Pope, went to the door, and after many hours spent in persuasions and exhortations, prevailed upon him to admit them. From the evening of Wednesday, till the following Saturday, the Pope took no food; nor did he sleep from Thursday morning till the same hour on the

ensuing day. At length, however, giving way to the entreaties of his attendants, he began to restrain his sorrow, and to consider the injury which his own health might sustain, by the further indulgence of his grief.»-Roscoe's Leo Tenth, vol. I, page 265.

Stow sinks, more lovely ere his race be run,
Along Morea's hills the setting sun;
Not, as in northern climes, obscurely bright,
But one unclouded blaze of living light!
O'er the hush'd deep the yellow beam he throws,
Gilds the green wave, that trembles as it glows.
On old Ægina's rock, and Idra's isle,
The god of gladness sheds his parting smile;
O'er his own regions lingering loves to shine,
Though there his altars are no more divine.
Descending fast the mountain shadows kiss
Thy glorious gulph, unconquer'd Salamis !
Their azure arches through the long expanse,
More deeply purpled, meet his mellowing glance,
And tenderest tints, along their summits driven,
Mark his gay course and own the hues of heaven;
Till, darkly shaded from the land and deep,
Behind his Delphian cliff he sinks to sleep.

On such an eve, his palest beam he cast,
When, Athens! here thy wisest look'd his last.
llow watch'd thy better sons his farewell ray,
That closed their murder'd sage's latest day!
Not yet not yet-Sol pauses on the hill-
The precious hour of parting lingers still;
But sad his light to agonising eyes,

And dark the mountain's once delightful dyes;
Gloom o'er the lovely land he seem'd to pour,
The land where Phoebus never frown'd before,
But ere he sunk below Citharon's head,
The cup of woe was quaff d-the spirit fled;
The soul of him that scorn'd to fear or fly-
Who lived and died as none can live or die!

But, lo! from high Hymettus to the plain,
The queen of night asserts her silent reign. 2
No murky vapour, herald of the storm,
Hides her fair face, nor girds her glowing form;
With cornice glimmering as the moon-beams play,
There the white column greets her grateful ray,
And bright around, with quivering beams beset,
Her emblem sparkles o'er the minaret :
The groves of olive scatter'd dark and wide
Where meek Cephisus sheds his scanty tide,
The cypress saddening by the sacred mosque,
The gleaming turret of the gay kiosk, 3
And, dun and sombre mid the holy calm,
Near Theseus' fane yon solitary palm,

All tinged with varied hues, arrest the eye

And dull were his that pass'd them heedless by.

Again the Egean, heard no more afar, Lulls his chafed breast from elemental war; Again his waves in milder tints unfold Their long array of sapphire and of gold, Mix'd with the shades of many a distant isle, That frown-where gentler ocean seems to smile.

As thus within the walls of Pallas' fane

I mark'd the beauties of the land and main,
Alone and friendless, on the magic shore
Whose arts and arms but live in poet's lore,
Oft as the matchless dome I turn'd to scan,
Sacred to gods, but not secure from man,
The past return'd, the present seem'd to cease,
And glory knew no clime beyond her Greece.
Hours roll'd along, and Dian's orb on high
Had gain'd the centre of her softest sky,
And yet unwearied still my footsteps trod
O'er the vain shrine of many a vanish'd god;
But chiefly, Pallas! thine, when Hecate's glare,
Check'd by thy columns, fell more sadly fair
O'er the chill marble, where the startling tread
Thrills the lone heart like echoes from the dead.
Long had I mused, and measured every trace
The wreck of Greece recorded of her race,
When, lo! a giant form before me strode,
And Pallas hail'd me in her own abode.
Yes, 't was Minerva's self, but, ah! how changed
Since o'er the Dardan field in arms she ranged!
Not such as erst, by her divine command,
Her form appear'd from Phidias' plastic hand;
Gone were the terrors of her awful brow,
Her idle Egis bore no gorgon now;
Her helm was deep indented, and her lance
Seem'd weak and shaftless, e'en to mortal glance;
The olive branch, which still she deign'd to clasp,
Shrunk from her touch and wither'd in her grasp :
And, ah! though still the brightest of the sky,
Celestial tears bedimm'd her large blue eye;
Round the rent casque her owlet circled slow,
And mourn'd his mistress with a shriek of woe.
<< Mortal! ('t was thus she spake) that blush of shame
Proclaims thee Briton-once a noble name-
First of the mighty, foremost of the free,
Now honour'd less by all-and least by me:
Chief of thy foes shall Pallas still be found:-
Seek'st thou the cause? O mortal, look around!
Lo! here, despite of war and wasting fire,

I saw successive tyrannies expire;

'Scaped from the ravage of the Turk and Goth,
Thy country sends a spoiler worse than both!
Survey this vacant violated fane:

Recount the relics torn that yet remain;
These Cecrops placed-this Pericles adorn'd 4-

That Hadrian rear'd when drooping science mourn'd:
What more I owe let gratitude attest-

Know, Alaric and Elgin did the rest.

