Page:A happy half-century and other essays.djvu/60

 the public, whose native element was neither splendid nor sweet-smelling, envied the Irishman his softer joys. "Lalla Rookh" might be "voluptuous" (a word we find in every review of the period), but its orientalism was beyond dispute. Did not Mrs. Skinner tell Moore that she had, when in India, translated the prose interludes into Bengali, for the benefit of her moonshee, and that the man was amazed at the accuracy of the costumes? Did not the nephew of the Persian ambassador in Paris tell Mr. Stretch, who told Moore, that "Lalla Rookh" had been translated into Persian; that the songs—particularly "Bendemeer's Stream"—were sung "everywhere"; and that the happy natives could hardly believe the whole work had not been taken originally from a Persian manuscript?

And not of Ispahan only; for in the winter of 1821 the Berlin court presented "Lalla Rookh" with such splendour, such wealth of