Bet 珍 penses of their journey home. This is The barbarous practice of foreign The medical art was in the lowest state of degradation. To dissect a man for a post mortem examination of the cause of his death-much more, to open a human body, to examine its structure was held impious and sacrilegious, and a defilement to such a degree, that the man was unclean who even touched a corpse. If a thief had swallowed a diamond, to conceal it, and was known to die with it in his stomach, the law expressly forbade the opening of the body, to extract the jewel. Even plates, representing the parts of the human frame, were prohibited, as idolatrous. The late Sultan first caused an anatomical work to be printed at the press at Scutari, with accurate plates of the human figure, and established a school of medicine, in which it was used; and, as no hakim in his dominions could be found capable of lecturing, he appointed a French physician to give demonstrations, and directed the Hakim Bashi, or state physician, to attend them. He even sanctioned dissection; but the still inveterate prejudice of the Turks would not suffer them to profit by it. For He founded another college for the is the French of the east, with the greatest ease and elegance, and understood his own language so perfectly, that his firmauns, which he generally wrote with his own hand, are considered models of correctness in Turkish composition. Precaution against infectious dis eases was another thing to which the Turks were strongly opposed. They would not even allow prayers to be offered up in the mosques, to stay a pestilence, lest they should seem to repine at the acts of Allah. The fright ful ravages of the ever-enduring plague, consequently, became the terror of all Europe, and the other states were obliged to draw a sanitory cordon of, perhaps, 10,000 miles round the Ottoman empire, to protect themselves against this awful endemic of the Turks. Mahmoud broke through this absurd prejudice, and obtained from the English government at Malta, a plan for a Lazaretto, and an intelligent officer was sent to carry it into effect. It will, probably, when completed, be the most perfect in Europe. In a similar manner, he overcame the prejudices against the treatment of cholera, and completely eradicated those against vaccination, by setting the example of its practice in his own family. There is, in fact, scarcely a single art which his improvements did not touch upon. Not content with changing the dress of his subjects, he improved the architecture of their houses, also, and, for this purpose, he afforded an excellent model in the new palace which he erected on the Bosphorus, where, instead of projecting eves, with fantastic clusters of wooden cupolas and minarets, enclosing an inconvenient mass of gloomy chambers, always darkened with dense blinds, the stranger sees a superb and cheerful structure, in the most elegant style of Grecian architecture. This example is now daily followed in the other Turkish edifices. But still more striking than the change in the form of their houses is the alteration he introduced in the treatment of their female inmates. He is the only Sultan who ever relaxed the strict privacy to which oriental jealousy confined the females of the harem; and so far had his generous views on this subject, so opposed to all the most cherished and peculiar prejudices of a Turk, advanced, that two years before his death, on the opening of a bridge between Constantinople and Pera, at which the chief officers of his court were present, the females of the seraglio also appeared in their carriages, gaily dressed, to assist at the fête. His political reforms were equally as numerous, and, perhaps, more difficult, because he had to contend with power as well as prejudice. His predecessors abstained from all contact with the people, as weakening that awful and mysterious respect with which they wished to be surrounded. He began with the Divan: instead of sending his commands in writing, he came and sat among the members, and invited certain bodies to send deputies to consult on the public business, so that his Divan began to bear some remote resemblance to a popular assembly. At the feast of the Bairam, every Pacha in the empire used to be changed. A thousand horses stood at the gate of the seraglio, with Tartars ready mounted, to carry orders to them; and they were seen riding in all directions, like the Fates and Furies, the arbiters of destiny, bearing mandates for death or deposition. The cupidity of the Porte originated this custom, as every change of Pachas was a source of revenueeach new governor paying for his appointment. This system was abolished. The Sultan ordered that no officer should be changed, except for delinquency, or incapacity, and the new one should be appointed, not for money, but for merit. All the officers of the seraglio were considered slaves. They had originally been so, and, as such, incapable of holding any property of their own. When they died, therefore, it all reverted to their master, the Sultan. This, like the former, was the cause of great evil, as the avarice of the monarch constantly caused the death of the minister, that he might the sooner come into his inheritance. Mahmoud relinquished this claim also, and the Sultan is no longer the heir of executed men in office, and so, has no sordid motive for their execution. The old Turkish system was so far republican in spirit, that, generally speaking, rank and titles were merely personal, and no man had any hereditary claim to them. There were, how ever, certain families in Asia, who held Zains or Timariots, feudal tenures, for which they gave their own services, and those of their vassals, when called upon. These Ayans, or Deré Beys, abused their power, as other similar "lords of the valleys" had done, in the darker ages of Europe, and became, with few exceptions, the petty tyrants of their respective districts. Mahmoud determined to have no tyrant in his empire but himself; so, he broke through these feudal rights, and reduced