That all may learn from whence the plunderer came,
The insulted wall sustains his hated name. 5
For Elgin's fame thus grateful Pallas pleads:
Below, his name-above, behold his deeds!
Be ever hail'd with equal honour here
The Gothic monarch and the Pictish peer.
Arms gave the first his right-the last had none,
But basely stole what less barbarians won!
So when the lion quits his fell repast,
Next prowls the wolf- the filthy jackal last:
Flesh, limbs, and blood, the former make their own;
The last base brute securely gnaws the bone.
Yet still the gods are just, and crimes are crost-
See here what Elgin won, and what he lost!
Another name with his pollutes my shrine,
Behold where Dian's beams disdain to shine!
Some retribution still might Pallas claim,
When Venus half avenged Minerva's shame.>>

6

She ceased awhile, and thus I dared reply, To soothe the vengeance kindling in her eye:Daughter of Jove! in Britain's injured name, A true-born Briton may the deed disclaim! Frown not on England-England owns him notAthena, no! the plunderer was a Scot! 7

Ask'st thou the difference? From fair Phyle's towers
Survey Boeotia-Caledonia's ours.

And well I know within that bastard land 8
Hath wisdom's goddess never held command:
A barren soil, where nature's germs, confined,
To stern sterility can stint the mind;
Whose thistle well betrays the niggard earth,
Emblem of all to whom the land gives birth.
Each genial influence nurtured to resist,
A land of meanness, sophistry, and mist:
Each breeze from foggy mount and marshy plain
Dilutes with drivel every drizzling brain,
Till, burst at length, each watery head o'erflows,
Foul as their soil, and frigid as their snows;
Ten thousand schemes of petulance and pride
Dispatch her scheming children far and wide;
Some east, some west, some every where but north!
In quest of lawless gain they issue forth;
And thus, accursed be the day and year,
She sent a Pict to play the felon here.
Yet, Caledonia claims some native worth,
As dull Boeotia gave a Pindar birth-
So may her few, the letter'd and the brave,
Bound to no clime, and victors o'er the grave,
Shake off the sordid dust of such a land,
And shine like children of a happier strand:
As once of yore, in some obnoxious place,

Ten names (if found) had saved a wretched race!»>

Hear then in silence Pallas' stern behest;
Hear and believe, for time shall tell the rest.
First on the head of him who did the deed
My curse shall light,—on him and all his seed :
Without one spark of intellectual fire,

Be all the sons as senseless as the sire:
If one with wit the parent brood disgrace,
Believe him bastard of a brighter race;
Still with his hireling artists let him prate,
And folly's praise repay for wisdom's hate!
Long of their patron's gusto let them tell,
Whose noblest native gusto-is to sell:
To sell, and make (may shame record the day!)
The state receiver of his piifer'd prey!
Meantime, the flattering feeble dotard, West,
Europe's worst dauber, and poor Britain's best,
With palsied hand shall turn each model o'er,
And own himself an infant of fourscore: 9
Be all the bruisers call'd from all St Giles,
That art and nature may compare their styles;
While brawny brutes in stupid wonder stare,
And marvel at his lordship's stone-shop there. 10
Round the throng'd gate shall sauntering coxcombs creep,
To lounge and lucubrate, to prate and peep;
While many a languid maid, with longing sigh,
On giant statues casts the curious eye,
The room with transient glance appears to skim,
Yet marks the mighty back and length of limb;
Mourns o'er the difference of now and then;
Exclaims, these Greeks indeed were proper men;"
Draws slight comparisons of these with those,
And envies Lais all her Attic beaux:

When shall a modern maid have swains like these?
Alas! Sir Harry is no Hercules!

And, last of all, amidst the gaping crew,

Some calm spectator, as he takes his view, 11

In silent indignation, mix'd with grief,

Admires the plunder, but abhors the thief.

Loathed throughout life-scarce pardon'd in the dust,

May hate pursue his sacrilegious lust!

