CHAP. XXVIII.] MR. WILDE S POEM. 103 



versy about this short poem, we asked Mr. Wilde to relate to us 

 its true history, which is curious. He had been one of a party 

 at Savannah, when the question was raised whether a certain 

 professor of the University of Georgia understood Greek ; on 

 which one of his companions undertook to translate Mr. Wilde s 

 verses, called &quot; The Complaint of the Captive,&quot; into Greek prose, 

 so arranged as to appear like verse, and then see if he could pass 

 it off upon the Professor as a fragment of AlcaBus. The trick 

 succeeded, although the Professor said that not having the works 

 of Alcseus at hand, he could not feel sure that the poem was 

 really his. It was then sent, without the knowledge of Mr. 

 Wilde and his friends, to a periodical at New York, and pub 

 lished as a fragment from Alcseus, and the Senator for Georgia 

 was vehemently attacked by his political opponents, for having 

 passed off a translation from the Greek as an original composi 

 tion of his own. 



Soon after this affair, Captain Basil Hall mentioned in his 

 &quot; Schloss Hainfeld&quot; (chap, x.), that the Countess Purgstall had 

 read the lines to him, and would not tell him who was the au 

 thor, but he had little doubt that she had written them herself. 

 The verses had become so popular that they were set to music, 

 and the name of Tampa, a desolate sea-beach on the coast of 

 Florida, was changed into Tempe, the loveliest of the wooded 

 valleys of Greece, in the concluding stanza : 



&quot; My life is like the prints which feet 



Have left on Tampa s desert strand ; 

 Soon as the rising tide shall beat, 



All trace will vanish from the sand. 

 Yet, as if grieving to efface 

 All vestige of the human race, 

 On that lone shore loud moans the sea, 

 But none, alas ! shall mourn for me !&quot; 



In the countess s version Zara had been substituted for Tampa. 



During our stay in New Orleans, Mr. Wilde introduced us to 

 his friend Mr. Clay, the Whig candidate in the late presidential 

 election, and I was glad of the opportunity of conversing with 

 this distinguished statesman. In the principal Episcopal church 

 we were very fortunate in hearing Dr. Hawkes preach, and 



