enthusiasm for that land where sacred and profane history equally unite in forming the most attractive associations; < where Socrates taught the lessons of his incomparable ethics, and a still greater than Socrates disclosed the mysteries of the "unknown God" to those who sat in darkness.' Justly does he represent that he might call forth both gratitude and compassion, by passing before our eyes the shades of departed sages, poets, and historians, whose immortal writings still form and delight our minds; or might inflame our ardor by apostrophizing the manes of a Miltiades and a Leonidas, and dwelling on the glories of Salamis and Thermopylæ. Delightful, honorable, and impressive as such a task would be, founded on such a cause, and adorned and enforced by such arguments, yet, the author truly adds, he has a still more sacred cause to plead, and an infinitely higher name to invoke. The cause I plead,' says he, 'is that of suffering Christians; the name I invoke is that of Him who died upon the cross, and who, in the frightful torments of his followers, is daily crucified afresh; while innumerable multitudes of those followers are urged by fierce, relentless persecution, to apostatize from their faith, and to seek the only remedy for their temporal calamities in the perdition of their immortal souls."

We must call the attention of our readers to Mr. H.'s animated representation, first, of the barbarizing nature of the Turkish government; and, then, of the actual effects that it produces on the hallowed land which it profanes by its sway and desolates by its ferocity, as displayed in scenes of which the author has been himself a witness.

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It is possible that the people of England may be unacquainted with the superstition of these barbarians, who are so zealously supported by Christian powers! They may not know that it is fiercely and implacably hostile to Christianity that it was hatched and matured in falsehood, hypocrisy, and blood that it addresses itself to the sensual appetites and corrupt passions that it cherishes inordinate pride, fanatic zeal, and is a pander to the most abominable impurities that it degrades the dignity of human nature, and depreciates the value of human life that it encourages ignorance by representing all arts, sciences, and literature as unnecessary, or prejudicial to mankind, unless warranted by the Koran that it produces mental torpor and apathy, chilling every tendency to speculative exertion or intellectual and moral improvement, by the desolating doctrines of fatality and predestination-finally, that it establishes the horrid principle, that civil and political power shall depend exclusively upon faith in the law of Mahomet, whilst it exposes every Christian to the unrestrained

unrestrained brutality, and irresponsible tyranny of the vilest wretch that wears a turban.'

• Would the reader know more concerning the internal government of this wretched country? let him take the portrait as I am able to sketch it from personal observation: for I have traversed no small part of these interesting realms, so rich in all the gifts of bountiful nature, and so despoiled by tyrant man: I have seen the pallid countenances and squalid forms of their wretched peasantry, worn to the very bones by labour, want, and oppression - I have seen blows inflicted by wanton authority, and borne with patient submission I have seen those, who, by commercial or any other fortunate speculations, had amassed wealth, either careful to hide it from their rapacious tyrants under the external garb of misery, or dissipating it in prodigality, in order that they might secure a few moments of happiness, and then live upon the recollection of the past I have seen rich and amiable families turned out of houses and possessions, at the caprice of a Pasha, who desired them for his favourites I have seen whole districts so appropriated, after the inhabitants had been exposed to unheard-of persecutions, in order to make them voluntarily throw up their territory into the hands of a tyrant - I have rode over the ruins of large villages, scathed by the flames of destruction, because some reputable family had refused to deliver up a beautiful son or daughter, as the victim of that tyrant's execrable lusts — I have seen part of the Turkish population, in a large city, armed against its Frank inhabitants, cutting and maiming with swords and ataghans every Christian they met with, on account of a private quarrel — I have seen large towns, professing the Mahometan faith, whose inhabitants had all to a man apostatized from that of their forefathers, to escape the inordinate exactions and oppressive cruelties to which as Christians they were subjected I have seen rich tracts of country turned into deserts, fields languishing without culture, and cities fallen into decay, where misrule and injustice had combined with plague and famine against the constitution of society; and, as public immorality flourishes most and grows up to maturity under the reign of despotism, I have seen apostates, false witnesses, secret poisoners, open assassins, and all the other agents of unlimited tyranny, clothed in the spoils and rioting on the property of their unhappy victims. In short, I have seen a nation humbled, degraded, and abused; I have seen man, made in his Maker's likeness, reduced below the standard of the brute creation, living without civil or political existence, plundered without remorse, tortured without mercy, and slaughtered without commiseration!'

