On receiving this intimation, which was confirmed by the appearance of a large Ottoman force, the Parghiotes, having held a consultation, sent to inform the commandant, that such being the determination of the British government, they had unanimously resolved, that should one single Turk enter their territory before all of them had a fair opportunity of quitting it, they would put to death their wives and children, and defend themselves to the last extremity against any force, Turkish or Christian, that should violate the solemn pledge which had been given them.

"The English commandant, perceiving by the preparations that their resolution was fixed, instantly dispatched information to the Lord High Commissioner at Corfu, who sent to expostulate with the Parghiotes. When the British officers arrived at Parga, the inhabitants were disinterring the bones of their ancestors from the churches and cemeteries, and burning or burying them in secret places to prevent their profanation by the Turks. The primates, with the protopapas at their head, assured the officers that the meditated sacrifice would be immediately executed, unless they could stop the entrance of the Turks who had already arrived near the frontier, and effectually protect their embarkation. This appeared to be no idle threat, and fortunately means were found which prevailed with the Ottoman commandant to halt his forces: in the mean time the Glasgow frigate, which had been sent from Corfu, having arrived, the embarkation commenced. It is said that the appearance of this brave people, kneeling down to kiss for the last time the land which gave them birth, and watering it with their tears, was a most affecting scene: some of them carried away a handful of the soil, to be a solace in their misfortunes, an inheritance to their children, a memento of their wrongs, and a stimulus to the recovery of their country: others took for the same purpose a small portion of those sacred aslies from their pile, which had been once animated by the spirits of their forefathers, and many carried away the bones which they had not time to burn. When the bands of Ali Pasha reached the walls, all was solitude and silence. The city, as it has been observed, received its infidel garrison as Babylon or Palmyra salutes the Christian traveller in the desert-nothing breathed, nothing moved; the houses were desolate, the nation was extinct, the bones of the dead were almost consumed to ashes, whilst the only sign that living creatures had been there was the smoke slowly ascending from the funeral piles." (Hughes's Travels, vol. ii. p. 203-208.)

Ali became, by this possession, master of continental Greece, from the Attic boundary of Parnes to the mountains of Illyrium. We wish that we could cite the character which Mr. Hughes has drawn of this extraordinary chieftain. We can only select a few features from the portrait, in addition to the other traits which have been incidentally mentioned in the course of our article. The basis of his character is selfishness. He regards all human beings as instruments of his own purposes; no pity or remorse ever touches him, and his very successes are as much

owing to his iron insensibility, as to his talent or courage. His science is that of human nature, and he has well studied every turn and winding of the human heart. He is quick and deci sive, but never abandons his object. The multitude are dazzled by his dexterity; and the attachment of his troops is secured, not more by his own participation in their hardships and their perils, than by the arts which win their confidence, or flatter their humours. No man was ever a greater master of intrigue. It is this, in conjunction with bribes seasonably applied, which has made the Porte so long a willing accessary to his projects. His perfidy is more than Punic. He allures his enemies by promises and outward kindness, and then remorselessly destroys them. Wealth is his idol, and his avarice is insatiable. Not content with his ordinary sources of revenue, he has recourse to the meanest arts of extortion. The great repository of his immense wealth, to the amount, according to the conjecture of Mr. Hughes, of two millions sterling, is a lofty tower, in the garden of his Tepeleni seraglio; but he has an immense collection of jewels, with huge piles of furniture, and all kinds of utensils, pillaged from individuals, and cities and towns taken by assault, or received under his protection.

Still, however, there is a more favourable side of the picture. We perfectly agree with Mr. Hughes that we ought to estimate him with a reference to the habits of his country, and the principles of his religion; and our own experience enables us to add, that a total disregard to the life of man, of which they who have not visited the country can have no conception, is to be observed in almost every act of government in Turkey. There is no doubt that, through the whole extent of Ali's dominions life and property are better protected than in any other part of European Turkey. The almost total annihilation of robbery through that vast extent of country, intersected with mountainous defiles, from which, not long since, hordes of plunderers rushed upon the unwary traveller or defenceless merchant, could only have been effected by dreadful and tremendous punishments. It is to this system of terror, indeed, that the prosperity of Albania, and the contiguous territory, is to be mainly ascribed. Besides this, another circumstance distinguishes these provinces from the rest of the Ottoman empire: no petty tyrants, the great curse of Mahometan countries, exist there. One absorbing despotism swallows up all those inferior authorities, which constitute, in other parts of Turkey, a gradual chain of vexations, exactions, and tormenting oppressions, from the lowest delegate to the supreme authority. Add to this, religious toleration, the effect probably of religious indifference, the establishment of a police, the im

provement of roads, the building of bridges, and many other politic arrangements and wholesome regulations.

Mr. Hughes's residence at Ioannina afforded him copious opportunities of observing the usages of the modern Greeks. They are abstemious, early risers, and generally transact their business before an Englishman takes his breakfast. After a pipe, and cup of coffee, the Greek saunters about till noon, when his dinner is served up to him, which consists in general of boiled rice, vegetables dressed in oil, mutton baked with almonds or pistachio-nuts, pilau, columbades made of olives, thin pastry of eggs, flour, and honey. The dishes are placed separately on the table, and each person helps himself with fork or spoon, or fingers, out of the same vessel. After dinner the females retire to the gynekaios, and the men to their siesta. Visits are generally made in the afternoon, at which pipes and coffee are served to the guests.

