VOL. 4.] Col. Johnson's Journey overland from India, 1817.

91

waste in which it stands, to be superior mier also of the present sovereign, Futto the second-rate towns of India. In- teh Ally Shah, had a son named Meerternally, however, its bazar, its fine pot- za Mahomed Khaun, who, about ninetery of a yellowish tint, its confectiona- teen years ago, began, at his own exry, its enamelling on gold, and its excel- pence, to repair and rebuild the tomb of lent engraving, obtained their admira- a saint, Shah Cheraukh, in this city tion. The petty Mountain Chiefs arouud (Shiraz). His present Majesty wishtalk freely of their independence, and a ing to rid the country of Hajee Ibrahim, degree of anarchy prevails which threat and at the same time to prevent the inens the dismemberment of this province, surrection of any one of his family, at unless a beneficial change speedily takes one blow carried his project into execuplace in the administration of the gov- tion in the following manner. He first ernment. Near Shiraz is the tomb of caused Hajee Ibrahim's tongue to be cut Hafiz, and so sacred is the memory of out, and then his eyes; he then ordered the Poet held in Persia, that a volume his two sons, who were governors of containing his writings is opened for districts, one at Hamadan, and the other every visitor upon his tomb, and, like the person already mentioned, to be put the Sortes Virgilianæ, the passage which to death on the same day; in order first occurs is held to be prophetic of the that, previously to putting his minister fate of the enquirer. The tombstone is a large block of Tafriz marble of the nature of gypsum. The tomb of Saadi

also claimed a visit.

"Here is a well so constructed as to afford a passage for persons to descend and bathe in it, having cells also in the sides for their accommodation. On some particular days it is believed to be very healthful for persons to immerge in these waters."

"The Persian sitting-rooms are all on the same plan, having walls on three sides, and the whole of the fourth consisting of windows of painted glass in exceedingly small panes, so disposed as to represent different figures."

Their pictures are scarcely to be mentioned as works of art, and, with the exception of the carpets and some embroidery, there is little of magnificence in their furniture.

Of the dreadfully insecure tenure of life and property in Persia, two fearful examples are given, with which we shall conclude our present notice of Colonel Johnson's travels in that country. They are of recent date.

"Hajee Ibrahim, prime minister and supporter of Aga Mahomed Khaun (in fact he raised him from the rank of Khood Khoda to the throne,) and pre

to death, he might be certain that all his family were destroyed; and he only waited the intelligence of their death, that he might give Hajee Ibrahim the coup de grace. These arrangements, from the commencement of Hajee Ibrahim's confinement, took up nearly one month in their completion; when, finding that no resistance was to be apprehended, he ordered his blinded minister to be hanged. Hossein Ally Meerza, the present Prince of Shiraz, was only seven years of age, and of course acted under the direction of his minister, Cherauk Ally Khaun. He invited Meerza Mahomed Khaun to dine with him: more than usual attention was paid to the unsuspecting guest, who was engag ed to play with the Prince at backgammon. In the course of their diversion, the Prince took occasion to withdraw to another apartment, when his people seized Meerza Mahomed Khaun and put him to death. All his wealth was, of course, seized. The Saint's tomb, which he had begun to rebuild, remains unfinished to this day; all the rich people fearing to undertake its completion, lest they should share his fate."

What can be expected from sovereigns, whose education as princes is of this treacherous and bloody kind?

92

Mr. Maturin-Miss Edgeworth-Lady Morgan,

[VOL. 4

T

CORNUCOPIA.

From the London Monthly Magazines, &c. 1818.

