had a serious and imposing countenance; her noble and mild features had a majestic expression, which her high stature and the dignity of her movements enhanced. The day came when all this _préstige_, so expensively kept up, suddenly vanished. Lady Hester’s fortune rapidly declined; her income yearly decreased; in short, the substantial resources, which had, at one time, sustained the magic of her extraordinary domination, were daily forsaking her. The Queen of Palmyra then fell back into the rank of mere mortals, and she who had signed absolute firmans, enabling the traveller to visit in security the regions of Palmyra—she, whose authority the Sublime Porte had tacitly acknowledged—soon saw her people disown her omnipotency. She was left the title of queen, but it was but an empty name, a mere recollection; and again the monastery’s silence ruled over the solitude of Djouni. A queen, stripped of her glory of a day, Lady Hester Stanhope has expired, the sport of fate, at the moment the East is convulsed. She has expired in obscurity and loneliness, without even mingling her name with the great events of which it is now the theatre.” All this, if no exaggeration had been employed, might have served to the excitation of a smile: but the matter did not rest there. Lady Hester, or the Princess, as she was styled, having given to the Sheik an absurd paper of authority, no one is permitted to visit Palmyra without paying a thousand piastres! “The consequence of which is,” says Mr. Carne, “several travellers have left Syria without seeing the finest ruins in the world[73].” NO. XI.—PATRÆ. “Night overtook us,” says Mr. Williams, “before we reached Patras, anciently called Patræ. But such a night! the moon was in full splendour; and while we travelled among the mysterious scenes, we were often tempted to pause and ask what could be those shadowy towers, that were perpetually arresting our attention? Nothing could be more pleasing or more romantic, than the winding of our cavalry among the projecting rocks and dismal hollows, when first a gleam of light prevailed, and then a solemn darkness veiled and softened all in sweet composure. The glow-worms, peeping from the bushes, seemed like fairies’ eyes; fireflies glanced in thousands, like the sun’s bright rays stealing on rippling waters in ebon shade; and how divine the evening star appeared, tipping the dark chain of Mount Olonos! The blackbird, too, with its train of dear associations, awakened our peculiar interest. All seemed, by their look of delight to say, ‘Sing on, sweet bird! and tell us of our absent friends and beloved country!’” Patræ was a town of Peloponnesus, anciently called AROE. Diana had a temple there, and a statue formed of ivory and gold, which was considered a masterpiece. Apollo also had a temple, in which was a statue of the god, raised by Icadius.