Selected Poems (161 page)

2
. Mecca and Medina were taken some time ago by the Wahabees, a sect yearly increasing.

1.
On many of the mountains, particularly Liakura, the snow never is entirely melted, notwithstanding the intense heat of the summer; but I never saw it lie on the plains, even in winter.

1
. Of Mount Pentelicus, from whence the marble was dug that constructed the public edifices of Athens. The modern name is Mount Mendeli. An immense cave, formed by the quarries, still remains, and will till the end of time.

2
. In all Attica, if we except Athens itself and Marathon, there is no scene more interesting than Cape Colonna. To the antiquary and artist, sixteen columns are an inexhaustible source of observation and design; to the philosopher, the supposed scene of some of Plato’s conversations will not be unwelcome; and the traveller will be struck with the beauty of the prospect over ‘
Isles that crown the Ægean deep:
’ but, for an Englishman, Colonna has yet an additional interest, as the actual spot of Falconer’s Shipwreck. Pallas and Plato are forgotten, in the recollection of Falconer and Campbell:–

‘Here in the dead of night by Lonna’s steep,

The seaman’s cry was heard along the deep.’

This temple of Minerva may be seen at sea from a great distance. In two journeys which I made, and one voyage to Cape Colonna, the view from either side, by land, was less striking than the approach from the isles. In our second land excursion, we had a narrow escape from a party of Mainotes, concealed in the caverns beneath. We were told afterwards, by one of their prisoners, subsequently ransomed, that they were deterred from attacking us by the appearance of my two Albanians: conjecturing very sagaciously, but falsely, that we had a complete guard of these Arnaouts at hand, they remained stationary, and thus saved our party, which was too small to have opposed any effectual resistance. Colonna is no less a resort of painters than of pirates; there

‘The hireling artist plants his paltry desk,

And makes degraded nature picturesque.’

(See Hodgson’s Lady Jane Grey, &c)

But there Nature, with the aid of Art, has done that for herself. I was fortunate enough to engage a very superior German artist; and hope to renew my acquaintance with this and many other Levantine scenes, by the arrival of his performances.

1.
‘Siste Viator – heroa calcas!’ was the epitaph on the famous Count Merci; – what then must be our feelings when standing on the tumulus of the two hundred (Greeks) who fell on Marathon? The principal barrow has recently been opened by Fauvel: few or no relics, as vases, &c. were found by the excavator. The plain of Marathon was offered to me for sale at the sum of sixteen thousand piastres, about nine hundred pounds! Alas! – ‘Expende – quot
libras
in duce summo – invenies!’ – was the dust of Miltiades worth no more? It could scarcely have fetched less if sold by
weight.

*
This Sr Gropius was employed by a noble Lord for the sole purpose of sketching, in which he excels; but I am sorry to say, that he has, through the abused sanction of that most respectable name, been treading at humble distance in the steps of Sr Lusieri. – A shipful of his trophies was detained, and I believe confiscated, at Constantinople, in 1810. I am most happy to be now enabled to state, that ‘this was not in his bond;’ that he was employed solely as a painter, and that his noble patron disavows all connection with him, except as an artist. If the error in the first and second edition of this poem has given the noble Lord a moment’s pain, I am very sorry for it: Sr Gropius has assumed for years the name of his agent; and though I cannot much condemn myself for sharing in the mistake of so many, I am happy in being one of the first to be undeceived. Indeed, I have as much pleasure in contradicting this as I felt regret in stating it. –
Note to third edition
.

*
The Albanese, particularly the women, are frequently termed ‘Caliriotes;’ for what reason I enquired in vain.

