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AN ESSAY ON FLIRTS.

DEDICATED TO THE LADIES OF EDINBURGH.

FLIRTS are especial favourites of ours, and we hold ourselves bound, as good knights and true, to do battle for their reputation, at all times, and against all comers. Be it understood that we speak now of Flirts in the restricted acceptation of the term, and not of Jilts, who are immoral, nor of Coquettes, who are heartless personages. The true Flirt is quite a different sort of person.

it that closer search will show him minute, but sure signs of heartlessness.

A Flirt is, however, a dangerous creature: not that she means any harm, but that she unconsciously and involuntarily turns the heads of all who approach her. Boys she strikes down by dozens, wherever she moves. If, while tripping along the street on a windy day, the increasing vehemence of the blast force her to turn away from it to adjust the set of her bonnet, the sweep of her laughing eye to see whether any one observes, and the ready blush when she marks all eyes turned upon her, make captive at least six juvenile swains. In the turn of a waltz, her aerial gliding (vera incessu patuit dea) draws the attention of all. She cannot ask for a glass of lemonade, without making an involuntary conquest. Nay," tough seniors”—men inured to business-are not safe. They look with complacency on a thing so lovely

The appellation is the same with that used to designate a certain sudden, but not ungraceful, mode of unfurling a fan; and if we may credit the tradition embodied in one of our most venerable "Joe Millers," there is some mysterious analogy supposed to exist between the character of the motion, and that of the class of the fair sex | to whom the name Flirt has been applied. A Flirt is a girl of more than common beauty, grace, and amia--with a paternal placid benignity-but longer conversability, just hovering on the verge which separates childhood from womanhood. She is just awakening to a sense of her power, and finds an innocent pleasure in exercising it. The blissful consciousness parts her lips with prouder breath, kindles up her eyes with richer lustre, and gives additional buoyancy and swan-like grace to her motions. She looks for homage at the hands of every man who approaches her, and richly does she repay him with rosy smiles and sparkling glances.

before us.

There is no passion in all this. It is the first trembling into conscious existence of that sentiment which will become love in time. It is the heart of woman venturing timidly to inhale imperceptible portions of that atmosphere of devoted affection in which alone she can afterwards breathe and exist. There is nothing of vanity in it, nothing of selfishness. She thinks not of her beauty while thus triumphantly wielding its spell, any more than does that young greyhound fetching his graceful gambols She feels only the delight of exercising a new born power. She regards not her own indulgence; happy herself, she sees others happy to sun themselves in her smile, and feels yet more happy in consequence. It is the rich gush of young existence that mantles at her Eeart, and overflows in loveliness. Oh! blame it not, nor regard austerely. Like the first blush of morning, it dies away before we can well note its surpassing beauty, and all that is to succeed of after life is dull and tame in comparison.

That a girl chances to be a Flirt at a certain age, is no proof that she is incapable of enduring affection, but rather the contrary. Beauty is the exuberance, the fulness, the overflow of nature. And the richer, the more dazzling the beauty at the moment, when, like a butterfly bursting from its hull, the girl passes insensibly into the woman, the more reason there is to expect a ripe store of affection beneath. It is, indeed, warmth of heart alone that can give the finishing grace to the gay and playful creature we have been describing. If there be beauty, and elegance, and sportiveness, and wit at will, yet the beholder feel himself obliged to confess that there is some charm awanting-he cannot exactly say what, although he feels its absence he may depend upon

and

tion awakens warmer thoughts, and, in proportion as the infusion of the passion is more difficult into such toilstrung thewes, so is its eradication more difficult..

