Page:A happy half-century and other essays.djvu/49

 Rh poetry; and, like a true man of affairs, knew what it meant to corner a poetic market. He was generous enough to give Moore the tip, and to hold out a helping hand as well; for he sent him six volumes of Castellan's "Mœurs des Ottomans," and three volumes of Toderini's "De la Littérature des Turcs." The orientalism afforded by text-books was the kind that England loved.

From the publication of "Lalla Rookh" in 1817 to the publication of Thackeray's "Our Street" in 1847, Byron's far-sighted policy continued to bear golden fruit. For thirty years Caliphs and Deevs, Brahmins and Circassians, rioted through English verse; mosques and seraglios were the stage properties of English fiction; the bowers of Rochnabed, the Lake of Cashmere, became as familiar as Richmond and the Thames to English readers. Some feeble washings of this great tidal wave crossed the estranging sea, to tint the pages of the New York "Mirror," and kindred journals in the United States. Harems and slave-markets, with beautiful Georgians and sad, slender Arab girls, thrilled our grandmothers' kind hearts. Tales