Modern Europe, it is true, has been tolera- ja great deal of lady's work still on hand; bly tutored into the anticipation of every and meanwhile we have only to be thankful English want; and the daintiest woman that it was reserved for our times to reap the may now traverse the greater part of it with- opinions of ladies of the first quality upon out a rough road, a sour dish, or a doubtful subjects of the highest classical, biblical, bed. But what is modern Europe to a mod- and historical importance-a privilege ern traveller? France, Germany, Switzer- which, to borrow a phrase from their own land, and Italy, no longer count in a fine dictionary, comprehending apparently all lady's journal. Trieste is their starting that can be desired, is highly satisfactory.' post, not Dover; and Constantinople, Jeru- One lady for example, is inclined to besalem, and Cairo, the cities they desire to lieve that Mount Thabor was not the scene see, and then die,' or return home and of the Transfiguration, and that the illustrapublish, as the case may be. Rides on tion of a city on a hill' was not suggested horseback have now given way to rides on by Saphet. One expresses herself as havcamel-back, dromedary-back, pick-a-back, ing been seriously disappointed in the Joror any back that can be had; gondolas have dan, which was unmannerly of the river afyielded to caiques, chars-à-bancs to arabás, ter she had come so far to see it; but, on laquais de place to kavashes, couriers to the other hand, is quite satisfied' about the dragomen; convents have merged in ha- site of Jericho. Another declares the Temrems; the Pyramids have extinguished Ve- ple of Theseus at Athens to be a positive suvius, and St. Sophia has cut out St. Pe- bijou,' though that of Jupiter Olympius is ter's. Honourable and Right Honourable less satisfactory.' This, however, is rebeauties now listen to howling dervishes in- deemed by her finding the accidental profile stead of Tyrolese minstrels; know more of of the Duke of Wellington on the rock of Arabic than their grandmothers did of the Acropolis, 'something in itself particuFrench; and flirt with beys and pachas in-larly sublime and satisfactory'! Then the stead of counts and barons, and doubtless fair commentators do not always agree, find them answer the purpose quite as well. As Mrs. Dawson Damer, speaking of Lord Waterford's residence at Cairo a few years back, naïvely observes, 'A European nobleman's visit to Cairo was then a much more rare occurrence than it has lately become. One is a little désillusionné now about the East, when at an hotel you are shown the rooms occupied by Lord and Lady S- -n, Lord CH-n, the Hon. Mr. L the Baronet and his lady, &c.'

which is, in one sense, also 'satisfactory.' Lady Francis Egerton doubts whether the church of the Holy Sepulchre, within the walls of Jerusalem, be really the site of Mount Calvary; and indeed proceeds to question whether Mount Calvary were ever a mount at all—while Mrs. Dawson Damer thinks the evidences of its being the actual site highly satisfactory,' and throws no light whatsoever on the question of the Mount. Again, Lady F. Egerton implies There is perhaps more in this clever la- that she wishes the good Empress Helena dy's remark than even her philosophy dreamt further, only decidedly not at Jericho, for of. Do what we will, a painful thought has having built up and over all the most rehaunted us throughout this article. The markable Scripture localities; while Mrs. present generation may take their pleasure Damer thinks that her memory should be with plenty of territory before them, but it revered on that very account, as having preis the fate of the future tourist that troubles served what otherwise would have been inus. Geologists, they say, have insured a evitably lost. Then the Areopagus did not supply of coal for several centuries to come; strike her ladyship as at all an appropriate but who is to supply new countries when place for St. Paul's addressing the Athenithe old ones are done? It is all very well ans; while her indefatigable opponent deto say that the world is wide: what does that clares it just the very spot, of all others, best help, if ladies' minds be wider still? We fitted for such an occasion. On the whole, cannot expect them to put up with cast-off we fancy it might be as well that such concataracts or second-hand deserts. Howev-troversies should be left for the solid erudier, the Niger is still to explore, and two large deserts somewhere in Tartary, and a great many islands in the Pacific not yet done; and visits to return from the North American Indians; and no handbook on Central America yet ready; and, in short,

tion and masculine diligence of Dr. Robinson and Lord Nugent. Each lady, however, with her husband and child, was in turn taken for the King and Queen of England

the one travelling with a Prince of Wales, the other with a Princess Royal-which

538

must have been, in every respect, particu- one of her high estate than any stores of larly satisfactory.' erudition or powers of research she might

