GREECE

GREECE and its inhabitants, after a long period of oblivion, have latterly become objects of general interest to the more enlightened nations of Europe. It was singular, indeed, that whilst classical scholars were immersed in the study of its poets, orators, and historians, the country that gave birth to so many literary treasures, though neither distant nor inaccessible, seemed to have been completely forgotten. The learned contented themselves with supposing that the modern country was inhabited by rude and unknown tribes, governed by fanatical Turks, whose barbarous rule exposed travellers to continual insults and pillage, and had swept away all traces and memorials of the ancient glory of Greece. Besides, the country was not known to be distinguished by its natural beauties; and being confounded with the torpid mass of the Ottoman empire, its political importance was reduced to nothing. Till the commencement of the present century the only intelligible accounts we had of the country were drawn from Strabo and Pausanias. The inquiries of Spon and Wheler, Le Roy, and Stuart, which brought some of its precious antiquities to light, were chiefly addressed to artists and scholars. Chandler's Travels were not much better adapted for general use. But the work which, more than any other, contributed to render all subjects connected with Greece and its antiquities popular, was the Travels of Anacharsis. Previous to the appearance of this work, however, various circumstances had contributed to bring the Greeks more conspicuously forward on the theatre of European affairs. While the general diffusion of education was increasing the number of those who felt an interest in classical subjects, the rise of the power of Russia, the connection she endeavoured to form with the Greeks, and her projects against Turkey, held out a probability that Greece might speedily regain some share of political importance. The Greeks themselves, by the desperate efforts they made in 1770, and again in 1790, gave a proof to the world, that their existence as a people, and their national feelings, had survived those destructive revolutions which were supposed to have overwhelmed them. When the political enthusiasm created by the French Revolution made the most gigantic plans of political change appear easy, the emancipation of this long neglected country from the Turkish yoke was looked to as one of the most certain and gratifying triumphs of the new principles. Before the interest arising from this state of things had expired, circumstances of a different kind directed public attention more immediately to Greece. The host of English travellers who had been accustomed to roam over the Continent, shut out from their usual routes by the arms of France, were forced into less frequented tracts, and numbers of them visited Greece. By these, and by a few individuals from other parts of Europe, a great part of the country was explored, and a great mass of information given to the public. Its topography and statistics are now better known than those of many of the nearer and more accessible parts of Europe; the classical interest of the country has been augmented by vivid descriptions of its monuments and its scenery; and the stirring events of the revolution completed in 1832 have greatly strengthened its claims to the attention and the sympathies of western Europe. It is now found that the modern Greeks, instead of being the mixed progeny of obscure and barbarous tribes, possess a respectable degree of civilization, and great capacities of improvement; that they have preserved the

features and national character of their ancestors with surprising distinctness; and that their dialect does not deviate much farther from the language of Plato and Demosthenes, than that of Chaucer does from the English of the present day. Independently, too, of its other attractions, Greece surpasses Italy, and perhaps every other country in the world, in the beauty of its scenery. Its antiquities are not, like those of the latter country, accumulated chiefly upon a single spot. They are scattered over a wide surface, associated with a variety of scenery, and present memorials of many separate communities, distinguished by differences of character, habits, and civilization. Its monuments, compared with those of Rome, breathe a purer taste, a finer moral spirit, and bespeak a sublimer genius; they tell of brighter and better times, of characters and actions more surprising, generous, and romantic. Some of them transport the mind back to those remote times where truth and fable are blended,—to those delightful fictions which bear the impress of the genius of the people more distinctly than the real events of their history. No country, in short, presents greater attractions to a well-informed traveller.

In this article we shall first describe Greece in its full Name. extent, according to the boundaries recognised in ancient times by the Greeks and Romans. We shall then give a brief sketch of the history of the late revolution; and conclude by a statistical view of the new state, which forms only a portion of ancient Greece.

The original name of the Grecian Peninsula was Hellas—a term at first confined to a small town and district in the south of Thessaly, whose inhabitants, the Hellenes, gradually overran the whole of Greece. As they extended their conquests, they gave the name of their mother country to all the places that fell under their dominion. Even their distant colonies in Italy, Sicily, and Africa, were looked upon by them as integral parts of Hellas equally with the capital cities of Greece Proper or the Peloponnus. In a more restricted sense the term was applied to the country stretching southwards from the River Peneus and the Ambracian Gulf to the Isthmus of Corinth. The part of Epirus, however, that fell geographically within this distribution, was not regarded as forming part of Hellas, though Herodotus and others maintained that it did. The Peloponnus, though inhabited by Hellenes, was not, strictly speaking, comprised within Greece Proper. At a later period, however, not only the Peloponnus, but Macedonia and part of Illyria, were included in the general term. It is not known why the Romans called the country by the name of Græcia instead of adopting the term in common use among the Greeks themselves. The name Græcia is first used by Aristotle. After the country passed by conquest under the Roman yoke, the conquerors reduced it to a province and called it by the name of Achaia. As the various states of Greece are all discussed under their respective heads (See ATTICA, BÆOTIA, &c., &c.), we shall in the present article take the appellation in its most extensive sense, and so follow what may be considered the natural limits of the country; because the territories included within these limits are associated by certain political relations; and because many of the most interesting subjects of inquiry and discussion relating to the ancient, and still more to the modern state of Greece, connect themselves most naturally with this arrangement.

The continent of Greece, including Albania and Mace-Extent.

¹ Cellarii Geog. Antiq., lib. ii., cap. 13; Strabo, lib. viii.; Potter's Antiq. b. i., chap. 16.

Greece. donia, is nearly shut in on the north by a chain of mountains known anciently by the names of Rhodope, Scomius, and Orbelus;¹ it is bounded on the west by the Adriatic and Ionian Seas, on the south by the Mediterranean, and on the east by the Ægean Sea, or Archipelago. It extends from 36. 10. to 42. 40. of north latitude; and from 19. 45. to 24. 40. of east longitude from London. Its length, from Cape Matapan to Mount Orbelus, or Argentaro, is 450 English miles; its greatest breadth, from Durazzo to Cavale, at the foot of Mount Pangæus (a branch of Rhodope), 235 miles; and it embraces an area of 57,750 square miles, exclusive of all its islands except Eubœa. But, as our ideas of the extent of the country have always a reference to those ancient states which comprised but very minute portions of its surface, it is necessary that its dimensions should be described more in detail.

The country recognised as Greece before the rise of the Macedonian power, comprehended the Morea or Peloponnesus, Attica, Eubœa, Bœotia, Phœis, Doris, Ætolia, Acarnania, Thessaly, and Magnesia; and even several of the states included within these limits had little or no share in those splendid actions which have shed so much glory over the country. The surface of Peloponnesus, which included seven different states, is about 9000 English square miles; that of the countries just named, without the peninsula, including Eubœa, is 14,800; and both together amount to 23,800 square miles—an extent of surface not exceeding two-fifths of England, or one-fifth of the British isles. If to this we add 16,000 square miles for Albania or Epirus (including the basin of the Drino), 18,000 for Macedonia, and 1000 for the Cyclades, the whole surface of Greece and its islands will be 58,800 square miles, which is almost exactly the area of England. While Greece preserved its independence, however, all these territories were never united into one body politic, nor was their confederated force ever applied to the prosecution of any common enterprise. The communities whose warlike achievements and brilliant career in arts and philosophy raised the Grecian name so high, occupied but very minute portions of the country; as the following table, deduced from measurements, will show:—

Eng. Sq. Miles.

These states, therefore, were in general about equal in extent to middle-sized English counties. None of them was so large as Norfolk or Devonshire; and the two adjoining counties of York and Lancaster were nearly equal to the whole seven states of the ancient Peloponnesus. Attica, indeed, besides possessing at one period Eubœa, had many colonies in the Cyclades, Thrace, and other parts; and Sparta held Messenia long in subjection; but, in great struggles, these colonies and dependencies often shook off their allegiance, and the parent state was obliged to rely on its own resources. Such was the energy of these small communities, that Attica, which scarcely supports, at present, a population of 50,000 souls, sent out sometimes colonies of 10,000 men at once (Diod. Sic. lib. ii.); and Sparta furnished 50,000 soldiers to fight the Persians at Plataea. The territories of Corinth, when she

formed a separate state, were much smaller than any of these; Greece. her wealth and power depending chiefly on commerce.

Greece forms a long and rather narrow peninsula, singularly indented on three sides by arms of the sea, and mountains having a greater proportion of its surface occupied by mountains than any other country in Europe of equal extent, except Switzerland. It has been justly observed, that those physical features which distinguish Europe from the other quarters of the world belong in a peculiar manner to Greece, and distinguish it in the same proportion from the other parts of Europe. Of these arms of the sea, the most considerable are the Gulfs of Contessa, Salonica, Volo, Ægina, and Nauplia, on the east; those of Kolokythia and Corou on the south; and those of Lepanto and Arta on the west. Of the mountains, the first in order are those which pass along the northern frontier. Mount Argentaro, the ancient Orbelus, placed at the northern extremity of Greece, near the forty-third degree of latitude, may be considered as the centre of the whole system of mountains in European Turkey. From this nucleus an elevated chain, bearing the names of Scomius and Rhodope anciently, passes south-eastward, and sends off branches on both sides, one of which, Pangæus, advances southward to the Ægean Sea, nearly opposite to the Isle of Thasus, and shuts in Greece on the east. From the same central nucleus another great chain passes south and south-eastward, under the ancient names of Scardus, Pindus, Cithæron, and Parnes, and terminates at Cape Colonna, the southmost point of Attica. This chain, which includes the celebrated mountains of Parnassus and Helicon, divides the northern continent of Greece into two parts of nearly equal breadth, and gives birth to all the most considerable rivers, which flow off on its opposite sides, but in no instance cross it. On the east side, besides many small lateral ridges, it sends off two principal branches, which enclose Thessaly on the north and south; these are the Cambunian Mountains, which, connecting the central ridge of Pindus with the lofty group of Olympus, separate Macedonia from Thessaly; and Mount Cœta, which, running eastward to the Maliac Gulf, forms, at its termination, the famed pass of Thermopylæ. Mount Othrys, a little farther north, may be considered as a subordinate chain to Cœta. Mount Olympus is separated only by a narrow ravine from Ossa and Pelion, which enclose Thessaly on the east. On the western side of the central chain, the whole country to the Ionian Sea, northward of the Gulf of Arta, is covered by a series of ridges, not running off laterally, but disposed in lines nearly parallel to the central chain, and separated by deep valleys. One of these ridges, nearest the coast, and terminating in a promontory, in latitude 40. 30., was known anciently by the name of Acroceræanus; another farther north, and more inland, was Mount Tomarus. A long and narrow ridge occupies the Island of Eubœa, and is evidently continued in the outermost chain of islands included under the name of the Cyclades. Another chain of these islands may be considered as a prolongation of the great central ridge from the promontory of Sunium or Colonna.

The mountains in the Morea or Peloponnesus, which are as numerous as in the north of Greece, present rather a singular configuration. A long ridge, bent into a circular form, encloses the central plateau or basin of Arcadia; and five spurs, or subordinate ridges, run off from the different sides of this circular chain to the five prominent points of the peninsula.

¹ Throughout this article we use the ancient or the modern names, according as either happen to be better known than the other. In general, the ancient divisions of the country, being more minute and more accurately defined than the modern, serve better for the purposes of description. The greater number of modern travellers have felt it necessary to adopt this practice.

Greece. The elevation of some of the Grecian mountains has been estimated, but not accurately measured. Mount Orbelus, the northern boundary of the country, has its summit covered with snow all the year,¹ and must therefore exceed 8000 feet in height; but none of the other mountains seems to reach the circle of perpetual congelation. The elevation of the great central chain of Pindus is loosely estimated by Dr Holland at 7000 feet.² That of Olympus, one of the loftiest summits in Greece, was computed by the ancient philosopher Xenagoras to be ten stadia and a plethrum, an elevation not materially different from that of 1017 toises, or 6500 feet, assigned to it by Bernoulli. The famed Parnassus seems to be considered by Dr Clarke and Dr Holland as rising above most of the other Grecian mountains; but as its summit is destitute of snow during a part of the year, its height cannot exceed 9500 feet, and is probably much less. This mountain is still called Parnassus by the peasants residing on it, but in the low country of Livadia it bears the name of Lakura.³ The celebrated Athens, which is now the seat of twenty-two monasteries, rises to the height of 713 toises, or 4350 feet. (Walpole, p. 204.) Several of the Albanian mountains are estimated by Dr Holland to be from 3000 to 4000 feet high. The mean height of the mountains of the Morea is estimated at 1200 feet; on the west side they attain a height of from 3000 to 4500 feet; Mount Cyllene rises to the height of 4500 feet, and Mount Oleno to 6000; Mount Taygetus, in its range from Cape Matapan to Arcadia, varies from 3000 to 7200 feet. The plain of Tripolizza, in Arcadia, is about 2000 feet above the sea, and the insulated rock of the Acro-Corinthus about 1900. (Boblaye, Annales des Sciences Naturelles, Feb. 1831.)

Geology. A great part of the surface of Greece is occupied by a formation of compact limestone, of a whitish or bluish grey colour, approaching at times to the nature of chalk. It forms in some places long sharp continuous ridges, in others round or craggy summits, and it presents strata highly inclined. It contains a few organic remains, with many flint nodules, and some beds of gypsum on the western side; and occasionally masses or beds of a calcareous conglomerate. The Acropolis of Athens consists of the last-mentioned rock. The compact limestone, which forms the entire mass of Parnassus and Helicon, rests on mica slate near Athens. The hills of Attica consist generally of primitive limestone; and the same species of rock, with clay slate, serpentine, sienite, porphyry, abound in Negropont, the central parts of Pindus, Olympus, and Athos, and all round the Gulf of Salonica. Farther north, in Mounts Scimus and Rhodope, granite and gneiss are found. In general, primitive rocks are most abundant on the east side of Greece, and the secondary on the west. Tertiary deposits are found in Elis, Laconia, and Argolis; and trachytes and other igneous rocks exist in Egina, Milo, Santorin, and on the continent at Methana in Argolis. M. Boblaye states that four, and in some cases five, successive terraces of shingle are seen at many parts on the shores of the Morea, each of which had once formed the sea beach, indicating that the land had been elevated by a corresponding number of sudden movements upwards. (Boblaye, Annales des Sciences Naturelles, Feb. 1831; Holland's Travels, p. 89, 319, &c.) It is to the peculiar constitution of the great limestone formation that Greece owes those physical features which so remarkably distinguish the country; the numerous caverns, fountains, subterranean river courses, hot springs, and gaseous exhalations, which

gave birth to so many of the popular superstitions of the Greece. ancients.

The rivers of Greece, flowing within a narrow territory, Rivers. are much inferior in size even to the larger branches of the Danube. They may be fitly compared with those of Great Britain for the length of their courses and the quantity of water they convey. The classical rivers, however, which are chiefly in the south, are generally mere brooks, such as would find a place only in a county map. The largest rivers in Greece are the Axius, now the Vardar, in Macedonia; the Drinius, now the Drino, in North Albania; the Peneus, now the Salympra, in Thessaly; the Achelous, now the Aspropotamo, in Etolia; the Alpheus, now the Roufia, and Eurotas, now Vaslipotamo, in the Morea. These and some others have permanent streams; but the greater number are mere mountain torrents, short, but rapid in their courses, and dry in summer.

The general aspect of Greece is characterized by a very General singular distribution of its mountains. These are usually aspect. neither placed in parallel chains nor in massive groups, but are so disposed as to enclose extensive tracts of land, which assume the appearance of large basins or circular hollows. The bottom of these basins consists of an alluvial plain of the richest soil, and level as the ocean, through which sometimes rise steep insulated rocks, like the summits of vast natural columns. Nature had thus marked out the country into a number of distinct districts, admirably calculated to become the seats of small communities. The plain, with its rich alluvial soil, furnished subsistence for a dense population; the insulated rock became the Acropolis or citadel of the chief town, a place of refuge in war; and the surrounding mountains were barriers against invasion. In proportion as access from without was difficult, internal communication was rapid and easy. A crowded population, dispersed over the sides and the area of this natural amphitheatre, lived as it were in the continual presence of one another. Their country, a word of undefined import in large empires, conveyed to them as distinct an idea as that of their own homes. Its whole landscape, with its trophies, temples, monuments, and fields of renown, were constantly under their eyes. Their patriotism, concentrated within this narrow sphere,—attached to visible objects by early and habitual associations,—kept alive by frequent struggles with neighbouring communities, for independence or glory, and still more by the proud sense of individual importance, inspired by their republican institutions,—was not, as in larger empires, a vague and languid feeling, but an ardent and steady passion, of which nothing in the modern world can give us an adequate idea. The same circumstances had an influence on their political condition. Conquest, which forces nations of different habits, characters, and languages, into combination, is the great parent of slavery. In such heterogeneous masses union becomes impossible. The despot, glittering in barbaric pomp, and surrounded by foreign guards, appears in his subject provinces like a being of another order, not to collect the sentiments or redress the wrongs of the people, but to silence all complaints, and enforce obedience to his own lordly will. Though hated by all his subjects, he can still employ the wealth and the physical force of one nation to trample on the rights of another, and is thus able to hold the whole in slavery. But the small Greek communities, protected by the barriers of their gulfs and mountains, escaped this evil destiny. The people, united by identity of manners and language, by common interests and con-

¹ Travels in the Morea, Albania, and other parts of the Ottoman Empire. By F. C. Pouqueville, M. D. (translation), London, 1813, p. 443.

² Travels in the Ionian Isles, Albania, Thessaly, Macedonia, &c. during 1812 and 1813. By Henry Holland, M. D. 1815, p. 207.

³ Memoirs relating to European and Asiatic Turkey, edited by the Reverend Robert Walpole, A. M. 1817, p. 72; Clarke's Travels, 4th edition, 8vo, 1818, vol. vii. p. 209; Holland's Travels, p. 394. Article CLIMATE in this work.

Greece. continual communication, could combine with the utmost facility to resist the first encroachments of their rulers. They were able to apply freely the lights of reason to all their common concerns, to model their government according to their circumstances and their views of common interest, and to make the end for which it existed the measure of the powers bestowed upon it. The forms of government they adopted, though not contrived by absolute wisdom, were probably in principle better adapted to their situation than any other that could have been suggested. And never did the powers of the human mind display themselves with such energy and grandeur under any other system in the history of the human race.

Of the plains we have mentioned, some terminate in the ocean, and seem to owe their existence to the retiring of the waters. Such are those of Macedonia, Athens, Argos, Laconia, Messenia, and Ambracia. Others are completely surrounded by a rampart of mountains or high grounds, except at a single point where the waters have found or forced a passage. Of this description are the three remarkable valleys of Thessaly, Bœotia, and Arcadia. Each of these forcibly suggests the idea of a vast inland lake, where the waters, accumulating for a long period, had at length burst through the barrier that confined them, and left the bottom dry. There is also an analogy between these valleys and some of the inland seas of Greece, such as the Gulf of Corinth, Arta, Volo, and the channel of Negropont, which are marine lakes completely land-locked, and communicating with the Mediterranean by a single passage, which may at one period have been closed. It may even be conceived that the Archipelago itself, at one period, was completely shut in by a barrier of high lands, of which Cerigo, Crete, Scarpanto, and Rhodes, are portions or fragments; and that its numerous isles are either the summits of mountains which then diversified its surface, or of detached rocks like those of Meteora in Thessaly, which have resisted the incessant action of the waters.

