hand, and as sure as I hate sin, and love immortal happiness, I shall help you." I took the sword and followed in silence, and coming on deck, I beheld a scene which the hope of sure and immediate revenge rendered inexpressibly sweet. The captain and five sailors, though nearly overcome with wine, were seated on deck; the remainder of the crew had retired below; some shouting, some sung, all blasphemed, and one loud din of cursing and carousal echoed far and wide; the mingled clamour that ascended from this scene of wickedness and debauchery partook of all the evil qualities of debased minds and the most infamous pursuits, and cannot be described. Discord had its full share in the conference on deck between the captain and his confederates; they were debating about their shares in the plunder of my house. "Share! by my soul, man," " said a Scottish sailor to the captain, "

your share in Miles Colvine's pure gold can be but small; one hour of his sweet lady, a hundred leagues from land, was worth all the gold that ever shone.""I shall share all fairly," said the captain, laying his hand on the hilt of his cutlas, "and first I shall share thy scoundrel carcase among the fishes of the sea, if I hear such a word again. Did I plan the glorious plot of carrying away the fair lady and her lord's treasure, to share either with such a Scotch sawney as thee;" The wrath of the Scotchman burnt on his brow, far redder than the flush of the wine he had drunk. "Fiend seethe my saul in his kettles and cauldron, if ye taste na' cauld iron for this!"-And out came his cutlas as he spoke. "That's my hearty Caledonian," said one of his comrades, "give him a touch of the toasting iron; didn't he give a blow to the head of my mother's own son, this blessed morning, for only playing pluck at the lady's garment. Ah, give him the cold piece of steel, my hearty." A blow from the captain's cutlas was the answer to this; several drunkards drew their swords, and illdirected blows, and ineffectual stabs, were given and received in the dark. "Now," said my sailor, laying his hand on mine, to stay me till I received his admonition, 'say not one word, for words slay not, but glide in among them like a spirit thrust your blade, for anger strikes, but revenge stabs, and I will secure the gangway, and fight along you." I heard and obeyed, and gliding

among them, thrust one of them through and through; a second, and a third dropped, ere they saw who was among them. The captain attempted to draw a pistol, but my sword, and my friend's, entered at back and bosom; and though two yet remained unhurt, I struck my sword a second time through the bosom of my mortal enemy, as he lay beneath me; and the last expiring glance of his eye was a look worth remembering. Ere this was accomplished, the other two were both lying with their companions. I have frequently imagined that a firmness and strength, more than my own, were given me during this desperate encounter. Meanwhile the remainder of the crew below set no bounds to their merriment and shouting, and seemed, as my Scottish friend remarked, ordained to die by my hand, since their clamour, by drowning the groans of their comrades, prevented them from providing for their safety. We fastened the cabin doors, and barricaded the gangway, keeping watch with pistols and sword, with the hope of seeing some friendly shore, or a compassionate sail, while the vessel, urged onward by a strong wind, scudded with a supernatural swiftness through the midnight waters. We had entered the Solway sea, when the storm, augmented every moment, carried us rapidly along, and when opposite Allanbay, a whirlwind seizing our ship by the rigging whirled her fairly round, and down she went head foremost. Even in this moment of extreme peril, I shall never forget the figure that, couched among the slain, started to its feet before me, in health and unhurt. There is a fate in all things, it was that fiend in human form whom I slew to-night. Revenge is sweetest when it comes unhoped for. As we sank, a passing vessel saved my pretty May Colvine, her murdered mother' image, and her wretched father's love, and saved too the heroic sailor; while the drunken wretches went to the bottom, without the chance of swimming for an existence they deserved not to prolong."

Such was the narrative of Miles Colvine. He has been dead for several years, and though his daughter wedded the man who saved her father and her, he refused to forsake the sight of the Solway and the sound of its waters, and was found at his cottage door cold and stiff, with his eyes open and looking seaward.

To the Editor of the Babbler.

