as, not that the man should play egregiously ill, but that
the effect of good music should be produced by his evil playing. The
people were evidently excited to sorrow when the attempt was at a
mournful strain, and to ardour when the lilt took a loftier flight. To
me who stood by, the difference of intention on the part of the
performer was hardly discernible; indeed to be recognised only by the
occasional catching of some familiar word in the burden of the song. The
same observation may apply to the current Greek poetry. There can be no
mistake in the conclusion, that it produces the effect of real poetry on
the people, urging them in the direction whither works the imagination
of the poet. But men of taste have come to, and can come to, but one
decision on the judgment of Romaic poetasters. The spirit of poetry has
died out of, and is become extinct from the genius of their tongue. It
is but the enthusiasm of by-gone days, the inkling of Attic glory, that
lingers about the circumstances of their modern productions, and cheats
men with the mere similarity of idiom. Poetry is of universal
application, and were the pretensions of the modern Greek genuine, his
productions would touch the hearts of the poetic of other lands.

These fellows who entertained us on this occasion, struck a good deal of
enthusiasm out of their jingle,--enthusiasm to themselves, be it
remarked, and not to us. I saw them grow sad in face, while the strain
proceeded at a slow pace, and the _voce di canto_ degenerated into a
more lugubrious howl than ever. By these tokens, I judged them to be
singing some tale of sorrow, and so it seemed they were. The gentleman
who performed for us the part of Chorus, gave us to wit, that they were
lamenting the fall of Algiers, and imprecating maledictions on the head
of the French. This they evidently considered a delicate and appropriate
attention to us as Englishmen. I was only surprised to find they entered
so far into the family distinctions of the Franks. There was some heart,
too, in the manner in which they gesticulated and declaimed; and I have
little doubt but that they were in earnest--especially if any of these
happened to have friends or relations down that way, who had been roused
out of house and home by the Gallic Avatar. When they were tired with
singing, or perhaps presumed that they had therewith tired us, they took
to playing the fool. Not merely in a general sense, in which they may be
said to