its evident ingenuousness. The poem "To my Mother," | we hold to be very beautiful. The lines "To a Jewish Shekel," are eminently good, not only from the deep religious feeling that pervades them, but also from their stately solemnity, the latter quality being materially aided by the peculiar construction of the verse. Yet, lest it be supposed that he is always thus serious, we extract "The Fairy Isle," written in a lighter but most musical strain. It is illustrated by an exquisite engraving. "THE FAIRY ISLE. "In the far off South, where no rude breeze E'er sweeps o'er the plain of the halcyon seas, Where the airs breathe balm, and the heavens smile With a glorious radiance, a fairy isle Lolls on the breast of the mother deep With a dimpled cheek like a babe asleep. "There forests sloped, from the silver flood To the sunlight lift their tall greenwood, With bowers beneath through whose tendrils gleams The mellowed light in its fitful beams; And embroiders around, with its golden sheen, The velvet moss of the alleys green. "There the crystal waters gently chime As heart responds to a heart like its own. 66 But the richest treasures of earth and main Have not been garnered up here, in vain, To deck, for many an ocean mile, In tranquil beauty, the fairy isle From the wrath of waves, and the breath of storms, The speckled fish, in their sportive play, "At eve, in the dance, at music's call, The translations of several popular songs into the Greek and Latin languages-a scholastic amusement that has found considerable favor in England--are well done. The work is richly bound in embossed morocco, with gilt edges, and illustrated with nine steel engravings-among them a likeness of the author. Books for Children. We beg leave to call the attention of such of our readers as are parents, or interested in the education of the young, to the important subject of Juvenile Literature. This branch of book-making, has increased to a marvellous extent of late years and it has too often been left to bunglers. Now, let it be considered that early impressions are the strongest, and that in childhood the elements of taste are formed; and it is not easy to overrate the importance of children's books. They should not only be unexceptionable in their moral influence, but in mechanical execution and style rendered attractive and improving. Many a child has imbibed his first idea of art from a picture-book, and insensibly caught the rudiments of expression from a nursery-tale. Happily, the wretched daubs that once illustrated Jack the GiantKiller, are now banished, and something more interesting than Mother Goose is provided for the infant mind. Miss Edgeworth, Mrs. Barbauld, and other benevolent and sensible writers, have introduced a new era in Juvenile Literature. We have examined some of the specimens of children's books issued from our own prolific press, and have seen none that for neatness and good taste can compare with the series published by James P. Giffing, successor to Samuel Colman, New-York. These tasteful and elegant volumes, are prepared by such writers as William Howitt, Caroline Gilman, and S. G. Goodrich, whose names are a guarantee for the excellence of the matter. The purest sentimentsthe best language-the most useful information characterize these little works. We would especially commend PARLEY'S BOOK OF POETRY, PARLEY'S CHRISTMAS TALES, and the Boy's COUNTRY-BOOK;-the neat typography, beautiful illustrations and careful execution of which render them admirable gifts for children. MY LITTLE FRIENDS and THE BOY'S LIFE OF HARRISON, are also very pretty volumes. The series comprise books adapted to every age, from the child learning to read, to the full grown boy or girl. We invite parents to examine these handsome publications, before they stock their children's libraries. American Melodies. We This is the title of a very neat little volume, compiled by George P. Morris, illustrated by L. P. Clover, Jr., and published by Linen & Fennel, of Broadway, New-York. have long required a collection of this kind. No country is without its favorite airs and popular songs; and there are few more agreeable pocket-companions than a well-chosen volume of melodies. The materials for such a book are abundant in America. In the mass of periodical literature— in the newspaper annals of festivals-in the scrap-books, port-folios and college-chronicles, scattered over the United States, there are innumerable gems of song worthy to be enshrined in a handsome and permanent form. In the present case, we have a single selection from the productions of two hundred writers. Many of the names, and not a few of the pieces, are familiar, and endeared by old associations; and taken as a whole, the volume is a very tasteful and pleasant affair. The field, however, is by no means exhausted. The editor admits this in his preface, and proposes to issue a new volume-in the preparation of which, he solicits the aid of all interested in the undertaking. We hope the publishers will meet with such encouragement as to continue an enterprize so invitingly commenced. PUBLISHED MONTHLY, AT FIVE DOLLARS PER ANNUM-THOMAS W. WHITE, EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR. VOL. VII. RICHMOND, FEBRUARY, 1841. THE ISLAND OF CYPRUS. * IN TWO PARTS.