Much has been said, we have always thought too much, of the advanced state of literature in Ioannina, and some writers have dignified it with the appellation of the modern Athens. Mr. Hughes, with whose opinion we fully accord, thinks this a violent figure of speech. The mind of the Greek is but just awakened from the sleep of centuries; an oblivious sleep from which the spirits have derived no strength, no refreshment. The untrodden soul (the uxn abaros) is no more. Their literature consists at present only in feeble copies of the ancients. Elaborate truisms, superficial remarks, false and affected turns of antithesis, and epigram at variance with taste and simplicity, seem to be the prevalent style of their compositions. Their talents have hitherto, however, been chiefly exercised in translation, an employment calculated, we apprehend, still further to debase and corrupt their idiom. We can only hope that this is but a stage and resting-place in their progress; notwithstanding the prevailing ignorance and decrepitude of the nation, we may look forward to the period when a race of men, once the most pow, erful and enlightened upon the earth, may be aroused to a sense of their intellectual bondage; and, inspired by the recollection of their illustrious origin, may assert their proper rank amongst the polished and enlightened countries of Europe.

Having thus given a sketch of the contents of these voluminous but entertaining works, we dismiss them both with sincere commendation. Mr. Dodwell's volumes will always be an indispensable part of every extensive library, and a most essential aid to those who are studious of Grecian antiquities;—and if Mr. Hughes, will, in a future revision of his interesting tour, avoid the poetical and turgid diction to which we have already adverted, and adopt a simpler and more subdued style, it will find

its place in all standard collections of voyages and travels; a place which it well merits from the spirit and accuracy of its details, and the learning and industry displayed in its illustra

tions.

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ART. IX-A Vision of Judgement. By Robert Southey, Esq. LL.D. Poet Laureate, &c. 4to. pp. 79. Longman & Co. London, 1821.

MR. SOUTHEY is now almost beyond our jurisdiction. The corrections of criticism can have but two legitimate motives to amend the practice of the party criticised, and to obviate the influence of his example upon others. On the subject of this last poem we think Mr. Southey is decidedly insane, and the cure of literary madness exceeds our art or undertaking. The particular case, too, of this unfortunate gentleman is the more hopeless, as we find him, even in the deliberate mood in which we may suppose his preface to have been written, characterizing the whole body of disapprovers of his new experiment, wherever they are found, by the universal attribute of the duncery ;' see Preface xiv. To aim at correcting the author, therefore, in such a case, would be an attempt warranted by no reasonable prospect of utility; and to oppose the influence of an example so stamped with absurdity, has been rendered quite unnecessary. But the principle upon which the innovation is defended by this original versifier, implies such a lofty contempt of all autho rity, all habit, all that has been prescriptively determined by the ear, all that the genius of the language has for centuries established, and all that has been taught by repeated failures, that it is altogether too much for the temper of Reviewers to be tranquil under so much provocation. But Mr. Southey treats all this as prejudice; and, while he admits blank verse to be a form of metre better suited to the structure of our language, he contends that the fastidiousness of the British ear should be overcome in favour of a metrical collocation of words, which, if not agreeable, ought to be so because it is so in the prosody of the languages of Greece and Rome.

To us it appears that when we say that our language moves awkwardly in hexameters,-when we admit that whether it be from the want of a sufficient variety of termination and inflexion, or from a certain stiffness or stubbornness produced by the crowding of its consonants, or from a tardiness in its flow, occasioned by the frequency of its monosyllables, or from what ever other resistance in its texture and materials, the ears of

Englishmen are opposed to hexameters in their native tongue, and are immediately sensible of something incongruous and incompatible in the union, we say quite enough to condemn the revival of an experiment so often tried in vain. If certain forms of rhythm and versification have taken possession of the ear by long usage; if by mutual coadaptation, and the mellowing effects of time and habit, a language has grown into an harmonious correspondence with certain metrical arrangements (and in what instance is this not so?)-where is the equivalent for all this sacrifice of the habitual predilection of the ear, if it be only to force into use a new and anomalous metre, which can never become agreeable till the very principles of taste and national prosody are reversed.

After all, however, Mr. Southey confesses himself to find the language perfectly unmanageable, and that it absolutely refuses to afford him more than the dactyl and trochee at the end of his line, towards the constitution of his hexameters. The endings of the verses perform the office of designating the metre, while the rest is given up to trochees, dactyls, or anapæsts, as chance or occasion may determine; and thus Mr. Southey appears to intend an improvement of general harmony, by crossing the breed between the Latin and English metres. The whole attempt, however, has most ridiculously failed. The five syllables at the end of the line, on which our poet so securely relies for their characteristic force in deciding the verse, are often contumacious, and are so far from sustaining the weight of the whole line, as to be altogether without buoyancy in themselves, and generally indeed to sink with a sort of alacrity into vulgar prose. To be sure, Mr. Southey does not exact much of the language in the article of rhythm. He puts a certain number of syllables together, which may be comprised in a certain number of feet; and then announces his verse as hexameter, leaving the ear to extract the harmony as it can, as the sign-post painter having produced the human face divine, and written under it The Duke of Wellington,' leaves the gazer to make out the resemblance for himself, that being his and not the painter's affair.

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Mr. Southey himself points out some of the characteristics of our language, which render it incapable of the Latin and Greek hexameter, and among others, that the "feet must too frequently be made up of monosyllables, and of distinct words, whereby the verse is resolved and decomposed into its component feet, and the feet into their component syllables, instead of being articulated and inosculated throughout, as in the German, still more in the Greek, and most in the Latin. This, he observes, is certainly a great defect." Now all these we should have imagined were powerful reasons to dissuade from the undertaking, for com