"On the 23d of November last, a notification on the part of Sir Thomas Maitland was made to the Parguinote emigrants who are still at Corfu, informing them that, upon consideration, his Excellency intended to reimburse them the deduction made for freightage of the money brought on board the English frigate Ganymede, Captain Spenser, from Prevesa to Corfu, and other expenses; but that he should expect from them, after such reimbursement, a receipt in full for the value of the property they had left at Parga. They were also informed that, should the Ionian government have any unoccupied lands, a grant would be made to them, and a church built at the expense of that government.

"The answer of the Parguinotes was, that if the deduction in question had been improperly exacted, they did not conceive that any conditions could be imposed on restoring the amount to them; that no consideration, not even the distress which many of them were suffering at the time, should induce them to give an acknowledgement for an indemnification of which they had received only a part. That if it was his Excellency's intention to grant them lands, they begged that such lands should be specifically pointed out, that it might be seen whether they were really susceptible of cultivation, or sterile and uncultivatable, like the little island of Meganizi, of which mention had originally been made; that they had sent deputies to England to obtain redress for the wrongs they had sustained; and that, until an answer was received, it was not in their power to enter into any new arrangements."

Considerable pains were taken to persuade the Parghiotes to transfer their allegiance to the Vizir; but their unanimous resolve was, to emigrate rather than share the fate of Prevesa. Their objections to being placed at the mercy of their implacable enemy, will not appear to our readers wholly unreasonable; albeit there are gentlemen in this country, who cannot conceive why they should have entertained so bad an opinion of him. Colonel de Bosset then ordered an estimate to be taken of public and private property; and Mr. Hughes terms it a very moderate calculation,' which made it amount to 500,000l.: a very small pittance' he says, for a well-built city containing near 4000 inhabitants, and villages peopled with many more, in a tract of the most fertile territory that can be imagined, within a circuit of twenty miles, enriched with 81,000 olive trees, from which the finest oil in the Levant was made and exported ' on the most advantageous terms.' With this sum the inhabitants professed themselves satisfied, but not so the purchaser: accordingly, Colonel de Bosset being relieved from his post,' a new valuation was made by British and Albanian commissioners, which brought down the compensation to 150,000l. Mr. Hughes positively affirms, that the gathering of the fruit alone in an abundant season, is worth more than was, on this estimate, given for the olive trees within the Pargbiote territory. With this valuation, the Parghiotes of course were not satisfied; but

their remonstrances were answered only with threats; and they had no alternative but to submit to their fate, and evacuate the territory before the Turk should enter it.

The Quarterly Reviewers, however, will have it, that all the dissatisfaction has been produced by Colonel de Bosset, whom they speak of in terms of virulent contempt, and by Sir Charles Monck's speech in the House of Commons. Till that speech appeared in the newspapers, all parties, it seems, were quite contented: nay more, the Parghiotes, conscious of having made an excellent bargain in obtaining something like 501. a man (subject to freightage and other expenses') as a compensation for the loss of property and their natal soil, are laughing in their sleeves at their benefactors and partisans. Ali Pasha, say these gentlemen, has much improved Albania, and therefore he would no doubt have made these Parghiotes a very good sovereign, if they had not been so fastidious as to object to him, or rather, so cunning as to take the opportunity of selling their city on such good terms. Besides, Ali Pasha had nothing to do with the negotiation it was ceded to the Porte. Just as if the Porte, at a time that its sovereignty over the whole of the extensive pashalics held by Ali, was in jeopardy, would have cared a straw about a territory twenty miles in circumference, had not Ali Pasha, by his agents at Constantinople, instigated the Turkish government to make the demand! And after all, the Vizir and Sir Thomas Maitland are confidently stated to have had a secret agreement on the subject. But then, the Pargbiotes are great rascals, robbers all at Parga,' as Mr. Hobhouse himself assures us; and for Mr. Hobhouse's authority in this one particular, the Reviewers profess the greatest respect. They are Christians, indeed, in name, but it is merely in name; and therefore, it is argued, they have no claim upon British generosity on that ground. We should have thought even the corrupt Christianity of the Greek Church something better than the intolerance of Mahommedanism; and that there could be no very essential religious difference between the Greek of Parga and the Greek of Corfu or Zante, where the religion of the Greek Church is established. As to their character in other respects, General Campbell, (the High Commissioner with whom the Parghiotes treated for the surrender of their country to the British flag,) in his instructions to Lieut. Brutton, cha racterizes them as Albanian Greeks, extremely tenacious of 'their freedom, and of the liberty of their small community, and 'habitually adverse to the dominion of the Turks; a spirited ❝ and independent people, though at the same time docile and easy of command when treated liberally and justly. As for the charge of piracy, Mr. Hughes affirms, that a person who should bring it against them would be laughed at for his igno

rance, since there never was a more industrious and commercial people, nor was ever an instance known of a Parghiot pirate on the coast of the Adriatic.'

