The air of the Morea is heavy and unwholesome, Monsieur Roque: thus great men have ever been but the moment you pass the Isthmus in the direc- treated! tion of Megara the change is strikingly percepti- In short, all the Franks who are fixtures, and ble. But I fear Hesiod will still be found correct in most of the Englishmen, Germans, Danes, &c., of his description of a Baotian winter. passage came over by degrees to their opinion, on We found at Livadia an "esprit fort in a Greek much the same grounds that a Turk in England bishop, of all free thinkers! This worthy hypocrite would condemn the nation by wholesale, because he rallied his own religion with great intrepidity, (but was wronged by his lacquey, and overcharged by not before his flock,) and talked of a mass as a his washerwoman. "coglioneria." It was impossible to think better of Certainly it was not a little staggering when the him for this; but, for a Beotian, he was brisk with Sieurs Fauvel and Lusieri, the two greatest demaall his absurdity. This phenomenon (with the ex-gogues of the day, who divide between them the ception indeed of Thebes, the remains of Charonea, power of Pericles and the popularity of Cleon, and the plain of Platea, Orchomenus, Livadia, and its puzzle the poor Waywode with perpetual differences, nominal cave of Trophonius) was the only remarka-agreed in the utter condemnation, "nulla virtute ble thing we saw before we passed Mount Citharon. redemptum," of the Greeks in general, and of the The fountain of Dirce turns a mill at least my Athenians in particular. companion (who resolving to be at once cleanly and For my own humble opinion, I am loth to haz classical, bathed in it) pronounced it to be the foun-ard it, knowing, as I do, that there be now in MS. tain of Dirce, and any body who thinks it worth no less than five tours of the first magnitude and of while may contradict him. At Castri we drank of the most threatening aspect, all in typographical half a dozen streamlets, some not of the purest, be- array, by persons of wit, and honor, and regular fore we decided to our satisfaction which was the common-place books; but, if I may say this without true Castalian, and even that had a villanous twang, probably from the snow, though it did not throw us into an epic fever, like poor Dr. Chandler. offence, it seems to me rather hard to declare so posi. tively and pertinaciously, as almost every body has declared, that the Greeks, because they are very bad, will never be better. Eaton and Sonnini have led us astray by their panegyrics and projects; but, on the other hand, De Pauw and Thornton have debased the Greeks beyond their demerits. From Fort Phyle of which large remains still exist, the Plain of Athens, Pentelicus, Hymettus, the Egean, and the Acropolis, burst upon the eye at once; in my opinion, a more glorious prospect than even Cintra or Istambol. Not the view from the Troad, with Ida, the Hellespont, and the more dis- The Greeks will never be independent; they will tant Mount Athos, can equal it, though so superior never be sovereigns as heretofore, and God forbid in extent. they ever should! but they may be subjects with I heard much of the beauty of Arcadia, but ex-out being slaves. Our colonies are not independent, cepting the view from the monastery of Megaspelion, but they are free and industrious, and such may (which is inferior to Zitza in a command of country,) Greece be hereafter. and the descent from the mountains on the way from At present like the Catholics of Ireland and the Tripolitza to Argos, Arcadia has little to recommend it beyond the name. "Sternitur, et dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos." Jews throughout the world, and such other cudgelled and heterodox people, they suffer all the moral and physical ills that can afflict humanity. Their life is a struggle against truth; they are vicious in their own defence. They are so unused to kindness, that Virgil could have put this into the mouth of none when they occasionally meet with it they look upon but an Argive, and (with reverence be it spoken) it it with suspicion, as a dog often beaten snaps at does not deserve the epithet. And if the Polynices your fingers if you attempt to caress him. "They of Statius, "In mediis audit duo litora campis,' are ungrateful, notoriously, abominably ungrate did actually hear both shores in crossing the isth-ful!"