But the danger does not stop here. By a retro-active influence, all this lip and eye homage may well at times turn the head of a giddy and inexperienced girl. This, however, is a danger not to be avoided; and cure we know of none, save a generous, deep-rooted affection, which, sooner or later, is the lot of every true woman. It is beautiful to see the effect of serious love upon the gayest of these creatures!-how completely all their little vanity is melted away by its engrossing warmth. Not that we think love, any more than the feeling we have been describing, an enduring passion. It is only more intense and absorbing. That affection alone is lasting, in which love has, upon further acquaintance, been confirmed by esteem, and which has been heightened by common sympathies, strengthened by the endurance of common trials, rooted for eternity by mutual forbearance. No one, we will be bold to say, has read the romance of Undine without pleasure, and yet we suspect, that to the majority of readers (to ourselves we know) its supernatural mysteries constitute the least part of its attraction. The interest centres in Undine. And what is she? A shadowy type of every beautiful and amiable woman, in the successive stages of her mind's developement-the Flirt, the Lover, and the Wife.

In our opinion, however, the period of flirtation is of very brief duration. It is (we beg our fair readers not to imagine that any improper insinuation is couched under this simile) an ebullition of momentary excitement, akin to that of the pointer when loosened from his chain on a fine September morning. It excites admiration only so long as it is unconscious. The instant a woman plays off these little airs with foreknowledge and predetermination, their innocence is gone. They are to be reprehended as indications of a designing mind. Their exercise is on a par with the use of cosmetics and dress to repair or conceal the ravages of age. Our fair friend has ceased to be a Flirt, and has become a Coquette.

We have already stated that there exists a distinction between these two characters, and that this distinction is

not in favour of the latter.

A Coquette may have been, or she may not have been a Flirt. She is one who envies the success of the other, and seeks to emulate it by acting her character. She is artificial-she has a part to support, and that alone detracts from the worth of any human being. It certainly is our duty to cultivate our powers, even of pleasing, to the utmost, and to check our weaknesses, but this must be done in accordance with the original constitution of our mind-to seek to new-form ourselves according to some favourite model, is to destroy what little good we may have. The Coquette may generally be known by her overacting the character. Her gestures and words come not from the prompting of feeling, they have no internal standard to regulate them, they are false, constrained, or excessive. Her glances are stares, her movements sudden and awkward, her languor overacted. The Flirt attracts us involuntarily,

and we feel that this is the case-the Coquette gives us encouragement. Even a sensible man is in danger from the Flirt-the Coquette inspires him with aversion. The victims of the Flirt's charms never complain, for they know her free from any design upon them-the fools who fall into the lures of the Coquette, accuse her, and justly, of heartlessness and vanity.

The Jilt we have called an immoral, we may add, a coarse and vulgar mind. Jilts are of two kinds those who are incapable of affection, and sell their show of tenderness to the wealthiest; and those who have a sentiment which they call love, but which is transferable at a moment's notice to another. The latter like to indulge in this feeling, but they have no real regard for any one but themselves. They are of those concerning whom it has somewhere been said, that "they love the love, not the lover." In blaming a person of this unamiable class, people are apt to lay much stress upon her inconstancy. This is taking an incorrect view of her character. cares for nobody but herself, and that attachment knows neither change nor decay.

She

cately expanding amid the freshness and dews of a sunny
morning-as the early song of birds, full of futter and
delight-as every thing that is most lovely and evanescent.
We commend to the cherishing of future ages these deli-
cate creatures, who, although they were the plague of our
youth, have been the objects of tranquil and kindly ad-
But such commendation is
miration to our old age.
needless, for there is a charm about them which must
ever command a willing obedience from all young hearts.

LITERARY CRITICISM.

A Map of the Basin of the Tay; including the greater
part of Perthshire, Strathmore, and the Braes of Angus,
with parts of the Mearns, and Fife. From a Survey
by James Knox. Engraved by J. Gellatly. Edin-
The Topography of the Tay; intended as a Companion
burgh. John Anderson, jun. 1831.
to the Map of the Basin of the Tuy. By James Knox.
Post 8vo. Pp. 226. Edinburgh, John Anderson,
jun. 1831.

Great Britain Illustrated. A Series of Original Views,
from Drawings by W. Westall, A.R.A. Engraved
by, and under the direction of, Edward Finden. With
Descriptions by Thomas Maule. London, Charles

Tilt.

