In this letter he expresses great fear lest his friends should blame his long silence, declaring that, on his arrival at the eastern capital, his principal consideration was to determine what subject seemed most important, and how he might best pay the debt which he owed to his college. Accordingly he had essayed to throw into elegiacs the adventures of his voyage; and after a short breathing-time, had attempted to versify the information which he had collected concerning the manners and religion of the people among whom he was sojourning. It appears, however, that this was not his sole employment, since we find in his Opuscula an epitome of the Mahometan tenets in Latin; a treatise on the superstition of the Turks, in English; translated lists of Turkish words, of Turkish proverbs, of the officers of the seraglio, and those of the empire; together with an English version of a curious history written by Albert Bobovius, musician of the seraglio, relating to a conspiracy in the harem, and the death of the old sultana, grandmother of the reigning emperor. Nor did his labors end here being now in the ancient see of St. Chrysostom, and animated by the religio loci, he diligently perused the whole writings of that most eloquent of the Fathers; whence probably he imbibed a portion of the noble eloquence which pervades those discourses with which he has enriched our literature, and advanced the interests of religion: so true is the opinion of Longinus, that the sublime itself may be propagated, and a kindred soul catch inspiration from the genius of some mighty predecessor.

Barrow next describes to his correspondents the political state of the Ottoman empire; and as he had already drawn a portrait of the French minister, he now with equal ability delineates the character of the Vizir Azem, or prime

minister of Turkey, then acting as viceroy under the reigning Sultan Mahomet IV. who had ascended the throne very young in 1649, after his father, the imbecile Ibrahim, had been strangled by the rebellious Janizaries. This vizir he describes as a man of uncommon energy, though almost a septuagenarian: he had been raised, as is not unusual in Turkey, from a very low station to the second place in the empire; and in the space of two years had, by his wise counsels and great achievements, restored the Ottoman throne to its pristine strength and glory. At this time he had persuaded the Sultan to move his head-quarters to Adrianople, in order to carry on war with greater vigor and alacrity against the kingdom of Transylvania. Barrow, having previously enumerated his conquests, deprecates the storm which seems to hang over Christendom, and rejoices in the diversion which is likely to be made by the great rebellion of Hassan Pasha of Aleppo, who is up in arms with a vast army, demanding, together with many other reforms, the heads of his enemies the vizir and mufti, from whose machinations he had himself narrowly escaped.

With regard to the Greek subjects of the Porte, it is said that nothing new had happened since the execution of their patriarch in the preceding year; an event which bears a curious resemblance to that act of fierce fanaticism which has occurred in our own days.

Parthenius, like his late. unfortunate successor, was considered one of the best men who for a long time had occupied the patriarchal throne; but he was accused of holding correspondence with the Czar of Muscovy, of whom the Turks were extremely jealous, whilst the Greeks looked up to him as the supporter of their religion, and

the expected avenger of their bitter servitude. Very few people considered the patriarch guilty of this crime, but rather thought that it had been forged against him by some persons anxious to supplant him in his high office; since the ambition of the Greek priesthood is excessive even in their abject state. The vizir however, without paying any attention to the circumstances of the case, but rather wishing for an example to deter others from holding communication with enemies of the Mahometan faith, ordered the unfortunate prelate to be brought instantly into a public part of the city, where he was hanged up in his pontifical robes, and exposed for two days to public view.

The absurdities of the Greek religion are intentionally passed over by our traveller; but he notices that gay and festive disposition, which seems to have characterized the nation in all ages. He remarks that their festivals are the only religious ordinances which they observe with alacrity; and under the pressure of a most cruel slavery they retain a cheerful disposition: they sing; they dance; in a word, they play the Greek intirely.

At the conclusion of this interesting letter he pleads several excuses for having absented himself more than three years from his college; but soon afterwards, when he had disposed his affairs properly for his return, he proceeded by sea to Venice, where as soon as he had landed, the ship took fire, and was consumed with all its cargo. Whether Barrow kept any journal of his tour, besides the letters written to his college, we have no means to determine if he did, we probably owe the loss of it to this conflagration; nor will that loss appear inconsiderable to him who rightly estimates the man, his native talents, his

zeal for knowlege, his keen perception of physical and moral beauty. He was no pedant, who pored into the dark recesses of antiquity until his eyes became blinded with its dust; but in him wisdom and learning were united, and enthusiasm was tempered with judgment: with such a guide therefore it would have been delightful to have retraced at greater length scenes of departed grandeur or of present prosperity, to have imbibed instruction from his reflexions on ages past, or from his remarks on the arts, literature, and manners of his own day.

Such loss however must after all be a source only of imaginary regret: we may feel real disappointment that the letters which he actually wrote were not composed in his own language. Excellent as they are, it can scarcely be doubted but that his narrative would have been at once more animated and comprehensive, had he rejected the Latin garb in which he has dressed it. It is impossible for a dead language to give that nice shade and color and effect to description, which genius loves to cast around it. There are many things which it cannot express through a defect of phraseology; and it is always accompanied by a certain labor of compilation which cramps the imagination, and indisposes the mind to the exertion of its faculties. In rejecting therefore his native tongue, Barrow acted like an enchanter, who should cast away his magic wand, when he would invest a scene with beauties not its own. Above all we may lament the taste which led him to compose elegiacs and hexameters, when he might, perhaps in higher and in holier strains, have anticipated that genius who in after ages departed from the same walls, traversed the same realms, and described the same scenes in those splendid stanzas which are his best passport to immortality.

The fault however was more that of the age than of the man. Milton himself fell into it, though he soon saw the propriety of stripping the stiff unpliant drapery of antiquity from off his young and beauteous muse. Admirable as his Latin poems are, who would save them all at the expense even of Lycidas, to say nothing of the inimitable Comus? Barrow however made ample amends for neglecting such poetic strains by the noble prose with which he has enriched our literature.

*

Having left Venice, he made the tour of Germany and Holland; returning to England, as he proposed, in 1659. The period being now arrived when the fellows of Trinity are obliged by their statutes to take holy orders, or to quit the college, Barrow procured episcopal ordination from Bishop Brownrigg, and soon after the Restoration, in 1660, he was elected without competition to the Greek professorship, on the resignation of Mr. Widdrington. This appointment was earnestly recommended by Duport, who had greater pleasure in promoting the fortunes of this promising and favorite pupil, than in re-occupying a chair of which he had been unjustly deprived. In the inaugural oration made by the new professor on this occasion, he takes occasion to celebrate the most illustrious among his predecessors; Erasmus, Sir Thomas Smith, Sir John Cheke, Downes, and Creighton; whilst he speaks of Widdrington himself in a manner that may lead us to suppose him not unqualified for the offices to which parliamentary interest alone seemed to have raised him. But in describing his beloved tutor's character, disposition, and accomplishments, Barrow's genius seems to revel with

• Seven years after the degree of A.M.