-this is a general cry. Now, in the name of mus of Corinth, he had better ears than have ever Nemesis! for what are they to be grateful? Where been worn in such a journey since. is the human being that ever conferred a benefit on "Athens," says a celebrated topographer, "is Greck or Greeks? They are to be grateful to the still the most polished city of Greece." Perhaps it Turks for their fetters, and to the Franks for their may be of Greece, but not of the Greeks; for Joannina broken promises and lying counsels. They are to be in Epirus is universally allowed, among themselves, grateful to the artist who engraves their ruins, and to be superior in the wealth, refinement, learning, to the antiquary who carries them away; to the and dialect of its inhabitants. The Athenians are traveller whose janissary flogs them, and to the remarkable for their cunning; and the lower or- scribbler whose journal abuses them! This is the ders are not improperly characterized in that prov- amount of their obligations to foreigners. erb, which classes them with "the Jews of Salonica, and the Turks of the Negropont.' Among the various foreigners resident in Athens, French, Italians, Germans, Ragusans, &c., there was never a difference of opinion in their estimate of the Greek character, though on all other topics they disputed with great acrimony. II. Franciscan Convent, Athens, January 23, 1811. Among the remnants of the barbarous policy of the earlier ages, are the traces of bondage which yet exist in different countries; whose inhabitants Mr Fauvel the French consul, who has passed however divided in religion and manners, almost all thirty years principally at Athens, and to whose agree in oppression. talents as an artist and manners as a gentleman The English have at last compassionated their none who have known him can refuse their testimo- Negroes, and under a less bigoted government, may ny, has frequently declared in my hearing, that the probably one day release their Catholic brethren: Greeks do not deserve to be emancipated; reason- but the interposition of foreigners alone can emaning on the grounds of their "national and individual cipate the Greeks, who otherwise, appear to have as depravity:" while he forgot that such depravity is small a chance of redemption from the Turks, as to be attributed to causes which can only be remov- the Jews have from mankind in general. ed by the measure he reprobates. Of the ancient Greeks we know more than enough; Mr. Roque, a French merchant of respectability at least the younger men of Europe devoted much long settled in Athens, asserted with the most of their time to the study of the Greek writers and amusing gravity, "Sir they are the same canaille history, which would be more usefully spent in masthat existed in the days of Themistocles!" an alarm- tering their own. Of the moderns, we are perhaps ing remark to the "Laudator temporis acti." The more neglectful than they deserve; and while every ancients banished Themistocles, the moderus cheat man of any pretensions to learning is tiring out h youth, and often his age, in the study of the lan-sert of hiraself, with an air of triumph, that he had guage and of the harangues of the Athenian dem- been but four times at Constantinople in as many agogues in favor of freedom, the real or supposed years. descendants of these sturdy republicans are left to As to Mr. Thornton's voyage in the Black Sea with the actual tyranny of their masters, although a very Greek vessels, they gave him the same idea of Greece slight effort is required to strike off their chains. as a cruise to Berwick in a Scotch smack would of To talk, as the Greeks themselves do, of their Johnny Grot's house. Upon what grounds, then, does rising again to their pristine superiority, would be he arrogate the right of condemning by wholesale a ridiculous; as the rest of the world must resume its body of men, of whom he can know little? It is barbarism, after reasserting the sovereignty of rather a curious circumstance that Mr. Thornton, Greece: but there seems to be no very great obsta- who so lavishly dispraises Pouqueville, on every occle, except in the apathy of the Franks, to their casion of mentioning the Turks, has yet resource becoming an useful dependency, or even a free state to him as authority on the Greeks, and terms him an with a proper guarantee;-under correction, howev- impartial observer. Now Dr. Pouqueville is as little er, be it spoken, for many and well-informed men entitled to that appellation, as Mr. Thornton to condoubt the practicability even of this. fer it on him. The Greeks have never lost their hope, though The fact is, we are deplorably in want of informathey are now more divided in opinion on the subject tion on the subject of the Greeks, and in particular of their probable deliverers. Religion recommends their literature, nor is there any probability of our the Russians; but they have twice been deceived being better acquainted, till our intercourse becomes and abandoned by that power, and the dreadful les- more intimate, or their independence confirmed: the son they received after the Muscovite desertion in relations of passing travellers are as little to be dethe Morea has never been forgotten. The French pended on as the invectives of angry factors; but they dislike; although the subjugation of the rest till something more can be attained, we must be of Europe will, probably, be attended by the deliv- content with the little to be acquired from similar erance of continental Greece. The islanders look sources.