DUKEUNIVERSITY LIBRARY

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LORD BYRON'S

ARMENIAN EXERCISESAND

POETRY

VENICEIN

THE ISLAND OF

S.

LAZZAEO.

1870

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been those of peace, and their vices those of compulsion. But whatever may have been their destiny - and it has been bitter - whatever it may be in future, their country must ever be one of the most interesting on the globe and perhaps their language only requires to be more studied to;

become morein

attractive. If the Scrip-

tures are rightly understood,

it was Armenia that Paradise was placed. Armenia, which has paid as dear-

ly as the

descendants of

Adamits

forsoil

that fleeting participation ofin the happiness of

him who was creawas in Armenia that the flood first abated, and the dove alighted. But with the disappeated fromits

dust. It

rance of Paradise itself may be dated almost the unhappiness of the country ; for though long a powerful kingdom, it was scarcely ever an indipendent one, and the satraps of Persia

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and the pachas of Turkey have alike desolated the region where Gtod created man in his own image

TO MR. MOORES December 18J6

By way

of divertisement, I

am

stu-

dying daily, at an Armenian monastery, the Armenian language. I found that my mind wanted something craggy to break upon and this - as the;

most

thing I could discover here for an amusement - I have chodifficult

sen, to torture

me

into attention. It is

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a rich language, however, and would amply repay any one the trouble of learning it. I try, and shall go on but I answer for nothing, least of all for my intentions or my success. There are some yery curious Mss. in the monastery, as well as books ; translations also from Greek originals, now lost, and from Persian andSyriac etc.;;

besides works of their

own

people.

Four years ago the French instituted an Armenian professorship. Twenty pupils presented themselves on Monday morning, full of noble ardour, genuous youth, and impregnabledustry.inin-

They persevered, with a cou;

rage worthy of the nation and of universal conquest, till Thursday when fifteen of the twenty succumbed tothe six-and-twentieth letter of the al-

phabet. It

is, to be sure, a Waterloo of an alphabet - that must be said for

them. But

it is

so like these fellows,

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