from sympathy, passion, or prejudice. Of the religion, character, manners, modes of life, agriculture, arts and commerce of the Greeks, we know as little, nay, perhaps less, exactly, than we did before their struggles for independence began to excite our attention. At this moment, when so much has been written on the subject, whoever wishes for a picture of Greece and its people, must resort to Tournefort, Dapper, and De Guys, or to travellers who have only repeated after them. In questions which agitate the passions or interests of mankind, nothing is so desirable, and nothing so difficult to attain, as truth. It is seeking in the dark for a treasure, which, even when found, eludes detection. We put our hands upon it, but cannot be sure that it is within our grasp; and it is only when we bring it to the test of the light, that we know we have found the object of our search. It is our intention, in this article, to enter upon a summary and temperate inquiry, with a view to place before the reader, such facts as may enable him to judge for himself. There will be nothing new in these; but it is often more salutary to recall the recollection of old truths, than to inculcate new opinions. It is now more than twenty-five hundred years, since Greece lost her independence, and with it those free institutions which contributed so much to that intellectual superiority she had so long maintained over the nations of antiquity. The dominion of Macedonia, was shortly followed by that of Rome, founded on the destruction of the celebrated Achæan League. On the division of the empire, Greece followed the fortunes of the eastern Emperors; and the taking of Constantinople, by Mahomet the second, in 1453, led the way to the iron yoke of Turkish despotism, which, with the exception of some few short intervals, has ever since been on her neck. In the subsequent wars between the Cross and the Crescent, the Genoese succeeded in establishing themselves, for a time, in some parts of Greece and Asia Minor; and the Venetians obtained possession of some of the islands, which gave the title of Duke of the Archipelago to a Venetian family. During the ages of chivalry, Greece was the scene where the enterprising adventurers often made war against the Turks, on their own account, and not unfrequently succeeded in establishing little independent states. The crusaders also, on their way to the Holy Land, took occasion to wrest Cyprus, and some other islands, from the hands of their oppressors; and the romances of chivalry are full of princes and dukes, taking their titles from the different states and isles of Greece. It was here, too, that the Knights of Rhodes, of the Teutonic order, and of St. John, displayed their heroic valour and invincible fortitude, in sustaining attacks and sieges, to which the history of succeeding times affords no parallel. But these fitful struggles, ended at last in the establishment of the Turkish despotism, which has now subsisted, without interruption, for centuries. VOL. III. NO. 5,

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That freedom is the great nurse of manly virtues and intelleetual excellence, is verified by all experience. Almost every characteristic that ennobles our nature, may be traced to the freedom of the will, exercised under the salutary restraints of good laws, and an enlightened religion. Without this, there is no room for the display of manly and heroic virtues, since to coerce a man into a good deed, or a great action, is to convert him into the beast of burthen, who performs his daily duties under the bridle, the yoke, and the lash. A people subjected to a severe, jealous, prying, and petty despotism, ever under the eye of the oppressor, must necessarily, so long as they submit to this, adopt habits of thinking and acting, more or less debasing to the character of man. If they cannot oppose or disobey, they will resort to deception, falsehood, trickery, and all those lesser, meaner vices, which every where degrade the character of the slave. Necessity imposes the law in this case, and it is scarcely possible, in the nature of things, or in the nature of man, to bear up for any great length of time, against the debasing effects of slavery.

