that reading over D'Herbelot is as good as riding on the back of a camel."

I shall now tax my readers' patience with but one more of these generous vouchers. Whatever of vanity I need hardly subjoin to this lively speech, that there may be in citing such tributes, they show, at Ithough D'Herbelot's valuable work was, of course, least, of what great value, even in poetry, is that proone of my manuals, I took the whole range of all such saic quality, industry; since, as the reader of the foreOriental reading as was accessible to me; and be- going pages is now fully apprized, it was in a slow came, for the time, indeed, far more conversant with and laborious collection of small facts, that the first all relating to that distant region, than I have ever foundations of this fanciful Romance were laid. been with the scenery, productions, or modes of life The friendly testimony I have just referred to, ap of any of those countries lying most within my reach. ||peared some years since in the form in which I now We know that D'Anville, though never in is life out || give it, and, if I recollect right, in the Athenæum :of Paris, was able to correct a number of errors in a lan o' the road taken by Dr Choiseul, on the spot; "I embrace this opportunity of bearing my indiand, for my own very differen as well as far inferior,vidual testimony (if it be of any value) to the extrapurposes, the knowledge I had hus acquired of distant ordinary accuracy of Mr. Moore, in his topographical, localities, seen only bv me in day-dreams, was no less antiquarian, and characteristic details, whether of cosready and useful. tume, manners, or less-changing monuments, both in An ample reward for all this painstaking has been his Lalla Rookh and in the Epicurean. It has been found in such welcome tributes as I have just cited; my fortune to read his Lalla Rookh in Persia itself; nor can I deny myself the gratification of citing a few and I have perused the Epicurean, while all my recolmore of the same description. From another distin-lections of Egypt and its still existing wonders are as guished authority on Eastern subjects, the late Sir fresh as when I quitted the banks of the Nile for AraJohn Malcolm, I had myself the pleasure of hearing a bia: I owe it, therefore, as a debt of gratitude (though similar opinion publicly expressed;-that eminent the payment is most inadequate) for the great pleasure person having remarked, in a speech spoken by him at I have derived from his productions, to bear my huma Literary Fund Dinner, that together with those ble testimony to their local fidelity. qualities of the poet which he much too partially as"J. S. B." signed to me, was combined also "the truth of the historian."

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 Vinoble personages engaged in the performances, I shall vans and songs; and among the crowd of royal and mention those only who represented the principal char

Sir William Ouseley, another high authority, in giving his testimony to the same effect, thus notices an exception to the general accuracy for which he gives me credit:-"Dazzled by the beauties of this composition, few readers can perceive, and none surely can regret, that the poet, in his magnificent catastrophe, has forgotten, or boldly and most happily violated, the precept of Zoroaster, above noticed, which held i. pious to consume any portion of a hu-acters, and whom I find thus enumerated in the dublished account of the Divertissement.* man body by fire, especially by that which glowed upon their altars." Having long lost, I fear, most of my Eastern learning, I can only cite, in defence of my catastrophe, an old Oriental tradition, which relates that Nimrod, when Abraham refused, at his command, to worship the fire, ordered him to be thrown into the midst of the flames.† A precedent so ancient for this sort of use of the worshipped element, appears, for all purposes at least of poetry, to be fully sufficient.

In addition to these agreeable testimonies, I have also 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,
Along the streets of Ispahan."

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."

'Fadladin, Grand-Nasir,
Aliris, Roi de Bucharie,
Lalla Roûkh,

Aurungzeb, le Grand Mogol,
Abdallah, Père d'Aliris,
La Reine, son épouse,

Comte Haack, (Maréchal do
Cour.)

S. A. I. Le Grand Duc.

S. A. 1. La Grand Duchesse.
S. A. R. Le Prince Guillaume,
frere du Roi.

(S. A. R. Le Duc de Cumber
land.

S. A. R. La Princesse Louiss
Radzivill."

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 répresentoit les portes brillantes du Paradis, entourées de nuages. Dans le premier tableau on voyoit la Péri, triste et desolée, couchée sur le seuil des portes fermées, et l'Ange de lumière qui lui addresse des consolations et des conseils. Le second représente le moment, où la Peri, 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 pleine. ment 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 trans

Lalla Roûkh, Divertissement mêlé de Chants et de Danses, Ber lin, 1822. The work contains a series of coloured engravings, repre senting groups, processions, &c., in different Oriental tes

LALLA ROOKH.

