of average knowledge and ability." The people as little appreciate those who press far before them as those who lag far behind, and Sir Robert Peel with his deep knowledge of the world, his patriotism, and his strong religious principles, seemed to his disciples the incarnation of statesmanship. When he declared that a measure was necessary, it became evident to them that it was so, because he had taught them to believe that he possessed an almost infallible perspicacity in reading the signs of the times, and whatever he said was instantaneously echoed by the utterances of all classes of men, especially intelligent men. The measure of Peel's personal influence may be got from this, that when two years after his death, Lord Aberdeen's ministry of Peelites came into office, no man in that brilliant gathering was able to take a decisive lead, so accustomed had they all been to rely upon Peel's advice. "The old experience of Lord Aberdeen, the ministrative genius of Sir James Graham, the eloquence of Mr. Gladstone, the wondrous tact of Sidney Herbert, counted for little, and no man was able to assume the complete authority of the leader. And through defective leadership it came to pass that this small body of statesmen, the ablest men in Parliament, occupied a third-rate position in the Legislature."*

But before Mr. Gladstone became a Peelite in the political acceptance of that term, he had had to pass through the grievous ordeal of separation from his Tory friends on the Corn Law question; and what this cost him few who are unac quainted with his family history can imagine. It has been stated in a former paper how greatly Mr. John Gladstone admired his son, and how ready he was to cry: "Well said, Willie!" But a time came, when at Fasque, in William Gladstone's own hearing, and in that of several other people who remember the painful scene, the indignant father exclaimed: "There's my son William helping to ruin the country."

Mr. Gladstone, as a man of warm family affection, felt the estrangement from those of his own household keenly; and it must have been a very strong sense of duty indeed that impelled him to shake himself clear of family influences, to disregard the entreaties of his father and brothers, and to resign his seat for New

* The Times.

ark, which probably he could have retained in defiance of the Duke of Newcastle had he pleased.

He did all this, however, and by so doing encouraged Lord Lincoln to follow his example. At the election of 1846, Lord Lincoln declared himself in favor of free trade, and the duke's wrath was unspeak able. He ousted his son from the seat in South Nottinghamshire, and Lord Lincoln was obliged to appeal to another more compassionate relative to help him back into the House of Commons. Lord Lincoln had married Lady Susan Douglas, the beautiful daughter of the Duke of Hamilton, and she it was who prevailed upon her father to exert his influence that her husband might be elected for the Fal kirk Burghs. But this was a pitiful necessity, and both Mr. Gladstone and Lord Lincoln must have felt that the year 1846, which was a date of blessing to the country, had been to them, as to many others who supported the new ideas, one of much tribulation.

Mr. Gladstone's course since he joined in the repeal of the Corn Laws does not come within range of the title given to this paper. In touching upon the prime minister's early politics, the object has been merely to recall the influences which led to developments of opinion in a mind singularly powerful, and swayed by conscientious principles unusually scrupulous. The career of a statesman who has had a hand in the government of his country for nearly half a century, naturally offers itself for study and example; and of Mr. Gladstone's one may say that, whether one shares all his opinions, or only some of them, or none of them, the motives which have actuated him in his public life entitle him to a great respect. The lives of few statesmen will bear analysis so well as his: and indeed his speeches, his acts, and the testimony both of friends and opponents as to what he has said, and how he has borne himself in crises where his public duty was in direct conflict with his private affections, and even with his interests as far as he could see them form on the whole a record most impres sive. One may take up the study of Mr. Gladstone's political life in a spirit rather of inquiry than of enthusiasm: one certainly cannot conclude it without a feeling that it deserves admiration for its evidences of a moral courage, continuous, and almost unparalleled.

JAMES BRINSLey-Richards.

From All The Year Round. TRADES'-GUILDS OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

PART II.

