and greeted us with a dignified politeness, amounting almost to hauteur. I have seldom seen a more striking figure: he was a perfect Hercules in form and stature, and considerably above the middle size. He was rather shabbily dressed in the picturesque costume of the country, with white kilts and a grey jacket; he carried a staff in his hand, of which he made considerable use in walking; and he wore in his belt a handsome four-barrelled pistol of English manufacture. His countenance was singular and impressive,— all his features were strongly marked ;-his forehead, broad and high, was furrowed with wrinkles, that spoke less of age than of toil and passion,his long grey locks, escaping from the scanty red cap which he wore on the crown of his head, flowed in ample ringlets down his shoulders; and, as I watched him narrowly as he sat on the divan beside me, I thought I could read in his dark, sunken, fiery eye, the impress of the violent, if not the bad, passions, grown habitual by long indulgence, and continued to a period of life when temperament could no longer be admitted as an

excuse.

He immediately conducted us into his house, the best room of which was assigned for our accommodation. The bare wood walls were hung with arms of various descriptions, among which Colocotroni's sabre held a conspicuous situation. The old warrior sat down beside us on the divan, his son took a seat at a little distance, and the lower part of the room was filled with his followers-all fine, active-looking men, armed and accoutred after the manner of their country, and some of them remarkably handsome. pp. 106-108.

The conversation turned on politics; and what struck the English visitors most strongly was, the perfect ease with which the host always spoke of himself as a klepht or robber of the first distinction. When the hour of repose arrived the party separated; but our author, remembering that he was now in the very heart of Arcadia, the true Arcadia of the Muses, he could not yield his mind to the claims of the dull goddess, but sallying forth, he walked out on a rocky terrace, from which, by the pure splendour of the moon, he beheld the glorious country around him, the snowy summits of Mount Taygetus being dimly descried in the distance, while the venerable Alpheus, renowned in song, roared below in its rocky bed. He had been there scarcely a few minutes, when he saw a tall figure leaning on the parapet of the rock: he approached it-proved to be Colocotroni. They entered into conversation, and the latter did not hesitate to disclose the particulars of his personal history.

Colocotroni was the son of obscure and indigent parents, and in the society in which they were placed it was thought that the most honourable thing a young man could do was to turn robber. He began his depredations on the Turks, and soon extended them to the wealthy Greeks, but particularly the primates, who were disliked by the people, on account of the good terms on which they always kept with the Turks. He was generally, he said, successful in his freebooting enterprises, but was never cruel. He declared that he had never shed blood up to his twentieth year, and that the exception

able deeds which he might have afterwards committed were all justified by the wrongs inflicted on him. When five-and-twenty he amassed a treasure, which he had in a cave near the castle, and was at the head of a band of young companions which was the terror of Arcadia. Here he would have remained were it not that one night one of his followers, who was a bosom friend of his, was shot by three Turks. Colocotroni, by great dexterity and strength, contrived to kill each of these Turks with his own hand; he fled, took refuge in the Ionian Isles, and served there successively under the Russian, French, and English commanders. The prospect of a revolution in Greece, fifteen years ago, called him home; and he was the first, after Ipsilanti, to raise the standard of revolt. Colocotroni, in detailing his history to the stranger, was frank and energetic; but ended his account by declaring that his present situation was the most unhappy in the world, as he was uncheered by one single hope for the future, or one pleasing reflection on the past.

Amongst the clever portraits of the Greek chiefs given by our author, we shall, in addition to that of Colocotroni, select a few others of those most known to the British public.

