-'Sa^B^B^HKK^H^^E #y^i54^ \ ■•i-f- J^. t»;^ :# ...^ s^ »5f,^ ."^v of California I Regional ' Facility -■<-. \ ^?%^ ^' ^aa' rawT 11-- 7r^-- ^-r-ig -^^^.^ i • ^'^^. V -::S^S»^s^^'- JFEMi ..y^r. tmt ^ IJLI.II ST^MATI AXII «i3 0, ^jur A 1 LONDON: J. MOYKS, CASTLE STREET, LEICESTER SQUARE. HE LIST OF PLATES, Subject: Drawn hy From a Sketch by LAUSANNE (Title Vignette) C. Stanfield, a.r.a. ROME C. Stanfield, a.r.a. Sir WALTER SCOTT, Bart G. S. Newton, r.a. CORK CONVENT, NEAR Cintra C. Stanfield, a.r.a. Captain Elliot. CONVENT OF LA PENA Lieut-Col. Batty. CINTRA C. Stanfield, a.r.a. Col. Sir S. Hawker. LAUSANNE. Copley Fielding. LADY CAROLINE LAMB (Original Drawing.) THE DUNGEON OF CHILLON... C. Stanfield, a.r.a. DIODATI William Purser. MARTIGNY J. D. Harding. THUN T. S. Cooper. VENICE, FROM THE Entrance to the " [■J. D. Hardi . )ing. Lady Scott. Grand Canal. J- C, Stanfield, a.r.a. VENICE, PoNTE Rialto C. Stanfield, a.r.a. THE LIDO, AND PORT ST. NI- COLAS THOMAS MOORE . From a Portrait by Sir T. Lawrence, p.r. a. PETRARCH'S HOUSE B. Hoppner, Esq. FERRARA S. Prout. BOLOGNA J.D.Harding. FLORENCE Lieut.-Col. Batty. lANTHE ^ R.Westall, r.a. (Original Picture.) PISA J. D. Harding. PISA, Campo Santo G. Cattehmole. W.Page. LIST OF PLATES. Sufyect. Drawn by From a Sketch by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (Original Picture.) GULF OF SPEZZTA, Castle near ) ^ ^ ^ tt >C. Stanfield, a.r.a. John Hughes. Sarzana ) THE TIBER C. Stanfield, a.r.a. W.Page. SORACTE, CiviTA Castellana William Purser. ROME, Mount Aventine A. W. Calcott, r.a. TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA.... J.M.W.Turner,r.a. TIVOLI C. Stanfield, a.r.a. W. Page. THE COUNTESS GUICCIOLI W. Beockedon. BAY OF NAPLES J. D. Harding. W. Page. CAPE LEUCADIA, Lover's Leap ... Copley Fielding. Major Harriot. YANINA J. D. Harding. C.R.Cockerell, a.r.a. VALE OF TEMPE ..... William Purser. MOUNT OLYMPUS William Purser. ACROPOLIS J. D. Harding. C.R.Cockerell, a.r.a. SALAMIS William Purser. BRIDGE OF EGRIPO C. Stanfield, a.r.a. Lieut. Helpman, r.n. RHODES J.M.W.TuRNER,R.A. W. Page. THE DRACHENFELS J. M.W. Turner, r.a. MR. MURRAY From a Portrait by H.W.Pickersgill, r.a. LAUSANNE. VIGNETTE. This beautiful vignette, by Mr. Stanfield, is taken from near Lausanne, on the road to Berne, looking back upon the town and the lake and the mountains which bound its eastern shore. ^ ROME. Drawn by C. Stanfield, A.R.A. " Turn to the Mole which Hadrian reared on high, Imperial mimic of old Egypt's piles, Colossal copyist of deformity, Whose travelled phantasy from the far Nile's Enormous model, doomed the artist's toils To build for giants, and for his vain earth, His shrunken ashes, raise this dome : How smiles The gazer's eye with philosophic mirth. To view the huge design which sprung from such a birth Oh Rome ! my country ! city of the soul ! The orphans of the heart must turn to thee. Lone mother of dead empires ! and control In their shut breasts their petty misery. What are our woes and sufferance ? Come and see The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, Ye 1 Whose agonies are evils of a day — A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay." Childe Harold, canto iv. st. 152 and 78. ROME. This fine view of Rome, taken from above the Porta di Santo Spirito, commands the castle of St. Angelo, anciently the Mole of Hadrian, the Bridge of St. Angelo, and the left bank of the Tiber, as it washes the modern city in its course, from the Ripetta to the bridge. The most distant part of the city in the view is bounded by the Villa Medici, at present the French Academy, and on its left by the Trinita de Monte ; beyond these is the range of mountains which bound the Campagna of Rome. Tairttfd by G.S.SH-tm.,S.A. Si^aycd. iv 17 Finderu VROM a'lTIi ORXGrWAI. PrCTtTRR IW 'mE POSSESSION OF M? MCTRRAY. LiTnOen, PubUsfwd^ 1833^ ty J. Murn^\ i Sold *>■ C. Tilt, 0S,n^t Street. SIR WALTER SCOTT, Bart. From a Painting by G, S. Newton, Esq. R.A. " Scott, the minstrel who call'd forth A new creation with his magic line, And, like the Ariosto of the North, Sang ladye-love and war, romance and knightly worth." Childe Harold, canto iv. st. 40. The profound regard and respect in which Byron held the character and talents of Scott, long before he became personally acquainted with him, is recorded in nume- rous passages of his poems and his journals, though he introduced him into his satire of " English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," with a reproach for selling his talents : — " Let others spin their meagre lines for hire, Enough for genius if itself inspire." " When Byron wrote his famous satire," says Scott, " I had my share of flagellation among my betters. On the other hand, Lord Byron paid me, in several pas- sages, so much more praise than I deserved, that I VOL. II. B SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART. must have been more irritable than I have ever felt upon such subjects, not to sit down contented and think no more about the matter. I was, however, so far from having any thing to do with the offensive criticism in the Edinburgh, that I remonstrated against it with the editor, because I thought the ' Hours of Idleness' treated with undue severity." Before the meeting of these two great men, Scott, availing himself of an opportunity which a visit paid by Mr. Murray to him in Scotland afforded, intrusted to his care a superb Turkish dagger, as a present to Lord Byron, and expressed a great desire to make his acquaintance : this led to some correspondence. Shortly afterwards, upon Scott's coming to London, these extra- ordinary men became personally known to each other ; and Byron, in return for the present made by Scott, gave him a sepulchral vase of silver, which contained some human bones that had been dug up from under the old walls of Athens. Scott's account of this com- mencement of their friendship is published in Moore's " Life of Byron." Few things appear to have given Byron more unalloyed delight than a kind and generous review of the third canto of " Childe Harold," which appeared in the Quarterly. On receiving it, Byron (letter 264*) * The letters referred to by number are in " Murray's complete edition of Lord Byron's Life and Works." SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART. thus expressed his gratification to Mr. Murray: — " Those who condemn its partiality must praise its generosity. The temptations to take another and a less favourable view of the question have been so great and numerous, that, what with public opinion, politics, &c. he must be a gallant as well as a good man Avho has ventured, in that place, and at this time, to write such an article even anonymously : such things are, however, their own reward ; and I even flatter myself that the writer, whoever he may be (and I have no guess), will not regret that the perusal of this has given me as much gratification as any composition of that nature could give, and more than any other has given, — and I have had a good many in my time, of one kind or the other. It is not the mere praise, but there is a tact and a delicacy throughout, not only with regard to me, but to others, which, as it has not been observed else- wliere, I had till now doubted whether it could be ob- served any where. Perhaps, some day or other, you will know, or tell me, the writer's name ; be assured, had the article been a harsh one, I should not have asked for it." When Byron learnt to whom he was indebted for the review, he said, in a letter to Mr. Murray (letter 268), " Some weeks ago I wrote to you my acknowledgments of Walter Scott's article. Now I know it to be his, it cannot add to my good opinion of him, but it adds to SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART. that of myself. He, and Gifford, and Moore, are the only regulars I ever knew who had nothing of the garrison about their manner — no nonsense, nor affecta- tions, look you ! As for the rest whom I have known, there was always more or less of the author about them — the pen peeping from behind the ear, and the thumbs a little inky or so." Byron acknowledged this to Scott himself. In a letter from Pisa, in 1822, he says, — " I owe to you far more than the usual obligation for the courtesies of literature and common friendship ; for you went out of your way, in 1817, to do me a service, when it required not merely kindness, but courage, to do so. To have been recorded by you in such a manner would have been a proud memorial at any time, but at such a time, when ' all the world and his wife,' as the proverb goes, were trying to trample upon me, was something still higher to my self-esteem. Had it been a common criticism, however eloquent or panegyrical, I should have felt pleased and grateful, but not to the extent which the extraordinary good-heartedness of the whole proceeding must induce in any mind capable of such sensations." A generous reciprocation of regard between these distinguished men continued until the career of Byron was closed in Greece, when Scott's acknowledgment of affection for his illustrious friend was conspicuously shewn in that touching tribute to his memory which SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART. appeared in an Edinburgh paper, immediately after hearing of the fatal event, of which the greater part is republished in the fifteenth volume of Murray's " Life and Works of Lord Byron." It vrill be remembered from its beginning thus : — " Amidst the general calm- ness of the political atmosphere, we have been stunned, from another quarter, by one of those death-notes which are pealed at intervals, as from an Archangel's trumpet, to awaken the soul of a whole people at once. Lord Byron, who has so long and so amply filled the highest place in the public eye, has shared the lot of huma- nity," &c. When this beautiful record of his friend's fate and his own feelings appeared, a writer in a weekly paper asks : ^' Why did he not publish these opinions of Lord Byron in the lifetime of the latter, when such a character, from such an authority, would have done real service to its living subject, and have silenced all those yelping curs in the kennels of authority who were incessantly barking at the moral and literary reputation of a grossly calumniated genius?" This question is put with something like virtuous indigna- tion ; will it be believed that the querist could shortly after publish a work, in which the character of the noble bard is misrepresented by ingratitude, calumny, and vituperation? But the career of the great and the good " Ariosto of the North" has now closed also — he, whom Byron SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART. spoke of as " the monarch of Parnassus and most English of bards," has ended his pilgrimage here, and left the immortal emanations of his wondrous mind to make men happier, and wiser, and better ; and so universal has been the acknowledgment of his greatness and his worth, that the world has united to give expression to its respect and admiration for the memory of Sir Walter Scott. A fund has been raised to secure to his descendants the domains of Abbotsford : in the list of subscribers are found the names of the good, the learned, and the great — of those who have been grati- fied by the energies of that mind which still lives among us, and can die only with the destruction of all human record. All have been eager to record their testimony to his virtues and his talents. The following was the resolution offered to the Abbotsford meetins; at the Egyptian Hall, May 19, 1833, by the Marquess of Salisbury : — " That Sir Walter Scott, from his vast and varied genius as an author — from the pure and blameless course in which that genius was always exerted, and from the high worth and unblemished integrity of his public and private character, has the highest claims to the respect and admiration of his countrymen." ^ !i CORK CONVENT, NEAR CINTRA. Drawn by C. Startfield, Esq. A.R.A,, from a Sketch by Capt. Elliot. " Here impiovis men have punished been ; and lo ! Deep in yon cave Honorius long did dwell, In hope to merit heaven by making earth a hell." Childe Harold, canto i. st. 20. " This convent or hermitage is partly burrowed between tlie rocks which serve as vaults to the church, sacristy, and charter-house, &c. and partly built over the surface. The subterraneous apartments are lighted by holes cut obliquely in the rocks, and lined inter- nally with cork to guard against the humidity. Hence it is called the Cork Convent. It is inhabited by about twenty hermits, of the most rigid order of St. Francis. They are governed by a prior, and live chiefly on fish, fruit, and bread ; each has a separate cell, about the size of a grave, furnished with a mattrass ; yet one of their community who lately died, named Honorius, thinking the meanest of these cells too luxurious a habitation, retired to a circular pit at the rear of the CORK CONVENT. hermitage, not larger than Diogenes' tub — for it is but four feet diameter — and here, after a residence of six- teen years, he ended tis peaceful days