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EDITORS' TABLE.

MR. STEPHENS' 'INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL.' - After the previous pages of the present number had been sent to the press, we received, from a distinguished source, a communication in relation to certain alleged errors, in that portion of Mr. STEPHENS' late volumes, which treats of his travels in, and remarks upon Greece, and the character of her people. The critic pays a deserved tribute to the style of the work, and the inexhaustible good humor of the author; and doubts not that 'it has afforded pleasure to thousands, who, stretched carelessly upon a sofa, have wiled away pleasant hours, rambling in imagination with the lively writer, among the scenes he describes;' but the reviewer presently declares his intention to deal, 'not with the merits, but the demerits of the book; to point out some of its errors, and to show that the work is to be read rather for pleasure than profit.' It is conceded, that where our author gives an account of what he himself saw in Greece, he does it well, but that 'he betrays gross ignorance, and inflicts great injustice,' when he talks of the character of the people, or their social and political institutions. 'And how,' says our critic, 'could it be otherwise? He passed but eight weeks in the country; he knew nothing of the language; he wasin the hands of cunning dragomans, and ignorant muleteers,' and placed implicit confidence in the 'stories of any body who could talk English.' The writer proceeds:

We were grieved at our author's misrepresentations of some points of the Greek character, but shocked at the cruel injustice he does the nation, when he says: 'The Greeks speak of Byron with all the rancor and bitterness of party spirit!" What! has not that accursed old leaven of ingratitude yet worked out? Can the descendants of those who so quickly repaired the wrong done to Aristides, and mourned repentantly over the remains of banished Cimon, cherish hatred of the dead, and refuse to do honor to him who, with his pen, and his purse, and his good right arm, did their cause so much service? - who threw himself into their ranks, in the darkest hour of their dreadful struggle, and sealed his attachment with his life? Can it be that the Greeks are not grateful to Byron? Our author says they are not; but we say they are; and we appeal to the shock felt throughout Greece, when the sad news went forth from Missolonghi, and was received in every town with loud lamentations; we appeal to the acts of the government, to the funeral pageant, to the language of the press, to all the foreigners who were then in the country, in proof of our assertion. It was not Tricoupi alone who pronounced a glowing eulogy of Byron; it was not alone Kalvas who sang his praises, and mourned in verse for his loss; but in every newspaper or book, that has since been printed, the sadness and the gratitude of the people have been expressed, whenever allusions are made to Byron.

It may be said that this has changed, and that the people now speak of Byron, as the author of the Incidents' accuses them of doing; but it is not so; and we boldly appeal to those who spend time enough in Greece to get any knowledge of the people, at first hand, and not through interpreters, to confirm our denial. Nay, we speak from our own knowledge; for we too have travelled in Greece; not like our author, 'doing up' the country in eight weeks, but in more than as many months; we know something of the country, for we have bivouac'd in the tambouris of her kleftes' and her 'braves; we have eaten youourti with her jopanides; we have bounded among the Cyclades with her sailors; we have taken gleeko with her primates; we have drank wine with her young men, and danced with her maidens, and held converse with all, not through a valet or a dragoman, but in their own melodious tongue; and we can bear witness to the language of admiration, and the tribute of a sigh, which the mention of the name of Byron ever extorted. We had a miniature engraving of him, and we have seen many a soldier's eye dimmed, while gazing upon the features; and it even yet bears the mark of a rough old captain's tear, who would insist upon kissing it again and again. No! Be the sins of the modern Greeks what they may, ingratitude to Byron is NOT one of them. Their feelings toward him are correctly expressed in the ode of Kalvas, and especially in this stanza:

Σὲ η Ελλὰς εὐγνώμων
ὡς φίλον μεγα λόψυχον

ζητεῖ να στεφανώση.

ὡς παρηγορητην, της,

ὡς εὐεργετην.