-PART I. NO. 2. liest period of the world. The decrease in the soundings, and the color and taste of the water, announced to us that we were within the influence of the mighty river of Egypt, then at the height of its inundation, before we discovered the land of the Delta, which is but little elevated above the surface of the sea. We passed in sight of Damietta and Rosetta, and of the bay of Aboukir, and safely entered the harbor of Alexandria.— What names are all these for historical associations! To stand on the ruins of such places, for it is by their ruins most of them are dear to us,—seems to bring before the solitary observer the deeds of early ages, and to compress within the compass of a brief visit the events and vicissitudes of centuries. The sun was casting its setting rays upon a low, distant, sandy coast. Our noble frigate was ploughing its way westward, as gallantly as when it entered into that first naval combat, during our last war with England, from which it issued so gloriously. There was little around us but sky and water, and that little was fast receding from our view. One small speck, however, in the distant horizon, sent back the last beams of declining day, and the transatlantic pilgrims, who crowded the vessel's deck, bent their parting looks upon this arid shore, and upon the narrow pillar which rose over it, telling the story of departed days. From Alexandria we made an excursion into And well these objects claimed all the interest they excited; for that pillar, it was the column of Cleopatra, and that sterile coast, it was Egypt. the most interesting portion of Egypt, running over the Delta and the Desert, sailing on the Canal and the Nile, ascending the Pyramids, and descendAfter an interesting excursion in Syria and Pa-ing into the Catacombs, and exploring that land of lestine, we had reached the Mediterranean, at Tri-wonders, where human power has left so many poli, and had thence continued our route, partly by monuments, and where ignorance and misery preland and partly by water, along the coast of these sent so many deplorable scenes of the very extreold and renowned regions, stopping at Beyroot, at mity of human suffering. Tyre, at Sidon, at St. Jean d'Acre, the ancient Ptolemais, at Caipha, at Cesarea; and then arriving at the seaport of Jerusalem, the Joppa of the ancient world, and the celebrated Jaffa of the age of the Crusades, but now as miserable a village as Moslem tyranny ever called its own. is about forty miles from the Holy City, having between it and the hill country of Judea, the plain of Sharon, once the garden of Canaan, and now a barren waste of sand. It After gratifying, but not satisfying, our curiosity in the land of the Pharaohs, the Ptolemies, and the Mamelukes, we embarked for Western Europe; but circumstances induced a change in our route, and after making some progress towards our destination, we suddenly shifted our course, and bore up for the island of Cyprus. Cyprus, the kingdom of Venus, where are Paphos, Cytherea and Olympus; or truly, where the sacred mountain rises now, as it did in the earliest From Jaffa we sailed for the coast of Egypt, ages of the heathen mythology, but where the leaving in the distance, Gaza and Ascalon, and favorite seats of the voluptuous goddess are as other places, whose history remounts to the ear- abandoned as her worship, as desolate as her *In the Southern Literary Messenger for November, shrines! What powerful words are these, also, to 1839, we published a statistical account of the Island of stir up the imagination! What associations do they Candia, from the pen of Gen. CASS, the American Minis-awaken between the past and the present! What ter at France. We are here favored with an elaborate and most interesting article from the same writer, on the Island interesting reflections and anticipations did they of Cyprus-so renowned in mythology as the Kingdom of excite, as a favoring breeze drove us onward, and Venus; so famed in authentic history for its fruitfulness, on the 29th of September, 1837, brought us in its wealth, its visitations, the oppression of its catalogue sight of a range of mountains whose cloud-capped of tyrants; and its final degradation under the Mahometan summit was the residence of the Jupiter Zevs Oλyoke. The historical memoranda collected, and the ob servations of the compiler thereupon, prove him to be the . While approaching the shore, let inquiring traveller, and a scholar of taste and experience. us look back at the history of this renowned island, Independent of the general narrative, its incidental cir- and briefly glance at the events which have imcumstances alone, are of sufficient interest to repay the pressed it with an interest that neither time nor reader's time, and the space we have appropriated to this degradation can destroy. report of our distinguished fellow-citizen. Disclaiming in these remarks all invidious preferences, we commend the subject with pleasure to the reader's entertainment. In another number the governmental statistics of the Island of Cyprus will be given.