Mavrocordato was a Fanariote or a Greek, living in Constantinople. When he joined the revolution in Greece he was looked upon as a stranger:

His figure (says the author, who saw him) is short, thick-set, and clumsy; and a habit of stooping which he has contracted increases these natural defects. His features are by no means handsome, rather the contrary; his rough black hair flows down over his shoulders; his mustachios are grown out of all moderation; his full shaggy eyebrows give effect to a glance of uncommon penetration; and his whole countenance is indicative of great vivacity and acute perception. His manners are polite, but not easy; and his conversation, in which he displays much of the cautious self-possession of the accomplished diplomatist, is lively, clear, and pointed, with an occasional slight tinge of sarcasm. In my first interview with him, he avoided every thing like serious discussion on the state of Greece, and was apparently disposed to feel his way; but subsequently he became more communicative, and I was much struck with the shrewdness and sound judgment displayed in his remarks. He is the only one among his countrymen with any thing of the powers or the knowledge of a statesman; and, indeed, he possesses a versatility of talent which fits him for almost every situation.— pp. 179, 180.

Demetrius Ipsilanti, another Fanariote, is brother of Alexander, the first to raise the standard of revolt in Greece. Demetrius was only twenty-four years of age when the revolt occurred, but he joined it, and was one of its most active leaders:

His personal appearance (observes the author) is most extraordinary. When I saw him in the spring of 1832, he could not have been above

Con

thirty-five years of age, but his looks were those of a man of sixty. siderably below the middle size, with a head entirely destitute of hair, and presenting the exact similitude of a mis-shapen skull; with limbs shrunk and emaciated to a degree I have never witnessed even in the last stage of a consumption; with a constant cough, and a voice feeble and nearly inarticulate; you might almost fancy him the resuscitated skeleton of one of the three hundred who perished at Thermopyla. But, labouring to this extent under every imaginable personal disadvantage, he is a memorable proof how completely man may rise superior to all bodily infirmities, and how powerfully a determined spirit can invigorate a feeble frame. Demetrius Ipsilanti is a soldier of the most brilliant reputation.-p. 181.

It would appear as if Demetrius, feeling that he was not destined for a protracted existence, resolved to devote the small interval of life enjoyed by him to the good of his country: hence was it that in every task of danger, in every expedition of which the most fatal results were expected, Ipsilanti was always foremost by his own choice.

Miaulis is described as being above sixty years of age. He is a Hydriote, and a valiant seaman. He is a strong, tall, well-made man, with thin grey hair, and a countenance expressive of the greatest honesty, benevolence, and good-nature. From the commencement of the struggle, there has not been a single act of Miaulis's conduct which could be said to be inconsistent for a moment with the most perfect model of a true patriot.

A visit to Sardis and Constantinople, and a dissertation on the Turkish empire, in which the author declares it to be his conviction that that empire is near its close, finish the work. There is likewise an estimate given by him of the general character of the inhabitants of Greece. It is drawn at least with impartiality; but then the character of a people is so much the creature of its government, that there is hardly any safety in judging of the inherent nature of men by it. The work, however, is, on the whole, one of considerable value, as being the production of a liberal, enlightened, and sensible man; and as being written under circumstances which at once disarm us of any suspicion or distrust of the integrity of the author.

ART. VI.-Travels of an Irish Gentleman in search of a Religion. With Notes and Illustrations. By the Editor of "Captain Rock's Memoirs." In 2 vols. 12mo. London: Longman, Rees, and Co. 1833.

THE most unbounded surprise, no doubt, will be raised at the announcement that Mr. Moore,-Mr. Thomas Moore,-the British Anacreon,-the familiar friend of Byron, has come forth in an en

tirely novel character, and has boldly and manfully proclaimed his confession of Religious Faith. Considering the whole of the circumstances under which these volumes are given to the public, we do not hesitate to say that we consider their contents as amongst the most interesting records of which the operations of the human mind ever formed the theme.

It is no part of our duty to enter into the question how far it is wise or useful to himself that Mr. Moore should have made the world acquainted with an affair which may very plausibly be said to be altogether particular to himself. Mr. Moore has thought proper to challenge public inquiry into the judgment which he has formed upon by far the most important subject that could ever occupy a rational being, and therefore it would be a sufficient answer for him to any objector, to say that he wished to hold out an example to other men.