at a good old age. The floor of it is strewed with leaves, which served for his bed ; and the rugged stone which he used alternately as a pillow and a seat is still to be seen there. These instances of self-denial shew us into what a narrow compass all human wants might be reduced, and evince the truth of the poet's assertion, " ' Man wants but little here below, Nor wants that little long.' — Goldsmith" Murphy's Travels in Portugal. The Convent of the Santa Cruce de Cintra, or the Convent of the Holy Cross of the Cintra Rock, which perhaps is better known to the generality of readers by the appellation of the Cork Convent, is thus alluded to by Lord Byron : '' Below, at some distance, is the Cork Convent, where St. Honorius dug his den, over which is his epitaph." " As we," says Kinsey, " rode up to the rude por- tico of the convent, which is composed simply of two rocks forming a pointed arch by their approximation, the guardian of the fraternity overtook us, and, according to his request, made at the moment that he saw me taking notes of the building, I add the name of the worthy brother, Fr. Francisco da Circumcizao, and with the CORK CONVENT. more pleasure, as he politely restored me my cambric handkerchief which he had found in followino: our steps upon the road. The brethren, eighteen in num- ber, are of the Franciscan order, and subsist chiefly by alms. On the first landing-place, leading to the entrance-door of the convent, and to the left, there is a pretty fountain of clear water, surmounted by a rudely carved image of Nossa Senhora da Roca, and placed between two large tables of stone, which are surrounded by seats for the weary pilgrim to repose upon. The umbrageous canopy of a wide-spreading cork-tree gives to this vestibule a dim religious light, as well as a most refreshing coolness, and we lingered there in conversation for some time before the monk could induce us to visit his flower-garden, his ponds containing golden fish, his rills of mountain -water, and the narrow paths climl^ed with difliculty from the masses of rock fantastically scattered about in the surrounding thicket. On either side of the vestibule there is a chapel, with a small confessional in it, at once a source of piety and reverence. '* We descended into the subterranean chapel, which is the largest, from a smaller one upon the uppei- floor. We observed over the high altar a figure of our Saviour, with a glory and crown on his head, appa- relled in a crimson robe of silk, and leaning upon a cross, which his long tresses of hair partially concealed. VOL. II. c CORK CONVENT. The Passion is represented on the side walls in Dutch tiles, and the images of St. John and St. Francis appear to be regarding the holy subject with intense interest. On the outside of the altar railing, and to the left hand, is the tomb of St. Honorius ; and contiguous to it, as the place of greatest distinction, the cenotaph of D. Alvaro de Castro, the founder of the convent in the year 1564, and under the papacy of Pius IV. " After hearing Francisco chant the Asperges me, Domine, and expressing our admiration of his fine deep bass voice, as well as of the curious pulpit, let into the wall, of his own invention, and of which he ap- peared to be very proud, we inspected the narrow cells of the convent, which are nothing more than cavities in the rock, and are lined with cork, and closed with cork- doors, as a defence against cold and humidity. In winter, however, such is the dampness of the situa- tion, that the very rocks which are seen projecting into the cells run down with water; the blankets be- come saturated with moisture, and every little article of furniture is soon reduced to a state of decay. " The spirit of Honorius seems to have deserted the fraternity in these latter days, who appear to prefer any discipline to that of enduring the painful inconveniences of a residence, either in winter or summer, within the precincts of this retreat ; and Francisco was the only monk who presented himself on the occasion of our CORK CONVENT. visit. After sharing his loaf of coarse bread, served up to us in huge slices upon trenchers of cork — having tasted his Color es, and listened to his long recital of the inimitable excellences of Honorius — we looked into the den wherein the devotee had entitled himself to a high rank on the calendar of saints by thirty-five years of a debasing penance, and in which there is scarcely sufficient room for the reception of the human body ; yet where the anchorite, by his self-inflicted torments, * hoped to merit heaven by making earth a hell.' " CONVENT OF LA PENA. Dran-n ftiy lAeut.-CoL Batiij. " Then slowly climb the many-winding way, And frequent turn to linger as you go ; From loftier rocks new loveliness survey, And rest ye at * Our Lady's House of Woe,' Where frugal monks their little relics shew, And sundry legends to the stranger tell." Childe Harold, canto i. st. 22. " On the highest point to which we were now ap- proaching-, across the heath-covered serra, is situated the Convent of the Pena, or Our Lady of the Height, according to the true import of the Celtic word pen. Passino* to the southern side of the mountain, we as- cended, by a winding and tediously steep road, to the platform upon which the convent is built ; leaving to our left, lower down the hill, an enclosed arena, as we were informed, for the exhibition of bull-fights, which we rather wished than believed to be a misrepresentation. There is nothing remarkable in the convent, beyond some alabaster ornaments in the chapel, and upon one side CONVENT OF LA PENA. a curious organ-case, on which, in imitation of the Chinese style, is represented a scene, in gilt and brilliant colours, of a Chinese singer upon a raised platform, surrounded by instrumental performers, in the act of holding a piece of music in his left hand, and giving full effect to the chant, or beating time with his right ; and this, with the usual ' celestial ' observance of the laws of perspective. There was not one monk in the building to greet our arrival ; and we learned from the Galician domestic, who conducted us over the apart- ments, that the society was about to be dissolved, and that he had the distressing prospect before him of re- turning, after five years' service, to starve amidst his native mountains. '* The best idea of the rudely shaped masses of rock which are scattered over the serra, and the volcanic appearance of the upper part of the wild range of the Cintra heights, is to be obtained from a wall on the western side of the convent, whence the view runs along the wooded side of the whole mountain course, skirting Cintra and Colares, down to the shores of the Atlantic. The mountains of Cintra are said to have been known to the ancients as the Montes Lunse, and the Cabo de Roca as the Promontorium Magnum, upon which was erected a temple dedicated to Cynthia, whence some etymologists fancifully trace the origin of the appella- tion Cintra." — Kinseys Portugal Illustrated. CINTRA. Drawn by C. Stanfield, Esq., A. R. A., from a Sketch by Col, Sir Samuel Hawker. " I must just observe, that the village of Cintra, in Estre- madura, is the most beautiful perhaps in the world." Byron's Letter to Mr. Hodgson. " The climate of Cintra is decidedly damp, owing to its western aspect and its proximity to the sea ; and, indeed, such is the humidity of the atmosphere early in the autumn, that families are often compelled to return to their residences in Lisbon, in order to avoid colds, fevers, and rheumatism, before the end of September. The houses of the town are prettily scattered about the breast of the hill, and their gardens abound with all those flowers, shrubs, and trees whose nature is con- genial with warmth of climate. The principal street, if it deserve the appellation, is allowed to remain en- cumbered with filth, which, were the temperature of the atmosphere as high here as at Lisbon, would render Cintra equally insupportable in the summer. The shops are sufficiently numerous and good ; and the CINTRA. manufacture of open-worked stockings and cheesecakes affords employment to a considerable portion of the inhabitants. The open grated windows of the prison, as in other Portuguese towns, even upon the ground- floor, allow free communication between the prisoners and their friends, and every passing stranger. The view down the valley, from the space in front of the church, is singularly beautiful, comprising all the quintas and gardens in the lower part of the town." The various views of Cintra, and of the most inte- resting objects around it, given in these Illustrations, will convey an idea beyond language of the scenes which Byron so highly eulogised. t^ LAUSANNE. Brawn by Copley Fielding, " Lausanne ! and Ferney ! ye have been the abodes Of names which unto you bequeathed a name."* Childe Harold, canto iii. st. 105. At Ouchy, the little port of Lausanne, on the lake of Geneva, Lord Byron was detained, as he reports to Mr. Murray (letter 242) : " I am thus far (kept by stress of weather) on my way back to Diodati, (near Geneva,) from a voyage in my boat round the lake ; and I enclose you a sprig of Gibbons acacia, and some rose-leaves from his garden, which, with part of his house, I have just seen." During this detention, in a small inn at Ouchy, Byron wrote ^' The Prisoner of Chillon," — " adding," as Moore has expressed it, " one more deathless associa- tion to the already immortalised localities of the lake." In addition to the house of Gibbon, the English traveller now makes a pilgrimage to the tomb of a * Gibbon and Voltaire. VOL. II. D LAUSANNE. friend of Byron — John Philip Kemble. He reposes in the cemetery, beneath a plain stone slab distinguished by his name. It is enclosed within some iron rails, and surrounded by shrubs, of which the leaves are thinned by English travellers, and kept as certificates of their visit to the tomb of Kemble. Lausanne, the capital of the Pays de Vaud, is delightfully situated near the lake. It is seated on high ground ; and from various points the most beautiful views of the eastern shores, and the mountains around them, are presented to the observer. The approach from the west in Mr. Copley Fielding's view, is one which embraces most of those features in landscape scenery which form the charm of the country around Lausanne. 4 ;0-' '-^^ '■"''i^gi £n^an^ fyWSintim. "Smm JJ4'f sHi'WS "■V' )LJ&Mir itMMm^lLMm aAMB. ( Ea'CRJOTED rEOM: AN OHlCTHaC TS THE POSSESSTOIT OF M« acOHRJir.^ ■ ^^33. by Jbfm Murray^ arut Sold by- C. Tilt, Se, JTI/xt SD-eet. LADY CAROLINE LAMB. From an Original Drawing in the possession of Mr, Murray. The intimacy of Lord Byron with Lady Caroline Lamb and her family, and the frequent allusions to her in his " Life and Works," rendered it desirable, in the estimation of the proprietors, that her portrait should be introduced into these Illustrations. A biographer in the " Monthly Magazine" for 1828, says, — *' With one of the best and most benevolent of hearts, Lady Caroline Lamb, who has lately passed to her final audit, was, perhaps, one of the unhappiest of women — a woman at all times, if we mistake not, more sinned against than sinning. Her liaison with Lord Byron excited much notice and much scandal in the fashionable world ; but, from the best of sources, we have reason to believe that her abberations were only the aberrations of the imagination, — in other words, that the attachment on the part of Lady Caro- line to Lord Byron was not of a criminal nature. " Lady Caroline Ponsonby was the only daughter of the Hight Honourable Frederick Ponsonby, Earl of Besborough. She was born on the 13th of November, LADY CAROLINE LAMB. 1785. Her education was under the immediate eye of her grandmother, the accomphshed Countess Dowager Spencer. Slight and dehcate in fonn, heautiful in the expression of her countenance — her dark hair and eyes contrasted with the fairness of her complexion — it was natural that she should have many admirers. Of these the favoured one was the Honourable William Lamb, eldest son of Lord Melbourne, to whom she Avas united the •3d of June, 1805. Of three children, the issue of this marriage, George Augustus Frederick is the only one now livins;. " She was mistress of several living and dead lan- guages ; her jDowers of conversation were lively and brilliant, and her compositions in verse, as well as in prose, were evidently the emanations of an elegant and benevolent mind. Living in the gay world, and pos- sessing a fervid and eccentric imagination, she appears to have been fascinated by the poetical and intellectual powers of Lord Byron, between whom and her ladyship there was an intimacy of nearly three years' duration. The rupture of that intimacy produced a depression of spirits in Lady Caroline, amounting at times almost to insanity. Lord Byron is said to have most cruelly and culpably trifled with her feelings. " For several years Lady Caroline led a life of com- parative seclusion, not uninterrupted, however, by many a painful recollection of his lordship. It happened, very remarkabl} , that