The most celebrated, and perhaps the best preserved, among the latter, is the huge church of Sta. Sophia, — huge both in real size and in the effect of its simply disposed parts, for it covers (says Mr. Fergusson) "nearly the average space occupied by a first-class French or English mediæval cathedral," being 237 feet by 284, an area of about 67,000 square feet. It was erected by the Emperor Justinian about the year 532, and was restored about the year 1850 by order of the Sultan, Abdul Medjid, under direction of the Chevalier Fossati. The interior is over a hundred feet wide and 182 feet high to the top of the central dome. The able critic just quoted says that "it may be safely asserted that, considered as an interior, no edifice erected before its time shows so much beauty or propriety of design as this, and it is very questionable whether any thing in the Middle Ages surpassed it . . . It is certain that no domical building of modern times can at all approach Sta. Sophia's, either for appropriateness or beauty. If we regard it with a view to the purposes of Protestant worship, it affords an infinitely better model for imitation than any thing our own medieval architects ever produced." The effect of this interior, in richness of detail and material,—in mosaics, gold, and precious marbles,—is similar to that of a more generally known but lesser edifice in nearly the same style, the church of St. Mark at Venice. Magnificent lithographic engravings by Mr. L. Haghe (London, 1852) give some of the best book-illustrations of this architectural glory of the Greek Empire, and of its Turkish preservers. Many remarkable scenes and events have occurred in it. The adventures of the belligerent Count Robert of Paris have, however, few associations with it. They have, very properly, many with the ancient walls on the landward side of the city, that extend nearly four miles, from the Propontis or the Sea of Marmora to the "Golden Horn," across the promontory on which Constantinople stands, and that date from various early imperial times, and "are so lofty, that from the road which passes under them the eye can scarcely catch a glimpse of the mosques and minarets of the city. This melancholy aspect is heightened by several cemeteries, with dark cypresses and white marble tombs, that lie outside of the walls." Portions of the walls are in tolerable order, while other parts "present such magnificent and picturesque specimens of mural ruins as probably no other city can boast of." Modern purposes have doomed them, it is said, to the destruction that has effaced many other military restrictions to

civic change. The Golden Gate, at which the action of this story began, and "so celebrated by the Byzantine writers, has been sought for in vain; though a gate now wholly blocked up, with two mean pillars supporting a low arch, is sometimes shown to travellers for it." In the northern corner of the city, between the walls and the waters of the Golden Horn, stood the now destroyed palaces of the Blacquernal and the Hebdomon, occupied by the imperial famSuggestions of the former, ilies during the decline of the Empire. and of the tiger's den of the story, are to be found at two of the modern gates: "Balat Kapussi, i.e., the palace gate, formerly Basin, i.e., the Royal or Imperial gate, probably so called from the neighboring palace of the Blachernes ;" and "Haivan Serai Kapussi, ie., the gate of the Menagerie, so called from the neighboring amphitheatre, where the combats of the wild beasts used to take place."

Another distinguished relic of the Eastern Empire is an isolated mass of buildings at the south-west angle of the city, called the "Three Seven Towers, once an imperial castle and state-prison. of the towers have entirely disappeared, and the whole building is in a state of dilapidation." The towers remaining are two hundred feet high. A fourth great relic is "the cistern of Constantine, now called Binderik, or the thousand and one pillars; and Yerebatan Serai, the subterranean palace." It is "in a quarter of the town anciently called Lausus. It has now the appearance of a suite of gloomy dungeons." "The roof of this reservoir . . . was supported by a double tier, consisting altogether of 424 pillars," now partly buried. "It was originally one of the immense cisterns or reservoirs made by the Greek Emperors, and always kept full of water by them, in case of a siege, though they have long been destroyed, or suffered to go to ruin by the improvident Mussulmans." A large portion of the Greek buildings have been used as quarries by the same destructive people.

XLVIII.

THE SIX LESSER TALES.

AMONG the Waverley Novels are six stories, shorter, and of

less interest and importance, than the other works with which they are associated. They are also less connected with historical events and characters, and with landscapes or objects now recognizable.

In November, 1827, were published the Chronicles of the Canongate, 1st Series, in 2 vols., containing three stories of this sort, numbering the 23d to the 25th of the general series, and entitled "The Highland Widow," "The Two Drovers," and "The Surgeon's Daughter." "The Highland Widow" originated in May, 1826; and is associated with the vicinity of the Bridge of Awe, that crosses the dashing river of the same name, in a deep, wild, and rocky mountain valley, beneath the frowning heights of Ben Cruachan, and on the road between the head of Loch Awe and Loch Etive, near Oban. This scenery may be visited during an excursion from the latter place, or on that portion of the tour described on pages 208-9. The story begins with "Mrs. Bethune Baliol's memorandum” of a short Highland tour, undertaken by her when the post-chaise was the vehicle of travellers. During this tour, she spent a morning "at the delightful village of Dalmally;" whence she visited Kilchurn Castle, and Loch Awe head; and then this scene around the bridge and glen of the river Awe. "While we were thus stealing along" (she is supposed to have recorded), "we gradually turned round the shoulder of Ben Cruachan, and, descending the course of the foaming and rapid Awe, left behind us the expanse of the majestic lake which gives birth to that impetuous river. The rocks and precipices, which stooped down perpendicularly on our path on the right hand, exhibited a few remains of the wood which once clothed them, but which had, in latter times, been felled to supply . . . the iron-founderies at the Bunawe. This made us fix our eyes with interest on one large oak, which grew on the left hand towards the river. It seemed a tree of extraordinary magnitude and picturesque beauty, and stood just where there appeared to be a few roods of open ground lying among huge stones, which had rolled down from the mountain. To add to the romance