The reviewer proceeds to cite other instances, wherein 'the random, rattling style of writing leads our author to do injustice to others, and to betray a superficial knowledge,' and begins with his remarks upon the character and administration of Capo d'Istria:

'Our author says truly, that Capo d'Istria was a man of great talents; but he errs egregiously, when he states, that the motives of his withdrawal from the service of Russia, is conclusive evidence of his patriotism; and he does great wrong, when he flippantly says, that 'Capo d'Istria, strong in his own integrity, and confidently relying on the fidelity and gratitude of his countrymen, was assassinated in the street, on his way to mass.' He is wrong in the general view of the character and administration of the President; wrong in supposing him to have relied upon any thing but the fidelity of his body guard, and his friends in the Russian fleet; and wrong in the details of the affair. He evidently knows no more about Capo d'Istria, his administration, and his death, than about the seventy-seventh emperor of China. The reader of the 'Incidents' would infer that young Mavromichalis was a cowardly assassin; but did he know the true history of the case, he would rank him with such assassins as Brutus. The brave old Mavromichalis was the hereditary feudal chief of the Mainotes; the hardy descendants of the old Spartans, who had kept their mountain region free from the contamination of the Turks; forced them to acknowledge their prowess, and the authority of their feudal chief, and paid them only a nominal tribute. During the long and bloody struggle for independence, no chief more distinguished himself than the grey-headed Bey of Mama. That brave old man, with his braver sons by his side, exposed his person in battle, and expended his riches in supplying the wants of the army; and at the end of the war, his brothers were all slain, and of his sons, two only remained. After the long agony was over, and the independence of Greece had been achieved, came Capo d'Istria, followed by a swarm of bungry leeches, Europeanized Greeks, who had kept aloof during the seven years of peril and strife. The native chiefs were stripped of their possessions and their power; old Mavromichalis was decoyed to Napoli, and imprisoned! Ay! the wild mountaineer, the independent chieftain, who from his cradle had been taught to prefer death to servitude, was confined in a prison! And what did his sons do? How did they reason, and feel, and act? Like men; uncivilized, to be sure - unused to law and to submission-but still, like men brave men. The feeling was almost universal in Greece, that Capo d'Istria had trampled upon law, had violated his pledges, had assumed tyrannical power, and intended to make of Greece a Russian province. We say this feeling was almost universal, and we believe it was well-founded.

'The sons of old Mavromichalis resolved to free their country of the tyrant; but they resolved to sacrifice themselves like brave men. They repaired to the public square of Napoli, armed, as was their wont; and when the President issued from the church, surrounded by his guard, armed to the teeth, the young men sprang forward, and with their pistols' mouths almost touching his person, blew him to pieces. Instantly one of them was pierced with a score of swords, but the other broke away, and in spite of yatagans grazing his body, and pistol bullets whistling through his hair, gained a place of refuge. He was soon taken, however, and glorying in the deed he had done, was condemned to be shot. He was a gallant and a goodly youth, that same 'assassin.' He was an Apollo in person, and a Hotspur in courage; and though rash and impetuous in conduct, was noted for his frankness, and generosity, and spirit. He was led out to the death of a felon, and by a refinement of cruelty, was marched by the castle where his old father was confined. But his bearing was bold to the last. He looked up to the castle-wall for some signal from his father, distinguished his waving hand, and after answering it, turned and bared his bosom to the levelled muskets of his executioners.'

Another instance of what the reviewer terms 'gross injustice done to individuals by our credulous traveller,' is thus recorded:

'The author of the 'Incidents' says: 'The Americans who served in the Greek army, were rather a shabby set. Jarvis was the most distinguished, and I never heard any imputations on his character.' He then mentions several individuals, among them 'Allen, another American patriot, who was hung at Constantinople,' and adds: 'Another behaved gallantly as a soldier, but sullied his laurels by appropriating the money entrusted to him by the Greek Committee.' Now this sweeping denunciation of men who toiled and suffered for years, without reward, is unpardonable in one who is evidently ignorant of the whole matter. This Jarvis whom he lauds, passed for an American, until some bona fide Yankees found him to be a Jew, from Altona, who never had seen America, and whose only claim to citizenship of the United States was, that his father had been consular agent, and that he himself spoke cockney English. While the Americans in the army served as volunteers, Jarvis drew pay for two hundred men, and kept twenty!

