THERE is a plain, wide and extensive, beautiful as it is desolate, which lies for ever basking in the light of Eastern skies; where the soft winds, freighted with the sweet odours stolen from the far-off burning climes, pass on unheeded with their fragrance; and where no sound is heard save the faint voice of the distant waves, that seem to wail feebly like the lamenting of spirits that cannot rest. All around stands a noble rampart of lofty hills; on one side, the deep purple hue of that flowery waste seems to merge imperceptibly into the yet deeper blue of the gently undulating sea; and on the wildest and most desert spot in all that desert plain there lie the ruins of an ancient city.

Three thousand three hundred years has that ancient city lain there even as we now behold it, unchanged and undisturbed-since the hour when the progress of its ruin was mysteriously stayed, and the hand of Decay palsied in the midst of its destructive work, that these stupendous monuments might traverse, like things imperishable, the cycles of unnumbered centuries, and stand forth before each living race of men, the solemn, voiceless witnesses of an unknown past. Elsewhere over the face of this our world the waves of time have been violently sweeping, swallowing up the kingdoms, making a wreck of empires, and speeding on the generations to their doom; but here there has been no change save in the fading of the glorious day into the mild and radiant night, or the melting of the morning loveliness into the glowing light of noon. Immovable, impassible, those two great headless lions have kept their watch over the city's gates,

VOL. XXXII.-NO. CXCI.

whence none have come forth, and where none have entered, except, it may be, the mournful ghosts of the ancient departed, as they passed and repassed, to visit the habitation of their clay. And daily has the first bright sun-ray stolen down upon the giant sepulchre, where reposed the royal corpse of him, whom Homer styled the King of Men; but of living things there is none, save one huge serpent that haunts these stately ruins, and sits, coiled on a mighty pillar's base, like the emblem of that sin, for whose sake the cities of the earth are shaken from their centre, and swiftly overthrown.

To-night, the cold, bright moonbeams nestled quietly amongst these huge Cyclopean ruins, and glittered steadily upon the stupendous blocks of those mysterious structures, whose original purpose none can now explain. Those moonbeams in the East seem to have a purifying power, stolen from the sphere whence they come, which gives a fairer aspect to all things on which they beam; and they had turned the unspotted marble to a deadly whiteness, and shed a pale pure light all round that mighty tomb, as though they had veiled it in an ethereal shroud. In this, the shrine of an eternal solitude, the deep silence is less profound by night than during the sultry day; for then the beasts of prey come howling round the desert city, and the rushing wings of the night-bird disturb the quiet air. And now to these another sound is added, and the gallop of a swift horse coming near, echoes loudly on the plain; it proceeds directly from the point where, glaring redly amid the fairer moonlight, there may be distinguished a

2 M

fire that has been kindled by human hands; and soon, approaching rapidly upon the hard, dry ground, the horse and his rider enter within the circle of the ancient ruins. They paused before the Gate of the Lions, and the horseman, dismounting, entered on foot into the City of the Dead.

He was a man in the prime of life, wearing a black uniform, with a cap, on which was impressed the symbol of a death's-head, and underneath were inscribed the words, "Liberty or Death." The fire, which marked the spot whence he had come, had been kindled by his companions in arms; and they were the men forming that gallant and noble company, who shall live in the hearts of their countrymen, whatever may have been their name and designation elsewhere, as the defenders of Greece alone! for this glorious title they won to themselves with the barter of their life, and sealed their right to it in their own blood. They were those young men, Greeks, Philellenists, and volunteers from the various countries of Europe, all in the summer of their days, who, having devoted themselves to the cause of Greece (that beautiful slave pouring out her heart's best blood for the purchase of her freedom), had been formed into a battalion of infantry, which was termed the "Hieros Lochos," or sacred band. Once they had been five hundred strong, but four hundred lay stiff in their death-wounds, in the cold swamps of Wallachia. Still those who remained were undaunted and true, as the symbol on their caps well proved, from which they were called "Mavrophorites;" and they were tinually reinforced by new detachments from Europe of those noble friends to Greece, who scrupled not to leave their dear homes and dearer friends, to die for a country which had no claim upon them-save that it was oppressed! He who had now traversed that lonely moor to visit the desert city, was an English Philellenist,. and he had stolen these few hours of his needful rest, and left the gay society of his companions, to wander hither, because that plain was the plain of Argos, and the city was Mycenae, the seat of the royal Agamemnon's power.

