The Sun.
London, England, 1852-06-28 00:00:00

THE

ELIOT WARBURTON.

Snatched from the world by en eppallieg disaster,"
Eliot Warburton has left bellied him the meince4 of
an amiable and accomplished gentleman, the reputa-
tion of an intelligent annotator, and the finse of the-
most delightful of ail our oriental travellers As a
writer of fiction we cannot but regard his eeepularity
as peculiarly characterised: by eVantscenee As a
biographer he will long be retnembered for. that col-
lation of manuscripts relating to one of the most
chivalrous, as it was also one of the most momentous
epochs in our history, which. has rendered luminous
incidents hitherto blackened by prejudice, and which
indicated the nobler traits of a character until then
darkened by calumny or shrouded •by misre-
presentation. As a deliveator of life and
scenery in the East he must alWays be recognised
as a writer Ritter/ with peculiarities unrivalled in their
combination. With a keen perception: of the
humorous, he united a winning and gracefal send-
bility. He wandered through t.; land:iccpesof Asia
Minor with the heart of a poet, and with the 6,e of a
sportsman. His descriptions were thus 'eniinently
matter-of-fact in their precision and exactitude,
the driest of their details were coloured by the vivi-
fying glow cf his imagination. The ground traversed
by Warburton was marked out like a chart in his
narrative with all the minuteness of Mercator, but it
was sulfated at the same time with tali the diaphonous
atmosphere and exquisite dyes of Lorraine. It was
a peculiarly happy thought, therefore, which an-
nounced upon the title-passe of his earliest composi-
tion, that Romance and title-page
were therein the
contrasting themes depicted together. A better
guide-book, or one calculated to prove more-
practically useful on emergency, was un-
doubtedly never penned than the very volunia
which surpassed all others in. its homage for the sub;
lime and its love for the beautiful in those lands
abounding with sublime and beautiful associations.
With the remembrance of his few but estimable con-
tributions to the literature of our time, there is now
blended the recollection of his abrupt and terrible
disappearance—deepening interest into curiosity and
investing his name with an almost painful fascination.
Eliot E. G. Warburton, born in 1811 at Aughrim,
County Galway, was the eldest son of Major George
Warburtor' formerly Inspectors General of Constabu-
lary in Ireland, by Anna, sister of Colonel Acton of
Westaston, M.P. for the county of Wicklow. De-
scended originally from the old Cheshire house of
Warburton of Warburton and Arley, the Warburtons
of Aughrim were derived from a branch of the family
settled in the Queen's County, and known as the
Warburtons of Garryhinch. ir to a considerable
property in the sister island,- the future novelist and
traveller had the path smoothed before him to that
career of competence which, as with all men of a
genuine nature or an earnest temperament, stimu-
lated instead of enervating his faculties. His scho-
lastic education appears to have been completed at
the University of Cambridge. Subsequently, in the
course of his travels, the ambition to describe to
others the loveliness of that earth he himself so pe-
culiarly and sensitively ci
idle solicitude to obtain someapp
remollinteedn, tamryorreeptuhtlen asan any
man of letters, induced Warburton to venture, in
print, upon the story of his
Peregrinations. In
consequence of this resolution The Crescent and the
Cross made its appearance in
1845, in two small
volumes, recounting, according to their second title,
the " Romance and Realities of Eastern Travel,"
and extending the scene of their narrative over
Egypt and Palestine, 'into the Grecian sea end the
Nubian wilderness, through the ports of the Levant
and the streets of Constantinople, The success of
the work was almost instantaneous. Its popularity
grew up in a night like the bean-stalk of Jack in the
nursery tale, but not one solitary axe of criticism has
since then been raised to fell it even by the most cap-
tious of that class regarded by some as nothing better
than a group of atrabilious curmudgeons—the re-
viewers upon the different periodicals. What was yet
more delightful in this resemblance than even the
accordant approbation of . the press—the narrative
conducted the reader into countries as strange and
marvellous as the giant region of the beanstalk. It
was a Jacob's ladder, leading us up from the floor of
our library in England to the ruins, and the tombs,
and the deserts, and the consecrate 4 places of Holy-
land. "Dithen" has alone, among , all --the other
works descriptive of the oriental wanderings of
Englishmen, displayed any comparable vividness in
the manner of delineation. Perhaps in some respects
"Bother," in regard to the simple quality of vivid-
ness, surpasses even the " Crescent and the Cross," in
spite of its wonderfully natural and picturesque luci-
dity. But in several other particulars the " Crescent
and the Cross" has a manifest and marvellous advane
tage over the brilliant and ornate pages of " Eodim"
Warburton was no scoffer. Humorous though he is
very frequently, his merriment is always " in place"
—he never startles you by a jest in Bethlehem, or
