of some translations from the Greek poets, in consequence of the Institute having awarded him the prize-version of Hippocrates "Пlegi vðárwv," to the disparagement, and consequently displeasure, of the said Gail. To his exertions, literary and patriotic, great praise is undoubtedly due, but a part of that praise ought not to be withheld from the two brothers Zosimado (merchants settled in Leghorn) who sent him to Paris, and maintained him, for the express purpose of elucidating the ancient, and adding to the modern, researches of his countrymen. Coray, however, is not considered by his countrymen equal to some who lived in the two last centuries; more particularly Dorotheus of Mitylene, whose Hellenic writings are so much esteemed by the Greeks, that Miletius terms him “ Μέτα τὸν Θουκυδιδην καὶ Ξενοφώντα αριστος Ελλήνων.” investigation, and the payment of some purses to the Divan, it has been permitted to continue. The principal professor, named Veniamin (i. e. Benjamin), is stated to be a man of talent, but a free-thinker. He was born in Lesbos, studied in Italy, and is master of Hellenic, Latin, and some Frank languages; besides a smattering of the sciences. Though it is not my intention to enter further on this topic than may allude to the article in question, I cannot but observe that the reviewer's lamentation over the fall of the Greeks appears singular, when he closes it with these words: "the change is to be attributed to their misfortunes rather than to any physical degradation." It may be true that the Greeks are not physically degenerated, and that Constantinople contained on the day when it changed masters as many men of six feet and upwards as in the hour of prosperity; but ancient history and modern politics instruct us that something more than physical perfection is necessary to preserve a state in vigour and independence; and the Greeks, in particular, are a melancholy example of the near connection between moral degradation and national decay. The reviewer mentions a plan "we believe" by Potemkin for the purification of the Romaic, and I have endeavoured in vain to procure any tidings or traces of its existence. There was an academy in St. Petersburg for the Greeks; but it was suppressed by Paul, and has not been revived by his successor. Panagiotes Kodrikas, the translator of Fontenelle, and Kamarases, who translated Ocellus Lucanus on the Universe into French, Christodoulus, and more particularly Psalida, whom I have conversed with in Yanina, are also in high repute among their_literati. The lastmentioned has published in Romaic and Latin a work on "True Happiness," dedicated to Catherine II. But Polyzois, who is stated by the Reviewer to be the only modern except Coray who has distinguished himself by a knowledge of Hellenic, if he be the Polyzois Lampanitziotes of Yanina, who has published a number of editions in Romaic, was neither more nor less than an itinerThere is a slip of the pen, and it can only be ant vender of books; with the contents of which a slip of the pen, in p. 58, No. 31, of the Edinhe had no concern beyond his name on the title-burgh Review, where these words occur:-"We page, placed there to secure his property in the are told that when the capital of the East publication, and he was, moreover, a man utterly yielded to Solyman."-It may be presumed that destitute of scholastic acquirements. As the name, this last word will, in a future edition, be alterhowever, is not uncommon, some other Polyzoised to Mahomet 11.) The "ladies of Constanmay have edited the Epistles of Aristænatus. It is to be regretted that the system of continental blockade has closed the few channels through which the Greeks received their publications, particularly Venice and Trieste. Even the common grammars for children are become too dear for the lower orders. Amongst their original works the Geography of Meletius, Arch-barous to a proverb: bishop of Athens, and a multitude of theological quartos and poetical pamphlets are to be met with their grammars and lexicons of two, three, and four languages are numerous and excellent. Their poetry is in rhyme. The most singular In Gibbon,vol. x. p. 161, is the following sentence piece I have lately seen is a satire in dialogue between a Russian, English, and French traveller, and the Waywode of Wallachia (or Blackbey, as they term him), an archbishop, a merchant, and Cogia Bachi (or primate), in succession; to all of whom under the Turks the writer attributes their present degeneracy. Their songs are sometimes pretty and pathetic, but their tunes generally unpleasing to the ear of a Frank: the best is the famous “Δεύτε παῖδες των Ελλήνων,” by the unfortunate Riga. But from a catalogue of more than sixty authors, now before me, only fifteen can be found who have