THE HE tale which these disjointed fragments present, is founded upon circumstances now less common in the East than formerly; either because the ladies are more circumspect than in the << olden time; » or because the Christians have better fortune, or less enterprise. The story, when entire, contained the adventures of a female slave, who was thrown, in the Mussulman manner, into the sea for infidelity, and avenged by a young Venetian, her lover, at the time the Seven Islands were possessed by the Republic of Venice, and soon after the Arnauts were beaten back from the Morea, which they had ravaged for some time subsequent to the Russian invasion. The desertion of the Mainotes, on being refused the plunder of Misitra, led to the abandonment of that enterprise, and to the desolation of the Morea, during which the cruelty exercised on all sides was unparalleled even in the annals of the faithful. No breath of air to break the wave That rolls below the Athenian's grave, Fair clime! where every season smiles That wakes and wafts the odours there! 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, unchilled by snows, Far from the winters of the west, Is heard, and seen the evening star; Strange that where Nature loved to trace, And every charm and grace hath mixed Within the paradise she fixed, There man, enamoured of distress, Should mar it into wilderness, And trample, brute-like, o'er each flower That tasks not one laborious hour; To bloom along the fairy land, |