Egerton has received praise after which all other tributes must indeed appear worthless. The companion of her wanderings concludes his own very beautiful record of the Pilgrimage with some lines which we must transfer to our page :—

'If I too much

Another advantage we must by no man-have desired to possess.-But Lady Francis ner of means pass over. What is the use of plain Mrs. Anybody's getting into courts and harems, and scraping acquaintance with all sorts of illustrious strangers? They cannot tell us who they are like! or, if they do, it is somebody that nobody knows anything about; whereas ladies of rank and fashion, by comparing people of quality abroad with people of quality at home, have it in their power to give us the most luminous ideas of both. Thanks to Mrs. Dawson Damer, we now know that one of Osman Bey's wives is like Lady Fy St, and another like Lady F-— E- ; and that a sister of Halib Effendi's is the very image both of Lady A-F-x and of Lady Cy; and

we are much the wiser for the information. Also that King Otho of Greece is an unfavorable likeness of the late Lord Durham, which is the best it appears, that any of these ladies can say for his majesty.

But in spite of these and some other little fineries which lie on the surface of these

And far have ventured; if the cherub's wing,
Which shades the ark, I have presumed to
touch;

With voice profane if I have dared to sing
Of themes too high; and swept the sacred
string,

To none but masters of the lyre allowed ;-
Then may this world's neglect or censure fling
Its shadow o'er the faults it blames, and shroud

The rhymer and the rhyme in one oblivious cloud.
Yet, if the world reject the Pilgrim's muse,
Wilt thou, the Erminia of his brief crusade,
The tribute of the Wanderer's song refuse,
Too feebly uttered and too long delayed?
Whose voice could cheer him; and whose ac-
cents made,

Like sound of waters bubbling from the sand,
The desert smile; whose presence, undismayed
Spread, like the prophet's rock, shade in a weary
By toil or danger, o'er our fainting band

land.

"O guide, companion, monitress, and friend!—
And dearer words than these remain behind,—
If, in the strain in which I fain would blend
Thy name, some charm to which the world
were blind,

Some dream of past enjoyment thou canst find;
If, to thine ear addressed and only thine,

One note of music murmur on the wind;
If in this wreath one flower be found to twine
And thou pronounce it sweet, all that I ask is

mine.'*

works, there is much more of good feeling and right principle they cannot hide. Lady F. Egerton's little volume, taken all in all, well justifies the respect with which we have always heard her name mentioned. Although she travelled with all the comfort and protection which station and wealth. could secure to her, and the smooth ways of pilgrimage now permit, yet that one indispensable qualification which the Christian reader demands in all who presume to approach the altar-place of our faith, the absence of which no array of learning and no brilliancy of talent can supply-namely, Lady Grosvenor (now Marchioness of the genuine pilgrim's heart-that we find Westminster) is in no respect to be included in Lady F. Egerton's unpretending journal, among the ranks of fine ladies, except on more than in any other modern expedition the score of elevated station. Her Narto the Holy Land we know. It is not to rative of a Yacht Voyage' requires no asbe expected that casual and passing travel-sistance from her title to give it interest. lers should be able to furnish us with any written work, utterly free from all affectaIt is simply a sensible, healthy, and wellnew associations of importance, but this lady has done what is as good, if not better:tions, and especially from that which apes she has responded to our old ones. humility, and betraying the woman of rank ery expression of her sentiments-in her chiefly in the total absence of all attempt deep emotion at first beholding Jerusalem to display it. None indeed can open these -in her gratitude at being permitted to en-volumes without feeling that they are conter its gates-in her modest hope that the versing with a high-bred, independentexpedition thither had been the source of spirited woman-too proud to condescend religious improvement to herself and all her to be vain-who, having read well, and party-we find those feelings which the thought well, and been surrounded from heart naturally associates with the sacred infancy with society of the highest intellect, territory, and which, she needs us not to * Mediterranean Sketches, by Lord F. Egerton remind her, are of far more importance in (1843), p. 30.