I STATED in my last article that in this paper I should devote myself to some remarks on the bazaars and markets of Constantinople, which are quite distinct in their characteristics from the shops. As a matter of course, bazaars are markets, or permanent fairs, in which dealers of all kinds congregate. In Constantinople the covered market is usually called a bazaar, and the open-air market is called a tchartche; but this rule is by no means without exception, for the Egyptian Bazaar which is situated behind the Mosque of Yeni Djami is called Misr Tchartche, or the Egyptian Market, whilst the market, although it is held at Tophané in the open air every Tuesday, is called Sali Bazaar, or the Tuesday Bazaar.

There was in Constantinople, before the time of Justinian, a vast edifice with the form of wnich we are wholly unacquainted, but which contained an enormous number of shops of all kinds. This edifice, no matter what its form may have been, was evidently a Byzantine bazaar. It fell into ruins during the decadence of the Greek Empire, but it furnished a site for the great bazaar of modern Constantinople, which contains the Bezestein, so dear to tourists, and was built by the Turks after the conquest. Any one who wanders through the arcades of this vast bazaar, or, rather, vast cluster of bazaars, must, for himself, come to the conclusion that they were built by a people who had lived in lands in which the exclusion of light and heated air was a condition of existence. Modern shopkeepers in this bazaar find that the exclusion of light has certainly collateral advantages which are not to be despised. I do not propose to write of this bazaar, first, because every tourist who has visited it has forestalled me; secondly, because, though interesting, it is monotonous; thirdly, because it smacks too much of modern Leeds, Bradford, Manchester, and Glasgow to be useful for my present purpose.

The Egyptian Bazaar, which hardly any one visits, is built on the site of the markets which belonged to the Genoese and Venetians, when they were prime favorites with the later Greek emperors. It is lofty, and well, though not exuberantly, lighted, and it is well paved. Its walls are enriched with a prodigious number of beautiful wood carvings, the history of which I have not been able to ascertain,

and, as it is never crowded, it makes a pleasant lounge. One wing is given up to raw cotton, and in this wing it is not well to lounge, unless the lounger be desirous to provide himself with a large stock of bronchitis. But the main body of the bazaar is charming. Dyes and pigments seem to guarantee us against another Deluge. The drugs which kill and those which heal repose amicably side by side in such quantities, that if Cato had composed his famous soliloquy in the Egyptian Bazaar, he might with tenfold reason have said: Thus am I doubly armed. My death and life; My bane and antidote; are both before me.

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All the roots, and seeds, and grains, and beans of the East and of the South are presented here in a dumb but eloquent parliament, which needs no "new rules of procedure." A bibulous tourist may take his "cinnamon, ginger, allspice, and cloves," through the pores of his skin, without any fear of adding an additional shade of scarlet to his nose. If "all the perfumes of Arabia" could have sweetened Lady Macbeth's "little hand," she might have found them in the Egyptian Bazaar. And if- But stop! a delicate and subtle cloud of pepper mingles with the motes in the sunbeams, which dart down from the upper windows, titillates the nose, and stimulates its owner to further exertion. Let me not linger here; 'tis too lovely for me! Farewell, oh, farewell!

The fish-market of Stamboul, which, by the way, is always called Baluk Bazaar that is, the Fish Bazaar—is as badly arranged as Billingsgate was wont to be, but it is admirably stocked, and might be still better stocked if the arrangements for fishing in the Black Sea, the Bosphorus, and the Marmora were improved; and if the destruction of fry were prevented. Many hundreds of tons of mackerel about two inches in length, and as many tons of red mullet about three inches in length, are annually brought to market. In spite of this, Constantinople is supplied with a great abundance and great variety of fish. An old resident, who is well acquainted with the markets, has recently catalogued and described twentythree species of fish which are common to the Marmora and the Bosphorus, but, as to some of those species there are varieties, the total number of varieties coming to market exceeds seventy. Many of these species are excellent; for instance, the lobster, the John Dory, the

