antiquity, and to think of her in her modern state; an Englishman who has
always invoked by his vows that liberty, for which you are now making so
many heroic efforts. I am grateful for the sentiments which you testify
towards me; in a short time you will see me in the middle of your
phalanxes, to conquer or perish with you." A month afterwards the
government sent him a deputation, charged to offer him a sword and the
patent of Greek citizenship; at the same time the town of Missolonghi
inscribed him in its archives. For this public act they prepared a solemn
ceremony for him; they fixed beforehand the day--they invited there by
circular letters the inhabitants of the neighbouring districts--and more
than twenty thousand persons arrived at Missolonghi. Byron in a Greek
costume, preceded and followed by all the military, who loved him,
proceeded to the church, where the Archbishop Porphyrios and the bishop
of Rogon, Joseph, that martyr of religion and his country, received him
in the vestibule of the church, clothed in their sacerdotal habits; and,
after having celebrated mass, they offered him the sword and the patent
of citizenship. Byron demanded that the sword should be first dedicated
on the tomb of Marco Botzaris; and immediately the whole retinue, and an
immense crowd, went out of the church to the tomb of that warrior, which
had been ornamented with beautiful marble at the expense of the poet.

The archbishop placed the sword upon this tomb, and then Byron, to
inspire the Greeks with enthusiasm, advanced with a religious silence,
and stopping all on a sudden, he pronounced this discourse in the Greek
tongue:--"What man reposes buried under this stone? What hollow voice
issues from this tomb? What is this sepulchre, from whence will spring
the happiness of Greece? But what am I saying? Is it not the tomb of
Marco Botzaris, who has been dead some months, and who, with a handful of
brave men, precipitated himself upon the numerous ranks of the most
formidable enemies of Greece? How dare I approach the sacred place where