current of youthful spirits, will soon heal even deeper wounds than the dull Fadladeens of this world can inflict. In an evening or two after, they came to the small Valley of Gardens, which had been planted by order of the Emperor, for his favorite sister Rochinara, during their progress to Cashmere, some years before; and never was there a more sparkling assemblage of sweets since the Gulzar-e-Irem, or Rose-bower of Irem. Every precious flower was there to be found, that poetry, or love, or religion, has ever consecrated; from the dark hyacinth, to which Hafez compares his mistress's hair,* to the Cámalatá, by whose rosy blossoms the heaven of Indra is scented." As they sat in the cool fragrance of this delicious spot, and LALLA Rooкн remarked that she could fancy it the abode of that Flower-loving Nymph whom they

attach some mysterious and important meaning to these inscriptions; but Niebuhr, as well as Volney, thinks that they must have been executed at idle hours by the travellers to Mount Sinai, "who were satisfied with cutting the unpolished rock with any pointed instrument; adding to their names and the date of their journeys some rude figures, which bespeak the hand of a people but little skilled in the arts."-Niebuhr.

3 The Story of Sinbad.

4 See Nott's Hafez, Ode v.

"The Camalatá (called by Linnæus, Ipomea) is the most beautiful of its order, both in the color and form of its leaves and flowers; its elegant blossoms are celestial rosy red, Love's proper hue,' and have justly procured it the name of Camalatá, or Love's Creeper."-Sir W. Jones.

"Camalatá may also mean a mythological plant, by which all desires are granted to such as inhabit the heaven of In dra; and if ever flower was worthy of paradise, it is our charming Ipomea."-Ib.

worship in the temples of Kathay,' or of one of those Peris, those beautiful creatures of the air, who live upon perfumes, and to whom a place like this might make some amends for the Paradise they have lost, the young Poet, in whose eyes she appeared, while she spoke, to be one of the right spiritual creatures she was describing, said Lesitatingly that he remembered a Story of a Peri, which, if the Princess had no objection, he would venture to relate. "It is," said he, with an appealing look to FADLADEEN, "in a lighter and humbler strain than the other;" then, striking a few careless but melancholy chords on his kitar, he thus began:

"Though sunny the Lake of cool CASHMERE, "With its plane-tree Isle reflected clear,2

"And sweetly the founts of that Valley fall; "Though bright are the waters of SING-SU-HAY, "And the golden floods that thitherward stray,' "Yet-oh, 'tis only the Blest can say

66 How the waters of Heaven outshine them all! 1" According to Father Premare, in his tract on Chinese Mythology, the mother of Fo-hi was the daughter of heaven, surnamed Flower-loving; and as the nymph was walking alone on the bank of a river, she found herself encircled by a rainbow, after which she became pregnant, and, at the end of twelve years, was delivered of a son radiant as herself."-Asiat. Res.

2 "Numerous small islands emerge from the Lake of Cashmere. One is called Char Chenaur, from the planetrees upon it."-Foster.

"The Altan Kol or Golden River of Tibet, which runs into the Lakes of Sing-su-hay, has abundance of gold in its sands, which employs the inhabitants all the summer in gathering it."-Description of Tibet in Pinkerton.

4 "The Brahmins of this province insist that the blue campac flowers only in Paradise."-Sir W. Jones. It appears, however, from a curious letter of the Sultan of Me

"Go, wing thy flight from star to star, "From world to luminous world, as far

"As the universe spreads its flaming wall. "Take all the pleasures of all the spheres, "And multiply each through endless years, "One minute of Heaven is worth them all!"

The glorious Angel, who was keeping
The gates of Light, beheld her weeping;
And, as he nearer drew and listen'd
To her sad song, a tear-drop glisten'd
Within his eyelids, like the spray

From Eden's fountain, when it lies
On the blue flow'r, which-Bramins say-
Blooms nowhere but in Paradise.*

“Nymph of a fair but erring line!” Gently he said-" One hope is thine. ""Tis written in the Book of Fate,

"The Peri yet may be forgiv'n "Who brings to this Eternal gate

"The Gift that is most dear to Heav'n! "Go, seek it, and redeem thy sin""Tis sweet to let the pardon'd in."

Rapidly as comets run

To th' embraces of the Sun;-
Fleeter than the starry brands
Flung at night from angel hands
At those dark and daring sprites
Who would climb th' empyreal heights,
Down the blue vault the PERI flies,

And, lighted earthward by a glance That just then broke from morning's eyes, Hung hov'ring o'er our world's expanse.

But whither shall the Spirit go

To find this gift for Heav'n ?" I know "The wealth," she cries, "of every urn, "In which unnumber'd rubies burn, "Beneath the pillars of CHILMINAR; "I know where the Isles of Perfume are,'

nangcabow, given by Marsden, that one place on earth may lay claim to the possession of it. "This is the Sultan, who keeps the flower champaka that is blue, and to be found in no other country but his, being yellow elsewhere.”—Maraden's Sumatra.

"The Mahometans suppose that falling stars are the firebrands wherewith the good angels drive away the bad, when they approach too near the empyrean or verge of the heavens."-Fryer.

The Forty Pillars; so the Persians call the ruins of Persepolis. It is imagined by them that this palace and the edifices at Balbec were built by Genii, for the purpose of hiding in their subterraneous caverns immense treasures, which still remain there.-D'Herbelot, Volney.

↑ Diodorus mentions the Isle of Panchaia, to the sorth of Arabia Felix, where there was a temple of Jupiter. This island, or rather cluster of isles, has disappeared, "sunk (says