word will, in a future edition, be altered to Mahomet II.* The "ladies of Constantinople," it seems, at that period spoke a dialect "which would not have disgraced the lips of an Athenian." I do not know how that might be, but am sorry to say the ladies in general, and the Athenians in particular, are much altered; being far from choice either in their dialect or expressions, as the whole Attic race are barbarous to a proverb: In Gibbon, vol. x. p. 161, is the following sentence:-" The vulgar dialect of the city was gross and barbarous, though the compositions of the Church and palace sometimes affected to copy the purity of the Attic models." Whatever may be asserted on the subject, it is difficult to conceive that the "ladies of Constantinople," in the reign of the last Cæsar, spoke a purer dialect than Anna Comnena wrote three centuries before: and those royal pages are not esteemed the best models of composition, although the princess γλωτταν εἶχεν ̓ΑΚΡΙΒΩΣ ΑTixiourav. In the Fanal, and Yanina, the best Greek is spoken: in the latter there is a flourishing school under the direction of Psalida. There is now in Athens a pupil of Psalida's, who is making a tour of observation through Greece: he is intelligent, and better educated than a fellow-commoner of most colleges. I mention this as a proof that the spirit of inquiry is not dormant amongst the Greeks. poem The reviewer mentions Mr. Wright, the author of the beautiful "Horæ Ionicæ," as qualified to give details of these nominal Romans and degenerate Greeks, and also of their language: but Mr. Wright, though a good poet and an able man, has made a mistake where he states the Albanian dialect of the Romaic to approximate nearest to the Hellenic for the Albanians speak a Romaic as notoriously corrupt as the Scotch of Aberdeenshire, or the Italian of Naples. Yanina (where, next to Fanal, the Greek is purest), although the capital of Ali Pasha's dominions, is not in Albania but Epirus: and beyond Delvinachi in Albania Proper up to Argyrocastro and Tepaleen (beyond which I did not advance), they speak worse Greek than even the Athenians. I was attended for a year and a half by two of these singular mountaineers, whose mother tongue is Illyric, and I never heard them or their countrymen (whom I have seen, not only at home, but to the amount of twenty thousand in the army of Veli Pasha) praised for their Greek, but often laughed at for their provincial barbarisms. I have in my possession about twenty-five letters, amongst which some from the Bey of Corinth, written to me by Notaras, the Cogia Bachi, and others by the dragoman of the Caimacam of the Morea (which last governs in Veli Pasha's absence) are said to be favourable specimens of their epistolary style. I also received some at Constantinople from private persons, written in a most hyperbolical style, but in the true antique character. The reviewer proceeds, after some remarks on the tongue in its past and present state, to a paradox (page 59) on the great mischief the knowledge of his own language has done to Coray, who, it seems, is less likely to understand the ancient Greek, because he is perfect master of the modern! This observation follows a paragraph, recommending, in explicit terms, the study of the Romaic, as a powerful auxiliary," not only to the traveller and foreign merchant, but also to the 66 * In a former number of the Edinburgh Review, 1808, it is observed, "Lord Byron passed some of his early years in Scotland, where he might have learned that pibroch does not mean a bagpipe, any more than duet means a fiddle." Query,-Was it in Scotland that the young gentlemen of the Edinburgh Review learned that Solyman means Mahomed II, any more than criticism means infallibility ?—but thus it is, "Cedimus inque vicem præbemus crura sagittis." The mistake seemed so completely a lapse of the pen (from the great similarity of the two words, and the total absence of error from the former pages of the literary leviathan), that I should have passed it over as in the text, had I not perceived in the Edinburgh Review much facetious exultation on all such detections, particularly a recent one, where words and syllables are subjects of disquisition and transposition; and the above-mentioned parallel passage in my own case irresistibly propelled me to hint how much easier it is to be critical than correct. The gentlemen, having enjoyed many a triumph on such victories, will hardly begrudge me a slight ovation for the present. classical scholar; in short, to every body except the only person who can be thoroughly acquainted with its uses: and by a parity of reasoning, our old language is conjectured to be probably more attainable by "foreigners" than by ourselves! Now I am inclined to think, that a Dutch tyro in our tongue (albeit himself of Saxon blood) would be sadly perplexed with " Sir Tristrem," or any other given "Auchinleck MS." with or without a grammar or glossary; and to most apprehensions it seems evident, that none but a native can acquire a competent, far less complete, knowledge of our obsolete idioms. We may give the critic credit for his ingenuity, but no more believe him than we do Smollett's Lismahago, who maintains that the purest English is spoken in Edinburgh. That Coray may err is very possible; but if he does, the fault is in the man rather than in his mother tongue, which is, as it ought to be, of the greatest aid to the native student. Here the reviewer proceeds to business on Strabo's translators, and here I close my remarks. Sir W. Drummond, Mr. Hamilton, Lord Aberdeen, Dr. Clarke, Captain Leake, Mr. Gell, Mr. Walpole, and many others now in England, have all the requisites to furnish details of this fallen people. The few observations I have offered 1 should have left where I made them, had not the article in question, and, above all, the spot where I read it, induced me to advert to those pages, which the advantage of my present situation enabled me to clear, or