touched on any theme except theology. I am entrusted with a commission by a Greek of Athens named Marmarotouri to make arrangements, if possible, for printing in London a translation of Barthelemi's Anacharsis in Romaic, as he has no other opportunity, unless he despatches the MS., to Vienna by the Black Sea and Danube. The reviewer mentions a school established at Hecatonesi, and suppressed at the instigation of Sebastiani: he means Cidonies, or in Turkish, Haivali; a town on the continent where that -institution for a hundred students and three professors still exists. It is true that this establishment was disturbed by the Porte, under the ridiculous pretext that the Greeks were structing a fortress instead of a college; but on con tinople, it seems, at that period spoke a dialect," which would not have disgraced the lips of an Athenian." I do not know how that might be, but am sorry to say the ladies in general, and the Athenians in particular, are much altered; being far from choice either in their dialect or expressions, as the whole Attic race are bar «Ω Αθηνα προτη χώρα Τι γαι δαρους τρέφεις τωρα.” "Cadimus inqne vicem præbemus crura sagittis." The mistake seemed so completely a lapse of the pen (from the great similarity of the two words, and the total absence of error from the former pages of the literary leviathan), that I should have passed it over as in the text, had I not perceived in the Edinburgh Review much facetions exultation on all such detections, particularly a recent one, where words and syllables are subjects of disquisition and transposition; and the abovementioned 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 slight ovation for the present. "The vulgar dialect of the city was gross and barbarous, though the compositions of the church and palace sometimes affected to copy the purity of the Attic models." Whatever may be asserted on the subject, it is difficult to conceive that the "ladies of Constantinople," in the reign of the last Cæsar, spoke a purer dialect than Anna Comnena wrote three centuries before: and those royal pages are not esteemed the best models of composition, although the princess γλωτταν είχεν ΑΚΡΙΒΩΣ Αττικίζουσαν. In the Fanal, and in Yanina, the best Greek is spoken: in the latter there is a flourishing school under the direction of Psalida. There is now in Athens a pupil of Psalida's, who is making a tour of observation through Greece: he is intelligent, and better educated than a fellow-commoner of most colleges. I mention this as a proof that the spirit of inquiry is not dormant amongst the Greeks. The Reviewer mentions Mr. Wright, the author of the beautiful poem "Hora Ionicæ," as qualified to 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 Tepaleni (beyond which I did not advance) they speak worse Greek than even the Athenians. I was attended for a year and a half by two of these singular mountaineers, whose mothertongue is Illyric, and never heard them or their countrymen (whom I have seen, not only at home, but to the amount of twenty thousand in the army of Vely Pacha) praised for their Greek, but often laughed at for their provincial barbarisms. the fault is in the man rather than in his mothertongue, which is, as it ought to be, of the greatest aid to the native student.-Here the Reviewer proceeds to business on Strabo's translators, and here I close my remarks. Sir W. Drummond, Mr. Hamilton, Lord Aberdeen, Dr. Clarke, Captain Leake, Mr. Gell, Mr. Walpole, and many others now in England, have all the requisites to furnish details of this fallen people. The few observations I have offered I should have left where I made them, had not the article in question, and above all the spot where I read it, induced me to advert to those pages which the advantage of my present situathe attempt. tion enabled me to clear, or at least to make I have endeavoured to wave the personal feelings, which rise in despite of me in touching from a wish to conciliate the favour of its wriupon any part of the Edinburgh Review; not ters, or to cancel the remembrance of a syllable I have formerly published, but simply from a sense of the impropriety of mixing up private resentments with a disquisition of the present kind, and more particularly at this distance of time and place. IV. 