106 
A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 
grand scale ; nothing passed through it without acquiring an 
intoxicating power. Who is there, with a soul in his body, 
that has not been glorious on draughts of Byron ? Lamartine 
distills also ; I recommend him as an antidote ; he produces 
soda-water that allays the thirst; he sobers people who have 
been made drunk by all the poets, from the days of Homer 
down to the days of Lamartine. No man, however intoxicat¬ 
ed by the powers of genius, can read Lamartine’s experience 
in Greece without becoming instantly sobered. The dying 
request of this great poet, when attacked by a slight indis¬ 
position, that he should be buried under a certain classical 
tree ; that on the bark of that tree but a single word should 
be inscribed to mark his grave—no other word than the name 
of his Maker, so that the world might know where Lamar¬ 
tine lay—is the most intensely affecting piece of bathos, to say 
nothing of its blasphemy, in the whole range of sentimental 
literature. If that fails to make the tourist weep who fol¬ 
lows, he should be condemned to read Raffaelle the remain¬ 
der of his days. 