...

of the situation, the spot of clear ground extended round the foot of a proud-browed rock, from the summit of which leaped a mountain stream in a fall of sixty feet, in which it was dissolved into foam and dew. At the bottom of the fall, the rivulet with difficulty collected, like a routed general, its dispersed forces, and, as if tamed by its descent, found a noiseless passage through the heath to join the Awe. I was much struck with the tree and waterfall, and wished myself nearer them;" and she was proposing close approach to them, when her guide dissuaded her by saying, "The place is not canny." Mrs. Baliol, whose attention was thus drawn to the spot, soon elicited its story, - that of " Elspat Mac Tavish; or, the Woman of the Tree," who occupied a very small, poor, Highland hut, that once stood there. Her husband had been an outlaw, and she was the Widow of the story. Her son, Hamish Bean Mac Tavish, finding her temper violent, or, to say the least, disagreeable, left the hut one day when her excitability was specially displayed. It was some time before he returned, and then he was in the dress of a Highland soldier. Though filled with maternal joy at his return, she could not, after a while, repress her prejudices against the service he had taken. He was however able, without other trial than perhaps the apparition of a spirit, to rejoin his regiment; and then a second time to visit his mother. Her feelings were then irrepressible, and her desire to keep him at home-away from what she more than disliked-induced her to give him a sleeping potion to detain him when he was about to depart. Recovering from its effects, he discovered, when too late, that his leave of absence had expired by limitation, and that he was liable to seizure and punishment as a deserter, - -a fate that speedily befell him. A party of soldiers came to arrest him. Excited by the conflicting feelings caused by his position, he indignantly shot the sergeant,— an act that only rendered surer his seizure, and that caused his removal to Dumbarton, where he was tried and shot. The disconsolate mother, after this tragic issue, resulting primarily from her conduct, wandered amid the scenery described in the story, hopelessly insane; and finally mysteriously disappeared. Neither search nor time gave intimation of her fate, and her unhappy form has, by some, been thought yet to haunt the glen in which she lived.

The Two Drovers, Robin Oig McCombich, a Highlander, and his friend Hugh Morrison, a Lowlander, are represented travelling

southward from Doune, a memorable place mentioned in "Waverley," page 144. Near Carlisle, Robin met Harry Wakefield, an English drover, and quarrelled with him about pasturage for their cattle; and ultimately stabbed him. For this crime Robin was tried at Carlisle, and found guilty. At the trial, the author represents himself to have been present, "as a young Scottish lawyer ... reputed a man of some quality." He heard the incidents that he describes, and especially, a very impressive charge by the venerable judge to the jury. The whole work appears like a personal recollection of Scott's professional life, one of those stories that a legal man is apt to hear; and one peculiarly illustrative of the condition, characteristics, and trials of the Highlanders, during the process of transformation from Caterans and Clansmen to competitors with their neighbors in the occupations of ordinary modern life. The Surgeon's Daughter is a longer story, and has scenes laid in Southern Scotland and in India. "The principal incident on which it turns" - the introduction states was narrated to the author, "one morning at breakfast, by his worthy friend, Mr. Train, of Castle Douglas, in Galloway, whose kind assistance he has so often had occasion to acknowledge in the course of these prefaces;" and, added Scott, a "military friend, who is alluded to as having furnished him with some information as to Eastern matters, was Colonel James Ferguson, of Huntly Burn." Mr. Train, it will be remembered, furnished to the great novelist much valuable material used in several of his works, as described on page 160. The story begins with description of an infant, and of his strange domestication in the home of Dr. Gideon Gray, surgeon of Middlemas village, where he received the name of Richard Middlemas. This village was in the southern midland of Scotland, and may be represented by Selkirk, county town of the shire of which Sir Walter Scott was many years sheriff, and mentioned in the fifth chapter. There resided the prototype of the man this Richard became. In due time, he, and another youth, Adam Hartley, were apprenticed to Dr. Gray. Before very long time, however, the two companions quarrelled on a frequent subject of younger and elder masculine disputation, a pretty girl; in this case Menie Gray, daughter of their master. Richard left the village after this episode; enlisted in Indian service, and, after a variety of tribulation, reached the land for which that destined him. Thus his adventures associate the name of Scott with distant places of the Eastern world. There