meats, fowls, turkeys," (they are thus enumerated in the gazette of loyalty,) the effect was sudden and complete: they recovered at once from the petrifying power of astonishment, and precipitated themselves upon the viands which were prepared for them, with a voracity which well became "the ancient, loyal," hungry, and bankrupt Corporation of Dublin.

LINES ON REVISITING A SCOTTISH RIVER.

AND call they this Improvement?-to have changed,
My native Clyde, thy once romantic shore,
Where Nature's face is banish'd and estranged,
And Heaven reflected in thy wave no more;

Whose banks, that sweeten'd May-day's breath before,
Lie sere and leafless now in summer's beam,

With sooty exhalations cover'd o'er ;

And for the daisied green sward, down thy stream
Unsightly brick-lanes smoke, and clanking engines gleam.

Speak not to me of swarms the scene sustains;
One heart free tasting Nature's breath and bloom
Is worth a thousand slaves to Mammon's gains.
But whither goes that wealth, and gladd'ning whom?
See, left but life enough and breathing room
The hunger and the hope of life to feel,

Yon pale Mechanic bending o'er his loom,
And Childhood's self as at Ixion's wheel,

From morn till midnight task'd to earn its little meal.

Is this Improvement?-where the human breed
Degenerates as they swarm and overflow,
Till Toil grows cheaper than the trodden weed,
And man competes with man, like foe with foe,
Till Death, that thins them, scarce seems public woe?
Improvement!-smiles it in the poor man's eyes,
Or blooms it on the cheek of Labour?-No-
To gorge a few with Trade's precarious prize,
We banish rural life, and breathe unwholesome skies.

Nor call that evil slight; God has not given

This passion to the heart of man in vain,

For Earth's green face, th' untainted air of Heaven,
And all the bliss of Nature's rustic reign.

For not alone our frame imbibes a stain

From fœtid skies; the spirit's healthy pride
Fades in their gloom-And therefore I complain,

That thou no more through pastoral scenes shouldst glide,
My Wallace's own stream, and once romantic Clyde!

T. C.

LETTERS FROM THE LEVANT, NO. VII.

Phocæa, Patmos, Simè, &c.

THE accounts which we are accustomed to hear in Europe of the luxury and commercial wealth of the Smyrniots, would scarcely appear credible, were we to connect them with the external poverty of their dwellings, so universal throughout the city, as well in the residences of the Greeks as the Moslemin. The tottering staircase which leads to the most gorgeous apartments, is often approached through the stable, into which the ground-floor of the mansion has been converted; and mud-walled houses, supported by transverse beams of timber, not unfrequently inclose chambers, whose gilded cornices, carved ceilings, tinted windows, and splendid furniture, realize all we have read of Oriental grandeur. But beneath this sordid exterior, the assiduous merchant is forced, by the galling despotism of his capricious masters, to conceal the produce of his toils, and to enjoy, in anxious privacy, the dearly-purchased fruits of sedulous industry. From the influence of such oppression, selfishness becomes a leading trait of national character the slave soon finds that the circle of his own home must be the orbit of the world to him; all beyond it are but tyrants or betrayers; his happiness is secure only while it blooms, like the flower of the desert, unknown and unenvied; and concealed possession is his only security for his wealth, in a land where rapacity has rendered "mine" and "thine" at best but words of dubious import, which become synonymous on the slightest contact with a rival or a ruler.

With the Turks we had but little domestic intercourse; but when we were admitted to their houses, which was merely upon two occasions, our reception varied in no degree from that to which we had been accustomed throughout the Levant, saving once, when the pipe with which we were presented, was the cool narghilè, (in which the smoke passes through a vase of water,) instead of the ambermouthed chibouquè; and on all occasions the salver containing coffee and sweetmeats was handed round by an Arab or a Nubian slave, in lieu of the female, by whom we had been waited on when visiting a house in the Archipelago. The disregard for external show, farther than a splendid personal appearance, and the total want of public amusements, serve to render the life of a Turk much more domestically happy than might be anticipated from the obvious blank in society occasioned by the degraded education and servile habits of the female members of his family. The greater portion of his life being spent within his own apartments, and his enjoyments at once emanating from and centering in his home, that attention is solely devoted to the culture of private comfort, which, under any other state of society, would be wasted on public ostentation. My opportunities of observation were by far too confined to judge of the truth or falsehood of those reports which alternately condemn and palliate the conduct of the Moslemin with regard to their women; but one fact I have had frequent occasion to remark whilst exploring the modern ruins of Tripolizza, Athens, and Napoli di Romania, that in all the deserted Turkish houses, the harem and other quarters for the residence of the women, were invariably the most sumptuous in their decorations, whilst the remaining apartments were fitted up in ordinary style, but slight attention,

