He call'd on Alla-but the word Thou Paynim fool! could Leila's prayer I watch'd my time, I leagued with these, The browsing camels' bells are tinkling: 1 She saw the planets faintly twinkling: "'Tis twilight-sure his train is nigh."3 She could not rest in the garden-bower, But gazed through the grate of his steepest tower: Why sends not the Bridegroom his promised gift? And now within the valley bends; And he bears the gift at his saddle bow The Tartar lighted at the gate, [This beautiful passage first appeared in the fifth edition. "If you send more proofs," writes Lord Byron to Mr. Murray (August 10th, 1813), "I shail never finish this infernal story. Ecce signum-thirty-three more lines enclosed!-to the utter discomfiture of the printer, and, I fear, not to your advantage."] "The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried through the lattice, Why is his chariot so long in coming? why tarry the wheels of his chariot."— Judges, c. v. v. 28.] 3 [In the original draft — "His mother look'd from the lattice high, The browsing camel bells are tinkling, "The browsing camel bells are tinkling, And the first beam of evening twinkling; And flung to earth his fainting weight."-MS.] 5 The calpac is the solid cap or centre part of the headdress; the shawl is wound round it, and forms the turban, The turban, pillar, and inscriptive verse, decorate the tombs of the Osmanlies, whether in the cemetery or the wilderness. In the mountains you frequently pass similar Me, not from mercy, did they spare, A turban 6 carved in coarsest stone, At solemn sound of "Alla Hu!"7 Impatient to their halls invite, But thou, false Infidel! shalt writhe mementos; and on inquiry you are informed that they record some victim of rebellion, plunder, or revenge. 7 Alla Hu!" the concluding words of the Muezzin's call to prayer from the highest gallery on the exterior of the Minaret. On a still evening, when the Muezzin has a fine voice, which is frequently the case, the effect is solemn and beautiful beyond all the bells in Christendom. — [Valid, the son of Abdalmalek, was the first who erected a minaret or turret; and this he placed on the grand mosque at Damascus, for the muezzin, or crier, to announce from it the hour of prayer. The practice is kept to this day. See D'Herbelot.] The following is part of a battle song of the Turks :"I see I see a dark-eyed girl of Paradise, and she waves a handkerchief, a kerchief of green; and cries aloud, Come, kiss me, for I love thee,'" &c. 9 Monkir and Nekir are the inquisitors of the dead, before whom the corpse undergoes a slight noviciate and preparatory training for damnation. If the answers are none of the clearest, he is hauled up with a scythe and thumped down with a red hot mace till properly seasoned, with a variety of subsidiary probations. The office of these angels is no sinecure; there are but two, and the number of orthodox deceased being in a small proportion to the remainder, their hands are always full. See Relig. Ceremon. and Sale's Koran. 10 Eblis, the Oriental Prince of Darkness. - [D'Herbelot supposes this title to have been a corruption of the Greek Aados. According to Arabian mythology, Eblis had suffered a degradation from his primeval rank for having refused to worship Adam, in conformity to the supreme command; alleging, in justification of his refusal, that himself had been formed of ethereal fire, whilst Adam was only a creature of clay. See Koran.] 11 The Vampire superstition is still general in the Levant. Honest Tournefort tells a long story, which Mr. Southey, in the notes on Thalaba, quotes, about these "Vroucolochias," Then ghastly haunt thy native place, Of which in life a lock when shorn Wet with thine own best blood shall drip "How name ye yon lone Caloyer? His features I have scann'd before In mine own land: 'tis many a year, Since, dashing by the lonely shore, I saw him urge as fleet a steed As ever served a horseman's need. But once I saw that face, yet then It was so mark'd with inward pain, I could not pass it by again; It breathes the same dark spirit now, As death were stamp'd upon his brow. "'Tis twice three years at summer tide Since first among our freres he came; And here it soothes him to abide For some dark deed he will not name. But never at our vesper prayer, But broods within his cell alone, 1 I as he calls them. The Romaic term is "Vardoulacha." recollect a whole family being terrified by the scream of a child, which they imagined must proceed from such a visitation. The Greeks never mention the word without horror. I find that "Broucolokas" is an old legitimate Hellenic appellation at least is so applied to Arsenius, who, according to the Greeks, was after his death animated by the Devil. — The moderns, however, use the word I mention. The freshness of the face, and the wetness of the lip with blood, are the never-failing signs of a Vampire. The stories told in Hungary and Greece of these foul feeders are singular, and