O says Byron, and we are disposed to admit in prose the truth of a portion of his rhymes at least. Some of the English travellers in the east (and in good sooth elsewhere too) tell tales as wild and as silly as the wildest and silliest "accents of lovers' farewells," or any other silly or wild thing, if they be not the wildest and silliest; which we think they are, according to the poets and novelists' account of them. We have already had occasion to present several of these wandering gentlemen to our readers; we shall perhaps introduce not a few more before we are done with them. VOL. VII.-No. 10. 46

The name of travellers in the east is legion!-at least since steamboats have rendered the pilgrimage rapid and easy, and fashion has made it imperative on the travelled man of the world, to have visited the east, to have opened his eyes in mute wonder at the darkness and superstition of the benighted papist, and extolled the enlightened policy and the brilliant reforms of the liberal and gentlemanly Turk. One of those stupid old proverbs, in which our ancestors delighted to compress their wisdom, says, "Birds of feather flock together," and another not less meaning," a fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind." Between the tyrant Turk and the oppressing Englishman such a sympathy really seems to exist. We shall not stop here to examine its

cause.

Whatever may be the course of the generality of eastern travellers with regard to the quantity of fancy, &c. which they

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mingle in the tales which they tell," our author is fair enough to give us an index to the nature of his book, in one of the titles he bestows upon it. He tells us candidly it is the romance' and realities of eastern travel, though he leaves us to our own resources to ascertain what is the mere romance and what is the reality in his olla podrida. This portion of his title however we can understand: but why he should have called his work "The Crescent and the Cross" we are at a loss to imagine. Each page we turned we hoped to discover the solution of the mystery but were doomed to be disappointed, unless, indeed, it be in the fact that he occasionally saw the cross mingling with the crescent as he rode into some stately city. By the same rule, if he travelled in this land of ours, or even wrote a description of his own-we should, in due time, have a smoking book from the press under the title of "The Cross and the Weathercock; or the" but, in truth, there would be in that more reality than romance. Save perhaps one little chapter about the missionaries and the monks in which the poor papist is most horribly belabored, nearly the whole book is taken up with what the author did and said: how he knocked down impudent Arabs, and lashed saucy Syrians and Egyptians, how he dared all the dangers of the way-very thick and threatening, and yet he experienced none; how he changed his priming and loosened his pistols in the holsters, and laid his hand upon his terrible English sword, when waylaid by some imaginary robbers who never broke out upon him: how he frightened the old men and women and children in some retired habitation by blowing off the locks of their closed doors with his wonderful double barrelled English gun, and lastly, and most English of all, how he paid for every thing, and how much he paid, and how liberally he scattered his English gold about him.

In his preface our gallant and romantic author tells us that after the numerous

able works published upon eastern life, manners and scenery, he would not have presented himself to the public but that the relations between England and the east had lately undergone a change, that Egypt had become the route to the Indies, that "the church of England is at length represented at Jerusalem, and the brave, industrious and intelligent tribes of the Lebanon have made overtures for our protection and our missionaries."

We learn then from the writer that the church of England is at length represented at Jerusalem-and yet it seems to us that there is the least bit in the world of an absurdity here. For this representative is a bishop of the church of England who has fixed his see there and is trying to "get up" a diocess. Now we all along thought that the English church claimed to be a branch of the church Catholic, only called English because it was in England-a national church-yet here we have a system which is to assimilate other churches, and, contrary to her theory, bring them into subjection to her own to extend her dominions and her spiritual supremacy-an humble imitation of the papacy-with Queen Victoria for the pope.

In the second volume of the work-for the first is devoted to Egypt-we catch a glimpse of this bishop sent forth by the propaganda of Exeter Hall, and find some comparative remarks on the success of the Catholic and Protestant missions, and we may as well exhaust this subject of the work at once-very certain that when we apply the air pump to the portion on the bishop's diocess, we shall come as near a vacuum as nature will permit. Before entering on the holy land let us give our author a little credit for some fairness-though we cannot conceal the fact that he does not always intend the compliment he pays-sometimes it is veiled under a sarcasm, sometimes clothed in a sneer or a laugh.

At Mount Carmel we are happy to find him pleased with the monks, or at least

with the accommodations which they afford to the traveller, receiving only a gratuity from the richer guests, while they maintain a hospice especially for the reception of the indigent. The permission to pay this gratuity, the amount of which depended upon the traveller himself, our author remarks, in general relieves one from that feeling of obligation which is so unpleasant. Here, (and John Bull peeps out again) although our author made a much larger gratuity than usual, such was the pure, generous, and unequivocal hospitality of the monks, "that he had no feeling but that of a grateful guest as he took his leave of the convent." Honest at all events: his English pride of "paying" for what he received, could not conceal from him that he was not paying for their kindness and hospitality to himself, but only placing in their hands the means of extending to the poor wayfarer the same refreshment and relief which he had so liberally enjoyed.

The founder of this convent was a remarkable man—that is, among Protestants he would have been remarkableamong Catholics the character is too common, however grand and noble-to be remarkable. Carmel had once been covered with hermits: at length a convent was reared: during the siege of Acre by Napoleon it was used as a hospital, and after his retreat blown up in revenge by the pasha. Then a man, twenty years ago already old, in making a pilgrimage to Elijah's cave found there only an altar and a ruined arch. His heart was filled with sorrow and he vowed upon the spot that he would rebuild the ruined sanctuary. Poor-a pilgrim and fifty years of age! what an undertaking! any but Catholic charity and zeal would have shrunk from the seemingly hopeless undertaking. Fourteen years this old man spent traversing Europe, begging alms for his great work, and now a noble convent crowns his labors and throws open its wide gates to the weary pilgrim on Mount Carmel. There, too, is its founder, Fra Jean Battis

ta, yet a mere lay brother-for his humility would not permit him to aspire even to the rank of monk in the convent which he had founded-his head frosted with seventy years, but his eye quick and full of fire, his body erect and firm-as zealous as ever in the attendance upon those who seek hospitality in the house, and busily occupied in the management of its temporal affairs. Truly this is like the days of old, a thousand years ago.

At the Franciscan convent at Ramleh, our Englishman makes himself quite at home, and does not hesitate to ridicule the fat superior and his fast day hospitality. One of the monks, however, appeared to be of a higher order of birth and intellect than any with whom he had yet met. A Spaniard, he asked our traveller eagerly about Spain, particularly concerning his native country, the Basque provinces.

"He became quite enthusiastic in his nationality-but when I asked him whether he was Carlist or Christina- he checked himself suddenly and said with humility, 'Signor, son 'fraté.'”

It was sublime; and yet our traveller could not understand its sublimity. "Sir I am a brother, a monk-for me there are no parties, no politics, no factions, no worldly struggles. The peace of my divine master is that which I seek and which, here a watcher in the land made holy by his birth, his sufferings and his death, it is given me to find. I love the land of my nativity as I love the mother that bore me, but, Signor, the land of my nativity and the mother that bore me, I have given up to follow Christ. " Signor, son 'fraté.""

In Jerusalem our author actually inclines to believe that the church of the Holy Sepulchre covers the true sites of the sacred places, and makes a remark which is really a cutting sarcasm upon certain flippant writers, who run in and out of Jerusalem and take occasion upon such momentary inspection to deny the authenticity of all or many of these localities: he had no right to hazard an opinion