"I had not, as you have seen, witnessed the distressing part of this
adventure myself; but from the lively picture drawn of it by my
friend, and from the exaggerated descriptions of George, I fancied
myself a good judge of the whole situation, and should consider this
to have been one of the most considerable of the few adventures that
befell either of us during our tour in Turkey. It was long before we
ceased to talk of the thunder-storm in the plain of Zitza."]
[Footnote 131: Mr. Hobhouse. I think, makes the number of this guard
but thirty-seven, and Lord Byron, in a subsequent letter, rates them
at forty.]
[Footnote 132:
"Oh, thou Parnassus! whom I now survey,
Not in the frenzy of a dreamer's eye,
Not in the fabled landscape of a lay,
But soaring snow-clad through thy native sky,
In the wild pomp of mountain majesty!"
CHILDE HAROLD, Canto I.
]
[Footnote 133: The passage of Harris, indeed, contains the pith of the
whole stanza:--"Notwithstanding the various fortune of Athens, as a
city, Attica is still famous for olives, and Mount Hymettus for honey.
Human institutions perish, but Nature is permanent."--_Philolog.
Inquiries_.--I recollect having once pointed out this coincidence to
Lord Byron, but he assured me that he had never even seen this work of
Harris.]
[Footnote 134: Travels in Italy, Greece, &c., by H. W. Williams, Esq.]
[Footnote 135: The Miscellany, to which I have more than once
referred.
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