MATURIN,

Miss Edgeworth entered into the HE author of Bertram,' and' Wo- career of authorship with a taste permen, pour et contre,' is no stran- fectly matured, and sedulously cultivatger to the public. He is a singular and ed. Lady Morgan on the contrary, a powerful writer, loving, in his sketch- plunged her pen in ink, rashly, premaes of human nature, to dwell on those turely, and enthusiastically. The forpeculiar portions which under infe- mer appeared to pique herself upon elerior hands might seem repulsive and gance, refinement, classicality, and the deformed, but which to a man of genius ambition of depicting manners as they offer the noblest as well as the deepest are. The latter, too volatile to be means and excitements of strong judicious, too sentimental to be rational, thought and overwhelming description. and too brilliant to be discreet, poured He has conceptions of great sweetness forth inflated rhapsodies in incorrect mingled with the stern picturings, great and redundant phraseology, and porrichness of imagery, great mastery of trayed beings, such as were never seen picturesque language; but his charm before, yet interesting even amidst all is in the solemn and the fearful, if his their follies. Miss Edgeworth's amiacup is chased and fretted with gorgeous ble characters, if found in real life, devises, and glittering with rubies and would have been thought cold pedants; gold, the draught within is of subtle and Lady Morgan's would have been condread enchantment; his muse is less sidered delightful oddities. The one, the Proserpine gathering flowers and we might have admired, but could not sporting in her young loveliness thro' love; the other, we might have loved, the vale of Enna, than the Proserpine but could scarcely admire. In Miss already the queen of a lower realm, not Edgeworth, we are struck with the forfeiting her beauty or her brightness, light wit and humour, and the safe, but shining out in her sovereign pomp though not profound or original maxamong shadows and sights of fear, the secrets of the world of gloom, and the sufferings of hearts stripped only as before the last tribunal.-Lit. Gaz. July

1818.

FEMALE WRITERS.

ims, which are scattered through her pages. In Lady Morgan, we meet a less refined, but much more forcible vein of mirth, and if not so many dictatorial apothegms, much more feeling, much more philosophy, and much more Miss Edgeworth and lady Morgan native sentiment. We always suspect are the two British females whose supe- Miss Edgeworth of having hoarded up riority above the rest, the public appear sententious sayings in her commonwilling to admit, but about whose com- place book, gleaned from scarce books, parative merits they are still divided. or from casual conversation; and on For our own parts, since the publication the other hand, we are inclined to susof O'Donnell, we have never felt a pect, that Lady Morgan is rather too doubt on the subject. The interest of anxious to produce an original, than a that tale, the accurate delineation of just observation. On the whole, the high life, the strength of its elevated former lady writes evidently more from characters, and the humour of its hum- her head than from her heart, and the ble, place it, we think, above any latter more from her heart than from which Miss Edgeworth has hitherto her head. We are clearly of opinion produced. At the same time we freely too, that Lady Morgan has been enconfess, that Miss Edgeworth's works dowed by nature with a far greater porare far superior to the other works of tion of genius than Miss Edgeworth, Lady Morgan. but that Miss Edgeworth has derived

VOL. 4.]

Female Patriotism-Vindication of Lord Byron.

99

from a systematic education, more taste their victim in the column of a review, and propriety, both in the mode of a magazine, or a newspaper.

modelling her works and in the subsequent execution of their minute parts.

GODEVA, COUNTESS OF MERCIA.

Ib.

A variety of passages in Lord Byron's poems have been pronounced imitations: one in Lara is said to be pilfered from the Mysteries of Udolpho:-"Lara's brow upon the instant grew Almost to blackness, with its demon hue."

The cause which prompted this beautiful and patriotic female to procure to the people of Coventry an affranchise- If the idea proposed to the imagination ment by the strange manner in which in these lines he really borrowed, the she rode through the town, must have obligation is not great: but common been equal to the deed-desperate and justice may induce us to believe that unheard of. Long had Leofric, her the thought sprung from the subject; arbitrary husband, resisted all her plead- and, as far as regards Lord Byron, is ing in behalf of the citizens, on account original.

of the profits he gained by oppressing An idea, however, is to be found in them. At length he resolved, as he Mrs. Radcliffe's novel, which may thought, forever to silence her by the fairly lead us to question the originality strange proposal; which is well known, of the noblest passage in one of the and is also as authentically known and noblest productions of our patrician. recorded, that she acceded to: happy bard. In "the Giaour," the following in a profuse and long head of hair, she exquisitely beautiful simile occurs,— rode, decently covered from her head to her feet only by her lovely tresses. The history of this event was preserved in a picture in the reign of Richard II. in which were portrayed the Earl and the Countess he holds in his hand a charter of freedom, and thus seems to address his lady

:

"I, Leofric, for love of thee,

"Doe make Coventrie toll free."

To this day the love of Godeva to the city is annually remembered by a procession, and a valiant fair one still rides, though not literally like the good Countess, but in flesh-coloured silk, closely fitted to her shape and limbs. La B. As. May 1818.

LORD BYRON.