1831.

THE advance of spring sets the whole world in motion. In every harbour white sails are expanding to the breeze, and wives and mistresses strain their tearful eyes after the barks which bear from them men in whose breasts the grief of parting only tempers their unruly joy at being freed from winter's inactivity. The swallows are on their way to us; and from the warm shores of Africa, across the Mediterranean, whose rippling billows glance back the sun-over the lofty table-lands of Spain, rising like a camel's hunch, and equally a beast of burden -over the sprouting and wreathing vineyards of France -over the misty olive groves of Italy-high over the snow-clad Alps, the storks are winnowing their way with long flapping wings, to their summer homes, in the villages of Germany and Holland. We have a love for the stork, independent of the classical association and legends of the middle ages, which sanctify his character. He is the only representative of the English country gentleman we have met upon the continent. It is rarely that more than one, or, at the most, two pairs, are to be met in a parish. They have their abode in the village, to which they return regularly with the return of spring. And when we have stood to watch Sir Stork on some glowing, breathless, and cloudless summer evening, whilst the green grass looked golden in the light of the declining sun, stalking along the banks of some brook, lazily wind

Having thus done our best to guard our favourites against popular misconstruction, by pointing out the essential difference between them, and two other classes with whom they have occasionally been confounded, we proceed to complete our task, by remarking upon one or two inaccuracies in the language of common conversation, which have a tendency to foster misapprehension. We not unfrequently hear people say, that such or such a married woman is a great Flirt, or fond of Flirtation. This is a shocking abuse of the term. A married woman whose deportment bears any likeness to that of a Flirt, must either be one who is possessed of a gay and buoyant temperament, but without heart, and who seeks the pleasure of the moment, careless of every other person's happiness; or she is one who knowingly and wilfully lingers on the frontiers of vice, to indulge herself with the con-ing through the meadows, now looking about with an air templation of its charms-one who wants only courage to be wicked. Had Heaven, for our sins, seen fit to doom us to the married state, we do not know which of these two we should have regarded as the greater curse.

Another strange perversion of language is to speak of male Flirts. Male Jilts there are, and male Coquettes in plenty-with sorrow and shame we make the confession. But a male Flirt would be an annomale in creation. Nerve, strength, and manly vigour, are the characteristics of our sex, and they at no period unbend into such a happy and graceful unconsciousness as constitutes the Flirt. It is ours to be attracted; when a man sets about to attract, he reverses the order of nature. He acts a part-and he uniformly acts it in a loutish and ungainly style.

Thus we have discharged, however imperfectly, the task we undertook. We rest the defence of Flirts not upon any desert we suppose to be inherent in them, nor upon any moral value we attribute to them. When young, we loved and admired them, because it is their nature to awaken such feelings. They are as the blossom, deli

of aristocratic dignity, now stooping to pick a fish or frog out of the water, or a young partridge from the land, he certainly brought us in mind of some noble game-pre

server.

But to return to our subject. Now do the German students, from the Alps to the Baltic, don their blue linen frocks, strap their knapsacks across their shoulders, and, seizing each his stout Ziegenhainer, (a favourite walking cudgel of the bursch, of a tolerable thickness at the end pressed upon the ground, and tapering towards the grasp,) sally forth upon their pedestrian excursions. Throughout the land, save in the interdicted circle of the Austrian dominions, you can scarcely enter an inn where you do not meet some of these free and reckless comrades. Their bearing is frank, with a degree of roughness more assumed than natural. They are friends to a deep carouse, and yet such is the effect of their duelling system, pedantic and childish though its details may appear, that there is always a degree of dignified self-respect preserved amid their wildest flights of joviality. Enter intò conversation, and you will find them well-informed

each in his particular department, as theologian or jurist, as medical or scientific student. Their excursions too, although undertaken mainly with a view to pleasure, are always so directed as to further them in their peculiar pursuits.