-Ed. So. Lit. Mess. VOL. VII-11 Situated in the most favored regions of the Old World, leaving Syria to the east, Egypt to the south, Asia Minor to the north, and the Grecian Archipelago to the west, it was in the very centre of early civilization, and its settlement and es- The fame of Greece, and her assembled host, It would seem, from this incident, that Cyprus was renowned at this early period for the skill of its artists, as Eustathius says it was, for its mines of various metals. through its intervals of fable and tradition, and it was already invested with a prestige, which it could only have gained by a noble career in the days of demigods and heroes. It is mentioned in the Pentateuch, as early as the Exodus of the Jews, and was known to the Orientals, under the In the earliest ages, it was the fate of Cyprus, name of Kitim, in our translation of the Bible, as it is in our days, to be divided among different Chittim, a name which, in the process of time, races, and thence proceeded internal dissensions, came to designate the islands of the Mediterranean with all those disastrous consequences which hisgenerally, and even the coasts of that sea. In the tory tells, in bloody characters. Herodotus relates, beautiful and impressive prophecy of Balaam,- that the island was inhabited by three different who was called by the Moabite prince to curse the people-the Phoenicians, the Grecians, and the advancing host of the Jews, but who was com- Ethiopians. Commentators have differed, respectmanded by God to bless them, and did bless them,ing the origin of the latter, but they certainly were "took up his parable, and said, alas! who not from the country known to us as Ethiopia, but shall live, when God doeth thus? And ships shall probably from the Cyrenian Pentapolis upon the come from the coast of Chittim, and shall afflict Syrian coast. the seer Ashur, and shall afflict Eber, and he also shall There were, at an early period, nine kingdoms, perish forever." And, in the denunciations of each with its king and capital, and possessing the Isaiah against the city of Tyre, when all which machinery of a separate government. At that that proud mart of nations was destined to suffer epoch in human history, nations were small sociefrom the king of Babylon, was foretold, with all ties, and monarchies little tribes, governed by their the truth, and almost all the minuteness of history, respective chiefs. Agamemnon Homeus, king of it was foretold that Chittim was to be one of the men, or, in the sounding original avaş àvôpóv Apaμvwv, agents in that great downfall. And how this was ruled over Argos, now a petty portion of the petconfirmed, we learn from Arrian, the historian of ty kingdom of Greece; and the realm of Ulysses, Alexander, who tells us, in his account of the so renowned in the Iliad and the Odyssey, conGreek maritime force, that "Cyprus furnished one tained perhaps eighty sections of land. Well did hundred and twenty ships in the naval operations its narrow extent justify the remark of Cicero, of the siege of Tyre, while Macedonia sent but that the son of Laertes loved his country, L. II. C. 20. 66 non a single vessel.”—Arrian, Expeditione Alexandri, quia larga sed quia sua." It is difficult for the imagination to escape from the kind of enchantIn the enumeration of the Greek forces employ-ment which holds it captive, the romance of early ed in the expedition of Troy, which is given in the second book of the Iliad, we find the contingent of Cyprus to have been twenty vessels: "In twenty sail, the bold Penhœbians came, From Cyprus. Guineus was their leader's name." poetry and history, and which have invested with a deathless interest the actors and events that first emerged into view, after the human race had learned to offer subjects worthy of record, and writers worthy to record them. At that time the Greeks occupied only a por- The primitive world of civilization and literation of the island, its possession being divided be-ture, for us, occupied but a narrow space, upon tween them and the Phoenicians and the Ethio- the surface of the globe. A few little islands in pians. It is not probable that the two latter lent any aid to a cause, which neither touched their interests nor excited their passions. Homer makes another allusion to Cyprus, in the further progress of the action of his poem. In the eleventh book, devoted to the feats of Agamemnon, he describes the armor of the Greek chief,—a subject, by-the-by, which the poet loved to sing, and thus paints the cuirass : "The beaming cuirass next adorned his breast, The same which once King Cinyras possess'd. the eastern part of the Mediterranean, together with some of the adjacent coast, extending in the south a considerable distance along the Nile, and in the east to the Euphrates, contained the scenes of all that is now interesting in the early annals of mankind. We do not measure the dignity of the events by the space they occupied, but by the interest with which they are invested. This compression, however, as often happens in life, was not without its system of compensation. If it brought communities into close contact, and excited passions which too often led to war, it excited also the family of Cyniras, the founder of the city, till more generous rivalries, which led to a competi- the conquest of the island by the Romans, when tion in the efforts of genius, in the progress of Cato, the Proconsul, offered this charge to Ptolemy, civilization, and in the works of art. If these as a situation at once honorable and lucrative. little states were more easily overthrown, they To the north of Amathuntum was Citium, the were more easily resuscitated; and individual self-site of which is now occupied by Larnica, the love was brought more readily in aid of patriotism, most important