lies like a nest of boorish wasps, born to sting and eat.

With a public revenue constantly going to decay, inferior even what is collected for the Sultan alone; with an army of men ignorant of modern tactics; with statesmen incapable of political science, how has it subsisted?-Through two causes. The first, the jealousy of European potentates, who, like the Roman cardinals, when they feel themselves too weak to reach the pontificate, place some old man upon the throne that they may have a longer period to strengthen their pretensions, have left this infirm shadow of a state to keep the eyes of mankind from the germes of their policy, till they shall be able to despise opposition. Conjunctures have put off the fulfilment of these hopes from time to time; but political hopes are not easily blasted: like the tannen,* they will flourish on the bare rock. The second, which forms a strong counter-check to its many evil qualities, is the rooted prejudice of an old and widely venerated religion. This keeps up in every nook of the empire the leaven of obedience, by diffusing that awe for the sovereign which renders the human heart, in the hands of tolerable policy, so apt and manageable a machine. Were this awe once removed, or diminished in any very sensible degree, the Sultan's power would be at an end. His tenure is chiefly strong, inasmuch as he is supposed to be the lieutenant of the Prophet, the shadow of God. To introduce a new religion would be to dethrone him; for he lives through the ignorance of his slaves, and not in defiance of the knowledge they possess.t

In Turkey those who suffer death by command of the prince are esteemed martyrs; and on the arrival of the imperial order condemning any one to the bowstring, his wives and children, and all those most dear to him, hasten, in case he should design escape, to give him up to punishment: for from that time he is looked upon as a person excommunicated, whom it would be profanation to succour, or admit to any intercourse." Les préjugés de la superstition sont supérieurs à tous les autres préjugés, et ses raisons à toutes les autres raisons." It is from facts of this kind that we must gather the spirit of a tyranny, and not from its acknowledged maxims and scheme of governing. The former show its principles in action: the latter, the disguise of those principles in the unworn

A species of pine on the Alps.

"On sait que le Sulthan Othman s'étant dispensé de paroître à la mosquée un vendredi, ne put calmer le peuple qu'en se déterminant à se rendre la semaine d'ensuite en cérémonie à Sainte-Sophie, malgré l'état de foiblesse et de langueur où l'avoit réduit la maladie. Ce prince à son retour déjà chancelant sur sou cheval, et soutenu par les gens de pied qui l'environnoient, perdit connoissance entre les deux portes qui séparent les cours du sérail; on lui jeta un schale sur la tête, et il mourut quelques instans après avoir été transporté dans ses appar temens. Le despotisme des Sulthans est donc au-dessous du despotisme du peuple ou de l'usage."-CASTELLAN.

gloss of theory. This superstitious slavery carries the dissociating principle into the bosom of families, and causes them to hold lightly those comforts and affections, which in other countries make up the sum of the happiness of life. Such a disconnecting cause, holding the elements of society in constant fusion, as it were, and never suffering them to cool down into that graceful and solid mass which constitutes a state, must keep civilization and industry ever at bay. Upon the natural distrust and selfishness of men, there is superinduced by this means an additional crust of unconfiding fear, which hardens the heart against the milder charities of life, and keeps man perpetually in the precincts of the savage state. Added to this is the fact of the Sultan's being every man's heir. There is no such thing in the whole Turkish empire as real inheritance; for what descends from father to child only by permission, or through the payment of a species of bribe, (101. per cent.) cannot by any means be so considered. The Sultan, by thus turning off the water from the family tree, effectually prevents its reaching an inconvenient size. This practice produces a kind of equality which tyranny contemplates with satisfaction: it is an equality of misery and uncertainty. It is towards the Sultan's treasury that all the little streams of wealth in the state flow, and there they are absorbed and transmuted into the means of fresh tyranny.