con

It seems strange to turn from the contemplation of ruins such as these, fragments from the great wreck of

the past, in which, as in hieroglyphics, it has written over the face of this earth the history of its remotest days, to talk of the deeds and sufferings, the hopes and sorrows, of the living generation, that now for so short a time are located in the habitation of this world. But in the records of eternity, the comparative value of all things is measured by a computation very different from ours. We, with our past of but a few short years, and our finite minds that cannot grasp a morrow, are no judges of the greater or the less. We are unable to trace in the present glory or power, the fruit of past events which seemed of little moment, or in the words and deeds of to-day, the germ of future might; we cannot see how much greater is the seed from whence hereafter shall spring a stately tree, than the noblest oak that ever spread its branches to the sky, if it is withering at the heart, and decay in secret sapping its life. If the narrow sphere where one great man a while was seen to move, became the centre of a mighty empire, so might the petty state, where a few thousands gave their lives for freedom, be the focus whence liberty should emanate to many nations. Therefore we may talk of the Greek revolution among the ruins of Mycenæ, and tell how, at the period of which we speak, the sympathies of all Europe were stirred for those brave sons of Greece, still at this hour slaves, at least in name, who had so nerved themselves to this one noble struggle.

Two years and more they had wrestled for their freedom-how bravely and how gloriously, they only can tell, yet living who witnessed it, or those who, having since wandered over that restored country, have read the records of its strife in the myriad graves of its soldiers, or the broken hearts of the survivors; but though not one spark of their generous ardour had been quenched by the blood of their brethren so lavishly shed, still at this juncture Greece seemed destined to be but the altar whereon a mighty sacrifice was offered up to liberty, day by day, and life by life. Yet with one heart had they risen to struggle in that worthy cause, and not the cold hand of death itself could still the throbbing of that universal pulse. Corinth was in the hands of the infidel

-but they struggled on. The bravest of their heroes, Marco Bozzaris, had fallen in the first disastrous siege of Missolonghi; but they called on all to follow his example, and struggled on. Troop after troop arrived from Turkey to replace those which they had swept away. The Vizier Mahmoud Pasha had only now come, followed by countless numbers, to conduct the war, and the Greeks had no means of reinforcement. They could not call back from their graves those who had already given up their lives. Men, even for Greece, could die but once; but they armed the women and children, and dragged out the old men in their extremity, to strike a last blow as they expired and so they struggled on!

But

It is not to be wondered at, that such a spectacle as this should have aroused men, even strangers to the land, to come forward and proffer their most needful aid; and from all parts of the world they were now arriving, to enlist under this noble bauner. Byron was already in the Ionian Islands, and on him the highest hopes were placed. Vasili, an Olympian, had by proclamation gathered round him a hundred and fifty Philellenists, among whom was included the shattered fragment of the Hieros Lochos, and this was the company now encamped on the plain of Argos. although, amongst these volunteers, who were principally Swiss, German, and English, many were really actuated by that which was the ostensible motive of all—a generous desire to succour the oppressed; yet not a few were lured hither by very different hopes, and reasons less than pure, these. Some came with views of personal ambition, and they had their reward, for the tombs wherein their senseless dust is laid are decked with laurels even now; some came from motives of cupidity, and they, too, bad their recompense, for in most cases their gold perished with them; and there were others, over whose young lives some shadow had past so dark and deep, that it had rendered that life an intolerable burden, from which they had here an opportunity to escape, they were most thankful to accept, though they dared not rid themselves of it by their own immediate act. There seems to be for such a strange

fascination in the scene of some great convulsion, like the mysterious impulse which goads men to fling themselves into an abyss, or allow themselves to be sucked into the vortex of a whirlpool; and many among them would have said, in the words of the most illustrious of them all

"If thou regrett'st thy youth, why live?
The land of honourable death

Is here-up to the field and give
Away thy breath!

Seek out-less often sought than found-
A soldier's grave, for thee the best;
Then look around, and choose thy ground,
And take thy rest."*

Of these latter was Lester, the Englishman who now stood among the ruins of Mycena. His previous history may be told in very few words. He was a man of independent fortune, an only son, whose parents had died while he was in his infancy. Cast on the world, with no special aim or purpose in life, and without a single tie to bind him, he naturally chose out for himself an object on which to expend those instinctive affections, which must somewhere find an aliment. Of this

object he made an idol, and therefore was his idol taken from him. Before the fair young bride, who was to him what nothing merely human ought to be to an immortal soul, had become the wife he thought to cherish with a love imperishable, he was called upon to lay her down out of his own arms, powerless to retain her, in her quiet, early grave, and as the coffin lid closed over the serene face, lovely in its holy peace, it shut in also for ever the light of his mortal existence.

Lester was a man of generous impulses, and reflective mind; nor was he altogether without principle, although he was, indeed, very far from knowing ought of that glorious independence, that unspeakable calm with which earthly sorrow and earthly joy alike are met by the soul which is, as it were, enshrined in one immutable, eternal hope. Thus, though his mind had so far a right bias that he could perceive, in an act of self-destruction, a most deadly crime; yet he did but compromise the matter, by turning resolutely to this "land of honourable death," there to yield up the life, doubtless given for some holy purpose, which he thought he thus