SIR,-At the present moment, when a peculiar and lively interest appears to be excited on behalf of the Greeks, andwhen the mind is induced to reflect on their situation, and the government under which they live, it might be well to attempt to place them in contrast with their despotic rulers, and if there are some points of resemblance, we may perhaps attribute them to the long endurance of a tyranny which has nearly placed the vanquished on an equality with the victors, whose pernicious influence has been such as almost to reduce all to the level of one common depravity. The first line of separation betwixt the Greek and the Turk, originates in religion.-Mahomedanism opposes itself most strongly to Christianity, and rejects the divinity of its founder; the pretensions of the New Testament to sacred revelation it treats as ridiculous, and esteems the Koran as the repository of all precepts which should regulate our conduct in this life, or which can afford to us the best idea of futurity. It is this code of Mahomet which imparts to his disciples much of that ferocity of character and abjectness of mind that distinguish him, which raises a seemingly insuperable barrier to the amendment of those qualities that attach to the Barbarian, and for whose abrogation no merely human power seems adequate. It was in the spirit of Mahomet that the horde of Tartars who occupy one of the fairest portions of the globe came forth to conquer by the power of the sword, and to annihilate, by physical force, whatever adds dignity to man; like the mighty founder of their religion, they would compel its acceptance by violence, or destroy the refractory; but happily for Europe the invention of gunpowder checked the outrageous valour and numbers of the Turks, and by enabling the weak to contend against the strong, on more equal terms, and requiring a new system of tactics, caused obstructions which even the fury of religious zeal could not overcome. The distinguishing features of Mahomedanism are the proud, haughty, overbearing spirit, which it imparts to its votaries, and the almost invincible prejudice which it is capable of infusing into the human mind; so strong is its nfluence, that it may be said to have revented the Turks deriving any beneR

¡ VOL. I.

fit from their proximity to more enlightened countries; to have been a strong operative cause why they have not entered into that free commercial intercourse to which the productions of their dominions seem to invite them: its effects are sufficiently conspicuous in the stagnation of improvement throughout the whole of the Turkish Empire, and the disdain with which the subjects of the Grand Signior treat European refinement, till circumstances shall compel them either to accept it, or be liable to a mere permission of residence on the soil which they occupy, and to that contempt by all Europe which superiority naturally begets.

In addition to the scorn in which the Greeks are regarded by these conquerors by reason of their being a people whose territory was subdued by force of arms, (and which, after so long an interval, may be supposed as the lesser motive for an ill-treatment of them) the religion they profess begets in the followers of Ismalism the most perfect hatred, that assumes a strength and permanency truly astonishing, and which to attribute to any thing less than the different sources from whence each draw their creed, would be palpably erroneous, because an effect thus striking could result from nothing short of a motive so paramount. But it is nevertheless true that christianity, as professed by the Greeks, is presented under it worst aspect, with all its superstition, crudeness, and absurdity--they celebrate a great number of fasts, and have many ceremonies, but religion is divested of its sanctity, and made despicable by the priesthood, from the Monks that inhabit Mount Athos, to the lowest Caloyer. of the Morea--who, instead of being the sustainers of religion, and the teachers of it, are a race devoted to their own aggrandizement, and as miserable as they are ignorant. The people who are to be taught their faith by such means must certainly be degraded, and be as incompetent to understand as to practice true devotion; but when their governors tolerate their theological sentiments, merely to save themselves the labour of extirpating the professors of them, or for fear of a quick retribution being exacted; and when no further toleration is given to the christian religion than may prevent acts of rebellion, what character can we

expect it to display ?-certainly not the mild serenity, nor the inviting deportment which belong to it in its purity, but the forbidding features of tenets which, in their ritual observance, seem as though they proscribed rationality, and called on men to set aside their best endowments in order to embrace theni. But notwithstanding the low state of christianity among the Greeks, they far excel their tyrants; their faith operates by no means in such a prejudicial way as that of the Mussulman, nor are they so wrapt up in their own superciliousness as to shut their eyes completely to whatever can make a real addition to the promotion of their welfare: they may groan under bigotry, but it is not of that deep hue which belongs to the Turk; knowledge has a readier access to a people who are busily engaged in active occupation, than to those who repose in the pleasures of an indolent insensibility; and it may be safely affirmed, that the religion of Christ, under any form, and with all the alloy that man's invention has infused into it, is infinitely superior, in a merely secular view, than the deadening dogmatisms of Mahomet, or the wild theories of Idolatry.

In proof of this last assertion, we have only to recollect, that the Greeks are the life and soul of the Turkish empire, so far as they can be said to exist there at all;-they are the merchants, the interpreters, the navigators of the vessels of war and commerce; they are shrewd and expert, and their vivacity is perhaps the more conspicuous as they dwell amongst a set of beings so torpid that they only seem to possess motion when urged by the stimulus of the basest passions. It would be ditticult to point out a people in a greater moral destitution than they who acknowledge the sceptre of the Sublime Porte; for like other conquerors, who have been inferior in knowledge to the nations subdued by them, they added a gross darkness to what before was twilight, shrouding, if it were possible, the most brilliant events in the history of mankind, and trampling the soil which all who possess acquaintance with history have considered as hallowed. It may truly be said, in the words of Playfair, that the Turks have "no proper value for science, for literature, for liberty, nor for any of the acquirements that either make a man estimable or

useful.

