SANTA SOPHIA,

FROM THE BOSPHORUS.

Drawn by D. Roberts, from a Sketch by R. Cockerell, A.R.A.

"O Stamboul!

Though turbans now pollute Sophia's shrine,
And Greece her very altars eyes in vain :
(Alas! her woes will still pervade my strain!)
Gay were her minstrels once, for free her throng,
All felt the common joy they now must feign;
Nor oft I've seen such sight, nor heard such song,
As woo'd the eye, and thrill'd the Bosphorus along."

Childe Harold, canto ii. st. 79.

IN Tournefort's account of Constantinople, he says, "The mosques stand single, within a spacious enclosure planted with fine trees, adorned with delicate fountains. They suffer not a dog to enter; no one presumes to hold discourse there, or do the least irreverent action; they are well endowed, and far exceed ours in riches.

"St. Sophia is the most perfect of all these mosques. Its situation is advantageous, for it stands in one of the best and finest parts of Constantinople, at the top of the ancient Byzantium and of an eminence that descends gradually down to the sea by the Point of the Seraglio.

This church, which is certainly the finest structure in the world next to St. Peter's at Rome,* looks to be very unwieldy without. The plan is almost square; and the dome, which is the only thing worth remarking, rests outwardly on four prodigious large towers, which have been added of late years to support this vast building and make it immovable, in a country where whole cities are often overthrown by earthquakes.-The villages whose revenues belong to the royal mosques have large privileges; their inhabitants are exempt from quartering soldiers, and from being oppressed by the bashaws, who, when they travel that way, turn aside."

The most striking impression made by the first view of Constantinople arises from the peculiar character of its minarets and domes. When presented to the eye of a stranger, there is a novelty and a splendour in their Oriental appearance which leads the visitor to imagine that he is only dreaming of the scenes before him. Of its picturesque beauty as compared with Naples, Lord Byron was no judge, as he had never visited the latter city; many, however, who have seen both prefer Naples, and among them MacFarlane, who says, "a Claude Lorraine would, after the comparison, return with increased adoration to the southern parts of the Italian peninsula."

* Tournefort was at Constantinople in 1702. St. Paul's was not then built.