"He who hath bent him o'er the dead,
Ere the first day of death is fled;

The first dark day of nothingness,

The last of danger and distress;

(Before Decay's effacing fingers

Have swept the lines where beauty lingers,).
And mark'd the mild angelic air,
The rapture of repose that's there;
The fix'd, yet tender, traits that streak
The languor of the placid cheek;
And-but for that sad shrouded eye,

That fires not, wins not, weeps not, now;
And, but for that chill and changeless brow,
Where cold Obstruction's apathy
Appals the gazing mourner's heart;
As if to him it could impart

The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon :
Yes, but for these, and these alone,
Some moments-aye-one treacherous hour,
He still might doubt the tyrant's power ;
So fair, so calm, so softly seal'd,

The first, last look, by death reveal'd!

Such is the aspect of this shore

'Tis Greece! but living Greece no more :
So coldly sweet, so deadly fair,
We start-for soul is wanting there.
Hers is the loveliness in death,

That parts not quite with parting breath:
But beauty, with that fearful bloom,
That hue which haunts it to the tomb;
Expression's last receding ray,

The poems of Lord Byron, which their admirers (and who does not admire them?) have classed with the noblest productions of native genius, having triumphantly passed the critical ordeal imposed by Scotch and English Reviewers, seem likely to encounter the insidious attacks of teose ingenious gentleman, who, finding similar ex- Spark of that flame,-perchance of heavenly birth,pressions in different authors, imme- Which gleams,-but warms no more its cherish'd diately conclude that they have discov

A gilded halo hovering round decay,-
The farewell beam of Feeling past away!

earth."

ered most palpable plagiarism; and In "the Mysteries of Udolpho," (vol. ii. proceed, without remorse, to impale page 29,) we have the subjoined re

94

Vindication of Lord Byron-Mrs. Radcliffe.

[VOL. 4

mark: Beyond Milan, the country and such as can be, or, at least, are prowore the aspect of a ruder devastation; fessed to be explained by natural events. and, though every thing seemed now By these means she certainly excites a quiet, the repose was like that of death, spread over features, which retain the impression of the last convulsions."

Now, under all the circumstances, it is hardly possible to withstand the conclusion, that this served Lord Byron as a text to the lines quoted above. When it is considered that the idea intended to be conveyed, both in the poem and in the novel, is a most extraordinary one, the delicacy and beauty of which can only be appreciated by a very excursive imagination, an idea not naturally suggested by the subject, and unlikely to occur to more than one mind, it will appear that the poet is, to a certain extent, a copyist. The thought is wonderfully improved; but still it is borrowed. The daring of the bard's imagination is truly sublime: but the wings with which he soared, in this instance, are not his own. He has tinctured them with the hues of heaven, and gilt them with its sun-beams: but the fancy of another first expanded them.

Mon. Mag. Aug.1818.

MRS. RADCLIFFE.

very powerful interest, as the reader meanwhile experiences the full impression of the wonderful and terrific appearances; but there is one defect which attends this mode of composition, and which seems indeed to be inseparable from it. As it is the intention of the author, that the mysteries should be afterwards cleared up, they are all mountains in labour; and even when she is successful in explaining the marvellous circumstances which have occurred, we feel disappointed that we should have been so agitated by trifles. But the truth is, they never are properly explained; and the author, in order to raise strong emotions of fear and horror in the body of the work, is tempted to go lengths, to account for which the subsequent explanations seem utterly inadequate. Thus, for example, after all the wonder and dismay, and terror and expectation, excited by the mysterious chamber in the castle of Údolpho, how much are we disappointed and disgusted to find that all this pother has been raised by a waxen statue. In short, we may say not only of Mrs. Radcliffe's castles, but of her works in general, that they abound "in passages that lead to nothing."