comparatively speaking, being paid to the comforts or convenience of the men. This, however, is a point on which it must require a very long and intimate acquaintance with the country to furnish data for a decided opinion; as there are very few Europeans indeed who ever catch a casual glance of the features of a Turkish female, much less have an opportunity of observing her domestic usages, and our only conjectures must be from superficial hints. As to their confinement to their own apartments, I should think the discipline cannot be severe, as crowds of them are to be daily encountered in the bazaars, where their chattering and mirth give but slight indication of melancholy or restraint. Beyond this, all means of information must be slight and unsatisfactory. As to their general personal appearance, we could form no idea, their faces being invariably covered with crape, two apertures in which are made for their eyes, and their figures loosely enveloped in their ungraceful garments, so as to conceal every trace either of awkwardness or symmetry. In the Morea I had frequently seen some of those wretched beings who had been carried off from the towns which had fallen into the hands of the Greeks, and were merely rescued from massacre to be reserved for infamy; but amongst these I never saw a Turkish lady who had any pretensions to beauty, with, perhaps, one solitary exception, which occurred in Napoli di Romania. I was returning one evening to my quarters, when, in one of the most populous streets, I met a mob of boys and a few barbarous soldiers, who were following the steps of one of the most melancholy but majestic females I have ever seen. She was much above the common stature, and her dress, though plain, was gracefully arranged. On enquiry, I found that she was the wife of a Turkish Effendi, who had formerly resided within about a mile of Napoli, but had fallen beneath the knives of the insurgents two years before. She had been rescued by the singular being who lately filled the office of Minister of the Interior, Pappa Flescia, and had resided with her child in his family up to the present time. Two days before, however, she had learned that her unfortunate protector had been killed by the troops of Ibrahim Pacha whilst besieging the town of Arcadia on the Western coast; and, conscious that her asylum was no longer secure, she made her escape by the gates, and flew to conceal herself amidst the grassgrown remains of what had been her residence in happier days. A monk, who had the guardianship of an adjoining chapel, had already taken up his abode in its desolated chambers; and, impatient of any intruder, he drove her out even from the ruins of her home. Aware that the country could afford her neither concealment nor subsistence, she was again obliged to return to the city, and cast herself upon the mercy of her enemies. She entered that gate, homeless and forlorn, which she had once been wont to pass amidst downcast eyes and bending turbans. Her appearance soon attracted notice, and collected round her the brutal mob which I have mentioned. She passed along, however, as if unmindful of her woes: in one hand she held the arm of her terrified child, and the other was gracefully bent across her breast, whilst her large dark eyes were sadly turned on Heaven, nor once bent upon the crowd around her. She moved along with the step of a Juno, whilst the indignities of her tormentors proceeded from words to screams, and flinging dust upon her person. At length, overcome with

apprehension and fatigue, she seated herself by the door of a ruined mosque, apparently in all the calm abstraction of despair. At that moment a member of the Senate, Tricoupi, I think, came up, and, perceiving the inhumanity of the crowd, immediately remonstrated with them on their self-debasement, and giving her his arm, accompanied her to his own house; from whence I understood she was afterwards conveyed in an English frigate to her friends at Smyrna. She was beyond comparison the most elegant female of her nation I have ever seen; and I have reason to think such beauty by no means usual in Turkey. In fact, Dr. Clarke, an intelligent Scotch physician, resident at Smyrna, and highly in repute from his knowledge of the epidemics peculiar to the Levant, informed me, that though in the habit of being called in to visit the families of the most wealthy of the Turkish residents, he had never, in the course of several years' constant practice, seen more than six or seven ladies, who could at all compare with the average of English beauty.

