Notwithstanding all that has been done, a large sum of money would be required to complete the repairs. During the last five years of Byron's minority, the Abbey was tenanted by Lord De Ruthven for 100l. a year, for the purposes of sporting. Besides the principal entrance from the high road, the Abbey may be approached by a bridle road through the park from Papplewick, the nearest village to it and from Annesley, a village two miles to the west. For a pretty landscape, the way by Papplewick is best: but for effect, that by Annesley is decidedly to be preferred. By the former you pass through a newly planted avenue to the Abbey, having on the left the lower and middle lakes, and see the turrets long before you arrive. Whereas coming from Annesley, nothing is seen till you are at the top of a hill close to the Abbey, when the south front of it bursts suddenly on the sight, frowning in gloomy grandeur from below. It was from this quarter that I first saw it; and, putting aside all association of ideas, I thought a more mournful, dreary-looking place never was beheld. In winter especially, nothing

can be more desolate: the bleak country around, the thinness of the population, and the miserable villages, all impress one with feelings of melancholy. For an abbey, this is so much the better: it would require but little to put it into a state which would realize all our ideas of monastic seclusion. Even now, a warm imagination, more especially on a dismal day, and when no company is there, can easily conjure up the persons and habits of its former tenants, and fancy centuries long

is now the resort of dandy valets and and its follies, where the corruption forward grooms-the seat of fashion of manners of the nineteenth century taints every nobler feeling of the heart, and cold formality takes the place of cordial benevolence. From the total absence of all accommodation in the neighbouring villages, it is very inconvenient for any one not having an invitation to the Abbey to visit Newstead; and but few people unacquainted with the possessor have visited the place, nor is there much encouragement for them to do so.

I can easily conceive the annoyance to which the possessor must be subjected by the obtrusive enthusi asm of the admirers of Byron, and make every allowance for the reluc tance manifested to have the place shewn; but surely he might have expected, when he purchased the estate, that, in addition to the numbers who would continue to visit the Abbey as a specimen of architecture, thousands would be attracted thither

by the fame of the poet, and would consider it more as a relic bequeathed to the admiration of posterity, than the property of a private indi

vidual.

TT is a circumstance, even in a philosophical point of view, by no means undeserving of attention, that at no time has any of the nations, now professing the Mahommedan

The an

faith, possessed drama. cient courts of Memphis, Jerusalem, and Susa; the modern of Bagdad, Cairo, Cordova, and Ispahan, though, in every other branch of luxury and

splendour, vying with or surpassing all others of ancient or modern times, never enumerated among their sources of enjoyment the imitation of the scenes of many-coloured life by the combined efforts of several individuals. Yet in Greece and Italy on the one side, in Hindostan and China on the other, the theatre arose in every city and town of eminence. Even the simple islanders of the South Sea had a rude pantomimic mode of representing the events and the business of actual life.

It would be perhaps idle to seek to point out any general cause of this fact; for what argument would apply to the state of society in ancient or modern Persia, or Egypt, that would not be of equal force in the case of India or China? But as, under every form of society, man seeks to be entertained and interested, we may justly inquire what has, with these nations, supplied the place of the drama and we at once, find our reply the story-teller.

Rude nations, such as were our Gothic sires, the Huns of Attila, and the old Romans, according to Niebuhr, used to divert their leisure, after the feast, by listening to the deeds of their fathers sung in measured language to the accompaniment of the harp or pipe, by the poet or minstrel. Fictitious heroes and fictitious events, where magic lent its aid to increase the interest, were also sung; and gradually these essays ripened into the drama. But in the east, by the skill of the narrators, the art of story-telling was brought to a high degree of perfection; and this perhaps it may have been that prevented the growth of the scene and thea

cities, they are so numerous as to form, like the trades, a corporation, under a particular head called the Sheikhol-Meddah, or Sheikh of the coffee-house narrators. In all places, and at all hours, they are ready to produce their wares; and everywhere they are sure to find an eager and attentive audience. "Sail," says Mr. Von Hammer, "down the Tigris, or up the Nile; travel through the deserts of Irak, or the delicious plains of Syria; seek the valleys of the Hejaz, or the delightful solitudes of Yemen; every where you will meet professional story-tellers, in listening to whose tales the people find their greatest amusement. They are to be seen in the tent of the Bedoween and the hut of the Fellah; in the village coffee-houses, as well as in those of Damascus, Cairo, and Bagdad."