red and gray mullet, the tunny, the turbot, the swordfish, and the mackerel. The gentleman who has taken the trouble thus to catalogue the fish, committed one slight error for which he was unmercifully laughed at. He inserted in his list of fish the edible snail, simply because he saw it in vast quantities in the fish-market. So also Sir Charles Fellows said, in 1838, that he had seen a dozen hampers of these snails, but he did not take them for fish. I have seen them often myself, and am certain that they are nothing but land snails such as are eaten in many parts of the Continent. In Constantinople, as in other places, they are thought to be good for consumptive patients. Hone, in his "Every Day Book," speaks of the "palamedes as much smaller than the tunny, but as having so much of the same nature, that some persons have supposed it to be only the young of that fish. If he were so, he would be a very well-grown child, for he is commonly nearly two feet in length. If you were to see the tunny and the palamedes side by side you would not take them for father and son. The pala medes is a distinct fish, and is, as Gibbon justly tells us, one of the most delicious fish in the Bosphorus. He passes his time in chasing the small mackerel and pilchards during their periodical trips between the Marmora and the Black Sea; and, whilst he is thus pleasantly engaged, he is taken from the bank with a metal bait attached to a very long line.

There is a great deal of fishing from the shore in the Bosphorus. The houses come down close to the water's edge. The small fish, to avoid the palamedes, swim close along shore, and the crafty householder stands on the step of his back door, and with a hand net extracts his dinner from the transparent stream. There are six varieties of mackerel in the Bosphorus; there are excellent oysters and prawns; and the dolphin and the porpoise are also brought to market. But of the large fish the swordfish is the king. His flesh, which is of a dullish red, is far superior to that of the sturgeon, which I used to eat at Greenwich and Blackwall, and which always tasted like poor veal. A cutlet of swordfish is by no means to be despised. The creature grows to a very great size. Two years ago I was in a caïque, near Beicos, on the Asiatic side of the upper Bosphorus, where these creatures most abound, when a very large fish shot suddenly up from the water at about ten feet distant from the caïque. He exposed fully one-half of his body, and his

wet sword gleamed in the fierce sunlight like a polished spear. I trembled as I thought what must have happened if the beast had taken it into his head to come up immediately under the caïque. The sword, which is frequently more than three feet in length, is as tough as a shillelagh, and has a point like that of a bayonet.

Will it be believed that with this wealth of good fish the benighted natives actually eat octopods, which are imported dried from the Greek Islands? My gorge rises when I look at them. And can any member of the Fishmongers' Company tell me why mussels are not to be considered fish? The Greeks, who during their Lent may not eat fish, are allowed to eat mussels, and are told that mussels are not fish, wherefore special arrangements are made for trawling them during the Greek fasts, when vast quantities are taken. The snails to which I have alluded are not regarded as meat, and, therefore, may be eaten during the Catholic fasts.

In the immediate neighborhood of the fish market and the Egyptian Bazaar, there is a large square, which is situated behind the Mosque of Yeni Djami, and in which on Mondays -a large open-air market is held. This market is one of the most curious sights in the metropolis, and the dragoman, as he conducts his victims to St. Sophia, might easily conduct them through it. But he never does this; either because he does not think the market genteel, or because, in order to go through it, he would have to turn about five-and-twenty yards out of his way, and consume, perhaps, twenty minutes of his valuable time.

To this market there come the sealcutters; for though a large number of people can write, the signature of all documents by seal is still obligatory, so that every one, no matter what his attainments, must have his name in Turkish, cut or engraved on stone or metal. There, too, come the public letter-writers, who, under the shelter of an imaret, or under the portico of the mosque, or, better still, in the half of the adjacent Turkish post-office, indite the "soft intercourse" which Fatima or Leila desires to waft to Bagdad or to Cairo. There are the shops of the birdcatchers, hung within and without with cages of small birds, which the pious Turkish women purchase, in order that they may give them liberty an act of benevolence which assuredly results, in many cases, in a second capture, and perhaps a second sale of the poor little