actually accomplished the passage on the 3d of May, 1810. Lord Byron has made this event memorable by the following verses:

If, in the month of dark December,
Leander, who was nightly wont

(What maid will not the tale remember ?)
To cross thy stream, broad Hellespont!

If, when the wintry tempest roared,
He sped to Hero, nothing loth,
And thus of old thy current poured,
Fair Venus! how I pity both!
For me, degenerate, modern wretch,
Though in the genial month of May,
My dripping limbs I faintly stretch,

And think I've done a feat to-day.

But since he crossed the rapid tide,
According to the doubtful story,
To woo,-and-Lord knows what beside,
And swam for love, as I for glory;

'Twere hard to say who fared the best :

Sad mortals! thus the gods still plague you!
He lost his labour, I my jest;

For he was drowned, and I've the ague.

His lordship gave also the following prose account of the affair:

'The whole distance from Abydos, the place whence we started, to our landing at Sestos, on the other side, including the length we were carried by the current, was computed by those on board the frigate at upwards of four English miles; though the actual breadth is barely one. The rapidity of the current is such, that no boat can row directly across; and it may in some measure be estimated from the circumstance of the whole distance being accomplished by one of the parties in an hour and five, and by the other in an hour and ten, minutes. The water was extremely cold, from the melting of the mountain snows. About three weeks before, we had made an attempt; but having riddeu all the way from the Troad the same morning, and the water being of an icy chilness, we found it necessary to postpone the completion till the frigate anchored below the castles, when we swam the straits, as just stated, entering a considerable way above the European, and

landing below the Asiatic, fort. Chavalier says that a young Jew swam the same distance for his mistress; and Olivier mentions its having been done by a Neapolitan: but our consul at Tarragona remembered neither of those circumstances, and tried to dissuade us from the attempt. A number of the Salsette's crew were known to have accomplished a greater distance; and the only thing that surprised me was, that, as doubts had been entertained of the truth of Leander's story, no traveller had ever endeavored to ascertain its practicability.'

A Mr. Turner, who seems to have been one of those persons too much inclined to doubt the possibility of every thing which is to them impossible, in some Travels which he published a few years after, insinuated that Lord Byron had exaggerated his account of this feat. It was, perhaps, not worth while to refute such a doubt; but it produced the following letter from Lord Byron, which we insert, because every thing of this sort breathes of the writer. The letter is addressed to Mr. Murray, the bookseller:

'Dear Sir,-In the 44th page, Vol. I. of 'Turner's Travels,' (which you lately sent me,) it is stated that Lord Byron, when he expressed such confidence of its practicability, seems to have forgotten that Leander swam both ways, with and against the tide; whereas he (Lord Byron) only performed the easiest part of the task, by swimming with it, from Europe to Asia.

I certainly could not have forgotten what is known to every schoolboy-that Leander crossed in the night, and returned towards the morning. My object was to ascertain that the Hellespont could be crossed at all by swimming, and in this Mr. Ekenhead and myself both succeeded; the one in an hour and ten minutes, the other in one hour and five minutes: the tide was not in our favour; on the contrary, the great difficulty was to bear up against the current; which, so far from helping us to the Asiatic side, set us down right towards the Archipelago. Neither Mr. Ekenhead, myself, nor, I will venture to add, any person on board the frigate, from Captain (now Admiral) Bathurst downwards, had any notion of a difference of the current on the Asiatic side, of which Mr. Turner speaks. I never heard of it till this moment, or I would have taken the other course. Lieutenant Ekenhead's sole molive, and mine also, for setting out from the European side, was, that the little Cape above Sestos was a more prominent starting place, and the frigate which lay below, close under the Asiatic castle, formed a better point of view to move towards; and, in fact, we landed immediately below it. Mr. Turner says, "whatever is thrown into the

stream on this part of the European bank must arrive at the Asiatic shore." This is so far from being the case, that it must arrive in the Archipelago if left to the current, although a strong wind from the Asiatic side might have such an effect occasionally.

'Mr. Turner attempted the passage from the Asiatic side, and failed; "after five-and-twenty minutes, in which he did not advance a hundred yards, he gave it up, from complete exhaustion." This is very possible, and might have occurred to him just as readily on the European side. I particularly stated, and Mr. Hobhouse has done so also, that we were obliged to make the real passage of one mile extend to between three and four, owing to the force of the stream. I can assure Mr. Turner that his success would have given me great pleasure; as it would have added one more instance to the proofs of its practicability. It is not quite fair in him to infer that, because he failed, Leander could not succeed.