They neither excel in arts nor in science; physically they are in ferior in utility, and their minds are less instructed. They are not equal to christians either in war or in peace, nor to be compared to them for any good quality."

What pleasure must it yield to the lover of freedom-the reader of history -and the friend to the rights of humanity-in knowing that the Greeks have dared to draw the sword from the scabbard, and demand of their oppressors why the thraldom under which they labour has been imposed. The spirit

of their ancestry is not yet extinct, and they rise to avenge the multiplied wrongs that they have borne. It would appear as if their sensibility was not quite lulled into apathy, or as though their minds were experiencing a renovation, the result perhaps of commercial dealings, of education, and of long supported injuries; nor can we suppose that the dispersion of many of the younger Greeks in the various seminaries of learning in Europe, and especially on the Continent, for the purpose of gaining an acquaintance with literature and the arts, would be found without any beneficial effect; these persons, above all men, must have perceived the degradation of their country, and long have lamented what they could not correct; but information, through their means must have been gradually spreading; the press has been put in requisition, and its potent efficacy, though sometimes too long latent, is nevertheless sure so be recognized, and stand confessed by the greatest enemies to the enlightening of ou race. The power of the Turks appears to be verging to its ruin, and a people who deny themselves the knowledge shed so profusely on their neighbours, must be content to slide into that insignificance from which they ought never to have emerged; and may the Empire to be erected by their repression, be worthy the name of Grecian, nay more than worthy, for it shall be embellished, in due time, with the bright irradiations of true fchristianity, which will disperse those dark clouds of superstition with which it is concealed. ANACHARSIS.

We insert the following Poetry from Lord Byron, as an appropriate appendage to the above observations, and

though we are well aware that it has some time ago met the eye of many of our readers, and with them, therefore, has lost its novelty, yet we feel persuaded they will excuse its introduction, on the ground of its being extremely nervous and beautiful. To those who have abstained from perusing the work, from which it is extracted, because of its general condemnation, (and many parts of it justly) we think no apology will be necessary, as the beauty of the extract is sufficiently obvious. We will just say how this Episode arises in the Poem

His Lordship's Hero was shipwrecked and cast on the shore of one of the Cyclades, where Lambro, a pirate, had fixed his residence, who had one only daughter, the fair Haidee, in whom all his affection centered. This female discovers the Hero of the Poem laying half dead on the beach, and taking him into a cave, affords him nourishment from her father's dwelling till he is recovered, without the knowledge of Lambro, who, leaving the island, to follow his accustomed pursuits, tarries longer than he was accustomed, and in consequence is given up for lost. Haidee and her protoge are therefore rulers of the island. A banquet is prepared, and the masters of the feast, according to Eastern usage, must have their Poet, who bursts forth in the following strainThe isles of Greece! the isles of Greece!

Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,-
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all, except their sun, is set.

The Scian and the Teian muse,

The hero's harp, the lover's lute,
Have found the fame your shores refuse;
Their place of birth alone is mute
To sounds which echo further west
Than sires' "Islands of the Blest."
your
The mountains look on Marathon-
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,

I dream'd that Greece might still be free;
For standing on the Persians' grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.

A king sate 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?

And where are they? and where art thou,
My country? On thy voiceless shore
The heroic lay is tuneless now--

The heroic bosom beats no more!
And must thy lyre, so long divine,
Degenerate into hands like mine?
'Tis something, in the dearth of fame,
Though link'd among a fettered Lace,
To feel at least a patriot's shame,

Even as I sing, suffuse my face;
For what is left the poet here?
For Greeks a blush-for Greece a tear.
Must we but weep o'er days more blest?
Must we but blush ?-Our fathers bled.
Earth! render back from out thy breast

A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred grant but three,
To make a new Thermopyle!
What, silent still! and silent all'

Ah no;-the voices of the dead
Sound like a distant torrent's fall,
And
answer, "Let one living head,
But one arise we come, we come!"
"Tis but the living who are dumb.
In vain--in vain: strike other chords;
Fill high the cup with Samian wine!
Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,

And shed the blood of Scio's vine !
Hark! rising to the ignoble call-
How answers each bold bacchannal?
You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet,

Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone? Of two such lessons, why forget

The nobler and the manlier one? You have the letters Cadmus gaveThink ye he meant them for a slave? Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! We will not think of themes like these: It made Anacreon's song divine:

He served-but served PolycratesA tyrant; but our masters then Were still, at least, our countrymen. The tyrant of the Chersonese

Was freedom's best and bravest friend; That tyrant was Miltiades!