Topography. The valley of Macedonia, which extends in a semicircle round the head of the Gulf of Salonica, is the largest and most fertile district in Greece. Its produce has been supposed to be nearly equal to that of all the rest of the country. The rivers in the lower parts, which overflow annually, render the country marshy, and subject to the malaria. It contains a considerable number of ancient remains, but they have only been partially examined. A large tumulus still marks the site of the battle of Pydna, which reduced Macedonia to a Roman province. Thessaly, separated from Macedonia by Olympus and the Cambunian Mountains, is a vast circular basin, of fifty or sixty miles diameter, enclosed on all sides by mountains, and next in fertility to Macedonia. The whole of its waters flow off by the river Peneus. The celebrated Vale of Tempe, a deep ravine, formed by precipitous cliffs six or eight hundred feet high, and separating Mount Olympus from Ossa, affords a passage for this river to the sea on the east. The vale is about five miles long, and so narrow, that the river in some parts occupies the whole breadth of its bottom; the scenery is more striking by its grandeur than its beauty. The rocks, which are of bluish-grey marble, have a shattered appearance, and, wherever the surface admits of it, are covered with trees and shrubs. Some of the ancients believed that this defile was formed by an earthquake. Were any natural convulsion to close it up, Thessaly would again be converted into a lake; and Xerxes, when he invaded Greece, threatened the Thessalians with this catastrophe if they opposed him. The rocks of Meteora, at the upper side of the Thessalian plain, are objects of a very remarkable kind. They rise from the level surface of the country near the Peneus, and cover a triangular space of two miles each way. They consist of a great collection of lofty rocks,

Greece. in the various shapes of cones, pillars, rhomboids, and irregular masses, all standing detached from one another, with faces generally as perpendicular as a wall. Their height varies from one to three or four hundred feet, and the deep winding intervals between them are filled with trees and brushwood. On the summits of some of these rocks monasteries are suspended in mid air, as it were on the tops of very tall pillars. Some of the monasteries occupy the whole surface of the rock they rest on, and persons ascending to them are swung in a basket or net, and dragged up by a rope passing over a pulley. The rocks are composed of a conglomerate, consisting of fragments of granite, gneiss, and other primitive substances, disposed in horizontal strata. The narrow district on the eastern side of Mount Ossa and Pelion is the ancient Magnesia, and is now called Zagora. At the south extremity of Thessaly lies the famed Pass of Thermopylæ, which is merely the narrow space between the flank of Mount Cœta and the sea. The part of this space nearest the sea is occupied by a marsh, between which and the cliffs the breadth of firm land is still about sixty paces, as stated by Livy. The hot springs mentioned by Herodotus, the remains of the wall built by the Phœcians, and a tumulus, believed with good reason to be that of the Spartans, are all yet to be seen. The length of the pass is about five miles. The country of Phœcis, which lies immediately south of the pass, is one of the most rugged in Greece, being occupied almost entirely by the branches and declivities of Mounts Cœta, Parnassus, and Helicon. Bœotia is a large circular valley, enclosed by Parnassus on the west, Helicon on the south, Cithæron on the east, and a range of high lands on the north. A low ridge running north and south divides it in two. The lake Copais, which occupies the bottom of the western and larger division, and receives all its rivers, sends off its waters by subterraneous passages to the sea on the north-east. In summer this lake has the appearance of a green meadow covered with reeds. Bœotia has more than once been inundated by obstructions in these subterraneous channels. The country is very fertile, but is higher and colder than Attica. It is often covered with thick fogs, as described by the ancients; and, from the abundance of its marshes, is very subject to malaria. Attica, which adjoins to Bœotia on the east, is comparatively arid and barren, hilly rather than mountainous, but distinguished peculiarly by the dryness and elasticity of its atmosphere, and the beauty and serenity of its climate. The isthmus of Corinth, which connects Attica with the Morea, is occupied towards the north by high rocky hills, which render it strong as a military post; but in the south, where its breadth is about four miles, the surface is low, seldom exceeding a hundred and fifty feet. The remains of the ancient wall, and of the canal begun by Nero, are yet visible. The Morea consists of an elevated central plateau or valley, namely, Arcadia, and of five separate districts, formed by the exterior declivities of the mountains which surround the central plateau, and by spurs or branches which run off from these mountains. The central valley of Arcadia, so famed for its pastoral character by the ancients, is, like the inland districts of Thessaly and Bœotia, high and cold, often covered with fogs, arising from the moisture of its soil, and hence also subject to malaria. All its running waters escape by the single channel of the Alpheus; and it has sometimes suffered from partial inundations. Its scenery, in the opinion of Lord Byron, is by no means deserving of its ancient celebrity. Argolis, lying in a semicircle round the Gulf of Nauplia, embraces but a small portion of level country, which, however, is remarkably rich, but very unhealthy. The city of Argos still exists in its ancient plain, and, till ruined by the revolution, was one of the best built towns in the Morea. The ancient

Greece. Laconia, consisting of the long open valley of the Eurotas, is very thinly peopled. The ruins of Sparta, four miles south-west from the village of Mistra, are extensive, but afford no fine specimens of architecture; the spot is entirely deserted. Messenia, which lies round the head of a gulf, has a pretty large plain, of a very rich soil. Elis, on the west, and Achaia, on the north of the Morea, are in general hilly, and rather dry. In general, the west of Greece has a different physical character from the east. Ætolia, Acarnania, and Epirus (the modern Albania), present none of those circular basins so characteristic of the east and south sides of the country, except the valley surrounding the Gulf of Arta. Ætolia and Acarnania consist of long valleys open to the south, and rising into mountains in the north. Albania has the same features on a larger scale. Its mountains, which are more numerous than those of any other district of Greece, cover the country in long parallel ridges, and are separated by deep valleys, some of which open to the south, and others to the west, but none to the north. The Cyclades, and other islands in the Ægean Sea, are almost all steep and rocky.¹

Scenery. The mountains of Greece, which cover so large a proportion of its area, are partly wooded and partly naked, and the woods abound more on the west side than the east. The low country susceptible of tillage probably does not amount to more than two fifths of the whole surface, and of these two fifths, judging from the corn, olives, cotton, tobacco, &c. required for the population, one twelfth or fifteenth part may be actually in cultivation. It is generally bare of wood, and, from the want of enclosures, the profusion of weeds and brushwood, the thinness of the population, and the ruinous condition of the few cottages, combined with the crumbling remains of the noble structures of the ancients, has a desolate, melancholy, and deserted aspect, which harmonizes well with the fallen fortunes of the country. In the end of summer, from the excessive heat which dries up the streams, the hills and fields appear parched. In many quarters of the country, however, there are copious perennial springs, which gush out suddenly from the limestone rock. Greece combines in the highest degree every feature essential to the finest beauties of landscape, except large rivers, which are perhaps incompatible with the general character of its scenery. Travellers of taste have wanted words to describe the magnificence of the views it affords. Its mountains encircled with zones of wood, and capped with snow, though much below the Alps in absolute height, perhaps are as imposing from the suddenness of their elevation. Rich sheltered plains lie at their feet, which want nothing but an industrious population to fill the mind with images of prosperity, tranquillity, and happiness. But it is in the combination of these more common features, with so many spacious and beautiful inland bays and seas, broken by headlands, enclosed by mountains, and specked and studded with islands, in every variety of magnitude, form, and distance, that Greece surpasses every other country in Europe, and perhaps in the world. The effect of such scenery, aided by a serene sky and delicious climate, on the character of the Greeks, cannot be doubted. "Under the influence of so many sublime objects, the human mind becomes gifted as by inspiration, and is by nature filled with poetical ideas." Greece became the birth-place of taste, science, and eloquence, the chosen sanctuary of the muses, the prototype of all that is graceful, dignified, and grand, in sentiment or action. The poetry of the north, nursed amidst bleak

mountains, amidst oceans covered with fogs and agitated by storms, is austere and gloomy; but the muses of Greece, awakened into life in a rich and beautiful land, amidst bright and tranquil seas, are gay, joyous, and luxuriant. You almost conceive (says Chateaubriand), as it were by intuition, why the architecture of the Parthenon has such fine proportions, why ancient sculpture is so unaffected, so simple, so tranquil, when you behold the pure sky and delicious scenery of Athens, of Corinth, and of Ionia. In this native land of the muses, nature suggests no wild deviations: she tends, on the contrary, to dispose the mind to the love of the uniform and the harmonious.²

The climate of Greece seems to be distinguished from Climate. that of Spain and Italy in the corresponding latitudes, chiefly by having the characteristics of an inland region in a higher degree; that is, the extremes of summer and winter are more severe. In Attica, which has a drier atmosphere and more uniform temperature than the rest of the country, the average rain is about twenty-one or twenty-two inches, and the greatest heat, in each of the four years ending with 1807, was 104, 99, 93, 94. The greatest cold was from 28 to 32 of Fahrenheit. The mean deduced from all these extremes is 63.5. This agrees very nearly with the temperature of a spring in the isthmus of Corinth, observed by Dr Clarke to be 64, and with the temperature given in Professor Leslie's table, which is 64.4. At the southern extremity the annual temperature, according to the same authority, is 65.3, and at the northern extremity about 60. But local diversities have a greater effect than mere difference of latitude, on the distribution of the seasons. In Attica, which, being freely exposed to the sea, has in some measure an insular climate, the winter sets in about the beginning of January. About the middle of that month snow falls, but is seldom seen for more than a few days, though it lies for a month on the summits of the mountains. Gentle rains fall about the middle of February, after which spring commences; and the corn, which is a considerable height in March, is cut in May. In the beginning of March, the vines and olives bud, and the almonds are in blossom. In the great interior plains and valleys, which are girt with mountains, and cut off from the direct influence of the sea, the winters are much colder, and the summers, making allowance for the difference of height, are warmer. At Tripolizza, in Arcadia, the snow has been found eighteen inches thick in January, with the thermometer at sixteen degrees Fahrenheit; and it sometimes lies on the ground six weeks. Dr Clarke was informed, that in the winter preceding his visit, the peasants at the foot of Mount Cithæron in Bœotia were confined to their houses for several weeks by the snow. At Yanina, situated in an inland plain, 1000 or 1200 feet above the sea, the snow lies to a considerable depth in the winter, and sometimes falls as late as April. The neighbouring lake was so firmly frozen over in 1813, that it was everywhere crossed on the ice. The summits of the central chain of Pindus, and most of the Albanian mountains, are covered with snow from the beginning of November to the end of March. These various facts show that the winter in Albania, though shorter than in England, is as severe; but that the summer is a vast deal hotter, the extreme summer temperature being fifteen or eighteen degrees higher at Athens than London; while Bœotia and Thessaly are probably still hotter than Attica. Though we have no accurate data to establish a comparison between the climate of Greece and those of Spain and Italy, yet the

¹ Beaujour, let. 1-4; Holland, p. 289, 291, 234, 376, 420; Clarke, vi. 562, vii. 393; Hobhouse, let. 14, 15, 16; Walpole, 60, 303, 306, 335, 522; Byron's notes to canto 2d of Childe Harold; Tournefort, let. 4-8.

² Holland, 248, 302, 401, 254, 413; Hobhouse, 63, 461, 201; Clarke, vii. 269; Beaujour, let. 4; Chateaubriand's Travels (translation), vol. i. p. 83, 167; Williams' Travels, let. 54, 55, 68, 72, 74.

Greece. fact of cotton being successfully cultivated, on a large scale, in Macedonia, as far north as the latitude of Rome and Valadolid, where it does not succeed in the two last countries, is a proof that the summer temperature in Greece is higher than either in Spain or Italy. The coldest weather in all parts of Greece is accompanied with a N.E. wind. The N. and N.W. winds are distinguished by their serenity and dryness. The zephyr or W. wind is famed for its balmy softness; the S.E., S., and S.W. winds are all humid, and the E. wind still retains the character of a morning breeze, as described by Aristotle. The sirocco is felt in Greece. It blows from the S.E., and produces its usual effects on the human constitution; a sense of oppression, a dull headache, with lassitude and uneasiness in the limbs. Earthquakes are very frequent in Greece, but they are seldom very destructive.¹

Metals. As yet little is known of the mineral resources of Greece; but, from its geological structure, we may conclude that it is, like Italy, rather poor in metals. The silver mines of Laurium, in Attica, which were extensive enough to employ 10,000 slaves, and supported the Athenian navy at one period, are now entirely abandoned. Copper also was anciently found in Attica. Ores of iron, gold, silver, lead, or alum, were wrought in Eubœa and Melos, Naxos, Siphnos, and others of the Cyclades. The gold and silver mines of Macedonia yielded Philip 1000 talents a year.

The mines and quarries of Greece might be a source of considerable wealth. The marbles of Pentelicus and Paros are still the finest in the world. The first—close, fine, glittering; the second—of a limpid transparency, with broad veins and a warm colour, giving to statues a flesh-like appearance. Not long ago there were discovered in the Archipelago quarries of rosso-antico; and in Taygetus, beds of the admirable jasper known by the name of verd-antique; but not one of these fine quarries is worked. At Maro-poulo, in Bœotia, there is a bed of lignite or coal, equivalent to $\backslash frac\{4\}\{5\}$ths of its weight of pure carbon, but neither is this worked. At Kumi, in the island of Eubœa, there is a much better lignite, said to be equal to $\backslash frac\{3\}\{4\}$ths of an equal weight of Newcastle coal. This mine, after paying all expenses, clears for the state 12,000 drachms a year.

Greece has several mines of argentiferous lead, especially one on the island of Zœa, where the veins run down to the sea at the bottom of a little creek where coasting vessels can touch. The ore contains about 80 per cent. of lead; and the lead, on an average, about 0.00125 of silver. These mines are not worked; but when the winter rains detach masses of ore, the municipality claims them. The produce of the emery of Naros, which is now extracted and sold by the government, may be said to be the only revenue that Greece derives from her mineral wealth. Its amount is about 400,000 drachms. One reason for the mines and quarries not being worked is the want of roads and capital.

Diseases. There are few or no diseases peculiar to Greece. Like all the countries on the shores of the Mediterranean, it suffers greatly from malaria. This prevails chiefly in the months of August and September, and produces remittent or intermittent fevers, which attack those who reside in low situations, near the mouths of rivers, or in the neighbourhood of lakes, marshes, or rice grounds. The ancients were aware that fevers of this description affected certain districts; but, undoubtedly, the sphere of their influence has been vastly extended by the neglected state of the country. Attica, though one of the driest districts of Greece, is not entirely exempted from them. These fevers, recurring frequently, vitiate the system, and produce goitres and scrofulous complaints. Coughs, catarrhs, and apoplexies are prevalent in some districts; and elephantiasis, and leprosy affections, arising probably from deficient

and unwholesome nourishment, are more common than in other countries. The plague has not made its appearance since the establishment of the kingdom, and when it had previously occurred it had been imported from either Constantinople, Smyrna, or Egypt. The cholera has appeared in later years; and in 1855 it made severe ravages in Athens.

It has been said that there are no longer any Greeks in Greece—that the population is altogether Albanian; but this is not correct. Notwithstanding all they had passed through, previous to the war of independence, they preserved their lineage and language to a wonderful extent. The Albanians principally inhabit Attica, Bœotia, Phœcis, Argolis, with the isles of Hydra, Spezzia, Salamis, and Andros. They have also several villages in Arcadia, Achaia, and Messenia. But the wars of independence destroyed a great part of this population, and the rest is now mixed in the Greek element. In the rest of the Peloponnesus, in all the other islands, in Ætolia, Acarnania, a great part of Thessaly and Lower Macedonia, the population is exclusively Greek.

As soon as the war cry of independence was raised, many Fanariot families, who were the most educated of the Greeks, and serving the Turkish government as ambassadors in foreign missions, as learned interpreters in the Divan, and as governors in the principalities, came to assist their common country with their talents, and continued to fill the highest offices even under the government of King Otho. Such are the Morousis, the Risos, Mavrocordatos, and other distinguished families now at Athens. These speak a purified Greek, but they adopt the dress and manners of western Europe, as do also the greater part of the people in the towns.

A numerous and very different class of Greeks are the mountaineers of the northern provinces, who, finding that the diplomatic arrangements had left their part of the country in the hands of the Turks, proceeded southwards, and fixed their homes in the kingdom which had been founded by their prowess. These people who call themselves Palikars have brought with them, even into the city of Athens, many of the strange usages of their former life; and it may be said of them in common with the Mainots of the Morea, that they form the most original and characteristic portion of the Greek population. They still continue to wear the national dress—a calico shirt with a large turned-down collar, short cotton drawers, leggings fastened up to the knees, not unlike the αχμίδες of Homer's heroes, red slippers, a skirt resembling a Highland kilt, a sash, and narrow garters of coloured silk, a jacket generally of silk, and often embroidered with gold, a broad leather belt, from which are suspended an embroidered handkerchief, purse, tobacco-bag, inkstand, and arms; and to crown all, a red cap with a blue tassel. Such a dress often costs a sum equal to L.25. The dwellings of the Palikars resemble fortresses; and their servants, selected from among their old retainers, form a little garrison. They practise a ruinous hospitality, especially towards such Greeks as come from their own part of the country. Their language is mingled with Turkish words, and some of them can still speak that language.

Between the Palikars and the Fanariots, but rather resembling the latter in character and habits, are the Islanders, who are by profession mariners or traders, generally both. They wear the red cap, a short jacket, with the wide Turkish trousers instead of the kilt and leggings.

All Greeks wear the moustache but shave the beard, except in mourning, when it is allowed to grow. Whiskers are considered indicative of dandyism, and not very creditable. Few of the women are handsome; the men are almost universally so; and their great stature, slender form, oval face, long aquiline nose, large moustache, and easy

¹ Holland, 47, 137, 411, 426; Hobhouse, let. 24; Fouqueville, p. 29, chap. xv.; Clarke, vi. 585, vii. 102; Arist. Meteor. lib. 2, c. 2.

Greece. gait, give them an imposing appearance. They are an exceedingly temperate people; drunkenness is a vice remarkably rare among them; their food also is spare and simple; even the richest are content with a dish of vegetables for each meal, and the poor with a handful of olives or a piece of salt fish. Very few partake of animal food more than once a week or once a fortnight, except at Easter, when every one must partake of it. All other pleasures are indulged in with similar sobriety; their passions are moderate, and insanity is almost unknown among them. They have much intelligence, aptitude, and ready wit, rather than great capacity for abstruse study and profound thought. Greek mechanics learn even a difficult trade in a few months; commercial young men rapidly acquire the command of five or six languages; students of law, medicine, and theology, likewise attain in a very short time to the knowledge necessary for their respective professions; all minds appear eager after knowledge, both as matter of pride and natural curiosity. The love of liberty and independence does not seem to have been rooted out of the national mind by centuries of subjugation; they love to command, but though they are very loyal to a good government, are apt easily to rise when their rights are infringed. As there is little love of obedience among them, so neither is there any toleration for aristocratic pretensions. They have all groaned alike under the Turkish oppression; all alike have been beaten with the same rod, all are nearly alike poor; and though in western Europe we hear of Greek counts, and even princes, such titles are not recognised in Greece itself. The counts, if of good coinage, are from the Ionian Islands, where the population received them from the Venetians; the self-styled princes are those who filled the temporary functions of hospodar or bey, under the Turkish regime. Another distinguishing characteristic of the Greeks is their ardent patriotism—a genuine legacy from their illustrious ancestors. This passion strangely blinds them as to the real importance of their country, so that one would think they deemed Greece the centre and object of all the events in Europe. But this weakness aside, it must be admitted that many of them have sacrificed all their property, which was not inconsiderable, for the liberation of their country. The public buildings of Athens have been raised by the subscriptions of individuals; most of the Greeks who live abroad bequeath their property to their national institutions.

The Greek is generally supposed to hate agriculture, and, in fact, other trades and pursuits are preferred by him. Distant voyages, hazardous speculations, and, above all, commercial bargains, are more agreeable to his disposition. But his dislike to agriculture under the Turks lay not so much in his indisposition to follow it, as in the heavy taxes and repeated exactions demanded by the pachas of his district, which left him hardly one-fourth of his products for himself.

In business the Greek is quick, intelligent, and attentive; and in his transactions with the Turks he has the celebrity of possessing keenness, amounting to swindling, inasmuch as he generally charges twice the value for the goods sold to them. But if the faithful followers of the Prophet are thus imposed upon by their more acute neighbours, it not unfrequently happens that the latter fail to get payment of half their account, and perhaps lose all.

The Albanians form about a fourth of the population of the country; and retain their foreign dialect. They are strong, patient, addicted to manual labour, and as well adapted for agriculture as the Hellenes are for commerce. The Wallachs or Blakhs on Mount Pindus, and on the borders of Thessaly and Macedonia, betray by their language their descent from the Roman colonies of Dacia, and still call themselves Romuni. They are a nomad or pastoral race, sleeping in the open air among their flocks,

which are protected by ferocious dogs like those of Eumeus. In Greece a Wallach and a shepherd are synonymous.

The Maltese are numerous about Athens and Piræus; and, by a curious exception, bear a high character for honesty; whereas at Constantinople and Smyrna they are for the most part robbers and assassins. At Athens they share with the robust inhabitants of Maina the severer labours of the mason, the gardener, and the porter. The Bavarians have almost disappeared; Turks are scarcely found; and there are comparatively few settlers from other parts of Europe.

The Greeks marry young. The ceremony is a purely religious act; and divorces are not so easily obtained as in Constantinople. The pride of the Greek matron is placed in the number and beauty of her children; but though great numbers are born, comparatively few come to maturity. They die off under the influence of fever, which is a great scourge in the country.

There are very few people who have a family name, but each adds to his baptismal name either the name of his father, or some bye-name invented for himself. Thus, there are thousands of Basils, Athanasiuses, Peters, Georgeses, Nicholases, or even Aristideses, and Themistocleses. This one is Peter the son of Nicholas, or Peter the Albanian, or Peter of Nauplia, or Black Peter, or Short Peter. The duties of relationship are strictly observed; and the poor man who maintains at his own expense the widow and children of a brother is not praised as though he had done anything more than his bounden duty. The right of primogeniture is not likely ever to be known in Greece. Those who have such a strong sense of equality among compatriots will never tolerate inequality among brothers. Yet it is different with their fathers. They submit to him as to an absolute master; and this respect is shown by all classes without exception. The father has absolute command in his family, and is respected and supported to the last days of his life even by his married children. Parricide is said to be almost as little known as when Solon refused to make laws against it. There seems to be, on the whole, very much that is commendable in family life among the Greeks.

