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    No . - 498 . Oct . 8 , 1859-1 THE LEADEB , U 35

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    « Crede Biron , " is now in the possession of Dr . S . G . Howe , of Boston , Who received it from Count Gamba . It is so small that few men could be found whose heads could be put into it . ] He was very punctual in his attendance at the drill , and disregarded a proper protection from the weather , fearing that an appearance of effeminacy would weaken his influence over his men . " Mr . Finlay , then a young ardent Philhellene , was sent with dispatches from Athens to Missolonghi , about the close of March , 1824 . After remaining a few days he prepared to return ; but heavy rains had swollen the river ¦ Achelo-as , and he was obliged to delay liis departure ; His plan was to cross the Gulf of Corinth in a small boat , so as to avoid the risk of

    being captured by the Turks at Lepanto , and then push on eastward through the denies of the Achaian mountains . One morning , at last , the weather seemed better , and he set out . Biding eastward over the plain , towards the Achelous , he met Byron on horseback . The Latter turned and rode along with him for two or three miles , conversing on the prospects of the cause . Finally , Byron said : " You'd better turn back ; the river is still top high . " "I think not , " said Mr . Firilay ; " but , at least , I ' ll try it . " " You'll be wet to the skin , at any rate / ' urged Byron , pointing to a heavy black cloud , which was rapidly approaching . " You will be wet , not I , " Mr . Finlay answered , whereupon Byron saying : " I'll see to that , " turned his horse , and gallonped back towards the town .

    "In a few minutes , however , the cloud broke , and the rain fAl in torrents . Byron ' s house was at the western end of Missolonghi , so that , in order to avoid the breakneck streets , he was in the habit of crossing the harbour in a boat , and mounting his horse outside the eastern wall . On this occasion , he reached the boat in a dripping state , and , being obliged to sit still during the passage , received a violent chill , winch was followed , by an attack of fever ., Mr . Finlay , finding the river still too high , returned to Missolonghi , where he was obliged to wait two days longer . Byron then lay ; upon the bed from which he never arose . " One evening , " related

    Mr . F ., "he said to Col . Stanhope and the rest of us , ¦ ' Well ,. I expected something to happen this year . It ' s allowing to the old witch . ' We asked , for an explanation . ' When I was a boy , ' said he , ' an old woman , who told my fortune , predicted that fouT particular years would be dangerous .. to me . Three times her prediction has come true ; and now this is the fourth year she named . So you see , it won't do to laugh at the witches . ' He said this in a gay jesting voice , and seemed to have no idea , that his illness would prove fatal . Indeed , none of us considered him in a dangerous , condition at that time . "

    " During his first visit to Greece , Byron resided for several months at Athens , and every fair or inspiring feature of the illustrious region was familiar to him . Two points seem to have especially attracted him—the ancient fortress of Phyle , in the defile of Parnes , through which passed one of the roads into Boeotia , and the sunset view from the Propylaj , or pillared entrance at the western end of the Acropolis . The latter is frequently called " Byron ' s View , " by the English , and no poet ' s name was ever associated with a lovelier landscape . Seated on a block of marble opposite the main entrance , which steeply climbs the slope , you look down between the rows of fluted Doric columns ,

    to the Hill of the Nymphs , nsmg opposite , across tho valley of the Cephjssus , twinkling with olives and vines , over the barren ridge of Corydallus , the mountains of Salamis and Megara , and away to the phantom hills of the Peloponnesus , whoso bases are cut by tho azure arc of the Saronic Gulf , Here was written tho often quoted description of a Grecian sunset , commencing : " Slow sinks , morolovoly oro hla raoobo run , , Along Morea ' a Mils tno sotting 1 euu— " , and every feature of the picture is correct . In tho soutn , you see Egina , crowned by the Panhollenic temple of Jupiter , Hydra , and Poros ; while tho " Delphian cliff" on tho west , behind which the still triumphant god sinks to rest , though hidden from sight by a spur of Parnea , is nevertheless visible from the sides of Hymettus .

