Joannes Lascaris.

ON MARCESIUS RHALLES,

A NOBLE BYZANTINE, WHO DIED SHORTLY BEFORE THE CAPTURE
OF CONSTANTINOPLE BY THE TURKS. M.

"OH thou, who sleep'st in brazen slumber, tell,
-(Thy high descent and noble name full well
I know-Byzantium claims thy birth-) but say,
How didst thou perish in thy youthful day?"
"A death, unworthy of my high estate-
This thought is keener than the stroke of Fate
I bled not in the ranks of those who fell

For glorious, falling Greece-no more-Farewell !"

ILLUSTRATIONS.

FUNERAL AND MONUMENTAL.

"Tears o'er my Heliodora's grave I shed" p. 283.

I have, in common with many others, supposed this epitaph to be inscribed to the memory of Meleager's wife, Heliodora. Valcknaer attributes it to his daughter, others to his mistress-some read Heliodorus. "Profectò nonnullæ vocularum extincto puero magis convenire videntur." (Reiske. Præfat.)-sc. Daños. axparon ardos, &c. It is not worth while to enter into the dispute; and, as all is conjecture, that reading, and that interpretation, is to be preferred, which attaches the strongest interest to the poem.

"Clarissa, when she loosed her virgin zone."

p. 283. This turn of thought continually occurs in the ancient writers. "The tomb, my child, is thy bridal bed, Death is thy bridegroom, grief thy Hymen, and these, groans

thy song of marriage, I hoped, my Love, to have kindled a flame far different from this; but malignant Destiny has extinguished the torch of Hymen, and now lights up that of thy funeral." Achilles Tatius. So Cydippe, in Ovid:

"Nostraque plorantes video super ora parentes, Et face pro thalami fax mihi mortis adest."

Capulet, relating the supposed death of Juliet, makes use of similar expressions:

"Oh son, the night before thy wedding day,

Hath Death lain with thy wife: see, there she lies,
Flower as she was, deflowered now by him,

Death is my son in law, Death is my heir,
My daughter he hath wedded-I will die
And leave him all-

All things that we ordained festival
Turn from their office to black funeral
Our instruments to melancholy bells;
Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast;
Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change;
And bridal flowers serve for a buried corse."

The zone, or girdle of a bride, was fastened round her waist with a peculiar knot, which is said to have borne some mystic signification of constancy or purity. This knot, says Brown, in his Vulgar Errors, resembled "the snaky complication in the Caduceus, or rod of Hermes."

Our "True lovers' knot," which was very illustrious a century ago, but is now hardly known to have possessed any distinguishing quality, is derived by him, with a great deal of fancy, but some probability, from the knot of the bride's girdle.

This deeply affecting subject, a young and beautiful female torn away from the brightest hopes by death, has been once the successful theme of a French poet.

The following lines will bear a comparison with the most tender strains of Grecian sorrow.

Inscription on an Urn placed at the entrance of a little wood, which bordered a meadow, where the young girls of a neighbouring village were accustomed to assemble.

It is spoken by the shepherdess to whom this monument is consecrated.

"Jeunes beautés, qui venez dans ces lieux Fouler d'un pied léger l'herbe tendre et fleurie, Comme vous j'ai connu les plaisirs de la vie, Vos fêtes, vos transports, et vos aimables jeux. LAmour berçoit mon cœur de ses douces chimères, Et l'Hymen me flattoit du destin le plus beau; Un instant détruisit ces erreurs mensongèresQue me reste-il? le tombeau.”

Young beauties tempted here in spring,

To press the herbage green within these bowers;
Like your's, my May of life was strew'd with flowers,
My sports like your's, that knew no hidden sting.
Love lull'd my heart with visions bright and fair,
And Hymen seem'd to claim me in my bloom;
An instant gave my gilded hope to air-

What now is mine? the tomb.

B.

"I mark the spot where Ida's ashes lie." p. 284.

This and the succeeding poem recommend themselves by their pathetic simplicity, and still more by the resemblance which they bear to the circumstances attending the death of their author.

The last of the two is valuable for the picture it gives of a Grecian tomb, and of the ornaments that accompanied it.

The Eλ, or pillars on which the names and families of the deceased were inscribed, together with the tributary effusions of friends or relatives, were common to every monument of distinction.

The Zapnyes, or images of Sirens, were ornaments by no means singular, nor were they appropriated to any particular class of persons. They distinguished the tomb of Isocrates, and conveyed, by a metaphor in sculpture, a representation of the harmony and copiousness of his eloquence. They were conspicuous ornaments on the monument of Sophocles, the charms of whose poetry