an

A few days before our departure from Smyrna, Mr. BEnglish merchant, and possessor of a valuable collection of antiques, did us the honour of an introduction to M. Fauvel, the French Consul of Athens, so honourably alluded to by Lord Byron*, a gentleman no less distinguished by his valuable archæological discoveries than by the efficient and often gratefully-acknowledged services which he has had it in his power to render to artists visiting Attica. At the com

mencement of the Greek Revolution, Mons. F had been forty years resident in Athens, when that event compelled him to abandon his home, and leave behind him a collection of antiquities which had been the accumulation of a lifetime, and which have been now, most probably, destroyed by the carelessness of the Greeks or the barbarity of their besiegers. His mind, however, is still lingering in its accustomed haunts, and his hands are busied in their wonted occupation; for at the feeble age of eighty-five, he is sedulously employed in the completion of a wax model of the Acropolis, the city, and its environs, which will be as unique in point of design as accurate in execution. During several visits which we paid him, his only theme was his beloved Athens; and he seemed to enjoy an extatic pleasure in sitting for hours together to talk over the days he had spent in poring among its ruins, whilst every creature who had visited the spot, was received by him with the same cordial affection with which a devout Mahommedan looks upon him who has made the sacred pilgrimage to Mecca.

One day, on returning from his house, we were obliged to halt in one of the narrow streets near the Bazaar, the centre of which was completely blocked up by a team of camels, which had crouched down upon their knees in order to be unloaded by their drivers. Whilst standing in the door of an adjoining bath, a procession passed down another street at a little distance, which, from its uncouth appearance, we were for some time at a loss to account for. It proved, however, to be a Turkish regiment, preceded by a military band. The latter consisted of about half-a-dozen fantastic wretches sounding little kettle drums, which they struck with pieces of some elastic substance, appa

* See Notes to "Childe Harold," Canto II.

rently raw hide, or very thick leather, with no other design than to elicit a discordant noise; and as many more, sounding instruments something like a clarionet, but without the slightest pretensions to tune, time, or measure in their modulation. The troop had no uniformity of step, dress, or arms, and their straggling gait would have excited a smile from any spectator accustomed to the march of European military. The street was now cleared of the camels, and we were pursuing our route towards home, when, close by the entrance to the Bazaar, we saw a crowd of children gathered round a man who lay apparently in a most singular position, stretched on his face upon the ground, whilst his head was brought out between his legs behind him. On coming a little nearer, we found it was the body of a Greek, who had been beheaded about an hour before, and his carcase placed as I have described, for a salutary warning to his associates. He had been detected, along with two others, in an attempt to pass false money in the Bazaar; in which case, with a Giaour, the course of justice is very rapid, as the criminal is decapitated on the spot, without the form, or rather the delay of an investigation. The little urchins, who now stood around him, seemed highly delighted with the spectacle; they kept screaming, and chattering, and touching him with their feet, till one, having smeared the face of another with a stick dipped in the blood, which was still oozing from the wretch's neck, flew off convulsed with laughter to the Bazaar, where he was followed by the whole party in full cry, who seemed marvellously delighted with the exploit.*

On resolving to leave Smyrna, we engaged a passage to Castel Rosso on board a small brig, the Madonna de Tunisa, commanded by a Greek, called Panagies Androcopoulo, and sailing under the Ionian flag. His real destination was Beirout in Syria, and his cargo a quantity of nuts and dried hides, the property of, and consigned to Turkish merchants there. But as both the vessel and cargo were thus liable to be seized by the Greek cruizers, his papers were made out for Cyprus, and his bills of lading contained merely the names of European factors. The evening before we sailed we spent at a ball given by Captain Hamilton on board H.M.S. the Cambrian, at which were assembled the greater number of the British residents of Smyrna. The band of the frigate was placed amid-ship. Almost the entire of the crew were, like their gallant commander, Irishmen; and it was rather an exhilarating spectacle to see two or three hundred hardy fellows dancing, (or, as they term it, "footing it;" that is, audibly beating time with their feet, as well as observing the motions of the dance) to the national airs of their country in one of the loveliest bays of Asia Minor. A few Turks who

At Hydra and Spezzia there exist regular manufactories of false money to the number of twenty or thirty, not only unnoticed, but absolutely supported by members of the government: the money, consisting of imitations of Spanish dollars, as well as paras and all the coins of the Turkish empire, being disposed of as a fair matter of traffick to the Maltese and Ionians, who carry it to Egypt and Turkey for a second sale or surreptitious circulation by their own agents. The Greeks defend this species of commerce on two grounds: first, that it is always fair to cheat an enemy; and secondly, the pieces circulating freely with them, as false money at a reduced rate, thence becomes a national coin, which they have every right to strike for their own use.