Link'd with the fool who fired the Ephesian dome,
Shall vengeance follow far beyond the tomb;
Erostratus and Elgin e'er shall shine

In many a branding page and burning line!
Alike condemn'd for aye to stand accursed-
Perchance the second viler than the first:
So let him stand through ages yet unborn,
Fix'd statue on the pedestal of scorn!
Though not for him alone revenge shall wait,
But fits thy country for her coming fate:
Hers were the deeds that taught her lawless son
To do what oft Britannia's self had done.
Look to the Baltic blazing from afar-
Your old ally yet mourns perfidious war:
Not to such deeds did Pallas lend her aid,
Or break the compact which herself had made;
Far from such councils, from the faithless field,
She fled-but left behind her gorgon shield;
A fatal gift, that turn'd your friends to stone,
And left lost Albion hated and alone.
Look to the East, where Ganges' swarthy race
Shall shake
your usurpation to its base;
Lo! there Rebellion rears her ghastly head,
And glares the Nemesis of native dead,
Till Indus rolls a deep purpureal flood,
And claims his long arrear of northern blood.

So may ye perish! Pallas, when she gave
Your free-born rights, forbade ye to enslave.
Look on your Spain: she clasps the hand she hates,
But coldly clasps, and thrusts you from her gates.
Bear witness, bright Barrossa, thou canst tell
Whose were the sons that bravely fought and fell;
While Lusitania, kind and dear ally,

Can spare a few to fight and sometimes fly.
Oh glorious field! by famine fiercely won;
The Gaul retires for once, and all is done!
But when did Pallas teach that one retreat
Retrieved three long olympiads of defeat?
Look last at home-ye love not to look there,
On the grim smile of comfortless despair;
Your city saddens, loud though revel howls;
Here famine faints, and yonder rapine prowls:

See all alike of more or less bereft

No misers tremble when there's nothing left.
'Blest paper credit' 12 who shall dare to sing?
It clogs like lead corruption's weary wing:
Yet Pallas plucked each Premier by the ear,
Who gods and men alike disdain'd to hear;
But one, repentant o'er a bankrupt state,
On Pallas calls, but calls, alas! too late!
Then raves for ***; 13 to that Mentor bends,
Though he and Pallas never yet were friends:
Him senates hear whom never yet they heard,
Contemptuous once, and now no less absurd.
So once of yore each reasonable frog
Swore faith and fealty to his sovereign log;
Thus hail'd your rulers their patrician clod,
As Egypt chose an onion for a god.

Now fare ye well, enjoy your little hour;

grasp

Go. the shadow of your vanish'd power;
Gloss o'er the failure of each fondest scheme,
Your strength a name, your bloated wealth a dream.
Gone is that gold, the marvel of mankind,
And pirates barter all that's left behind; 14
No more the hirelings, purchased near and far,
Crowd to the ranks of mercenary war;
The idle merchant on the useless quay
Droops o'er the bales no bark may bear away,
Or, back returning, sees rejected stores
Rot piecemeal on his own encumber'd shores;
The starved mechanic breaks his rusting loom,
And, desperate, mans him 'gainst the common doom.
Then in the senate of your sinking state,

Show me the man whose counsels may have weight.
Vain is each voice whose tones could once command;
Even factions cease to charm a factious land;
While jarring sects convulse a sister isle,
And light with maddening hands the mutual pile.

«T is done, 't is past! since Pallas warns in vain,
The Furies seize her abdicated reign;

Wide o'er the realm they wave their kindling brands,
And wring her vitals with their fiery hands.
But one convulsive struggle still remains,
And Gaul shall weep ere Albion wear her chains.
The banner'd pomp of war, the glittering files,
O'er whose gay trappings stern Bellona smiles;
The brazen trump, the spirit-stirring drum,
That bid the foe defiance ere they come;
The hero bounding at his country's call,
The glorious death that decorates his fall,

Swell the young heart with visionary charms,
And bid it antedate the joys of arms.
But know, a lesson you may yet be taught
With death alone are laurels cheaply bought:
Not in the conflict havoc seeks delight,

Ilis day of mercy is the day of fight;
But when the field is fought, the battle won,
Though drench'd with gore, his woes are but begun;
His deeper deeds ye yet know but by name-
The slaughter'd peasant and the ravish'd dame,
The rifled mansion and the foe-reap'd field,
Ill suit with souls at home untaught to yield.
Say with what eye, along the distant down,
Would flying burghers mark the blazing town?
How view the column of ascending flames
Shake his red shadow o'er the startled Thames?
Nay, frown not, Albion! for the torch was thine
That lit such pyres from Tagus to the Rhine:
Now should they burst on thy devoted coast,
Go, ask thy bosom, who deserves them most?
The law of heaven and earth is life for life;
And she who raised in vain regrets the strife.>>