some of them most incredibly attested [With the death of Hassan, or with his interment on the place where he fell, or with some moral reflections on his fate, we may presume that the original narrator concluded the tale of which Lord Byron has professed to give us a frag The sea from Paynim land he crost, Which beckons onward to his grave, Dark and unearthly is the scowl 4 But cannot fly the gazing snake, Will others quail beneath his look, Nor 'scape the glance they scarce can brook. ment. But every reader, we are sure, will agree with us in thinking, that the interest excited by the catastrophe is greatly heightened in the modern poem; and that the imprecations of the Turk against the "accursed Giaour," are introduced with great judgment, and contribute much to the dramatic effect of the narrative. The remainder of the poem, we think, would have been more properly printed as a second canto; because a total change of scene, and a chasm of no less than six years in the series of events, can scarcely fail to occasion some little confusion in the mind of the reader.GEORGE ELLIS.] But sadder still it were to trace Even by the crimes through which it waded: Of wayward deeds, and fitting doom; The close observer can espy A noble soul, and lineage high: Alas! though both bestow'd in vain, Which Grief could change, and Guilt could stain, It was no vulgar tenement To which such lofty gifts were lent, Will scarce delay the passer by; "His floating robe around him folding, Slow sweeps he through the column'd aisle ; And leaves those locks unhallow'd growth, Of mix'd defiance and despair! Saint Francis, keep hi:n from the shrine ! Made manifest by awful sign. If ever evil angel bore The form of mortal, such he wore : By all my hope of sins forgiven, Such looks are not of earth nor heaven!" [“Behold — as turns he from the wall."— MS.] 2 ["Must burn before it smite or shine."— MS. 3 [Seeing himself accused of having, in this passage, too closely imitated Crabbe, Lord Byron wrote to a friend — " I have read the British Review, and really think the writer in most points very right. The only mortifying thing is, the accusation of imitation. Crabbe's passage I never saw; and Scott I no further meant to follow than in his lyric measure, which is Gray's, Milton's, and any one's who likes it. The Giaour is certainly a bad character, but not dangerous; and I think his fate and his feelings will meet with few prose To love the softest hearts are prone, If solitude succeed to grief, Whose beak unlocks her bosom's stream Are rapture to the dreary void, The waste of feelings unemploy'd. Better to sink beneath the shock Than moulder piecemeal on the rock! lytes." The following are the lines of Crabbe which Lord Byron is charged with having imitated : "These are like wax-apply them to the fire, The pelican is, I believe, the bird so libelled, by the imputation of feeding her chickens with her blood. "Father! thy days have pass'd in peace, 'Mid counted beads, and countless prayer; To bid the sins of others cease, Thyself without a crime or care, Save transient ills that all must bear, Has been thy lot from youth to age; And thou wilt bless thee from the rage Of passions fierce and uncontroll'd, Such as thy penitents unfold, Whose secret sins and sorrows rest Within thy pure and pitying breast. My days, though few, have pass'd below In much of joy, but more of woe; Yet still in hours of love or strife, I've 'scaped the weariness of life: Now leagued with friends, now girt by foes, I loathed the languor of repose. Now nothing left to love or hate, No more with hope or pride elate, I'd rather be the thing that crawls Most noxious o'er a dungeon's walls, Than pass my dull, unvarying days, Condemn'd to meditate and gaze. Yet, lurks a wish within my breast For rest- but not to feel 't is rest. Soon shall my fate that wish fulfil; And I shall sleep without the dream Of what I was, and would be still, Dark as to thee my deeds may seem: My memory now is but the tomb 1 Of joys long dead; my hope, their doom: I've braved it—not for honour's boast; I smile at laurels won or lost; ["Though Hope hath long withdrawn her beam."-MS.] 2 This superstition of a second hearing (for I never met with downright second-sight in the East) fell once under my own observation. On my third journey to Cape Colonna, early in 1811, as we passed through the defile that leads from the hamlet between Keratia and Colonna, I observed Dervish Tahiri riding rather out of the path, and leaning his head upon his hand, as if in pain. I rode up and inquired. "We are in peril," he answered. "What peril? we are not now in Albania, nor in the passes to Ephesus, Messalunghi, or Lepanto; there are plenty of us, well armed, and the Choriates have not courage to be thieves."-" True, Affendi, but nevertheless the shot is ringing in my ears.' "-"The shot! not a tophaike has been fired this morning."