'There are still four instances on record-a Neapolitan, a young Jew, Mr. Ekenhead, and myself: the two last were in the presence of hundreds of English witnesses. With regard to the difference of the current, I perceived none; it is favorable to the swimmer on neither side, but may be stemmed by plunging into the sea a considerable way above the opposite point of the coast which the swimmer wishes to make, but still bearing up against it: it is strong; but, if you calculate well, you may reach land. My own experience, and that of others, bids me pronounce the passage of Leander perfectly practicable: any young man in good health, and with tolerable skill in swimming, might succeed in it from either side. I was three hours in swimming across the Tagus, which is much more hazardous, being two hours longer than the passage of the Hellespont. Of what may be done in swimming I shall mention one more instance. In 1818, the Chevalier Mingaldo, (a gentleman of Bassano,) a good swimmer, wished to swim with my friend Mr. Alexander Scott and myself: as he seemed particularly anxious on the subject, we indulged him.-We all three started from the Island of the Lido, and swam to Venice.-At the entrance of the Grand Canal Scott and I were a good way ahead, and we saw no more of our foreign friend; which, however, was of no consequence, as there was a gondola to hold his clothes, and pick him up. Scott swam on till past the Rialto, where he got out-less from fatigue than chill, having been four hours in the water without rest, or stay, except what is to be obtained by floating on one's back,—this being the condition of our performance. I continued my course on to Santa Chiara, com

I

prising the whole of the Grand Canal, (beside the distance from the Lido,) and got out where the Laguna once more opens to Fusina. had been in the water, by my watch, without help or rest, and never touching ground or boat, four hours and twenty minutes. To tais match, and during the greater part of the performance, Mr. Hoppner, the consul-general, was witness, and it is well known to many others. Mr. Turner can easily verify the fact, if he thinks it worth while, by referring to Mr. Hoppner. The distance we could not accurately ascertain; it was of course considerable.

'I crossed the Hellespont in one hour and ten minutes only. I am now ten years older in time, and twenty in constitution, than I was when I passed the Dardanelles; and yet, two years ago, I was capable of swimming four hours and twenty minutes; and I am sure that I could have continued two hours longer, though I had on a pair of trowsersan accoutrement which by no means assists the performance. My two companions were also four hours in the water. Mingaldo might be about thirty years of age, Scott about six-and-twenty. With this experience in swimming, at different periods of age, not only on the spot, but elsewhere, of various persons, what is there to make me doubt that Leander's exploit was perfectly practicable? If three individuals did more than passing the Hellespont, why should he have done less? But Mr. Turner failed, and, naturally seeking a plausible excuse for his failure, lays the blame on the Asiatic side of the strait. To me the cause is evident;—he tried to swim directly across, instead of going higher up to take the vantage.-He might as well have tried to fly over Mount Athos.

'That a young Greek of the heroic times, in love, and with his limbs in full vigour, might have succeeded in such an attempt, is neither wonderful nor doubtful.-Whether he attempted it or not, is another question, because he might have had a small boat to save him the trouble. 'I am, yours very truly,

'BYRON.

'P. S. Mr. Turner says, that the swimming from Europe to Asia was "the easiest part of the task." I doubt whether Leander found it so, as it was the return: however, he had several hours between the intervals. The argument of Mr. T. “ that, higher up, or lower down, the strait widens so considerably that he would save little labour by his starting," is only good for indifferent swimmers. A man of any practice or skill will always consider the distance less than the strength of the stream. If Ekenhead and myself had thought of crossing at the

narrowest point, instead of going up to the Cape above it, we should have been swept down to Tenedos. The strait is, however, not extraordinarily wide, even where it broadens above and below the forts. As the frigate was stationed some time in the Dardanelles waiting for the firman, I bathed often in the strait, subsequently to our traject, and generally on the Asiatic side, without perceiving the greater strength of the opposing stream, by which Mr. Turner palliates his own failure. Our amusement in the small bay, which opens immediately below the Asiatic fort, was to dive for the land tortoises, which we flung in on purpose, as they amphibiously crawled along the bottom: this does not argue any greater violence of current than on the European shore. With regard to the modest insinuation, that we chose the European side as" easier," I appeal to Mr. Hobhouse and Admiral Bathurst if it be true or no; poor Ekenhead being since dead.-Had we been aware of any such difference of current, as is asserted, we would at least have proved it, and were not likely to have given it up in the twenty-five minutes of Mr. Turner's own experiment.'

With the following stauzas, which perhaps Lord Byron never surpassed, we close our account of his lordship's first poem of real impor

tance:

And thou art dead, as young and fair

As aught of mortal birth;

And form so soft, and charms so rare,
Too soon returned to Earth!

Though Earth received them in her bed,
And o'er the spot the crowd may tread
In carelessness or mirth,

There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave to look.

I will not ask where thou liest low,
Nor gaze upon the spot;

There flowers or weeds at will may grow,

So I behold them not:

It is enough for me to prove

That what I loved and long must love

Like common earth can rot;

To me there needs no stone to tell

'Tis Nothing that I loved so well.