the petty despots to the level of his other subjects. The corps of the Ulemah, or men of the law, were the greatest obstacles he had to contend with, because they were the most influential body in directing the opinions of the people. The Turks, like the ancient Hebrews, blended together their civil and religious code, and the precepts of the Koran were, with them, as inviolable as those of the Pentateuch with the Jews, both being founded by the respective people on divine authority. The Ulemah were the great expounders of this code, and combined the offices of the priesthood and the magistracy. They were in strict league with the Janissaries, opposing every attempt to enlighten the venerable ignorance of the Moslem, as likely to weaken their own authority; and, on all such occasions, they put forward the Janissaries as their agents. By striking the tremendous blow at the latter, Mahmoud cut off the right hand of the former, deprived them of their means of resistance, and left them nearly powerless. But the greatest and most important of his reforms is, perhaps one of the last. One cause of the barbarity of the Turks was the utter ignorance in which they were kept. They never travelled abroad to visit other countries, see their usages, and profit by their improvements; nor had they any means of learning them from written accounts. They were not only ignorant of what was passing in other places, but knew little of events at home. To enlighten them in the most effectual manner, and bring useful knowledge to every man's door, he established a newspaper, which was printed in the capital, in Turkish, Greek, Armenian, aud French, for the different nations that compose the population, and in order that its influence might be still more extensive, he ordered every Pacha to take a certain number of copies, and circulate them through his pachalick. These papers are now taken in the coffee-houses, and the Turk, instead of devoting his whole attention to figments of story-tellers, is instructed in the realities of life at home and abroad, and has laid before him every passing event, every useful information, every thing new in art, science, and literature. Such is a brief and very imperfect sketch of some of the improvements effected by this extraordinary man, in the almost hopeless state of his native country. It has been objected that he wasted his energies on trifles, which should have been directed to more important objects, that he roused the opposition of prejudices which he ought rather to have yielded to, and attempted that reformation in a short space of a few years, which it would require centuries to complete. This might be applicable to other countries but not to his. To a Turk every thing is important. The example of Peter the Great in the adjoining country seems to have been his model. His laws about dress were not more frivolous than Peter's about beards, or the English parliament's about breeches, or Elizabeth's about the length of coats; and the alte ration he effected in twenty-nine years in Turkey, was not more rapid than that which his great prototype effected in Russia in a less space of time. Death cut off both these extraordinary men in the midst of their career. The reforms of the Czar continued after his decease; it is doubtful whether those of the sultan will long survive himself. "An Amurath may not an Amurath succeed," and the son of Mahmoud may not resemble his father. Of this he has already displayed some intention. Rigidly adhering to the law of the prophet, he has begun to revoke every improvement that seemed to infringe on it. He has thrown into the Bosphorus his father's beautiful service of glass, as connected with forbidden wine, and has even, it is said, abolished the quarantine as an impious attempt to evade the unalterable decrees of Allah; but it is nevertheless the duty and interest of civilized Europe to adopt him as one of their family, and cherish in him his father's spirit of improvement. He is a mere youth of seventeen; and on the conduct of his western allies perhaps depends his fate-whether he shall tread in his father's steps, and raise his subjects to a rank of equality with European Christians, or he and they together fall before the inordinate power of their northern neighbours, and become the subjects of a people, the immense mass of whom are more barbarous than themselves. PASSAGE IN A SPIRIT'S HISTORY. Deem it not phantasy. I felt, that day, This world's proud prince with his tempestuous sway- All met in deadly and eternal hate Round one immortal soul-heaven there and hell. Each sent its spirit and its potentate; And their encountering shock was like the swell Of meeting oceans; yet no ocean sound Broke upon earthly shore from that wild strife profound. How deadly quiet seemed the outer world! The sky, the air, the faint and breathless flowers! Mortal defiance; and celestial powers Were thronging, hurrying through my trembling soul To the dread combat!- -It is over now! Those battle-thunders long have ceased to roll; I lift to heaven a peace-illumined brow, And hear victorious music evermore, Calling me hence with joy to tread a heavenly shore! E. M. H. LINES. Where had my soul been wandering? I awoke The dead themselves from graves whereon hath grown E. M. H. LEGENDS AND TALES OF THE QUEEN'S COUNTY PEASANTRY. NO. I. THE BANSHEE. "It was the Banshee."-Ossian. "Hark, hark,-whence comes this solemn wail It is the warning spirit's cry; I see her dim and haggard eye; I see her rend her hoary hair; see her beat her bosom bare; She bodes no good, I fear some sorrow Will fall upon our race to-morrow."