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 situation enabled me to clear, or at least to make the attempt. I have endeavoured to wave the personal feelings, which rise in despite of me in touching upon any part of the Edinburgh Review; not from a wish to conciliate the favour of its writers, or to cancel the remembrance of a syllable I have formerly published, but simply from a sense of the impropriety of mixing up private resent ments with a disquisition 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. It is hazardous to say much on the subject of Turks and Turkey; since it is possible to live among 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 ever sat cross-legged at a tray or a table. During the carnival, when our English party were masquerading, both himself and his successor were more happy to "receive masks than any dowager in Grosvenor-square. 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, &c. &c. uniformily found in applying to a Greek consul to cash bills, even on the first houses in Pera. With regard to presents, an established custom in the East, you will rarely find yourself a loser; as ong worth acceptance is generally returned by another of símilar 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 thoso Agas who, by a kind of fendal 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 similar 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'Ollison's French; of their manners, &c. 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 capita!. 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. With regard to that ignorance of which they are so genorally, and sometimes justly accused, it may be doubted, always excepting France and England, in wna 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. Jago? I think not. I remember Mahmout, the grandson of Ali Pacha, asking whether my fellow-traveller and myself were in the upper or lower House of Parliament. Now, this question from a boy of ten years old proved that his education had not been neglected. It may be doubted if an English boy at that age knows the difference of the Divan from a College of Dervises; but I am very sure a Spaniard does not. How little Mahmout, surrounded, as he had been, entirely by his Turkish tutors, had learned that there was such a thing as a Parliament, it were useless to conjecture, unless wo 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 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 Caimacam and the Tefterdar taken the alarm, for fear the ingenuous youth of the turban shoul 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 drub. bed 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. AMONG 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 find so few publications on general subjects than that we find any at all. The whole number of the Greeks, 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, skeptical, 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. is no great wonder then that in a catalogue now before me of fifty-five Greek writers, many of whom were lately living, not above fifteen should have touched on any thing but religion. The catalogue alluded to is contained in the twenty-sixth chapter of the fourth volume of Meletius's Ecclesiastical History. From this I subjoin an extract of those who have written on general subjects; which will be followed by some specimens of the Romaic. It LIST OF ROMAIC AUTHORS.* Neophitus, Diakonos (the deacon) of the Morea, has published an extensive grammar, and also some political regulations, which last were left unfinished at hus death. Prokopius, of Moscopolis, (a town in Epirus,) has written and published a catalogue of the learned Greeks. Seraphin, of Periclea, is the author of many works in the Turkish language, but Greek character; for the Christians of Caramania, who do not speak Romaic, but read the character. Eustathius Psalidas, of Bucharest, a physician, made the tour of England for the purpose of study (xápiv pałńoews): but though his name is enumerated, it is not sfated that he has written any thing. Kallinikus Torgeraus, Patriarch of Constantinople: many poems of his are extant, and also prose tracts, and a catalogue of patriarchs since the last taking of Constantinople. Anastasius Macedon, of Naxos, member of the royal academy of Warsaw. A church biographer. Demetrius Pamperes, a Moscopolito, has written many works, particularly "A Commentary o. Hesiod's Shield of Hercules," and two hundred tales, (of what is not specified,) and has published his correspondence with the celebrated George of Trebizond, his cotemporary. Meletius a celebrated geographer; and author of the book from whence these no-· tices