But the art is not confined to the story-teller by profession. Private individuals, particularly in the camps of the Arabian deserts, often excel in this talent; and when the cool of evening approaches, the Bedoweens crowd around a member of their society who is so gifted, to drink in with eager ears the tales of romance and wonder that flow from his eloquent lips. The celebrated orientalist just quoted gives, on another occasion,an animated and picturesque description-and highly valuable as taken immediately from nature-of a Bedoween audience and narrator; of which description we shall attempt to convey some notion.

To form an accurate idea of the magic power which tales of spirits and enchantment exert over the burning imagination and stormy feelings of the Arab, one must have heard them delivered by the lips of an expert narrator to a circle of Bedoweens,-a race who, as their prophet describes them, delight in hearing, seeing, and acting. One must have seen these collected and closely crowded circles, not only in the midst of cities and in the coffeehouses, where idle auditors, effeminately reclined on sofas and pillows,

slowly sipping the juice of the berry of Mocha and the smoke of tobacco, resign themselves to the impressions with which the eloquence of the narrator soothes the ear by well-rounded periods, and by the magic of neatly cadenced prose, richly interspersed with verse. One must also have seen circles of Bedoweens crowd with close shoulders around the narrator of the desert, when the burning sun has sunk behind the sandhills, and the thirsty ground sips up the cooling dew. No less eagerly do they devour the tales and fables which they have already perhaps heard a hundred times, but which, nevertheless, thanks to the mobility of their imagination and the skill and talent of the narrator, still operate upon them with all the strength of novelty. One must have seen these children of the desert; how they move and act; how they melt away in tender feelings, and kindle up in rage; how they pant in anxiety and again recover their breath; how they laugh and weep; how they participate with the narrator and the hero of the tale in the magic of the descriptions and the madness of passions. It is a real drama, but one in which the spectators also are actors. Is the hero of the tale threatened with imminent dauger ?—they all shudder and cry aloud, La, la, la, Istaghfer Allah. No! no! no! God prevent it! Is he in the thick of the battle, mowing down, with his sword, the troops of the enemy?-they grasp theirs, and spring up as if they would fly to his aid. Is he betrayed into the snares of treachery and faithlessness?—their forehead contracts in wrinkles of angry displeasure; they cry out, The curse of God upon the traitors! Falls he at length beneath the superior numbers of his foes?—then their bosom heaves forth a long and glowing Ah !—accompanied by the usual blessing of the dead, God's mercy be upon him! may he rest in peace! When, on the other hand,

he comes back victorious and crowned with glory, from the conflict,loud cries of Praise God, the Lord of Hosts! rend the air. Descriptions of the beauties of nature, and especially of the spring are received with a many times repeated Taib! taib! Well! well! And nothing can equal the pleasure that sparkles in their eyes when the narrator leisurely and con amore draws a full length portrait of female beauty.They listen with silent and breathless attention, and when at length the story-teller concludes his description with the exclamation, Praised be God, who has created beautiful wo man! they all cry out in full chorus, with the inspiration of wonder and gratitude, Praised be God who has created beautiful woman! Forms like this, frequently interspersed in the course of the discourse, and lengthened out with well-known proverbs and periphrases, answer merely for resting-places to the narrator, or by means of them to spin on the thread of his narrative quietly and composedly, without any new expenditure of memory or imagination. Where the narrator in a European circle would merely say, And now they continued their journey, the Arabian orator says, And now they went over hills and dales, through woods and fields, over meads and deserts, over plains and trackless paths, up hill, down dale, from the dawn of morning till the evening came. During modes of speech of this kind which flow from his lips unconsciously, he collects his attention and sets forward the stuff of his narrative till the sinking night or his exhausted lungs compel him to break off his tale, which would never come to an end if he were to comply with the wishes of his auditors. A storyteller, moreover, never ends his tale with the evening, but breaks off in one of the most interesting parts it ;* promising to give the continuation or conclusion of it the next eve

of

These social rings closed around the story-teller, in which the Bedoween, either listening to, or himself relating, tales, passes half the night, and enjoys, after the burning heat of the day, the refreshing coolness, are called, by a peculiar name, Musamerit, that is, Discourse in bright moon, or starlight nights; and Essemir is the appellation of him who delights or takes a lead in these nocturnal discourses, in which, when the narrative is finished, and not till then, the company converse of it, and its wonderful events. The more wonderful a story is, the surer it is of producing its effects upon the auditors; and the wonderful, be it ever so incredible, or ever so worn out, always finds a welcome reception. .. quodcunque volet, poscat sibi fabula crediand the narrator never runs any danger of any of the auditors checking him with a