    " To mo , thj » view had an indescribable charm . Apart from tho magic of its immortal associations , it is drawn and coloured with that exquisite artistic fooling , which seems to bo a characteristic of Nature in Greece , and therefore takes away from the almost despairing wonder with which we should otherwise contemplate her porfoct temples . We tho more easily comprehend why proportion should , have boon an inborn faculty of the Grecian mind—why tho laws of form , with all their elusive secrets , should have been so thoroughly mastered . Tho studied , irregularity ' of the Parthenon , tho result of which is absolute symmetry , was never attained by mathematical calculation . It sprang from tho inspired sagacity of a brain so exquisitely educated to order ,

    that it could give birth to no imperfect conception . Ictinus eaught the magic secret ( which all Apbstle 3 of the Good Time Coming would do well to learn ) , that nature abhors exact mathematical arrangement —that true order and harmony lie in a departure from it . By violating the apparent law , the genuine law was found . " This is a long extract-and we might multiply many such from this charming book . The very names of the subjects , Parnassus , Thessaly , Argolis , Arcadia , and such like , command associations which to the mind , among its treasures of the beautiful , are joys for ever . Satisfactory ,

    however , as Nature is , man is still deficient , and inflicts and suffers many abuses . But he is deficient also in the means of redress—at least , that is the excuse made by modern Greeks . They hold that they are not responsible for their condition , inasmuch as the ccreat powers have taken away from them Crete C hio * , Epirus , and Thessaly . Our traveller justly objected that , while they talked of poverty , they spent more upon their court , proportionately , than any country in Europe ; but they justified themselves on the ground that a throne necessarily implied a large expenditure ; and , democratic as they were , their pride stimulated them to make it .

    Let us pass on to the Russian dependencies . It appeared to Mr . Taylor that the Poles are fast acquiescing in the rule of the Gzar Alexander II ..,- who , they say , has : made many changes for the better . He was . interested to hear that Longfellow ' s poems had been published in the Polish language at Lublin , a large city about a hundred miles south-east of Warsaw . * ¦ The distinguished Polish poet , Adam Mickiewicz , is a great admirer of Emerson , whom he frequently cites in his prose

    writings . The Emperor Alexander has recently authorised the publication of the collected -works of Mickiewicz ( with the exception of some political papers ) at Warsaw for the benefit of the poet ' s family , and has also permitted contributions to be taken for the same purpose . The volume also contains copious details of Moscow , ¦ w hich are very interesting . We are gratified in recording Mr . Taylor ' s conviction that , thanks to the railroads , the cause of freedom is looking up in Russia .

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    ECSTATICS OF GENIUS . By J . W . Jackson . -A . Hall , Virtue , & Co . A curious book , and a bold . The writer confessedly selects for his subjects those heroes and events which biography and history in general ignore . For his own part , he hates " a dead piece of state-machinery that goes by clock-work , " and refuses to believe in " an impossible combination of wild enthusiasm with coldrhearted hypocrisy . " But he accepts at once the " vitalised enthusiast ,

    whose electrical sympathies render him irrosistible with all generous spirits . " He would recognise the heroic in others and himself . Earth ' s masterspirits have frequently been " obviously ecstatics , that is , they were clairvoyants or seers . " This is a fact , he tells us , that has beon overlooked : and most are ignorant of all that pertains to it . Hence , we have been too often led into false estimates of individuals , and of the higher phases of development .

    Instances of lucid vision are , in history , numerous and varied . Mr . Jackson commences with Pythagoras , whom he thus introduces to his roader : — " Compared with Asia , that birth-place of man and cradle of civilisation , that mother of knowledge and nurse ' art , Europe , with all the splendour of her classic traditions and the magnitude and importance of her subsequent history , seems but a young and morally dependent colony . Our antiquity may be venerable to the Occident , but it is a thing of yesterday to tho Orient . When we talk of our " ancients , " tho Brahmin smilos in pity , and tho Persian snoors with jlldisguisod contempt . They

    were old when we wore young ; they aro tho originals of which we aro tho tho copies . Ethnology and philology have shown us tho quarry whonco wo wore hewn . From tho tooming plains of India and Iran came those bands of primeval emigrants , to whom the West owes alike its culture and Its power , its intellectual activity and its political supremacy . Wo , too , though aflir oft' and at many romovos , are " children of the sun , " albolt wo have followed our radiant sire , as worshippers of his vesper glory rather than his matin splendour . Wo are tho descendants of Asia ' s noblest nations , and tho Jnhorltors alike of their grandest ideas and their purest blood . Lot us not . thon , despise our venerable mother In

