Our Imaginary Conversations. 95 



opposed to the narrow and confined limits of the old classicism. Is there 

 not something very like tyranny in erecting an image, and building a temple 

 for its abode, and then compelling every passer by, of whatever creed or 

 nation, to enter in and worship before it ? Is beauty of so circumscribed a 

 nature, and of so singular a constitution, as to flourish only under one sky, 

 and to obtain the just proportions only in one particular climate? Has not 

 Holland her poets as well as Italy, and is not the lute of Apollo heard sweetly 

 chiming through the discord and tumult of a Russian winter? Again are 

 the pictures of your own Hogarth less humorous, because in some corner 

 you behold a creature whose misery brings the tears into your eyes ? or is 

 the jealous fury of Othello rendered less sublime by the intoxication of 

 Cassio ? 



And after all, why should not the work of a poet resemble one of those 

 beautiful old towns in Spain, where you find every thing ? A cool prome- 

 nade among oranges, by the river's side j an open sunny ground for fes- 

 tivals j streets, broad, narrow, and sometimes dark, where the eye disco- 

 vers a thousand houses of every form and fashion, linked and united, as 

 it were, to each other, high and low, black and white, painted and sculp- 

 tured -, labyrinths of buildings side by side, palaces, hospitals, convents, 

 taverns, all differing from each other, and all bearing their several desti- 

 nations graven in their architecture. Markets full of people and fruits ; 

 burial-grounds, where the living are silent as the dead ; here, the theatre 

 with its music, its finery and its ornaments ; further on the old weather- 

 beaten gibbet, whose stone is worm-eaten, whose iron is rusted, where 

 the skeleton is creaking to and fro in the wind. In the midst a Gothic 

 cathedral, with its finely-wrought spires, its portals worked with bas- 

 reliefs, its massive yet delicate pillars -, and then its glittering chapels, its 

 myriads of saints and sinners wonderful structure, impressive in its 

 majesty, curious in its composition, beautiful at two leagues, and beautiful 

 at two steps ! And lastly, at the opposite end of the town, concealed 

 among the sycamores and palms, the oriental mosque, with its domes and 

 painted gates, cool arcades, the verses of the Koran upon the portals, its 

 radiant sanctuaries, the Mosaic of the pavement, the Mosaic of the walls ; 

 opening its beauty to the sun like a vast flower full of perfume. 

 Algernon Sydney. 



And to which of these would you compare your own poetry. 



Victor Hugo. 



To the oriental mosque. 



Algernon Sydney. 



With your permission, I will read one or two translations which I made 

 from Les Orientales, some time ago. The following lines are extracted, 

 you will perceive, from the poem you have entitled Le Feued del, and 

 founded on the fearful history in Holy Writ, of the destruction by fire of 

 the cities of the plain. Without in any way pronouncing upon the merits 

 of the modern theory, which seeks to account for the like miracles by 

 natural causes, you will allow me to observe, that you have widely 

 departed, not only from probability, but from fact, in your narrative. We 

 are given to understand, that the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was 

 instantaneous, not progressive. We are told in Genesis, that God rained 

 down fire, &c. By pourtraying the cloud of fire passing over Egypt and 

 the tower of Babel, until it finally hangs upon the devoted cities, you have, 

 however, produced a very picturesque effect, and I am very willing to 

 accord you all the licence you demand. 