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. It is hazardous to say much on the subject of Turks and Turkey; since it is possible to live amongst them twenty years without acquiring information, at least from themselves. As far as my own slight experience carried me I have no complaint to make; but am indebted for many civilities (I might almost say for friendship), and much hospitality, to Ali Pacha, his son Veli Pacha of the Morea, and several others of high rank in the provinces. Suleyman Aga, late Governor of Athens, and now of Thebes, was a bon vivant, and as social a being as I have in my possession about twenty-five let-ever sat crosslegged at a tray or a table. Ďurters, amongst which some from the Bey of Co- ing the carnival, when our English party were rinth, written to me by Notaras, the Cogia Bachi, masquerading, both himself and his successor and others by the dragoman of the Caimacan were more happy to "receive masks than any of the Morea (which last governs in Vely Pacha's dowager in Grosvenor-square. absence) which are said to be favourable specimens of their epistolary style. I also received some at Constantinople from private persons, written in a most hyperbolical style, but in the true antique character. The Reviewer proceeds, after some remarks on the tongue in its past and present state, to a paradox (page 59) on the great mischief the knowledge of his own language has done to Coray, who, it seems, is less likely to understand the ancient Greek, because he is perfect master of the modern! This observation follows a paragraph, recommending, in explicit terms, the study of the Romaic, as "a powerful auxiliary," not only to the traveller and foreign merchant, but also to the classical scholar; in short, to every body except the only person who can be thoroughly acquainted with its uses: and by a parity of reasoning, our old language is conjectured to be probably more attainable by foreigners" than by ourselves! Now I am inclined to think, that a Dutch tyro in our tongue (albeit himself of Saxon blood) would be sadly perplexed with "Sir Tristrem," or any other given "Auchinlech MS." with or without a grammar or glossary; and to most apprehensions it seems evident, that none but a native can acquire a competent, far less complete, knowledge of our obsolete idioms. We may give the critic credit for his ingenuity, but no more believe him than we do Smollet's Lismahago, who maintains that the purest English is spoken in Edinburgh. That Coray may err is very possible; but if he does, On one occasion of his supping at the convent, his friend and visitor, the Cadi of Thebes, was carried from table perfectly qualified for any club in Christendom; while the worthy Waywode himself triumphed in his fall. In all money-transactions with the Moslems, I ever found the strictest honour, the highest disinterestedness. In transacting business with them, there are none of those dirty peculations, under the name of interest, difference of exchange, commission, uniformly found in applying to a Greek consul to cash bills, even on the first houses in Pera. With regard to presents, an established enstom in the East, you will rarely find yourself a loser; as one worth acceptance is generally returned by another of similar value-a horse, or a shawl. In the capital and at court the citizens and courtiers are formed in the same school with those of Christianity; but there does not exist a more honourable, friendly, and high-spirited character than the true Turkish provincial Aga, or Moslem country-gentleman. It is not meant here to designate 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. 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 similer situation in Turkey. Regimentals are the best travelling dress. The best accounts of the religion, and different sects of Islamism, may be found in D'Ohsson's French; of their manners, perhaps, in Thornton's English. The Ottomans, with all their defects, are not a people to be despised. Equal, at least, to the Spaniards, they are superior to the Portuguese. If it be difficult to pronounce what they are, we can at least say what they are not: they are not treacherous, they are not cowardly, they do not burn heretics, they are not assassins, nor has an enemy advanced to their capital. They are faithful to their sultan till he becomes unfit to govern, and devout to their God without an inquisition. Were they driven from St. Sophia to-morrow, and the French or Russians enthroned in their stead, it would become a question, whether Europe would gain by the exchange? England would certainly be the loser. find so few publications on general subjects than that we find any at all. The whole number of the Grecks, scattered up and down the Turkish empire and elsewhere, may amount, at most, to three millions; and yet, for so scanty a number, it is impossible to discover any nation with so great a proportion of books and their authors, as the Greeks of the present century. "Ay," but say the generous advocates of oppression, who, while they assert the ignorance of the Greeks, wish to prevent them from dispelling it, “ay, but these are mostly, if not all, ecclesiastical tracts, and consequently good for nothing." Well! and pray what else can they write about? It is pleasant