of this moment of unspeakable horror. In vain I tried to reach the entrance. My brain was all in a whirl, and the sound of voices without now added, if any thing could add, to the dangers that every instant thickened around me. I seized a trembling fair one with the grasp of a dæmon, and brandishing the reeking and crimsoned dagger, commanded her, as she desired to escape immediate destruction, to marshal me to the entrance of this infernal prison. She only stared at me wildly, and stood fascinated to the spot, without the power of uttering a single word. I tried to soothe her, but to no purpose. She could not have moved had the bath been in flames; and her terror and surprise appeared to have paralysed the organs of speech. I addressed myself to another and a third,-assured them I came to punish their enemy as well as my own,-pointed to the dead body of the Disdar-all to no purpose! Wild with fury and despair, I rushed forward as chance directed-and-oh God !-I found myself at the entrance, now besieged by a crowd of people, chiefly Greeks, residing in the neighbourhood of the bath, and attracted thither by the frantic screams of the women in their terror. I burst the door openrushed forth-stumbled against the Voivode, who had that instant made his appearance-felled him to the earth with the bunch of massy keys which I still held in my right hand -cast them from me drew my yataghan-and with sword in one hand, and dagger in the other, forced my way through the crowd, which, believing me dæmon, or spirit of darkness, let loose from hell, on some dark deed of carnage, opened to allow me to pass-suffered me to escape unmolested-and appeared to be petrified by the sudden and horrific apparition from the bagnio. I availed myself of this natural panicentered the garden of a friend of which I had previously got the keyleaped the wall-reached the citygate-joined my trusty Albanian and the trembling Haroun-made my way to Egina in safety-and, in a little time thereafter, sailed in a pirate's decked-boat for Santa Maura, where I resided for some time under a feigned name, and in com

plete seclusion from the world, till the noise of my ADVENTURE IN ATHENS, which had beeen bruited through all the Islands, had in some degree subsided.

The fury of the Turks, which at first knew no bounds, was considerably allayed, when, after an interval of two days, the body of the Disdar was found in the bagnio. It was then apparent that I had entered, not for the purpose of offering an outrage to female modesty, but to punish a gratuitous and implacable foe. Even the Turks themselves would have cut him in pieces had they come to the knowledge of the truth. Besides, he was hated for his inhumanity, rapacity, and brutality, even by his own countrymen :-they were not sorry, that an insulted and infuriated Greek had delivered them from a tyrant; and afterwards, when the affair was mentioned, they only said, "Allah kierim !" "God is great!" Two years after this affair, a reconciliation was proposed by some of the principal Turks resident in Athens; and although I of course declared my perfect willingness to meet them half way in this good work, and the delight it would afford me to bury the past in oblivion, I have deemed it prudent never again to trust my life to the gracious assurances of these reconciled and forgiving children of Othman.

My dearest Panhellenios,

προσκύνει ύμας κατὰ χρέος ΣΤΕΦΑΝΟΣ ΦΑΝΑΡΙΩΤΗΣ, Αθήναιος,

LONDON.

Nil tam sublime est, quod non audace volatu,

Aëriis spernens inferiora, petit.

V. BOURNE.

Fond of the speculative height,
Thither he wings his airy flight,

And thence securely sees
The bustle, and the raree-show,
That occupy mankind below,
Secure, and at his ease.

He sees, that this great roundabout,
The world, with all its motley rout,

Church, army, physic, law, Its customs, and its businesses, Is no concern at all of his, And says what says he?-Caw. COWPER.

MR EDITOR,

YOUR Country and your capital have always excited attention, and often occasioned impertinent remarks from your brother-islanders of the south. They even induced Dr Johnson, that unwieldly mass of literary energy and sensual wisdom, to visit all their cu riosities, and to explore their remotest caverns. His Journal has been decried by extravagant patriots and chivalrous Highlanders, but it has always appeared to me the most sensible and the most correct of all books of travels. Let me, at the same time, bespeak the fair understanding of my ardent friends of the plaid and the dirk. In all their opinions of themselves, of their country, of their ancestors, of their garb, of their Gaelic, and of their Ossian, I agree with them; but I think they misapprehended the whole spirit and character of Dr Johnson's remarks. With respect to Ossian, the Doctor was entirely in error; but his error reflected no discredit either on his discernment or on his impartiality. The ancient chiefs of Caledonia have always appeared, to my imagination, as the very finest specimens of despots which even poetry ever delineated. The active, intrepid, daring leaders of men, who were all brothers in attachment, and heroes in hardihood, they were utterly and necessarily strangers to the low vermin of passions in which sloth and impotence are ever prolific. Their vices, if that term must be applied to qualities and acts which the state of society in which they existed rendered indispensable, were but the brilliant excesses of conquerors.