In ev

and objects of the finest art, becomes in- [ with the anatomy of a vessel and technistructive without any pretension to teach, calities of nautical phraseology. Instead, and interesting, though giving only the therefore, of mincing the matter with femisimple narrative of her every-day life. Her nine paraphrases, she simply makes use of ladyship is so truly the Englishwoman too the terms employed around her. Such pasin her tastes-such delight in a garden, sages as these look like an experienced such interest in a horse, such enjoyment of sailor :-" 'But a breeze sprang up from the the sea-her mind has evidently so much north-west at ten A. M., which increased fresh air to it-through all her wanderings rapidly with a succession of tremendous you see so evidently the healthy English white squalls; we double-reefed the mainhome she has left. Bona fide, however, sail, furled the top-gallant sail, closed reefed Lady Grosvenor never entirely quitted the the topsail, brailed up the foresail, single atmosphere of home. Her voyages were reefed the fore staysail, and furled the jib; chiefly performed in her lord's own yacht, and even then the ship heeled a good deal, and their land expeditions restricted to short and everything was topsyturvy in the cabin.' visits to the Ionian Isles and the coast of --vol. ii. p. 217. At the same time we Africa, with a few longer excursions into the confess that we are taking the correctness interior of Spain and Greece.-We are thus of the sea dialect for granted. We do not spared all those discontented descriptions forget how a certain page in Gulliver took of hotel ill-treatment which give a sameness in the landsmen, and maddened Swift's to many journals, while the rough accommo- friend the old admiral. At all events the dations on the rough road to Granada are Countess was a fearless sailor-for the Doldescribed with a humor, as if she thought phin suffered its full share of sea vicissitudes, them, what she probably did, part of the en- and there is a description of a three-days' joyment. Certainly to make the periplus of storm off the coast of Portugal, which no the Mediterranean in one's own yacht, and reader will find it easy to forget. stop for a bit of inland as often as the fancy moves-would seem to be the perfection of pleasure-always barring sea-sickness.

The little Dolphin schooner is a great favorite, it would seem, with the fair sex, and has since crossed the Atlantic in the Lady Grosvenor's book is evidently a service of another English lady, Mrs. close transcript of her private journal: there Houston, who spends many an epithet of are some chapters in it that could not have admiration upon her, and announces with been penned except for the use of her own characteristic pride that, from the day of girls, and if she had left these out it might their departure to the day of their return perhaps have been better-certain abridg- to the Channel, she had not shipped a ments of Plutarch for instance. But with single sea!' We have not room for that these exceptions, we advise no skipping. notice of the 'Voyage to the Texas' which Throughout she enjoys Nature enthusiasti- its lively pages warrant, but it is a work cally, tells a story admirably, and here and which well accords with our estimate of the there gives little touches of truth, which at travelling Englishwoman. The lady is a once light up the scene. For example, daughter of Mr. Jesse, so well known for speaking of the pestiferous marsh in which his charming contributions to the popular ancient Ephesus stands, she says:- The literature of Natural History and she inwhole place swarmed with reptiles and inherits the easy spirit of the paternal pen. sects, the noisy humming of which latter was quite repulsive. Locusts sprang at every step, huge dragon flies, black beetles, and spiders, and enormous ants, and all either creeping, jumping, or gliding about, as in a bad dream.'-vol. ii. p. 101.

Also describing the Temple of Seleucus on the Island of Rhodes:- Fragments of columns now repose in confusion, one over the other; the separate blocks disunited, but lying prostrate in layers from east to west, like a string of beads unthreaded.' vol. ii. p. 304.

From the long habit of a sea life, her ladyship had evidently familiarized herself

Her adventures are often most diverting, and the buoyancy of her temperament seems almost unique-yet all is amiable, gentle, and good.