The drachm, which is the unit of the currency, is about 8½d. of our money. It is divided into 100 equal parts called lepta. There are copper coins of 10, 5, 2, and 1 lepta, the only Greek money that circulates in the country. The silver coins of 50 and 25 lepta have been melted down or exported. Those of 1 drachm are very rare. Those of 5 drachms are now only to be found in Turkey. The gold pieces of 20 drachms, called othos, also have disappeared.

A very complete scale of weights and measures was established by the government in 1836; but the people adhere and measure for measure of length to the pique = 27 inches. Then for weight—the principal one known, even in the capital, is the oke, a Turkish weight equal to 2 lb. 12 oz., which is divided into 400 dramia = 1¾ Eng. drams. The cantaar or quintal is generally 44 okes = 121 lbs. The kilo or quilo of corn is 22 okes, or 60 lbs. The land measure is the strema, equal to about one-fourth of an English acre.

It appears that not half the surface is susceptible of cultivation; and at least two-thirds of the cultivated, and four-fifths of the uncultivated soil belong to the state. One great disadvantage to agriculture is the scanty supply of running water; but the peasants are very dexterous at taking advantage of the smallest rill to irrigate their tillage.

Money rent is little known; the lands being farmed on the metayer system, according to which the landlord receives a certain proportion of the net produce—usually a third. He has frequently to furnish the seed, and sometimes the oxen for tillage, the cost of which, with high interest, is deducted from the profits before any division is made. On this system, there is little inducement for the proprietor to expend capital on improvements; still less is

there for the metayer, who has no interest in the land beyond the season. Consequently, inclosure and drainage are scarcely thought of; and the stones having never been removed, lie so thick together that in some places it is scarcely credible that they can have accumulated naturally. The dwellings of the peasants are extremely poor, consisting of stones and fragments of tile and pottery held together by mud. Glass casements are rare even in provincial towns; and in the country cottages the light is most frequently admitted only by the door-way.

The arable soil of Greece is devoted chiefly to the cultivation of corn, vines, mulberry trees, and fruit trees. Wheat, rye, barley, and maize, succeed pretty well in the stony districts where the mould is but a few inches deep. Oats render but a middling crop, and the potato is quite unsuitable. But the legumine grow well, and rice might be raised in the wet soils. In many parts of the country cakes of maize flour form the staple article of food. (See page 32.)

At the head of all the agricultural productions for exportation are the Corinth grapes, which we corruptly call currants, and which are cultivated from the isthmus to Arcadia, along almost all the northern and western shores of the Morea. This fruit is of a violet colour, and hangs in long loose bunches. They are gathered at the same time as other grapes, dried in the sun and packed. Very few of them are used in Greece, few anywhere except in England. The consequence of this is, that the effect of raising a large crop is merely to lower the price in the London market; whereas if France, America, and Russia used plum-puddings to the same extent as the English, Greece would have had in this one article an inexhaustible source of revenue. All kinds of grapes succeed well, and the best vintage is that of the island of Santorin, where above sixty varieties are reckoned. The Russians are very fond of Santorin wine, and import L.20,000 worth yearly. The art of expressing and fermenting the juice of the grape is quite in its infancy; and unfortunately the Greeks have no wine-cellars, and very few casks. The wine is kept in skins, and rosin is put into it to keep it from spoiling. It is at first exceedingly disagreeable to the taste; but the natives prefer it to the choicest beverages of France and Spain; and even foreigners become reconciled to it with use.

Next to the vineyards as a source of revenue are the mulberry plantations. There is a demand for silk in every market in the world, and the climate of Greece affords facilities for an unlimited extension of this branch of industry. The south of the Morea generally, and all the islands of the Ægean Sea, are adapted for it, and here the house of almost every peasant is in part given up to the rearing of the worm. The spawn or eggs are nestled in the bosoms of the women; and the worms hatched in spring are abundantly supplied with the young mulberry leaves then shooting. The cocoons are placed in the sun, and the heat kills the worms. In 1836 some Greek merchants, who had resided in the silk districts of Italy, introduced Italian workmen with their families into Morea to improve the mode of winding; and a few years have greatly advanced this branch of industry and placed it on a firm and extensive basis, giving promise of a lucrative and increasing trade. Two silk-throwing manufactories have been established at Athens with great success. (For further particulars see page 32.) The Moniteur of Paris of 16th and 17th October 1855, pays a high compliment to the quality of the Greek silk in the Paris Exhibition, which gained the first prize.

The olive next claims attention. Being indigenous, the trees are found in a wild state in every direction, and seem only to require grafting to yield excellent fruit. Grafted olive trees are very numerous; and many of the people live all the year round on little but olives, indifferently pickled in brine. The oil is extracted in the rudest manner, after which it is either run into cisterns or jars. There is a large

consumption of it in the country, nothing else being used for light, and a great deal being consumed in food and cookery; but still there remains a good quantity for exportation. Cotton succeeds well wherever it is sown, especially in the plain of Argos, and in the islands. It does not form an important item in the exports, owing to the large consumption of it in the country. Madder thrives well in the northern districts. Greek tobacco is said to be of good quality, and to have a delicious perfume. It is cultivated at little expense.

The cultivation of fruit-trees might be a profitable branch of industry. The figs of Attica have not degenerated since the olden time; the apricots are delicious; and the pomegranates, oranges, and lemons, would make a good figure in the shops of London and Paris.

First among its natural productions may be mentioned valonia, the cup of the acorn of the Quercus Agilops, an oak of which considerable forests exist in the neighbourhood of Marathonis, Cape Papa, Arcadia; also in Attica, the island of Zêa, and other places. The acorn is a powerful astringent, used in tanning and dyeing, and for this purpose is shipped for England and Italy. Another species of oak—the Quercus excelsa, commonly called galls—grows in great quantities on Mount Taygetus, and breeds the insect known as kermes. In the process of drying the insect assumes the appearance of a small brittle berry partly filled with powder, which, from time immemorial, has caused some to look upon it as the berry of the plant, while others considered it to be a swelling caused by the puncture of a particular kind of fly. It is used in dyeing the red Tunis caps both of the Greeks and Turks, and a good deal is exported to Tunis and Alexandria. The dried leaves of the lentisk, also, under the name of Σχορόφελλος, are used by the tanners in Greece and the Levant. Turpentine is obtained in large quantities from the pine forests of Mount Cithæron and other districts.

Notwithstanding the immense clearances made by the ravages of war and other causes, Greece contains 2,800,000 acres of forest, filled with timber trees of the best quality; yet wood is bought abroad for house and ship building, as for want of roads these forests cannot be worked. The shepherds make a practice of setting fire to the coppice woods, in order that their flocks may find some tender sprouts to crop in spring. It is not unusual in the neighbourhood of Athens to find large black patches covering half a square league; and if an explanation be required, the answer is, "Only a shepherd who has been making pasturage for his sheep."

The principal places of trade are Syra, Patras, Piræus, Kalamata, and Nauplia. The trade of Patras is chiefly import; Hydra, Spezzia, and Galaxidi, come more properly under the denomination of ship-owning ports. The exports are chiefly the articles we have enumerated, with others of minor importance; the imports are chiefly iron ware and woven fabrics; besides coffee, sugar, and spices.

The carrying trade is very considerable, especially among the islands. Some of the Greek vessels are between 600 and 700 tons register, and a good many from 300 to 400 tons; but the great majority of them are boats of 6 or 7 tons having a large hatch in midships. (See page 32.) It is customary for a ship-owner to bargain with a captain and crew, taking up a certain sum at interest, generally secured on bottomry bond; with this money a cargo is purchased on the ship's account, and the profit is divided between the vessel and the crew, the latter sharing among themselves according to their special agreements. In this way the Greeks carry on extensive speculations in corn whenever bad harvests or other circumstances present openings in the ports of Turkey, Italy, Spain, or France. Besides this, they export the various productions of Turkey, Greece, Egypt, Persia, and Southern Russia, to London, Marseilles, and Trieste. The great advantage which the

Greece. Greeks have over foreigners in prosecuting this trade is that of having relations and connections in the interior on whom they can rely for the collection of small parcels; and thus they avoid the impositions of agents and the profits of middlemen. The Greek trader despises nothing, and will gather a few bags of rags, or a ton or two of bones and horns, while he is chartering fifty vessels to load with corn and tallow. Then the same vessels supply Turkey, Persia, and Greece with the manufactures of England and Germany. The extensive Greek establishments at Manchester for purchasing, examining, and packing goods, attest the importance of this branch of commerce. They have almost quite superseded the English traders here, chiefly from their thorough knowledge of the countries to be supplied, and their readiness to execute the smallest as well as largest commissions for the shopkeepers of the East. The Greek trader slips in everywhere, neglects no business, disdains no expedient, and changes his flag as often as he finds it his interest to do so.

The Greek government does nothing for maritime trade. There is but one lighthouse on the coasts; and, notwithstanding the shipwrecks that are recorded every winter, the ministers turn a deaf ear to the appeals of the mariners. A similar neglect is shown concerning the means of internal communication. There are only seven roads, amounting in all to a length of 30 leagues, and this in a country where the state owns more than half the land, where evictions are easily effected, and where the peasants are willing to lend their hands for works of public utility. There is no highway from Athens to Sparta, or to Corinth, or to Patras, which, owing to the trade in currants, is becoming the commercial capital.

The banking and exchange operations form perhaps the most remarkable part of the commercial system. The national bank was founded at Athens in 1842, the capital being in the first instance fixed at 5,000,000 drachms. Branches have since been opened at Syra and Patras. The exchange operations throughout the country are ruled chiefly by the transactions at Athens, where bills on London, Paris, Marseilles, Trieste, &c., are negotiated with facility. The most serious hindrance to the progress of industry in Greece is the high rate of interest. The legal rate is 10 per cent. for ordinary loans, and 12 per cent. in commercial business. High as this is, most of the loans are effected at still higher rates; and the government cannot suppress the usury. From a statement inserted in the Spectateur de l'Orient of Athens, it appears that the bank has paid interest to the shareholders, from 1849-54, at 8½ to 9½ per cent. per annum; that its capital amounts now to 6,000,000 drachms, and a reserve fund of 400,000 drachms to provide against emergencies.

The manufactures of Greece are few and simple, the value of the raw material being little enhanced by the labour; yet the peasantry are entirely clothed in cotton and woollen fabrics of their own manufacture. The capotes, not only of the Greeks, but of the whole maritime population of the Mediterranean, are made of a woollen stuff, the peculiar manufacture of the Wallachs; and Kalamata is famous for a silk gauze, highly prized in the East for bed-curtains. Embroidery in gold, silver, silk, and cotton, is brought to great perfection; and marble-cutting and sculpturing have made great progress. At the Great London Exhibition of 1851, the embroidered dresses in red and gold, and in blue and silver, were highly praised. The samples of marbles were not in a condition of manufacture to demand much notice as specimens of industry. Commendatory mention is made, in the report, of lithographic stones from Messenia, samples of steatite (the French chalk of commerce), of a fine natural cement of puzzoalan, of varieties of flexible sponge, and some other objects. In the Exhibition of 1851, only four medals were given for various productions of art and manufacture from Greece; and in the

Exhibition of Paris, eleven of the first class were given (five of which were for agricultural products); thirty of the second, and twenty-seven of the third.

The Greeks call the horse Alogon, that is to say, the animal above all others. Alogon also means unreasonable, a term, it would seem, not very inappropriate, for they appear to be intractable creatures. The ass is here, as elsewhere in the East, a much less degraded animal than with us. They are tolerably swift as well as sure-footed. Oxen are scarce, and the city of Athens can only boast of five or six cows. The milk, butter, and cheese of sheep are in general use. Sheep are indeed an important part of the wealth of the country. Every family eats roast lamb at Easter.

The coasts of Greece are well provided with fish; but the people do not seem disposed to cultivate this branch of industry.

The game is excellent; the hares, snipes, and thrushes are said to have a delicious flavour. The passage of the wild ducks at certain seasons affords fine opportunities to those who live near Lake Copais. So the quails on their passage supply the Mainotes with food for a month; they are so heavy on their arrival that they are sometimes knocked down with sticks. Pigeons may be shot in spring and autumn during their migrations, and thrushes in March and April. The Greeks have an almost incredible tolerance for the sportsman. He wades through the barley, scrambles over the walls of the enclosures of unburnt brick at the risk of demolishing them, eats the best fruit, and nobody interferes with him except when he is seen to carry fruit away in his bag. The only enemies the sportsman has to fear are the shepherds' dogs—immense curly monsters which their masters encourage to throw themselves upon strangers. Even in towns dogs are troublesome after nightfall.

Eagles and vultures are abundant in Hymettus, Pentelicus, and most of the other mountains. A few foxes, and even jackals, are found in the Morea. The owl still inhabits the town of Athens, but it is no longer held as sacred there. In the month of April a species of hawk called the kestrel, visits the Acropolis, and rids it from all the crows which invest it. It departs, however, in October, and crows return to defile the marble of the monuments. The tortoise is common in the fields and brooks of Greece, but the people have the greatest repugnance both to the land and water animal.

The choice of Athens as the capital of Greece proceeded on archaeological rather than prudential considerations; and those who know the country express much regret that Corinth was not rather chosen, as being much more convenient for the interests of commerce, besides enjoying a more fertile soil, a more salubrious climate, and a more plentiful supply of water. Even the Piræus would have suited better than Athens, for, as has been remarked, the capital of a nation of mariners should be a seaport. When King Otho, or rather his father, decided on Athens as the headquarters of government, the once splendid city was but a village in ruins, surrounded by an arid plain. A palace was hastily erected, the court settled as it could into the neighbouring dwellings, and the officials encamped around. But houses were rapidly built; the stone costs nothing, the plaster is excellent, and the Greek masons are not unskilful. There are now 4000 houses and 32,000 inhabitants. The Turkish village which formerly surrounded the base of the Acropolis still remains, and forms a quarter of the new town called Plaka. The new quarter of Athens, where the palace, the university, the legations of England, France, Bavaria, and Russia, with other public establishments, are situated, presents a curious spectacle. The streets are not regularly laid out, nor are they carefully levelled; and a great fosse or open sewer traverses it through-out. Yet at every step are to be seen pretty houses orna-

mented with columns or pilasters, and standing in the midst of gardens. Even the best of these consist but of two storeys above ground and one beneath. The basement, like a cellar with us, is warm in winter, and cool in summer. Here the family take their meals. On the ground floor are the public or reception rooms, and the bedrooms above. The public buildings are few, the ministers' offices and the courts of justice are located on the first floors of houses occupied as shops or taverns below.

Greece is a constitutional monarchy. The charter guarantees to citizens equality before the law, personal and religious liberty, freedom of the press, immunity from confiscation, and education of the people at the public expense. Unfortunately for Greece, its constitution, from various causes, was never tried to its full extent; above all, the nation was not ripe for a representative government, and the king never gave to it that cordial assistance necessary to strengthen and consolidate it. Since the events of 1854, however, we learn that he has in conjunction with his ministers attempted to bring about those improvements which the advantages of the constitution enable him to do. These endeavours to improve and benefit the country are not thrown away, for the people fully appreciate them; and we may safely say that throughout Greece he is universally loved. Though religious liberty is the first article of the Greek constitution, proselytism is strictly prohibited. The highest offices of state are open to all without distinction. A Greek subject, whether he be Jew, Turk, Catholic, or other persuasion, can attain the highest position in the country by his own individual efforts.

The legislative power is exercised by the king, the senate, and the chamber of deputies collectively. The king enjoys all the privileges of a constitutional monarch; his person is sacred, and his ministers, who are seven in number, are responsible. Senators are nominated for life by the king; they must be forty years old; they receive 500 drachms (about £18) per month. The deputies, who must be above thirty years of age, are elected from among persons who possess some property or an independent profession. They retain their places for three years, and receive 250 drachms (about £9) per month during the session. The electors consist of all men above twenty-five years of age, who possess any kind of property, or exercise any independent profession in the district of their political residence.

The power of the king is not however really controlled either by the senators or deputies. As little are the ministers of state any check upon his sovereign will. We quote from M. About:

"In fact, the power of the king is only limited by the diplomatic body. Every minister is ready to do anything for the sake of keeping his place. These men—poor, ambitious, without principles, and brought up in such a miserable school of politics—only aspire to gaining as long a time as possible their 800 drachms a month. They know that their position is precarious, that no ministry has lasted, and that the quidnuncs of the coffee-house of "Beautiful Greece" announce every morning the formation of a new cabinet. They only think, therefore, of keeping in their places, and of making the best of their temporary tenure of state affairs. Each one on coming into power takes care to surround himself with his creatures. He does so from prudence and from duty; from prudence, not to be betrayed by his subordinates; from duty, to reward the devotion of those who have served him. A minister who did not make a clean sweep in his department, and did not put devoted officials into the places of those that knew their business, would pass for a fool and an ungrateful person. He would lose the friendship of his clients, and would become the laughing-

stock of his enemies. It follows that all the staff of the administration is renewed with each new ministry; that men of capacity are never formed in the offices; that the officials of all ranks, not having any certainty for the future, lay hands on all that is within their reach; that the state has no old servants, and that there is in the kingdom but one civil functionary who has been able to acquire the right to a pension. A more distant, but not less necessary consequence of such a state of things is, that the king never finds any resistance either in his ministers or in any of the other officials.²

"Neither did the governments which gave to Greece an absolute monarchy consider seriously enough the character of the people and the state of the country; nor did the revolutionists, who tore from the king the constitution of 1843, take into account the ignorance and barbarousness of the nation. If ever it could be said that a country was not ripe for liberty, it may be said in speaking of Greece. Not that men's minds are closed to political ideas; far from it. All Greeks, without exception, are apt to discuss public affairs—all talk of them, if not wisely, at least with a knowledge of them—all take a passionate interest in the smallest debates of the session."

In the election of representatives, political and personal passions have the greatest influence, and the government takes advantage of this to insure the election of its supporters. Sometimes intimidations and other means are used, which have, on one or two occasions, caused the loss of human life.

The judges of Greece are characterized for their independence and integrity of character. Since the government has been established we believe there is no example of their having been influenced, either by intimidation or by bribe, to commit an act contrary to their consciences. The constitution provided for the appointment for life of the judges after five years from its promulgation, but stipulated that this must first be established by a law. The reason for this was, because at that time there were few judges deeply learned in jurisprudence, and the constitution allowed five years to supply this want from the class that were then studying. Unfortunately, though the five years have long elapsed, no one has yet introduced a law to that effect, because each ministry wishes to reserve these places for their particular supporters.

For administrative purposes, the kingdom is divided into 10 nomarchies or prefectures, and into 49 eparchies or sub-prefectures, two of which may be administered by one sub-prefect. The eparchies are subdivided into demarchies or cantons; and the rural districts are administered by municipal functionaries called paredri—that is, coadjutors of the demarch. All these functionaries are nominated by the king, and salaried by the state.

¹ Greece and the Greeks of the present day. Edinburgh: Thomas Constable and Co.

² It also has the effect of increasing the class of functionaries, already much too large for the country.

For the administration of justice there is an areopagus, or supreme court, 2 courts of appeal, 3 commercial courts, 10 civil and criminal courts, 120 justice of the peace courts, with jury trials, lawyers, notaries, &c. Then there is a provisional civil code, a commercial code, a code of civil process, and a code of criminal law, which seems to secure everything that can be desired for the ends of justice. Capital punishment was introduced by the penal code in 1837, but before an executioner could be found there were 30 or 40 prisoners waiting for execution. The guillotine is the instrument used; and the horror of the scene is occasionally augmented by the struggles of the culprit to escape. The law provides that he shall walk freely and unbound to his doom; and as most of those who are thus condemned are vigorous men, brigands by profession, the struggle is sometimes fearful. The executioner, however, at length prevails, being armed with a dagger, and when the culprit is exhausted with loss of blood from its thrusts, he goes freely to suffer the last sentence of the law.

The people, who are for the most part strongly attached to the Greek Church, have almost forgotten the religion of their king, because they look forward to the 40th article of their constitution being strictly enforced, which stipulates that the next heir or successor of King Otho shall be of the same religion as their own. Prince Leutpold, the brother next in age to Otho, declines changing his religion. A still younger brother, Prince Adalbert, consents to accept the sovereignty in his stead, and the London conference has authorized the substitution; but as he is not absolutely certain of the succession, he chooses to continue a Roman Catholic till actually put in possession of the throne; and to all appearance it will again be the fate of Greece to receive a king who is an utter stranger to them, and at heart averse to their religion.