* to the English for succor, as they have very late- However defective these may be, they are prefera ly possessed themselves of the Ionian republic, ble to the paradoxes of men who have read superCorfu excepted. But whoever appear with arms in ficially of the ancients, and seen nothing of the their hands will be welcome; and when that day ar- moderns, such as De Pauw; who when he asserts rives, Heaven have mercy on the Ottomans, they the British breed of horses is ruined by Newmarket, cannot expect it from the Giaours. and that the Spartans were cowards in the field, beBut instead of considering what they have been, trays an equal knowledge of English horses and and speculating on what they may be, let us look Spartan men. His " 'philosophical observations" at them as they are. have a much better claim to the title of "poetiAnd here it is impossible to reconcile the con- cal." It could not be expected that he who libertrariety of opinions: some, particularly the mer-ally condemns some of the most celebrated instituchants, decrying the Greeks in the strongest lan- tions of the ancient, should have mercy on the guage; others, generally travellers, turning periods modern Greeks: and it fortunately happens, that in their eulogy, and publishing very curious specula-the absurdity of his hypothesis on their forefathers tions grafted on their former state, which can have refutes his sentence on themselves. no more effect on their present lot, than the exist- Let us trust, then, that in spite of the prophecies ence of the Incas on the future fortunes of Peru. of De Pauw, and the doubts of Mr. Thornton, there One very ingenious person terms them the "nat- is a reasonable hope of the redemption of a race of ural allies of Englishmen;" another, no less ingen- men, who, whatever may be the errors of their reious, will not allow them to be the allies of any body, ligion and policy, have been amply punished by three and denies their very descent from the ancients; a centuries and a half of captivity. third, more ingenious than either, builds a Greek empire on a Russian foundation, and realizes (on paper) all the chimeras of Catherine II. As to the question of their descent, what can it import whether the Mamotes are the lineal Laconians or not? or the present Athenians as indigenous as the bees of Hymettus, or as the grasshoppers, to which they once likened themselves? What Englishman cares if he be of a Danish, Saxon, Norman, or Trojan blood? or who, except a Welshman, is afflicted with a desire of being descended from Caractacus ? III. Athens, Franciscan Convent, Mar. 17, 1811. "I must have some talk with this learned Theban." Some time after my return from Constantinople to this city, I received the thirty-first number of the Edinburgh Review as a great favor, and certainly at this distance an acceptable one, from the captain of an English frigate off Salamis. In that number, A word, en passant, with Mr. Thornton and Dr. Pouqueville, who have been guilty between then of sudly clipping the Sultan's Turkish. The poor Grecks do not so much abound in the good things of this world, as to render even their claims to antiquity an object of envy; it is very cruel, then, in Mr. Thornton to disturb them in the Dr. Pouqueville tells a long story of a Moslem who swallowed corrosiva possession of all that time has left them: viz. their sublimate in such quantities that he acquired the name of "Suleyman pedigree, of which they are the more tenacious, as Yeyen," i. e. quoth the Doctor "Suleyman, the eater of corrosive subliit is all they can call their own. It would be worth mate." "Aha," thinks Mr. Thornton, (angry with the Doctor for the while to publish together, and compare, the works th time,) "have I caught you?"