The weight of the Macedonian and Roman sceptres, was comparatively light, and lasted no great time. The latter, such was the reverence in which the Romans held the Greeks, voluntarily relinquished their authority, and, by a solemn public act, declared that Greece was free. Yet, we do not find that the Greeks ever again attained to their former bright eminence; whether it was that they had degenerated, previously to the loss of liberty, or that the loss of liberty had produced degeneracy. Historians agree, in combining the influence of both these causes. But no Christian, no enlightened nation, according to our ideas of civilization, religion, manners, morals, and literature, can long abide the despotic, stern, inflexible bigotry of Turkish sway, without feeling its effects in the degradation of character. The Turks despise the Greeks, as conquerors, and hate them as Christians. Every species of oppression is heaped upon them, at the pleasure of arbitrary, needy, and avaricious bashaws, or meaner dignitaries; and, as if these were not sufficient, every external insult, and every mark of contempt, are added with wanton exuberance. Speaking of the island of Naxos, which, having no port, is seldom visited by the Turks, Tournefort says, that, notwithstanding, "upon the arrival of the meanest commander of a galliot, nei. ther Latins nor Greeks dare appear, but in red caps, like common galley slaves, humbling themselves before the pettiest officers." One of the least reprehensible, yet, at the same time, most ridiculous effects of this temporary mortification, is, "that as soon as the Turk is gone, nothing is heard but tables of genealogy; some deducing their pedigree from the Paleologi, or Comneni, others from the most noble Venetian families."

Centuries of enforced submission to a system of robberies,

stripes and insults, would degrade any people, however brave and enlightened, from the rank they once occupied. That it has had a most unfavourable influence on the character of the Greeks, cannot be denied. That they are not what they once were, is certain. It would be a miracle if they were. Yet some have believed in the miracle; while others have gone to the opposite extreme, and pronounced them barbarians, because they are not as of old. Both are equally wrong.

The Greeks are Christians; and the Christian faith was never the religion of barbarians. It is essentially the religion of an enlightened and civilized state of man. It addresses itself to feelings, and to a comprehension humanized and enlarged by habits of social life, and the pursuit of knowledge. A barbarian could neither comprehend its principles, nor practise its tenets, without debasing them to a level with his own ignorance. The leading principle which it inculcates, of forgiveness of injuries, could only be practised among a people, protected by a system of laws, from force and fraud. But it cannot be denied, that the effects of slavery and oppression, are strikingly visible in the superstitious observances which have crept into the service of the Greek and Latin churches, among these people. The Greeks early embraced the doctrines of Christianity, agreeably to the tenets of what has been called the Greek church. In process of time, the Latins mingled among them, and established a powerful sect, differing in some degree from the other; and looking to Rome, instead of Constantinople, for their religious Pontiff. So strong was the antipathy engendered by the variations in their respective creeds, that, in the crusade of Louis XI., it is related, that the Greek clergy washed and purified the altars, on which the Latins had administered the rites of their religion. The history of the crusades, and of the subsequent wars with the Turks, abounds in examples of this deep-rooted hatred; and we are assured, that much of the difficulty in uniting the Greeks of the present day, in a general system of resistance, and under one civil polity, originates in the long-cherished, rivalry of the Greek and Latin churches. The former values itself upon its Nicene and Athanasian creeds; while the latter has more than once fulminated its sentence of excommunication against the patriarch of Constantinople. Without undertaking to decide between the two, it may be observed, that the Latin church has partaken, in some degree, in the progress of philosophy and knowledge; while the Greek church has acquired an additional taint of ignorance and superstition, in consequence of the decline of literature, and the deterioration of character sustained during a long succession of slavery and dependence. Since the reception of Christianity in the east, the Greeks have retrograded in knowledge, but the west has recovered from the ignorance of its

dark ages, and gradually attained to a higher state of refinement and knowledge; consequently, there is less of superstition among the latter, than is found among the former. Indeed, the lively imaginations of the Greeks always disposed them to idolatry. Sonnini, who visited the Grecian Archipelago in the latter part of the last century, thus speaks of their religious rites :

"Even the Christian religion itself, is become among this people, a new source of superstition. That religion, of celestial origin, consists for the Greek, only in ceremonies of minute observance, in a multitude of practices. To him the sublime moral of the gospel is nothing; and provided he fast scrupulously, pronounce words which he considers as magical, and be exact in ceremonies, even foreign to those of religion, he is persuaded that all his duties are performed, and that nothing can prevent him from giving himself up to excesses against society. It is not uncommon to see Greek pirates, addicted to all sorts of robberies, fancy themselves in full enjoyment of a safe conscience, because they strictly observe Lent, and recite orisons."