-" I hear it notwithstanding - Bom Bom - as plainly as I hear your "I loved her, Friar! nay, adored— But these are words that all can useI proved it more in deed than word; There's blood upon that dinted sword, A stain its steel can never lose : 'Twas shed for her, who died for me, It warm'd the heart of one abhorr'd: Nay, start not-no-nor bend thy knee, Nor midst my sins such act record; Thou wilt absolve me from the deed, For he was hostile to thy creed ! The very name of Nazarene Was wormwood to his Paynim spleen. Ungrateful fool! since but for brands Well wielded in some hardy hands, And wounds by Galileans given, The surest pass to Turkish heaven, For him his Hours still might wait Impatient at the Prophet's gate. I loved her-love will find its way I did not vainly seek, nor sigh: Yet sometimes, with remorse, in vain His death sits lightly; but her fate As filed the troop to where they fell! voice."-"Psha!"-" As you please, Affendi; if it is written, so will it be."-I left this quick-eared predestinarian, and rode up to Basili, his Christian compatriot, whose ears, though not at all prophetic, by no means relished the intelligence. We all arrived at Colonna, remained some hours, and returned leisurely, saying a variety of brilliant things, in more languages than spoiled the building of Babel, upon the mistaken seer. Romaic, Arnaout, Turkish, Italian, and English were all exercised, in various conceits, upon the un. fortunate Mussulman. While we were contemplating the beautiful prospect, Dervish was occupied about the columns. I thought he was deranged into an antiquarian, and asked him if he had become a "Palao-castro" man? "No," said he, "but these pillars will be useful in making a stand;" and added other remarks, which at least evinced his own belief "The cold in clime are cold in blood, Their love can scarce deserve the name ; But mine was like a lava flood That boils in Etna's breast of flame. If changing cheek, and scorching vein, 1 I die—but first I have possess'd, in his troublesome faculty of fore-hearing. On our return to Athens we heard from Leoné (a prisoner set ashore some days after) of the intended attack of the Mainotes, mentioned, with the cause of its not taking place, in the notes to Childe Harold, Canto 2d. I was at some pains to question the man, and he described the dresses, arms, and marks of the horses of our party so accurately, that, with other circumstances, we could not doubt of his having been in "villanous company," and ourselves in a bad neighbourhood. Dervish became a soothsayer for life, and I dare say is now hearing more musketry than ever will be fired, to the great refreshment of the Arnaouts of Berat, and his native mountains. I shall mention one trait more of this singular race. In March, 1811, a remarkably stout and active Arnaout came (I believe the fiftieth on the same errand) to offer himself as an attendant, which was declined: "Well, Affendi," quoth he, "may you live-you would have found me useful. I shall leave the town for the hills to-morrow, in the winter I return, perhaps you will then receive me."- Dervish, who was present, remarked as a thing of course, and of no consequence," in the mean time he will join the Klephtes" (robbers), which was true to the letter. If not cut off, they come down in the winter, and pass it unmolested in some town, where they are often as well known as their exploits. ["I cannot prate in puling strain Of bursting heart and maddening brain, And fire that raged in every vein."— MS.] ["Even now alone, yet undismay'd,— I know no friend and ask no aid."- MS.] 3 [These, in our opinion, are the most beautiful passages of the poem; and some of them of a beauty which it would not be easy to eclipse by many citations in the language. — JEFFREY.] [The hundred and twenty-six lines which follow, down to "Tell me no more of fancy's gleam," first appeared in the fifth edition. In returning the proof to Mr. Murray, Lord But for the thought of Leila slain, I grieve, but not, my holy guide! She was a form of life and light, "Yes, Love indeed is light from heaven;" To lift from earth our low desire. That quench'd, what beam shall break my night ? 6 This present joy, this future hope, That seem to add but guilt to woe? Hath nought to dread from outward blow; Byron says: "I have, but with some difficulty, not added any more to this snake of a poem, which has been lengthening its rattles every month. It is now fearfully long, being more than a canto and a half of Childe Harold. The last lines Hodgson likes. It is not often he does; and when he don't, he tells me with great energy, and I fret, and alter. I have thrown them in to soften the ferocity of our Infidel; and, for a dying man, have given him a good deal to say for himself. Do you know any body who can stop- I mean, point commas, and so forth? for I am, I hear, a sad hand at your punctuation." [Among the Giaour MSS. is the first draught of this passage, which we subjoin: "Yes doth spring Love indeed descend A spark of that from heaven; |