wicked to a certain extent than vulgar: the fear of that stigma, which operates most powerfully on the most polished state of society, would draw all by degrees into the snare, and the unwary would sell themselves to the gratification of vanity, triumphing all the time in their virtue, because they had received no money. Perhaps the period is fast approaching when the upper ranks of all climates would rather be rid of the troublesome honour of a share in the government. I should be as sorry to live in the South with a constitution, as in the North without one. There can, at all events, exist little chance of freedom, or what would really be emancipation, for the Greeks. They must fall to the share of the stranger, who is little likely to communicate to them that which he does not himself enjoy.

pp. 166-168.

'A single ruler certainly gives much less trouble than ten thousand; and it might admit of a doubt, whether those who enjoy the greatest share of liberty, are, in the every day occurrences of life, half so free as those who are supposed to be the victims of despotism. Whether, for instance, the annual spoliation of a pasha or two, who assuredly deserve it, is half so great a public nuisance as that sort of pretended liberty which is the boast of Geneva, where every member of the community acts as a jealous spy upon his neighbour; watches him out of the town; closes the gates upon him if he is a minute too late; prohibits his theatre; renders his holidays days of sorrow and restriction; interferes, in some way or other, with almost every action of his life; and when at length, worn out with frivolous vexations, he would fly the country, informs the victim of liberty, that no horses are allowed on that day. p. 212.

On that day!' on what day, Sir William? Sunday, perhaps. That were a terrible grievance, inost assuredly, if a learned traveller and antiquary like him, might not command horses on that day. But who can refrain from sympathizing with our Author in this pathetic recital of the sorrows of liberty? Not that any one besides Sir William would have fixed on Geneva as enjoying the greatest share of civil liberty. But there is something exquisitely naive and simple-hearted-a very Wordsworth-like simplicity-in the manner in which he sets off the provoking caution and formality of the Swiss citizens in shutting their gates, and their Presbyterian antipathy to theatricals, against the annual spoliation of a pasha or two.' Sir William is a wag. He knows all the while why there is not more liberty at Geneva than there is: the climate is too far South.

But the unhappy climate of Greece, would seem to be as unfavourable to religion as to liberty. He says:

All hope of reform in the practices of the Greek church is out of the question; for no Greek exists, who would not rather become a Turk, than admit one improvement from any other community of

Christians......It would be easier to convert the whole interior of Africa to the true faith, than one single Greek to the religion of the New Testament. It would indeed be much easier, as more flattering to the national vanity, to reconduct them to paganism, and through that to a new conversion'...... Assuredly no species of paganism would inspire them with such hatred as a slight difference in the most trivial opinion.' pp. 196, 7. 119.

Sir William is here meddling with a subject that he does not in the least understand, which will partly account for his courageous disregard of facts. The rooted antipathy of the Greeks to the Latins, is not difficult to be accounted for. They quarrel with each other every where, at Jerusalem as well as in Turkey; and the hatred is mutual: only, on the part of the Greek, it is heightened by the hereditary sense of injury. With equal truth might it be said of the Latin, that he would rather become a Turk, than a Greek. With equal truth might it be said of the Papist in many countries, that Paganism inspires him with less hatred than Protestantism. And to come nearer home, the conversion of Papal Ireland to the religion of the New Testament, might be as reasonably despaired of, judging from some specimens of the Irish Catholic, as that of Greece. Either in Andros or Tinos,' says Sir William, all ⚫ the Roman Catholics were murdered in one night.' Did he never hear of any Roman Catholic massacres?'