and hamlet, with a Scotch mist of antiquarian lore. So minute and so accurate is his map, that, as we pore over it, the scenes it portrays rush in all their reality upon our mental eye. Starting from Montrose, where she sits enthroned between the rushing ocean and her tranquil inland basin, we pass Dundee, gorgeous with lights, and resounding with the smashing of windows. We then sail up the river, unendangered by its sand-banks-for, to say nothing of the light draught of Fancy's aerial cobble, Mr Knox has carefully noted the depths at every bend of the river. There sits Perth like her own "Fair Maid," beneath the shelter of Kinnoul Hill. By the way, it is but a scurvy compliment to Sir Walter, Mr Provost, to baptize that tumbril in which recusant malefactors are hurled to the police office, "The Fair Maid of Perth." Think what a shocking anomaly-that the

receive the "Wild Tailor" within her chaste embrace. Whither now? Up the Isla to the "Bonnie House of Airlie?" Or up

The life of a German student is one of which people in this country have no conception. The body of students consists of young men from the age of eighteen to the age of thirty, or even upwards. The usual period of attendance at the university is three years. There are two sessions in every year, and the holydays at Easter and Michaelmas, which intervene between them, are of brief continuance. From the moment, therefore, that one is enrolled as "Akademischer Bürger," one sees but little of home; Indeed, many students never revisit it till they have completed their studies. The German student enters the university as a man, after having finished his element-namesake of the glover's daughter should be doomed to ary studies, in order to pursue, of his own free will, and without the constraint of childish compulsion, those which are to fit him for the career of active life. The moment of his enrolment as a member of the university, is the moment of his emancipation-of the assumption of the toga virilis. He has three years to spend, free from the drudgery of this working world, devoted to the cultivation of his intellect, surrounded by those who, like himself, are feeling their way, but every one upon a different radius, of the great circle of science. He feels himself one of a numerous and high-spirited class, and looks down -with a juvenile, perhaps, but pardonable sense of superiority-upon those who are engaged in more mechanical pursuits. This is the inward sense and soul of a German student, his deep carouses, his fantastic sense of honour, his sentimentalism and enthusiasm, these are but

"the taints of liberty,

The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind-
A savageness in unreclaimed blood
Of general assault."

The literary body of Germany—every member of which is more or less immediately connected with the universities is the soul of that great but disjointed nation. It alone has maintained vitality and a community of feeling amid the dislocation of the empire into a hundred paltry despotisms. And if ever Germany is fated to reassume its place among the nations, it is from the universities that the regenerating spirit will go forth. That the life of a German student is happy as it is dignified, the reader may believe one who has tried it.

By the Tummel and banks of the Garry?" Or higher yet to Bruar Water, hallowed by the memory of Burns, as the streams last mentioned are by that of Hogg, and the noble mansion by the shadowy remembrance of one of our thousand nameless bards, who have died unknown, but left their music on the harp-strings? The choice is too distracting, so we postpone the hour of determination: thanking our friend Knox, in the meantime, for the best and most complete map that has yet been published of any district of our mountain-land; and for its Companion, too, the fruit of diligent and judicious research.

Turn we now to Mr Westall's book, the product of the labour of years, and of a lavish expenditure. It is named "Great Britain Illustrated," and contains fine views in Scotland and Ireland; but it is through merry England that we wish to ramble at present. We have all the respect possible for mountain scenery, to say nothing of oatcakes and barley-scones, goats' whey, and whisky, red-deer venison, salmon, grouse, and the other delicacies of the Highlands; but we can also enjoy, and particularly at this season, the gentler beauties of England. Gentle, indeed, we can scarcely call them, with that ghastly Cavern of the Peak (we are too delicate to call it by the popular name) gaping before us. We have also a faint recollection of having encountered a gale from the seaward, while off the iron-bound coast of Yorkshire, and we remember Cornwall and its wreckers. We know how grim the old lion of England can look when his spirit is up.