While I rejoice that the whole spirit and texture of society have been changed since the days of unbroken clanship and chieftainship, I, for one, feel the greatest satisfaction in seeing the dress, the generous habits, and, above all, the high and dauntless spirit of Highland chieftainship preserved. It was, therefore, with no small pleasure I remarked, at the Coronation of George the Fourth, a Highland chief, stately in his person, noble in his bearing, and set forth in all the pomp and circumstance of the manly dress and accoutrements of his country

and his clan*. In itself, the whole dress is such as a Roman might have worn with dignity and pride; and except in such a dress-a Highland chief most assuredly could not attend a national solemnity without degradation. A king who appreciated honour and spirit would value the cha→ racter and the costume more than those of the supplest peer at his levee. At all events, a chief who knows his rank can have no alternative, but to appear in his proud habiliments, or to be absent.

These remarks, Mr Editor, are not foreign to my object of giving you some sketches of London, and I have the more willingly alluded to this subject, because I find, in a contemporary Magazine, a pitiful effort to seem witty, in reference to the appearance of a Highland chief, " at a great public solemnity, armed with dirk and pistol." How is it that the champion has escaped the indignation of this enlightened enemy of the fourteenth century? Nay, even his Majesty, which God forbid! may suffer, if the fourteenth century be forbidden to transmit aught to "the

age in which we live." But truly this doughty champion of the age in which we live, is not guilty of being deeply read " in chivalric lore," or in any lore known among Christians. The most learned authority to which he appeals for a quotation, is the Courier newspaper. It may not, therefore, surprise one much, that he considers dirks and pistols as peculiar to the fourteenth century; and the attempt to make them " adjuncts of the age in which we live, as monstrous and artificial." But it ought perhaps to be further known, that in the sublimest flight of his fancy in the career of possible improvements, he finds it to be the

* An Irish peeress shrieked at the sight, from patriotic anticipation, no doubt, of the prostitution of her native land, as con. trasted with the inflexible spirit and steady glory of Highlanders. No Irish peeress shrieked when the Queen of England was repulsed from Westminster Hall by a pugilistic bully. Ireland rung with shouts of congratulation when the outraged Queen expired,

Vitaque cum gemitu fugit indignata sub umbras.

grandest attainment of mankind, "to be more careful of health, and longer lived." Yet, in this highest altitude to which his stomach could carry him," he apprehends there will still be some duelling, and he has no hope (alas! poor gentleman!) that such places as the Old Bailey can be entirely dispensed with." Pray, assure the gallant Macdonell, that chiefs, and dirks, and pistols, will survive this long liver and his Courier.

I began by remarking, that your country and capital had often occasioned inquiry and remark among your Southern neighbours. Why should you not return the kindness? Suppose you should tell your citizens, your peaseants, your mountaineers, and islanders, what sort of place London is, and what sort of persons dwell therein? You may thus afford information to some of your readers, amusement to others, and gratification to all, at the expense of the proud metrepolitans; and

"Ye aiblins may-I dinna ken," treach some of the Cocknies to "tak' a thought, an' men."

History of London.

It is learned and imposing to begin with some references to antiquity, to the Romans and their everlasting monuments. Cæsar, who first told the world that we existed, makes no mention of London. But Tacitus, the keen-eyed explorer of Northern darkness, felt a particular interest in our country, and its practices, because, indeed, we had the honour of having been thoroughly subjugated by his father-in-law. In his Annals, he gives an affecting account of the sufferings and heroism of Boadicea, "the British warrior queen." This high-minded and outraged queen, whose husband had brought insult and ruin on his family and kingdom, by leaving Cæsar joint-heir with his two daughters, gratified her revenge in some measure by putting 70,000 persons to death in London, and Verulamium, (St Albans,) then Roman colonies. The words of the annalist are: Suetonius Londinium perrexit, cognomento quidem coloniæ non insigne, sed copiâ negotiatorum et com

meatu maxime celebre. "Suetonius came to London, which was the name of a colony, not very considerable, but much frequented on account of the number of merchants, and the abundance of supplies to be found there." This was in the reign of Nero, and about the 60th year of the Christian æra. Suetonius Paulinus was the Roman general who conquered Boadicea. She fought with extraordinary spirit, and chose rather to die by poison than to survive her defeat. Of the British, nearly, 80,000 men arc said to have perished on the field. In the reign of Vespasian, the brave and virtuous Agricola extended and consolidated the Roman conquests in Britain. London having been one of the earliest colonies which the Romans protected, enriched, and improved, may be supposed to have made great progress in the arts and comforts of social life, before Agricola was recalled by the jealous and vindictive Domitian. From the period of itsabandonment by the Romans, to the happy hour when it was abandoned by the last of the Stuarts, it was not worth living in. Since the Revolution, it has unquestionably embraced within its limits as large a portion of human wisdom and human happiness as ever blessed a civic congregation of capricious and wayward mortals. Having thrown out this tub to the whale, I may venture to sketch the London that is now living and buzzing around me.