The insulted wall sustains his hated name. It is stated by a late oriental traveller, that when the wholesale spoliator visited Athens, he caused his own name, with that of his wife, to be inscribed on a pillar of one of the principal temples. This inscription was executed in a very conspicuous manner, and deeply engraved in the marble, at a very considerable elevation. Notwithstanding which precautions, some person(doubtless inspired by the Patron Goddess), has been at the pains to get himself raised up to the requisite height, and has obliterated the name of the laird, but left that of the lady untouched. The traveller in question ac

companied this story by a remark, that it must have cost some labour and contrivance to get at the place, and could only have been effected by much zeal and determination.

Note 6. Page 190, line 26.

When Venus balf avenged Minerva's shame.

His lordship's name, and that of one who no longer bears it, are carved conspicuously on the Parthenon above; in a part not far distant are the the torn remnants of the basso-relievos, destroyed in a vain attempt to remove them.

Note 7. Page 190, line 32.

Frown not on England-England owns him not-
Athena, no! the plunderer was a Scot!

The plaster wall on the west side of the temple of Minerva Polias bears the following inscription, cut in very deep characters:

Quod non fecerunt Goti

Hoc fecerunt Scoti.

Hobhouse's Travels in Greece, etc., p. 345.

Note 8. Page 190, line 35.

And well I know within that bastard land.

Is a new palace to be erected (at Rome) for an upstart family? the Coliseum is stripped to furnish materials. Does a foreign minister wish to adorn the bleak walls of a northern castle with antiques? the temples of Theseus or Minerva must be dismantled, and the works of Phidias or Praxiteles be torn from the shattered frieze.

That a decrepid uncle, wrapped up in the religious duties of his age and station, should listen to the suggestions of an interested nephew, is natural; and that an oriental despot should undervalue the masterpieces of Grecian art, is to be expected; though in both cases the consequences of such weakness are much to be lamented-but that the minister of a nation, famed for its knowledge of the language, and its veneration for the monuments of ancient Greece, should have been the prompter and the instrument of these destructions is almost incredible. Such rapacity is a crime against all ages and all generations: it deprives the past of the trophies of their genius and the title deeds of their fame; the present, of the strongest inducements to exertion, the noblest exhibitions that curiosity can contemplate; the future, of the masterpieces of art, the

Note 9. Page 190, line 82.

With palsied hand shall turn each model o'er,

And own himself an infant of fourscore.

"

Mr West, on seeing the Elgin collection » (I suppose we shall hear of the Abershaw's and Jack Shephard's collection next), declared himself a mere Tyro in Art. Note 10. Page 190, line 86.

While brawny brutes in stupid wonder stare, And marvel at his lordship's stone-shop there. Poor Crib was sadly puzzled when exhibited at Elginhouse; he asked if it was not « a stone-shop; » he was right, it is a shop.

Note 11. Page 190, line 100.
And last of all, amidst the gaping crew,
Some calm spectator, as he takes his view.

« Alas! all the monuments of Roman magnificence, all the remains of Grecian taste, so dear to the artist, the historian, the antiquary, all depend on the will of an arbitrary sovereign; and that will is influenced too often by interest or vanity, by a nephew or a sycophant.

of such depredations is the wish of every man of genius, the duty of every man in power, and the common interest of every civilized nation.»-Eustace's Classical Tour through Italy, p. 269.

« This attempt to transplant the temple of Vesta from Italy to England, may, perhaps, do honour to the late Lord Bristol's patriotism or to his magnificence; but it

cannot be considered as an indication of either taste or judgment.»-Ibid. p. 419.

ADVERTISEMENT.