There is in all despotisms a strong tendency to simplicity. Pure will, unmitigated by any shadow of reason, is sought to be made the sole principle of action and rule of obedience. In Turkey the Grand Vizier is the express image of the Sultan, and to be equally idolized. The next in order transmits the electrical shock of power to the one following, and so on to the extremity of the line. Commonly, indeed, the Vizier is the real sovereign: he possesses almost unlimited power, and exercises it harshly, the Sultan lying perdu in his harem, to be produced on extraordinary occasions. In time of war it is the Vizier who holds the divan. He determines on war and peace, on alliances and treaties, on the life or death of every man in the state, except a few Pashas and the soldiers. Were this minister a man fitted by a political education to look properly to affairs of state, less disorderly doubtless would be the proceedings of the government. But there is no such thing as political education in Turkey. The whole knowledge of the Turks consists of a few meagre maxims yoked to a short and imperfect experience. But learning is the lock, and experience the key of all education. They get hold of the key, but have nothing to open. Their minds are a blank or a sadly blotted page. Ignorance, which secures the perpetuity of tyranny, makes it also a beastly and uncertain possession to individuals. But even such a state can go on from bad to worse. The first fourteen Sultans received the sceptre in regular succession of son to father, during a Orient. Herald, Vol. 1,

M

space of three hundred years, (from 1300 to 1603,) and some of their reigns were of considerable length. From that period, however, massacre entered the imperial palace, and the relations and children of the rulers became obnoxious to every species of cruelty from the hands of each other. This must be some consolation to their subjects.

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No government can be other than retrogressive in respect to its moral operation, in which knowledge does not keep pace with the innovations of time. The rude policy of the Othmans and the Orkhans was sufficient to regulate the affairs of a warlike people, every member of which, from the nature of their livelihood, was led to pay especial attention to the manners and concerns of his own family. For nature has made political prudence to be the effect of much experience, and some little reflection; and thus, while in constant action, every Turk arrived at a sufficient portion of it for his own guidance. But when conquest had placed the nation in a state of repose, when the ship had made its way through rocks and shallows into open sea, these unskilful mariners betook themselves to sleep, as if afterwards the winds and waves would be sufficient to keep her in her course. They seem now as if just awakened from such a trance, wondering at the civilization and advanced state of the world around them. It was unfortunate that the countries which the Ottoman arms subdued were little less ignorant than their conquerors: the latter might otherwise have been civilized. As it is," they seem," to use the words of M. de Bonnald, no other than a horde of barbarians encamped on the frontiers of civilized Europe, who, in order to retire, have only to strike their tents and pass over into Asia." The Romans, who were at first a coarse and fierce nation, though not unendued with a keen prudence, might have played in the ancient world the part which the Turks have performed in the modern, had it not been for the arts of Greece. But the Ottomans found no civilizing arts in Constantinople. Theological controversies, and a narrow and impotent policy, had reduced the Byzantine Greeks to a nation of quibblers and mystics, who had nothing in their character that could give rise to one admiring sentiment in their conquerors. It must be confessed likewise that there was very little in any of those European institutions, which could come under their notice at the time in which they might have been disposed for innovation, that was of a nature to give them any very considerable political light. Their own government appeared as wise as any other. The germes of high improvement had been sown, it is true, in many European nations; but the plants had not at that time shot up above the surface of old manners and prejudices. Learning itself was trifling, and there was no philosophy. It was pardonable, therefore, for these Tartars to sit down in voluptuousness within the palings of their religion and ancient fame, not foreseeing

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that they were to crumble away in the shadow of that very power which their inertia created. There is no antidote against tyranny but knowledge; and that not a knowledge of literature, or of the mere elegant and useful arts, but of politics as a science resting upon the basis of history. How many nations have we seen enslaved, which a moderate tincture of political knowledge would have saved! Men are for ever preaching of the ingratitude of the ancient republics; but we will be bold to utter it as a political truth-there is no propensity of his heart which man ought so carefully to watch over in a free state, as a disposition to public gratitude. Good men are satisfied with doing good. Those who are for ever on the look-out for expressions of public gratitude, have a secret leaning towards tyranny. They foster the failings of the public, and, that they may the easier bend them to their purposes, dignify them with the name of gratitude.* This is a suspicious conduct. In proportion as men are ignorant are they susceptible of this public failing, and therefore is it, that knowledge is the sole antidote against tyranny.