*
A word,
en passant
, with Mr Thornton and Dr Pouqueville, who have been guilty between them of sadly clipping the Sultan’s Turkish.Dr Pouqueville tells a long story of a Moslem who swallowed corrosive sublimate in such quantities that he acquired the name of ‘
Suleyman Yeyen
,’ i.e. quoth the Doctor, ‘
Suleyman, the eater of corrosive sublimate
.’ ‘Aha,’ thinks Mr Thornton, (angry with the Doctor for the fiftieth time), ‘have I caught you?’ – Then, in a note twice the thickness of the Doctor’s anecdote, he questions the Doctor’s proficiency in the Turkish tongue, and his veracity in his own. – ‘For,’ observes Mr Thornton (after inflicting on us the tough participle of a Turkish verb), ‘it means nothing more than Suleyman the
eater
,’ and quite cashiers the supplementary ‘
sublimate
.’ Now both are right, and both are wrong. If Mr Thornton, when he next resides, ‘fourteen years in the factory,’ will consult his Turkish dictionary, or ask any of his Stamboline acquaintance, he will discover that ‘
Suleyma’n yeyen
,’ put together discreetly, means the ‘
Swallower of sublimate
,’ without any ‘
Suleyman
’ in the case: ‘
Suleyman
’ signifying ‘
corrosive sublimate
,’ and not being a proper name on this occasion, although it be an orthodox name enough with the addition of n. After Mr Thornton’s frequent hints of profound Orientalism, he might have found this out before he sang such pæans over Dr Pouqueville.After this, I think ‘Travellers
versus
Factors’ shall be our motto, though the above Mr Thornton has condemned ‘hoc genus omne,’ for mistake and misrepresentation. ‘Ne Sutor ultra crepidam,’ ‘No merchant beyond his bales.’ ‘N. B. For the benefit of Mr Thornton, ‘Sutor‘ is not a proper name.

*
I have in my possession an excellent lexicon
which I received in exchange from S.G—, Esq. for a small gem: my antiquarian friends have never forgotten it, or forgiven me.† In Gail’s pamphlet against Coray, he talks of ‘throwing the insolent Hellenist out of the windows.’ On this a French critic exclaims, ‘Ah, my God! throw an Hellenist out of the window! what sacrilege!’ It certainly would be a serious business for those authors who dwell in the attics: but I have quoted the passage merely to prove the similarity of style among the controversialists of all polished countries; London or Edinburgh could hardly parallel this Parisian ebullition.

*
In a former number of the Edinburgh Review, 1808, it is observed: ‘Lord Byron passed some of his early years in Scotland, where he might have learned that
pibroch
does not mean a
bagpipe
, any more than
duet
means a
fiddle
.’ Query, – Was it in Scotland that the young gentlemen of the Edinburgh Review
learned
that
Solyman
means
Mahomet II
, any more than
criticism
means
infallibility
? – but thus it is,‘Cædimus inque vicem præbemus crura sagittis.’The mistake seemed so completely a lapse of the pen (from the great
similarity
of the two words, and the
total absence of error
from the former pages of the literary leviathan) that I should have passed it over as in the text, had I not perceived in the Edinburgh Review much facetious exultation on all such detections, particularly a recent one, where words and syllables are subjects of disquisition and transposition; and the above-mentioned parallel passage in my own case irresistibly propelled me to hint how much easier it is to be critical than correct. The
gentlemen,
having enjoyed many a
triumph
on such victories, will hardly begrudge me a slight
ovation
for the present.

1
. My Latin is all forgotten, if a man can be said to have forgotten what he never remembered; but I bought my title-page motto of a Catholic priest for a three-shilling bank token, after much haggling for the
even
sixpence. I grudged the money to a papist, being all for the memory of Perceval and ‘No popery,’ and quite regretting the downfall of the pope, because we can’t burn him any more.

1.
‘Glance their many-twinkling feet.’ – GRAY.