When Greece was a province of Turkey, its religious community naturally formed part of the patriarchate of Con-

stantinople, one of the four great divisions of the Eastern Church. The war of independence virtually freed it from this position, and the constitution of 1843 established the fact. The patriarch, however, did not recognise the independence of the church in Greece, and the result of a long negotiation between the Greek government and the patriarch was a bull or tomos, signed in 1850 by the patriarch and synod. It set forth that the right of uniting or separating ecclesiastical provinces had in all ages belonged to the oecumenical synods; and it granted to the Greeks the permission to separate, but not without some restriction, to the effect that difficult cases should be referred to the patriarch and his sacred college. This tomos did not satisfy either party. The Russian emperor and his partisans desired to see the Greeks kept in connection with the synod, while the friends of independence desired more perfect freedom. In 1852, the matter was brought before the Chambers, and a bill was passed to the effect that the superior ecclesiastical authority of the kingdom should reside in a permanent synod, called the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece. This synod is composed of four prelates of the kingdom, besides the metropolitan, who enjoys the right of presidency. A commissioner appointed by the king attends the sittings, not to vote, but to countersign all their acts and decisions. The functions of the synod are either internal, including the preservation of pure doctrine and worship with the maintenance of ecclesiastical discipline, and other matters purely religious; or they are external, relating to matters which involve public interests, as marriage, divorce, the excommunication of laymen, and the celebration of extraordinary religious festivals on working days. In the former, the powers of the synod are independent of the state; in the latter, it can act only in concert with the government.

Excommunication, however, is used in a different spirit from the Roman Catholic Church, namely, to influence, by the fear of God and future punishment, the consciences of those who, knowing the perpetrators of a crime, conceal, or do not reveal to the authorities, the criminal, or of those who are the possessors of stolen property. Very often this has succeeded better than the efforts of the police. It is, however, very seldom used, and the synod must first have permission from the king.

The kingdom is divided into 24 episcopal sees, of which 11 are directed by archbishops, and the remaining 13 by bishops. Every bishop is chosen by the king out of three candidates presented by the Holy Synod. He can displace him again only in conformity with the canons, and after the advice of the synod. The metropolitan receives 6000 drachms (L.212) a year; each archbishop, 5000 (L.180); and each bishop 4000 (L.145). The inferior clergy receive no salary from the state. They live chiefly by the altar, but they also levy certain portions of the harvest.

The government found the country infested with monks, and it has shut up many of their houses; but it has been impossible either to suppress or reform a convent at Janina (Turkey), containing about 200 females, who are not closely secluded, and whose morals are said to be scandalous. The religious houses are understood to be asylums of anti-national intrigue, the inmates being generally devoted to the interests of the Russian emperor, and disposed to look on King Otho as a mere heretic.

There are above 300 churches in Athens and its neighbourhood; only five or six of them are habitable, the rest are miserable sheds or ruins, yet none of them is utterly abandoned. On the day of the saint to which it is dedicated, a little lamp is lighted, a little incense burned, and a few prayers chanted. It would be deemed sacrilege to destroy even the meanest of these sanctuaries. There are no infidels or latitudinarians in Greece; no one is ashamed of punctually attending to the duties of religion. (For the

Greece. doctrines and state of the Greek Church, see GREEK CHURCH.) Roman Catholics are tolerated, among whom is the king himself; but he is obliged to render public homage to the state religion five or six times a year. There are few Jews who, though they have every protection, do not seem to prosper amongst the Greeks.

The army, which was reorganized in 1843, consists now of 6 battalions of the line, 3 battalions of light infantry, 2 troops of cavalry, 3 companies of artillery, 1 company of engineers, and 1 of artillery workmen, 3 corps of gendarmerie, 1 corps of pensioners and phalanx; in all, including the administrative hospital pensioners, 952 officers, 1257 subalterns, 8237 soldiers—total 10,446.

The fleet numbers 21 vessels, principally small, except 3 steamers and some gun-boats which the government has lately ordered in England. The complement of the Greek navy is 1431 men, including 418 officers and 139 sub-officers.

Greece boasts of one university, divided into the faculties of theology, philosophy, law, and medicine; a military school; a polytechnic school of arts and trades; a normal school for training elementary teachers; a school of agriculture; a seminary; seven lyceums; an extensive institute for female education; an orphan female school, called Amalion, was established last year at Athens, under the patronage of Her Majesty the Queen of Greece (who is very much beloved by the nation for her intelligence and judgment, and for the great zeal she shows for the patriotic cause); 179 Hellenic schools, in which ancient Greek is taught; and 369 communal or Romaic schools, in which strictly elementary instruction is imparted. In 1854-5 there were 643 students at the university—20 in theology, 190 law, 317 medicine, 74 philosophy, and 42 pharmacy; and there were 38,018 scholars at the various schools. The education in all, from the humblest village school to the university, is gratuitous. The effect is to draw the youth of the country in undue proportion towards the learned professions. A young man will at once enter the house of a Fanariot as a valet, and matriculate at the university as a medical student. When his studies are completed, he will ask his master's permission to attend him in future as his physician. Children and youths of all ages prosecute their studies with indefatigable eagerness; and at Athens an idle student is not to be found.

Newspapers and periodicals form the principal literature of the country, but a considerable number of books are published yearly in every branch of knowledge, either translated or original. In 1851, 188; and in 1852, 164 books were published, the greater part of which were of poetry; and though we understand few of the latter are of a first-class character, yet it shows that the Greeks aspire to gather the laurels of Parnassus once more. All the books are written by Greeks; and it may be mentioned, that out of the 164 published in 1852, 120 belong to the kingdom of Greece, 29 to the Ionian Islands, 7 to Turkey, and 8 to Vienna and London. They are a very musical people; but until lately music did not form a part of their education.

In sculpture, there is now an establishment at Athens of a talented artist, who with such splendid prototypes before him may succeed in approaching his ancestors.

In 1846 M. Salvandy, minister of public instruction in France, resolved to found at Athens a school for the promotion of literature, similar to the French Academy at Rome for the fine arts. It was decided that the members should be chosen from among young men who had obtained fellowships in history, philosophy, and literature; and that they should each spend two or three years in Athens, at the expense of the state, in a house provided for them, and prosecute the study of Greek literature. The first professors that repaired to Greece seemed at a loss what to do with themselves. Some began to learn

modern Greek under an Athenian professor; others employed themselves in teaching French to the Athenians; others travelled about the country; while economists at home, disposed to pick holes in the budget, wondered what end was gained by the 40,000 francs per annum which this academy cost the state. In 1850 a decree was passed, placing the school under the patronage of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres, and enjoining that each member should annually send home a paper on some question of Greek history, geography, or archaeology. The institution was, however, nearly extinct, when the fortunate excavations of M. Beulé gave it a fresh impulse. There are now five young professors prosecuting with enthusiasm their researches into the archaeological remains.

The kingdom of Greece has ever been pecuniarily in an embarrassed state. It was necessary for the protecting powers to enable her to negotiate a loan by becoming security for her. The sum thus raised has been squandered by the Bavarian regency, and now the revenue never meets the expenditure; so that there is little hope of the debt ever being paid. The greatest part of the taxes are paid in kind, because of the scarcity of money. The wealthy proprietors bribe or intimidate the officials; and the lesser ones are protected either by a powerful friend or by their own poverty. The ministers of finance, therefore, up to 1846, used to prepare two budgets—one indicating what sums the government ought to receive; the other, what it could dare to hope for. The year after the revolution, only a small portion of the taxes imposed were realized.

The state income consists of—(1.) Direct taxes, including land tax, paid in kind; usufruct, or the rent paid in kind by the cultivators of the state lands; except the tax on the currants, valonia, and all kinds of fruit, which is paid in money; taxes on bees, cattle, and buildings, which are paid in money; and a tax on grants of land from the state, also payable in money. (2.) Indirect taxes, including customs-duties, stamp-duties, taxes on trade and professions, licenses to carry arms, consular fees, and quarantine, harbour, and navigation dues. The public establishments—as the mint, the mails, and the royal printing-office—yield very little return. The national property—consisting of mines, quarries, medicinal springs, salt-works, fisheries, forests, olive-groves, vineyards, &c.—ought to supply a considerable revenue, if the government were intelligent enough to have them worked advantageously, and strong enough to compel payment from those who work them. The state expenditure consists chiefly of the interest on the national debt, internal and foreign; the civil list; the salaries of the chambers and the expenses of the ministry; besides those of collecting taxes and customs.

The following statement of the foreign debt is from the Debt report of M. Metaxas, audited by M. Lemaitre, commissioner of the French government:—

In 1832, France, England, and Russia, to complete the emancipation of Greece, and to assure her prosperity, supported by their guarantee a loan of sixty millions of francs. Each of the three powers guaranteed a third of the sum, that is to say, twenty millions.

One part of these sixty millions was intended to indemnify the creditors of Greece, and particularly the Turkish government; the remainder was to supply the first wants of agriculture and commerce, and to form as it were a social capital for this improvised kingdom.

Unfortunately, the funds were confided to the Council of Regency. The regents were irresponsible; they employed the money as they pleased, and went away without giving in any accounts. It is difficult to say which most to admire, the audacity of the regents, the simplicity of the Greeks, or the rashness of the great powers, to confide sixty millions to three individuals who had the right of squandering them.

Since the year 1832, up to the 31st December 1843, the issues of the bonds for the loan amounted to:—

Greece, or at least her government, has therefore received from foreign powers, between 1832 and 1843, a nett and clear sum of 31,669,934 drachms, 33 lepta.

With a little assistance, Greece paid the interest of the loan of 60,000,000 frs. in the years 1841, 1842, 1843. Since then she has fallen hopelessly into arrears. She now owes to the three Powers 100,000,000 drs., which she cannot pay; besides above 200,000,000 drs. to English capitalists, which she will not pay.

As to other items of the state expenditure, the king's civil list is 1,000,000 drs., or about L.36,000 sterling; the chambers receive about 600,000 drs. a year; the seven ministers, as salary, 9600 drs.; while the departments of the army and navy expend 5,500,000 drs.; and the other five state departments, 4,500,000 drs.

It has been remarked, that if Greece were organized like the Ionian Islands, without either king, fleet, or army, 6,500,000 drs. might be realized above the annual expenditure towards liquidating her debt and improving the national property.

The antiquities of Greece open so wide a field, that, in

an article of this kind, we can do nothing more than allude to the various classes of objects comprised under the title. Among these we may, without much impropriety, rank many of the cities themselves, which not only exist on the very spots they anciently occupied, and bear the same names, but, deriving their most striking characters from natural objects which remain unchanged, they still present to the eye at a distance the same general aspect and outlines. With regard to the interior of the cities, also, though the august temples of the gods have disappeared, and filth and meanness meet the eye everywhere, little doubt will remain with those who have read what the ancients have left us on the subject of their private houses, and what modern travellers have told us respecting the disinterred buildings of Pompeii, that the houses at the present day—with their square inclosed courts, their projecting roofs, and dead walls, and all that is most peculiar in their plan and interior arrangements—are copies (though miserable copies) of those of the ancient Greeks; and it is probable that some of the modern dark and narrow streets of Athens come much nearer in appearance to what they were in the age of Pericles than the admirers of antiquity are willing to allow. Among the cities which occupy their ancient sites, and bear their ancient names with little alteration, may be mentioned Athens, Thebes, Livadia, Larissa, Pharsalia, Salonica, Corinth, Argos, Nauplia, Patrae; and a great number of others of less note might be added. The ancient buildings of which remains now exist belong to three different eras :—1. The very ancient structures to which the name of Cyclopean has been given, consisting of vast masses of unhewn stone, put together without cement. They are not numerous. The ruins of the citadels of Tyrins and Mycenæ, which are of this description, have remained in their present state for 3000 years, and present the most perfect specimen in existence of the military architecture of the heroic ages.¹ 2. The works of the classical ages, consisting of temples, baths, porticoes, theatres, columns, stadia, fountains, which are extremely numerous, and executed in a great variety of styles, exemplifying the infancy, progress, perfection, and decline of the arts. Of the two or three hundred temples enumerated by Pausanias—many of which were models of the most exquisite beauty and symmetry—that of Theseus at Athens was the only one tolerably entire; and it was destroyed by the Turks in 1827. Others are found in various stages of dilapidation; and the far greater part have vanished from their sites, and only left traces of their existence in their innumerable fragments of inscribed and sculptured marbles scattered over the fields, or stuck into the walls of forts, churches, and clay-built cottages. 3. A number of square towers, of a rude construction, built on the tops of hills, for military purposes, are the only memorials left by the Latin princes who ruled Greece for two or three centuries before the Mohammedan conquest. 4. Next in importance to the remains of ancient edifices we may rank the statues, bas-reliefs, and inscribed marbles; a great number of which, generally somewhat mutilated, have been brought from Greece to enrich the museums of Western Europe; and a much greater number, no doubt, lie buried under the soil. 5. Vessels of terra cotta, or ancient pottery, consisting of vases, amphoræ, lamps, &c., of exquisite workmanship, adorned with coloured designs illustrative of the arts, habits, and mythology of the ancients, and often in high preservation. The quantity of these found among the ruins of ancient cities is incredibly great. 6. Coins of gold, silver, and copper, which are great in number and variety, every considerable town having its separate coinage. 7. Amongst the most interesting remains are the tumuli, erected to commemorate great victories. These simple but expressive

¹ In Sir William Gell's Itinerary of Argolis, a good account of these remarkable ruins is given, illustrated by excellent drawings.

Greece. monuments, formed of conical mounds of earth, but long since divested of their sculptured ornaments, still mark the fields of Marathon, Leuctra, Plataea, Cheronea, Thermopylæ, Pharsalia, and Pydna. 8. We ought also to class among the antiquities of Greece a vast number of fountains, caves, rocks, and other natural objects, which owe their interest, not to any beauty or importance they possess in themselves, but to the legends associated with them in the history and mythology of the ancient Greeks. With regard to the antiquities of Greece in general, it may be observed, that the finest, the best preserved, and the most numerous specimens of ancient art are found at Athens. Salonica, it is said, ranks next to it in this respect; but its monuments are deficient in the interest derived from classical associations. In general the southern and eastern parts of Greece, and the islands, abound most in antiquities. Albania and Ætolia contain but few, and these not of much interest.¹

Languages. There are five languages spoken in Greece at the present day:—1. The Turkish, which is in use among a few of the Turks, but the great majority speak Romaic. 2. The Bulgarian, a dialect of Selavonic, spoken by the tribes of Bulgarians who inhabit the northern parts of Macedonia. 3. The Wallachian, in use amongst the Vlaki, who occupy the branches of Pindus and Olympus; a language of uncertain root, but containing a large mixture of Latin, and some Italian. 4. The Albanian or Skipetariac, spoken by the natives of Albania, and by some of the colonies of this people in the south of Greece. It is an unwritten tongue, and abounds in nasal sounds. Its basis is supposed to be the ancient Illyrian, with which is intermixed a large proportion of Latin, and smaller proportions of Romaic, Selavonic, Italian, and Turkish. 5. The Romaic (Ρωμαικη) or modern Greek, spoken by all the Greeks, by most of the Turks, and by a part of the Albanians. This is the name given to the language by the Greeks, who call themselves Ρωμαίοι, or Romans, a denomination derived from the establishment of the Roman empire for so many ages at Constantinople, which they consider as the capital of Greece. The Romaic bears a much closer resemblance to the Hellenic than the Italian to the Latin. Indeed we have been informed by one of the best modern Greek scholars in Europe, that if we take the Attic as a standard, the ancient Doric differs as much from it as the present living dialect. The peculiarities which distinguish the Romaic from the ancient Greek cannot be fully explained without many details; we shall, therefore, only notice some of the most prominent. These are,—1. The disuse of the aspirates in speaking, though they are retained in writing. 2. The adoption of the first numeral αὐτὸ μὴν ἔστιν, for an indefinite article, as in the French. 3. In substantives it discards the dual number, and the dative case; makes some alterations in the oblique cases; marks cases sometimes by prepositions; and often changes the Hellenic masculine and feminine into neuter. 4. The degrees of comparison are formed as of old, by adding -τερος and -τερος, but sometimes by πλὺς, plus, as in the French. 5. Diminutives are much used, as in the Italian. 6. Considerable changes and substitutions have been made in the tenses of the verbs; the infinitive and the middle voice have been suppressed, and two auxiliary verbs introduced, ἔχω, I will, and ἔχω, I have. 7. The Hellenic pronouns are retained, but with many modifications. Many old Hellenic words have changed their meaning, attributives being used as substantives, and vice versa. The pronunciation of the Romaic deviates widely from that of the ancient Greek as taught in our schools. The B is sounded like our V, whilst

the place of B is supplied by μν. The Δ is sounded like th in that, and θ like our th in think. The vowels η, ε, υ, and the diphthongs α, ο, υ, are all pronounced like the Italian i. It is said, however, that the dialects of the spoken Romaic in Greece have not so marked a difference as those of the distant provinces of France or England. The purest dialects, or those which approach nearest to the Hellenic, are found in some of the least frequented islands of the Archipelago, in the mountainous parts of Greece, at Yanina, and among the well-educated Greeks of Constantinople. The name of Romaic is going into disuse; the modern language being denominated Neo-Hellenic, and the ancient, for the sake of distinction, Hellenic.

The new Greek language has lately made immense progress, and great care is taken by every writer not only to avoid introducing any foreign idioms in the language, but also to imitate the style of their Greek prototypes. They keep with the greatest scrupulosity the ancient orthography.

The Romaic, which, before the revolution, was a mixed language, full of foreign words, and unintelligible to any one not acquainted with the Greek, the Italian, and the Turkish, is written and spoken now by the educated classes, pure, as in the ancient language. Any Greek scholars can easily understand a Greek newspaper, by impressing on his mind the above remarks on the language.

NARRATIVE OF THE GREEK REVOLUTION.

In the course of last century, the Greeks made two unsuccessful attempts to liberate themselves. The first was in 1770, during a war between Russia and the Porte. The Russians, in pursuance of a plan previously concerted, landed a small force of 2000 men at various points in the Morea. The Mainotes and other Greeks instantaneously rose in arms, and got possession of the open towns, butchering the Turks with every circumstance of cruelty. Before they had mastered any of the fortified places, however, a great force of Albanians pouring in, defeated them, and retaliated, with dreadful severity, the cruelties committed on the Turks. The inhabitants of some entire towns and villages were massacred, and the country was almost desolated. Though the Greeks acted with much vigour at the outset, it was observed that their spirits sank at the first check they received. But it is impossible to reprobate too strongly the cruelty and perfidy of the Russian government, which, by sending such an inadequate force, exposed the Greeks to certain destruction, for the sake of operating a paltry diversion in its own favour; and, at the conclusion of a peace, took no effectual means to protect them from the rage of their enemies.

In 1790, the Greeks of Suli, in Albania, rose in arms, upon an understanding that assistance was to be received from Russia. A deputation went to Petersburg to offer the crown of Greece to Prince Constantine, brother of the emperor, whom they saluted βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἑλλήνων. They were to collect their various troops from Suli, Livadia, Attica, and the Morea; to march through Thessaly and Macedonia, where they were to be joined by other reinforcements; and to meet the Russians at Adrianople with 300,000 men (as they gave out), after which the combined army was to proceed to Constantinople, and drive the Turks out of Europe. But in the end little was done. The Russians sent a trifling sum of money, which was chiefly embezzled by their own agents, and soon made peace,

¹ On the subject of the Antiquities of Greece, the reader may consult the following works:—Les Ruines des plus beaux Monumens de la Grèce, par M. Le Roy, fol. 1758; The Antiquities of Athens, by Stuart and Revett, 4 vols. fol. 1762-1816; The Ionian Antiquities, by Chandler, Revett, and Pars, 2 vols. fol. 1769-1797; The Unedited Antiquities of Attica, by the Society of Dilettanti, fol. 1817; Chandler and Clarke's Travels, already referred to; and Mr Edward Dodwell's Classical and Topographical Tour in Greece, 2 vols. 4to, 1819; and on the geographical, historical, archaeological, and statistical condition of ancient Greece, consult also M. S. R. Rangabé's, Τὰ Ἑλληνικά, edited at Athens, 1853.

Greece. without concerning themselves about the peril into which they had brought the Greeks. The Suliotes defeated the Pasha of Yanina; and, aided by their rocks, defended themselves, performing prodigies of valour against the Albanian Turks. A squadron of twelve small vessels, which they had fitted out at Trieste, signalized itself in the Archipelago, and after spreading terror amongst the Turks, was overpowered and destroyed by a greatly superior force. This second enterprise, in short, ended like the first, without any other effect than that of exposing the Greeks to renewed outrages from the Turks. The brave tribe of the Suliotes, on whom the Greeks placed great reliance, as the best soldiers of their faith, were reduced to a remnant by Ali in 1808, after a contest of many years.

