ADVENTURE IN ATHENS.

MY DEAR PANHELLENIOS,

In common with the abhorred sons of Othman, I believe that every event is determined by an irreversible decree. Exiled from the country of my fathers-from that beloved, oppressed, unhappy, but still glorious Greece, “the clime of the unforgotten brave" and condemned to pass the few miserable days that remain to me on the face of the earth as a fugitive and an outlaw-on whose forehead every passer-by may discover the mark of Cain-I yet feel something resembling a throb or pulse of delight vibrate in my heart, when I call to mind, not that the guilt of my individual crimes shall be laid to the immutable ordination and prescription of fate, but that “Greece may yet be free," and that the hour-the long-looked for hour of her renovation is at hand. Yes, by the awful spirits of our forefathers, who bled at Marathon, Salamis, Thermopylæ, and Platæa, Greece shall yet raise her head once more among the nations; and minds, now obscured, buried, and enthralled by the cruelest and most remorseless despotism ever inflicted by the spirit of evil as a curse

VOL. I.

R

the

on humanity, shall burst the fetters of their bondage, and come forth, like giants freshened and invigorated by long repose, to astonish and delight the world. The broken and scattered fragments of the glorious monuments of ancient days shall be gathered together, and barbarian spoilers, iconoclasts, and plunderers, shall be compelled to surrender the sacrilegious despoilings of the temples of freedom. The genius of Greece shall, phoenix-like, arise from her ashes, and the brilliant sun of liberty shine on those mountains, valleys, and scenes, which patriotism has illustrated, and poetry immortalised. The dust and ashes of the almost tenantless sepulchres shall yield forth the spirits of those whose bodies they once entombed, and very stones cry for vengeance and emancipation from the crazy but accursed despotism of the worshippers of the prophet. This, if you call it a delusive, is, at least, a splendid vision, from which flows forth a halo of anticipated glory, bright enough to irradiate even a darker spirit than mine. Δευτε παίδες των Ελληνῶν! But no vision of future regeneration and renown can dispel or disenchant the present dreadful reality. Greece still remains prostrate at the feet of her barbarian oppressors, and the blood of her best, because bravest sons, is profusely flowing under the scimitars of a timorous, and therefore cruel despotism. Even my heart bleeds when I think of the price which must be paid for freedom. Oh! that I could yet strike a blow for life and death against the remorseless Moslems! But since that may not be,

I ask, with that truly noble English poet whose soul burns with the divine enthusiasm and the lofty eloquence of our own Plato himself, and who is a Greek in feeling, if not in country,

And where are they? And where art thou,
My country? On thy voiceless shore
The heroic lay is tuneless now,
The heroic bosom beats no more!

Must we but weep o'er days more blest?
Must we but blush? Our fathers bled!
Earth! render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred, grant but three,
To make a new Thermopyla.

What! silent still? and silent all?
Ah! no ;---the voices of the dead
Sound like a distant torrent's fall
And answer, "Let one living head
But once arise---we come, we come!
"Tis but the living who are dumb."

You will doubtless recollect that I formerly promised to gratify your very proper desire to know the exact particulars of that daring, desperate, and successful act of vengeance, which marked me out for destruction from the Othman government, and which excited, as the Franks say, so great a sensation throughout the whole of Greece. I am the more anxious to redeem this pledge, and to put you in possession of every circumstance connected with the bold and perilous deed now alluded to; as the em

ployment of writing, by controlling my associations, and diverting the morbid current of my thoughts, may prevent my restless spirit from absolute annihilation, by perpetual commerce with its own gloomy and desponding imaginations, and, at the same time, enable me to correct some false impressions, which I have reason to know you have received of the events of that fearful hour which sealed the fate of the accursed Disdar Agà of Athens.

You already know that I had been only a short time returned from Constantinople, whither I had been secretly dispatched on a mission of such importance, that even to you, Panhellenios, whose mind is spotless as the snow on Pindus or Ida, I dare not reveal its nature or object -some bickering took place between myself and the Voivode, concerning a fine Arab courser, which he had caused his people to remove from my stables, for his own use, and without leave either asked or given. Furious at being robbed, by the hoary ruffian, of my favourite steed, I met my enemy one day on the banks of the Ilissos, and hard by the Enneakrounos. He was a man of small stature, feeble, cowardly, treacherous, and, from excessive sensuality, as hysterical and nervous as a French woman. He looked as if he would sooner have encountered Eblis himself, and had Azraël appeared before him with the fatal dart from "his deadly quiver," he could not have been seized with greater trembling and terror. He knew my history well enough to be convinced that he had done wrong to incense me. I upbraided the miserable craven

with the act of bare-faced robbery, and, in the uncalculating passion of the moment, threatened to pluck him by the beard, the most inexpiable insult that can be offered to a Moslem. His dark eye lowered with a dreadful expression of hatred and meditated revenge he mustered up courage enough to set his teeth together, and squeeze out the words, dog, Giaour, Greek, when observing my hand on that Damascus blade (the gift of Ali Pasha, bestowed in the field of battle) which had never failed me at my need, and which, to speak the truth, was no stranger to Moslem blood, he instantly put spurs to his horse and scampered off. Forgiveness is no Turkish infirmity. Though he was too cowardly to attempt public, I knew he would seek secret revenge, and took precautions extraordinary to defeat the purposes of his malignity. I dismissed my servants, some of whom were Arnaoots, and not to be trusted. I boarded myself in the monastery of St. Spiridion, the papas Urban being an ancient friend of my family. I never went abroad unless doubly armed, and carefully avoided a meeting with the Voivode when attended, as was almost always the case. Signor Logotheti the English consul, and an Englishman of the name of Tweddell, to whom I had rendered some services, and whose frank, generous, and manly characterer I admired and loved, were, at first, the only persons I ventured to entrust with the secret of my retreat. Devoted to books and study, and occasionally cheered by the society of those two friends, embalmed as they are in my heart of