at least to make the attempt. I have endeavoured to waive the personal feelings which rise in despite of me in touching upon any part of the Edinburgh Review; not from a wish to conciliate the favour of its writers, or to cancel the remembrance of a syllable I have formerly published, but simply from a sense of the impropriety of mixing up private resentments with a disquisition of the present kind, and more particularly at this distance of time and place. ADDITIONAL NOTE ON THE TURKS. The difficulties of travelling in Turkey have been much exaggerated, or rather have considerably diminished of late years. The Mussulmans have been beaten into a kind of sullen civility, very comfortable to voyagers. It is hazardous to say much on the subject of Turks and Turkey; since it is possible to live amongst them twenty years without acquiring information, at least from themselves. As far as my own slight experience carried me I have no complaint to make; but am indebted for many civilities (I might almost say for friendship), and much hospitality, to Ali Pacha, his son Veli Pacha of the Morea, and several others of high rank in the provinces. Suleyman Aga, late Governor of Athens, and now of Thebes, was a bon vivant, and as social a being as ever sat cross-legged at a tray or a table. During the carnival, when our English party were masquerading, both himself and his successor were more happy to "receive masks" than any dowager in Grosvenor-square. On one occasion of his supping at the convent, his friend and visitor, the Cadi of Thebes, was carried from table perfectly qualified for any club in Christendom, while the worthy Waywode himself triumphed in his fall. In all money transactions with the Moslems, I ever found the strictest honour, the highest disinterestedness. In transacting business with them, there are none of those dirty peculations, under the name of interest, difference of exchange, commission, &c. &c., uniformly found in applying to a Greek consul to cash bills, even on the first houses in Pera. With regard to presents, an established custom in the East, you will rarely find yourself a loser; as one worth acceptance is generally returned by another of similar value-a horse or a shawl. In the capital and at court, the citizens and courtiers are formed in the same school with those of Christianity; but there does not exist a more honourable, friendly, and high-spirited character than the true Turkish provincial aga, or Moslem country gentleman. It is not meant here to desiguate the governors of towns, but those agas who, by a kind of feudal tenure, possess lands and houses, of more or less extent, in Greece and Asia Minor. The lower orders are in as tolerable discipline as the rabble in countries with greater pretensions to civilization. A Moslem, in walking the streets of our country towns, would be more incommoded in England than a Frank in a similar situation in Turkey. Regimentals are the best travelling dress. The best accounts of the religion, and different sects of Islamism, may be found in D'Olisson's French; of their manners, &c., perhaps in Thornton's English. The Ottomans, with all their defects, are not a people to be despised. Equal, at least, to the Spaniards, they are superior to the Portuguese. If it be difficult to pronounce what they are, we can at least say what they are not: they are not treacherous, they are not cowardly, they do not burn heretics, they are not assassins, nor has an enemy advanced to their capital. They are faithful to their sultan till he becomes unfit to govern, and devout to their God without an inquisition. Were they driven from St. Sophia to-morrow, and the French or Russians enthroned in their stead, it would become a question, whether Europe would gain by the exchange. England would certainly be the loser. With regard to that ignorance of which they are so generally, and sometimes justly, accused, it may be doubted, always excepting France and England, in what useful points of knowledge they are excelled by other nations. Is it in the common arts of life? In their manufactures? Is a Turkish sabre inferior to a Toledo? or is a Turk worse clothed or lodged, or fed and taught, than a Spaniard? Are their pachas worse educated than a grandee? or an effendi than a knight of St. Jago? I think not. I remember Mahmout, the grandson of Ali Pacha, asking whether my fellowtraveller and myself were in the upper or lower House of Parliament. Now this question from a boy of ten years old proved that his education had not been neglected. It may be doubted if an English boy at that age knows the difference of the Divan from a College of Dervishes; but I am very sure a Spaniard does not. How little Mahmout, surrounded as he had been, entirely by his Turkish tutors, had learned that there was such a thing as a parliament, it were useless to conjecture, unless we suppose that his instructors did not confine his studies to the Koran. In all the mosques there are schools established, which are very regularly attended; and the poor are taught without the Church of Turkey being put into peril. I believe the system is not yet printed (though there is such a thing as a Turkish press, and books printed, in the late military institution of the Nizam Gedidd); nor have I heard whether the Mufti and the Mollas have subscribed, or the Caimacam and the Tefterdar taken the alarm, for fear the ingenuous youth of the turban should be taught not to " pray to God their way." The Greeks, also -a kind of eastern Irish papists-have a college of their own at Maynooth-no, at Haivali; where the heterodox receive much the same kind of countenance from the Ottoman as the Catholic college from the English legislature. Who shall then affirm, that the Turks are ignorant bigots, when they thus evince the exact proportion of Christian charity which is tolerated in the most prosperous and orthodox of all possible kingdoms? But, though they allow all this, they will not suffer the Greeks to participate in their privileges: no, let them fight their battles, and pay their haratch (taxes), be drubbed in this world, and damned in the next. And shall we then emancipate our Irish helots? Mahomet forbid! We should then be bad Mussulmans, and worse Christians; at present we unite the best of both-jesuitical faith, and something not much inferior to Turkish toleration. Appendix. 