'By the American' who behaved gallantly as a soldier, but sullied his laurels by appropriating the money entrusted to him by the Greek Committee,' the writer must mean a gentleman now resident in Vermont, for he was the only one of the army entrusted with funds by the Committee. He did distinguish himself most gallantly, and won golden opinions from the Greek 'braves,' who called him the American Delhi, or 'dare-devil. But a fouler aspersion never was put upon a brave man, than our author (ignorantly, we doubt not,) has put upon this gallant Phil-hellene. He did serve without fee or reward in the distribution of the supplies of the Greek Committee; he did have carteblanche in the disposal of money and goods; and, we happen to know, came home not only without money, but with hardly a whole shirt to his back.

As for the other gentlemen, whom our author denounces as a 'shabby set,' we believe their services are known and appreciated in Greece, at least; we never heard their names mentioned there, save with respect and affection; and one of them, at least, has received numerous tokens of the grateful recollection of distinguished individuals, and even of the governments of Capo d'Istria and King Otho. Doubtless our traveller believed all that was told him by his authority, whom he calls Mr. M., and whom we suppose to be the same discontented and carping Scotsman, who was 'loafing' about Napolia when we visited it; but he should be careful how he retails stories, for the truth of which he cannot vouch.'

Our reviewer denounces as 'most uncourteous, nay, even most ungentlemanly,' the manner in which mention is made of the 'Maid of Athens:'

'This lady, the daughter of a Greek who acted as English Consul at Athens, was a beautiful and interesting child, when Lord Byron lodged at her father's house, some twenty-eight years ago. She grew up to womanhood with an irreproachable character; and during all the horrors of the

revolution, though flying with her family several times to the islands, or the mountains, from the Turks, and enduring the pangs of bitter poverty, she and her sisters ever contrived to keep up an appearance of respectability, and even of gentility. Several years ago, she gave her hand and heart to a Scottish gentleman of good character; and with him has lived happily. But now she must be dragged forth to disagreeable notoriety, by every flippant tourist; and even our author exclaims: The Maid of Athens' is married to a Scotsman! the Maid of Athens is now Mrs. Black! wife of George Black! head of the Police! and her son's name is***** Black! and she has other little Blacks! Now this is not only in bad taste, but it is an outrageous violation of propriety; it is the besetting sin of tourists, who pander to a depraved public taste. Doubtless copies of this book will find their way to Athens, and excite any thing but pleasant feelings in the minds of the parties concerned. We know not how the husband may feel, but we suspect that if the tourist again visits Athens, he may chance to find that 'black is the white of his eye!''

The reviewer hints, in conclusion, that in addition to the 'random passages of error' which he here designates, he has reserved others for another number. We are well satisfied that Mr. STEPHENS will gladly avail himself of any authentic corrections in subsequent editions of his work; and it may not be amiss to remark here, that his descriptions of the other countries through which he passed, are pronounced signally faithful, by eminent travellers in the same regions.

THE MARINE ARMOR. - One of the most interesting practical exhibitions which we ever remember to have seen, was that of the 'marine armor,' off the battery, during the late fair of the Mechanics' Institute, at Castle-Garden. As we neared the vessel, whence the 'man-in-armor' was to descend, we beheld suspended at the side of the craft, and on a level with the deck, the ambassador to the court of Neptune. His form was after the model of KNICKERBOCKER'S Dutch official, 'like a robustious beer-barrel on skids.' He fronted the town, an uncouth agglomeration of four limbs. Soon after we reached the sloop, the diver began to don his submarine habiliments, which were swung inward from the vessel's side, for the purpose, by means of a block-and-tackle. These were, first, a bronze head-piece, or hat, like an inverted iron pail, with a small glass door, on hinges, in front; this was attached to an India-rubber jacket, terminating near the middle of the body in a strong copper hoop, which was screwed to a corresponding hoop, belonging to the pantaloons, which were also of caoutchouc, save that below the knee a species of bronze metal was employed for the 'leggins' and boots. A long cord was fastened to his 'mailed right hand,' and a small engine-hose, (which, yankee-like, the inventor alluded to, as 'that air-pipe,') coiled up like a huge snake on the deck, had wormed its head into the top of his hat; and thus accoutred, and suspended by the head, he rested his iron feet gently upon the rail, and bowed, with very little of French grace, to the swarming crowd in Castle-Garden, and the dense multitude on the Battery. As he turned toward us, with his red night-cap'd head, and flushed countenance, he looked, behind his narrow glass window, like a rejuvenated mummy, in a rude Egyptian sarcophagus. He stretched out his arm, and a gloved hand, as large as the 'hand of Providence,' which we took with fearful forebodings, remembering Spenser's warning:

'Certes who bides his grasp, will that encounter rue!"