"This digression is intolerable." It is indeed, most gentle and impatient reader: but it is the vice of the season. Every plant, instead of growing, as it has done the winter through, with rigid adherence to the naked necessaries of root, stem, and branches, is digressing into fresh green leaves, clasping tendrils, and glowing flowers. The blackbirds are digressing into their summer carols -awkwardly enough at first—in a voice wandering between the cheep of a mouse, and the croak of a bullfrog, but gradually becoming mellower and more mellifluous. And shall the critic, at such a season, be forbidden to yield to the universal impulse? The very goosequill in our hand would revolt against such tyranny, and our peaceful study might be converted into a fac-sed, but still retaining some habits of another clime, sulsimile of Paris during THE THRee Days.

We return, however, to our starting-place. At this period of universal locomotiveness, [have the phrenologists an organ for that propensity? in what nation is it found most largely developed? the Dutch ?] the works enumerated at the head of this article have produced upon our minds an unwontedly pleasing impression. They have at once excited, and in some degree satisfied, our travelling propensities. Knox, the accurate and indefatigable, has put into our hands a map by which we may trace every winding and ramification of every brook that feeds our swelling Tay; and along with it a book full of matter that swathes every hill and brae, every tower,. town,

Still there is a richness, a luxuriance, and a gentleness pervading the southern part of the island, of which ours knows nothing. Would that we were now among the gentle slopes and swells of Warwickshire, as they stretch away into the blue distance! That we stood gazing on the square tower of some village church rising over the thick wood, where the plane-tree is unclasping his fanshaped leaves; and the oak pushing out the red tips of his from the bud; and those of the beech are like rich amber when seen against the sun; while the ash-tree, acclimati

lenly allows his long, dangling branches to hang leafless! On every road the children are coaxing halfpence from the traveller's pocket by the offer of nosegays.

Turn we to Westall for particulars. That is Lancaster rising like a maiden queen, enthroned above the surrounding level. There is Plympton in the leaty shire of Devon, nestling between the wood and the hill, sheltered from the breeze and open to the sun. There is the Pavilion at Brighton, like a collection of inflated air-balloons set upon tea-boxes. We should not wonder were it to fly away some day. There are the scarped rocks which hide from vulgar gaze the infancy of Wordsworth's Dove. That is Manchester, palled in eternal smoke. We can smell it at the dis

Yet even there have we known and supreme judge of all affairs, civil and religious. He tance of twenty miles. Britain's fairest flowers-her women-bloom unsoiled and exempted him from the khavatch, as he did all the other members of the synod, which, composed of twelve metrountainted; and there too does the spirit of free and generous enquiry abound. The Town-Hall of Liverpool-politans, was destined to form the great council of the nation. "All the cadis, and military Turkish governors, had an apt emblem of the solid sense, wealth, and cultivated orders to carry into execution the judicial sentences of the taste of her merchants-the fellow-citizens of Roscoe-patriarch, relative to the Christians of the Greek church; the adherents of Canning-the men whose names and of those of the bishops, with regard to their parishioners influence are heard and felt the wide world over.

But we must close the book. The landscapes and The entowns represented are faithfully portrayed. graving is executed in Finden's best style. Hundreds of years hence, this work will give a faithful picture of Great Britain as she was during the first half of the nineteenth century. It is worth a thousand histories.

Narrative of a Journey across the Balcan, by the two
Passes of Selimno and Pravadi; also, of a Visit to
Azani, and other newly-discovered ruins in Asia Minor,
in the years 1829-30. By Major the Hon. George
Keppel, F.S. A. In two volumes. Svo. Pp. 463,

465. London. Colburn and Bentley.

1831.