Though the hopes of the Greeks were cast down for a time by this event, various causes were silently operating a change in their situation, and preparing the way for a more successful effort. Amidst all the hardships of their lot, knowledge had been steadily increasing. The influence of Russia over the Porte was visibly extending, and promised them sooner or later the means of exchanging Mohammedan for Christian rulers. But what was of more immediate importance, the establishment of Russian ports on the Black Sea, and the destruction of the French shipping by the wars of the revolution, created a trade in corn between Odessa, Marseilles, Leghorn, and Trieste, which falling into the hands of the Greeks, had raised up a class of capitalists amongst them, and given them possession of a commercial navy. From a few small barks engaged in coasting traffic, a short period saw them in possession of some hundred large well-rigged merchantmen, making long voyages. Greek houses were established at the ports mentioned, as well as at Smyrna, Salonica, and Constantinople. As patriotic feelings were universally diffused, a part of the wealth thus acquired was expended in founding schools and libraries, and the number of Greek youths sent to the universities of Western Europe was greatly increased. The ancient classic writers of the country were studied with new ardour, and lessons of freedom, magnanimity, and patriotic devotion, eagerly imbibed from their pages. Amongst the educated Greeks, those especially who had studied in France, Russia, and Germany, a more just idea was acquired of the relative weakness of the Porte, and the advantages which any people contending with it might derive from those arts and improvements, the growth of an advanced civilization, which the Turks despised. The conviction thus gained strength, that nothing more was necessary to accomplish the liberation of the Greeks, than a combined and organized effort by themselves, aided if possible by the countenance of some great Christian power. This idea gave birth to the Hetairia, a secret association, which is supposed to have originated about the beginning of the present century, but remained obscure and feeble till 1815. About that time Count Capo d'Istria, a Greek by birth, who enjoyed a considerable rank in the Russian service, established a Philomuse Society, ostensibly to promote Greek literature, but really to serve as a cloak for the Hetairia. In a little time he withdrew from its apparent guidance, but without ceasing to promote its objects privately. The Hetairia had a complex and artful organization. It was divided into five orders: those of the first or lowest receiving merely a general intimation that a scheme was in contemplation to regenerate Greece; and the information communicated of the society's designs becoming more special and distinct through the other grades, to the fifth or highest, called the Grand Arch, which was composed of sixteen members, and alone possessed a full knowledge of the society's plans, the power of issuing general orders, and fixing the time and mode of execution. All the members were sworn to secrecy on their knees, at the dead of night, and bound to kill any

one of their brother members who should be guilty of treachery. The grand arch had its seat at Moscow, from which it corresponded with persons in all parts of Europe. The society spread its ramifications through the southern parts of Russia, had numerous members in Odessa, Yassy, Bucharest, and in Greece Proper, and some at Vienna, Paris, and Leghorn. Most of the primates of the Morea joined it in 1819. This conspiracy had been spreading its roots through European Turkey for five years before the Ottoman government knew of its existence; and when at length apprised of the fact by an accidental circumstance, its usual apathy, and its contempt of the Greeks, prevented it from taking any precautions to avert the threatened danger. It has been said that the Hetairists had fixed upon the year 1825 for beginning the revolution; but the statement rests on no good authority. Whatever might be their intentions, the rebellion of Ali Pasha, by embarrassing the Porte, and neutralizing one who would have been a formidable enemy, presented an opportunity too favourable to be lost, and precipitated the commencement of hostilities.

In the autumn of 1820 a Turkish army advanced into Albania. Most of Ali's officers and armies having deserted his standard and joined the enemy, he shut himself up in a fortress at Yanina, after destroying the town, and prepared to stand a vigorous siege. Aware of the designs of the Hetairists, he stimulated them to take up arms, by a promise of money and assistance; and though they did not confide in it, they resolved to embrace the advantage which the position of affairs held out. The first movement was in a distant quarter. By previous concert a number of Greeks assembled at Yassy in Moldavia in the end of February 1821, and on the 6th of March Prince Ipsilanti, who held the rank of major-general in the Russian service, crossed the Pruth, and joined them. After proclaiming the independence of Greece, he left that town on the 13th, with eight hundred horsemen, proceeding towards Bucharest, but lost time foolishly on the road, and did not enter the capital of Wallachia till the 9th of April. Dissensions in the mean time broke out in his small army; and though the spirit of the people was good, and the lethargy of the Turks left him a clear space for action, his incapacity and indecision rendered him unable to improve these advantages; and a proclamation issued by the Russian consul, in which the insurrection was strongly condemned by the emperor, on whose assistance they had relied, completely disheartened the insurgents. About the end of April, a body of Turks put themselves in motion from Silistria, occupied Bucharest, and followed the insurgents northward. Some trifling skirmishes took place in the neighbourhood of Tergovisht, rather to the disadvantage of the Greeks; and a rash and unsuccessful attack made by one of their officers at Piteshti caused a panic in the army, followed by a disastrous retreat. In this action the greater part of the Sacred Battalion, composed of Greek youths from various parts of Europe, was destroyed, after a brave resistance. Ipsilanti shortly afterwards stole away from his troops, and sought refuge within the Austrian boundary. A partisan warfare was continued a little longer. One small corps retreated to Yassy, and thence to Skuleni on the Pruth, where, under Athanasius of Agrapha, they sustained an attack from a body of Turks six times more numerous, refusing to fly, though the means of retreat were open to them, till three fourths of their number were destroyed. Another small party under Yorgaki, or George the Olympian, shut themselves up in the monastery of Secka, where they resisted the Turks for six and thirty hours. At length, when the enemy got into their rear, and success was hopeless, the gallant chief, having refused the safe retreat which the Turks offered him, called his followers together, and exhorted them to seek a glorious death sword in hand.

Greece. Finding that instead of seconding his heroic resolution, they were preparing to fly, he retired to the chamber where his powder was deposited, and uttering a short prayer, blew himself up, with four of his attendants. George was a native of Mount Olympus, and during this short campaign showed a prudence and courage which would have fitted him admirably for heading the insurrection; but the Greeks of that district were slaves to family titles, and George, who had no pretensions to rank, held only a subordinate situation. Quiet, modest, averse to intrigue, he seems, says Mr Gordon, to have been a real hero, inspired with sincere devotion, sublime courage, and an enthusiastic love of his country. With his death, on the 26th of August, all resistance ceased in the principalities. The intention of the insurgents was to erect European Turkey into a province for Prince Ipsilanti.

From the beginning of 1821 secret conferences were held by the more zealous Hetairists of the Morea, and a spirit of insubordination began to appear amongst the people. At length, on the 2d of April, the standard of independence was hoisted at Kalavrita, a town about thirty miles south-east from Patras, by Germanos, archbishop of Paleon-Patron, and Andreas Londos.¹ Two days afterwards the fighting began at Patras, where the Christian inhabitants rose on the Turks, and, during a bloody struggle of some days, a part of the town was burned. The Turks, however, retained the citadel, from which the Greeks had no means of expelling them; and Yusuf Pasha crossing the straits of Lepanto, the armed insurgents suddenly fled, leaving their brethren in the town to be butchered by the Turks. The insurrection spread with such rapidity over the Morea, that seven days after the first shot was fired, a Greek senate assembled at Calamata in Messina, under the presidency of Petras Mavromichalis, bey of Maina. A partisan warfare was carried on for some time against the small bodies of Mahomedan settlers living in the country, most of whom ultimately sought refuge in Tripolizza, the capital of the Morea. Meanwhile three thousand Albanians coming from the north, victualled the Acrocorinthus, and advancing to Argos, routed a body of Greeks posted there, killing seven hundred of them, and afterwards burned the town. The Kihaya Bey then proceeded to Tripolizza, and seemed resolved to act with vigour. The Greeks, who had now assembled a considerable force, were divided as to the mode of acting; but it was finally determined to fight, and they accordingly posted themselves at Valtezza, near the enemy. The Kihaya Bey, leaving Tripolizza with five thousand troops, attacked them on the 27th of May, but was repulsed in several attacks made on the village in that and the following day, and finally fled to Tripolizza, with the loss of two pieces of cannon and four hundred men. This victory, though small, had a great moral effect in raising the courage of the Greeks. The three great seats of Greek commerce, Hydra, Spezzia, and Psyra, entered into the revolutionary cause about the same time with the towns on the mainland. A small fleet of Hydriot and Spezzian vessels visited the other isles of the Ægean, proclaiming the independence of Greece, and was everywhere received with enthusiasm; whilst light-armed ships scoured the seas, and captured every Ottoman trader.

In Rumelia the insurrection broke out a few days later. The Armatolis, a sort of stationary Christian militia, in the mountains of Acarnania, Ætolia, and Thessaly, kept up by the Turkish government for the purposes of police, were unwilling to risk the loss of their pay. The peasants of Attica and Bœotia, however, took the field in the beginning of May; and on the 7th of that month, scaling the low wall which surrounds Athens, took possession of the town, and drove the Turkish inhabitants into the citadel. In Epirus, the remnant of the brave Suliotes, reinforced by other Greeks, and encouraged by Ali Pasha, harassed the

Seraskier Kourschid Pasha, by cutting off his convoys of provisions. The scene of these hostilities was chiefly in the ancient Thesprotia, and it was carried on with great activity in May by Marco Bozzaris. From this district it spread into Acarnania and Ætolia; the independent flag was hoisted in Messolonghi in June, by several of the Armatoli chiefs; Vrakhoris, a Mahomedan town twenty miles north of Messolonghi, was carried very gallantly, and some weeks afterwards Zarpandi in the same district; Salona was next taken; and the Turks in three months were deprived of a large proportion of the posts which they had occupied south of Mount Cœta. Kourschid Pasha, however, made a vigorous opposition, and success often changed sides. In this desultory warfare the summer passed away. The Rumeliots, in the various actions fought, showed themselves much better soldiers than the Moreots, and this reputation they continued to maintain during the war. Whilst these events were passing, Mavrocordato arrived at Messolonghi from Leghorn, and, after conferring with the primates, went to Tripolizza, where the Moreot leaders were assembled for the siege. Finding he was an object of jealousy to Demetrius Ipsilanti, he returned to Messolonghi in September, and laboured to organize the insurrection in Rumelia. In the mean time Omar Pasha, with a body of four thousand Turkish troops, marched from Thessaly, routed a party of seven hundred Greeks at Thermopylæ, a second larger party under Odysseus at Scripu, and destroyed Livadia, the most flourishing town of Rumelia. He then advanced to Athens, and on the 30th of July relieved the citadel, in which sixteen hundred Turks had been blockaded for eighty-three days, by a motley army consisting of Attic peasants, Æginetans, and other islanders. The armed Greeks retired to Salamis and Ægina, and the Albanians of the pasha's army plundered and wasted the country. The Greeks now collected in small corps in the hilly districts of Bœotia and Phœcis, straitening the communications of the Turks, and cutting off their supplies. A strong reinforcement coming to the latter from Thessaly, was routed at Thermopylæ by Odysseus, with the loss of eight hundred men. The pasha shortly afterwards withdrew from Attica and Bœotia, and the Athenians from Salamis re-occupied the town, and resumed the blockade of the citadel in November. In the extreme north the insurrection had been unfortunate. The Macedonian Greeks, who had taken refuge in the peninsula of Pallene, had their line of defence at Isthmus forced by Aboulaboud, and, except a portion who escaped by sea, were either killed or made prisoners. The monks of Athos capitulated to the same pasha, after two thousand of them had left the mountain. The people of Magnesia, when dividing the booty they had taken from the Mahomedans, were surprised and routed by the Pasha of Drama. A part sought shelter in the forests of Pelion, and part fortified themselves in the peninsula of Trikeri, or fled to the neighbouring isles of Scopelos and Skiathos. The thirty-five neat and flourishing villages of the district were mostly burned by the Turks. The Olympians, or Greeks of Pieria, also rose in arms, but at too late a period. The Pasha Aboulaboud had previously subdued the Christians of Athos and Macedonia, and being able to bring his whole force against them, routed them, and burned the 120 villages they possessed in the valleys of Olympus.

The Greeks of Macedonia, cruelly used by the Pasha of Salonica, were driven by despair to take up arms. Unable, however, to make head in the plain country against the Ottoman cavalry, they retreated to the peninsula of Cassandra, abandoning seventy villages, which the Turks burned. We must explain, however, that the rage of the Turks was excited to fury by the discovery of a plot formed by a Hydriot captain, to fire the arsenal at Constantinople, kill the sultan, and raise the Greek population.

¹ See History of the Greek Revolution, by M. Tricoupi, Greek Ambassador in London, tom. i., p. 70, who gives rather a different version.

Greece. The government, alarmed by this event, seized and executed the leading individuals of the Fanariot families, whilst some thousands of the other Christian inhabitants were massacred in their houses, without the least regard to legal forms. The death of the patriarch, a very old man, much esteemed for his virtues, and of a number of the other high clergy, created a great sensation. Salonica, Adrianople, and Smyrna, were the scene of similar barbarities. The last of these towns, in particular, was consigned to a general sack, like a city stormed. Kydonia, a Greek town with thirty thousand inhabitants, which had grown up in a few years, and was renowned for its college, where three hundred students received a superior education, falling under the suspicion of the Turks, was burned to the ground, and its people were forced to seek refuge in Psyra and other isles. The Greek ships, which were merely merchant vessels, carrying from twelve to twenty-four guns, would have been impotent against any navy but the Turkish; but by their superior seamanship, and a bold and skilful use of brulots or fire-ships, they often baffled or defeated strong squadrons of large men of war. Their first exploit of this kind was the burning of a Turkish seventy-four on the coast of Mytelene in June. This paralysed the operations of the capitane-bey for a little; but setting forward again, he arrived at Samos, the poor but brave inhabitants of which, forty thousand in number, had slain their Ottoman rulers, and now harassed the Turks of the neighbouring continent by frequent descents upon the coast. A large land force was collected to subdue them, and the capitane-bey attended with the fleet to co-operate. But the Turks were defeated with great loss in an attempt to land a thousand men, and a second armament was intercepted by the Greek fleet, who burned ten transports, whilst the soldiers escaped to the shore. The troops after this refused to embark. The Greek and Turkish fleets manoeuvred in presence of each other, but parted without fighting, after the former had burned several fire-ships without effect.

Demetrius Ipsilanti, second brother of Alexander, travelling in disguise from Russia, landed at Hydra in June, and thence sailed over to the continent, where he was welcomed with extraordinary demonstrations of joy. He brought a small supply of money and arms, and a commission from his brother, investing him with the supreme command of the army. Patriotic, upright, brave, and accomplished, he unfortunately wanted the energy necessary for the post he assumed, and soon found himself thwarted in his views, and rendered incapable of effecting anything, by the jealousy of the bishops and military chiefs. Prince Mavrocordato, another Greek of noble descent and considerable talents, arrived in the Morea a few weeks later. The Turks at this time were driven out of the open country, but held nine fortresses in the Morea, Patras, the castle at the adjoining straits, Navarin, Coron, Modon, Nauplia, Acrocorinthus, Monemvasia, and Tripolizza. The Greeks wanted both materials and skill for conducting regular sieges, and merely kept most of these places blockaded less or more strictly. Monemvasia, and afterwards Navarin, surrendered in August, in consequence of famine. The one capitulation was pretty faithfully kept; the other was most disgracefully violated by the massacre of the Turks, to whom a safe retreat had been guaranteed. The siege of Tripolizza was pressed with a little more vigour, as it was the capital of the peninsula, and contained a number of wealthy Turks, whose property was looked to as the prize of conquest. The city was defended by a wall fourteen feet high and two miles in circuit, flanked by a few towers with cannon, and its population was increased by refugees to 25,000 souls. The besieging army amounted to about 4500 men, which was less than the number of adults within the walls; it gradually swelled, however, as

Greece. the increasing scarcity in the town multiplied the chances of a surrender. The contest was carried on by trifling skirmishes, till the Turkish cavalry, which was the only force dreaded by the Greeks, being entirely ruined, the besiegers were enabled to invest the place more closely. Famine was now doing its work upon the unhappy Moslems, who were negotiating for a capitulation on the 5th of October, when some Greeks mounting a part of the wall which had been neglected (there was no truce), entered the town, and were immediately followed by the rest of the army. The place was completely sacked, and of ten or twelve thousand inhabitants, young and old, of both sexes, still remaining in it, about eight thousand are supposed to have been slain. A number of women were carried off as captives, and a few officers were spared for the sake of the ransom expected for them. Some Turks sold their lives dearly, and a party of forty cut their way through the Greeks, and escaped to Nauplia. The booty in money, shawls, jewels, dresses, pistols, sabres, and other articles, was very great, and led to petty contests amongst the victors. The town presented the aspect of a ruin. As a small counterpoise to this loss, the capitane-bey destroyed the village of Galaxidi, near Salona, and carried off thirty-four small trading vessels, the property of its industrious inhabitants. The Ottoman fleet at the same time revictualled Modon, Coron, and Patras. The Greeks made an attempt to surprise Nauplia, which would have succeeded but for the cowardice of the Moreots; and a large body blockading the castle of Patras were, owing to their gross carelessness, surprised and routed by a party of Turks who crossed at Lepanto. Thus terminated the year 1821.

The Turks of Crete, inspired with alarm by the appearance of Greek cruisers in the adjacent seas, began to strip the Christian inhabitants of their arms, and to butcher many of them in cold blood. A number of the latter, comprehending the brave and hardy mountaineers of Sphakia, were driven by this cruel usage to fight for their lives. In July, August, and September 1821, the insurgents, about twelve hundred in number, repeatedly defeated large bodies of Turks; but the pasha at length collecting an army of ten thousand men, overpowered them, and burned most of their villages.

A national assembly convoked by Prince Ipsilanti had met at Argos about the end of 1821, but finding that position insecure, it removed to Piada, near the ancient Epidaurus, in January 1822. The assembly chose Mavrocordato president, and adopted an organic law or constitution, framed on republican principles. The government was to consist of a senate of seventy members elected annually by the people, and an executive council of five persons. The constitution enacted equality of rights, the freedom of the press, and toleration in religion. The government was then organized. The executive council consisted of Mavrocordato, president; Kanakaris, Logotheti, Delhyani, and Orlando, members; and Theodore Negris, secretary. Seven ministers were also appointed for finance, foreign affairs, war, &c., whose names it is unnecessary to give. After passing a decree for a loan of 5,000,000 of piastres, the assembly closed its session on the 20th of January. The government thus erected proved a mere phantom. It had no means of coercing the military chiefs, who set its powers at defiance, and disdained even to pay it marks of outward respect.

The citadel of Corinth, a post of great importance, surrendered on the 26th of January 1822, when the Turks were inhumanly slaughtered, in violation of a compact to convey them away in safety. The Greek government fixed itself here for some months, and issued a variety of decrees, which were very little attended to. The death of Ali, pasha of Yanina, who was shot by the Turks in February, after

giving himself up on a promise of personal safety, made a considerable change in the position of the Greeks. Kourschid Pasha shortly after sent an army of 17,000 men to attack the Suliotes, who, though numbering only 4000 warriors, including Epirots, made so obstinate a resistance with the aid of their rocks and woods, that the Turks were finally compelled to retreat with a heavy loss, and the pasha had no resource but to turn his active hostilities into a blockade. Mavrocordato arrived at Messolonghi in June, commissioned to act as captain-general of Western Greece. Anxious to succour the Suliotes, he marched northward with 3000 men to Petta near Arta. Here he was attacked by 10,000 Turks, and in consequence of the treachery of Gogos, one of the Armatoli chiefs, his little army was overpowered, and lost four hundred men, including two thirds of the small corps of disciplined Philhellenes. He made his way back to Messolonghi; and the Suliotes, reduced to extremity, signed a capitulation with the pasha, by which the existing remnant of three hundred and twenty men, and nine hundred women and children, were transported to Cephalonia, with their arms and baggage, at the pasha's expense, with a douceur of two hundred thousand piastres superadded. Released from this troublesome enemy, Omar Pasha approached Messolonghi in October with ten thousand men. The town had scarcely any defences, and the garrison being under four hundred men, he might have carried it by a coup-de-main. He spent some weeks, however, in a state of inaction, or in trifling negotiations, and this interval Mavrocordato diligently improved, by raising new works, whilst a reinforcement of men from the Morea increased the garrison to upwards of 2000 men, and the Greek fleet brought supplies of ammunition and arms. The rainy season too having set in, spread sickness through the Turkish camp; and the pasha, now aware of his error, and anxious to retrieve it, attempted to carry the works by escalade before daylight on Christmas morning, when he supposed the Greeks would be at their devotions. They had previous information, however, and beat back the Albanians at every point, with the loss of six hundred men. The pasha now began his retreat, obstructed by the swollen rivers, and harassed at every step by the Acarnanians, who were up in arms; he reached Previsa with the wrecks of his army in February 1823.