Quodcunque ostendis mihi, sic incredulus odi in the sense of Horace. In general, several of the precepts in Horace's

Semper ad eventum festinal; et in medias res Non secus ac notas, auditorem rapit ;The Arab begins every tale as far back as ever it is possible,-nay, it is even an especial artifice of the narrator, instead of hurrying the auditor into the middle of the scene, to lead him about through two or three halls of entrance, so that he remains for a long time uncertain of where the true approach to the scene of the tale really will be. But if the Ara

bian narrator follows so little this

Horatian precept, he attends so much the more closely to the one immediately after.

Atque ita mentitur, sic veris falsa remiscet, Primo ne medium, medio ne discrepet imum.

The more wonderful and the more varied a tale is from beginning to end, the more it claims the approbation and admiration of the hearers; and hence the great and well-merited fame of the Thousand and One Nights, the mere translation of which was a valuable enjoyment for the genius of Pope, though it could give no relish to the taste of Warburton.

THE

ing of Scripture phraseology, but to examine with the most careful attention the sources themselves from which its metaphors and illustrations have been drawn.

There are, in the sacred writings, difficulties of two kinds; the one purely of a doctrinal character, the other common to the Scriptures with all other ancient compositions. A good biblical scholar therefore must be versed in the works of the great and laborious men who have devoted themselves to the elucidation of both these departments of theological learning. But the assistance which a student possesses in the former object of his pursuit, is incomparably greater than what he can obtain in the latter. Commentary upon commentary meets his attention at every step, and the extensive and valuable collections which are published of the old theological critics, furnish him with all the aids which human learning can afford him. The consequence of this, accordingly, is the readiness with which we find the doctrinal parts of the Scriptures explained by those who pay any attention to the subject, and the extreme want of skill manifested by them in unfolding and displaying the beauties of their peculiar phraseology, or in explaining passages in which the meaning depends on local allusions.

In one respect, we are afraid, this want of skill, in a very important branch of biblical learning, results from an inadequate idea of its consequence. That which can be at once worked up into a sermon or lecture, is duly valued, because it is of more immediate and practical application; but a knowledge, which is principal ly of importance to the student himself, or which can only be incidentally displayed, is not likely to be sought for, but by the most diligent and acute inquirers after scriptural truth. It must, however, be confessed, that this, in a great measure, results from a want of works of gene ral reference on these points. The publications of many intelligent Eastern travellers, afford invaluable ma

Of

terials for illustrations of Scripture: but these are not always within the reach of a retired theological stodent; and when they are, they are not fit for immediate reference. the works which have been professedly written on the natural history of Scripture, the greatest and the best is too voluminous and expensive for the ordinary purposes of study. We mean the "Physica Sacra" of Scheuchzer, of which there is a French and a German translation. The "Hicrobotanicon” of Celsius is also extremely valuable; but, in its original form, not likely to be of general use. The same may be said of the scientific remains of Forskäl, the Swedish naturalist, who travelled into the East with the celebrated Niebuhr, and died on his journey. Bochart, Professor Paxton, and oth ers, might also be named, as having written on the subject of Scripture Natural History, but their works are very little known to the generality of English readers, or even, we believe, to many professional ones. The "Natural History of the Bible,” by Doctor Harris, comes under the same observation, and is, in fact, not adapted for general circulation.

To whatever causes, however, we attribute the want of that species of knowledge which is required to the perfect understanding of scriptura! phraseology, the low state of biblical learning, in this respect, deserves a serious consideration. The whole force and beauty, and, very often, the most important meaning, of certain passages, can only be perceived by a perfect knowledge of the things to which the writers allude; and the circumstances and peculiar character of different objects which are mentioned in Scripture, are most frequently those not likely to strike a careless or unskilful observer. It should also be remembered, that the language itself, in which the ancient records of our religion are written, is of a nature which almost utterly forbids its being well understood, without the knowledge of which we are speaking. Simple, and confined