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with fear, and were I not a Spaniard I should be alarmed myself. But I cannot release you here. The populace would revolt as they did at Palermo. Fortunately, our great King, Alphonso, is just arrived at Syracuse, and to his high decision I shall commit you."

The Greeks were committed for the night to the citadel of Catania, while the fright and fury of the people exhaled in a thousand stories. The next day every thing was prepared to conduct them to Syracuse. The Governor informed them, at the same time, that by order of the Archbishop of Palermo, he was going to send the Greek nuns who were at the convent of St. Benedict, to Rome, where they would be converted to the Catholic faith. The bishop of Ephesus was very solicitous to see them before their departure. The ruin of his country and the uncertain fortune of his brethren were almost forgotten in his anxiety lest their feeble and unaided minds. should be won over to the Roman communion. His prayer was granted. He entered alone, the convent of Catania, and was conducted to the place which had been set apart to the Byzantine nuns. It was a building of Arabic construction, which had formerly served the conquerors of Sicily as a mosque, and which, afterwards, had been consecrated to the holiest purposes. The young Greeks were seated in a spacious hall, in the centre of which, according to a custom introduced from the East into Sicily, played a beautiful fountain. That they might not give offence to the Sisters of St. Benedict, they had covered their flowing tresses with a white veil; but they resolutely refused to take part in the public prayers of the monastery. Alone, by themselves, they observed a rigorous fast; they chanted sacred hymns in their own language, and now and then one of them among her companions in tears, as if suddenly inspired, would break forth in some verses upon the loss of her parents, who had perished in the siege of Constantinople. Attracted by their voices, the nuns of St. Benedict would gather round to hear them, and though unable to comprehend them, they could not but admire the beauty, sweetness, and harmony of their songs. Educated in

a strict seclusion, the noble daughters of Byzantium, even before their consecration to a religious life, were never permitted to see strangers, and spoke the Greek in its ancient purity. The vulgar dialect was unknown to them. Afterwards, retired within the walls of a monastery, they were conversant only with the sacred books, and the writings of the great apostles of the Eastern Church. They could not, however, entirely forget the songs which they had heard in their infancy; and there was scarcely a monastery throughout the East where the influences of climate and solitude had failed to inspire some one of the nuns with a genius for poetry.

When the Bishop of Ephesus entered the apartment of the young Greeks, one of them named Aurelia, was deploring the martyrdom of the Greek clergy who had been slain by the barbarians. She called upon God; and charged the fall of the religion of the Empire upon His providence. At the sight of the holy bishop she stopped-full, at once, of sadness and joy; and all the nuns fell upon their knees as if the Lord had listened to their prayer, and sent them a confessor.

"O my father!" cried the young Aurelia, "God has preserved you to be a living martyr. But tell us, will He cause His holy name to triumph in Greece? Shall we ever again be permitted to see the Panagia of Byzantium, or must we die in a profane and desert land ?"

"Arise, my children," replied the holy and venerable man, "and listen to my words. Your days of trial are hardly begun. You are soon to depart for Rome-the new Babylon. Such is our misfortune that our refuge must be in the very place where our faith is in the greatest peril. Go to Rome; but promise me that you will never abandon the holy ceremonies of our fathers, nor even recognize the perjured union of Florence."

"Never, father!" was the immediate and unanimous reply. "May the Panagia protect us! May your holy words sustain and defend us! Never will we follow the error of the Azimites. Never will we be shorn of our dark hair, nor put off our veils, like the profane virgins of Italy."

Here the Bishop drew forth the golden chalice which he had brought with him:

"Aurelia," said he, "I give you this sacred pledge of a Church which once existed at Byzantium. This gift of the great Constantine will serve, at least, to protect the daughter of the Emperors. His name is regarded with veneration in the West. It will be of service to you in the presence of the Roman Pontiff. Further trials are in store for us, and this treasure of our faith will be safer in your hands than in ours." Theodorus then gave his blessing to the young daughters, and retired.

Preparation had already been made for their departure. By the order of the Archbishop of Palermo, a Romish priest and two nuns of St. Benedict were to conduct them. These the superior of the convent was careful to instruct to obtain a bull of absolution from the sin incurred by harbouring' such schismatics. Neither she, however, nor the other recluses could part with nuns who were so modest in their demeanour, and sung with such sweetness, without regret. Embarking on board the same vessel which brought them thither, they set sail; the sailors chanting the Canticle of the Panagia, while they themselves talked over the solemn words of Theodorus.