In the Ægean Sea the spring of 1823 was marked by the most unfortunate and tragical event which distinguished the revolution; the entire destruction of the happy and prosperous Greek community of Scio. This island contained 120,000 Christian inhabitants, whose peaceful habits, intelligence, industry, and wealth, exhibited a picture of civilization unrivalled in the other parts of the Turkish empire. They were unwarlike, but being mildly governed, they desired no change. When the Hydriot fleet appeared, they entreated the admiral to leave their coast, and not compromise them with the Porte. Two adventurers, however, one of them a Sciot by birth, who had spent his life abroad, the other a Samian, in an evil hour, planned an expedition to dislodge the Turks, which was too feeble and ill supported to accomplish its object, but strong enough to alarm the Porte, and bring ruin on the unhappy islanders. Leaving Samos in March 1822, with a flotilla of eight brigs and thirty launches, filled with one or two thousand men, the two adventurers, Bournia and Logotheti, disembarked near Scio, and entered the town without experiencing any resistance. They were coolly received by the inhabitants, who dreaded the vengeance of the Turks; but the citadel with a stout garrison held out against them, and disturbed them by frequent sallies. A month passed away thus, when the Ottoman fleet suddenly appeared before the town, and driving off the few Greek ships stationed there, conveyed over a part of an army of thirty thousand men collected on the opposite Asiatic coast, which is only ten miles distant. The Turks carried

the town by assault on the 15th of April, putting to death the men, young and old, without mercy, and not even sparing women and children. A part of the town was burned, and what escaped the fire was destroyed otherwise. For a month crowds of armed barbarians wandered over the island, wasting and plundering. It was calculated that 25,000 of the Scioits were slaughtered, and 45,000 dragged into slavery; 15,000 were saved at first in the Mastic villages, the property of the sultan, but were afterwards massacred; the rest escaped, or were absent when the catastrophe occurred; but those who saved their lives lost every thing else, and the most opulent families of which Greece could boast were thus reduced in an instant to beggary. In August the island did not contain above 1800 Greeks, out of the 120,000 who peopled it in March. If the Hydriot fleet had appeared in proper time, the Turks could have been prevented from disembarking, and, with moderate diligence, the town might have been secured against a sudden assault. But the insurrection was no less rashly planned than ill conducted, and the horrors in which it terminated filled all Greece with unavailing lamentations. A strong fleet sailed from Hydra when it was too late; but it achieved nothing except burning the Turkish admiral's ship, in which more than 2000 men perished. This exploit was accomplished in a very gallant manner, by Canaris, a high-spirited patriot, whose name, and that of Miaulis, are associated with the most brilliant achievements of the Greek navy in the history of the war.

In Eastern Greece a desultory warfare was carried on in the spring of 1822. The Greeks of Mount Ceta, Othrys, and Pelion, harassed the Turks in the south-eastern plains of Thessaly, but without gaining any advantage. An attempt was made to dispossess the Mahomedans of Eubœa, but it miscarried. The Athenians had tried to bombard their citadel, but they wanted skill and an adequate supply of projectiles; they then mined parts of the wall, but could not produce a practicable breach. At length, however, famine did their work. The Turks capitulated on the 22d of June, and though their personal safety was guaranteed, a large number of them were, as usual, massacred in cold blood, and the rest were saved with difficulty by the Frank consuls.

Kourschid Pasha had been collecting a large force in Thessaly, but the Greeks, with their usual negligence and want of foresight, though apprised of the fact, made no defensive arrangements till the enemy was in the heart of their country. The Turkish army, twenty or thirty thousand strong, chiefly cavalry, with a small body of infantry and artillery, crossed the Sperchius, seized the defiles of Mount Ceta, and entered Bœotia in the beginning of July. Odysseus, who had charge of the Pass of Thermopylæ with 4000 men, either from weakness or treachery, offered no resistance. The Pasha Dramali, the commander of this army, burned Thebes, passed Cythæron and the Dervend of the isthmus unopposed; and the impregnable castle of Corinth, though victualled for three months, fell into his hands by the pusillanimity of the garrison, without firing a shot. From Corinth he pushed on to Nauplia, the Greeks everywhere leaving their houses and flying in the utmost consternation at his approach. No one thought of fighting, till Demetrius Ipsilanti threw himself with a small party into the ruined castle of Argos, not with the hope of making an effectual resistance, but in order to gain time, and induce the fugitives to rally. The manœuvre succeeded. A pause took place in Dramali's operations, during which Colocotroni arrived from the interior with a considerable force, which he drew up between the mountains and the sea near Lerna, strengthening his position with some hasty works calculated to render useless the cavalry, which was the pasha's right arm. After skirmishing for one day, with little success, the Greeks wisely resolved to

Greece. wait the effect of scarcity upon their enemies, having previously burned all the standing corn. The Turks soon exhausted their stock of provisions by their wasteful habits, and Dramali had neglected to secure his communications with Corinth and Northern Greece, by guarding the passes. The insalubrity of the soil, and the inconsiderate use of unripe fruit at the same time, gave birth to fevers, which cut off numbers of his men; whilst the cattle brought for food, and the cavalry horses, died in thousands from want of fodder. Pressed by these evils, and unable to force the entrenchments in his front, he began his retreat on the 5th of August. The Greeks, however, who had divined his purpose, stationed some thousand men in the mountainous defiles, who assailed him in his flight, and, besides killing 2000 of his soldiers, captured all his treasure and baggage, with a vast number of horses, mules, and camels. Many more of the Turks died at Corinth, where marsh fevers prevailed, and amongst these the commander, Mahmoud Dramali. A great number of the survivors were destroyed in an attempt to reach Patras by land; and at the commencement of winter only a small remnant was in existence of the formidable army which, three months before, seemed powerful enough to overwhelm Greece.

The Palamede, or castle of Nauplia, pressed by famine, capitulated in the end of December; and for once the Turkish prisoners were allowed to depart in safety. The Greeks who held the citadel of Athens gave up the command of it to the crafty and treacherous Odysseus, a choice of which they had reason to repent. The Turkish fleet, instead of supporting the army, sailed round the Morea to Patras, and on its way back to the Hellespont a ship of the line was burned by the intrepid Canaris.

In February 1823 a second Greek congress assembled at Astros in Argolis, and was attended by 260 deputies. Feuds ran so high between the parties that it was difficult to prevent bloodshed. It broke up at the end of April, having appointed Petro Bey president of the executive council, and fixed Tripolizza as the seat of the government. Its decrees, however, were treated with contempt by the military chiefs, who soon compelled the executive to seek refuge in Salamis. The transient gleam of prosperity caused by the retreat of the Turks had kindled a violent spirit of disunion; and the nation was now rent into factions, headed by men like Colocotroni, Petro Bey, Londos, Delhyani, Odysseus, Ghouras, and Panourias, who, having been originally klephts or robbers, retained the craft, ferocity, and rapacious habits of their primitive vocation, and, when the enemy was no longer present, thought of nothing but plundering the people, and assassinating one another. The men of better principles, Mavrocordato, Ipsilanti, and Conduriotti, armed only with resolutions of the national congress, had no power to awe these ruffians and their military bands into obedience. The country, in fact, was everywhere a prey to anarchy, and as early as 1823 the wiser part of the people began to broach the scheme of inviting a foreign prince to accept the sovereignty of Greece.

In the early part of the year 1823 the Turks of Eubœa made predatory incursions into Attica and Bœotia; whilst the Greek mariners of Psyra and Samos made descents on the coasts of Asia Minor, plundering the towns, and carrying off wealthy Mahomedans prisoners for the sake of the ransom obtained for their liberation. In June, however, a Turkish army of 6000 men broke into Phœcis and Doris, as before, avoided battles, but encamping on the heights, cut off detachments and foraging parties; and ultimately this force melted away by casualties or desertion, without accomplishing any thing of importance. An expedition undertaken by Odysseus to drive the Turks from Eubœa miscarried; and the Christians of that isle having risen in arms, were vanquished, and compelled to seek refuge in

the isles of the Ægean, after witnessing the destruction of the 150 villages they possessed. The principal effort of the Turks, however, was made in Western Greece. The Pasha of Scodra led an army of 5000 Mirdites or Albanian Christians into Acarnania. Messolonghi at that time was without men or arms, and almost defenceless. Marco Bozzaris, a brave Suliote, with a small corps of his countrymen, finding himself unable to arrest the pasha in his march, conceived the bold idea of surprising him in his camp. The attack was made in the night time; but of the three parties of Souliotes, two slunk back; and the third, led by Bozzaris, consisting of only 350 men, after storming several tambourias, and making a horrible slaughter of the enemy, finding itself unsupported, retired with the loss of one third of its number, including its intrepid commander. The Pasha of Scodra now joined Omar Vrioni, and the two approached Messolonghi; but the town was by this time garrisoned and provisioned; and the Ottoman commanders having an extravagant idea of its strength, turned aside to besiege Anatolico, a paltry village a few miles distant. They bombarded it for some weeks, till the rains setting in, and spreading sickness amongst their troops, forced them to retire in November. No solicitations could induce the Pasha of Scodra to engage in the invasion of Greece a second time.

In Crete the insurrection opened in 1823 with a promise of success, which was not realized. Affendouli, the former chief of the insurgents, having lost his influence, resigned; and Tombazi, a Hydriot, and an able but rapacious man, was elected leader in his place, and dignified with the Lacedæmonian title of Harmost. He arrived in Crete with 1200 Rumeliots and Moreots, and a few small armed vessels, early in the summer, and being joined by the Sphakiots, gained several advantages over the Turks. Kissamos, a fortified post, fell into his hands by capitulation, but his troops were routed at Khadeno, and failed in an attack upon the Mahomedans of Selino. The sea being in the mean time open, the Pasha of Egypt disembarked two successive bodies of disciplined troops. The last of these, which landed at Canea in September, routed the insurgents in the neighbourhood of that town, and carrying fire and sword throughout Sphakia and the other disaffected districts, completely extinguished the insurrection. In the course of the year the capitain-pasha sailed as far as Patras, and afterwards paraded his fleet about the Ægean; but the whole extent of his achievements consisted in relieving Carysto, and reducing the Magnesians of Trikeri; whilst some of his smaller vessels were run ashore and destroyed by the Greeks. The citadel of Corinth, after a blockade of nine months, surrendered in November to Nikitas, who, in terms of the contract, faithfully secured the unmolested retreat of the Mahomedans. Whilst the Greeks thus prospered externally, there was nothing but dissensions among themselves. "The members of the executive," says Mr Gordon, "with the exception of Zaimis, were no better than public robbers.... Every corner of the Morea was torn to pieces by obscure civil contests, and hardly any revenue came into the treasury."

The efforts of the Greeks to liberate themselves from the Turkish yoke had from the first excited the sympathies of Western Europe; and in 1823, when their resistance began to rise above the character of a transient rebellion, these sympathies produced small succours in men and money. In England, France, Germany, and Switzerland, subscriptions were raised, the value of which was generally sent out in ammunition or military stores. Small corps of volunteers, actuated by a fine enthusiasm, also went from Western Europe, and though universally disgusted with the treatment which they received, they always fought bravely, and often rendered very important ser-

Greece. vice. Amongst these foreigners, who received the appropriate name of Philhellenes, no one was the object of such universal interest as Lord Byron. His lordship disembarked at Messolonghi with 8000 dollars in specie, on the 5th of January 1824, and was received with the most extravagant marks of joy. Shortly afterwards Lieutenant Parry arrived with some small field-pieces, supplies of powder, shot, and tools, sent by the Greek committee in London. His lordship took into his pay a corps of 500 Suliotes, whose insolence and rapacity rendered it soon necessary to expel them from the town, or rather to purchase their absence with a sum of money. The Rumeliots who replaced them were not much better; and Byron found himself so incessantly teased for money, so distracted by the turbulence of the military, the intrigues and dissensions of the different parties, that his mental anxiety preying on his frame, produced a shock of apoplexy, by which his health was seriously injured. A fever followed some time afterwards, and carried off this gifted man, on the 19th of April, amidst the lamentations of the Greeks, who atoned in some degree for the vexation they had caused him, by the sincere homage which they paid, and still pay, to his memory. After his death the mutual jealousies of the chiefs became more violent than ever, and the summer passed away in a state of comparative inaction. Mavrocordato advanced with 2000 men to the Gulf of Arta in August, and skirmished with the Turks, till the rains in November forced him to retire. In the east a body of Turks, who penetrated into Boeotia and threatened Athens, retired without effecting any thing. Ghouras, who held the citadel of that town for Odysseus, having quarrelled with the latter, got him into his power, and put him to death.

The naval campaign of 1824 was signalized by two unfortunate events. The small and prosperous isle of Kassos, of which Savary gives so interesting a description, was invaded by an Egyptian force, and entirely ruined, 2000 of its inhabitants being sold into slavery. The Porte, greatly exasperated by the active hostilities of the Psyriots, whose ships preyed on the Ottoman trading vessels, and insulted the coasts of Asia Minor, sent a powerful fleet against them under the capitan-pasha, with 14,000 troops on board. The island of Psyra is small and barren; its rocky coasts render disembarkation difficult; and its inhabitants, whose numbers had been increased to fifteen or twenty thousand by emigration from Scio, trusting to their courage and the natural strength of their territory, had taken no pains to secure themselves by artificial works. The small Greek fleet stationed off the harbour fled at the approach of the Moslemins, who, under cover of a false attack, landed a strong force at the north extremity of the isle, and gained possession of the hill which rises above the town. This unexpected success produced a panic among the timid refugees, which spread from them to the Psyriots; men and women threw themselves into the boats and attempted to escape, whilst the Turks entered the town unresisted, and laid it waste with fire and sword. In the midst of this miserable rout, a band of 600 refugees from Mount Olympus and other parts of Macedonia distinguished themselves by a feat of heroism worthy of ancient Greece. Throwing themselves into the convent of St Nicholas, where they had placed their wives and children, they resisted the attacks of the whole Turkish army, till two thirds of their number were killed. All hopes of relief being at an end, they resolved to blow up the convent. Their fire having accordingly ceased, the Turks scaled the walls on every side, when suddenly, says Gordon, the Hellenic flag was lowered, a white banner inscribed with the words Liberty or Death waved in the air, a single gun gave the signal, and a tremendous explosion, shaking the isle, and felt far out at

sea, buried in the ruins of St Nicholas thousands of the conquerors and the remnant of the conquered. This happened on the 5th of July. Only two of the Greeks were taken alive. The loss of life was great in Psyra; and the island, which might have been saved by a little foresight and exertion, was completely ruined. After the deed was done the Greek fleet appeared, took some Turkish vessels, and destroyed a small corps of Janizaries left on the island. From Psyra the capitan-pasha proceeded to Samos, but here all his movements were watched by the Greek fleet; and his attempts to convey over an army from the mainland were not only defeated, but he lost three ships of war and a thousand men, and at last retired from the shores of Samos completely baffled.

The sultan, made sensible, by the failure of three campaigns, of the inefficiency of his own fleets and armies, delegated the task of re-conquering Greece to the Pasha of Egypt, whose ambitious views made him listen readily to the request of his nominal superior. In the beginning of August, Ibrahim, the pasha's adopted son, sailed from Alexandria with a powerful fleet of ships of war and transports, amounting altogether to 400 sail, with 17,000 men on board, 2000 horses, and a strong train of artillery. He put into the bay of Macri, the ancient Telmessus, to water, and shortly afterwards was met by the Greek fleet of seventy sail, carrying 700 guns. For more than three months Ibrahim manoeuvred amongst the gulfs and isles on the coast of Caria, endeavouring to beat off the Greeks, and proceed on his voyage; but though he counted six guns and six men for every one his enemies could muster, his mariners were so wretchedly deficient in skill, that he was continually baffled, and at last thought himself fortunate in escaping to Crete in the beginning of December, with the loss of two fine frigates and four brigs of war blown up, fifty transports taken or sunk, and 4000 soldiers and seamen slain or drowned, exclusively of some thousands who died of disease.

The first Greek loan was negotiated in London in February 1824. The nominal amount was £800,000, of which all that was available, after deducting interest, commission, sinking fund, &c. was £280,000. It served to quicken the operations of the government, and no doubt contributed materially to the success of the fleet, and the defeat of Ibrahim. In the Morea fierce civil war raged, Colocotroni, Londos, Sisini, and other robber chiefs, setting the government at defiance. They were crushed, however, by the vigorous efforts of Colletti, the secretary; but the Rumeliots, by whose agency he put them down, proved a scourge to the country by their rapacity.

Ibrahim having procured reinforcements from Egypt during the winter, set sail from Suda in February 1825, and landed with 4000 men at Modon on the 24th, a day pregnant with sorrow to the Greeks. The success of their naval efforts in the preceding year showed that, with common activity, they might have prevented the disembarkation; but no precautions were thought of, partly from want of foresight, partly from a feeling of false security, which led them to think that the Egyptians would be as feeble adversaries as the Turks. Ibrahim attempted nothing till he had brought over additional corps, and raised his army to 11,000, and afterwards to 15,000 men. He then commenced the siege of Navarin, defeated 7000 palikars who tried to relieve it, breached the walls, carried some outworks after hard fighting, and gained possession of the place by capitulation on the 18th of May. Thence he advanced into the interior, burning the villages, which the Greeks deserted on his approach. Colocotroni endeavoured to arrest his progress in the mountainous defiles, but without success: Tripolizza was burned by its inhabitants; and Argos shared the same fate at the hands of the Egyptians. Nauplia was threatened, but

Greece. Ibrahim had no battering artillery; and dreading the want of provisions, he retreated towards Messenia. The Greeks, who had assembled to the number of 7000, attacked him near Tripolizza, but were beaten so completely that they gave up all further thoughts of resistance in the open field. In August and September the pasha ravaged the valleys of the Alpheus and the Eurotas, destroying the town of Misitra and a number of villages, and then returned to Modon. One or two gallant feats were performed by the Greeks during this unfortunate campaign. A small body of 300 men under Papa Flessas, surrounded by many thousand Egyptians, defended themselves with the bayonet and the but-ends of their muskets, till the whole perished except two, who lay hid under the slain; and at the Mills of Lerna, Ipsilanti, with a few hundred men, baffled the main body of the pasha's army.

In Northern Greece, Redschid Pasha, the most energetic of all the sultan's officers, had been intrusted with the conduct of the war. Leaving Yanina, he arrived in May before Messolonghi, which contained about 5000 of the bravest Greek soldiers, and opened trenches. The works were carried on with vigour, in the face of a most determined resistance. Elevated mounds were raised to command the batteries of the besieged, and mines were sunk; the Franklin bastion, the most exposed part of the defences, was laid open by breaching, and repeated attempts were made by the Turks to take it by assault, in one of which they at length succeeded; but the Greeks, no way daunted, sprung a small mine, and rushing upon their enemies sword in hand, dispossessed them, and following the Turks into their lines, destroyed some of their batteries. Fresh efforts were made by the pasha, and still frustrated by the courage of the Greeks, till the winter rains in October compelled Redschid to suspend his operations, and coop himself up within a fortified camp near the town. Ibrahim, who had received a great accession of force in November, now determined to try a winter campaign, and gratify the Porte by conquering Messolonghi. Marching northward, he burned the villages of Elis, and crossing the Straits of Lepanto, encamped before Messolonghi in January 1826. He began by offering terms to the besieged, which were proudly rejected. His batteries were more skilfully constructed than those of the Turks, and his artillery better served; but after he had ruined part of the town's defences, his attempts to storm were constantly defeated by the Greeks, who, in fighting hand to hand, with sword or bayonet, were vastly superior both to the Turks and Egyptians. The siege would indeed have ended in total failure, if he had not succeeded, at a great expense of life, in reducing various outworks commanding the channels of the lagoon by which the besieged communicated with the sea, and received supplies of provisions. Starvation now accomplished what arms could not achieve. After every thing edible, whether wholesome or unwholesome, was consumed, the remainder of the gallant garrison adopted the resolution of cutting their way through the enemy's lines. A deserter betrayed their plan to the pasha, who was fully prepared to receive them. Formed into two bodies, they issued from the town by moon-light on the 22d of April; a false alarm induced the one to return: the other, raising a simultaneous shout, "On, on, death to the barbarians," rushed forward with their muskets in their hands, and their sabres slung to their wrists. "Neither ditch nor breastwork," says Gordon, "neither the flashing peals of cannon and small arms, nor the bayonets of the Arabs, could arrest the tremendous shock; in a few minutes the trenches were cleared, the infantry broken, the batteries silenced, and the artillerymen slaughtered at their guns." Of the other body which returned to the town, some escaped in boats, some by wading through

the lagoon, some voluntarily blew themselves up with a number of the enemy, when the latter entered the powder magazine, and not a few of the survivors died of fatigue and exhaustion before they reached Salona. The heavy loss of the Turks and Egyptians during the siege attested the superior valour of their enemies; and the heroic defence of Messolonghi may well vie with the proudest achievements of ancient Greece.

In Eastern Greece, Colonel Fabvier, a brave and zealous French officer, formed a corps of regulars or tacticos, and carrying them over to Eubœa, made an attempt on Carysto, which failed. No drilling, in fact, could induce the palikars, or Greek irregulars, who had been accustomed to rely entirely upon their strength, agility, and adroitness, to meet a steady fire when drawn up in line. Another national assembly was held at Piada in Argolis, but it effected nothing. After the fall of Messolonghi, Redschid Pasha invaded Attica, and took Athens, but failed in his attempts upon the citadel, into which, when its garrison was greatly reduced, Colonel Fabvier introduced 600 men, with a supply of powder. The glorious fall of Messolonghi had awakened an enthusiasm in Western Europe in favour of the Greek cause, and contributions to the amount of not less than L.70,000 were raised in 1826. The royal families of Bavaria, Prussia, and Sweden, and the king of France, were amongst the contributors.