The Koran is a bad source of legislation, not so much that the designs of Mohammed were bad, as because he was incapable of forming true designs for the amelioration of the race of man. His imagination was fiery and inventive, but in this respect it was barren as an Egyptian cloud; and besides being totally absorbed in schemes of conquest and deception, he appears not to have possessed the true legislative spirit. It is not enough to bind men together: they must gain by being so bound. To produce gain to a people is not so much to fill its hands with gifts, as to put it in a train of improvement; and to make this distinction, and to act upon it, a man must possess something of Chalcas's spirit,

"Whose comprehensive view

The past, the present, and the future knew."

It is no hyperbole to say, that a legislator should be versed in the future; for if he cannot go on with his principles for a certain distance, and see to what they will lead those who are to be guided by them, he is unfit for his task.

Now the Turks have never had any legislator, but have lived upon the shifts and provisions of chance. They are therefore an ignorant and unimprovable people; for no nation can ever become wise, or great, or capable of greatness, that has not been modelled by a great legislator. Their natural fate is to sink into "the dust and powder of individuality, and be scattered to all the winds of heaven."

In a republic, where every man exercises part of the sovereign power, and is therefore personally interested, there should be no such thing as public gratitude looked for. As in partnerships, the exertions of any particular person engaged do not call for the gratitude of the other persons of the firm: he is actuated, as they are, by a sense of gain.

ON THE DIFFICULTIES OF STEAM NAVIGATION TO INDIA,

BY THE RED SEA.

THE constant and increasing intercourse between Great Britain and her Eastern Empire, must render every scheme proposed for improving the mode of that intercourse particularly deserving attention. We have, therefore, examined the project of steam navigation from England to India with the care which its importance demands; and shall state briefly the result of our conviction.

The earliest printed notice that we have seen on this subject, is the Prospectus of a plan for going by steam-boats through the Mediterranean to El-Arish, on the borders of the Egyptian Desert, crossing the Isthmus of Suez on camels, going down the Red Sea, touching at Mocha and Socotra, and from thence across the Arabian Ocean to Cochin, Trincomalee and Calcutta. The writer of the Prospectus in question is well known to us; and we believe few persons are better qualified, either by intelligence or activity, for carrying such a plan into execution. But notwithstanding our estimate of his enterprise and ability, we perceive difficulties in the way of its successful accomplishment, which we are persuaded will not be easily overcome.

It is unnecessary, as the writer justly observes, to dwell on the efficiency of steam-vessels to encounter severe gales in open seas; and superfluous to demonstrate that which is self-evident-the great advantage to all parties of a speedy communication with our Asiatic dominions. Its practicability, under existing circumstances, then remains to be the principal point of inquiry; and of this we shall not only venture to express our doubts, but proceed to state the grounds on which we entertain them.

With the same ease as passengers are now conveyed from Falmouth to Gibraltar in steam-vessels, they might be conveyed from thence to Malta; and although the expense of fuel would increase by its heavy freight, the higher the ship should ascend the Mediterranean, yet, as far as the port of El-Arish, which is chosen by the writer of the plan for the place of debarkation, all would be quite practicable. From this point, however, the difficulties which oppose the success of this undertaking would commence.

In the first place, El-Arish, being seated just on the limits of the Desert which divides Egypt from Syria, is a frequent point of contention between the respective governors of these adjoining countries; and, from that cause, is in a constant state of insecurity: added to which, it is so easily accessible to the Arabs of the Desert, on all sides but the north-west, immediately facing the sea, that it would be in perpetual danger of being pillaged by the Bedouin tribes, without their encountering much risk of opposition or pursuit from the Egyptians or Syrians, whichever might happen to