66 Amongst an enslaved people, obliged to have recourse to foreign presses even for their books of religion, it is less to be wondered at that we find so few publications on general subjects than that we find any at all. The whole number of the Greeks, scattered up and down the Turkish empire and elsewhere, may amount, at most, to three millions; and yet, for so scanty a number, it is impossible to discover any nation with so great a proportion of books and their authors, as the Greeks of the present century. Ay," but say the generous advocates of oppression, who, while they assert the ignorance of the Greeks, wish to prevent them from dispelling it, "ay, but these are mostly, if not all, ecclesiastical tracts, and consequently good for nothing." Well! and pray what else can they write about? It is pleasant enough to hear a Frank, particularly an Englishman, who may abuse the government of his own country; or a Frenchman, who may abuse every government except his own, and who may range at will over every philosophical, religious, scientific, sceptical, or moral subject, sneering at the Greek legends. A Greek must not write on politics, and cannot touch on science for want of instruction; if he doubts, he is excommunicated and damned; therefore his countrymen are not poisoned with modern philosophy; and as to morals, thanks to the Turks! there are no such things. What then is left him, if he has a turn for scribbling? Religion and holy biography: and it is natural enough that those who have so little in this life should look to the next. It is no great wonder then that in a catalogue now before me of fifty-five Greek writers, many of whom were lately living, not above fifteen should have touched on any thing but religion. The catalogue alluded to is contained in the twenty-sixth chapter of the fourth volume of Meletius's Ecclesiastical History. From this I subjoin an extract of those who have written on general subjects; which will be followed by some specimens of the Romaic. LIST OF ROMAIC AUTHORS. * Neophitus, Diakonos (the deacon) of the Morea, has published an extensive grammar, and also some political regulations, which last were left unfinished at his death. Prokopius, of Moscopolis (a town in Epirus), has written and published a catalogue of the learned Greeks. Seraphin, of Periclea, is the author of many works in the Turkish language, but Greek character; for the Christians of Caramania who do not speak Romaic, but read the character. Eustathius Psalidas, of Bucharest, a physician, made the tour of England for the purpose of study (xapiv panosus): but though his name is enumerated, it is not stated that he has written any thing. Kallinikus Torgeraus, Patriarch of Constantinople; many poems of his are extant, and also prose tracts, and a catalogue of patriarchs since the last taking of Constantinople. Anastasius Macedon, of Naxos, member of the royal academy of Warsaw. A church biographer. It is to be observed that the names given are not in chronological order, but consist of some selected at a venture from amongst those who flourished from the taking of Constantinople to the time of Mejetius. Demetrius Pamperes, a Moscopolite, has written many works, particularly “A Commentary on Hesiod's Shield of Hercules," and two hundred tales (of what, is not specified), and has published his correspondence with the celebrated George of Trebisond, his contemporary. Meletius, a celebrated geographer; and author of the book from whence these notices are taken. Dorotheus, of Mitylene, an Aristotelian philosopher: his Hellenic works are in great repute, and he is esteemed by the moderns (I quote the words of Meletius) μετὰ τὸν Θουκυδίδην καὶ Ξενοφῶντα ἄριτος Ἑλλήνων. I add further, on the authority of a well-informed Greek, that he was so famous amongst his countrymen, that they were accustomed to say, if Thucydides and Xenophon were wanting, he was capable of repairing the loss. Marinus Count Tharboures, of Cephalonia, professor of chemistry in the academy of Padua, and member of that academy, and those of Stockholm and Upsal. He has published, at Venice, an account of some marine animal, and a treatise on the properties of iron. Marcus, brother to the former, famous in mechanics. He removed to St. Petersburgh the immense rock on which the statue of Peter the Great was fixed in 1769. See the dissertation which he published at Paris, in 1777. George Constantine has published a four-tongued lexicon. There exist several other dictionaries in Latin and Romaic, French, &c., besides grammars in every modern language, except English. Amongst the living authors the following are most celebrated :* Athanasius Parios has written a treatise on rhetoric in Hellenic. Christodoulos, an Acarnanian, has published, in Vienna, some physical treatises in Hellenic. Panagiotes Kodrikas, an Athenian, the Romaic translator of Fontenelle's "Plurality of Worlds" (a favourite work amongst the Greeks), is stated to be a teacher of the Hellenic and Arabic languages in Paris, in both of which he is an adept. Athanasius, the Parian, author of a treatise on rhetoric. Vicenzo Damodos of Cephalonia, has written, "eis rò μsroßdpßapov," on logic and physics. John Kamarases, a Byzantine, has translated into French Ocellus on the UniHe is said to be an excellent Hellenist, and Latin scholar. verse. Gregorio Demetrius published, in Vienna, a geographical work: he has also translated several Italian authors, and printed his versions at Venice. Of Coray and Psalida some account has been already given. These names are not taken from any publication. |