2.
To rival Lord Wellesley’s, or his nephew’s, as the reader pleases: – the one gained a pretty woman, whom he deserved, by fighting for; and the other has been fighting in the Peninsula many a long day, ‘by Shrewsbury clock,’ without gaining any thing in
that
country but the title of ‘the GreatLord,’ and ‘the Lord; ‘ which savours of profanation, having been hitherto applied only to that Being to whom ‘
Te Deums
’ for carnage are the rankest blasphemy. – It is to be presumed the general will one day return to his Sabine farm; there

‘To tame the genius of the stubborn plain,

Almost as quickly
as he conquer’d Spain!’

The Lord Peterborough conquered continents in a summer; we do more – we contrive both to conquer and lose them in a shorter season. If the ‘great Lord’s’
Cincinnatian
progress in agriculture be no speedier than the proportional average of time in Pope’s couplet, it will, according to the farmers’ proverb, be ‘ploughing with dogs.’By the bye – one of this illustrious person’s new titles is forgotten – it is, however, worth remembering –
‘Salvador del mundo!’
credite, posteri!
If this be the appellation annexed by the inhabitants of the Peninsula to the name of a
man
who has not yet saved them – query — are they worth saving, even in this world? for, according to the mildest modifications of any Christian creed, those three words make the odds much against them in the next. – ‘Saviour of the world,’ quotha! – it were to be wished that he, or any one else, could save a corner of it – his country. Yet this stupid misnomer, although it shows the near connection between superstition and impiety, so far has its use, that it proves there can be little to dread from those Catholics (inquisitorial Catholics too) who can confer such an appellation on a
Protestant
. I suppose next year he will be entitled the Virgin Mary:’ if so, Lord George Gordon himself would have nothing to object to such liberal bastards of our Lady of Babylon.

1.
The patriotic arson of our amiable allies cannot be sufficiently commended – nor subscribed for. Amongst other details omitted in the various despatches of our eloquent ambassador, he did not state (being too much occupied with the exploits of Colonel C—, in swimming rivers frozen, and galloping over roads impassable,) that one entire province perished by famine in the most melancholy manner, as follows: – In General Rostopchin’s consummate conflagration, the consumption of tallow and train oil was so great, that the market was inadequate to the demand: and thus one hundred and thirty-three thousand persons were starved to death, by being reduced to wholesome diet! The lamplighters of London have since subscribed a pint (of oil) a piece, and the tallow-chandlers have unanimously voted a quantity of best moulds (four to the pound), to the relief of the surviving Scythians; – the scarcity will soon, by such exertions, and a proper attention to the
quality
rather than the quantity of provision, be totally alleviated. It is said, in return, that the untouched Ukraine has subscribed sixty thousand beeves for a day’s meal to our suffering manufacturers.

1
. Dancing girls – who do for hire what Waltz doth gratis.

1
. It cannot be complained now, as in the Lady Baussière’s time, of the ‘Sieur de la Croix,’ that there be ‘no whiskers;’ but how far these are indications of valour in the field, or elsewhere, may
still
be questionable. Much may be, and hath been, avouched on both sides. In the olden time philosophers had whiskers, and soldiers none – Scipio himself was shaven – Hannibal thought his one eye handsome enough without a beard; but Adrian, the emperor, wore a beard (having warts on his chin, which neither the Empress Sabina nor even the courtiers could abide) – Turenne had whiskers, Marlborough none – Buonaparte is unwhiskered, the Regent whiskered; ‘
argal’
greatness of mind and whiskers may or may not go together: but certainly the different occurrences, since the growth of the last mentioned, go further in behalf of whiskers than the anathema of Anselm did
against
long hair in the reign of Henry I. – Formerly,
red
was a favourite colour. See Lodowick Barrey’s comedy of Ram Alley, 1661; Act 1. Scene 1.‘TAFFETA: Now for a wager – What coloured beard comes next by the window?‘ADRIANA: A black man’s, I think.‘TAFFETA: I think not so: I think a
red
, for that is most in fashion.’There is ‘nothing new under the sun;’ but
red
, then a
favourite
, has now subsided into a
favourite
’s colour.