—Anon. THE Irish peasantry have ever been remarkable for their curious and singular superstitions for the magnificent wildness of their imaginations-for the peculiar and romantic grandeur with which their terrible and lofty fictions are investedand for the depth and richness of poetic fancy which characterises every article of their legendary creed. The Emerald Isle" is not only the land of wit and waggery, of potatoes and politics, but it is the homestead of superstition, witchcraft, and fairyism-that congenial soil, adopted, above all others, by elves, fairies, and all the other beings of the world of spirits, for their favourite, sublunary home. It is not my intention, at present, to enter into a philosophical investigation of the origin or cause of this peculiar and strange feature in the character of my countrymen; but this I must say, as many have said before, that its effects are ridiculously conspicuous in the powerful, and, I may add, degrading influence it has on the moral and social habits of the lower, ay, and in many instances, of the middling, and even upper classes of the Irish people. But a truce to moralizing: I do not enter the field as a philosopher; I venture to appear merely in the humble character of an Irish story-teller, and although many have made their entré on the same path before me, still I am bold to think that there is still "ample scope and verge enough" open to methe more so, as I intend to deviate à little from the route marked out by many of my more talented, but, at the same time, more ignorant and prejudiced predecessors. It has been well observed that many of those "Stories" and Sketches" of "Irish Life" which have appeared of late years, were written more with a view to stigmatise and blacken the character of the lower order of the Irish peasantry, than to exhibit a faithful delineation of the superstitions, habits, and national prejudices of that remarkable people; and hence we find that the natives of Great Britain, and even many of the higher orders in our own country, know less of our customs, our peculiarities and predilections, than they do of the distinguishing traits in the character of "the shivering tenants of the frozen zone," or the painted and tattooed natives of the South Sea Islands. And how can it be otherwise? when we see that most of those who of late years have written of "Ireland and the Irish" were either prejudiced against us from habit or education, or were no farther interested in what they said, than as it merely regarded a pecuniary or money-making speculation?* Thus, their sketches were either mere dreams of fiction, in which we were held up to the gaze of a contemptuous world, as a nation of demi-savages, or, at best, but caricatures in which the creations of the fancy were substituted for "things as they are," and the good-natured, generous, quick-witted and imaginative Irish peasant made to appear as a mean, ignorant, cowardly bar barian. It was, therefore, gentle reader, the consideration of these facts which at first tempted me to add my humble name to the lengthened catalogue of Irish story-tellers ;" and perhaps I am as well qualified to undertake the task as many of those who have gone before me. I am an Irish peasant-born and reared in an Irish cabin, and educated in an Irish hedge-school. I have spent my years (and, as yet, they are not many) among the lower classes of the insulted and despised Irish peasantry. On Sundays I have knelt with them before the same rude altar; on the week days I have wrought with them in the same fields, and in the same employment; on the summer evenings I have joined them in the gaieties of the rustic dance, on the well-trodden village green; and during the long tempestuous winter's evenings I have been with them at the gaming-table, or the wake, or formed a link with them in the laughing circle, around the cheerful cottage fire, and there felt intense delight in listening to those numerous romantic national songs, and wild legends, with which my native hamlet abounds. I, therefore, fondly hope that the world will not reproach me with vanity or egotism when I assert, that, from the facts which I have mentioned, and the reasons I have just now stated, I must necessarily be better acquainted with the affairs of the Irish peasant, and with his life and habits, than those dandy caricaturists whose opportunities of observation were limited to a cursory survey of the scenery of the country, taken, perhaps, from the top of a stage-coach, or, at most, to a few rambling excursions through the highways or villages, made during some two or three weeks' sojourn at the villa of a noble friend, or a few days' residence at some fashionable watering-place or country hotel; and to those still more dangerous and less honourable writers whose sole information is derived from the remarks of those more ignorant and malicious than themselves. Nor will I, I expect, be accused of arrogance or effrontery, when I announce to the public my intention of presenting them, henceforward, regularly, with a series of original Irish stories, and that, under the title of Legends and Stories of the Queen's County Peasantry," I intend to introduce my first series-not "Sketches," however, professing to develope the personal character of the Irish peasant, or involving in their details an exposé of his faults, his foibles, or his virtues-but tales and narratives illustrative of the leading superstitions of the nation in general, and in particular of that part of the country in which I have been born and educated. I shall now conclude, by begging leave to introduce my first "tale" to a generous and discriminating public. It may possibly have little, save its originality, to recommend it to their favour, but should it possess any merit, it will not be spurned or disregarded by the consideration that it has proceeded from the pen of one of that despised caste whose customs, habits, and superstitions it professes to illustrate-a labouring Irish peasant. THE BANSHEE. Or all the superstitions prevalent amongst the natives of Ireland at any period, past or present, there is none so grand or fanciful, none which has been so universally assented to, or so cordially cherished, as the belief in the [We believe the author to be mistaken, and we fear that in his secluded home many of the splendid illustrations of the character and superstitions of our people, which have appeared within the last dozen of years, may never have reached him.-A. P.] |