After these affecting appeals and representations, Mr. H. inquires what motives can induce Christian states to patronize such a power as Turkey; and first he considers the fear of the aggrandizement of Russia, by allowing it to conquer that country, and its dependent states of Greece. He deems this a vain speculation, because the colossus of clay will be kicked down,

down, he says, whenever it shall please the Arctic Despot to stretch out his leg;' — and

What can prevent the Greeks, connected as they are with Russia by a common faith, by great mercantile establishments, by offices and emoluments which the Autocrat of the North so liberally bestows upon them, from inviting his aid and imploring his co-operation whenever they may rise to throw off the yoke? What but the establishment of an independent Grecian empire, having rights worthy of defence, and privileges worthy of enjoyment? This, I venture to assert, would be the firmest barrier against all encroachment, whether Russia should endeavour to seize upon the whole, or should admit other continental states to a participation of the plunder.'

His next consideration is that the Greeks are supposed to be sacrificed to a sordid spirit of mercantile advantage: but he endeavors to shew that our Levant trade has long been declining, and never can be so flourishing with ignorant, slothful, and fanatical Turks, as it would be with the liberated enterprizing Greek. Like South America, emancipated Greece would open a capacious mart for European produce : England would be the first country to enjoy the advantages of this commerce; and as Greece has neither external colonies nor the means of acquiring them, she would seek their produce from Great Britain: while interest on the one side, and gratitude on the other, would cement the union of the two nations, and guarantee its durability.'

A third and more important topic of consideration is that the standard of the Cross, raised against the Crescent, is perhaps deemed the signal of rebellion; and that the throne of the Sultan is considered as fixed on the basis of legitimacy.'

• Gracious heaven! that terms should ever be so perverted; or that the epithet legitimate should be attached to tyrannic despotism! What allegiance do the Greeks owe these barbarian lords? If indeed to strip an unfortunate people of their property, to incapacitate them for civil or political appointments, to expose them to insufferable exactions and wanton injury, to leave them without guarantee for liberty or life, and not unfrequently to deliberate upon their utter extirpation; in short, if to attack and conquer them without provocation, and to preserve through four successive centuries the broad indelible mark of slavery between the conquerors and the conquered, if this be to secure the duty of allegiance, then has the Sultan a right to expect support from the confederated Christian states. But I rather believe that every liberal and unprejudiced man will think with me, that, since history cannot point out one solitary paternal monarch in the bloodstained annals of the Ottoman empire, that, since the sword of conquest has never yet been deposited in the hands of justice, and

no

no laws exist for the protection of the Greeks, to no laws are they amenable. Unattached to their conquerors by a single benefit, unacknowledging their odious dominion, unbound by a single oath, unrestrained by any bond but that of terror, and never having renounced the imprescriptible law of national independence, they retain the same right to rise against their ferocious tyrants, as when those savage hordes first crossed the Bosphorus to usurp the throne of the Cæsars: nay more, they have the strongest possible claim to succour and assistance from all Christian powers; and every philanthropic government would at least leave private speculation free, and furnish them with the provisions of war, instead of prohibiting such supplies, or granting them to their adversaries. To denounce their patriotic struggles for the recovery of those rights on which alone legitimacy is founded, as the efforts of rebellion, is political blasphemy, is an outrage against the law of nations and the law of nature; and the endeavour to detain them under the iron sceptre of their oppressors is not more unjust than it would be to replace Spain under the dominion of the Moors, the Low Countries under that of Spain, or the Russians under the yoke of the Mogul Tartars.'