    the hour of her decrepitude . To the East we owe our lineage and language , our religion and philosophy . The Druid in his grove and the Papal priest at his altar equally exhibit the pliant acquiescence of European faith , in its uninquiring submission to Asiatic aposfcleship ; while a more extensive study of Sanscrit literature has shown us that the Grecian schools , from the earliest Eleatics to the latest Alexandrians , were little other than the reflected light of Asian intellect . In none , however * is his so strongly marked as in that of Pythagoras , whose principles were so obvious an Eastern transcript , that their relationsliip is unmistakable . He taughttransmigration as a doctrine , and enforced vegetarianism as a practice . He turning from long years of studious travel , wliich is said to have extended from

    India to Britain , he brought to his great work a mind suffused with all the higher elements of Oriental theosophy , and looms out upon us , through the mists of tradition , rather in the semblance of a Brahminical or Uixdhistic raediationist , the subject of interior illumination , with its visional inspirations , than a Grecian sage , with ideas limited by the range of his logical faculties , and conceptions regulated by the exercise of his judgment . Regarded , indeed , by hi 3 followers as of divine descent , he seems to have not wholly disclaimed the position and attributes of an incarnation . Mystical in his teacliings and miraculous in his operations , he-spoke from and to the supersensuous sphere , and hence required a prepared audience , " fit though few , " as the capable recipients of his transcendental tuition . "

    So much will serve to show that we are dealing with a penman well practised in his ealigraphy , and not to be scorned , however singular in his manner . Further on , he acknowledges that modern inductive philosophy has a firm though low foundation , in fact . He well paints the myth which we have learned to mistake for Pythagoras . He recognises him as a travelling p hilosopher and an accomp lished scholar ; a saint and a sage , a priest and a poet , in one august personage , who sought to correct the domination of intellect over the moral nature . We have in him . an Oriental ,

    a primitive , spirit in an Hellenic form . But the democratic nature of Greek institutio ns baffled his efforts . Failing to found a relig ion , he originated a school . However , " the- gifted Saniian was a lucide , not an occasional crisiac , but a permanent seer . " Mr . Jackson believes in what the Germans call " dopple gangers , " and , therefore , that Pythagoras may possibly have lectured in two places at one time , and have cultivated the habit and _ power of liberating " the nervo-vital poweir , bv which the eidolon is pi-ojected forth on the magic mirror of nature . "

    Socrates next engages his attention , whose claims to seerdom are not only asserted , but those also of Lord Bacon . The JVovum Organum is painted as a prophecy , in which each sentence is an oracle . " What is prophecy if it bo not a preeognition of coming events , and who then shall deny to Francis Bacon the gift of sOerdom ? Poet and philosopher , sage and seer , hag not all human ' culture ever commenced with such grand humanitarian spirits , who could embrace both these characters , whose vast circuit of being comprehended at least thus much of perfected manhood ? Did not the first lawgivers nronound their authoritative edicts in rytlunioal

    cadences , and what were the primal creeds of men put deductions of after generations from those revelations of the celestial in which tho anthems and other productions of early bards abounded ? Tho weak and unauthorised separation of sage and soor is a poor after-thought , to which tho colossal minds of the first ages , of whose cyclopoau remains in tho moral world our existing beliefs aro but fragmentary remnants , would never have condescended . 1 hoy valued t ) ip man in his integrity , and ostoom od onaneas in tho work and entirety in tho author as a needful accompaniment of all truo greatness , without which to predicate perpetuity of any human production wore tho vainest of funcios . "

    Coleridge , too , Mr . . Jackson adds to the Socratic category . His third instance ia Josuphus , winch ho introduces with some eloquent remarks on tho mission of tho Jews . Ho < Iwo 11 h largely on his Eascnic lift , » uid that of the sect that formed what he calls the " holy academy , which , in tho predominance of hypooriMy and decline of faith , nought refuse from the profanity of men in tho purity of the desert , and there , doHpito tho profligate degeneracy of an untoward generation , endeavoured to maintain somewhat of tho fiery zeal and fervent piety of tho older prophets . " But , m all respects , ho was tUoir inferior : " Born too late for tho high and holy oflioe . of sacred propheoy , he

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 8, 1859, page 1135, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2315/page/19/