With the Hon. Mrs. Dawson Damer we return at once to the innermost boudoir of modern fashion. But though the light is stifled with draperies, and the air heavy with perfumes, and every step impeded with prettinesses, and uselessnesses, and nonsenses without end, yet a stream of pure feeling plays through, and genuine mirth is heard, and genuine kindness felt; and something tells that the inmate must be both healthy, happy, and worthy. There is

no objection in the world to a little finery newspapers supply, and rather more interif it be but well done: those only are ridi- esting. In spite of his buying up his subculous who are one thing and fancy them- jects' cotton cheap, and selling it out dear, selves another. Now Mrs. Dawson Damer and other Pacha-like discrepancies, we feel is real; she knows her own foibles as well that an Eastern Peter the Great is governas anybody else, and is too ready to laughing Egypt-that the massacre of the Mameat them herself for her readers to do so lukes is but a counterpart to that of the long. Her affectation, too, is of that nice, Strelitzes-nay, that the cruelties of the simple, frank kind which flourishes under Mahometan despot are less obnoxious on any circumstances, makes itself happy with the whole than those of the Christian czar. any materials, and can ever and anon slip Mrs. Dawson Damer gives a most spirited into positive nature without any very palpa- account of him-having, on occasion of ble change of manner. This lady can his inspecting the arsenal, stationed herself write her own tongue very admirably when close by, and been presented as far as she pleases, though she prefers a pepper and ladies could be.' salt of French and English, in which she equally excels. In the midst of her gayest scenes, one perceives every now and then -even when she whispers it to a Pacha acquaintance-that she is thinking of the 'four deserted children' at home. She travels with every imaginable luxurylackies and abigails, cook, courier, doctor, and artist-but sets to work to make the beds at Ramla, and picks up sticks herself in the desert with the greatest glee. The French cook is in agonies because he cannot get a turkey for his second course in the tent below Mount Horeb; but Mrs. Damer is quite contented with the five chickens he is forced to substitute. Her tent is evidently, wherever she goes, like a fragment of Mayfair but she is always ready to bear a hand in tricking it out. She has all sorts of pretty longings and wishes-thinks that groups of slaves, each holding a candle, as she sees them in Shami Bey's harem, are the prettiest way imaginable of lighting a room, and fears that these animated candlesticks' will quite spoil her for crystal and ormolu-longs to buy a little estate in the island of Rhodes, if only to furnish sweet oranges and lemons for one's desserts,' but at the same time puts up with all the tracasseries, désagrémens, and malentendres, and other disagreeables-for which of course there are no equivalents in the English language-with perfect equanimity of temper, and has even a kind word to say of the worst accommodation. Some people make you dislike their very virtues this charming magician manages to put you in good humor even with her foibles. Among all these

countenance, nor one with half the variety of
'I never saw so striking and intelligent a
expression. The eye had at one moment that
of positive benevolence, and an instant after-
wards, when some of the machinery went
wrong, it gained the most savage expression;
and again when an awkward-looking boy fell
down in turning a wheel, it assumed an ap-
pearance of fun and mischief, accompanied by
His costume was very simple-a greenish
a chuckle, for it could not be called a laugh.
brown suit, trimmed with ugly light fur, and a
red fez (cap)—and he wore pea-green silk
gloves. His cloak was held up by one atten-
dant, more as if for the purpose of keeping it
out of the dirt than for ceremony. The Captain
Pacha was on his left, and Burghos Bey, his
prime minister, and five or six others, stood
near him, but there was no appearance of the
etiquette of a court. The only smart thing
belonging to him was his large cherry-colored
parasol, trimmed with gold fringe, of which an
ill-dressed Arab had charge, but which the
heat of the day did not oblige him to unfurl.
went in male costume to his levée, no Euro-
'We were told that except Mrs. Light, who
pean ladies had ever been in such direct com-
munication with him before. He seemed to be
much amused and flattered by our anxiety to
see him, and remarked that Minny [Miss
Damer] must be the youngest European tra-
veller of her time. All this was communicated
Turkish. He professes to know no other lan-
through the medium of his interpreter, in
guage, but I thought as our answers in French
were translated, that he frequently appeared
to have forestalled the interpreter.-vol. ii. p.
228.

