1830.] A Night on Dartmoor. 53 



There was no need of words. My gaunt looks, palsied limbs, sepul- 

 chral voice, and wild-streaming eyes, sufficiently told my story. The 

 villagers meanwhile prepared to remove me. " But no," I said, ' ' one duty 

 yet remains to be performed," and bending on my knees beside that lone, 

 unsheltered rock, while my deliverers stood in a respectful group around 

 me, I offered up a solemn prayer of gratitude to Heaven, amid the growl 

 of the retreating tempest, and the flashing of a hundred torch-lights. 

 This task fulfilled, a sort of couch was formed of the long brass-headed 

 staves, covered with great-coat, of the villagers, after which the whole 

 cortege moved off at a brisk pace, and within something less than two 

 hours from the time of my quitting the rock, I was seated at supper with 

 my landlord at South Zeal, busily engaged in listening to the means by 

 which he had so opportunely accomplished my preservation. 



It is now four years since this event occurred, yet it is, nevertheless, 

 the Hegira of my memory, from which all subsequent incidents take 

 their date. At times, when I look back, as a traveller to some gigantic 

 peak that he has left many long miles behind him, but which, from its 

 superior elevation, still seems close in his rear, the " Night on Dart- 

 moor" appears but an affair of yesterday. The voice of its thunder 

 booms in my ears, its lightning sears my eyes, its rock stands frowningly 

 out on my mind. Truly, time is but an idea, with neither space, sub- 

 stance> nor authority, save what it derives from the imagination. What 

 a minute is one year spent in calm waveless happiness ! what an eternity 

 is one night measured by horror and despair ! How scanty, how evan- 

 escent, how imperfect are the recollections of the one ! how full, lasting, 

 and profound the impressions of the other ! I have lived thirty years in 

 life, have watched beside the death-bed of friends, wandered through 

 many lands, encountered many strange vicissitudes, yet, strange to say, 

 all these combined, will not furnish one half the reminiscences that the 

 <f Night on Dartmoor" can singly body forth. 



FAIR PLAY FOR GREECE. 



VULGAR and unmeaning abuse has been poured to satiety upon the 

 subject of our present observations. We remember when it was other- 

 wise. We remember when declamation culled all the gaudiest flowers 

 of rhetoric in its behalf ; when enthusiasm gendered on folly, converted 

 frail humanity into divine perfection ; and from the revolutions that had 

 preceded it, singled out the revolution in Greece for a loftier note, and 

 a more elaborate panegyric. But truth only is permanent. It was to 

 be expected that they who based their applauses on a distempered fancy 

 should live to contemplate a reverse should be precipitated from one 

 extreme to the other should virulently vituperate when they had pre- 

 posterously commended. 



We will steer a middle course; and founding our remarks on a per- 

 sonal knowledge of Greece at the commencement of 1827 since which 

 but little important variation has been perceptible we will shew what 

 Greece actually is, and point out the fallacy of certain arguments 

 assertions rather which have been long gaining ground. With respect 

 to the presidency of Capo d'Istria, little need be said. The, stamina of 

 government are the same ; the same defects are necessarily prominent. 

 Neither Capo d'Istria, nor any other human being ; neither the battle of 