«THE grand army of the Turks (in 1715), under the Prime Vizier, to open to themselves a way into the heart of the Morea, and to form the siege of Napoli di Romania, the most considerable place in all that country,' thought it best in the first place to attack Napoli di Romania is not now the most considerable place in the Morea, but Tripolitza, where the Pacha resides, and maintains his

The

Corinth, upon which they made several storms. garrison being weakened, and the governor seeing it government. Napoli is near Argos. I visited all three in 1810-11; and in the course of journeying through the country from my first arrival in 1809, I crossed the Isthmus eight times in my way from when passing from the Galf of Athens to that of Lepanto. Both the routes are picturesque and beautiful, though very different: that by sea has more sameness, but the voyage, being always within sight of land, and often very near it, presents many attractive views of the islands Salamis, Egina, Poro, etc., and the coast of the con

Attica to the Morea, over the mountains, or in the other direction,

tinent.

was impossible to hold out against so mighty a force, thought it fit to beat a parley: but while they were treating about the articles, one of the magazines in the Turkish camp, wherein they had six hundred barrels of powder, blew up by accident, whereby six or seven hundred men were killed: which so enraged the infidels, that they would not grant any capitulation, but stormed the place with so much fury, that they took it, and put most of the garrison, with Signor Minotti, the governor, to the sword. The rest, with Antonio Bembo, proveditor extraordinary, were made prisoners of war.>> -History of the Turks, vol. iii, p. 151.

THE

SIEGE OF CORINTH.

I.

MANY a vanish'd year and age,

And tempest's breath, and battle's rage,
Have swept o'er Corinth; yet she stands,
A fortress form'd to Freedom's hands.

The whirlwind's wrath, the earthquake's shock,
Have left untouch'd her hoary rock,
The keystone of a land which still,
Though fall'n, looks proudly on that hill,
The land-mark to the double tide
That purpling rolls on either side,
As if their waters chafed to meet,
Yet
pause and crouch beneath her feet.
But could the blood before her shed
Since first Timoleon's brother bled,
Or baffled Persia's despot fled,

Arise, from out the earth which drank
The stream of slaughter as it sank,
That sanguine ocean would o'erflow
Her isthmus idly spread below:
Or could the bones of all the slain,
Who perish'd there be piled again,

That rival pyramid would rise

More mountain-like, through those clear skies, Than

yon tower-capt Acropolis,

Which seems the very clouds to kiss.

II.

On dun Cithæron's ridge appears

The gleam of twice ten thousand spears;
And downward to the Isthmian plain
From shore to shore of either main,
The tent is pitch'd, the crescent shines
Along the Moslem's leaguering lines;
And the dusk Spahi's bands advance
Beneath each bearded pacha's glance;
And far and wide as eye can reach,
The turban'd cohorts throng the beach;
And there the Arab's camel kneels,
And there his steed the Tartar wheels;
The Turcoman hath left his herd,'
The sabre round his loins to gird;
And there the volleying thunders pour,
Till waves grow smoother to the roar.
The trench is dug, the cannon's breath
Wings the far-hissing globe of death;

Fast whirl the fragments from the wall,
Which crumbles with the ponderous ball;
And from that wall the foe replies,
O'er dusty plain and smoky skies,
With fires that answer fast and well
The summons of the Infidel.

III.

But near and nearest to the wall
Of those who wish and work its fall,
With deeper skill in war's black art
Than Othman's sons, and high of heart
As any chief that ever stood
Triumphant in the fields of blood;
From post to post, and deed to deed,
Fast spurring on his reeking steed,
Where sallying ranks the trench assail,
And make the foremost Moslem quail;
Or where the battery, guarded well,
Remains as yet impregnable,
Alighting cheerly to inspire
The soldier slackening in his fire;
The first and freshest of the host
Which Stamboul's sultan there can boast,
To guide the follower o'er the field,
To point the tube, the lance to wield,
Or whirl around the bickering blade,---
Was Alp, the Adrian renegade!

IV.

From Venice-once a race of worth
His gentle sires-he drew his birth;
But late an exile from her shore,
Against his countrymen he bore
The arms they taught to bear; and now
The turban girt his shaven brow.
Through many a change had Corinth pass'd
With Greece to Venice' rule at last;
And here, before her walls, with those
To Greece and Venice equal foes,
He stood a foe, with all the zeal
Which young and fiery converts feel,
Within whose heated bosom throngs
The memory of a thousand wrongs.
To him had Venice ceased to be
Her ancient civic boast-« the Free;»
And in the palace of St Mark
Unnamed accusers in the dark
Within the «Lion's mouth » had placed
A charge against him uneffaced :
He fled in time, and saved his life,
To waste his future years in strife,
That taught his land how great her loss
In him who triumph'd o'er the Cross,
'Gainst which he rear'd the Crescent high,
And battled to avenge or die.

V.

Coumourgi 2-he whose closing scene
Adorn'd the triumph of Eugene,
When on Carlowitz' bloody plain,
The last and mightiest of the slain,
He sank, regretting not to die,
But curst the Christian's victory—
Coumourgi-can his glory cease,
That latest conqueror of Greece,