whilst riding with her husband, LADY CAROLINE LAMB. she met, just by the Park gates, the hearse which was conveying the remains of Lord Byron to Newstead Abbey. The shock was dreadful. She was carried home in a state of insensibihty ; a long and severe illness ensued ; and that, during her sufferings, there were at times wanderings of intellect, is, we believe, beyond a doubt. m\ change came over her habits ; and about three years ago a separation took place between her and Mr. Lamb. '' It should he known, however, that her husband continued to visit her, to correspond with her, to treat her with the utmost kindness ; and that, when her last hour approached, he travelled from Dublin to London, to be present at the sad and closing scene. " It was after her difference with Lord Byron that Lady Caroline wrote her novel of ' Glenarvon,' the chief character in which was generally understood at the time to have been intended as a portrait of his lordship. Some of the scenes of this novel were too highly coloured, yet it successfully exposed many of the vices of the fashionable world, and conveyed important lessons to the young and ardent of both sexes. " Lady Caroline's next production was ' Graham Hamilton.' This book was written with great care, and its sentiments were those of the utmost purity. Her next and her favourite work was the highly ima- ginative romance of ' Ada Reis ;' that, too, in point of morality, is altogether unobjectionable. LADY CAROLINE LAMB. " The impassioned workings of Lady Caroline's spirit seem to have been too powerful for her slight and fragile frame. She had long been in a state of declinins: health. On her death-bed her mind was perfectly tranquil and lucid : without pain, and with- out a struggle, she expired as a Christian would wish to expire, on the evening of Friday the 25th of January, 1828. " Her ladyship died in Pall Mall. Her remains were removed for interment to the family cemetery of Lord Melbourne, at Hatfield. The Hon. William Lamb, her husband, and Mr. William Ponsonby, attended the funeral as chief mourners." Lord Byron, in mentioning '' Glenarvon," says of it : " Madame de Stael told me marvellous and grievous things. * * I have not even a guess at the contents, except from the very vague accounts I have heard." Subsequently, after reading it, he writes, '' As for the likeness, it can't be good — I did not sit long enough." When an Italian translation was about to be published in Italy, the censor, Petrotini, refused to sanction it until he had consulted Lord Byron, who told him that he did not recognise the slightest relation between the book and himself; but that, whatever opinions there might be upon that subject, he would never prevent the publication of any book in amj language on his own account. The poor translator was, therefore, allowed to proceed. TB;E ©TIJK(&]E®Kf ©E* (n]HI]IE.3i:.v" C. lUt.SG.JIeet Stie VENICE. PONTE RIALTO. Drawn by C. Stanjield, Esq., A.R.A. " Venice once was dear, The pleasant place of all festivity, The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy ! But unto us she hath a spell beyond Her name in story, and her long array Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond About the dogeless city's vanished sway ; Our's is a trophy which will not decay With the Rial to ; Shy lock, and the Moor, And Pierre, cannot be swept away — The keystones of the arch ! though all were o'er, For us repeopled were the solitary shore." Childe Harold, canto iv. st. 3 and 4. RiALTO is an English abbreviation. It is the name, not of the bridge, but of an island, one of the mud banks, and one of the first occupied by the founders of Venice ; anciently it was called the Ripa Alta, or Riva Alta. The arch of this bridge, the largest in span in the city, connects the Rial to vv^ith other parts of Venice, and is called by the inhabitants, not il Rialto, but VENICE. II Ponte di Rialto, as we say Westminster Bridge. On the island is the Exchange, where the merchants of this most celebrated commercial city met foreigners of every nation in correspondence with Venice, but principally Italians from other states of Italy, French, English, Spaniards, and Turks. The present bridge of the Rialto was commenced in the year 1588, and completed in three years. Pas- quali Cicogna was then Doge of Venice, and his arms appear in the centre of the arch. Vasari says the arch was built from a design made long before by Michael Angelo ; and it is curious to observe, upon what in our day would by comparison appear to be a contemptible work, how great names are pressed into the honour of having built it. Palladio and Scamozzi were said to have exerted their genius upon it, and Sansovino to have presented a plan to the Venetians. It is, how- ever, built from a design furnished by Antonio da Ponte, the grandeur of what he had accomplished, in the opinion of his countrymen, probably furnishing the surname. This bridge, which is only eighty-three feet span, is approached by steps, for the curve of the arch is very abrupt. Upon it are two rows of shops, and three paths across it, the principal one between the shops in the centre, the other two on the sides between the shops and the balustrades. The shops are chiefly furnished with jewellery, haberdashery, perfumes, and articles for the toilette. THE LIDO, AND PORT ST. NICOLAS. Drawn by C. Stanfield, A.R.A. The Lido, or shore, may be considered the natural breakwater of Venice : it is a sand embankment, about two miles from St. Mark's Place at its nearest point. It extends nearly twenty miles from Chioggia to the Port of St. Nicolas du Lido. There are three entrances to the La^unes : the most southern is the Port di Chi- oo-o-ia ; that in the middle is the Port of Malamocco : between these two is one of the finest sea embankments in the world, called the Murazzi of the Lido de Pales- trina. The most northern entrance is the subject of the Plate, the Port of St. Nicolas. The city appears in the extreme distance within. Below the Port of St. Nicolas is the Lido de Malamocco, bearing the more general name of Lido, the favourite shore for enjoying the sea breezes of the Adriatic. On the Lagune side of this embankment are gardens and meadows. Lord Byron; in writing to Mr. Moore (Letter 307), VOL. II. G THE LIDO, AND PORT ST. NICOLAS. says : " Talking of horses, by the way, I have trans- ported my own, four in number, to the Lido {heach in English), a strip of some ten miles along the Adriatic, a mile or two from the city ; so that I not only get a row in my gondola, but a spanking gallop of some miles daily along a firm and solitary beach, from the fortress to Malamocco, the which contributes consider- ably to my health and spirits." Of his daily rides on the Lido, which he mentions in this letter, the following account, by a gentleman who lived a good deal with him at Venice, will be found in Moore's " Life of Lord Byron :" — " Almost immediately after Mr. Hobhouse's de- parture. Lord Byron proposed to me to accompany him in his rides on the Lido. One of the long, narrow islands which separate the Lagune, in the midst of which Venice stands, from the Adriatic, is more parti- cularly distinguished by this name. At one extremity is a fortification, which, with the Castle of St. Andrea on an island on the opposite side, defends the nearest entrance to the city from the sea. Li times of peace this fortification is almost dismantled, and Lord Byron had hired here of the Commandant an unoccupied stable, where he kept his horses. The distance from the city was not very considerable; it was much less than to the Terra Firma, and, as far as it went, the spot was not ineligible for riding. THE LIDO, AND PORT ST. NICOLAS. " Every day that the weather would permit, Lord Byron called for me in his gondola, and we found the horses waiting for us outside of the fort. We rode as far as we could along the sea-shore, and then on a kind of dyke, or embankment, which has been raised where the island was very narrow, as far as another small fort about half-way between the principal one which I have already mentioned, and the town or village of Mala- mocco, which is near the other extremity of the island, — the distance between the two forts being about three miles. " On the land side of the embankment, not far from the smaller fort, was a boundary stone, which probably marked some division of property, — all the side of the island nearest the Lagune being divided into gardens for the cultivation of vegetables for the Venetian mar- kets. At the foot of this stone Lord Byron repeatedly told me that I should cause him to be interred, if he should die in Venice, or its neighbourhood, during my residence there ; and he appeared to think, as he was not a Catholic, that, on the part of the government, there could be no obstacle to his interment in an un- hallowed spot of ground by the sea-side. * * * " Nothing could be more delightful than these rides on the Lido were to me. We were from half to three quarters of an hour crossing the water, during which his conversation was always most amusing and inter- THE LIDO, AND PORT ST. NICOLAS. esting. Sometimes he would bring with him any new book he had received, and read to me the passages which most struck him. Often he would repeat to me whole stanzas of the poems he was engaged in writing, as he had composed them on the preceding evening ; and this was the more interesting to me, because I could frequently trace in them some idea which he had started in our conversation of the preceding day, or some re- mark, the effect of which he had been evidently trying upon me. Occasionally, too, he spoke of his own affairs, making me repeat all I had heard with regard to him, and desiring that I would not spare him, but let him know the worst that was said." The rides on the Lido appear to have been one of the great means of enjoyment which Lord Byron afforded to his friends at Venice. Shelley, who visited him there in 1818, says: " At three o'clock I called on Lord Byron ; he was delighted to see me, and our first conversation, of course, consisted in the object of our visit. He took me in his gondola, across the Laguna, to a long, strandy sand, which defends Venice from the Adriatic. When we disembarked, we found his horses waiting for us, and we rode along the sands talking." These rides appear to have suggested the idea of Shelley's poem of " Julian and Maddalo." Under the latter name he personated his friend. Z iy- sir T- Zairrfft.ee', JP. Jt.yt- ^nffravad ij- If.Tvtden , u l^- /L^.'y^r^ // //'^2 (sSSSa lEE OKIGnfAD PICTURE rN THE POSSESSJON Or ^» MURRATy Zimiav,FubUsha. 1S33, hy X Murray,,i. Said liy C. Tilt., S6, J-leet Szr,<7 THOMAS MOORE. From a Portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A. The circumstances of Lord Byron's first acquaintance with Mr. Moore are given at length in Moore's " Life of Byron." The short notices which accompany these portraits ilhistrative of the " Life and Works of Lord Byron," are confined chiefly to the acquaintance of the parties with his lordship. In the " English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," allusion was made by Byron to the bloodless duel of Moore and Jeffrey, and that, too, subsequent to Moore's public denial of what Byron called an " incident which gave occasion to much waggery in the daily prints." Moore wrote to Byron, demanding an explanation ; this letter was not forwarded to him from England. When, in 1811, Lord Byron returned, a correspondence com- menced which led to an amicable result, and to their meeting at Mr. Rogers's house ; where a friendship began which continued to Lord Byron's death. There is much frankness in Moore's account of the commencement of this friendship ; for the way in which he coquetted with THOMAS MOORE. his lordship to obtain it would not have been avowed by an inferior mind. After inserting the letters, Moore says : " It can hardly, I think, be necessary to call the reader's attention to the good sense, self-possession, and frankness, of these letters of Lord Byron. I had placed him — by the somewhat national confusion which I had made of the boundaries of peace and war, of hostility and friendship — in a position which, ignorant as he was of the character of the person who addressed him, it required all the watchfulness of his sense of honour to guard from surprise or snare. Hence the judicious reserve with which he abstained from noticing my advances towards acquaintance, till he should have ascertained exactly whether the explanation which he was willing to give would be such as his correspondent would be satisfied to receive. The moment he was set at rest on this point, the frankness of his nature dis- played itself; and the disregard of all further media- tion or etiquette, with which he at once professed him- self ready to meet me ' when, where, and how' I pleased, shewed that he could be as pliant and con- fiding after such an understanding, as he had been judiciously reserved and punctilious before it. " Such did I find Lord Byron, on my first expe- rience of him; and such — so open and manly-minded — did I find him to the last." THOMAS MOORE. It is to his lordship's correspondence with his friend that we are indebted for that display of the workings of his wondrous mind during the eventful years of his short life. Towards Moore he seems to have had no reserve — no one appears to have had so implicitly his confidence, unless it be Mr. Murray. In 1819, Mr. Moore, on his way to Rome, visited Byron at Venice ; and his sketch of their meeting there is very interesting. " The delight I felt in meeting him once more, after a separation of so many years, was not a little heightened by observing that his pleasure was, to the full, as great, while it was rendered doubly touching by the evident rarity to him of such meetings of late, and the frank outbreak of cordiality and gaiety with which he gave way to his feelings. It would be impossible, indeed, to convey to those who have not, at some time or other, felt the charm of his manner, any idea of what it could be when under the influence of such pleasurable excite- ment as it was most flatteringly evident he experienced at this moment." Moore had called upon his noble friend at La Mira, his campagna on the banks of the Brenta; and they proceeded together to Lord Byron's house, the Monce- nigo Palace at Venice, which his lordship insisted upon Moore's occupying during his stay. Dinner was im- mediately ordered from a trattoria ; and whilst waiting for it, and looking out of the window upon the Grand THOMAS MOORE. Canal, a gondola, with two English gentlemen in it, passed ; they looked towards the window, when Lord Byron, in the joyousness of delight at having his friend with him, put his arms a-kimbo, and said, with a comic swagger, '' Ah, if you, John Bulls, knew who the two fellows are, now standing up here, I think you would stare." At Venice they spent five or six days together, seeing sights, taking aquatic excursions, and rides on the Lido: thus passed the day — the evenings were spent in society. It was during this visit that Lord Byron put into the hands of his friend those memoirs, about the destruction of which so much mystery hangs. On the day of their separation, Moore says : " A short time before dinner he left the room, and in a minute or two returned, carrying in his hand a white leathern bag. ' Look here,' he said, holding it up, ' this would be worth something to Murray, though you, I daresay, would not give sixpence for it.' ' What is it?' I asked. ' My life and adventures,' he answered. On hearing this, I raised my hands in a gesture of wonder. Mt is not a thing,' he conti- nued, ' that can be published during my lifetime ; but you may have it, if you like — there, do whatever you please with it.' In taking the bag, and thanking him most warmly, I added, ' This will make a nice legacy for my little Tom, who shall astonish the latter days of the nineteenth century with it.' And this is nearly word THOMAS MOORE. for word the whole of what passed between us on the subject." " When it was time for me to depart, he expressed his intention to accompany me for a few miles ; and, ordering his horses to follovr, proceeded with me as far as Stra, where, for the last time — how little thinking it was to be the last! — I bade my kind and admirable friend farewell." Their correspondence, however, continued until within six weeks of the death of his noble friend, whose last letter to him is dated from Missolonghi, March 4, 1824. VOL. II. H ^- PETRARCH'S HOUSE. Painted by B. Hoppner, Esq. " They keep his dust in Arqua, where he died — The mountain-village where his latter days Went down the vale of years ; and 'tis their pride ■ An honest pride — and let it be their praise, To offer to the passing stranger's gaze His mansion and his sepulchre ; both plain And venerably simple, such as raise A feeling more accordant with his strain Than if a pyramid formed his monumental fane. And the soft, quiet hamlet where he dwelt Is one of that complexion which seems made For those who their mortality have felt, And sought a refuge from their hopes decayed In the deep umbrage of a green hill's shade. Which shews a distant prospect far away Of busy cities, now in vain displayed. For they can lure no further ; and the ray Of a bright sun can make sufficient holyday — Petrarch's house. Developing the mountains, leaves, and flowers, And shining in the brawling brook, where by, Clear as its current, glide the sauntering hours With a calm languor, which, though to the eye Idlesse it seem, hath its morality." Childe Harold, canto iv. st. 31-3. " Petrarch retired to Arqua immediately on his return from the unsuccessful attempt to visit Urban V. at Rome, in the year 1370, and, with the exception of his celebrated visit to Venice in company with Fran- cesco Novello da Carrara, he appears to have passed the four last years of his life between that charming solitude and Padua. For four months previous to his death he was in a state of continual languor, and on the morning of July the 19th, in the year 1374, was found dead in his library chair, with his head resting upon a book. The chair is still shewn amongst the precious relics of Arqua, which, from the uninterrupted veneration that has been attached to every thing relative to this great man from the moment of his death to the present hour, have, it maybe hoped, abetter chance of authenticity than the Shakspearian memorials of Stratford-upon- Avon. " Arqua (for the last syllable is accented in pro- nunciation, although the analogy of the English lan- guage has been observed in the verse) is twelve miles from Padua, and about three miles on the right of the PETRARCH S HOUSE. high road to Rovigo, in the bosom of the Eiiganean hills. After a walk of twenty minutes across a flat, well-wooded meadow, you come to a little blue lake, clear but fathomless, and to the foot of a succession of acclivities and hills, clothed with vineyards and orchards, rich with fir and pomegranate trees, and every sunny fruit shrub. From the banks of the lake the road winds into the hills, and the church of Arqua is soon seen between a cleft where two ridges slope towards each other, and nearly enclose the village. The houses are scattered at intervals on the steep sides of these summits ; and that of the poet is on the edge of a little knoll overlooking two descents, and com- manding a view, not only of the glowing gardens in the dales immediately beneath, but of the wide plains, above whose low woods of mulberry and willow, thick- ened into a dark mass by festoons of vines, tall single cypresses, and the spires of towns, are seen in the distance, which stretches to the mouths of the Po and the shores of the Adriatic. The climate of these volcanic hills is warmer, and the vintage begins a week sooner than in the plains of Padua. Petrarch is laid — for he cannot be said to be buried — in a sarcophagus of red marble, raised on four pilasters on an elevated base, and preserved from an association with meaner tombs. It stands conspicuously alone, but will be soon over- shadowed by four lately planted laurels. Petrarch's Petrarch's house. Fountain, for here every thing is Petrarcli's, springs and expands itself beneath an artificial arch, a little below the church, and abounds plentifully, in the driest season, with that soft water which was the ancient wealth of the Euganean hills. The revolutions of cen- turies have spared these sequestered valleys, and the only violence which has been offered to the ashes of Petrarch was prompted, not by hate, but veneration. An attempt was made to rob the sarcophagus of its treasure, and one of the arms was stolen by a Floren- tine through a rent which is still visible. The injury is not forgotten, but has served to identify the poet with the country where he was born, but where he would not live." The feelings with which Petrarch retired to Arqua have been recorded in one of his letters, where he says, *' I have built amongst the Euganean hills a small house, decent and proper, in which I hope to pass the rest of my days, thinking always of my dead or absent friends." All that is now associated with Petrarch at Arqua, makes this a place of poetic pilgrimage. Rogers has given this record of it : — " And could I now Neglect the place, where, in a graver mood, When he had done and settled with the world — When all the illusions of his youth had fled, Indulged, perhaps, too much, cherished too long — PETRARCH S HOUSE. He came for the conclusion ? Half-way up He built his house, wheiice, as by stealth, he caught, Among the hills, a glimpse of busy life. That soothed, not stirred — But knock, and enter in. This was his chamber ; 'tis as when he went — As if he now were in his orchard-grove ; And this his closet. Here he sat and read. This was his chair ; and in it, unobserved — Reading or thinking of his absent friends. He passed away as in a quiet slumber." Petrarch's house, considering it as a residence, was (in 1826) nearly in ruins. A long, stony hill led to it from the church. Its outer walks were plain, irre- gular, and crumbling, and the small balconies breaking away. The lower floor was used for granaries, and inhabited by a poor farmer's family, who shewed the place. The second, or upper story, consisted of five nearly unfurnished rooms. On some of the walls were to be traced the remains of rude frescos. The subjects were unintelligible, but the people declared they were all about Laura. In the second room the visitors en- tered their names in an album, and then passed on to the unpainted panelled door of Petrarch's chamber, which was kept locked, to preserve the few sacred relics of the poet. These consisted of his cat, em- balmed in a niche over an inner door, with an inscrip- tion l^eneath, nearly illegible ; and in the fourth room. Petrarch's house. his wardrobe or book-press, and the chair in which they said he died. The latter were guarded by a wire frame-work, because visitors chipped off pieces, and broke the chair, which was very worm-eaten and crumbhng, by rolling about in it while talking to the guide. The last room was a mere closet, in which they said he was fond of ruminating, and where he was found dead in his chair. The prospect from this small window over the rich gardens to the Euganean hills, which enclose the village, was most lovely. The small high-scented fig, the vine, and the pomegranate, were particularly luxuriant in Petrarch's garden. iiliiluL H e ^ ifc -d •s 1a, w) @ i- ^ a -I-- - ^ ^■ S5 4 |-. FERRARA. Drawn by S. Prout. " Ferrara ! in thy wide and grass-grown streets, Whose symmetry was not for solitude, There seems as 'twere a curse upon the seats Of former sovereigns, and the antique brood Of Este, which for many an age made good Its strength within thy walls, and was of yore Patron or tyrant, as the changing mood Of petty power impelled, of those who wore The wreath which Dante's brow alone had worn before. And Tasso is their glory and their shame : Hark to his strain ! and then survey his cell ! And see how dearly earned Torquato's fame, And where Alfonso bade his poet dwell : The miserable despot could not quell The insulted mind he sought to quench, and blend With the surrounding maniacs, in the hell Where he had plunged it. Glory without end Scattered the clouds away — and on that name attend The tears and praises of all time." Childe Harold, canto iv, st. 35-37. VOL. II. I FERRARA. Lord Byron visited Ferrara, on his way to Rome in April 1817; and a visit to tlie prison of Tasso roused the energies of his genius, not only to the ahove fine allusion to the author of " Jerusalem Delivered," but to the poems of the " Lament of Tasso" and " Para- sina." In June 1819, he again visited these scenes, and writes, " I went over the Ariosto MSS., &:c, again at Ferrara, with the castle, and cell, and house, &c. Ferrara is much decayed and depopulated, but the castle still exists entire ; and I saw the court where Parasina and Hugo were beheaded, according to the aunal of Gibbon." " Ferrara is supposed to occupy the site of Forum Allieni, which, contracted to Forum Arrii, would easily pass into its present name. The modern city dates its foundation from the fifth century, when the invasion of the Huns, and the destruction of Aquileia, drove the inhabitants to take refuge amid marshes and forests. Its origin is therefore similar to Venice itself. In 585, it was fortified by Smaragdus, the exarch of Ravenna, but it was subsequently enlarged at vai'ious times. The era of its glory dates from the thirteenth century, under the house of Este, first as its chief magistrates, and after- wards as hereditary princes, either holding of the Pope, or maintaining their independence. On the demise of the last duke it reverted to the Pope ; and from that period we may date its rapid decline. A cardinal FERRARA. legate now resides in the ducal palace, which stands moated and flanked with towers in the heart of the subjugated town, like a tyrant entrenched among slaves. There is nothing very remarkable in its archi- tecture, nor in that of any of the other buildings ; but the palaces have an air of solidity and