enough to hear a Frank, particularly an Englishman, who may abuse the government of his own country; or a Frenchman, who may abuse every government except his own, and who may range at will over every philosophical, religious, scientific, sceptical, or moral subject, sneering at the Greek legends. A Greek must not write on politics, and cannot touch_on science for want of instruction; if he doubts, he is excommunicated and damned; therefore his countrymen are not poisoned with modern philosophy; and as to morals, thanks to the Turks! there are no such things. What then is left, him, if he has a turn for scribbling? Religion and holy biography: and it is natural enough that those who have so little in this life should look to the next. It is no great wonder then that in a catalogue now before me of fifty-five I remember Mahmout, the grandson of Ali Greek writers, many of whom were lately living, Pacha, asking whether my fellow-traveller and not above fifteen should have touched on any myself were in the upper or lower House of thing but religion. The catalogue alluded to is Parliament. Now this question from a boy of contained in the twenty-sixth chapter of the ten years old proved that his education had not fourth volume of Meletius's Ecclesiastical History. been neglected. It may be doubted if an Eng-I have in MS. a long dramatic satire on the lish boy at that age knows the difference of the Greek priesthood, princes, and gentry. The comDivan from a College of Dervises; but I am mencement is, as follows: very sure a Spaniard does not. How little Mahmout, surrounded, as he has been, entirely by his Turkish tutors, had 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. With regard to that ignorance of which they are so generally, and sometimes justly, accused, it may be doubted, always excepting France and England, in what useful points of knowledge they are excelled by other nations. Is it in the common arts of life? In their manufactures? Is a Turkish sabre inferior to a Toledo? or is a Turk worse clothed or lodged, or fed and taught, than a Spaniard? Are their Pachas worse educated than a Grandee? or an Effendi than a Knight of St. Iago? I think not. In all the mosques there are schools established, which are very regularly attended; and the poor are taught without the church of Turkey being put into peril. I believe the system is not yet printed (though there is such a thing as a Turkish press, 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 Caimacan and the Tefterdar taken the alarm, for fear the ingenuous 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 heterodox receive much the same kind of countenance from the Ottoman as the Catholic college from the English legislature. Who shall then affirm, that the Turks are ignorant bigots, when they thus evince the exact proportion of Christian charity which is tolerated in the most prosperous and orthodox of all possible kingdoms? But, though they allow all this, they will not suffer the Greeks to participate in their privileges: no, let them fight their battles, and pay their haratch (taxes), be drubbed in this world, and damned in the next. And shall we then emancipate our Irish Helots? Mahomet forbid! We should then be bad Mussulmans, and worse Christians; at present we unite the best of both-jesuitical faith, and something not much inferior to Turkish toleration. V. Amongst an enslaved people, obliged to have recourse to foreign presses even for their books of religion, it is less to be wondered at that we TRANSLATION. A Russian, Englishman, and Frenchman making The descendants of Hellas's race are not ye! To vilely exist as the Mussulman slave! Not such was your land in her earlier hour, The reply of the Philellenist I have not trans- NOTES TO CANTO III. In "pride of place" here last the eagle flew. [p. 26. St. 18. "Pride of place" is a term of falconry, and means the highest pitch of flight.-See Macbeth: An Eagle towering in his pride of place Was by a mousing Owl hawked at and killed. Such as Harmodius drew on Athens' tyrant lord. [p. 26. St. 20. See the famous Song on Harmodius and Aristogiton. The best English translation is in Bland's Authology, by. Mr. Denman. "With myrtle my sword will I wreathe." And all went merry as a marriage-bell. [p. 26. St. 21. On the night previous to the action, it is said that a ball was given at Brussels. man's ears. For sceptred cynics earth were far too wide a den. [p. 28. St. 41. The great error of Napoleon, "if we have writ our annals true," was a continued obtrusion on mankind of his want of all community of feeling for or with them; perhaps more offensive to human vanity than the active cruelty of more trembling and suspicious tyranny. Such were his speeches to public assemblies as well as individuals: and the single expression which he is said to have used on returning to Paris after the Russian winter had destroyed his army, rubbing his hands over a fire, "This is pleasanter than Moscow," would probably alienate more favour from his cause than the destruction and reverses which led to the remark. What want these outlaws conquerors should have? [p. 29. St. 48. "What wants that knave That a king should have?" was King James's question on meeting Johnny Armstrong and his followers in full accoutre And Evan's, Donald's fame rings in each clans-ments-See the Ballad. And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves. I turn'd from all she brought to those she could After pointing out the different spots where Picton and other gallant men had perished; the guide said, "here Major Howard lay; I was near him when wounded." I told him my relationship, and he seemed then still more anxious to point out the particular spot and circumstances. The place is one of the most marked in the field from the peculiarity of the two trees above mentioned. I went on horseback twice over the field, comparing it with my recollection of similar scenes. As a plain, Waterloo seems marked out for the scene of some great action, though this may be mere imagination. I have viewed with attention those of Plataæa, Troy, Mantinea, Leuctra, Charonea, and Marathon; and the field around Mont St. Jean and Hougoumont appears to want little but a better cause, and that undefinable but impressive halo which the lapse of ages throws around a celebrated spot, to vie in interest with any or all of these, except perhaps the last mentioned. Like to the apples on the Dead Sea's shore. [p. 27. St. 34. The fabled apples on the brink of the lake Asphaltes were said to be fair without, and within ashes.-Vide Tacitus, Histor. 1, 5. 7. The castled crag of Drachenfels. [p. 29. St. 55. The castle of Drachenfels stands on the highest the summit of "the Seven Mountains," over Rhine banks; it is in ruins, and connected with some singular traditions: it is the first in view on the road from Bonn, but on the opposite side of the river; on this bank, nearly facing it, are the remains of another called the Jew's castle, of a chief by his brother: the number of castles and a large cross commemorative of the murder and cities along the course of the Rhine on both sides is very great, and their situations remarkably beautiful. The whiteness of his soul, and thus men o'er him The inscriptions on his monument are rather too long, and not required: his name was enough; France adored, and her enemics admired; both wept over him.-His funeral was attended by the generals and detachments from both armies. In the same grave general Hoche is interred, a gallant man also in every sense of the word, but though he distinguished himself greatly in battle, he had not the good fortune to die there; hie death was attended by suspicions of poison. A separate monument (not over his body, which is buried by Marceau's) is raised for him near Andernach, opposite to which one of his most memorable exploits was performed, in throwing a bridge to an island on the Rhine. The shape and style are different from that of Marceau's, and the inscription more simple and pleasing: "The Army of the Sambre and Meuse to its Commander in Chief Hoche." This is all, and as it should be. Hoche was esteemed among the first of France's earlier generals before Buonaparte monopolized her triumphs.-He was the destined commander of the invading army of Ireland. Here Ehrenbreitstein, with her shatter'd wall. [p. 30. St. 58. Ehrenbreitstein, i. e. "the broad Stone of Honour," one of the strongest fortresses in Europe, was dismantled and blown up by the French at the truce of Leoben.-It had been and could only be reduced by famine or treachery. It yielded to the former, aided by surprise. After having seen the fortifications of Gibraltar and Malta, it did not much strike by comparison, but the situation is commanding. General Marcean besieged it in vain for some time, and I slept in a room where I was shown a window at which he is said to have been standing observing the progress of the siege by moonlight, when a ball struck immediately below it. was the common salutation of French acquaintance.