[225] Mohammed II., on entering, after his victory, the palace of the Byzantine emperors, was strongly impressed with the silence and desolation which reigned within its precincts. “A melancholy reflection on the vicissitudes of human greatness forced itself on his mind, and he repeated an elegant distich of Persian poetry: ‘The spider has wove his web in the imperial palace, and the owl hath sung her watch-song on the towers of Afrasiab.’”—Decline and Fall, &c., vol. xii. p. 240.
[226] One of the ceremonies by which the battle of Platæa was annually commemorated was, to crown with wine a cup called the Bowl of Liberty, which was afterwards poured forth in libation.
[227] The Comneni were amongst the most distinguished of the families who filled the Byzantine throne in the declining years of the Eastern Empire.
ANNOTATION ON “THE LAST CONSTANTINE.”
[It may seem necessary to mention that “The Last Constantine” first appeared in a volume (Murray, 1823) along with “Belshazzar’s Feast,” the “Siege of Valencia,” and some lyrical miscellanies.
“The present publication appears to us, (Dr Morehead in Constable’s Magazine, Sept. 1823,) in every respect superior to any thing Mrs Hemans has yet written: more powerful in particular passages—more interesting in the narrative part—as pathetic and delicate in the reflective—as elaborately faultless in its versification—as copious in imagery. Of the longer poems, ‘The Last Constantine’ is our favourite.... The leading features of Constantine’s character seem to be taken from the unequal, but, on the whole, admirable play of Constantine Palæologus, by the gifted rival of our authoress, Joanna Baillie; and the picture of that enduring and Christian courage which, in the midst of a ruined city and a fallen state, sustained the last of the Cæsars, when all earthly hope and help had failed him, is eminently touching and poetical. The following stanzas appear to us particularly beautiful:—
‘Sounds from the waters, sounds upon the earth,
Sounds in the air, of battle,’ etc.
The following stanzas, too, in which the leading idea of Constantine’s character is still more fully brought out, are likewise excellent:—
‘It was a sad and solemn task to hold