magnificence. The straight streets in the new parts of the town want houses, while every where there are traces of decay." " During the greater part of the sixteenth century there were few of the courts of Europe that could vie in splendour with that of Ferrara, and polished stran- gers from France and Germany were astonished at its magnificence." The author of the " Orlando," the Homer of modern Italy, is claimed with pride by the Fer- rarese as a fellow-citizen, although he was born at Reggio. They possess his bones, and can shew his arm-chair, his ink-stand, and his autographs. The house in which he resided, the room in which he died, are designated by his own memorial replaced on the outside, and by a recent inscription, which states that two hundred and eighty years after the death of the divine poet, the house was purchased and repaired by the Podesta, at the expense of the city. Ariosto was buried in the church of the Benedictines. The bust which there surmounted his tomb was struck by light- ning about the middle of the last century, and a crown FERRARA. of iron laurels which wreathed the brows of the poet was melted away ; an incident of which Lord Byron has made an elegant use in his well-known stanzas descriptive of Ferrara — " The lightning rent from Ariosto's bust The iron crown of laurels' mimicked leaves ; Nor was the ominous element unjust, For the true laurel-wreath which glory weaves Is of the tree no bolt of thunder cleaves, And the false semblance but disgraced his brow : Yet still, if fondly superstition grieves. Know that the lightning sanctifies below Whate'er it strikes — yon head is doubly sacred now." Childe Harold, canto iv. st. 41. Hazlitt, in his " Notes of a Journey through France and Italy," says : " Of all the places I have seen in Italy, it is the one I should by far most covet to live in. It is the ideal of an Italian city, once great, now a shadow of itself. Whichever way you turn, you are struck with picturesque beauty and faded splendours, but with nothing squalid, mean, or vulgar. The grass grows in the well-paved streets. You look down long avenues of buildings, or of garden-walls, with summer-houses or fruit-trees projecting over them, and airy palaces with dark portraits gleaming through the grated windows. You turn, and a chapel bounds your view one way — a broken arch another, at the end of the vacant, glim- FERRARA. mering, fairy perspective. You are in a dream — in the heart of a romance ; you enjoy the most perfect soli- tude — that of a city which was once filled with ' the busy hum of men,' and of which the tremulous frag- ments at every step strike the sense, and call up re- flection. In short, nothing is to be seen of Ferrara but the remains, graceful and romantic, of what it was ; no sordid object intercepts or sullies the retrospect of the past ; it is not degraded and patched up, like Rome, with upstart improvements — with earthenware and oil- shops ; it is a classic vestige of antiquity, drooping into peaceful decay — a sylvan suburb — ' Where buttress, wall, and tower, Seem fading fast away From human thoughts and purposes, To yield to some transforming power, And blend with the surrounding trees.' Here Ariosto lived — here Tasso occupied first a palace, and then a dungeon. Verona has even a more sounding name, boasts a finer situation, and contains the tomb of Juliet ; but the same tender melancholy grace does not hang upon its walls, nor hover round its precincts, as round those of Ferrara, inviting to endless leisure and pensive musing. Ferrara, while it was an independent state, was a flourishing and wealthy city, and contained 70,000 inhabitants ; but from the time it FERRARA. fell into the hands of the Popes, m 1597, it declined ; and it has now little more than an historical and poetical being." '* The whole appearance of this city is mournful in the highest degree. The day we were there was some local festival ; and if Ferrara ever could look gay, it would have looked gay then. But never did city ex- hibit a more dismal and desolate aspect. The grass waved all over the streets, where the bordering palaces were crumbling to ruin, and the walls falling to decay. On account of this festival, the cathedral was richly hung with glaring drapei'ies, which, in some measure, turned our observation from the building itself Its architecture appeared to resemble most of the cathedrals in the north of Italy. " The castle stands near the cathedral. It is still in good preservation — moated and towered as of old. But, no longer the scene of princely festivity or knightly gallantry, its decorated halls and wide courts resound only w^ith the solemn tread of priests and the slow- rolling equipages of the cardinal legate, who resides here in quality of governor for the Pope. The walls and ceilings of the principal apartments are covered with now faded frescos by Titian and Dosso Dosso, the only painter of any eminence in the Ferrarese school." a t BOLOGNA. Brawn by J. D. Harding. Lord Byeon stayed a few days at Bologna, on his way to Ravenna, in 1819. He announced his arrival there in a letter to Mr. Hoppner : " I am at length joined to Bologna, where I am settled like a sausage, and shall be broiled like one, if this weather continues ;" and to Mr. Murray he describes with great spirit a character whom he met with in the burying-ground of Boloo;na : " I have been picture-gazing this morning at the famous Domenichino and Guido, both of which are superlative. I afterwards went to the beautiful ceme- tery of Bologna, beyond the walls ; and found, besides the superb burial-ground, an original of a custode, who reminded one of the grave-digger in Hamlet. He has a collection of capuchins' sculls, labelled on the fore- head ; and taking down one of them, said, ' This was Brother Desiderio Berro, who died at forty — one of my best friends. I begged his head of his brethren after his disease, and they gave it me. I put it in lime, and then boiled it. Here it is, teeth and all, in excellent BOLOGNA. preservation. He was the merriest, cleverest fellow I ever knew. Wherever he went, he brought joy ; and whenever any one was melancholy, the sight of him was enough to make him cheerful again. He walked so actively, you might have taken him for a dancer — he joked — he laughed — Oh ! he was such a Frate as I never saw before, nor ever shall again !' " He told me that he had himself planted all the cypresses in the cemetery ; that he had the greatest attachment to them and to his dead people ; that since 1801 they had buried fifty-three thousand persons. In shewing some older monuments, there was that of a Roman girl of twenty, with a bust by Bernini. She was a Princess Barlorini, dead two centuries ago : he said, that on opening her grave, they had found her hair complete, and 'as yellow as gold.' Some of the epi- taphs at Ferrara pleased me more than the more splen- did monuments at Bologna ; for instance : ' Martini Luigi Iraplora pace.' ' Lucrezia Picini Implora eterna quiete.' Can any thing be more full of pathos? Those few words say all that can be said or sought : the dead had had enough of life ; all they wanted was rest, and this they implore ! There is all the helplessness, and humble BOLOGNA. hope, and deathlike prayer, that can arise from the grave — ' implora pace.'" Bologna is finely situated. On approaching it, the country gradually improves and becomes better wooded. The extreme fertility of the rich plain in which it stands is indicated by the luxuriance of its vegetation, the city is provided with all the necessaries of life, and the portion of good society which it contains is of easy access to the stranger. The climate is reckoned salubrious ; but Bologna is deemed one of the coldest places in Italy in winter, and one of the hottest in summer. Few strangers, however, rest here : it has the disadvantage of being within twenty-four hours' distance of Florence, with the attractions of which city it cannot compete. But there are many objects of interest to the traveller at Bologna — its gallery, which possesses some of the finest works of Guido, Domeni- chino, and the Caracci — its beautiful gardens, and those remarkable buildings, the leaning towers. From that of Asinelli, which is four hundred and seventy-six feet high, the fertile plain of Lombardy lies spread out below the observer, half-surrounded by the snowy Appennines ; whilst the city of Bologna itself, with its towers, its palaces, churches, monasteries, and gardens, lies like a splendid map before the observer. VOL. 11. K ft FLORENCE. Drawn by Lieutenant-Colonel Batty. " But Arno wins us to the fair white walls, Where the Etrurian Athens claims and keeps A softer feeling for her fairy halls. Girt by her theatre of hills, she reaps Her corn, and wine, and oil, and Plenty leaps To laughing life, with her redundant horn. Along the banks where smiling Arno sweeps Was modern Luxury of Commerce born. And buried Learning rose, redeemed to a new morn." Childe Harold, canto 4, st. 48. This view, from the Belvedere, is perhaps one of the finest of Florence, where the Arno is seen winding through the city, and stretching away below it, in the Val d'Arno, till it is lost in the haze and distance. From no point of view does Florence more deservedly receive its appellation of" The Fair." It is the favourite scene which every artist and every amateur, if he sketch, adds to his collection, as it embraces most of the striking objects in the city, as well as conveys a just idea of the beautiful locality of Florence. The FLORENCE. bridges distinguished are the Rubaconte and the Ponte Veechio ; the woods on the borders of the river on the right, below the city, are those of the Cassine Reale — a feature peculiar to Florence, where, in the severe summer heats, refreshment is to be found in its beauti- ful shades ; and where, in an evening, the visitor enjoys the songs of hundreds of nightingales and the illumi- nation of thousands of fire-flies : it is then the favourite place of public resort. In the view, near the Ponte Veechio, on the right, is the extremity of the grand ducal gallery, the castellated tower of the Palazzo Veechio, and the cupola of the mausoleum of the Medici family, which is attached to the church of San Lorenzo. The next tower on the right is the campanile of the Duomo, and near it the stupendous dome of the cathe- dral. Altogether, the view joresents such objects of interest and beauty as can scarcely be found together in any other scene in Europe. Drawn. *!' J*;- H^stcOl^ A T.ii0ray£ia. Ify W.Tif-den.. (from rOE ORIGIHM, PICTmtE.PJSIBTED K2 THE BEQUEST OF IiORB B3H01ir.y J.ondor^J'uhTislKdlSSZ, by J.jclceJj>n..JSi3. ^fWrAi'e^ Tny _S"-7T JU^jZi- JjTisTveAJffSS, ty J. Mzcrrcu/^ & Soli, Try C. TUt, d6,JFleet, Street. THE COUNTESS GUICCIOLI. Drawn by W. Brockedon, 1833. " Lady ! if for the cold and cloudy clime Where I was born, but where I would not die, Of the great Poet-Sire of Italy I dare to build the imitative rhyme, Harsh Runic copy of the South's sublime, Thou art the cause ; and howsoever I Fall short of his immortal harmony. Thy gentle heart will pardon me the crime. Thou, in the pride of Beauty and of Youth, Spakest ; and for thee to speak and be obeyed Are one ; but only in the sunny South Such sounds are uttered, and such charms displayed, So sweet a language from so fair a mouth — Ah ! to what effort would it not persuade ? " Ravenna, June 21, 1819." This sonnet is the dedication of the " Prophecy of Dante" to the Countess Guiccioli, at whose suggestion the subject was chosen. The Countess Guiccioli was the daughter of Count Gamba, a nobleman of Ravenna. She was taken at an THE COUNTESS GUICCIOLI. early age from a convent, to become the wife of Count Guiccloli, a widower old enough to be her grandfather, and rich enough to buy the consent of the parents of any young lady of family in the states of the church, in spite of a character not distinguished for its worthi- ness. This marriage of custom, instead of affection, had not taken place long before her visit to Venice, in the spring of 1819, where her acquaintance with Lord Byron commenced, which continued to his death. He met her in society at the Countess Benzoni's. Moore, in his " Life of Lord Byron," has detailed their intro- duction to each other — their early acquaintance and continued attachment — and shewn the influence which she had over him to subdue his passions, to restrain for a time even the continuance of his poem of " Don Juan," and to direct his energies to nobler subjects ; and numerous extracts are given from her correspond- ence, which characterise the affection to which she had devoted herself, and the accomplishments which had attracted and secured its object. It is acknowledged by the friends of Lord Byron, that the affection of the Guiccioli brought him back from a state of low and degrading dissipation, to health and to all the tranquillity of which his temperament was susceptible, and that his heart, seared by domestic abandonment, could receive. In the winter of 1832-3, this lady came to England THE COUNTESS GUICCIOLI. with