of the customs and usages of the interior of the seraglio, as described in Don Juan, can only be regarded as inventions; and though the descriptions abound in picturesque beauty, they have not that air of truth and fact about them which render the pictures of Byron so generally valuable, independent of their poetical excellence.  In those he has given of the apartments of the men, the liveliness and fidelity of his pencil cannot be denied; but the Arabian tales and Vathek seem to have had more influence on his fancy in describing the imperial harem, than a knowledge of actual things and appearances.  Not that the latter are inferior to the former in beauty, or are without images and lineaments of graphic distinctness, but they want that air of reality which constitutes the singular excellence of his scenes drawn from nature; and there is a vagueness in them which has the effect of making them obscure, and even fantastical.  Indeed, except when he paints from actual models, from living persons and existing things, his superiority, at least his originality, is not so obvious; and thus it happens, that his gorgeous description of the sultan’s seraglio is like a versified passage of an Arabian tale, while the imagery of Childe Harold’s visit to Ali Pasha has all the freshness and life of an actual scene.  The following is, indeed, more like an imitation of Vathek, than anything that has been seen, or is in existence.  I quote it for the contrast it affords to the visit referred to, and in illustration of the distinction which should be made between beauties derived from actual scenes and adventures, and compilations from memory and imagination, which are supposed to display so much more of creative invention.

   And thus they parted, each by separate doors,
   Raba led Juan onward, room by room,
   Through glittering galleries and o’er marble floors,
   Till a gigantic portal through the gloom
   Haughty and huge along the distance towers,
   And wafted far arose a rich perfume,
It seem’d as though they came upon a shrine,
For all was vast, still, fragrant, and divine.

   The giant door was broad and bright and high,
   Of gilded bronze, and carved in curious guise;
   Warriors thereon were battling furiously;
   Here stalks the victor, there the vanquish’d lies;
   There captives led in triumph droop the eye,
   And in perspective many a squadron flies. 
It seems the work of times before the line
Of Rome transplanted fell with Constantine.

   This massy portal stood at the wide close
   Of a huge hall, and on its either side
   Two little dwarfs, the least you could suppose,
   Were sate, like ugly imps, as if allied
   In mockery to the enormous gate which rose
   O’er them in almost pyramidic pride.

CHAPTER XXIV

Dispute with the Ambassador—­Reflections on Byron’s Pride of Rank—­ Abandons his Oriental Travels—­Re-embarks in the “Salsette”—­The Dagger Scene—­Zea—­Returns to Athens—­Tour in the Morea—­Dangerous Illness—­Return to Athens—­The Adventure on which “The Giaour” is founded