Seldom had the Eastern world seen a cavalcade so su perb. From the gardens in the suburbs to the imperial palace, it was one unbroken line of splendour. The ga. In the eleventh year of the reign of Aurungzebe, Ablant appearance of the Rajahs and Mogul lords, distindalla, King of the Lesser Bucharia, a lineal descendant guished by those insignia of the Emperor's favor, the from the Great Zingis, having abdicated the throne in feathers of the egret of Cashmere in their turbans, and favour of his son, set out on a pilgrimage to the shrine of the small silver-rimmed kettle drums at the bows of theit the Prophet; and, passing into India through the delight- || saddles;-the costly armour of their cavaliers, who vied, ful valley of Cashmere, rested for a short time at Delhi on this occasion, with the guards of the great Keder on his way. He was entertained by Aurungzebe in a Khan,t in the brightness of their silver battle-axes, and style of magnificent hospitality, worthy alike of the visiter the massiness of their maces of gold;-the glittering of and the host, and was afterwards escorted with the same the gilt pine-applest on the tops of the palankeens;—the splendour to Surat, where he embarked for Arabia.* Du- embroidered trappings of the elephants, bearing on their ring the stay of the Royal Pilgrim at Delhi, a marriage backs small turrets in the shape of little antique temples, was agreed upon between the Prince, his son, and the within which the ladies of LALLA ROOKH lay as it were youngest daughter of the Emperor, LALLA ROOKH ;t-a enshrined ;--the rose-coloured veils of the Princess's own Princess described by the poets of her time as more beau- sumptuous litter,§ at the front of which a fair young fe tiful than Leila, Shirine,§ Dewildé, or any of those hero- male slave sat fanning her through the curtains, with ines whose names and loves embellish the songs of Persia feathers of the Argus pheasant's wing and the lovely and Hindostan. It was intended that the nuptials should troop of Tartarian and Cashmerian maids of honour, whom be celebrated at Cashmere; where the young King, as the young king had sent to accompany his bride, and who soon as the cares of empire would permit, was to meet, rode on each side of the litter, upon small Arabian horses; for the first time, his lovely bride, and after a few months' repose in that enchanting valley, conduct her over the snowy hills into Bucharia.

all was brilliant, tasteful, and magnificent, and pleased even the critical and fastidious FADLADEEN, Great Nazir or Chamberlain of the Haram, who was borne in his palankeen immediately after the Princess, and sidered himself not the least important personage of the pageant.

con

"One mark of honour or knighthood bestowed by the Emperor is the permission to wear a small kettle drum at the bows of their saddies, which at first was invented for the training of hawks, and to call them to the lure, and is worn in the field by all sportsmen to that end."— Fryer's Travels.

The day of LALLA ROOK's departure from Delhi was as splendid as sunshine and pageantry could make it. The bazars and baths were all covered with the richest tapestry; hundreds of gilded barges upon the Jumna floated with their banners shining in the water; while through the streets groups of beautiful children went strewing the most delicious flowers around, as in that Persian festival called the Scattering of the Roses;¶ till every part of the city was as fragrant as if a caravan of musk from Khoten had passed through it. The Princess, having taken leave of Irer kind father, who at parting hung a cornelian of Yemen round her neck, on which was inscribed a verse from the Koran, and having sent a considerable present to the Fakirs, who kept up the Per- and was followed by an equal number bearing maces of gold. He was a

petual Lamp in her sister's tomb, meekly ascended the palankeen prepared for her; and, while Aurungzebe stood to take a last look from his balcony, the procession moved lowly on the road to Lahore.

These particulars of the visit of the King of Bucharia to Aurunggebe are found in Dow's History of Hindostan, vol. iii. p. 392. Tulip cek.

The mistress of Mejnoun, upon whose story so many Romances in all ine languages of the East are founded.

For the loves of this celebrated beauty with Khosrou and with Ferhad, see D'Herbelot, Gibbon, Oriental Collections, &c.

The history of the loves of Dewilde and Cinzer, the son of the Emperor Aila, is written in an elegant poem, by the noble Chuset."-Fe rianta.

Gu Reazec.

..

Those on whom the King has conferred the privilege, must wear an ornament of jewels on the right side of the turban, surmounted by a high of the feathers of a kind of egret. This bird is found only in Casi mere, and the feathers are carefully collected for the King, who bestows them on his nobles."-Elphinstone's Account of Ceubul.

Khedar Khan, the Khakan, or King of Turquestan, beyond the Ghon, (at the end of the eleventh century,) whenever he appeared abroad was preceded by seven hundred horsemen with silver battle axes,

great patron of poetry, and it was he who used to preside at public ex ercises of genius, with four basins of gold and silver by him to distribute among the poets who excelled."-Richardson's Dissertation prefixed to his Dictionary.

The kubdeh, a large golden knob, generally in the shape of a pins apple, on the top of the canopy over the litter or palanquin."-Scott's Notes on the Babardanush.