-Then, in a note twice the thickness of the Doctor's anecdote, bo questions the Doctor's proficiency in the Turkish of Messrs. Thornton and De Pauw, Eton and Son-tongue, and his veracity in his own." For," observes Mr. Thornton, (after nini; paradox on one side, and prejudice on the inflicting on us the tough participle of a Turkish verb,) "it means nothing other. Mr. Thornton conecives himself to have more than Suleyman the eater," and quite cashiers the supplementary claims to the public confidence from a fourteen years' "sublimate." Now both are right, and both are wrong. If Mr. Thornton, residence at Pera; perhaps he may on the subject of when he next resides "fourteen years in the factory," will consult his the Turks, but this can give him no more insight discover that "Suleyman yeyen," put together discreetly, mean the "SwalTurkish dictionary, or ask any of his Stamboline acquaintance, he will into the real state of Greece and her inhabitants, lower of sublimate," without any "Suleyman" in the case: "Suleyma" than as many years spent in Wapping into that of signifying "corrosive sublimate," and not being a proper name on this the Western Highlands. occasion, although it be an orthodox name enough with the addition of n. The Greeks of Constantinople live in Fanal; and After Mr. Thornton's frequent hints of profound Orientalism, he might have if Mr. Thornton did not oftener cross the Golden Horn found this out before he sang such pans over Dr. Pouqueville. than his brother merchants are accustomed to do. I After this, I think "Travellers versus Factors" shall be our motto, though should place no great reliance on his information. the above Mr. Thornton has condemned "hoc genus omne," for mistake and misrepresentation. "Ne Sutor ultra crepidam," "No merchant beyond his I actually heard one of these gentlemen boast of bales. N. 3. For the benefit of Mr. Thornton, "Suor" is not a propez neir little general intercourse with the city, and as-name. Art. 3. containing the review of a French transla-logue between a Russian, English, and French lation of Strabo, there are introduced some remarks traveller, and the Waywode of Wallachia, (or on the modern Greeks and their literature, with a Blackbey, as they term him,) an archbishop, a mershort account of Coray, a co-translator in the French chant, and Cogia Bachi, (or primate,) in succesversion. On those remarks I mean to ground a few sion; to all of whom under the Turks, the writer observations, and the spot where I now write will I attributes their present degeneracy. Their songs hop be sufficient excuse for introducing them in a are sometimes pretty and pathetic, but their tunes work in some degree connected with the subject. generally unpleasing to the ear of a Frank: the Coray, the most celebrated of living Greeks, at least best is the famous "Acúte muides t☎v 'EMλávш»,” by among the Franks, was born at Scio, (in the Review the unfortunate Riga. But from a catalogue of Smyrna is stated, I have reason to think, incorrect- more than sixty authors, now before me, only fifly,) and, besides the translation of Beccaria and oth- teen can be found who have touched on any theme er works mentioned by the Reviewer, has published except theology. a lexicon in Romaic and French, if I may trust the I am intrusted with a commission by a Greek of assurance of some Danish travellers lately arrived Athens, named Marmarotouri, to make arrangefrom Paris; but the latest we have seen here in ments, if possible, for printing in London a transFrench and Greek is that of Gregory Zolihogloou. lation of Barthelemi's Anacharsis in Romaic, as he Coray has recently been involved in an unpleasant has no other opportunity, unless he despatches the controversy with M. Gail,† a Parisian commentator MS. to Vienna by the Black Sea and Danube. and editor of some translations from the Greek The Reviewer mentions a school established at poets, in consequence of the Institute having Hecatonesi, and suppressed at the instigation of awarded him the prize for his version of Hippocrates Sebastiani: he means Cidonies, or, in Turkish, "Пɛoì údúrwy," &c., to the disparagement, and con- Haivali; a town on the continent, where that instisequently displeasure of the said Gail. To his ex-tution for a hundred students and three professors ertions literary and patriotic great praise is un- still exists. It is true that this establishment was doubtedly due, but a part of that praise ought not disturbed by the Porte, under the ridiculous pretext to be withheld from the two brothers Zosimado, that the Greeks were constructing a fortress instead (merchants settled in Leghorn,) who sent him to of a college; but, on investigation, and the payParis, and maintained him for the express purpose ment of some purses to the Divan, it has been perof elucidating the ancient, and adding to the mod-mitted to continue. The principal professor, named ern, researches of his countrymen. Coray, how- Ueniamin, (i. e. Benjamin,) is stated to be a man ever, is not considered by his countrymen equal to of talent, but a free thinker. He was born in Lessome who lived in the two last centuries; more par- bos, studied in Italy, and is master of Hellenic, Sicularly Dorotheus of Mitylene, whose Hellenic Latin, and some Frank languages; besides a smatwritings are so much esteemed by the