In May 1827 Ibrahim invaded the country of the Mainots, but was defeated in all his attempts to penetrate their mountain fastnesses. The rest of the summer was spent in ravaging the open country, and burning the villages, the inhabitants of which took refuge in woods and caverns. To his great mortification, none of the people made their submission, and parties of irregulars watched his movements, cutting off stragglers, and intercepting convoys. Lord Cochrane arrived in Greece in March 1827 with a steam-frigate. A very splendid frigate, built in America, also reached Ægina this year, but proved of no great use, the Hydriot mariners being unaccustomed to manage vessels of such a size. These two frigates were nearly all that the Greeks derived from a second loan of L.2,000,000 negotiated in London in February 1825.

General Church, an Englishman who had served in a Greek corps formerly kept in English pay in the Ionian Isles, arrived by invitation about the same time. They found the Greeks rent into factions furiously hostile to each other. It is a memorable fact, that whilst Ibrahim was wasting the Morea, there were no less than seven petty civil contests raging in different parts of Greece! By the influence of Church, Cochrane, and Captain Hamilton of the Cambrian, a temporary reconciliation was effected between the adverse parties, and the necessity of having a foreign chief being generally acknowledged, a congress assembled at Træzene in April, and elected Count Capo d'Istria president for seven years. Church was appointed general of the land forces, and Cochrane admiral of the fleet. The fortunes of Greece were now at a very low ebb; but what power remained in the country was summoned up in an expiring effort. From the Morea, the isles, and Western Greece, a force of nearly 10,000 men was collected at Salamis and the Piræus. After carrying on a war of posts, chiefly at Port Phalerus, for some time, General Church was persuaded to risk a battle with the Turks in the plain of Athens, the object being to relieve the citadel. The result was a disastrous defeat on the 5th May, in which the Greeks lost 1500 men. The remaining troops dispersed, and the citadel capitulated. The only fortified posts now in the hands of the insurgents were Nauplia and the Acrocorinthus.

Relief was, however, approaching from another quarter. From circumstances which it would be tedious

Greece. to explain here, the policy of the great Christian powers had undergone a change. A protocol had been signed at Petersburg in April 1826, by the Russian and British ministers, the object of which was to effect an accommodation between the Porte and the insurgents, by erecting Greece into a dependency of the Porte, paying a fixed tribute, but having the entire regulation of its own affairs. On the 6th July 1827 a treaty of intervention was signed between France, Russia, and Britain, on the same basis. The sultan firmly denied their right of interference, for which, however, the piracy practised by the Greeks gave them a good pretext. A naval force was sent into the Mediterranean to enforce the provisions of the treaty, and the belligerent parties in Greece were enjoined to suspend hostilities. The Greeks joyfully agreed; but Ibrahim hesitated, as the measure was not sanctioned by the sultan; and the capitain pasha, who was lying in the harbour of Navarin with a strong Turkish fleet, having similar scruples, the warlike movements were partially continued. The combined fleets of England, France, and Russia, stood into the Bay of Navarin in order of battle on the 20th October. Though the intention of the admirals was to treat, the Turks believed they came to fight, and were anchored in smooth water to receive them, and supported by batteries on shore. Who began the battle is uncertain; but it was obstinate and bloody, and most destructive to the vanquished party. About 6000 Turks were slain, and of 120 men of war and transports, all were sunk or destroyed except twenty or thirty brigs and corvettes. The killed and wounded on the side of the allies amounted to 626. The victory produced unbounded joy among the Greeks, and excited them to make a new attempt upon Scio, by an expedition under Colonel Fabvier, which, though conducted with great courage and skill, ultimately failed. Ibrahim, seeing his communications with Egypt now cut off, obtained his father's authority, and agreed to evacuate the Morea. He sailed in the beginning of October 1828, leaving, according to stipulation, about 8000 troops in Patras, Modon, Corou, Navarin, and Castle Tornese, of whom 1200 were Egyptians. To avoid renewed hostilities between the Greeks and Turks, a French army was sent to the Morea in the autumn, and took possession of these five fortresses, the last being the only one that offered any resistance.

Count Capo d'Istria passed from Petersburg to London and Paris in the end of 1827, and after conferring with the British and French ministers, he set sail from Toulon, and landed at Nauplia on the 18th of January 1828. The people received him with great joy, hoping to find repose and security under his government; and his authority was acknowledged at once by the military chiefs and other functionaries of all descriptions. He was a clever and dexterous diplomatist, but his conduct as president seems not to have been judicious. Anxious to copy the centralising system which prevails in absolute monarchies, he dissolved the municipalities, and nominated prefects, judges, and other officers, deriving their authority entirely from himself. Many of his appointments also gave offence: among others, the nomination of his brother Augustin, a person of no ability, to the command of Western Greece, led to the resignation of General Church in 1829, after that officer had recovered all the country south of the Gulf of Arta from the Turks. The French troops, it is to be observed, confined themselves to the Morea, such being their instructions, and left the Greeks to carry on hostilities in the north with their own means.

The Porte obstinately rejected the arrangement proposed by the three powers in 1827, till it was humbled by numerous defeats in 1828 and 1829, and saw the Russian army within a few leagues of its capital. The stipulations in behalf of Greece made by Nicholas were, however, set aside by the governments of France and Britain, and it was settled

that the affairs of that country should be discussed in London. The conference held there, after much deliberation finally resolved that Greece should be erected into a monarchical entirely independent of the sultan, and ruled by a Christian prince. The crown was offered, in the end of 1829, to Prince John of Saxony, who refused it; and then to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Cobourg, who agreed to accept it; but having corresponded with Capo d'Istria, the latter artfully infused so many doubts and apprehensions into the prince's mind, that he resiled from his engagement. This was in May 1830. Other princes, it is said, were proposed, but nothing was decided; and in the mean time Greece was again falling into a state of anarchy. The popularity of Capo d'Istria's government was of short duration. Visibly the partisan of Russia, he showed a devotion to her interests which offended all the more independent Greeks. He extinguished the freedom of the press, which the people were perhaps more eager to possess than fitted to enjoy; established a council, called the Panhellenion, which was intended to supersede the elective senate; refused to publish any account of the national finances, and threw many popular leaders into prison. These and other measures produced violent discontents, which at last broke out into open rebellion. The Mainota, whose prince he had placed in durance, were the first to throw off his authority. They were followed by the people of Hydra, who established a provisional government, at the head of which were Miaulis and Condourioti, assisted by Mavrocordato. The French and English ships of war in the Archipelago stood neutral; but the Russian admiral, Ricord, eagerly took a part in the contest, on the side of the president. With this aid he attacked Poros, where the Greek fleet lay; but the islanders had anticipated his design, and, when the loss of their ships of war became inevitable, blew them up to prevent them falling into his hands. Whilst this contest was going on, the son and brother of Mavromichaelis, the captive bey of Maina, instigated by a feeling of revenge, came to Nauplia and assassinated the president at the door of a church, on the 9th of October 1831. One of the assassins was murdered on the spot by the people, and the other was seized, tried, and executed. A new commission of government was then appointed, consisting of Augustin Capo d'Istria, with Coletti and Colocotroni, who thought it prudent to convoke a national assembly. Loud complaints were made that the free choice of the people was defeated by force and fraud; and when the assembly met in December, it speedily separated into two hostile bodies, one of which remained at Argos, while the other seated itself at Megara, and thence formulated decrees against Augustin and his associates. The Moreots generally adhered to the former, the Rumeliots to the latter. Civil war now raged furiously in the country, and the peaceful cultivators were driven, as in the time of the revolutionary struggle, to desert their homes, and seek refuge in the woods and caverns. This lamentable state of things probably quickened the languid proceedings of the conference in London, who in May 1832 fixed upon Otho, second son of the king of Bavaria, as the sovereign of Greece. The prince was born in 1815, and was of course a minor; but the defect was supplied as far as possible by a council of regency. The three powers, parties to the conference, obtained an extension of territory and a better frontier for the new state, including the province of Acarnania, for which, however, a price was to be paid to the sultan; and, in order to put Otho in a condition to meet initiatory difficulties, they guaranteed a loan of L.2,400,000 for him, to be paid in three equal annual instalments. Otho landed at Nauplia on the 31st January 1833, attended by 3600 Bavarian soldiers, and was warmly welcomed by the people. The French troops had been gradually reduced, and were now entirely withdrawn. The regency commenced the work of organizing the go-

Greece. vernment, made a new division of the country, disbanded the palikars, formed a small body of Greek regulars, and took some steps towards the establishment of tribunals. As might have been expected, its endeavours to introduce order soon awakened the factions spirit of the klephts or military chiefs, some of whom, including the arch-anarchist Colocotroni, were tried for plotting the overthrow of the government, convicted, and sentenced to imprisonment or exile.

(The preceding narrative, as far as the end of 1827, is abridged from Mr Gordon's History of the Greek Revolution, Edinburgh, 1832; an able, impartial, and instructive work.)

In the whole course of the war, the Greeks never had any regular army; for the attempts to form a corps of disciplined troops, and keep them in pay, always failed. Their soldiers, with the exception of some small bands of Armatoles, consisted of peasants who took up arms for a few months, when the enemy made an irruption, and fought till he was expelled, or driven into the fortresses. They made war as irregulars, seldom encountering the Turks in the field, but posting themselves in defiles, and on mountains, taking advantage of rocks, inequalities of the ground, villages, or ruined buildings; and where these were wanting, covering themselves by small temporary parapets of earth or stones, called Tambourins. The Rumeliots were excellent marksmen, and admirable at defending a post. A hundred of them planted in a ruined monastery seldom failed to beat off one or two thousand Turks. Their defeats were chiefly owing to three circumstances: first, their entire want of cavalry—for as infantry they were superior to their enemies; secondly, their deficiency in artillery, both for service in the field, and for battering fortified posts; thirdly, their incorrigible neglect of order and discipline, in consequence of which they were often surprised and routed by a contemptibly inferior force. As obstacles to their success, we must also mention their mutual animosities, the rapacity and selfishness of their chiefs, and their habit of neglecting all advantages for the acquisition of spoil. Their fleet was better managed than their army, but its operations failed on many occasions, from the mutinous spirit of the sailors, and the habit, which they could scarcely ever be persuaded to abandon, of returning to port to see their families at the end of every month, however pressing might be the occasion for their services. With all their faults and errors, it is impossible to read the history of the revolution without feeling respect for their courage, and for the unconquerable spirit which bore them up under the most dreadful privations and reverses.

In June 1835 King Otho assumed the reins of government, in which he was assisted by a council of state, nominated by himself. The whole territory was divided into communes of three classes: the first, those containing a population of 10,000 and upwards; the second, those from 2000 to 10,000; the third, of less than 2000. The communes of the first class were governed by a demarchos or mayor, 46 pareidroi or aldermen, and a municipal council of 18; the smaller communes, by a demarchos, with proportionably fewer aldermen, and a less numerous council. The election of the municipal officers was vested in the male inhabitants above 25 years of age, and every commune was responsible for the acts of violence and robbery committed within its jurisdiction.

So necessary was repose to all classes of the people after the ravages of a long war, that the first years of Otho's reign passed in comparative tranquillity, although the sullen murmur of discontent was frequently heard, especially with reference to the state appointments, which were filled by the king's German friends, to the exclusion of the native Greeks. Otho refused to establish a representative system of government till September 1843, when the people rose

and accomplished a revolution which has hardly any parallel for the skill and success with which it was executed. There was neither bloodshed nor violence, nor was the personal safety of the king in anywise endangered. But the plans being matured, and the army gained over, the ministers were arrested, and the people, assembling in front of the palace in the middle of the night, demanded a constitution. The king appeared at a low window, and they presented to him a charter including a representative government and other popular objects, and enforcing the dismissal of the Bavarian and other foreign officers. The king was required either to sign this charter or to quit the shores of Greece at once and for ever, in a vessel which had been equipped, and was lying ready for his embarkation. At first he promised to consider the demand and consult his ministers; but he was informed that the ministers were no longer recognised, and that an immediate decision was necessary. The king now acceded with as good a grace as he could; the obnoxious ministers were released, and the new ministry, selected by the constitutionalists, repaired to the palace, where they afterwards appeared with his Majesty on the balcony, while the people cried "Long live the constitutional King;" and the affair terminated apparently to the satisfaction of all parties. It is said, however, that before long the constitution had become a veritable farce, the deputies being in every case direct nominees of the king, and military force being employed, when necessary, to carry the candidate of the government. Not only the chambers, but the whole civil and military administration, had become little else than a refined system of corruption. The judges likewise, the professors of the university, and the masters of the gymnasia and inferior schools, fell under the unlimited control of the government, being all removable at pleasure.

The only subsequent events of general interest have been the interventions of foreign powers, rendered necessary by the duplicity of the government. The first of these was in 1850, when a British fleet blockaded the Greek ports for three months before the government would consent to compensate certain British subjects for injuries which had been inflicted on them. The other interference occurred at the commencement of the war between Turkey and Russia in 1854. In order to understand this movement, it is necessary to remember that two passions are predominant in the Greek mind—implacable hatred against the Turks, and an ardent desire to extend the kingdom of Greece. These feelings, which animate every Hellenic breast, received a further impulse from the consent of the king. On this subject foreign political opinions were divided as to whether the revolution was of Russian instigation. That the mass of the people believed in Russian assistance, and also that, through her influence, they would acquire an extension of their territory, there is no doubt; but we believe that the higher classes in Greece would not have advised such a revolution had they been at all aware that the Western Powers would have taken arms against Russia. They cannot be accused for their miscalculations, because higher authorities in Europe could not believe in the war at that early period. Besides, they knew well enough that Russia urged them to rise several times in the last century against the Turks, and, after she had accomplished her designs, left them to the revengeful sword of their masters. They had, therefore, little confidence in her. But the time chosen was so propitious, that an impartial judge would have accused them of being apathetic if they had not arisen. There appeared also an adverse feeling towards the allies, because we were in the peculiar position as defenders of their implacable enemies; but they forgot that, in defending Turkey, we served their interests by keeping their inheritance intact, out of the reach of the powerful hand of Russia.

We are of opinion, therefore, that the Greek nation has no sympathy with Russia more than with any other people who would make war against Turkey; and we believe, that if to-day we were to proclaim war against Turkey, there would be little necessity for sending our soldiers there, inasmuch as it would be sufficient to raise the standard of liberty for the Greek race, and we should have round us in a few weeks 100,000 well-armed Greeks, needing little more than ammunition.

The accusation, therefore, heaped upon the Greek nation, as being partizans of Russia, is unfair. Neither do we believe that either the king or queen of Greece stimulated the revolution to serve Russian interests. We cannot see what inducement they could have to endanger the throne they possess. Their ambition to extend their power was, we believe, the only reason; and how far that was their policy, and harmonized with the wishes of their subjects, is evidenced by the strong attachment towards them. The revolution, however, after the interference of the allies in favour of Turkey, was incompatible with their proclamation; and seeing that neither the revolutionists nor the king took heed of their advice, they were obliged to land some French and English troops at Piræus, and to send a few British ships into the Ægean.

The king was obliged to comply with their demands, dismissed his ministers, recalled his officers, issued proclamations to all Greeks that took up arms to return to their homes, and consented, on his own part, to submit the conduct of his government to the surveillance of the allies for a time. The ministers imposed upon him have been lately dismissed, and a new ministry formed, who conduct the affairs of the kingdom in a satisfactory manner. Severe measures have been taken against the scourge of the country—brigandage; and it is hoped that this time at least we shall see an end to their depredations.

It was only in 1816 that the first Greek house—E. Ralli and Co.—was established in London. In 1818 four more were established; and there are now 61 firms in London, 65 in Manchester, 30 in Liverpool, besides a few in Glasgow, and other parts of the United Kingdom. The statistics would be interesting if we could give an account of all the trade this small body of merchants is doing with this country and all other markets, but it is exceedingly difficult to get them. We only know that the exports of manufactured goods to Turkey in 1830 was L.1,028,447, whereas now it is above L.4,000,000, the increase of which is almost solely due to Greek enterprise.

The following statistics show that the progress which the Greek nation has made is highly creditable.

This proves not only an increase of production, but also an improvement in the quality; for, though the quantity has nearly doubled since 1851, instead of reducing the price, Greek silks are fifty per cent. dearer.

We have no accounts of 1854; but there is no doubt it will show an increase on 1853, in consequence of the permission of the Czar for the Greek flag to enter the Danube.

The minister of finance states that the great decrease in exports for the last three years is owing principally to the failure in the currant crops, the result of the disease in the vine.

Of the 13,995,195 drs. exported in 1851, 8,359,196 drs. were of Corinthian currants alone. In 1852 the exports of currants were 2,844,058 drs. only, or nearly six millions less than 1851; in 1853 there is no account of the currants exported inserted; and in 1854 only the small amount of 9046 drs. are included in the amount of 6,799,211 drs.

Cases before the judges of the peace, 22,602, of which 4753 were amicably adjusted by the judges, it being their duty to conciliate the adversaries before bringing their dispute into court; and 1035 were carried to a superior court. The civil tribunals in the same year had 17,268 cases brought before them; but 2108 were left for decision in the following year. The court of the last resort, or Areopagus, had, in 1852, 702 cases; at the end of the year 55 were left undecided, 187 were abandoned by the parties, and 519 were decided.

GREEK CHURCH, THE. Western Christendom has for many centuries been so much engrossed with its own concerns that it has paid little attention to the Greek Church, and knows little about the distinctive character or position of that large section of professing Christians. But recent events have rendered it necessary to give a somewhat more minute account of the origin, progress, and present position of the Greek Church than formerly.

Those who have paid attention to the effect upon human opinion of diversities in race and language, will be prepared to expect a considerable difference to appear in certain points between the churches of the Eastern and Western divisions of Christendom. In the Eastern division the chief seats of influence, from the earliest period, were Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria. In the Western division Rome naturally obtained pre-eminence, as being the seat of imperial power, though not on account of any special right as a church. The peculiar claims of Alexandria arose out of the reputation which that city had obtained as a seat of learning and philosophy. Nearly all the doctrinal controversies which agitated the church for the first three centuries, were more or less directly connected with Alexandria; but while thus African as to their locality, they were Oriental in their real source and character. The tendency of the Oriental mind was very evidently displayed in its proneness to speculative inquiries into the spiritual mysteries and metaphysical regions of thought, and the dim theosophic mysticism, which seemed to be connected with the great and primary truths of Christianity. On the other hand, the tendency of the Western mind to the steady pursuit of power, manifested the result of that training which the stern Roman republic and domineering Roman empire had given to Europe. It was not as having been the bishopric of the Apostle Peter, either in fact or in pretence, that Rome at first sought and began to acquire pre-eminence; but it was as the abode of secular dominion, the imperial city, in whose inhabitants ambition and love of power had become both a universal passion and an imagined right. The Eastern mind delighted in intellectual subtleties, and strove to gain the high position of supremacy in the regions of thought. The Western mind was characterized by a stern, invincible will, and sought the tangible dominion of absolute power and personal supremacy. These leading and characteristic distinctions may assist us in tracing the subject of investigation.

It was not till after Constantine the Great had resolved to raise Byzantium into the rank of an imperial city, to give it his own name, to divide the empire into two, and to make Constantinople the seat of the Eastern empire, that the characteristic distinctions already stated began to manifest their antagonistic tendencies. The Bishop of Constantinople became then the metropolitan in a second seat of empire, and ere long greatly absorbed the influence of the elder metropolitans of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria. The title of metropolitan was raised to that of patriarch in all these apostolic seats, as they were beginning to be termed, but still the seat of Eastern empire gave pre-eminence to the Patriarch of Constantinople above the other Eastern patriarchs.

At length the great barbarian invasion of Huns, Goths, and Vandals overthrew imperial Rome, and reduced it to a simple monarchy. This event gave opportunity to the Bishop of Rome to assume and exercise a large measure of civil influence and power. In him seemed to be vested the heritage of imperial Rome's fallen greatness; and on that very account the Western nations readily acceded to the Pope of Rome the pre-eminence which had been wielded by the previous emperors. The very name of Rome was still a word of power, a spell wherewith to evoke the demon of ambition, and the Pope was the mighty magician to whom alone that word of power belonged. The popes, as already remarked, seemed naturally to imbibe the spirit of ambition and love of power by which the haughty city had been so

long possessed. They were, therefore, very ready to avail themselves of the opportunity thus presented; and as the empire passed away, the popedom arose, grew, and succeeded to all the proud pretensions of the imperial Cæsars.