But for our parts, we can readily find an excuse for the zeal with which, in this newly adopted cause, he seems to be sincerely animated. We do not mean to give offence in any quarter, when we go back to the period when Mr. Moore started into public life, and think of the indiscretions which are associated with that period. Indiscretions do we call them? Alas! they assumed a darker hue, for they were not indulgences that compromised merely his own virtue, and the consequences of which were limited to himself. The fatal arrow, shot in a season of indiscretion, baited too with such exquisite attractions, was irrevocable. It was impossible for a man, with that refined sagacity which is the real element of poetical power, and which Moore so truly possesses, to have advanced to the maturity of life which he has attained, without having a consciousness of the injury of which he was unthinkingly the cause. Shall we not believe it to have been the chief business of that man's life to have endeavoured to repair the rash offence? Shall we not conclude that not one moment has that man suffered to pass by without employing it in meditation, with the object of discovering in what manner he could diminish the guilt of which he was conscious? Is it not natural, then, that we should see him, with such feelings and such views, conducted at last to religion as the only shrine at which his vows might be offered up with a hope of success?

In speculating, however, on the motives of Mr. Moore, we are not by any means forgetful of the account of those which he gives himself; and although, in the character which he is pleased to assume in these volumes, some latitude of statement with regard to minor matters of history is warranted, still it is not unlikely that his account is strictly correct. He says that in his infancy he was initiated, as children usually are, in the principles of the religion professed by his parents. We believe, however, that it will turn out that the father of Mr. Moore was a Protestant, and his mother a Catholic. In such cases in Ireland, it is usual for the sons to go with the father, and the girls with the mother. At all events, it is quite certain that

Mr. Moore's sisters were all exemplary Catholics, and that he himself was always looked upon as affording a very doubtful case on which much could not be positively predicated as to his religion. It appears, however, that Mr. Moore considered himself a nominal Catholic up to a late period, paying, like many others, very little attention to the real state of his sentiments on the subject. He very accurately represents the condition of a great number of Irish Catholics, when he describes himself as having remained contented with the religion in which he was brought up, simply because, its members being under persecution, it would have been an act of meanness to abandon it. But when a better policy was recognised by the British government,-when the Catholic portion of the communitywas virtually placed on an equal political footing with the Protestant, then was it that every one who had been numbered by the accident of education in the Catholic division, could change his position, without incurring the risk of the accusation to which, under the former circumstances, this change would expose him. This, by his own confession, was exactly the case with Mr. Moore. "I felt, "says he, "that I had been not only enslaved, but degraded, by belonging to a race of obsolete and obstinate religionists;" for such, though he himself was one, he formerly considerer the Roman Catholics to be.

Although, therefore, for the reason just mentioned, he would have died for the Catholic faith, yet he rejoiced when the period came in which he might relinquish his Catholicism without a sacrifice. Whilst such were his feelings, so far as the political aspect of the Catholic religion was concerned, Mr. Moore tells us that he saw no reason to be satisfied with it, when he considered it with merely religious views, for he contemplated it as it was presented to him. The dark pictures of the Catholic religion drawn in pamphlets and sermons in Ireland, and the denunciations which some men, eminent for their talents and benevolence, have uttered against this religion, condemning it as a system of heathenish idolatry, have, in numerous instances, had the effect, as they had in Mr. Moore's case, of making the ardent young Catholic blush that fortune had placed him in a situation so humiliating as that he must almost sacrifice the character of his understanding, in order to keep his consistency inviolate. Mr. Moore says, that though he outwardly affected indignation at these charges, yet that inwardly he yielded a sort of doubtful assent to their truth. We may well believe Mr. Moore, then, when he states, that it was with a double joy he received the glad tidings of Catholic emancipation being decreed by the parliament, and that it was with true sincerity of heart that he exclaimed, "Thank God! I may now, if I like, turn Protestant."

Whilst yet pondering on the great question, " Shall I, or shall I not, turn Protestant?" Mr. Moore, almost unconsciously, took down a pamphlet from a neighbouring bookcase. This happened to be a furious one against popery; it was entitled, A Protestant's