The late heart-sickening transactions at Scio are then stated as one other motive for this appeal, capable of moving every heart which the scorching breath of modern policy has not dried up and withered; and Mr. Hughes closes with this forcible apostrophe:

Reader, if you be a brother, a husband, or a father, I call upon you by those sacred ties of nature, I call upon you in the name of Woman, of her who exalts our joys and soothes our sorrows, of her whose weakness is her greatest power, of her who is the protectress of our infancy, the inspirer of our youth, the companion of our manhood, and the consoler of our age; if you desire your own island still to remain, as it hitherto has been, a sacred temple on whose altar Virtue herself offers up the pure incense of congenial souls, I call you to discard your apathy, to exert your efforts in the sacred cause of liberty and religion, and preserve your fellow-creatures from worse evils than the exterminating sword of ruthless savages.

• And you, the advocates of philanthropy in our senate, who have so oft proclaimed the sorrows and vindicated the rights of suffering humanity, who have extended the arm of power to the relief of the captive African, why are ye now silent? I would be the last person to suppress generous feelings for human misery under any shape; but what are the pains of hunger, of captivity, or of death itself, what are the sufferings of the Indian slave, or Irish peasant, compared with those horrors which overwhelm the wretched daughters of unfortunate Greece? Speak out therefore in this cause, or boast no more your philanthropic sentiments! By those virtues that distinguished our brave ancestors by the blessings of civil and religious liberty, which we ourselves enjoy

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- by that sacred ensign, the Cross of our Redeemer, which is degraded and despised by Him who died upon that Cross, and taught us in our prayers to address his Father as our Father and by that paternal God, who may possibly permit these evils to exist, for this, amongst other inscrutable reasons, that they may excite in us a spirit worthy of our high calling, speak out, that our national honour be not further compromised, and the stain of everlasting disgrace stamped upon our annals. Ye must know the cause which is now at stake-ye know that the struggle is between oppression, tyranny, and injustice, arranged against humanity, civilization, and Christianity.'

At p. 234. of this Review, we have quoted the opinions of Napoleon Bonaparte on the question of Russian aggrandizement and the subjugation of Turkey. We apprehend that similar ideas are entertained by the present European potentates, and influence our Ministers in their conduct with regard to the profligate inhuman Turk and the virtuous but degraded and agonized Christian. Can these political feelings, however, so much pervade all England, that they have produced the indifference to the situation of the Greeks which we must so reluctantly admit to have prevailed? Whatever be the cause, may the energetic appeal of Mr. Hughes not have been made to them in vain, either as an invocation or as an argument; and let us cheer the noble combatants themselves by the animating voice of one of their own immortal orators.

Χαίρετε ἀκέοντες οταν τὶς ἐπαινη τες πρόγονος ύμων, καὶ τα πεπραγμένα ἐκείνοις δίεξιη, καὶ τρόπαια λέγη. Νομίζεις τοίνυν ταυλα ἀναθηναι τες πρόγονος ὑμῶν οὐκ ἴνα θαυμάζητε τἀυλα θεώρεντες μόνον, ἀλλ ̓ ἵνα καὶ μιμησθε τας των ἀνάθενίων ἀρείας.

DEMOSTH. pro Rhodiorum libertate.

ART. IX. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, for the Year 1821. Part II. 4to. 17. 1s. sewed. Nicol and Son.

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NATURAL HISTORY, CHEMISTRY, ANATOMY, &c.

OME Observations and Experiments on the Papyri found in the Ruins of Herculaneum. By Sir Humphrey Davy, Bart. P.R.S.-This paper relates experiments made in England on fragments of papyri, with a view to unroll MSS.; gives a description of the rolls in the Museum at Naples, and of some analytical experiments made on them, with a full detail of the various chemical processes executed in the Museum at Naples on the MSS.; and states the reasons which induced Sir Humphrey to renounce the undertaking REV. JULY, 1822.

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