But we found him no 'great shakes,' considering his 'deadly aspect.' His was merely a hearty hand-salute, of the pump-handle class; 'right up and down, and no mistake.' He presently descended slowly into the water, here some twenty or thirty feet in depth, singing as he went,

Come, mariner, down in the deep with me,
And hide thee under the wave;'

and soon began to walk off very deliberately, indicating his whereabout by the great air-bubbles which ever and anon gurgled up from below. In about twenty minutes, he emerged near the embankment-wall of the Garden, and saluting the audience, who were looking down upon him from the battlements, soon re-descended into the water, and after walking about in the depths below, for half an hour, and climbing up a high pole, rising out of the water, he made a signal that he had found something of moment, but what it was, he did not communicate, although no less than four persons were busily engaged in 'pumping him,' fromon board the vessel. He was drawn slowly up, when lo! clasped in those huge arms, 'capable of a wide embrace,' rose to view a brimming basket of champagne; and while the 'rover of the deep' hung in a state of suspense that scarcely permitted his feet to touch the deck, the bottles were opened, and the foaming wine passed around to the invited guests. Certain aldermen, and other bon vivants, triumphantly confirmed our own impressions of its delicious coolness and excellent quality; and the purveyor himself, who swallowed a tumbler via his opened glass orifice, looking, meantime, like a man taking refreshment in a pillory, pronounced it unexceptionable. He conversed with us from his window, and exceedingly well, too, while the wine was circulating. The proprietor was occupied, he said, during a part of the last winter, in searching the wreck of the Bristol, near Rockaway. A large amount in iron, steel, and gold, was recovered from the wreck. He described his emotions when he first essayed the armor, one rough day, and walked securely in the far-down deep, while above him

The hoarse gray surge was rolling,
With a mountain's motion on.'

Sometimes, when the rays of the sun trembled greenly through the dimly-transparent flood, he could catch faint glimpses of strange fish playing around him. He was not quite sure that he did not once encounter a mermaid, in an amphibious nondescript, that, to his unpractised eye,

'seemed woman to the waist, and fair,

But ended foul, in many a scaly fold.'

He also frequently saw shoals of porpoises swarming and fretting in his wake. This was at first a source of some alarm; but they seldom came very near him. It seemed to be no small consolation to them, that while he made them keep their distance, he kept his at the same time. They evidently disliked his family, and were little disposed to associate with one of his standing. When the sun was in a cloud, darkness visible' was the only light that revealed the 'dim obscure,' the vast swelling into the infinite, in the unknown deep, above and around him. And thus the sea-walker beguiled the time, until the hour for igniting a keg of powder, at the bottom of the bay, had arrived. This feat, which is 'a part of the system,' was twice successfully accomplished, the water swelling up, in a solid mass, some fifteen or twenty feet, and falling like the awful whirlpools that rise and break near the foot of Niagara, casting up mire and dirt, and bearing on its surface the risen flame, creating an impression, for a moment, that the operators had supplied an important desideratum in the arts, by at last setting the North River on fire. Seriously, however, this sub-marine armor is a most wonderful invention; and we are glad to learn, that a 'Sub-marine Armor Company' has been established, and that nearly all its stock has already been taken. Its gains cannot fail to be immense. Our coasts and rivers teem with wrecks, as do similar waters elsewhere; and when it is considered, that with this armor one can descend to the bed of the ocean, and work for hours together among the treasures of the deep, it needs no seer to predict, that Captain TAYLOR, the ingenious inventor, and the Company who have brought his labors to account, will be well rewarded for their united genius and enterprise.