Such perversions of religion, are certainly to be greatly deplored; but they, in some measure, originate unquestionably in the effects of that severe despotism exercised by the Turks; and the time has been, when the most enlightened of the Christian nations of Europe, might, and probably would, have wavered still more in their orthodoxy, under the like circumstances. Something of this lamentable superstition, so fatal to good morals and real practical religion, is, without doubt, owing to the defective organization of the church establishment among the Greeks, and the deplorable ignorance of the papas, or priests. Many of these cannot read; yet, in several of the islands, the monasteries cover nearly all the land. The consequence is, that the ordinances of religion are greatly corrupted from their original simplicity, and the fields poorly cultivated.

These superstitious observances are celebrated in their marriages; in the management of children; in their agriculture, and, indeed, in almost every pursuit of life. Their weddings display a singular mixture of Pagan and Christian rites. The first time that a woman goes abroad after her confinement, and before she sets her feet upon the floor, they must be placed upon a piece of iron, that she may become strong like that metal. Nor is she permitted to enter a house, without dropping a key, or some other piece of iron, at the threshold, on which she must put her foot, in order to avoid introducing with her, those malignant and dangerous influences by which she is supposed to be surrounded. A new-born infant is put to bed with a loaf, and a pestle, or some other piece of manufactured wood, on each side of it. The bread is supposed to possess the virtue of shielding it from hunger ever afterwards; and the pestle, to render it as quiet as a piece of wood. Neither fire nor light must be taken from a house where there is a new-born infant, lest it should cry all night. Sudden or frequent motions at its bedside, indiscreet words, and looks,

are supposed to have a pernicious influence; and if any ominous words are uttered, the nurse spits in the child's face, to break the charm. "No sooner are children born," says Montfaucon, quoting St. Chrysostom, "than the women light the lamps, and give them the name of people who have lived a long time, in order to procure them long life. They place in their hands, scitra and snappers, and threads of scarlet, in order to put them in greater safety. The women, the nurses, and sometimes the servant-maids, go and dip their finger in a sort of mud, which is at the bottom of the baths, and afterwards imprint the same finger on the child's forehead; and when they are questioned as to the purpose of this mud, it is, say they, to avert sinister looks, envy, and jealousy. There are some who wrote on the hand of children, the names of floods and rivers; others made use of ashes, soot, and salt; and all this, in order to avert sinister looks, that is, envy and jealousy." Among the present race of Greeks, garlic is now the favourite antidote to sinister looks, and is suspended at the entrances of houses and apartments, or sometimes worn as an amulet. To preserve children from this sort of witchcraft, they sometimes sew three pieces of charcoal, and three grains of salt, in a little bag, which is suspended by the neck.

This belief in the malignant influence of sinister looks, is not, however, peculiar to the Greeks; the belief was, at one time, probably universal; and, at this moment, there is scarcely a people, either Christian, Pagan, or Mahometan, among whom it is not more or less retained, by the lower classes. The extreme similarity in the superstitions of mankind, in all ages and nations, furnishes another proof, that man is every where the same. Every where operated upon by the same hopes and fears, he resorts to the same, or similar means, to realize the one, or avert the other; and philosophers, who set about curing him of these follies, are pretty much on a par with those self-sufficient quacks, who profess to ward off the infirmities of age. In every country, there will always be a simple and laborious class of people, who cherish these harmless follies; and it would perhaps be well for the world, if its philosophers did not sometimes broach opinions, far more mischievous.

There is a curious resemblance between the rural theology of the Greeks, and the Scotch and Irish, which may be referred to the same natural and universal causes. In each of these countries, cattle are supposed to be subject to the malignant influence of witchcraft and sinister looks; and their superstitious observances, at seed time, harvest, and other rustic anniversaries, bear a striking similarity. A hundred instances might be cited, to verify the comparison; but our limits only permit of this general reference.

Unfortunately, the church establishment among the Greeks, is