$ In the Poem of Zohair, in the Moallakat, there is the followin Avely description of "a company of maidens seated in camels."

They are mounted in carriages covered with costly awnings, ano with rose-coloured veils, the linings of which have the hue of crimson Andem wood.

When they ascend from the bosom of the le, they sit forward on the saddle-cloth with every mark of a voluptuc.s gayety.

"Now, when they have reached the brink of yon blue, gushing rivi let, they fix the poles of their tents like the Arab with a settled mansion, See Bernier's description of the attendance on Rauchanara Begum in her progress to Cashmere.

FADLADEEN was a judge of every thing,-from the pencilling of a Circassian's eyelids, to the deepest questions of science and literature; from the mixture of a conserve of rose-leaves, to the composition of an epic poem: and such influence had his opinion upon the various tastes of the day, that all the cooks and poets of Delhi stood in awe of him. His political conduct and opinions were founded upon that line of Sadi-" Should the Prince at noon-day say, It is night, declare that you behold the moon and stars;" and his zeal for religion, of which Aurungzebe was a munificent protector, was about as disinterested as that of the goldsmith who fell in love with the diamond eyes of the idol of Jaghernaut.t

But these and many other diversions were repeated till they lost all their charm, and the nights and noon-days were beginning to move heavily, when, at length, it was recollected that, among the attendants sent by the bridegroom, was a young poet of Cashmere, much celebrated throughout the Valley for his manner of reciting the Sto ries of the East, on whom his Royal Master had conferred the privilege of being admitted to the pavilion of the Princess, that he might help to beguile the tediousness of the journey by some of his most agreeable recitals. At the mention of a poet, FADLADEEN elevated his critical eyebrows, and, having refreshed his faculties with a dose of that delicious opium* which is distilled from the black poppy of the Thebais, gave orders for the minstre to be forthwith introduced into the presence.

During the first days of their journey, LALLA ROOKн, who had passed all her life within the shadow of the Royal Gardens of Delhi, found enough in the beauty of The Princess, who had once in her life seen a poet from the scenery through which they passed to interest her|| hehind the screens of gauze in her Father's hall, and had mind, and delight her imagination; and when at evening, conceived from that specimen no very favourable ideas or in the heat of the day, they turned off from the high of the Caste, expected but little in this new exhibition to road to those retired and romantic places which had been interest her;-she felt inclined, however, to alter her selected for her encampments,-sometimes on the banks opinion on the very first appearance of FERAMORZ. He of a small rivulet, as clear as the waters of the Lake of was a youth about LALLA ROOKн's own age, and gracePearl sometimes under the sacred shade of a Banyan ful as that idol of women, Crishna,t-such as he appears tree, from which the view opened upon a glade covered to their young imaginations, heroic, beautiful, breathing with antelopes; and often in those hidden, embowered music from his very eyes, and exalting the religion of his spots, described by one from the Isles of the West, as worshippers into love. His dress was simple, yet not "places of melancholy, delight, and safety, where all the without some marks of costliness; and the Ladies of the company around was wild peacocks and turtle-doves ;"- Princess were not long in discovering that the cloth. she felt a charm in these scenes, so lovely and so new to which encircled his high Tartarian cap, was of the most her, which, for a time, made her indifferent to every other delicate kind that the shawl-goats of Tibet supply. Here But LALLA ROоKH was young, and the and there, too, over his vest, which was confined by a young love variety; nor could the conversation of her flowered girdle of Kashan, hung strings of fine pearl, dis Ladies and the Great Chamberlain, FADLADEEN, (the only posed with an air of studied negligence; nor did the ex persons, of course, admitted to her pavilion,) sufficiently quisite embroidery of his sandals escape the observation enliven those many vacant hours, which were devoted of these fair critics; who, however they might give way neither to the pillow nor the palankeen. There was a to FADLADEEN upon the unimportant topics of religion little Persian slave who sung sweetly to the Vina, and and government, had the spirit of martyrs in every thing who, now and then, lulled the Princess to sleep with the relating to such momentous matters as jewels and em ancient ditties of her country, about the loves of Wamak broidery. and Ezra, the fair-haired Zal and his mistress Rodahver;** not forgetting the combat of Rustam with the terrible White Demon.tt At other times she was amused by those graceful dancing-girls of Delhi, who had been permitted by the Bramins of the Great Pagoda to attend her, much to the horror of the good Mussulman FADLADEEN, who could see nothing graceful or agreeable in idolaters, and to whom the very tinkling of their golden anklets was an abomination.

amusement.