MAJOR KEPPEL is already favourably known to the public, and these volumes will sustain his reputation. We were, indeed, tempted to smile at the care he takes to inform us, that "an extra mail-coach leaves Lombard Street for Dover every Wednesday and Saturday, at a quarter of an hour after midnight." And our merriment was noways diminished when we learned that he "stepped on board the packet, with the letters, at ten," the thirteenth of June, 1829, being the thirtieth anniversary of his birthday." But the moment he reaches the scene of action, this trifling ceases, and he shows himself sensible, observant, and urbane. In the passage which we subjoin, he gives us an insight into his motives for travelling and publishing, and they are highly credit

able to him.

on

revenues.

and to assist the clergy in the recovery of their rights and The Patriarch of Constantinople, and all the other metropolitans, were authorized to demand an annual tribute of twelve aspers from each family, and a sequin from each of the priests of the diocese. All pious legacies were declared legitimate, and the Ottomans were commanded to

consider the churches as sacred and inviolable. It was also declared that no Greek should be obliged to abjure the faith of his ancestors, in order to embrace that of the conqueror.

"It is to be observed, that in all this there is no mention whatever of any privileges belonging to the Greek people. Nevertheless, Mahomet the Second, wishing to flatter the Greek nation, declared, by his khatty sherif, that the election of the Patriarch of Constantinople, or of the supreme chief of the œcumenic church, should be made by the representatives of the clergy and of the nation; and that he could not be deposed except by the consent and request of the body which had elected him. This consideration, (as was formerly the case with the Hospodars of Wallachia and Moldavia,) which seemed so favourable, has become a subject of continual dissension among the Greeks, and a source from which the government and its ministers draw abundant supplies to their avarice.

"The first patriarchs received the hazeran, or staff of command, in presence of the monarch, who used to make them a present of a thousand sequins. This prerogative was continued until the time of the patriarch Parthenius, who, led away by ambition and fanaticism, became perjured towards the porte.

"Since that time, the patriarch receives the hazeran in the presence of the vizier; and, instead of obtaining any present, pays a hundred purses for his installation.

"The administration of justice forms one of the revenues of the patriarch, and of the metropolitans. They each exact a right of ten per cent on the value of the object contested, for every cause. The profits of the primate must be consi"I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Cap-derable, since he is obliged to pay seventy purses into the tain Trant, aide-de-camp to Sir Frederick Adam. This treasury for this single source of revenue. "But, besides the products of the permanent revenues, gentleman, a few years ago, published a very interesting anonymous work, entitled, Two Years in Ava.' He has authorized by the khatty sherif of Mahomet the Second, and the great profits which arise from the administration of now appeared a second time before the public, as the author of A Journey through Greece.' His last work, and Cap-justice, the primate is in the habit of demanding twenty tain Alexander's Travels to the Seat of War,' are the only purses from the metropolitans for the fees of installation: he also sells to the subordinate priests the right of exercising publications that have hitherto treated of the subjects connected with the state of Turkey in 1829. I am in hopes their functions. that mine will comprise the third; thus, all the information of this period will have been contributed by three young military men. My own conscience acquits me of vanity in mentioning the circumstance, and I trust that a better feeling will be imputed to me. My object is to induce some of my brother soldiers (of whom so many are unemployed) to follow our example; viz. to travel in a distant country, with a view of letting the world know the result of their remarks. The soldier so situated, would find, that, with ordinary powers of observation, and a little of that enterprise which should form so principal an ingredient in his character, he might make an important contribution to the literature of his country. Even if his success should not equal his expectations, the habit he would have acquired, of examining the features of a country, its productions and resources, and of enquiring into its political state, could not but be highly serviceable to him in the higher walks of his profession."

We have not time to follow the major through all his adventures. But we recommend to our readers a perusal of his work, as one which at once is extremely amusing, and affords a juster portrait of the Turkish empire than any book we have lately seen.

We restrict our extracts

to a few which throw more light upon the state of regenerated Greece, than all the "words, words, words," of Emerson and Blaquiere. Our author thus describes the manner after which the Greeks were held in subjection by the porte.

"In the middle of the fifteenth century, Mahomet the Second established, by this edict, the Patriarch of Constantinople chief of the Greek nation, president of the synod,

"To draw money from a people already overburdened with the weight of the national yoke, and to keep them in a belief which is the sole cause of their servitude, it was necessary to enslave them by governing their minds also. The priests required not the practical virtues of a good man; they wanted the blind faith of an enthusiast.'