Oh! that the present hour would lend
Another despot of the kind!
Such chains as his were sure to bind.
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine?
On Suli's rock, and Parga's shore,
Exists the reinnant of a line,

Such as the Doric mothers bore;
And there, perhaps, some seed is sown,
The Heracleidan blood might own.
Trust not for freedom to the Franks-
They have a king who buys and sells;
In native swords, and native ranks,

The only hope of courage dwells;
But Turkish force, and Latin fraud,
Would break your shield, however broad.
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine,
Our virgins dance beneath the shade
I see their glorious black eyes shine;
But gazing on each glowing maid,
My own the burning tear-drop laves,
To think such breasts must suckle slaves.
Place me on Sunium's marbled steep,

Where nothing, save the waves and I, May hear our mutual murmurs sweep; There, swan-like, let me sing and die: A land of slaves shall near be mineDash down you cup of Samian wine!

Poetry.

ON A VIEW OF THE SEA.

Ocean! I love to view thy dark blue face,

To hear thee rippling on thy shelvy shore; To me thy form has greatness, grandeur,

grace

To me, there's more than music in thy roar. Washed by thy waves, like pearls the pebbles shine,

Thy sandy shore is like a jewell'd sky;
Why should I wonder thou wert deem'd divine,
When Paphia, thy sweet daughter, rules on
high?

Yet thou art false aud fickle; and tho' now
Thy billows beat but softly in their bounds,
Anon, convuls'd and toss'd tempestuous thou
Wilt, foaming furious, batter down thy
mounds;

Herein, an emblem of thy sister Earth,

Her monachs now are firmest, fondest friends,

Anon, Ambition gives Bellona birth;

And war and woe the holy treaty ends!

When calm thou seem'st, as Phoebus flickering

gleams

With glittering brilliance on thy glassy brow, Like earthly glory, transient as its beams,

That shine as fiercely and as false as thou. Thy soft smooth wave the sailors' view beguiles,

With sunny surface hiding oft the storm, Like friends who flatter when fair Fortune

SONG.

Turn not away those orbs of light,
Nay, rather turn them frowning to me;
I would not loose a beam so bright,
Altho' it burn'd but to undo ine.

Turn not away those lips of love,
Nay, rather let them move to chide me;
For they entrance, altho' they move

To scorn, to menace, and deride me.

Wrapt in the charms that round thee play Like some lost wretch who looks on lightning;

I feel the wild electric ray,

Strike to the fated breast its bright'ning.

A MIDNIGHT REFLECTION.

Hail! solemn Hour, thou friend to sober thought

I love thee, though enwrapped in midnight gloom;

By thee, thon friend to wisdom I am taught
That soon enshrouded in the silent tomb
Will lie this frame,—and though this frame
decas,

And moulder into ashes-yet my soul
Emancipate and freed will wing its way
To yonder skies, where worlds unnumber'd
roli;

And, disencumber'd from this mortal dust, Will range, perhaps, the wide unbounded sphere,

With millions of the happy and the just. Oh how I long this moment to be there: Oves! to Heaven aspires my soaring mind, That longs to be released and unconfined. Sun Bridge, Bradford.

J. K.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE BABBLER.

Sir, There are few things which abound more with novelty, at the same time that theyconvey instruction,than the elucidation of certain singular customs. Impressed with this idea, I send you the following extract :-On the Use of Evergreens and Mistletoe at Christmas,which, if you think it sufficiently interesting, you are welcome to insert. Your's, &c. Leeds. E*** The custom of decking our churches and habitations with evergreens, has existed from the very establishment of Christianity, and was unquestionably derived from the like practice of our Pagan ancestors. "Trimming of the temples," says Polydore Virgil, "with hangings, flowres, boughes, and garlandes, was taken of the heathen people, whiche decked their idols and house. with such array." The Celts and Goths were alike distinguished for the respectfu