The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 12, No. 334, October 4, 1828. Various

in the midst of happiness.

      Flow on, fair stream, thy course pursue

      Beneath the shade of waving bowers,

      Where sunbeams lightly glancing through,

      Kiss the bright dew from off the flowers.

S.N.NATIONAL VARIETIES

      (Continued from page 165.)

      It is almost impossible to lay down any rule which would define the variations of national manners as having any reference to climate. We frequently find that the passage of a river, or a chain of mountains, dividing countries of the same natural features, brings us among an entirely new people, and presents us with a fresh scene in the melodrama of life. The inhabitants of Languedoc and Gascony, and the southern parts of France, are the gayest and most lively of the subjects of Charles X.; but the moment we have crossed the Pyrenees, we are among one of the gravest nations in the world, the Spaniards. Again, contrast the solemnity and deep sense of honour of the Turks, with the vivacity and, we regret to add, the deceit and bad faith of the unfortunate modern Greeks. The virtuous spirit will, we trust, revive in the Morea with the return of civilization and freedom; for, as no one will attribute the degradation of the modern Greeks from the high moral cultivation of their ancestors, to any alteration in the climate of their country, so let us never despair of the return of virtue, of poetry, of the arts and sciences, whilst Parnassus and Helicon still enjoy the same glorious sun, and whilst the Isles are still gilded by eternal summer. We want no proofs that patriotism still lives in Greece, and with that feeling will ever be associated the powers that are able to invigorate a nation.

      1

      Having, not long since, purchased a bottle of Persian Otto, warranted genuine, (as is all) I laid it carefully by, wrapped thickly round with cotton wool; the Atar which was certainly excellent, was in a curious bottle of ro

1

Having, not long since, purchased a bottle of Persian Otto, warranted genuine, (as is all) I laid it carefully by, wrapped thickly round with cotton wool; the Atar which was certainly excellent, was in a curious bottle of rough misshapen workmanship, but ornamented with sundry circles, and lozenges, of various coloured glass. I was inclined to regard this bottle as a more genuine specimen of oriental art, than one of those, which, enamelled, with gold, stands forth in its way an elegant of the first water, and I hoped to have kept it long. On visiting my Otto shortly afterwards, I found that not only had it all evaporated, but destroyed its receptacle. Its strength (I conclude) had dissolved the cement of the aforesaid coloured bits of glass, and left me only an empty and plain bottle, the ugliest of the ugly. I mention this circumstance as a caution to amateurs in Atar Gul.

2

I imagine this to mean the time of the introduction of the sport, and the year when the company was instituted.