port of the island. This city because each felt his importance in the narrow claimed a Phœnician origin, and even the honor of circle, which shut in the objects that were dearest being founded by Belus,* called by some the father to him. of Pygmalion. But it may claim a higher and a A glance at the royal cities of Cyprus may in-surer honor, as the birthplace of Zeno, the founterest the reader, and will exhibit the claims of this celebrated island to its ancient renown, and to the interest of the traveller, who seeks in its ruins the recollections of its former splendor, and finds but the evidence of its present decay. der of the Stoics. His is one of the most illustrious names of antiquity. Driven by a shipwreck into the Pireus, he studied the institutions of the little republic whose hospitality he received, and wrote a book which contained the result of his obThe most ancient of the Cyprian capitals was servations. He then established a school, and Amathuntum, of Phoenician origin, whose impor- soon found himself surrounded with disciples, to tance was such, that Eratosthenes, the chief of the whom he taught his doctrines. The empire which Museum of Alexandria, wrote its history in many this sect acquired over the opinions of mankind, is books. This work, however, is lost, and few au- one of the most extraordinary facts in the history thentic facts are known, respecting the city but of the human mind. Almost all antiquity, and it possessed a famous temple, dedicated to Venus, many able writers, down to our days, have considwhere the worship of that goddess was celebrated, ered its philosophy, or rather its speculations, as under circumstances which we have no disposition the highest effort of reason; and one of the brightto repeat, but which will forever tarnish with in-est ornaments of French literature has lamented famy the memory of the licentious Cypriots. It its destruction, or more truly, its oblivion, as one is indeed hardly credible that the orgies, which the of the misfortunes in the progress of intellect. As ancient historians describe in all their revolting generally happens in speculative philosophy, the nakedness, should not merely be tolerated in any doctrines of the master were more rational than civilized community, but that their observance those of his disciples. Those who succeeded him should be enforced as a religious duty, to propitiate in the direction of the school, refined upon the legadivinities controlling the human destiny. It is a cy he left, and pushed his principles farther than melancholy proof of the insufficiency of reason to he contemplated. He taught, as a fundamencheck the force of the passions. tal axiom, that true felicity consists in a life absolutely agreeable to nature and reason. There was sufficient latitude, indeed, for difference of opinion in the enunciation of this principle. But his successors, with academic pride and subtlety, maintained as a corollary, that a virtuous man might be happy in the midst of the greatest misery and torment. They acknowledged but one God, who was the soul of the universe, which they considered as the body, and both together as a perfect being. This arrant nonsense passed in the Old World for the perfection of reason: the Creator of all things was incorporated with his own works, and these formed part of their Maker. Apathy, or indifference to external circumstances, was the greatest virtue; and physical sufferings were to be so conquered by moral reflections, that the bed of roses of the Mexican Emperor would cease to be a reproach to a feeble follower. The truth is, that ancient metaphysics were a strange mixture of sublime rhapsodies and of puerile absurdities. In the temple of Adonis, at Amathuntum, was left, as a precious relic, the famous collar of Euphilus, given by Hercules to Hermione, the wife of Cadmus. And one of the local traditions made this city the place of the temporary residence of Theseus and of Ariadne, and of the death and burial of the latter. Richard Cœur de Lion, in his conquest of Cyprus, destroyed Amathuntum, whose ruins yet exist, and make part of the little seaport town of Limasol. Another of these cities was Paphos. Its foundation ascends to a period anterior to the capture of Troy, and contemporaneous probably with Danaus, Cadmus, and Cecrops, and with the migration of the Phoenician and Egyptian colonies to Greece. It was built upon the river Aphrodisios, where Venus and Adonis bathed; and it was at the mouth of this stream, that the Paphian goddess first reached the land, after her birth upon the In the course of time the old city fell into decay, and a new Paphos was built at some distance; but the former preserved its sanctity, and was visited in an annual solemn procession, which was yet maintained in the time of Strabo. waves. After Citium came Malium, of which little is known. It was destroyed in the time of the Greek kings of Egypt. * This seems to have been a common denomination borne The intendance of the temple was preserved in by the Phoenician kings. It was derived from Baal, Lord. But the history of Salamis, now Famagosta, sian empire, Herodotus informs his readers that it has been much better preserved. It filled an im- was divided into nineteen great departments. Cyportant part in the annals of the island. Tradition prus, with Phoenicia and Palestine, composed the says its foundation was laid