I hear of some prosaic young Englishmen who are wandering about the banks of the Euphrates to try and find the locality of Eden. I venture to affirm that with the Kaliān, plenty of Tombaku, Sâdi’s Gulistan, and this rose-garden manuscript, I can get nearer Eden reclining on yon English grass than those young gentlemen seeking it so far away. Yet it is pleasant, in a melancholy way, to see the never-failing fascination which the Oriental world has for these Northern races. The hardest, least imaginative Englishman will feel some sweeter pulsation about his heart when he sees one of Holman Hunt’s pictures of Palestine, or hears the solemn roll of Oriental poetry.
“A pine-tree’s standing lonely
In the North, on a mountain’s brow,
Nodding with whitest cover,
Wrapped up by the ice and snow.
“He’s dreaming of a palm-tree,
Which, far in the Morning Land,
Lonely and silent sorrows
‘Mid burning rocks and sand.”[D]
But here my rambles through these unlimited fields must draw to a close. One must, amidst such numberless treasures gathered from the great streams of Time, more especially remember Sydney Smith’s advice, based on the post-diluvial brevity of human life, that writers should “think of Noah, and be brief.” It is with a certain distress that I feel compelled to pass by the great galleries of pictures, including some of the finest Turners, Wilkies, and Gainsboroughs, and a large number of historic paintings. The Forster bequest, with its charming souvenirs of famous actors, actresses, and authors, in the shape of portraits, character-sketches, and autographs—among the latter the MSS. of most of the works of Dickens—were of itself the sufficient theme for a treatise.
ANDREA GRITTI, DOGE OF VENICE—ITALIAN. ASCRIBED TO VITTORE CAMELO. SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
TAZZA—ALGERIAN ONYX AND ENAMEL. MODERN FRENCH.