-Rousseau's description of his feelings on this occasion may be considered as the most passionate, yet not impure, description and expression of love that ever kindled into words; which after all must be felt, from their very force, to be inadequate to the delineation: a painting can give no sufficient idea of the ocean. Of earth-o'ergazing mountains. [p. 33. St. 91. It is to be recollected, that the most beautiful and impressive doctrines of the divine Founder of Christianity were delivered, not in the Temple, but on the Mount. Unsepulchred they roam'd, and shriek'd each wandering ghost. [p. 31. St. 63. The chapel is destroyed, and the pyramid of bones diminished to a small number by the Burgundian legion in the service of France, who anxiously effaced this record of their ancestors' less successful invasions. A few still remain, notwithstanding the pains taken by the Burgundians for ages (all who passed that way removing To wave the question of devotion, and turn to a bone to their own country), and the less just- human eloquence, the most effectual and splendid ifiable larcenics of the Swiss postillions, who specimens were not pronounced within walls. carried them off to sell for knifehandles, a pur-Demosthenes addressed the public and popular pose for which the whiteness imbibed by the assemblies. Cicero spoke in the forum. That bleaching of years had rendered them in great this added to their effect on the mind of both request. Of these relics I ventured to bring orator and hearers, may be conceived from the away as much as may have made the quarter of difference between what we read of the emotions a hero, for which the sole excuse is, that if I then and there produced, and those we ourselves had not, the next passer by might have pervert- experience in the perasal in the closet. It is ed them to worse uses than the careful preserv- one thing to read the Iliad at Sigæum and on ation which I intend for them. the tumuli, or by the springs with mount Ida above, and the plain and rivers and Archipelago around you; and another to trim your taper over it in a snug library-this I know. Levell'd Aventicum hath strew'd her subject lands. I know of no human composition so affecting as this, nor a history of deeper interest. These are the names and actions which ought not to perish, and to which we turn with a true and healthy tenderness, from the wretched and glittering detail of a confused mass of conquests and battles, with which the mind is roused for a time to a false and feverish sympathy, from whence it recurs at length with all the nausea consequent on such intoxication. In the sun's face, like yonder Alpine snow. (p. 31. St. 67. This is written in the eye of Mont Blanc (June 3d, 1816) which even at this distance dazzles mine. (July 20th.) I this day observed for some time the distinct reflection of Mont Blanc and Mont Argentière in the calm of the lake, which I was crossing in my boat; the distance of these mountains from their mirror is 60 miles. By the blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone. Than vulgar minds may be with all they seek Were the early and rapid progress of what is called Methodism to be attributed to any cause beyond the enthusiasm excited by its vehement faith and doctrines (the truth or error of which I presume neither to canvas nor, to question) should venture to ascribe it to the practice of preaching in the fields, and the unstudied and extemporaneous effusions of its teachers. The Mussulmans, whose erroneous devotion (at least in the lower orders) is most sincere, and therefore impressive, are accustomed to repeat their prescribed orisons and prayers whereever they may be at the stated hours-of course frequently in the open air, kneeling upon a light mat (which they carry for the purpose of a bed or cushion as required); the ceremony lasts some minutes, during which they are totally absorbed, and only living in their supplication; nothing can disturb them. On me the simple and entire sincerity of these men, and the spirit which appeared to be within and upon them, made a far greater impression than any general rite which was ever performed in places of worship, of which I have seen those of almost every persuasion under the sun; including most of our own sectaries, and the Greek, the Catholic, the Armenian, the Lutheran, the Jewish, and the Mahometan. Many of the negroes, of whom there are numbers in the Turkish empire, are idolaters, and have free exercise of their belief and its rites: some of these I had a distant view of at Patras, and from what I could make out of them, they appeared to be of a truly Pagan description, and not very agreeable to a spectator. The sky is changed !—and such a change! Oh night. [p. 33. St. 92. The thunder-storms to which these lines refer occurred on the 13th of June, 1816, at midnight. I have seen among the Acroceraunian mountains of Chimari several more terrible, but none more beautiful. And sun-set into rose-hues sees them wrought. Rousseau's Heloise, Letter 17, part 4, note."Ces montagnes sont si hautes, qu'une demiheure après le soleil couché leurs sommets sont encore éclairés de ses rayons, dont le rouge forme sur ces cimes blanches une belle couleur de rose qu'on apperçoit de fort loin." This applies more particularly to the heights over Meillerie. |