_And tell him--what thou didst behold_--
_The withered frame--the ruined mind_,
_The wreck that Passion leaves behind_--
_The shrivelled and discoloured leaf_
_Seared by the Autumn blast of Grief_.--[MS., First Copy.]

[eu] {142} _Nay--kneel not, father, rise--despair_.--[MS.]

[122] {143} "Symar," a shroud. [Cymar, or simar, is a long loose robe
worn by women. It is, perhaps, the same word as the Spanish _camarra_
(Arabic _camarra_), a sheep-skin cloak. It is equivalent to "shroud"
only in the primary sense of a "covering."]

[ev] _Which now I view with trembling spark_.--[MS.]

[ew] {144} _Then lay me with the nameless dead_.--[MS.]

[123] The circumstance to which the above story relates was not very
uncommon in Turkey. A few years ago the wife of Muchtar Pacha complained
to his father of his son's supposed infidelity; he asked with whom, and
she had the barbarity to give in a list of the twelve handsomest women
in Yanina. They were seized, fastened up in sacks, and drowned in the
lake the same night! One of the guards who was present informed me that
not one of the victims uttered a cry, or showed a symptom of terror at
so sudden a "wrench from all we know, from all we love." The fate of
Phrosine, the fairest of this sacrifice, is the subject of many a Romaic
and Arnaout ditty. The story in the text is one told of a young Venetian
many years ago, and now nearly forgotten. I heard it by accident recited
by one of the coffee-house story-tellers who abound in the Levant, and
sing or recite their narratives. The additions and interpolations by the
translator will be easily distinguished from the rest, by the want of
Eastern imagery; and I regret that my memory has retained so few
fragments of the original. For the contents of some of the notes I am
indebted partly to D'Herbelot, and partly to that most Eastern, and, as
Mr. Weber justly entitles it, "sublime tale," the "Caliph Vathek." I do
not know from what source the author of that singular volume may have
drawn his materials; some of his incidents are to be found in the
_Bibliotheque Orientale_; but for correctness of costume, beauty of
description, and power of imagination, it far surpasses all European
imitations, and bears such marks of originality that those who have
visited the East will find some difficulty in believing it to be more
than a translation. As an Eastern tale, even Rasselas must bow before
it; his "Happy Valley" will not bear