་

But, to prove the utter impossibility of converting a single Greek to the religion of the New Testament, Sir William says:

To suppose that any Greek archbishop will ever sincerely support a Bible Society, the very first effect of which must be the ruin of his own pretensions, would be really too absurd to require a remark, if we had not witnessed the attempts of Protestants, on a visit to Rome, to preach down the Pope himself in his own capital. If a Greek, such as the Logotheti of Athens, has undertaken to be Vice-president of a Bible Society in that city, his office of Consul could not protect him from the indignation it would excite, were he sincere in his attempts. But if there had been any foundation for such accounts, the archbishop, and the Bible Society, the Smyrna Gazette, the "stereotype editions of Greek classics, widely circulated throughout Greece," and the whole series of Humbugiana, which those who have travelled in Greece, read with silent astonishment, but which the enlightened public so greedily devour, must have long ceased to exist; and the Bibles, the mathematical lectures, the 30,000 volumes at Chios, the 700 students, and the angels on horse-back, must have taken their departure to the place which gave them existence, the columns of a German newspaper.' pp. 304, 5.

Our Author has some skill in grouping, but it will be neces

sary to examine his figures in detail. The German newspapers are not the authority on which some at least of the facts rest, which Sir William affects to discredit. He will not, we presume, venture to call in question the veracity of either Mr. Jowett or Mr. Leeves, in the accounts which they have transmitted to the Bible Society; but admitting this, he must have known when he penned this paragraph, that he was sacrificing truth to effect, in mixing up the exertions of the Bible Society with the German colleges.' His attempt to impeach the sincerity of the parties concerned, is base and contemptible. We have to do only with their actions, not with their motives; and the readiness with which several of the Greek bishops have concurred in the translating and printing of the Modern Greek Testament, reflects back the charge of absurdity on its author. But Sir William's hypothetical argument, were it worth any thing against facts, would obviously apply to Greek archbishops as well in Muscovy as in Turkey. Are then their Eminences the four Greek Metropolitans, the four Greek archbishops, and the two lord bishops, who rank among the Vice Presidents of the Russian Bible Society, all incapable of sincerely supporting such an institution? So Sir William Gell may choose to affirm; but then, who is the humbug?'

It is time to dismiss the learned Traveller, for whom, as an antiquary, a topographer, and a draftsman, we feel so high a respect, that we the more regret that he should have set up, in the present volume, for a politician and philosopher. He has undoubtedly furnished a lively and entertaining narrative, embellished with some pretty lithographic sketches of scenery, which furnish matter for interesting description. But the jaundiced view he takes of every thing connected with the Greek natives, renders it impossible to place any reliance on the fidelity of his representations, so far as they are concerned. His account of the Mainiotes, for instance, who are described as in every respect far behind the rest of the Greek population of the Morea, and sunk, beyond all hope of recovery, in ignorance and prejudice,'-by no means tallies with the account given by Mr. Morritt, who states, that they hold the laws of hospitality in religious reverence; that travellers are sure of the most cordial welcome and a safe escort; that their women are treated with respect, and that conjugal infidelity is very rare. Their veneration for the aged is admitted by Sir William himself in the following paragraph, which we transcribe for the sake of shewing how easy it is to give a ridiculous turn or false colouring to the most favourable circumstance or trait of character.

In almost every Greek expedition, on foot, on horseback, or in a boat, this most awkward veneration for hoary locks, yet exists, as in the history of ancient Sparta; and the consequences of the fatal prejudice are in every case delay, and in many, danger. A Greek boat has always some old, obstinate, and ignorant monster on board, whose only merit consists in being unwilling to learn more than his grandfather knew before him; and his fears and idleness are among the most provoking impediments to the voyage.' p. 308.

Such is the dignified, enlightened, and impartial spirit which pervades the book. The journey which it narrates, was moreover undertaken nine years ago; and though Sir William asserts, that few changes have since taken place, and certainly not ⚫ many improvements,' his assertion in such a case cannot weigh much, after the ample proofs we have given of his unfairness and prejudice. The fact is, that a great part of his statements rest on private communications, rather than on local knowledge. The volume is full of general assertions, but extremely barren of facts; full of sneers at Greek liberty and the Bible Society, and of ominous predictions, already falsified by recent events, but utterly destitute of any solid or important information. It is dedicated to Lady Drummond, whose munificence, by a strange typographical blunder, is stated to have protected the Author in success-we presume, sickness. We should have recommended Sir William to dedicate it to the memory of Lord Londonderry. He would have approved of the work.