Greeks that tering of the sciences. Meletius terms him, “ Μετὰ τὸν Θουκυδίδην καὶ Ξενο púvra ǎpistos 'EXÀńvwv.” (P. 224 Ecclesiastical History, vol. 4.) Though it is not my intention to enter farther on this topic than may allude to the article in question, I cannot but observe that the Reviewer's lamentaPanagiotes, Kodrikas, the translator of Fonte- tion over the fall of the Greeks appears singular, nelle, and Kamarases, who translated Ocellus Lu- when he closes it with these words: "The change is canus on the Universe into French, Christodoulus, to be attributed to their misfortunes rather than to and more particularly Psalida, whom I have con- any physical degredation." It may be true that versed with in Joannina, are also in high repute the Greeks are not physically degenerated, and tha among their literati. The last-mentioned has pub- Constantinople contained, on the day it changed lished in Romaic and Latin a work on "True Hap- masters, as many men of six feet and upwards as in piness," dedicated to Catherine II. But Polyzois, the hour of prosperity; but ancient history and who is stated by the Reviewer to be the only mod- modern politics instruct us that something more ern except Coray who has distinguished himself by than physical perfection is necessary to preserve a a knowledge of Hellenic, if he be the Polyzois Lam-state in vigor and independence; and the Greeks, panitziotes of Yanina, who has published a number in particular, are a melancholy example of the near of editions in Romaic, was neither more nor less connection between moral degredation and national than an itinerant vender of books; with the con- decay. tents of which he had no concern beyond his name The Reviewer mentions a plan "we believe" by on the title-page, placed there to secure his prop- Potemkin for the purification of the Romaic, and I erty in the publication; and he was, moreover, a have endeavored in vain to procure any tidings or man utterly destitute of scholastic acquirements. traces of its existence. There was an academy in As the name, however, is not uncommon, some St. Petersburgh for the Greeks; but it was supother Polyzois may have edited the Epistles of Aris-pressed by Paul, and has not been revived by his tænetus. successor. It is be regretted that the system of continental There is a slip of the pen, and it can only be a blockade has closed the few channels through which slip of the pen, in p. 58, No. 31, of the Edinburgh the Greeks received their publications, particularly Review, where these words occur:-"We are told Venice and Trieste. Even the common grammars that when the capital of the East yielded to Soly. for children are become too dear for the lower orders. man"-it may be presumed that this last word will, Amongst their original works the Geography of in a future edition, be altered to Mahomet II.*--Meletius, Archbishop of Athens, and a multitude means a fille." Query,-Was it in Scotland that the young gcutlemen of of theological quartos and poetical pamphlets, are In a former number of the Edinburgh Review, 1909, it is observed: to be met with; their grammars and lexicons of "Lord Byron passed some of his early years in Scotland, where he might two, three, and four languages, are numerous and have learned that pibroch does not mean a bagpipe, any more than duet excellent. Their poetry is in rhyme. The most the Edinburgh Review learned that Solyman means Mahomet II. any more singular piece I have lately seen is a satire in dia- than criticisin means infallibility?—but thus it is, "Cadimus inque vicem præbemus crura sagittis." • 1 have in my possession an excellent Lexicon 7ptyλwooop' which 1 The mistake seemed so completely a lapse of the pen (from the great simi received in exchange from S. G-, Esq., for a sinall gem: my antiquarian larity of the two words, and the total absence of error from the former friends have never forgotten it, or forgiven me. pages of the literary leviathan) that I should have passed it over as m the text, had I not perceived in the Edinburgh Review much fictious exaltation on all such detections, particularly a recent one, where words and syllables † in Gail's pamphlet against Coray, he talks of "throwing the insolent Helleniste out of the windows." On this a French critic exclaims, “Ah, my God! throw an Helleniste out of the window! what sacrilege!" It certainly are subjects of disquisition and transposition; and the above-mentioned would be a serious business for those authors who dwell in the attics: but 1 have quoted the passage merely to prove the similarity of style among the controversialists of all polished countries; London or Edinburgh could hardly parallel this l'arisa ebullition. parallel passage in my own case irresistibly propelled me to hint