Meanwhile, Lascaris and his companions, mounted on mules, had departed for Syracuse, under an escort of Spanish cavalry. Medici and his Italian friends would not remain behind, but resolved to follow and assuage, as much as was in their power, their evil fortunes. It was a touching spectacle to see these Greeks, whose ancestors had, time and again, conquered and civilized Sicily, now travelling across a beautiful country, and every where recognizing monuments of their ancient arts, while their own name had become odious, and their language unknown. In the ninth century the Byzantine emperors still possessed Sicily, which was terwards wrested from them by the Saracens. Every where were to be seen edifices, ruins and inscriptions, which recalled the different ages of the Greek domination; but no trace of the

Greeks themselves was left among the present generation of the Sicilians. So true is it that the memory of men is the most perishable of monuments!

The abject condition of Sicily, and the want of practicable roads over a region which had been repeatedly desolated by the ravages of nature and war, compelled the Greeks to seek Syracuse by a circuitous route. They descended towards the sea, that they might avoid the high hills and entirely uninhabited plains ;-covered, nevertheless, with the Grecian olive, and some of the richest Asiatic plants. Here and there they passed a deserted city, sometimes turning aside to visit the ruins; for, to these Greeks, whose minds were almost constantly turned to their lost home, it was a sort of consoling diversion, a kind of mournful pleasure, thus to contemplate misfortunes quite as great and more ancient than their own. But every thing in Sicily seemed to suggest to them the same thoughts,-inhabited tracts and cities, no less than deserts and ruins. After a journey of four days, across an immense uncultivated plain to the south of Catania, they arrived at Syracuse; which, however, notwithstanding its admirable harbour-surpassed only by that of Byzantium— and the magnificence of its ruins, they could scarcely believe to have been that formidable rock upon which the power of Athens herself had been broken.

Alphonso had just left Syracuse. A new sedition had summoned him to Palermo. Syracuse was an unimportant city, which a few soldiers could easily hold in subjection. But a few people dwelt within the precincts of the ancient walls, and these, of mixed race, and degraded by the numerous conquests of which the island had been the theatre. In their apathetic ignorance, they made no distinction between the Greek, Roman and Arabic monuments which were crumbling about them; but devoutly offered prayers in the chapel of St. Mercury, and piously showed the wells of St. Juno. Our enlightened Greeks smiled at this simplicity, and Gemisthus thought he could recognize in it the invincible power of those sacred symbols which had once enchanted the world.

Young Michael Apostolus, animated by the more pleasing recollections of Greek poetry, made search after the fountain Arethusa; but barbarity had destroyed even this work of nature. Nothing was left of it but a turbid and brackish pool, where were piled up the ruins of the monuments with which Greek genius had once ornamented the borders of this sacred fountain. Lascaris and his young friends mounted the Epipolae, to get a panoramic view of Syracuse; and as they looked down upon the vast circumference which was no longer stirring with the bustle and din of commerce,-as they beheld the desolate port, the unequal ruins scattered here and there, the theatre which the Spanish victors had not yet succeeded in entirely demolishing :-"Athens is avenged," said they, their eyes filling with tears, and their thoughts turning to their native land.

The young Italians looked upon the sad spectacle with more equanimity; they were born for social life, and were full of hope. "What a favourable seat for commerce and empire!" said young Bembo. "Venice herself is not better protected, or better served by the sea!

But then, the desCommerce no longer She goes to Venice;

tiny of places changes like that of men. brings hither her riches from the East. -that Venice which was hardly above the waves of the Adriatic when Syracuse was queen."

"Yes," said Lascaris, "nothing is so withering as commerce. It destroys even the genius of the places where it has its seat, and the beneficence of nature. Venice will know this some day."

The Greeks now received orders from the Spanish commander, at Syracuse, to pursue their journey to Palermo. Their guides, who cared nothing for the monuments of antiquity, urged them to be on their way while the freshness of evening tempered the parching atmosphere of Sicily. After traversing the suburbs they slowly ascended a high hill, which is still called the Greek ladder, and passing on, lost sight of Syracuse, where every thing, except the inhabitants, reflected the image of Greece.

THIRD SERIES, VOL. II. NO. IV.

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