THE LATE ECLIPSE. - How many thousands were gazing, at the same moment, at this sublime phenomenon, and in how many bosoms simultaneously arose deep emotions of wonder and sublimity, when, at the minutest point of time predicted, the sun's edge was visibly clipped by the wide-moving and mighty shadow! Countless hearts were lifted in awe to the Great Architect; and amidst faint conceptions of the wonderful order and beauty which mark the changes and movements of the planetary systems, came thoughts of the distant past; of the millions who had come and gone, since first this phenomena dimmed the eye of the startled beholder, while the immutable heavens have known no change. Thousands of human generations, all as noisy as our own, have been swallowed up of time, and there remains no wreck of them any more; yet Arcturus, Orion, Sirius, and the Pleiades

are still shining in their courses, clear and young, as when the shepherd first noted them on the plain of Shinar.' As this wondrous planet, earth, is journeying with its fellows through infinite space, so are the wondrous destinies embarked on it, journeying through infinite time, under the same high guidance. How many will be irrevocably fixed, before the sun shall again be darkened by that shadowy eclipse!

'POTTERS' FIELD.' - Few readers in the country, we may believe, know what is the reality of that town receptacle, par excellence, the 'Potters' Field.' Nor had we a full sense of its character, until, some months since, on a fine dewy summer morning, we accompanied a friend to the spot, a little way from the northern suburb of the metropolis. 'The sun was warm, the sky was clear,' and as we entered the gate that opens into the spacious enclosure, the wind at first came fresh and balmy from the west; but as we arose a gentle green swell, and saw before us the long dun-colored ridge that marked the place where the latest victims had been laid, a pungent 'smell of mortality' was borne to us upon the breeze, insomuch that the boldest held his breath for a time. We presently stood beside the place of deposit,' for that is the term. A trench, a little wider than the average height of man, and some five feet deep, is dug along the entire field. Cross-wise of this, are laid the coarse coffins of the needy and the destitute, who, having fought with poverty and affliction, until death made it a drawn battle, here repose from the unequal contest. As we were scanning the rude coffins some long, others short, the intervening chinks filled in, in rigid economy of space, with infants, 'in their smiles and innocent age cut off' -the low murmur of decay came to the ear, from beneath the lime-sprinkled surface, dimly-sombre, like meeting snow upon a dark ground. We could not but call to mind, as we gazed upon this scene, the lines of the lamented BRIGHT:

'Yet it matters not much, when the bloom is fled,
And the light is gone from the lustrous eye,
And the sensitive heart is cold and dead,
Where the mouldering ashes are left to lie;
It matters not much, if the soaring mind,
Like the flowers' perfume, is exhaled to heaven,
That its earthly shroud should be cast behind,
To decay wherever a place is given.'

Surely, thought we, our departed friend, when he wrote these beautiful stanzas, had never beheld a spot, 'a place that is given,' like this! Ridge beyond ridge, to yonder fence-paling, lie, in 'cold obstruction, the thick swaths of humanity! Sometimes a violent rain washes away the earth, when the ends of the coarse coffins, the mouldering and the new, tier above tier, are bared to the day - an awful spectacle! Yet the walks and grassy avenues of Washington Square, along which flit the light feet of the beautiful, the young, and the gay, cover a close succession of these ribbed trenches, full crowded with their myriad sleepers! Apart from these long reservoirs of death, is a grassy corner, a priviledged spot, where, for one 'almighty dollar,' a shallow grave may be purchased. Four or five rude and ill-shapen excavations, of some three feet depth, were here yawning for their tenants; and in the damp corners of one or two of them, were squatted three or four bright green toads, the 'precious jewels in their heads' sparkling in the falling light, and their semi-recumbent bodies bathed in the morning dew. No one can turn from scenes like these, and think lightly of the disposition of the body after death. The rural cemetery arises to the mind, in palpable contrast; and the beholder, as he passes from the field of promiscuous burial, exclaims with the poet:

Not amid trenches rude,

Or coffins dark and thick with ancient mould,

May rest my bones;
But let the dewy rose,

The snow-drop, and the violet, lend perfume

Above the spot, where in my grassy tomb

I take repose!"

VOL. XII.

47

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