Happily, the cause of the Greeks is not likely materially to suffer from Sir William's defection; it can dispense with him as an auxiliary. We transcribe from Dr. Chatfield's pamphlet, the following statement of their recent successes, communicated by a Grecian friend.'.

The Greeks, during the last two years, with few mercantile vessels, and as it were to say, with two or three rounds of cartridges, have emancipated all Peloponnesus, with the exception of four fortresses, namely, Modon, Coron, Patras, and Corinth, and these two last, in a few days, will surrender. Napoli, the principal fortress in the Morea, surrendered the 30th November last. Crete is entirely free, with the exception of one single fortress, which still remains in the hands of the enemy. All Boeotia is free,-likewise Phocis, Locris, Etolia, Acarnania; and in Euboea, one fortress only remains, which is besieged by the Greeks. All the islands which are called the Cyclades, are free, with the exception of Cyprus and Rhodes; and the flag of our nation floats every where on the sea. The vessels of the Speziots, Psariots, Hydriots, Cassiots, and Samians, carrying only from 10 to 24 guns, have terrified the Great Fleet of the Sultan, and have expelled it from the Mediterranean. The Turkish fleet cannot sail out of the Dardanelles. Twice the fleet of the Sultan

ventured out, and twice it returned with great damage and disgrace, without being able to give the least assistance to the besieged fortresses-and so much for the Grecian affairs by sea. As to those by land, the commander of Romelia, Churchid Pacha, (Xougon's Todas) last August, sent several Pachas by the way of Thermopyla, with 33,000 troops. But, what have they done? They have been all destroyed by the Greeks under the new Leonidas, General Nicetas; and the remains of the army, about 6,000, escaped by flight to Corinth, and are now perishing by famine, and on the point of surrendering. Attica is entirely free; and the Greek banner floats on her citadel. From the part of Albania, four Pachas went against Acarnania, with 12,000 troops, the best chosen of Albania and of all Turkey, having several pieces of field artillery and mortars, and they arrived at the ramparts of Messolongi on the 25th December; about the dawn of the morning, the enemy assailed the ditch with ladders, and they suffered the fire of the Greeks for three hours very obstinately; but at last they were obliged to retreat to their own camp, with the loss of 500 men, and as many wounded. On the 31st of the same month, in the middle of the night, they fled away from their camp, leaving all their baggage, viz. thirteen pieces of field artillery and mortars, and an immense number of cannon balls and gunpowder, sixty tents, two of which, belonging to Viziers, were magnificent; and all these, as well as their provisions, many sick men, &c. the Greeks brought in the morning to Messolongi in triumph, having at their head the Prince Maurocordato. After this, all the Grecian army pursued the enemy very closely, and in passing the river Achelous, which was swoln, many of them were drowned, and in short, the Greeks have almost destroyed all this camp. They are pursuing the enemy every where, and consequently are triumphant. All these accounts, which I write to you, are true and authentic; and you can communicate them to your friends without any suspicion of exaggeration, but rather of diminution, because I could not write to you every thing minutely, in order that the actions of the Greeks may not appear incredible, because they have done this, I repeat it again, with two or three rounds of cartridges. Now, however, they have pieces of artillery and mortars, which they have found in the enemy's camps, and in the fortresses which they have taken. They have organized a corps of 800 men: these are certainly few; but where is the money to organize more? If they had had a regular army of 10,000 men, they might have been now in Thrace, and could have done great things, and they would have shewn the pretended powerful Sultan what he really is.

'The Grecian fleet consists of one hundred and fifty vessels, the largest of them carry 24 guns. The land army of the Greeks are 50,000, under skilful generals, and brave, but not regular. Colocotroni, his nephews Nicetas, Zaimes, Londos, and others, are generals in Peloponnesus, which is called the Southern Greece, according to the new division by the government.-Odysseus, Guras, Dubiniotes, Metzos, Contogiannes, Caratassos, Scaltzodemus, and others, are generals in the Eastern Greece, from Athens to Zeitouni.