her brother. The object of her journey hither was to visit all the scenes associated with Byron, and to make a pilgrimage to his grave. She was naturally an object of interest to those to whom she became known ; and there were few, if any, who did not per- ceive in her appearance, her manners, and her accom- plishments, how strong her influence must have been where these were employed to create and secure affection. ^ 3 <^ « ^ g 1 9 S '^ Hi < ^' S s' BAY OF NAPLES. Drawn by J. D. Harding, from a Sketch by W, Page. Lord Byron says (Letter 273) that he never visited Naples. He speaks of it thus : " I shan't go to Naples. It is but the second-best sea-view, and I have seen the first and third, viz. Constantinople and Lisbon — (by the way, the last is but a river view ; however, they reckon it after Stamboul and Naples, and before Genoa) — and Vesuvius is silent, and I have passed by Etna, &:c." As views of Constantinople are given in these " Illustra- tions," Lord Byron's readers are afforded an oppor- tunity of judging of the justness of his remark. M'Farlane, who knew both cities, has compared them in the following observations : " The mountains of Thrace, in the background, are neither lofty nor picturesque ; the European and Asiatic hills on the Bosphorus are of inconsiderable elevation; and the sublime, poetical Mount Olympus does not form part of the view of Constantinople. At more than twenty miles' distance, with the sea of Marmora between, it is but rarely seen at sunset, and then you must turn your back on the city, the Bosphorus, and the Golden Horn. VOL. II. Q BAY OF NAPLES. Nor, in embracing the view of Constantinople, the channel and the port, from the most favourable point (the hills behind Scutari), do the pretty islands of Prinkipo, Khalki, Antigone, and Prote, enter into the picture : they are behind you in a nook of the Propon- tis, close in to the Asiatic shore. This is a different and inferior arrangement from that which I have dwelt on for months, for years, with an overflowing heart at Naples, where a magnificent champaign, ' che I'Apen- nin parte, e il mar circonda,' is bounded by stupendous mountains whichever way you turn — where Vesuvius rises stark and isolated — where the coast is bold, and rich in high romantic capes — and the island of Capri, the most picturesque rock that was ever moulded by nature, forms an intrinsic part of the panorama, which, in some positions, may be enriched by the accession of the populous island of Procida, and the majestic volcanic peaks of the island of Ischia. " The scenery of Constantinople is certainly more curious, and there is an oriental, novel air about it, calculated to strike the European. Of a hundred tra- vellers, perhaps ninety would extol it above that of Naples ; but the remaining ten would be such as in- tensely studied nature, and had been penetrated with the true pictorial and poetic essence. A Dutch painter, charmed Avith the details before him, would at once ^ pitch his desk' at Stamboul; but a Claude Lorraine BAY OF NAPLES. would, after the comparison, return with increased adoration to the southern parts of the Italian peninsula. " I enjoyed a smile one evening at the table of the , when an opaque baron from the north of Ger- many entered on the hackneyed comparison of Con- stantinople and Naples ; — a ridiculous comparison, rendered doubly so by his awkward mode of treating it. He gave a decided preference to the Turkish capi- tal, but finished by regretting that Stamboul did not possess a volcano. ' C'est la seul chose, Matame VAm- hassadrice, la seul chose qui maanque a cette fille, c'est un Mont Vesuve ! ' The amiable lady might have thought that Constantinople had already volcanoes enough (I mean of a moral kind), and that the pic- turesqueness of such an unamiable neighbour would hardly compensate for its inconveniences. Mais passe pour cela, the baron knew nothing of scenery when he cited Vesuvius as the finest feature of that of Naples." 9 t3 4 CAPE LEUCADIA. LOVER'S LEAP. Drawn by Copley Fielding, from a Sketch by Major Harriot. " Childe Harold sailed, and passed the barren spot Where sad Penelope o'erlooked the wave ; And onward viewed the mount, not yet forgot, The lover's refuge, and the Lesbian's grave. Dark Sappho ! could not verse immortal save That breast imbued with such immortal fire ? Could she not live who life eternal gave ? If life eternal may await the lyre, That only heaven to which Earth's children may aspire. TP 7P Tf* ^^ But when he saw the evening star above Leucadia's far-projecting rock of woe, And hailed the last resort of fruitless love. He felt, or deemed he felt, no common glow : And as the stately vessel glided slow Beneath the shadow of that ancient mount. He watched the billows' melancholy flow. And, sunk albeit in thought as he was wont, More placid seemed his eye, and smooth his pallid front." Childe Harold, canto ii. st. 39 and 41. CAPE LEUCADIA. This beautiful print, from Mr. C. Fielding's draw- ing, has been admirably managed to give effect and distinctness to the scene of Sappho's despair or vexa- tion. " We went," says Dodwell, " to the Leucadian promontory by sea : it is a narrow slip of rocks, pro- jecting a considerable way, in a direction nearly south- east ; the northern side rises in gentle slopes and round hills. The southern presents a bold and preci- pitous face of white marble, broken into perpendicular masses of great height and beauty ; the glittering white- ness of which forms a singular contrast with the dark evergreens which grow in the crevices of the rock. " The sea from which these noble precipices arise is deep and clear, and in some places broken by pointed and insulated rocks. It was with some difficulty we found a path to ascend to the summit of the pro- montory. " On the edge of one of the precipices are the foundations of a building, apparently the cella of a temple, composed of large quadrilateral stones, several heaps of which were also scattered among the bushes. The rock on which this ruin stands rises perpendicu- larly from the sea to a considerable height ; and I have been assured there is a Greek inscription on its face, near its summit, in large letters, and visible from the sea below ; but it escaped my observation. This is the CAPE LEUCADIA. Lover's Leap, as there is no other place which was so completely free from projecting rocks, and where the sea was also clear from insulated masses. On an ad- joining precipice, of still greater height, are the remains of a small circular building, composed of regular ma- sonry, near which are many fragments of pottery of finest workmanship : there were three kinds ; the red, the black, and a coarse kind of a light red colour. An excavation might be made here with success. The earth seems not to have been disturbed, and the place is little visited by travellers. " The ruins which are seen on the lower precipice are probably the remains of the Temple of Apollo. " On looking from the edge of this cliff down on the sea which roars below, it is almost impossible to imagine that the human breast could have sufficient courage to take this dreadful leap, to cure an unhappy or a hopeless passion ; and yet we are told that the amorous Maces, of Buthrotum, performed it no less than four times, and at last got the better of his love. " The festival of the Leucadian Apollo was annual; and a criminal who had been condemned to death was precipitated into the sea as an expiatory victim. " The view from hence is very extensive. Towards the west is the open sea, looking towards Sicily and Italy. Turning to the opposite direction, the eye wan- ders over the Acarnanian coast and several of its CAPE LEUCADIA. islands, particularly Megalo-nesi ; next is seen the small island of Ataco, the distant mountains of Arcadia, and the islands of Ithaca and Cephallenia." Hughes, in his " Travels in Greece," describes his visit to Leucadia ; and says of the small circular build- ing mentioned by Dodwell, that it is the remains of a Venetian structure, and that near the portentous Leap a monastery is built in honour of St. Nicolo, to which, on his Neptunian festival, vast multitudes of the island- ers, with their continental neighbours, annually repair- In the " Spectator," No. 223, Addison has amused us with a pretended translation of a Greek manuscript found in the Temple of Apollo, on the promontoiy of Leucate ; he says it is a short history of the Lover's Leap, and is inscribed " An account of persons, male and female, who offered up their vows in the Temple of the Pythian Apollo, in the forty-sixth Olympiad, to leap from the promontory of Leucate into the Ionian sea, in order to cure themselves of the passion of love ;" and in another paper. No. 233, he has given a humorous list of these worthies, of whom three or four may be quoted, with the prefatory remark of the author. " This account is very dry in many parts, as only mentioning the name of the lover who leaped, the per- son he leaped for, and relating, in short, that he was either cured, or killed, or maimed by the fall. It indeed gives the names of so many who died by it, that CAPE LEUCADIA. it would have looked like a bill of mortality, had I translated it at full leno;th. I have therefore made an abridgment of it, and only extracted such particular passages as have something extraordinary, either in the ease, or in the cure, or in the fate of the person who is mentioned in it. " Cleora, a widow of Ephesus, being inconsolable for the death of her husband, was resolved to take this leap in order to get rid of her passion for his memory ; but being arrived at the promontory, she there met with Dimmachus the Miletian, and after a short conversa- tion with him laid aside the thoughts of her leap, and married him in the Temple of Apollo. " Atalanta, an old maid, whose cruelty had several years before driven two or three despairing lovers to this leap, being now in the fifty-fifth year of her age, and in love with an officer of Sparta, broke her neck in the fall. " DiAGORAS, the usurer, in love with his cook- maid ; he peeped several times over the precipice, but his heart misgiving him, he went back, and married her that evenins;. " Sappho, the Lesbian, in love with Phaon, arrived at the Temple of Apollo, habited like a bride in gar- ments as white as snow. She wore a garland of myrtle on her head, and carried in her hand the little musical instrument of her own invention. After havine: sunir VOL. II. R CAPE LEUCADIA. an hymn to Apollo, she hung up her garland on one side of his altar, and her harp on the other. She then tucked up her vestments, like a Spartan virgin, and amidst thousands of spectators, who were anxious for her safety, and offered up vows for her deliverance, marched directly forwards to the utmost summit of the promontory, where, after having repeated a stanza of her own verses, which we could not hear, she threw herself off the rock with such an intrepidity as was never before observed in any who had attempted that dangerous leap. Many who were present related that they saw her fall into the sea, from whence she never rose again ; though there were others who affirmed that she never came to the bottom of her leap, but that she was changed into a swan as she fell, and that they saw her hovering in the air under that shape. But whether or no the whiteness and fluttering of her gar- ments might not deceive those who looked upon her, or whether she might not really be metamorphosed into that musical and melancholy bird, is still a doubt among the Lesbians." ^ s "l to y "^l ^ ^ ^- y l ^ YANINA. Drawn by J. I). Harding, from a Sketch by C. R. Cockerell, A.R.A. Another view of Yanina, chosen from a beautiful point by Mr. Cockerell. It is a more general view of the city, and will enable the reader of the description quoted and given in the former notice, better to compre- hend the enchanting situation of Yanina, its lake, and the surrounding mountains, particularly that fine one above the city, called by the Turks Mitzekeli, which is considered one of the ramifications of the Pindus. © & I VALE OF TEMPE. Drawn by William Purser, " Childe Harold passed o'er many a mount sublime, Through lands scarce noticed in historic tales ; Yet in famed Attica such lovely dales Are rarely seen ; nor can fair Tempe boast A charm they know not." Childe Harold, canto ii. st. 46. DoDWELL describes, with more detail than any other author, the Vale of Tempe. The following is extracted from his work on Greece : — " On the morning- of the 5th we mounted our horses, in order to pass the whole day at the Vale of Tempe, one of the principal objects of our journey from Athens. We descended to the plain, crossed a small stream, and came to an open forest of platani, of great size and venerable age, upon the eastern bank of the Peneios, whose gentle current glides sequestered under the arching shade. It flows, says iElian, as smooth as oil. Ovid affirms that it rolls with foaming waves ; but he alludes to that part of the stream which is between its source and the Thessalian plain. It rises VALE OF TEMPE. on