how much easier it is to be critical than correct. The gentlemen, having enjoyed many a triumph on such victories, will hardly begrudge me a sight ovation for the present. the ladies of Constantinople," it seems, at that "Auchinleck MS." with or without a grammar or period spoke a dialect, "which would not have dis-glossary; and to most apprehensions it seems graced the lips of an Athenian " I do not know evident that none but a native can acquire a comhow that might be, but am sorry to say the ladies petent, far less complete, knowledge of our obsolete in general, and the Athenians in particular, are idioms. We may give the critic credit for his much altered; being far from choice either in their ingenuity, but no more believe him than we do dialect or expressions, as the whole Attic race are Smollet's Lismahago, who maintains that the barbarous to a proverb: « Ω Αθηνα προτη χώρα Τι γαιδαρους τρέφεις τωρα.” That purest English is spoken in Edinburgh. In Gibbon, vol. x. page 161, is the following sentence:-"The vulgar dialect of the city was gross and barbarous, though the compositions of the Sir W. Drummond, Mr. Hamilton, Lord Aberchurch and palace sometimes affected to copy the deen, Dr. Clarke, Captain Leake, Mr. Gell, Mr. purity of the Attic models." Whatever may be as- Walpole, and many others now in England, have serted on the subject, it is difficult to conceive that all the requisites to furnish details of this fallen the "ladies of Constantinople," in the reign of the people. The few observations have offered I last Cæsar, spoke a purer dialect than Anna Com- should have left where I made them, had not the nena wrote three centuries before: and those royal article in question, and above all the spot where I pages are not esteemed the best models of composi- read it, induced me to advert to those pages, which tion, although the princess yλwTTAV SIXEV AKPĪBNE the advantage of my present situation enabled me ATTIKIŠOVGOV. In the Fanal, and in Yanina, the to clear, or at least to make the attempt. best Greek is spoken: in the latter there is a four- I have endeavored to waive the personal feelings, ishing school under the direction of Psalida. which rise in despite of me in touching upon any There is now in Athens a pupil of Psalida's, who part of the Edinburgh Review; not from a wish is making a tour of observation through Greece: he to conciliate the favor of its writers, or to cancel is intelligent, and better educated than a fellow- the remembrance of a syllable I have formerly pubcommoner of most colleges. I mention this as a lished, but simply from a sense of the impropriety proof that the spirit of inquiry is not dormant of mixing up private resentments with a disqusition among the Greeks. of the present kind, and more particularly at this distance of time and place. ADDITIONAL NOTE, ON THE TURKS. The difficulties of travelling in Turkey have been much exaggerated, or rather have considerably diminished of late years. The Mussulmans have been beaten into a kind of sullen civility, very comfortable to voyagers. The Reviewer mentions Mr. Wright, the author of the beautiful poem "Hora Ionicæ," as qualified so give details of these nominal Romans and degenerate Greeks, and also of their language; but Mr. Wright, though a good poet and an able man, has made a mistake where he states the Albanian dialect of the Romaic to approximate nearest to the Hellenic for the Albanians speak a Romaic as notoriously corrupt as the Scotch of Aberdeenshire, or the Italian of Naples. Yanina, (where, next to the Fanal, the Greek is purest,) although the capital of Ali Pacha's dominions, is not in Albania but Epirus; and beyond Delvinachi in Albania proper, up to Argyrocastro and Tepaleen, (beyond which I It is hazardous to say much on the subject of did not advance,) they speak worse Greek than even Turks and Turkey; since it is possible to live the Athenians, I was attended for a year and a among them twenty years without acquiring inforhalf by two of these singular mountaineers, whose mation, at least from themselves. As far as my mother tongue is Illyric, and I never heard them or own slight experience carried me I have no comtheir countrymen (whom I have seen not only at plaint to make; but am indebted for many civilities, home, but to the amount of twenty thousand in the (I might almost say for friendship,) and much army of Vely Pacha), praised for their Greck, but hospitality, to Ali Pacha, his son Veli Pacha of the often laughed at for their provincial barbarisms. Morea, and several others of high rank in the I have in my possession about twenty-five letters, provinces. Suleyman Aga, late Governor of Athens, among which some from the Bey of Corinth, writ- and now of Thebes, was a bon