violates all those emotions you adore as divine, by a
saucy sarcasm or a sardonic drollery uttered in the
most sacred localities of Jerusalem—uttered, more-
over, with the impertinence of a coxcomb nod-the
gravity of a philosopher. Instead of this, Warbur-
ton seems, in the very manner of his description, on
entering. Palestine, to " tread lightly," as though
conscious in his heart that it WB3 " holy ground."
Throughout this portion of hie narrative he evidences
a reverential feeling of awe, if he fails to rise always
in tone to the exaltation of religious enthusiasm. Ac
company him where we will, to the moonlit avenues of
Cairo, or to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, or to
that island of Philee up the Nile which appears to be
almost the realization of a dayedream—
" A little lawny islet
By anemone and vi'lst
Like mosaic paven"—
or to the grim and awful heart cf the everlasting py-
ramid—it is always the warm heart of a '.man of
genial nature beatingein the bosom of your guide, not
the frigid and bloodless organ of the cynic. Out of
an insensible appreciation of this comes the'sympathy.
awakened almost unconsciously between the .author
and his reader in the course of this bewitching com-
position—a sympathy so complete that the casual
mention of his illness comes like a .sorrow to you,
as though you had a personal friend in this unknown
traveller. Unlike Kinglake, who is original
rather than winning, and surprises -you into
applause while he fails to- awaken for one
instant the more grateful sentiment of adtni-
rationWarburton charms by his _gentleness
as much as he enlivens by his vivacity; throwing at
the same time over the whole record of his journey-
ing the attractive influence of his intelligent
animation and cf a singularly sweet and
companionable temperament. Towards the con-
clusion of this very testimony of these amiable traits
in his character, he candidly confesses his distaste for
the scoffing spirit now-a-days unfortunately too pre •
valent among our fellow-countrymen, who, " whether
on the mountain of Parnassus, or in the valley of
Jehoshaphat, seem," says he (chap. 31.) "to think
that everything is unreal except themselves and their
sandwiches :" adding—" this is the very triumph of
.objectivity." With a nervous system, whose every
fibre responded to the associations of the scenery,
Warburton had also a. peculiar clearness of per•
ception. He comprehended and .exulted in the
-Romance of " eastern travel," but he .saw none the less
distinctly, and described none the ,less accurately, its
Realities. Wherever he moved in the course .of his
erratic pilgrimage he not merely, like, Goldsmith;
" Dragg at each• remove a lengthening chain,"
by adding a new link of interest in himself at every
footstep, to the electric bond of sympathy uniting his
own with the hearts of those who lingered over the
record of his peregrinations—butt, with his " grey
goose-quill" for a brush, and his ample vocabulary for
a palette, he painted a landscape in a page, and some-
times a vignette in a sentence. The effect resembled the
" Picture-Book without Pictures," though it must be
allowed that the style was somewhat less idiomatic
and somewhat more gorgeous than the simple but
picturesque manner of Andersen. This splendour it
was which imparted that peculiar charm to thet
writings of Warburton, in the abundance of
which- -
be excelled all other travellers, however effluent their
imagination. His similes were always appropriate,e
and 'were squandered about, moreover,in inexhaustible
profusion. How acceptable these were none can pro-
perly appreciate but those who have pondered over the
narrative thus sprinkled alternately 'with dry statis-
tics and flowering illustrations until it assumed, one
might fancy, a fantastic resemblance to an illuminated
manuscript. If he strolled away, for example, into
the classic plain surrounding the Acropolis,: the
author was not satisfied with telling you that " the
Iyisus exists no longer"—conjuring up an exquisite
feature in the panorama, indslibly impressing the
circumstance upon remembrance by adding (c.h.:31.)
_teat " a torrent-like line of oleanders seems still to
fig its course with verdant waves and rosy foinn."
however, of all, his most
was, perhaps,
It was manifest from the
that indication of high
very commencement—in.
conspicuousv e Pleasantry
c _
animal spirits which exhilarates becetisnetihtishapPens
animatedto
be neither aff-2c!ed nor boisterous.
strain be talked of the confusion f the luggage' before
starting in the Oriental steamer from Southampton,
reminding us that while sndet!ery and bullock trunks
were' quite obtrusive, the little indispentables for the
voyage were nowhere discernible, end." remedies for
sea-sickness reserved themselves for the overland
joltue.)h" Expatiating, at another inoinent over the
loveliness of the island of Calypso, and the seductive
calm of its seclusion, be
interrupts our entbuijasm,
like tit 4t of Telemachus, by observing that " a fat gen-
tleman in green spectacles informed us that it was'
the 13°trcrq Bey of Naples," calling it by its name
Pentellaria. Gossiping over the Nile, he nllncies to
the old story of the mythologists that the heart's.
blood of a virgin was annually poured into its cur='