by Teucer, the brother fifth of these departments; and as its whole reveof Ajax Telamon, who, having been driven from nue yielded to the Great King but three hundred his little kingdom of the isle of Salamis, near and fifty talents, we may place confidence in the Athens, by his father Telamon, because he did not assertions of the historian, that the taxes were avenge the death of his brother, sailed for Cyprus, moderate. with many Greek adventurers who had followed his standard at the siege of Troy, and many captives whom the subjugation of that unfortunate city had put in his power, and established himself at this place. In process of time it became the most important city of the island, and was the last strong hold of the Venetian power. After the battles of Platea and Salamis, where all the land and naval forces of Xerxes were destroyed, the Greeks, aware of the importance of this island to their enemies, as a marine station and nursery for their fleets, sent Aristides, with a squadron of thirty gallies, to aid the Cypriots to free themselves from the Persian yoke. We learn Upon the northern coast of Cyprus, looking to- from Thucydides, that this expedition, which took wards the rugged shores of Caramania, were two place in the fifth century before the Christian era, cities, Lapathos, claiming Belus, for its founder, was successful, and that many cities recovered and Soli. Little is, however, known of them. their liberty. The Persians, however, soon rePlutarch says that each was the capital of a king- duced them again to subjection, when the Greeks dom. Soli, however, is interesting, as the resi- determined by a great effort, to drive their rivals dence of Solon, who dwelt here for some time, from an island which furnished them such extenwhile seeking wisdom in foreign travel. He be- sive resources in their naval operations. The came attached to its king, Cypranor, and wrote an maritime republics equipped a fleet of two hundred eulogy to his memory. Its name is preserved in gallies, and gave the command to Cimon, the son our word, solecism, which we have borrowed from of Miltiades, who was descended from Ajax Telathe Greek, and which owes its origin to the barba-mon, and who had, by this descent, hereditary rerous pronunciation of the inhabitants of this city. lations with the island. The Athenian general The eighth capital was Kutri, situated in the in- took possession of the cities of Citium and of Materior, of which little but the name is known. lium, and beat the Persian fleet of three hundred The last was Carpassium, upon the eastern ex-gallies, of which one hundred were captured, many tremity of the island, whose origin ascends to the sunk, and the rest dispersed. He then subdued heroic times, and which claims Pygmalion for its many other cities, and laid siege to Salamis, the founder. Who has not heard of his beautiful sta-principal seat of the Persian power, and where tue, and of the miracle by which Venus endowed there was a numerous garrison. it with life? Artaxerxes, the Persian monarch, became alarmThese were the nine royal cities of Cyprus, the ed at the progress of his enemies, and consented to capitals of its kingdoms, which attest its former that peace, so shameful for him, but so glorious for power and opulence, and whose ruins now tell the the Greeks, by which the cities of their countrystory of its degradation. According to Diodorus men in Asia Minor were restored to their laws and and Herodotus, the Cypriots preserved their na-liberties, and the Persians were prohibited from tional independence till the time of Amasis, king approaching within three days journey of the Ægeof Egypt, whose power they recognized. The an sea. The victorious general, however, fell a predecessor of this prince, the Apries of the Greeks, and the Pharaoh Hopher of the Scriptures, had landed in Cyprus, and ravaged its cities, carrying away with him an immense booty. victim to his exertions, and dying in Cyprus, his ashes were transported to Athens. That renowned but turbulent, and too often unjust republic, was more liberal in the rewards it decreed to the memoIn the contests between the Egyptians and Per-ry of the dead, than to the services of the living. sians, which ended in the victory of Cambyses, and And the cynical remark, which has been so often in the establishment of his power over Egypt, repeated by the enemies of free states, that it has Cyprus took part with the Persfans. Xenophon become almost a political apothegm, that these states that the island was subjugated by Cyrus, the governments are ungrateful, has been principally father of Cambyses. However this may be, it is cer- deduced from the Athenian history, where, intain that the Persian monarchs established their deed, there are lamentable proofs that the people power over it, and maintained it, with some vicissi- were too often guided in their measures by an untudes, however, till the memorable contest com- worthy feeling towards eminent services and talmenced between them and the little Grecian repub- |ents. This tendency is inseparable, perhaps, from lics, which laid the foundation for the ruin of both-a small community, where those strong passions, of the one by success, of the other by defeat. In which produce splendid results when foreign danhis account of the political statistics of the Per-'gers threaten, are turned to internal dissensions |