International Weekly Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science - Volume 1, No. 8, August 19, 1850
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By the scholar and the man of taste the volumes will be read with no little delight, as they abound much more with reflections and sensible observations, than with the commonplace incidents of travel. Indeed, the author has left but small space for his accidents at sea and his hardships on shore, since all the chapters but four are devoted to Athens, Delphi, and Constantinople. The classical reader will prefer the chapters on the two first-named places; the general reader will find perhaps more interesting his sketches of the city of the Sultan, and an anecdote which he gives of the present Sultan, and which declares him to possess more of decision, and firmness of character, and good sense, than the world gives him credit for. His description of the Bosphorus will create in many a desire to see what he has seen, and to look upon some, at least, of the fifty-seven palaces which the sultans have raised upon its banks; and upon the hundreds of others, which, while the Commander of the Faithful permits it, are the property of his subjects.
It argued far more of a wild spirit of adventure than of a sober understanding in Aubrey de Vere, to go with that clever Frenchman to the Turk's house, and to play off all those tricks in the presence of its master and his ten unvailed wives. Rarely indeed, if ever before, has an Englishman passed an hour so comfortably with the whole of a rich man's harem, and seen them as de Vere saw them in all their artlessness and beauty. We live, indeed, in strange times, when the once scorned and loathed Giaours contrive to possess themselves of such extraordinary privileges, and to escape unharmed from such hitherto unheard-of enjoyments.
Where one thought was given to Constantinople a hundred years since from the west of the Dalmatian coast, ten thousand eyes are now constantly directed to it, and with continually increasing anxiety. The importance of that city is now understood by all the European powers, and its future fate has become a subject of deep interest to all the western states, in consequence of the determined set made upon it by its powerful northern neighbor. With the Cossacks at Istamboul instead of Turks, we should be very ill satisfied, and the whole charm of this city on its seven hills would have departed: already is it on the wane. Sultan Mahmoud's hostility to beards and to flowing robes, to the turban and the jherid, has deprived his capital city of much of its picturesqueness and peculiarity; but still enough remains of eastern manners and costumes to make it one of the most interesting cities in the world to visit and roam over. Such as, like ourselves, may not hope to sport a caique on the Bosphorus, will do well to acquaint themselves with the information Aubrey de Vere can give them, and to suffer their imagination to transport them to scenes among the fairest and the loveliest on the earth's surface, and which are presented to them in these volumes as graphically as words can paint them.
By the possessor of Wordsworth's Greece, where every spot almost, of the slightest historical interest, is given in a picture on its pages, these "Picturesque Sketches" will be read with the highest gratification that scenes and descriptions together can supply. There is so much of mind in them; so much of sound philosophy in the observations; such beautiful thoughts; so well, so elegantly expressed; so many allusions to the past, that are continually placing before us Pericles, Themistocles, or Demosthenes, that we are improved while amused, and feel at every page that we are reading a work far above the general works on such subjects; a work of lasting interest, that may be read and re-read, and still with delight and advantage.
DEATH AND SLEEP
FROM THE GERMAN OF KRUMMACHERIn brotherly embrace walked the Angel of Sleep and the Angel of Death upon the earth.
It was evening. They laid themselves down upon a hill not far from the dwelling of men. A melancholy silence prevailed around, and the chimes of the evening-bell in the distant hamlet ceased.
Still and silent, as was their custom, sat these two beneficent Genii of the human race, their arms entwined with cordial familiarity, and soon the shades of night gathered around them.
Then arose the Angel of Sleep from his moss-grown couch, and strewed with a gentle hand the invisible grains of slumber. The evening breeze wafted them to the quiet dwelling of the tired husbandman, infolding in sweet sleep the inmates of the rural cottage—from the old man upon the staff, down to the infant in the cradle. The sick forgot their pain: the mourners their grief; the poor their care. All eyes closed.
His task accomplished, the benevolent Angel of Sleep laid himself again by the side of his grave brother. "When Aurora awakes," exclaimed he, with innocent joy, "men praise me as their friend and benefactor. Oh! what happiness, unseen and secretly to confer such benefits! How blessed are we to be the invisible messengers of the Good Spirit! How beautiful is our silent calling!"
So spake the friendly Angel of Slumber.
The Angel of Death sat with still deeper melancholy on his brow, and a tear, such as mortals shed, appeared in his large dark eyes. "Alas!" said he, "I may not, like thee, rejoice in the cheerful thanks of mankind; they call me upon the earth their enemy, and joy-killer."
"Oh! my brother," replied the gentle Angel of Slumber, "and will not the good man, at his awakening, recognize in thee his friend and benefactor, and gratefully bless thee in his joy? Are we not brothers, and ministers of one Father?"
As he spake, the eyes of the Death-Angel beamed with pleasure, and again did the two friendly Genii cordially embrace each other.
THE MODERN SCHOOLS OF ATHENS.—I visited, with equal surprise and satisfaction, an Athenian school, which contained seven hundred pupils, taken from every class of society. The poorer classes were gratuitously instructed in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and the girls in needlework likewise. The progress which the children had made was very remarkable; but what particularly pleased me was that air of bright alertness and good-humored energy which belonged to them, and which made every task appear a pleasure, not a toil. The greatest punishment which can be inflicted on an Athenian child is exclusion from school, though but for a day. About seventy of the children belonged to the higher classes, and were instructed in music, drawing, the modern languages, the ancient Greek, and geography. Most of them were at the moment reading Herodotus and Homer. I have never seen children approaching them in beauty; and was much struck by their Oriental cast of countenance, their dark complexions, their flashing eyes, and that expression, at once apprehensive and meditative, which is so much more remarkable in children than in those of a more mature age.—De Vere.
At Berlin, the Academy of Sciences has been holding a sitting, according to its statutes, in honor of the memory of Leibnitz. In the course of the oration delivered on the occasion, it was stated that the 4th of August being the fiftieth anniversary of the admission of Alexander Von Humboldt as a member of the Academy, it had been resolved, in celebration of the event, to place a marble bust of the "Nestor of Science" in the lecture room of the society.
1
The Night side of Nature; or, Ghosts and Ghost Seers. By Catherine Crowe. New York. J.S. Redfield.
2
Picturesque Sketches of Greece and Turkey. By Aubrey De Vere, 2 vols. [Philadelphia: A. Hart.]