In the meantime the Eastern seat of power, Constantinople, seemed to be, at least in secular affairs, the proper successor of imperial Rome; but in consequence of its position, it looked more like the successor of the empire founded by Alexander the Great. It began, therefore, to receive designations indicative of that position, and to be called the second, or the Lower Greek Empire. At a subsequent period, when the Eastern Church and the Western became separate, and hostile or rival bodies, the designation Greek Church, was given to the Eastern division, from that of Lower Greek Empire, which had become distinctive.

The ambitious tendencies of the Bishops of Rome were very early manifested. The first instance of that arrogance which produced a general disturbance in the church, and introduced the element of strife, causing a permanent difference, was that respecting the celebration of Easter. The Oriental churches followed the reckoning of the Jews as to the time of the Passover. The Western or Latin Church adopted a different computation. In the year 196, Victor, Bishop of Rome, addressed a letter to the Asiatics, expressly commanding them to conform to the practice of Rome. They convoked a synod, deliberated on the question, and refused to comply. Victor issued an edict of excommunication against the Oriental churches, which they indignantly repelled. The assumption of supremacy thus displayed by Rome was not admitted by the rest of the Christian Church; but neither was it withdrawn by Rome. Roman ambition appeared in the attempt repeatedly made by successive Popes to claim the right of ultimate jurisdiction, by having it conceded that in difficult or disputed cases there should be an appeal to Rome. This claim was, of course, favoured by parties who thought themselves injured, or who, in their desire to gain some peculiar point, sought the support of Rome—a support which she was willing to grant to any case, provided she could thereby obtain confirmation to her claim of appellate jurisdiction.

Early in the fifth century, the metropolitan jurisdiction of Constantinople was considerably extended, and the jealousy of Rome thereby excited. This was greatly increased when, in 451, the council of Chalcedon conferred on the Bishop of Constantinople the same honours and privileges which were already possessed by the Bishop of Rome, notwithstanding the strenuous opposition of Leo the Great, who was at that time Pope. Leo perceived very clearly the advantage which the rival pontiff enjoyed from the residence of the emperor; and to counteract that influence he appointed a resident legate in Constantinople to watch over the Papal interests, and to maintain a constant correspondence with the Vatican. The contest continued for nearly a century and a half, keeping the whole church in a state of incessant intrigue and agitation—the advantage on the whole inclining to Rome, chiefly in consequence of the ready countenance and support which the Popes gave to the discontented and turbulent who sought her aid, and thereby strove to strengthen the claim to appellate jurisdiction, in which supremacy was necessarily involved. In the year 588, in a synod held at Constantinople, John the Faster, Patriarch of Constantinople, adopted the title of UNIVERSAL BISHOP, a title which was vehemently condemned by Pope Gregory, although it does not seem to have been intended to confer any authority by that title at first, but to be merely an empty honour. In the possession of a Patriarch of Constantinople it could not indeed, confer power; because the emperor himself always contrived to retain all power, even ecclesiastical, in his own hands. The result was very different when the same title was conferred on the next Pope, Boniface III., by the em-

peror Phocas in 606, which no subsequent emperor could recall, nor in any great degree control, in consequence of the independent position and residence of the Popes.

The contest for supremacy which had so long been waged between the Eastern and Western Churches, became at length a schism, in consequence of the introduction of a doctrinal element into the dispute. The most important doctrinal controversies which agitated the early church were those relating to the doctrine of the Trinity. The Arian heresy was a denial of the divinity of Christ. This was condemned in the council of Nice in 325. The divinity of the Holy Spirit was also disputed, but was affirmed in the council of Constantinople in 381, when also the Nicene Creed was revived and enlarged, so as to contain a clear statement and definition of the faith of the church. In that creed, so revived and authenticated, the definition of the Holy Spirit contained the words "proceeding from the Father." But at the council of Toledo, held in 447, the following words were added, "and the Son" (Filioque) so that the definition became, "proceeding from the Father and the Son." This clause did not attract much attention for some time; but when it did, it was immediately opposed by the Greek Church. It was, however, favourably received by the Western Church; was affirmed by a council held at Gentili, near Paris, in 767; and was re-affirmed at the council of Aix-la-Chapelle in 809, where Pope Leo III. admitted the truth of the doctrine, but objected to making it an article of faith. Rome, however, soon adopted the expression; and in order to defend it by authority, falsified the canons of the council of Constantinople by interpolating the very clause in dispute. This was of course easily detected, and added greatly to the bitterness of the controversy. But Rome adhered to the favourite maxim of Papal policy, never to retract any statement or assumption however false; because answers and refutations may be forgotten, but the incessant repetition of the false statement will finally lodge it in men's minds, by the mere force of iteration and re-iteration.

Some time after the rise of this controversy, a person of the name of Photius, a layman of great learning and ability, was made Patriarch of Constantinople by the Emperor Michael, who deposed Ignatius to make room for Photius. The deposed Patriarch appealed to Rome. Pope Nicholas assembled a council at Rome in 862, pronounced the elevation of Photius illegal, and excommunicated him and all his supporters. Photius retaliated, held a council at Constantinople, and pronounced deposition and excommunication on the Pope. From that time the contention between the Roman and the Greek Churches may be fairly said to have assumed the character of a schism; and, indeed, it is called by Romanist authors the Photian schism. But there was another event at a later period from which the actual schism is more commonly dated. About the middle of the eleventh century, when the power of Rome had been established over all the Western Churches, ambition urged on the proud claim of the Pope to universal supremacy; and Leo IX. attempted to induce the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch to submit to his sway. This drew forth the indignant opposition and remonstrances of Michael Cerularius, Patriarch of Constantinople; and after some angry correspondence with Rome, the Pope pronounced on him the sentence of excommunication. This was not at once final. The Papal legates were invited to Constantinople, with a view to heal the schism; but their insolence provoked severe retorts. The breach widened; and, at length, in the church of St. Sophia, they publicly excommunicated the Patriarch and all his adherents, deposited their written sentence on the great altar, shook off the dust from their feet, and departed. This event took place on the 16th of June 1054: and the schism between Rome and Greece was completed.

From that time forward the Greek and Roman Churches

have continued in a state of separation from each other, and generally in a state of considerable hostility. One attempt to obtain a reconciliation between them was made at the council of Florence in the year 1438. At that time the Greek Patriarch and his friends seemed disposed to concede almost everything in dispute for the sake of a re-union with Rome. Constantinople was then violently assailed by the Turks; and as the Greek empire was not able to resist the formidable enemy, the idea was entertained of attempting to organize a new crusade for its relief. But great as was the political danger, greater still was the ecclesiastical rivalry; and although the parties who attended the council at Florence would have yielded everything for the sake of a crusade, the Greek Church as a body was not disposed to ratify such extensive concessions, and the attempt proved abortive. The Greek Church would not admit the insertion of the Filioque clause, nor the supremacy of Rome, and nothing less could satisfy Rome. At a later period, when the Reformation had shaken the power of Rome in Europe, she was inclined to adopt a more conciliatory course with the Greek Church, and seemed really desirous of reunion. But it may easily be perceived that no such union is practicable, unless the Greek Church submit to the supremacy of the Pope, which is not only a necessary principle, but the necessary principle with Rome. And, as the Filioque clause is inserted in the creed of Rome, it also must be admitted by the Greek Church, and with it every other Papal innovation. This would not be union, but absorption—the extinction of the Greek Church, and the extension of Papal Rome.

But there is another element of a very formidable character which has greatly increased the impracticability of such a union or absorption. Christianity was introduced into Russia from Constantinople about the year 866. The Church of Russia thus received its creed and ritual from the Greek Church before the schism between the Greek and Latin Churches had been consummated, yet so near the period of that schism as to receive with its creed a dislike to Rome. During several centuries the Russian Church was governed by a metropolitan bishop, whose seat was successively at Kiev, Vladimir, and Moscow. At length, in 1589, the Patriarch Jeremiah of Constantinople, on whose patriarchate the Russian Church had been dependent, went to Moscow, and consecrated the metropolitan bishop, Job, to the rank of Patriarch of all Russia. From that period the Church of Russia ceased to be dependent on the Greek Patriarch, though it continued to be identical in doctrine and ritual with the Greek Church. This was in many respects a very important event. The Lower Greek Empire had been overthrown when Constantinople was taken by the Turks in 1453. From that time forward, although the Patriarch of Constantinople was allowed by the Sultan to reside in that city as the official head of the Greek Church, yet his power and influence had undergone a sad decline. It was no longer possible that he could exercise much authority in the East, or maintain Christianity against the sway of the haughty Moslem. In the meanwhile Russia, relieved from the Mongolian domination, had begun to emerge out of barbarism, and to assume the position of an independent and growing power in the northern regions of both Asia and Europe. All the other Oriental patriarchates had also fallen under the Mohammedan power. Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Antioch were little more than names, once venerated, but now sinking into oblivion. If, then, the Greek Church was to continue in the enjoyment of an independent existence, that was possible only by its seat of power being transferred to Russia. And when so transferred, it became possible not only that its independent existence could be prolonged, but that as the church of a great and rapidly-increasing nation its own influence might also increase.

Greek Church. There was still another change awaiting the Greek Church in Russia. The patriarchate had continued for little more than a century, when, on the death of the tenth Patriarch, Adrian, in the year 1700, a new crisis came. The sceptre of Russia was at that time swayed by the vigorous arm of that sublime barbarian Peter the Great. The genius of that marvellous man was set on the vast achievement of raising Russia at once to the rank of a great and even of a civilized power. For the accomplishment of such an enterprise, the possession of all power, civil and ecclesiastical, in the most absolute form, was necessary, that he might, by his sole unfettered energy, do the work of centuries in a lifetime. He prevented the election of another Patriarch, made himself head alike of both state and church, and appointed Stephen Yavorsky to the nominal rank of Guardian of the Patriarchate. Through this novel agency he ruled the church at his will, as he was also ruling the state. Finding a little disposable leisure in the year 1721, Peter set himself to frame a new constitution for the church. He constituted a supreme court for its government, called the MOST HOLY SYNOD, of which he appointed himself president, and delegated a procurator to occupy his position in his absence, without whom no meeting of the synod could be held, and without whose consent no decision could be valid. Since that time the emperors of Russia have held the most absolute supremacy over the Church of Russia. It may be added, that as the Greek Church has no means of maintaining its independent existence in either Papal or Mohammedan countries, but must look to Russia as the only powerful country that adheres to its faith, the Russian autocrat may be said to hold the most absolute supremacy over the Greek Church wherever it exists, or at least to be naturally regarded as its protector.

From this historical survey we can mark the relations of the Greek Church to other Christian churches. Its relations to that of Rome may be very easily seen and understood. Till the period of the fifth century there was no other essential ground of difference between them than what arose from their conflicting claims of supremacy. In doctrinal matters they were nearly identical. They had not borrowed from each other, but both held the doctrines which had been declared by the general councils. From that position the Greek Church has scarcely moved. An accurate knowledge of the doctrines and ritual of the Church in the FIFTH CENTURY will therefore adequately represent and explain all that is common to the Churches of Greece and Rome. The schism which took place at a later period has rendered the Greek Church a standing testimony against Rome with regard to the subsequent errors and corruptions of that rival system—a testimony with which Papal controversialists find it very difficult to deal.

The controversy between the Greek Church and Rome must needs be interminable as a ground of separation, unless Rome renounce her claims both of universal supremacy and of infallibility,—that is, unless she cease to be Papal; or unless the Greek Church submit so entirely to all the claims of Rome, that she would cease to have any independent existence. But, still more, the position which the Greek Church so long held, as independent of Rome, was almost entirely the result of its direct connection with the Lower Greek Empire, and its dependence upon the emperors. Throughout all the period of its existence the Greek Church has been subservient to the civil power. Its elevation to patriarchate dignity was due solely to its connection with the seat of empire. Its Russian branch obtained similar rank in consequence of the rise of Russia into a great monarchy. The absorption of all ecclesiastical power by the state under Peter the Great, though placing it in a condition of greater subservience than it had ever before experienced, was nevertheless only the extreme development of its hereditary servitude. It is not, therefore, now in the

power of the Greek Church to unite with Rome without the permission of the Emperor of Russia. The memory of her former intercourse with Rome can have left no such favourable impression on Russia as to make her willing to resume it. About the year 1590, Ignatius Potsi, Bishop of Vladimir, commenced a series of intrigues for the purpose of effecting a union between the Russian Church and that of Rome; and, in 1596, a strong party was formed in the Polish and Lithuanian provinces, termed Uniates, from their support of the proposed union, whose adherents soon amounted to four millions. Every effort of force, fraud, treachery, and rebellion—all that Jesuits could suggest, and traitors accomplish—was tried by the Uniates for many years, causing incessant turmoil and bloodshed in the large district which they inhabited—making Lithuania an Ireland to Russia. This continued till so recent a period as the year 1839, when three millions of the Uniates were reconciled to the Russian Church, to the great delight of the Emperor Nicholas. The sufferings inflicted on the nuns of Minsk may testify by what peculiarly Russian persuasions this reconciliation was effected. It may be very confidently believed that there is not the slightest probability of any cordial agreement between the Roman Church and the Russian element, now the ruling one, of the Greek Church.

There is one other point to which reference may be made, rather as a matter of curiosity than on account of its public importance. About the year 1723 there was a proposal made by certain Anglican bishops respecting the possibility of union with the Greek Church. But when the creed of the Church of England was examined, it was found to be far too deeply imbued with the principles of the Reformation to suit the views of the Eastern Church; and though there was no formal rejection, the proposal was laid aside. It is of some interest also to know that similar notions about a possible union with the Greek Church have been promulgated by certain Puseyite clergymen at present. Their attempt, it may be anticipated, will prove equally abortive, though it may somewhat embarrass British statesmen.

The chief points of difference between the Greek Church and that of Rome are the following:—1. The Greek Church does not admit—1. The supremacy of Rome. 2. The Filioque clause in the creed. 3. The enforced celibacy of the parochial clergy; though monks and bishops must be unmarried. (The reason of this is, that although the monastic system had begun before the schism, the celibacy of the regular clergy had not been enforced till a later period, and this was not adopted by the Greek Church.) 4. The doctrine of transubstantiation, in the Papal sense of that term, is not held by the Greek Church. (Rome itself did not adopt this strange tenet till the council of Lateran in 1215.) 5. The dogmas of purgatory and penance, as taught by Rome, are not held by the Greek Church; yet some of their views bear a close resemblance to the Papal theories on these points. 6. The Greek Church disagrees with that of Rome about the use of leaven in the Eucharist. In almost all other respects there is little difference between the Greek and Roman Churches, because both are as corrupt as the church of the fifth century, and both have hitherto rejected the Reformation. The Greek Church is thoroughly hierarchical; holds the monastic system; worships pictures, although it rejects the worship of images; gives to the Virgin Mary as high a degree of worship as even Rome can—its theory of the Panagia being scarcely distinguishable from that of the Immaculate Conception.

The following inferences, of some importance in the present state of European and Eastern affairs, may be fairly drawn:—1. The Greek Church cannot unite with Rome, in consequence of Rome's claim of supremacy, and the hereditary rivalry of the two on that point. 2. The Greek Church cannot submit to Rome, because the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Emperor of Russia is the exact counter-

part and express antagonism of the Pope. 3. The errors which the Greek Church holds in common with Rome are not derived from Rome, but are those common to the whole church in the fifth century. 4. The Greek Church could become Protestant, because it never has denied, and cannot, consistently with its own creed, deny, either the authority or the free circulation of the Scriptures. 6. One single Christian-minded and wise Russian emperor could place the Greek Church in Russia in friendly relation with evangelical Protestantism, which, indeed, the Emperor Alexander I. seemed inclined to do. Even in Russia there is one element looking in that direction, namely, the Staroverts, or Starovertze, or "Old Believers," who dissent from the doctrine of Imperial Supremacy, and are active in diffusing the Bible. That body amounts, it is said, to about five millions of native Russians. They are, however, discountenanced, depressed, and to some extent persecuted by the Czar. But although there is no necessary antagonism between the Greek and Protestant Churches, yet the Greek Church hates, opposes, and persecutes Protestants, so far as it can.

The Greek Church bears, in its organization and external forms, a very close resemblance to that of Rome, as might be expected from their mutual origin in the corrupt Christianity of the fifth century. The Patriarch of Constantinople was the virtual Pope of the Eastern Church till the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, with this special difference, that the Patriarch was never allowed to exercise any civil authority. Since that period the Sultan has allowed the existence of the Patriarch, and recognised his religious superiority over those of his own creed; but has himself held the power of appointing to, or deposing from, that office, for which he exacts a tribute or purchase before investiture. Archbishops and bishops also are required to purchase their official dignity by the payment of a tribute to the Turkish government. The officiating clergy of the Greek Church are the Patriarch, archbishops, and bishops, and subordinate to these are the papades or parish priests. All the dignitaries are taken from among the caloyers or monastic orders, and are not allowed to marry; but the papades may be married, with these special limitations—that they be married previous to their consecration, and may not marry a second time, should they become widowers. Hence they are commonly married before taking orders, and invariably select young and healthy women for their wives. The revenues of the dignitaries are raised by a tax imposed on each family, while the parish priests are supported chiefly by means of what they can wring from the superstitions of the people as perquisites of office, such as money paid for absolutions, benedictions, exorcisms, ceremonial sanctifications of water, sprinklings of streets and tombs, granting divorces, and innumerable ritualistic observances. They are almost universally a base and degraded class themselves, extremely ignorant, and they keep the people in equal degradation and ignorance, partly because such is their own state, and partly that they may secure their influence.

Their places of worship are built generally in form of a cross. The choir is always placed towards the east; and the people turn their faces in that direction when they pray. Their public religious service is liturgical and exceedingly protracted. They have four liturgies; and the service consists chiefly of prayers, hymns, recitative chants, and frequent crossings, with such numerous repetitions that it often occupies five or six hours, without any sermon. During this long service the people stand leaning on the supports of the few seats in the church, or on a kind of crutches provided for that purpose. No images are allowed within their churches; but they are plentifully decorated with rough and glaring paintings, and the more rough and glaring these are, the better are they in the estimation of the worshippers. Their music is without any aid from instruments, and is chiefly a kind of chanting, but is said to be often beautiful

and touchingly plaintive, although monotonous. The vestments of the clergy are very varied in form, and often of fine texture, gorgeous in colour, and ornamented with jewellery of great value. Each of these vestments has its mystic meaning and virtue, to which great importance is attached. The worship of saints, angels, and the Virgin Mary is carried to as great an excess as it can be at Rome; and it is long since the Greek Church held that the "Mother of God," as they term her, was without original sin. It may be said, indeed, that the Panagia, or Holy Virgin, is the peculiar deity of the Greeks, as much as ever Pallas Athene was of the ancient Athenians. Everywhere, in church, palace, or cottage, a little coarse picture, intended to represent the Holy Virgin, may be seen, often with a lamp burning before it as the object of special adoration.

The Greek Church is also burdened by an immense number of fasts and saints' days. The secular Greeks observe four Lents, and the caloyers or monks, two more. The first of these lasts two months, the second forty days, the third is variable, and the fourth continues from the 1st of August till the festival of the Assumption, on the 15th. All Wednesdays and Fridays are fasts, and a vast number of saints' days are also observed, so that of the whole year there are only about 130 days free from fasts or festivals, by means of which the common people are either crushed into idleness and poverty, or rendered regardless of religion.

The Russian division of the Greek Church has nearly absorbed the whole, so far as regards its relation to other communities. The Patriarch of Constantinople has long been dependent on the Sultan. The Patriarch of Alexandria is obeyed by only two churches. In Antioch the adherents of the patriarchate can be all accommodated in a single room in a dwelling-house. The Patriarch of Jerusalem resides chiefly at Constantinople, and owes any power he possesses to the holy places held by Greek monks in Palestine, which the Romanists, by means of a French agent, recently attempted to seize, an attempt which tended to precipitate the present war, in consequence of the intervention of Russia as the avowed protector of the Greek Church.

An approximation is all that can be made towards an estimate of the numbers adhering to the several divisions of the Greek Church; and in this we follow Marouvief and Neale,—chiefly the latter, as the most recent authority.

Total, about 65,770,000

Of these, as will be seen, at least 50,000,000 belong to Russia alone, forming the only division of this ancient nominally Christian Church, which has now any degree of power for good or evil, and possessing that power only as the Russian autocrat may please to permit, or may think proper to employ it, as an engine of despotism. The jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople extends nominally over the Greek Church in Turkey, Sclavonia, Galicia, Anatolia, and the Ionian Isles; but his influence has sunk to the merest semblance of power in all these countries. In Servia the metropolitan Bishop of Belgrade maintains an independent authority. There seems no probability that the Greek Church, either in Turkey or Asia, can again be united under one Patriarch, so as to become active and powerful; and it may be hoped the course of modern events will so protect and encourage the progress of a sound and free Bible Christianity, as to rescue from superstition, enlighten, and elevate the inhabitants of that lovely and fertile region of the earth, the ancient home of freedom, and closely connected with the birth-place of true religion. (W. M. H.)