vivant, and as social ten to me by Notaras, the Cogia Bachi, and others a being as ever sat cross-legged at a tray or a table. by the dragoman of the Caimacam of the Morea, During the carnival, when our English party were (which last governs in Vely Pacha's absence,) are masquerading, both himself and his successor were said to be favorable specimens of their epistolary more happy to "receive masks" than any dowager style. I also received some at Constantinople from in Grosvenor square. private persons, written in a most hyperbolical On one occasion of his supping at the convent, style, but in the true antique character. his friend and visitor, the Cadi of Thebes, was The Reviewer proceeds, after some remarks on carried from table perfectly qualified for any club in the tongue in its past and present state, to a para- Christendom; while the worthy Waywode himself dox (page 59) on the great mischief of the knowl- triumphed in his fall. edge of his own language has done to Coray, who, In all money transactions with the Moslems, I it seems, is less likely to understand the ancient ever found the strictest honor, the highest disinterGreek, because he is perfect master of the modern! estedness. In transacting business with them, This observation follows a paragraph, recommend- there are none of those dirty peculations, under ing, in explicit terms, the study of the Romaic, as the name of interest, difference of exchange, com"a powerful auxiliary," not only to the traveller mission, &c., &c., uniformly found in applying to a and foreign merchant, but also to the classical Greek consul to cash bills, even of the first houses scholar; in short, to every body except the only in Pera. person who can be thoroughly acquainted with its With regard to presents, an established custom uses; and by a parity of reasoning, our old language in the East, you will rarely find yourself a loser; is conjectured to be probably more attainable by as one worth acceptance is generally returned by "foreigners," than by ourselves! Now I am in- another of similar value-a horse, or a shawl. clined to think, that a Dutch Tyro in our tongue In the capital and at court the citizens and (albeit himself of Saxon blood) would be sadly courtiers are formed in the same school with those perplexed with "Sir Tristrem," or any other given of Christianity; but there does not exist a more honorable, friendly, and high spirited character mans, and worse Christians; at present we unite the than the true Turkish provincial Aga, or Moslem best of both-jesuitical faith, and something not country gentleman. It is not meant here to desig- much inferior to Turkish toleration. nate the governors of towns, but those Agas who, by a kind of feudal tenure, possess lands and houses, of more or less extent in Greece and Asia Minor. APPENDIX. The lower orders are in as tolerable discipline as the rabble in countries with greater pretensions to civilization. A Moslem, in walking the streets of our country-towns, would be more incommoded in England than a Frank in a similar situation in AMONG an enslaved people, obliged to have reTurkey. Regimentals are the best travelling dress. course to foreign presses even for their books of reThe best accounts of the religion, and different ligion, it is less to be wondered at that we find so sects of Islamism, may be found in D'Ollison's few publications on general subjects than that we French; of their manners, &c., perhaps in Thorn- find any at all. The whole number of the Greeks, ton's English. The Ottomans, with all their scattered up and down the Turkish empire and defects, are not a people to be despised. Equal, at elsewhere, may amount, at most, to three millions; least, to the Spaniards, they are superior to the and yet, for so scanty a number, it is impossible to disPortuguese. If it be difficult to pronounce what cover any nation with so great a proportion of books they are, we can at least say what they are not: and their authors, as the Greeks of the present they are not treacherous, they are not cowardly, oppression, who, while they assert the ignorance of century. "Ay," but say the generous advocates of they do not burn heretics, they are not assassins, the Greeks, wish to prevent them from dispelling it, nor has an enemy advanced to their capital. They are faithful to their sultan till he becomes unfit to "ay, but these are mostly, if not all, eclesiastical govern, and devout to their God without an inquisi- and pray what else can they write about? It is tracts, and consequently good for nothing." Well, tion. Were they driven from St. Sophia to-morrow, pleasant enough to hear a Frank, particularly an stead, it would become a question, whether Europe Englishman, who may abuse the government of his would