Thanks, too, to Mrs. Damer's artist, M. Chacaton, we are furnished with a portrait of the Pacha in every way to match this description-representing a handsome intelligent countenance, with an ample brow and a white beard, and a pair of eyes it must be very difficult to throw dust into. But the best is still to come. It may not be known to all our readers that Mrs.

Damer has struck out quite a new line of lieve described before, namely, Tetuan and collecting and that, instead of filling a Tangiers. Not, we are happy to say, that show book with the autographs or portraits information of this value has been in any of distinguished individuals, she is satisfied way purchased by the separation of two with nothing less than a lock of their own personages whose harmony of tastes is so hair! Having, not long since, succeeded conspicuously exemplary. On the contrain abstracting the six last black hairs from ry, it is pleasing to observe that Lady Lonthe noblest and wisest head in Europe, it donderry followed Lord Londonderry north, is not surprising that she plucked up cour- and Lord Londonderry accompanied Lady age on the present occasion; bethought Londonderry south. In addition therefore to herself that she might not be passing other excellent merits, this work tends in through Alexandria again in a hurry, and that every way to corroborate that doctrine of Pachas only live for ever in figures of English domesticity on which we have dwelt, speech, and, in short, applied for the same and cannot fail to impress the lower ranks token, black or white, from under the tur- of readers with the most salutary veneraban-no, alas! the chimney-pot fez-that tion for the connubial relations of exalted governs Modern Egypt. Mehemet Ali life. was startled;-if she had asked for his head it would have surprised him less! however, he remembered the bright pair of Frank eyes which had pierced him through and through at the arsenal-his heart softened, and though he eluded her immediate request under some excuse about the law of the Prophet (of course, he had not a hair to give)-he made ample amends by promising much more.

In every other respect, indeed, vast sacrifice was incurred; but this, perhaps, considering the chief aim of their travels, was not to be avoided; for it is obvious that this noble pair were far too much impressed with the responsibility of their high station to think of travelling for their own pleasure. Their objects seem to have been multitudinous-but we are satisfied that their motive was always identical, and 'He said that in a collection, containing Nel- that of the most single-hearted description. son's, Napoleon's, and Wellington's, his was Sometimes one is tempted to fancy that as yet unworthy to be included; but, if poster- they had quitted home and all its comforts ity judged otherwise, he would leave in his for the express purpose of binding the Britwill a request to Ibrahim Pacha to present me ish Court in relations of closer amity with with his beard; and if I did not outlive him, those of the rest of Europe, and, as we have it was to descend to the son or daughters who said, of some parts of Africa, than the inherited my collection. The ages and names of my children were asked for, and these testa- mere official modes of intercourse had been mentary arrangements were very gravely able to effect. At other times it looks as made, and written down by the secretary sent if their exclusive end and aim was the esfor that purpose. In the evening, at a little tablishment of civilization in backward party at Captain L.'s, we heard that all Alex- and careless countries, and the encourageandria was ringing with this little episode.'-ment of it in those that were taking more vol. ii. p. 234.

No wonder! What European lady had ever got so far before? Henceforth all generations of Dawson Damer will swear by the beard of the Pacha!

We feel that we owe our readers some

apology for having thus late deferred the mention of a lady whose rank takes precedence of all the foregoing, and whose literary merit is no less distinct. We mean Harriet Vane, Marchioness of Londonderry. To Lord Londonderry the public were indebted only a few years back for that picture of the Northern Courts which no other pen but his could have supplied. To Lady Londonderry it now owes the completion of the set, by the addition of those of the South, including Constantinople and two other Courts, never we be

pains. Perhaps a few pages further on, you are induced to surmise that they had no other earthly object than to erect themselves as living sign-posts in the most unfrequented regions of Europe, Asia, and Africa- -for the warning or instruction of all those who might follow in their steps. But before we conclude the book, there is not a doubt upon our minds that the illustrious travellers were solely and entirely sustained by the desire of impressing upon mankind the great moral lesson of the insufficiency of the highest rank, consequence, and excellence, to screen its owners from the various evils of this world. In short, from whatever aspect we view it, the same broad principle of philanthropy pervades this work, though its actual application is not always so clear.