Pindos, near Gomphi, and before it enters Tempe receives several of the Thessalian rivers ; particularly the Apidanos, Onochonos, Enipeus, and the Parnisos ; it also receives the tributary streams of the Kouralios and Titaresios. A short way from the forest of platani we entered the Vale of Tempe, that is thrown between the approximating precipices of Ossa and Olympos ; the former on the south, the latter on the north. The summits of these mountains are not visible from any part of the valley; but the traveller beholds on each side a stupendous wall of mighty precipices rising in prodigious grandeur, shattered into deformities, and sprinkled with a wild profusion of trees and aromatic shrubs. The road runs at the foot of Ossa, with the Peneios flowing to the left, by which it is separated from Olympos. In some places this river displays a broad channel, which in others is so narrow that it has the appearance of being compressed by the opposite rocks, the collision of which is prevented only by an intervening glen of a few hundred paces in breadth. " One of the most ancient names of the Peneios, according to Strabo, was Araxis, from its having burst its way through Ossa and Olympos. We proceeded along the ancient way, which has been cut with much labour on the steep and rugged side of Ossa. Soon after entering the vale, we came to an aperture in the rock, about three feet in circumference, and close to the VALE OF TEMPE. right of the road ; it is denominated avsij^or^owa, ' the wind-hole/ from a violent and cold wind which issues from it with a roaring noise. A short way further we came to a clear and cold spring, gushing with impe- tuosity from heneath the roots of a large platanus. It immediately enters the Peneios, from whose dusky current its limpid waters may long be discriminated. As far as this spot the vale is of narrow and contracted dimensions ; but here it is enlarged into a greater ex- panse. The trees which are scattered at the foot of Olympos suffer the eye to glance with delight on inter- vening glades of lively verdure, which are vividly con- trasted with the sterile rocks and dark precipices that form the prominent features of the vale. The banks of the river are in many places embowered by platani of such ample growth, that while they lave their pendent branches in the stream, they form so dense a screen as almost entirely to exclude the rays of the sun. The wild olive, the laurel,* the oleander, the agnos, various kinds of arbuti, the yellow jasmine, terebinth, lentiscus, and rosemary, with the myrtle and laburnum, richly decorate the margin of the river, while masses of aromatic plants and flowers exhale * " Daphne was said to be the daughter of Peneios, because the laurel abounded on its banks. The first temple which was erected to Apollo at Delphi was constructed with the laurel ofTenipe. — Fausan. b.x. C.5." VALE OF TEMPE. their varied perfumes and breathe their luscious odours through the scented air. A muUipHcity of oaks, of firs, and of other forest-trees, are seen flourishing in a higher region of the mountains. The vale, as if by some giant-pressure, is again reduced to a narrow glen, and in some parts no more space is left than is suf- ficient for the current of the river, above which Ossa and Olympos shoot up in precipices of almost perpen- dicular ascent. The grandest rock that I ever beheld is nearly in the middle of the valley, where it raises its gigantic form into the air, impressing the beholder with surprise and wonder. Its aspiring summit is crowned by the remains of an ancient fortress, of Roman con- struction : a marble cornice, which had fallen from the ruins, was lying in the road. Having proceeded some way from this spot, we arrived at the narrowest part of the valley, where Ossa and Olympos are only separated by the Peneios. The ancient road is here judiciously cut in the rock ; and as it mounts, resting-places for the horses' feet have been dexterously contrived in the surface of the stone, which would otherwise be slippery, and expose the traveller to the danger of being preci- pitated into the river. The rock has also been worn by the ancient marks of wheels ; and there is just room for two carriages to pass with ease, as the breadth occupied by the carriages of the ancients was about five feet, and that of the road thirteen feet. This was VALE OF TEMPE. formerly one of the fortified parts of the valley, as is evident by the inscription which is cut in the face of a rock, rising from the right-hand side of the way. W ^ W " Proceeding from this place, we soon arrived at the Macedonian extremity of Tempe ; and, through the glen of Ossa and Olympos, enjoyed a beautiful per- spective of the rich Pierian plain, that was formerly thronged with numerous cities, and an animated popu- lation ; but at present it is a solitude of fields and trees." " The description of the valley of Tempe, which has been given by Pliny, is particularly interesting, as he has feelingly depicted the beauty and grandeur of the scenery, a subject generally neglected by an- cient authors. The account of jElian is still more beautiful, and more in unison with the exquisite beauty of the spot which he describes. He says that ' Tempe is between Olympos and Ossa, mountains of prodigious height, separated from each other by Divine agency. The intermediate vale is forty stadii in length, and in some parts a. plethron in breadth, and in othei's more. The Peneios flows through the valley, and is engrossed by the confluence of other rivers. This place is varied with many beautiful recesses ; not the works of art, but of spontaneous nature, whose embellishments appear to have been studiously lavished on this favoured VOL. II. s VALE OF TEMPE. spot ; for copious and thick ivy, like the spreading vine, twines up the highest trees, while the rocks are shaded by abundant verdure, refreshing to the eye. Within the vale are many forests and retired spots, which in the heat of summer refresh and alleviate the weary traveller. Frequent rivulets and springs, of the best and coolest water, strengthen those who bathe in them. The birds, on all sides, sing the whole day long, with the sweetest melody soothing the way-worn stranger as he travels through the vale. On each side of the river are sweet and solitary spots ; the slow and sluggish Peneios flows through the vale as smooth as oil. The thick foliage of the trees, with their wide-spreading branches, protect from the fury of the sun those who navigate the river. The neighbouring people here assemble, performing sacrifices, and indulging in con- viviality ; and the traveller is greeted with the grateful odour of frequent victims.' " s E S MOUNT OLYMPUS. Drawn by W. Purser. " Long have I roamed through lands which are not mnie, • Adored the Alp, and loved the Appennine — Revered Parnassus, and beheld the steep Jove's Ida and Olympus crown the deep." The Island, canto ii. st. 12. " ' But never mind,' as somebody says, ' for the blue sky bends over all.' I only could be glad if it bent over me when it is a little bluer ; like the ' skyish top of blue Olympus,' which, by the way, looked very white when I last saw it." Byron's Letter to Moore, (232). Mount Olympus is associated with all that is im- portant in the mythology of the Greeks. The summit of Olympus was believed to he the residence of the gods ; and Jupiter Olympius, the chief of the deities and of this mountain, gave, from his appellation Olym- pius, the name to those celebrated games which were instituted to his honour, and held at Olympia, a iown. of Elis, in Peloponnesus. These olympiads form the epochs of Greek chronology. 4 n ACROPOLIS. Drawn by J. D. Harding, from a Sketch by C. R. Cockerell, A.R.A. " The Temple of Minerva, with the other buildings of the Acropolis, are the most celebrated of all the Athenian edifices. In point of influence on the imagi- nation, all the elaborate sculptures of the Parthenon, the Erectheum, the Pandroseum, and the Propylia, fall infinitely short of the ivied cloisters of a monastery, or the ruder masses of a feudal castle. Artists may here find models; but the cursoiy traveller, who ex- pects to be awed by the venerable aspect of the ruin, will wonder at the apathy of his own feelings : he must become a student, in order to appreciate the excellence of Grecian sculpture. " Minerva, among the ancient Athenians, possessed nearly the same kind of pre-eminence which the mo- derns allow to the Virgin Mary. The worship of the Parthenia and the Panagia differ only in ritual. Mi- nerva is considered by the mythologists as the personi- fication of the Divine Wisdom ; and the fable of her issuing perfect from the head of Jupiter, they say is descriptive of this notion. I have somewhere read that ACROPOLIS. one of her statues or temples bore an inscription which implied this opinion. Her contest with Neptune for the wardenship of the city is a very pretty allegory. The rival deities referred their respective pretensions to the twelve great gods, who decided that the wardenship should be given to the one that produced the most useful thing to the citizens. Neptune instantly created the horse, and Minerva raised the olive. By the horse navigation is hieroglyphically represented ; ships are also often figuratively described as horses. The olive, which furnishes at once light food and cleanliness, was preferred. This fable is but an account of an ancient dispute amongst the inhabitants of the city of Cecrops, whether they ought to devote themselves to maritime affairs or to the cultivation of the soil. The question being referred to the twelve judges of the Areopagus, they decided in favour of the latter. The people, in consequence, preferred Minerva to Neptune." — Gait's Travels. 89 5 &■ 3 S A L A M I S. Drawn by W. Purser, " Pronounce what sea, what shore is this? The gulf, the rock of Salamis ! " Giaour. " A king sat on the rocky brow Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis ; And ships, by thousands, lay below, And men in nations ; — all were his ! He counted them at break of day — And when the sun set, where were they?" Don Juan, canto 3. The isle of Salamis lies in the Saronic gulf, on the southern coast of Attica, nearly opposite to Eleusis. It belonged to the Athenians, though, from its situation between Athens and Megara, the inhabitants of the latter city contested its possession for some time with the Athenians. The name of Salamis is associated with the memo- rable battle fought on the 20th of October, 480 years before Christ, between the Persians under Xerxes, when he invaded Attica, and the Gi'eeks, who successfully SALAMIS. defended their country with a force of only 380 ships against 2000, of which they destroyed about 200. The following is Gillies' account of the battle. " Before the dawn of the day the Grecian ships were drawn up in order of battle ; and the Persians, who had been surprised at not finding them attempt to escape during night, were still more surprised when morning discovered their artful orderly arrangement. The Greeks began with the light their sacred hymns and paeans, which preceded their triumphal songs of war, accompanied by the animating sound of the trum- pet. The shores of Attica re-echoed to the rocks of Salamis and Psyttalea. The Grecian acclamations filled the sky. Neither their appearance nor their words betokened flight or fear, but rather determined intrepidity and invincible courage. Yet was their valour tempered with wisdom. Themistocles delayed the at- tack until the ordinary breeze should spring up, which was no less favourable to the experience of the Grecian mariners, than dangerous to the lofty unwieldiness of the Persian ships. The signal was then given for the Athenian line to bear down against that of the Phoe- nicians, which rode on the west, off the coast of Eleusis ; while the Peloponnesians advanced against the enemy's left wing stationed on the east, near the harbour of the Piraeus. The Persians, eonfidmg in their number, and secure of victory, did not decline the fight. A Phce- SALAMIS. nician galley, of uncommon size and strength, was distinguished in the front of their line by every circum- stance of naval pomp. In the eagerness to engage she far outstripped her companions ; but her career vi^as checked midway between the two fleets by an Athenian galley which had sailed forth to meet her. The first shock shattered her sculptured prow, the second buried her in the waves. The Athenians, encouraged by this auspicious prelude, proceeded with their whole force, animating each other to the combat by a martial song : ' Advance, ye sons of Athens! save your country, defend your wives and children, deliver the temples of your gods, regain the sacred tombs of your renowned fore- fathers ; this day, the common cause of Greece demands your valour.' The battle was bloody and destructive, and disputed on the side of the Persians »with more obstinate resistance than on any former occasion ; for, from the Attic coast, seated on a lofty throne on the top of Mount ^gialos, Xerxes observed the scene of action, and attentively