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 Corinth, upon which they made several storms. The garrison being weakened, and the governor seeing it 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 army, 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 Signior 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. *Napoli di Romania is not now the most considerable place in the Morea, but Tripolitza, where the Pacha resides, and maintains his 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 Attica to the Morea, over the mountains, or in the other direction, when passing from the Gulf 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, Ægina, Poro, &c., and the coast of the continent. THE SIEGE OF CORINTH. I. MANY a vanish'd year and age, And tempest's breath, and battle's rage, The keystone of a land, which still, Arise from out the earth which drank More mountain-like, through those clear skies, Than yon tower-capp'd Acropolis, Which seems the very clouds to kiss. II. On dun Citharon's ridge appears The Turcoman hath left his herd,* Π. But near and nearest to the wall The soldier slackening in his fire; Which Stamboul's Sultan there can boast, IV. From Venice-once a race of worth The arms they taught to bear; and now Through many a change had Corinth pass'd With Greece to Venice' rule at last; And here, before her walls, with those *The life of the Turcomans is wandering and patriarchal: they dwell in tents. And in the palace of St Mark Within the "Lion's mouth" had placed V. * Coumourgi-he whose closing scene VI. The walls grew weak; and fast and hot From battery to battlement; And thunder-like the pealing din Rose from each heated culverin; And here and there some crackling dome The shattering shell's volcanic breath, * Ali Coumourgi, the favourite of three sultans, and Grand Vizier to Achmet III., after recovering Peloponnesus from the Venetians in one campaign, was mortally wounded in the next, against the Germans, at the battle of Peterwaradin (in the plain of Carlowitz), in Hungary, endeavouring to rally his guards. He died of his wounds next day. His last order was the decapitation of General Breuner, and some other German prisoners; and his last words, "Oh that I could thus serve all the Christian dogs!" a speech and act not unlike one of Caligula. He was a young man of great ambition and unbounded presumption: on being told that Prince Eugene, then opposed to him, "was a great general," he said, "I shall become a greater, and at his expense.' |