"It is from this abject state of mind that the Greeks have been roused, by the means I have stated in the preceding volume.

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"Like all greatness in Turkey, the patriarchate is an exceedingly dangerous acquisition. This functionary is deeply responsible; his conduct is closely watched; and the slightest suspicion of his loyalty followed by banishment or death. The fate of one of his predecessors in office is an example of this: On the 22d of April, 1821, being Easter day, the greatest of the Greek festivals, Gregorios, Patriarch of Constantinople, the head of the Greek church, acknowledged and appointed by the porte, and who had recently issued his anathema against the insurgents, was seized and hanged before the patriarchal church in which he had been officiating; and, as a consummation of igno miny in the eyes of the Greeks, his body was delivered to the Jews, to be dragged through the streets.' This act of violence on the part of Mahmoud, confirmed the wavering minds of the insurgents, and laid the basis of that revolution which has already deprived him of some of his finest provinces, and which bids fair to prove the death-blow to his sovereign power.

"So precarious is the tenure of the patriarchate, that it is said never to have remained eight years in the same hands. To avoid suspicion, the Patriarch of Constantinople does not pretend to the supremacy of the Greek church in emancipated Greece, although the Ionian Islands are still

under his jurisdiction. It is a mutual accommodation between the primate and his former flock, the Morcote Greeks and the Russians, that they appoint their own priests, and that he is released from the suspicion which would fall upon him if he communicated with them as their chief."

The passage referred to in the above extract, is one in which the author describes the reawakening of the spirit of the Greeks, and which we here subjoin. These simple statements go a great length to give us a just notion of the present condition of Greece. The inhabitants are now alive to a sense of what is right, but a long time must necessarily elapse ere they gain steady habits of acting up to their convictions. Meanwhile they are free, and every year of their freedom will help to better their character.

"Before mention is made of the commerce of Adrianople, it is proposed to offer a few observations on the Greeks, to whom this city, as well as most others in European Turkey, is principally indebted for its trade. "For nearly three centuries, this nation, oppressed by the yoke of despotism, participated in the dejection felt by the other rayahs of the porte. Like them, they extended their commerce no farther than the boundaries of the empire, and were content to receive the manufactures of Europe through the hands of the European merchants established in the Levant. This want of enterprise arose partly from the temporal oppression of their masters the Turks, and partly from the spiritual ascendency gained over them by their own priests. This second source of subjugation was effected by the policy of Mahomet the Second, who, aware of the real cause of their weakness and fall, namely, the yoke of the priesthood, determined to cement it by issuing a khatty sherif, by which he invested the clergy with considerable privileges, while the only mention made of the people was directing them to pay and to serve. Hence, like the priests of nearly every country, the Greek papa worked on the superstitious fears of the people, and laboured to keep them in that state of ignorance which should be most conducive to the conservation of his own power.

"Within the last seventy years, they have roused from their lethargy, and have ever since been making rapid progress in civilisation and knowledge. The Greek now began to apply himself to the study of European languages, and gradually to adopt European customs. This gave him a disposition to travel; and the advantages of a more extended commerce developed themselves to his view. He considered, that if he went himself to the places from which the European merchants derived their supplies, he could compete with them in the sale, and obtain considerable profits, even if he disposed of his goods at a price inferior to that of his rivals.

"With these projects, the Greek merchant attended the fairs of Leipsic, Sinigaglia, and Beaucaire: subsequently, even the richest of this people would traverse the principal towns of Europe, living in the most sordid economy, and making extensive purchases, without employing a single agent or clerk to assist them in their labour or correspondence. In later years, they might be seen accompanying their waggons, in their long and weary journey through Hungary and Germany, showing as much activity in their commercial arrangements, as parsimony in their mode of living.

"It was not only at Adrianople, and in the other towns of Turkey, that the enterprise of the Greeks became manifest. The example was speedily followed by the islanders of the Archipelago. Ships were built, the Mediterranean was scoured, all Europe was visited; and the small craft of the Hydriote might be seen at anchor in the principal ports of the New World.