remarked, with a view to reward and punish, the various behaviour of his subjects. The presence of their prince operated on their hopes, and still more powerfully on their fears. But neither the hope of acquiring the favour, nor the fear of incurring the displeasure of a despot, could furnish principles of action worthy of being compared with the patriotism and love of liberty which actuated the Greeks. To the VOL. II. T SALAMIS. dignity of their motives, as much as to the superiority of their skill, the latter owed their unexampled success in this memorable engagement. The foremost ships of the Phoenicians were dispersed or sunk. Amidst the terror and confusion occasioned by their repulse, they ran foul of those which had been drawn up in two lines behind them. The Athenians skilfully encircled them around, compressed them into a narrower space, and increased their disorder ; they were at length entangled in each other, deprived of all power of action, and, to use the humble, but expressive figure of an eye-witness, 'caught and destroyed like fish in a net.' Such was the fate of the right wing; while the lonians, who, on the left, opposed the fleets of Peloponnesus and Mgina, fur- nished them with an opportunity to complete the vic- tory. Many of the Asiatic Greeks, mindful of the advice given by Themistocles, abandoned the interest of the great king, and openly declared for their country- men ; others declined the engagement ; the remainder were sunk or put to flight. * # * * " The Phoenician and Ionian squadrons (for that of the Egyptians had been exceedingly weakened by the action on the coast of Euboea) formed the main strength of the Persian armament ; after these were defeated, the ships at a distance ventured not to advance, but hastily changing sail, measured back their course to the Athenian and other neighbouring harbours. The victors SAL A MIS. disdaining to pursue tliem, dragged tlie most valuable part of the wreck to the coasts of Psyttalea and Salamis. The narrow seas were covered with the floating carcasses of the dead, among whom were few Greeks, as even those who lost their ships in the engagement saved their lives by swimming, an art which they universally learned as a necessary branch of education, and with which the barbarians were totally unacquainted . " Xerxes had scarcely time to consider and deplore the destruction and disgrace of his fleet, when a new spectacle, not less mournful, offered itself to his sight. The flower of the Persian infantry had taken post, as we have already observed, on the rocky island of Psyttalea, in order to receive the shattered remains of the Grecian armament, which, after its expected de- feat, would naturally take refuge on that barren coast. But equally fallacious and fatal was their conjecture concerning the event of the battle. The Greeks, dis- embarking from their ships, attacked, in the enthusiasm of victory, those astonished troops, who, unable to resist, and finding it impossible to fly, were cut down to a man. As Xerxes beheld this dreadful havoc, he started in wild agitation from his silver throne, rent his royal robes, and, in the first moment of his returning tran- quillity, commanded the main body of his forces, posted along the Athenian coast, to return to their respective camps." Pi BRIDGE OF EGRIPO, NEGROPONT. Drawn by C. Stanfield, A.R.A.,from a Sketch by J. R. C. Helpman, R.N. "The town of Negropont, which gives the name to the whole island," says Gait, " is situated on a point of land projecting towards the coast of Bceotia, to which it is connected by a bridge. The strait is here so narrow as to serve as a ditch to the fortifications. The water on the north side of the bridge is the chief resort of the few small vessels that trade with the tOAvn. On the south side there is a fine land-locked natural basin, which communicates with the outer harbour bv a passage perhaps not more than two hundred yards wide. The outer harbour is formed by two low points of land, projecting from the continent and the island. On the end of the insular point a small white castle is placed — the beacon and sentinel of the port. The ap- pearance of the city and fortifications, as we passed below the walls of the fortress of Carrababa, is pretty and inviting ; but, like every thing else in Turkey, the distant view is the best. BRIDGE OF EGRIPO. " As we crossed the bridge the water was running to the southward. The irregularity of the flux and reflux of the sea here has, from time immemorial, been regarded as a great curiosity. We were, therefore, particular in our inquiries, in order to ascertain if the phenomenon could be explained by any local circum- stance. The flow, we were told, is, in serene weather, as regularly alternate from the north to the south, and from the south to the north, as the tides of the ocean ; but, during winter and storms, the alternation is dis- turbed and various, owing to the efiect which the wind has on the waters of the narrow straits between the island and the continent. " The fortifications of Negropont were constructed by the Venetians, and the arms of that state are still seen above one of the gates. They were in their day considered of great strength ; but the Turkish fortress of Carrababa so completely commands them, that they must always be resigned to the masters of it. The town is dirty and miserable. The population does not exceed 5000 souls. The climate is unwholesome, and is often visited by pestilence. The number of tombs and ceme- teries around mark the Black Binclge as a place parti- cularly noxious to life : nor are the inhabitants more benevolent than their climate ; they have the character of being the worst Turks in Europe, regardless alike of the property and blood of the wretches subjected to their caprice and cruelty. BRIDGE OF EGRIPO, " Not long before our arrival, a most detestable occurrence had taken place, the circumstances of which serve to illustrate the state of society and of the judi- cature in Negropont. A beautiful girl, wlio had ac- quired many accomplishments superior to the rest of her sex in Turkey, attracted the desires of a young Turk, who bribed her servant to decoy her to a seques- tered place in the fortifications. Without any of those preliminary blandishments with which more refined seducers palliate their guilt to the victims, he violated and then murdered her. The servant assisted him to dig her grave. After several days of general concern and anxiety, a labourer discovered her feet above the earth ; the criminals were suspected, and seized, but were soon after liberated ; for the pashaw, although the poor girl had, from her infancy, delighted him with her genius, commuted the punishment for a bribe. From the afiections of a barbarian better justice might have been expected. But here crimes and death are so common, that they have ceased to produce their natural impression on the human heart. We only halted to breakfast, feeling no inclination to stay without a fii-mau in a town where the greatest curiosities were the fields of the dead, and the most interesting information was the atrocity of the last crime." — Gait's Voi/a(/es and Travels. Egripo was anciently Chalcis in Euboea ; and nume- BRIDGE OF EGRIPO. rous are its associations with the heroic ages. At the period of Lord Byron's first visit to Greece it was so utterly degraded, that its tyrants were proverbially the worst in that fallen country ; for he repeats the pro- verb, that " the Turks of Egripo, the Jews of Salonica, and the Greeks of Athens, are the worst of their re- spective races." sa ■d zws 3 m i H © s u m i ^ ^ RHODES. Dmion by J, M. W. Turner, R. A., from a Sketch by W. Page. The celebrity of Rhodes has perhaps been derived as much from the colossal statue of Apollo which be- strode the entrance to its harbour, as from its early and classical history, or the celebrity of the deeds of its knights. The statue was above one hundred feet in height, and it stood upon the moles which formed the entrance to the harbour. The situations of these moles are seen in this view : on one the square tower rests ; and of the other, the rock only is seen upon which the mole was anciently built. The statue was the work of Chares, the disciple of Lysippus, who is said to have been twelve years employed in its execution. It re- mained standing about eighty years, when it was partly destroyed by an earthquake. It remained in ruins nearly 900 years, when it was sold, in the year of the Christian era 672, by the Saracens, who at that time had possession of Rhodes. The quantity of brass, of which it was made, was sufficient even in its ruins to load nine hundred camels. VOL. II. u THE DRACHENFELS. Drawn by J. M. W. Turner, R.A. " The castled crag of Drachenfels Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine, Whose breast of waters broadly swells Between the banks which bear the vine, And hills all rich with blossom'd trees, And fields which promise corn and wine, And scatter'd cities crowning these, Whose far white walls along them shine, Have strew'd a scene, which I should see With double joy wert thou with me. And peasant girls with deep blue eyes, And hands which offer early flowers, Walk smiling o'er this paradise ; Above, the frequent feudal towers Through green leaves lift their walls of gray. And many a rock which steeply lowers. And noble arch in proud decay, Look o'er this vale of vintage-bowers ; But one thing want these banks of Rhine, — Thy gentle hand to clasp in mine ! THE DRACHENFELS. I send the lilies given to me ; Though long before thy hand they touch, I know that they must wither'd be, But yet reject them not as such ; For I have cherished them as dear, Because they yet may meet thine eye. And guide thy soul to mine even here, When thou behold'st them drooping nigh. And know'st them gathered by the Rhine, And offered from my heart to thine ! The river nobly foams and flows, The charm of this enchanted ground. And all its thousand turns disclose Some fresher beauty varying round : The haughtiest breast its wish might bound Through life to dwell delighted here ; Nor could on earth a spot be found To nature and to me so dear, Could thy dear eyes in following mine Still sweeten more these banks of Rhine ! " These lines, addressed to his sister, the Hon. Mrs. Leigh, are found between the 55th and 66th stanzas of the fourth canto of " Childe Harold." The Castle of Drachenfels, or the Dragon's E-ock, is placed on the highest peak of " the Seven Moun- tains," and almost overhangs the Rhine. The vieves from the ruins of the castle are magnificent : it is situated on the right bank of the Rhine, nearly opposite THE DRACHENFELS. to Rolandseck, and not far above the city of Bonn, to which Lord Byron adverts in " Don Juan," canto 10. " Bonn, Which Drachenfels frowns over, like a spectre Of the good feudal times for ever gone, On which I have not time just now to lecture." The ruins of the Drachenfels, like those of all the castellated remains on the Rhine, are connected with singular traditions. r^.rr.-J r.v H.W PlOc^VJ : ■ ?>?.7j-.7i-f-^ Z^ j:. J^in.d,gn. iw? Mir/miEAir, ■i>ucJikyrMt^iy f. :l-c7idt7n,rubTiaiea. 1933, Tnf C.THz.de.JFleet Street. MR. MURRAY, PUBLISHER OF LORD BYRON'S WORKS. Painted by H. W. Pickersgill, R.A. A WORK like this, professing to illustrate, by land- scapes and portraits, the works of Lord Byron, would, it has been thought by the projectors, Messrs. Finden, have been imperfect in the estimation of the public without the portrait of Mr. Murray, so intimately con- nected as he was with his lordship, as his publisher. Their acquaintance began in 1811, in consequence of Mr. Murray having purchased the copyright of his lordship's poem of " Childe Harold." From the ap- pearance of that extraordinary work to within six or seven weeks of Lord Byron's death, the connexion continued ; and the " Life of Byron" owes much of its interest to the letters written by his lordship to his publisher, towards whom the most unreserved cor- respondence on the part of Lord Byron took place ; and in these letters to him, in poetry and in prose, — from the height of hilarity and fun to the depth of his own miseries, — less reserve is shewn than })erliups in MR. MURRAY. any other part of his correspondence. At the com- mencement of their acquaintance, the money or business part of it was arranged by those to whom his lordship gave his manuscripts ; afterwards it became an affair between themselves, and the result of that connexion is shewn in the sums paid by Mr. Murray for copyrights of Lord Byron's works, which amount to 23,540/., and are detailed in the seventh volume of the " com- plete edition of Lord Byron's Life and Works." £^^ University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 305 De Neve Drive - Parking Lot 17 • Box 951388 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90095-1388 Return this material to the library from which It was borrowed. 'i rOvVv n .^^ :jM:.M. «^ UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 000 255 722 ^ ,;»■ •sity of Californii Jhern Regional •ary Facility ^^r^^^m^Q '2^^k^^