are taken. Dorotheus, of Mitylene, an Aristotelian philosopher: his Hellenic works are in great repute, and he is esteemed by the moderns (I quote the words of Meletius) μετὰ τὸν Θουκυδίδην και Ξενοφώντα ἄριστος Ελλήνων. I add further, on the authority of a well-informed Greek, that he was so famous among his countrymen, that they were accustomed to say, if Thucydides and Xenophon were wanting, he was capable of repairing the loss. Marinus Count Tharboures, of Cephalonia, professor of chemistry in the academy of Padua, and member of that academy, and those of Stockholm and Upsal. He has published, at Venice, an account of some marine animal, and a treatise on the properties of iron. Marcus, brother to the former, famous in mechanics. He removed to St. Petersburgh the immense rock on which the statue of Peter the Great was fixed in 1769. See the dissertation which he published in Paris, 1777. George Constantine has published a four-tongued lexicon. George Ventote; a lexicon in French, Italian, and Romaic. There exist several other dictionaries in Latin and Romaic, French, &c. besides grammars in every modern language, except English. Among the living authors the following are most celebrated :-† Athanasius Parios has written a treatise on rhetoric in Hellenic. Christodoulos, an Acarnanian, has published, in Vienna, some physical treatises in Hellenic. Panagiotes Kodrikas, an Athenian, the Romaic translator of Fontenelle's " Plurality of Worlds," (a favourite work amongst the Greeks.) is stated to be a teacher of the Hellenic and Arabic languages in Paris; in both of which he is an adept. Athanasius, the Parian, author of a treatise on rhetoric. Vicenzo Damodos, of Cephalonia, has written "els rò peoobápbapov, on logic and physics. John Kamarases, a Byzantine, has translated into French Ocellus on the Universe. He is said to be an excellent Hellenist, and Latin scholar. Gregorio Demetrius published, in Vienna, a geographical work; he has also translated several Italian authors, and printed his versions at Venice. Of Coray and Psalida some account has been already given. It is to be observed, that the names given are not in chronological order, but consist of some selected at a venture from among those who flourished from the taking of Constantinople to the time of Meletius. These names are not taken from any publication. GREEK WAR SONG.* ΔΕΥΤΕ, παῖδες τῶν Ἑλλήνων καθ ̓ ὄνειδος αἰσχρόν. παῖδες · Ελλήνων ἄγωμεν ; ποταμιδὼν ἐχθρῶν τὸ αἷμα ἂς τρέξη ὑπὸ πιδών. 2. Οθεν εἶσθε τῶν Ἑλλήνων κόκκαλα ἀνδρειομένα, πνεύματα ἔσκορπισμένα, τώρα λάβετε πνοην ; 'στ' ην φωνὴν τῆς σαλπιλκός μου ; συναχθήτε ὅλα ὁμου· τὴν ἐπτάλοφον ζητεῖτε, καὶ νικᾶτε πρὸ παντοῦ. Τὰ ὅπλα ἂς λάβωμεν, &c. 3. Σπάρτα, Σπάρτα, τί κοιμᾶσθε Τὰ ὅπλα ας λάβωμεν, &c. 4. Ο που εἰς τάς Θερμοπύλας εἰς τὸ κέντρον προχωρει, Τὰ ὅπλα ἂς λάβωμεν, &c. ROMAIC EXTRACTS. Ρωσστ;, Αγκλος, καὶ Γάλλος κάμνοντες τὴν περιήγησιν τῆς Ελλάδος. καὶ βλέποντες τὴν ἀθλίαν τὴν κατάστασιν, εἰρώτησαν καταρχὰς ἕνα Γραικὸν φιλέλληνα διὰ νὰ μάτ θουν τὴν αἰτίαν, μετ' αὐτὸν ἕνα μητροπολίτην, εἶτα ἕνα βλάχμπειν, ἔπειτα ἕνα πραγματευτὴν καὶ ἕνα προεστῶτα. Επέ μας ὦ φιλέλληνα, τῶς φέρεις τὴν σκλαβίαν A translation of this song will be found among the smaller Poeins. Δὲν εἶσθαι ἐσεῖς απογονοι ἐκείνων τῶν Ἑλλήνων Ο ΦΙΛΕΛΛΗΝΟΣ. Ρωσσ-αγκλο-γαλλοι, Ἑλλὰς, καὶ ὄχι ἄλλοι, ἀφ' φοὺ ἀρχίσεν ἡ ἀμαθία. ὥστ' ἠμποροῦσαν νὰ τὴν ξυπνήση The above is the commencement of a long dramatic satire on the Greek priesthood, princes, and gentry; it is contemptible as a composition, but perhaps curious as a specimen of their rhyme: I have the whole in MS. but this extract will be found sufficient. The Romaic in this composition is so easy as to render a version an insult to a scholar; but those who do not understand the original will excuse the following bad translation of what is in itself indifferent. TRANSLATION. A Russian, Englishman, and Frenchman making the tour of Greece, and observing the miserable state of the country, interrogate, in turn, a Greek Patriot, to learn the cause; afterwards an Archbishop, then a Vlackbey,* a Merchant, and Cogia Bachi or Primate. Thou friend of thy country! to strangers record Not such were the fathers your annals can boast, Then tell us, beloved Achmean! reveal The cause of the woes which you cannot conceal. The reply of the Philellenist I have not translated, as it is no better than the question of the travelling triumvirate; and the above will sufficiently show with what kind of composition the Greeks are now satisfied. I trust I have not much iujured the original in the few lines given as faithfully, and as near the "Oh, Miss Bailey! unfortunate Miss Bailey!" * Vlackbey, Prince of Wallachia. |