gain by the exchange? England would cerown country; or a Frenchman, who may abuse evtainly be the loser. ery government except his own, and who may range With regard to that ignorance of which they are skeptical, or moral subject, sneering at the Greek at will over every philosophical, religious, scientific, so generally, and sometimes justly accused, it may legends. A Greek must not write on politics, and be doubted, always excepting France and England, cannot touch on science for want of instruction; if in what useful points of knowledge they are he doubts, he is excommunicated and damned; excelled by other nations. Is it in the common therefore his countrymen are not poisoned with arts of life? In their manufactures? Is a Turkish modern philosophy; and as to morals, thanks to sabre inferior to a Toledo? or is a Turk worse the Turks! there are no such things. What then clothed or lodged, or fed and taught, than a Span-is left him, if he has a turn for scribbling? Religiard? Are their Pachas worse educated than a ion, and holy biography: and it is natural enough Grandee? or an Effendi than a Knight of St. Jago. that those who have so little in this life should look I think not. to the next. It is no great wonder then that in a and the French or Russians enthroned in their I remember Mahmout, the grandson of Ali Pacha, catalogue now before me of fifty-five Greek writers, asking whether my fellow-traveller and myself were many of whom were lately living, not above fifteen in the upper or lower House of Parliament. Now should have touched on any thing but religion. this question from a boy of ten years old proved that The catalogue alluded to is contained in the twenhis education had not been negleeted. It may be ty-sixth chapter of the fourth volume of Meletius's doubted if an English boy at that age knows the Ecclesiastical History. From this I subjoin an exdifference of the Divan from a College of Dervises; tract of those who have written on general subbut I am very sure a Spaniard does not. How little jects; which will be followed by some specimens of Mahmout, surrounded, as he had been entirely by the Romaic. his Turkish tutors, has learned that there was such a thing as a Parliament it were useless to conjecture, unless we suppose that his instructors did not confine his studies to the Koran. In all the mosques there are schools established, which are very regularly attended; and the poor are LIST OF ROMAIC AUTHORS.* written and published a catalogue of the learned Prokopius of Moscopolis, (a town in Epirus,) has Greeks. Seraphin, of Periclea, is the author of many works in the Turkish language, but Greek charac ter; for the Christians of Caramania, who do not speak Romaic, but read the character. taught without the church of Turkey being put into has published an extensive grammer, and also some Neophitus Diakonos (the deacon) of the Morea, peril. I believe the system is not yet printed; political regulations, which last were left unfinished (though there is such a thing as a Turkish press, at his death. and books printed on the late military institution of the Nizam Gedidd ;) nor have I heard whether the Mufti and the Mollas have subscribed, or the Caimacam and the Tefterdar taken the alarm, for fear the ingenious youth of the turban should be taught not to" pray to God their way." The Greeks also-a kind of Eastern Irish papists-have a college of their own at Maynooth-no, at Haivali; where the Eustathius Psalidas, of Bucharest, a physician, heterodox receive much the same kind of counte-made the tour of England for the purpose of study nance from the Ottoman as the Catholic college from xúpiv μalhoews): but though his name is enumer the English legislature. Who shall then affirm that ated, it is not stated that he has written any thing. the Turks are ignorant bigots, when they thus Kallinikus Torgeraus, Patriarch of Constantinoevince the exact proportion of Christian charity which is tolerated in the most prosperous and ortho-ple: many poems of his are extant, and also prose dox of all possible kingdoms? But, though they taking of Constantinople. tracts, and a catalogue of patriarchs since the last allow all this, they will not suffer the Greeks to Anastasius Macedon, of Naxos, member of the participate in their privileges; no, let them fight their battles, and pay their haratch, (taxes,) be royal academy of Warsaw. A church biographer. drubbed in this world, and damned in the next. It is to be observed, that the names given are not in chronological order, And shall we then emancipate our Irish Helots? but consist of some selected at a venture from among those who flourishes Mahomet forbid! We should then be bad Mussul- from the taking of Constantinople to the time of Meletius. |