The Comfortable Classes.

I BEGIN, not with Jove, or with Sir William Curtis. These are beings of whom I can know nothing certain. But I am happy, most happy, to know some of a very numerous class in London, who are free from the general evils, real and imaginary, of human life, and who enjoy its pleasures and comforts perhaps to an extent unknown in any former age. It is scarcely necessary to tell you, that all these are entrenched in independent castles; for an Englishman, especially a Cockney, has no more idea of finding domestic happiness in a common stair, than in a community of wives. The ideas of entirety, unity, and exclusion, which

swell his breast on entering his own door, or, it may be, his outer entrenchment of stately wall or elegant palisade, are more real and permanent than the triumphs of a Cæsar. It is more obviously unnecessary to tell you, that the income is respectable and sure, varying in amount from £500 to £5000, and generally increasing. I find more difficulty in giving you correct information as to the accompaniments of wives and children. I can tell you, that I know gentlemen who are in the full enjoyment of all-no-of enough of the joys of life, without the participation of the source and soother of our cares. I can tell you, that I know but few who possess philosophy or sense to regulate wisely the anxiety of parents to get their sons promoted and their daughters married. Yet, the happiest families I have ever known had wives with infants in their arms, and daughters marriageable. Having disposed of these preliminaries, I now proceed to mention the peculiarities which constitute the comforts and enjoyments of the happiest of mortals.

To begin with the positive advantages of London: there your house is more comfortably furnished, and your table more comfortably supplied, than in any spot on the face of this our globe. It is true, that philosophy may go far to reconcile us to defects in those homely comforts, but it is a far nobler office for philosophy to regulate and adorn their use. I confess, that in the cold months of winter, I find my philosophy greatly improved by the fish, plum-pudding, and port of London, enjoyed in a private house, and within a domestic circle. Dr Johnson preferred a tavern, but then his housekeeper was blind, and felt with her finger the elevation of the beverage "that cheers, but not inebriates." A tavern is delightful to all who are uncomfortable at home, and have money to spend ;-it is delightful to the lovers of the tumultuous riot of bacchanalian excess;

it is delightful to the reckless plunderers of short-lived relief from "eating cares ;"-it is delightful to those who know not the meaning of comfort. But set me down regularly as the clock strikes four, either at my own table or a friend's, (it is quite

the same, for if you are not as comfortable with your friend, at your own table or at his, as you can possibly be alone, you know not the great charm of domestic life in London); give me a dinner, cheering, not piquant; let the other sex, in the name of sentiment, form an equal part of the company; give me the best madeira and port, without encroaching on the other supplies for the year: give me these things in London, and I consent to live a century in purgatory for every dinner I take in a tavern, save when I travel in the country. In summer, a walk in the garden or the Park-music, reading, or botanical trifling, is the favourite and best pastime. In winter, the purest domestic enjoyment forms an alliance with cards. Cowper, the highest authority on the subject of domestic bliss, says, indeed,

Cards were superfluous here, with all the

tricks

That idleness has ever yet contriv'd, To fill the void of an unfurnish'd brain, To palliate dullness, and give time a shove. But Cowper on this point is wrong, and his error contributed in no slight degree to aggravate his malady, and darken the close of his life. give time a shove," so as to make it move forwards innocently and insensibly, is the true secret of happiness. Cards have all the advantages, and none of the evils of intoxication.

"To

The second positive peculiarity is of an intellectual nature. In London, literary gratification of all kinds is accessible without effort and without expectation. Literature, to a certain extent, is indispensable to our existence. The profound details of science are neither necessary nor interesting to the comfortable gentleman or intelligent lady; but their results and general principles elevate the tone and confidence of the mind, banish ignorant wonder, and establish a serene atmosphere, for the excursions of the fancy, and the exercise of the judgment. The thousands of popular volumes which contribute to inspire right views of life and nature, are accessible in other places as well as in London; but the familiarity with authors, publishers, and the scenes and circumstances of pub