*This hypocritical Emperor would have made a worthy associate of certain Holy Leagues. He held the cloak of religion (says Dow) between his actions and the vulgar; and impiously thanked the Divinity for a success which he owed to his own wickedness. When he was murdering and persecuting his brothers and their families, he was building a magnificent mosque at Delhi, as an offering to God for his assistanec to him the civil wars. He acted as high priest at the consecration of this temple, and made a practice of attending divine service there in the humble dress of a Fakeer. But when he lifted one hand to the Divinity, be, with the other, signed warrants for the assassination of his relations. -History of Hindustan, vol. ii. p. 335. See also the curious letter of Aurungzibe, given in the Oriental Collections, vol. i, p. 320. The idol at Jaghernat has two tine diamonds for eyes. No goldemith is uttered to enter the Pagoda, one having stole one of these eyes, being locked up all night with the Idol."-Tavernier.

See a description of these Royal Gardeus in" An Account of the present state of Delhi, by Lieut. W. Franklin-Asiat. Resear. vol. iv. D. 417. In the neighbourhood is Nette Gill, or the Lake of Pearl, which receives this name from its pellucid water."-Pennant's Hindostan. "Nasir Jung encamped in the vicinity of the Lake of Tonoor, amused himself with sading on that clear and beautiful water, and gave it the

fanciful name of Motee Talah, the Lake of Pearls,' which it still retain-."- Wilks's South of India.

Sir Thomas Roe, Ambassador from James L to Jehanguire. "The romance Wemakweazra, written in Persian verse, which contains the loves of Wamak and Ezra, two celebrated lovers who lived before the time of Mahomet."-Note on the Oriental Tales.

** Their amour is recounted in the Shah-Naméh of Ferdousi; and there is much beauty in the passage which describes the slaves of Rodahver sitting on the bank of the river and throwing flowers into the stream, in order to draw the attention of the young Hero who is encamped on the opposite side-Sce Champion's translation.

* Rustam is the Hercules of the Persians. For the particulars of his victory over the Seperd Deeve, or Waite Denon, we Oriedel Codec tions, vol. ii p. 45. Near the city of Shirauz is ar mense quadrangular monument, in commemoration of this combat, called the Kelaat-iDeev Speed, or Castle of the White Giant, which Father Angelo, in bis Gazipulacium Persicum, p. 127, declares to have been the most memorable monument of antiquity which he had seen in Persia.-See Quaddy's Persian Miscellanies.

1: The women of the Idol, or dancing girls of the Pagoda, have litde golden bells, fastened to their feet, the soft harmonious tinkling of which vibrates in unison with the exquisite melody of their voices."Maurice's Indian Antiquities.

The Arabian courtesans, like the Indian women, have little golden pells fastened round their legs, neck, and elbows, to the sound of which by dance before the King. The Arabian princesses wear golden rings.

For the purpose of relieving the pauses of recitation by music, the young Cashmerian held in his hand a kitar,-such as, in old times, the Arab maids of the West used to listen to by moonlight in the gardens of the Alhambra,-and having premised, with much humility, that the story he was about to relate was founded on the adventures of that Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, who, in the year of the Hegira 163, created such alarm throughout the Eastern Empire, made an obeisance to the Prin cess, and thus began:-

THE

VEILED PROPHET OF KHORASSAN.I

IN that delightful Province of the Sun,
The first of Persian lands he shines upon,
Where all the loveliest children of his beam,
Flow'rets and fruits, blush over ev'ry stream,
And, fairest of all streams, the MURGA roves
Among MEROU's** bright palaces and groves;-
There on that throne, to which the blind belief
Of millions raised him, sat the Prophet-Chief,

on their fingers, to which little bells are suspended, as well as in the flowing tresses of their hair, that their superior (ank may be known, and they themselves receive in passing the homage due to them."-See Calmet's Dictionary, art. Bells.

*Abou-Zige, ville de la Thebaïde, où il croît beaucoup de pavot noir, dont se fait le meilleur opium."--D'Herbelot.

The India Apollo. "He and the three Ramas are described as youths of perfect beauty; and the princesses of Hindustan were all pas sionately in love with Chrising, who continues to this hour the darling God of foe Indian women."-Sir W. Jones, on the Gods of Greece, Italy, and India.

I See Turner's Embassy for a description of this animal, "the most beautiful among the whole tribe of gont." The material for the shawls (which is carried to Cashmere) is foined next the skin. $ For the real history of this Impostor, whose original name was Ha kem ben Hascher, aud who was called Mocanua from the veil of silver gauze (or, as others say, golden) which he always wore, see D'Herbelot. Khorassan signifies, in the old Persian language, Province or Region of the Sun.-Sir W. Jones.

The fruits of Meru are finer than those of any other place; and one cannot see in any other city such palaces with groves, and streams, and gardens."-Ebn Har kal's Geography. **Que of the roga, o. of Khorassan