"As might be expected from such an intercourse, the genius of the people was not confined entirely to commercial speculations: the mighty influence of knowledge began to be felt. The rich and powerful Greeks of the Fanar endeavoured to diminish the influence of the clergy, in order to increase their own. They perceived that the best chance of success would be to spread instruction among their fellow-countrymen. Schools were established in Smyrna, Salonica, and in all the principal towns of Greece. The French and Italian languages, belles lettres, medicine, and the arts and sciences, were assiduously and successfully taught.

"Thus, at the end of a few short years, the humble and

despised rayah returned home. In the meanwhile, he had learned the means of increasing his own wealth, and consequently that of the state; but he had also become acquainted with his own strength, and his master's weakness. A tacit choice seemed given to the Turk, to receive the Greek as a profitable servant, or as a dangerous and rebellious slave. As usual, the blind Mahometan chose wrong: he has, in part, reaped the fruits of his selection, but the cup of his destiny is not yet full.”

These extracts exhibit Major Keppel in a favourable light, as a dealer in political conjectures. We add a specimen of his talents for story-telling:

"She was born at Scio; her father, a man in comfortable circumstances, was remarked for his facetious character, even in that island, the former abode of wit and mirth. At the insurrection of Scio, he was one of the first who fell in that terrible massacre. children, of whom Marigo was the youngest, fled into the His unhappy widow, with four and hid themselves in the cavity of one of the highest rocks mountains, with a little dry bread and a pitcher of water, in the island. They remained unmolested for two days, though they were kept in dreadful alarm by the constant report of fire-arms, the savage yells of the Turks, and the despairing screams of their victims. Their supply of water exhausted, the mother resolved in the dead of night to refill her mother's hands, said she would fetch the water, that the pitcher; but the courageous little Marigo seized it from she was the lightest and smallest of them all, and had the best chance of escaping unseen by the Turks.

"At midnight she set out on her good and bold enterprise, crept down the rock, and arrived at a spring, without any further inconvenience than cutting her feet with the sharp stones. As she was returning, she heard voices in the Turkish language near she threw herself into a field of standing corn. She had been heard, and was pursued. The Turks hunted for her with their yatagans. At last one of their party slightly wounded her. It was an old white-bearded negro, who hurried her away towards the another negro, who proved to be the son of her captor. town. They stopped at a house, and were admitted by The younger black immediately conceived a violent affection for the pretty captive: a quarrel between the men was the consequence; and it ended in the father seizing a pistol and discharging the contents into his son's body. The wretched old man became frantic at what he had done, and mingled his yells of grief with his son's dying groans. The wounded man soon expired; the old father then opened the window, He now took up the corpse, and flung it into the street. became more furious than ever. At length he seized Marigo by her hair, dragged her into the street, and offered her for sale. Haji Baba, a nefarious slave-dealer of Adrianople, bought her for a handful of paras (a few pence), and took her to his depôt, where she found a number of companions in misfortune, who, together with herself, were put into a large boat, and landed at Gallipoli, whence she was brought the hands of my excellent friend Mr Duveluz, who reto Adrianople. Here she had the happiness to fall into deemed her. Ever since he has treated her like a daughter, and she repays his goodness with a daughter's love.”

We have only to add, that this work has confirmed the opinion we previously entertained of the exaggerated notions held in this country respecting the power of Russia, and has considerably heightened our expectations of the ultimate success of the gallant stand now making by the Poles.

Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys, collected during his Travels in the East, by the late John Lewis Burkhardt. Published by authority of the Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior of Africa. In two volumes. 8vo. Pp. 382, 391. London. Colburn and Bentley. 1831.

THESE volumes are, in reality, two independent works; each reflecting, no doubt, considerable light upon the other, but each complete and intelligible in itself. The

first volume contains an enumeration of the "Bedouin

tribes, a statement of their local establishments, numbers, and military force; together with accounts of their customs, manners, and institutions, their arts, sciences, dress,

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