Of this justly celebrated woman the principal object seems to have been to raise powerful emotions of surprise, awe, and especially terror, by means In the writings of this author there is and agents apparently supernatural. To a considerable degree of uniformity and effect this, she places her characters and mannerism, which is perhaps the case transports her readers, amid scenes with all the productions of a strong which are calculated strongly to excite and original genius. Her heroines too the mind, and to predispose it for spec- nearly resemble each other, or rather tral illusion Gothic castles, gloomy they possess hardly any shade of diffeabbeys, subterraneous passages, the rence. They have blue eyes and auhaunts of banditti, the sobbing of the burn hair-the form of each of them wind, and the howling of the storm, has "the airy lightness of a nymph❞— are all employed for this purpose; and, they are all fond of watching the setting in order that these may have their full sun, and catching the purple tints of effect, the principal character in her ro- evening, and the vivid glow or fading mances is always a lovely and unpro- splendor of the western horizon. Untected female, encompassed with snares, fortunately they are all likewise early and surrounded by villains. But that risers. I say unfortunately, for in every in which her works chiefly differ from exigency Mrs. Radcliffe's heroines are those by which they are preceded is,that provided with a pencil and paper, and in the Castle of Otranto and Old English the sun is never allowed to rise nor set Baron the machinery is in fact superna- in peace. Like Tilburnia in the play, tural; whereas the agents employed by they are "inconsolable to the minuet in Mrs. Radcliffe are in reality human, Ariadne," and in the most distressing

TOL. 4.] Initiation of a Nun-Charles IV. and Lord Ligonier.

9.5

circumstances find time to compose drew to the room we first assembled in ; sonnets to sun-rise, the bat, a sea- her friends and the ladies were all prenymph, a lily, or a butterfly.-His. Fic. sented, and kissed her; strangers bowed; I conversed with her, and advised her to repent.

From La Belle Assemblee.
INITIATION OF A NUN.

Messina.

The rule is this:-After the noviciate, they take the white veil, as above;

I ad

I went this morning to the conveut and this day she spends with her fami of St. Gregorio to see a young lady ly: at night she returns to the convent, take the veil; a ceremony worth see- and no one can see her for a month, ing; heard high mass and very fine after which she may come to the grate music. On such occasions the friends like the others; at the end of one year, invite the principal nobility and gentry she may take the black veil, which is a to the ceremony, and I had my invita- fatal vow never to be reversed; or, ration. We all first assembled in a room, ther, she then takes the vows but, if where the novice conversed with every she chooses, she may ask another year, one; chocolate, coffee, and cakes were and even a third, at the end of which handed about. After spending a full she must declare her intention finally. hour we went into the church-the ladies and gentlemen all in full dress; the is the same thing. These poor girls are They say there is no force; but there church illuminated: the lady to take educated for it, and their minds warped the veil sat behind the grating, which and perverted for the purpose. was now open, so that she appeared in vised her to renounce at the end of the front, very close, like a singer in the front of an orchestra.-After high mass, her resolution was taken. These cereyear; she, however, smiled, and said she and her sisters (for she has two in the convent, but who will not become pensive, and defrayed by the family. monies, when public, like this, are exDuns) sang she then took up the scissors, and made the signal of cutting to Messina, attended on the occasion, as Every person, of any distinction, in her acquaintance, laughing, and seeming this lady was the daughter of the grand very gay she is certainly either very judge. The ceremony ended with a superstitious, or she acted her part ad- discharge of guns and patterreroes. mirably her mother assured me she did all in her power to prevent her becoming a nun, but to no purpose: she was most splendidly dressed, as if for court, and had a profusion of diamonds; for, on these occasions, they are lent by all the relations and friends. After the blasphemous song of "Oh! Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, come and marry me," a priest got into the pulpit, and preached a sermon: s grand concert of church music succeeded, during which When his Lordship was ambassador she was taking up the scissors, and in Spain, in the reign of Charles III. a making significant signs, when the chief morning was appointed for him to atpriest and lady abbess came and cut off tend the levee of the present Charles IV. her fine hair she then began to un- then Prince of the Asturias. As he dress, throwing into a large dish the entered the anti-chamber, he saw sevworldly follies of dress; the diamonds, eral of the grandees coming out of the earrings, bracelets, &c. &c. all were Chamber of Audience full dressed, and tossed away with disdain: after which walking gravely by, with each a fool's she went out, and returned in ten min- cap upon his head. Struck with the utes, completely metamorphosed, in the sight, he asked what the meaning of it dress of the order-a gloomy black, and was? To which the Spanish minister, very badly made the company with- who conducted him, replied, it was

:

The black veil is a more singular ceremony, as I am told, and more exbeing married to Jesus Christ, renouncpensive. On this occasion, the nun, es the world for ever; and in testimony thereof is put into a coffin surrounded with lighted candles, and ends with three vows of poverty, obedience, and chastity.'---La Belle, May 1818.

ANECDOTE OF LORD LIGONIER.