The following is Colonel Leake's opinion of the Parghiotes (Researches in Greece, p. 413), in reference to an unfavourable notion of their character, which Mr. Hobhouse had unwarily contracted. "This character_ of the Parghiotes is not just, and they are Greeks, not Albanians. Parga is one of those places which, being in a state approaching to independence, may be supposed to furnish the strongest resemblance to the ancient republics of Greece. Under the Ve netians they enjoyed a municipality of their own, and certain privileges, which, when they became vassals of Turkey, were secured to them by the powers who guaranteed the Septinsular republic. Hence at Parga, property was more secure and industry more encouraged than at any place upon the continent of Greece; but their situation has been altered since the arrival of the French.” '

After citing Col. de Bosset's equally favourable opinion, Mr. Hughes adds:

'These accounts of the character of the Parghiotes were amply confirmed to me, when I visited their country, by that excellent officer the Hon. Sir Charles Gordon, under whose government the people appeared to enjoy as great a degree of rational civil liberty, supported by firmness, and dignified by urbanity, as I ever recollect witnessing in any settlement occupied by the British arms.'

Whether the scene which is said to have been witnessed on the evacuation of Parga by the natives, did or did not take place as described, is a matter of small moment. Mr. Hughes only repeats the story, as given in the papers of the day, 'confirmed by the best authorities' which he could procure; but this vague affirmation will not give his report the value of an independent testimony. It is not, however, the positive contradiction blazoned in capital letters, by which that statement is met in the Quarterly Review, that will convince every person, that the Parghiotes left their homes, their country, and the se pulchres of their ancestors, without that impassioned regret of which even semi-barbarous tribes have been found susceptible on being torn from their native land. On the contrary, the pettish eagerness which is displayed to invalidate the description of that regret as a mere fiction, taken in connexion with the elaborate misrepresentations contained in the article, and the courteous terms in which Ali Pasha is referred to, will confirm many readers in the opinion that the whole transaction was a most disgraceful one, alike harsh, unjust, and impolitic.

Our limits will not allow of our resuming the thread of our Author's travelling narrative. He explored the most interesting parts of Albania, of which a neat map is prefixed to the second volume, spent some time at loannina, visited Santa

Maura, and Paxo; and at length, after passing a few days at Parga, took leave of the coast of Epirus and the Ionian Islands, for the Italian shores on his return home.

It is hardly worth while, perhaps, to notice some slight defects of style in the present volumes. Mr. Hughes's chief fault is a redundancy both in his descriptions and his phrases: he, for instance, always ascends up and descends down, surrenders up, &c.; anathema is very needlessly coupled with curse, and harem is explained to signify apartment of the 'women.' His language, as we have had occasion to remark, is much too fine: thus we are told, that Ali's heart is harder • than flint, and not a single rill from the fount of mercy flows ' into his soul. We have met with several instances of palpable repetition, and must complain that the total disregard of compression displayed in the composition, often becomes very wearisome. The contents of the two volumes might with great advantage be got into the compass of one, by means of scarcely any other retrenchments than those of style, and the bringing together all the information relating to one point, which the reader has often to collect from different chapters or different volumes. It would, we think, have been a more judicious arrangement, too, if the historical sketches, instead of interrupting the topographical narrative, had been reserved for an appendix. These hints the Author will, perhaps, not disdain to attend to in the event of his work reaching an octavo edition. In the meantime, he will accept our thanks for the interesting and not unimportant information for which we are indebted to him. The plates, chiefly from Mr. Cotterell's drawings, are highly illustrative.

Art. III. 1. Sermons. By the Rev. Charles Robert Maturin, Curate of St. Peter's, Dublin. 8vo. 12s. London. 1819.

2. Melmoth, the Wanderer: a Tale. Tragedy. 4 vols. 12mo. London.

By the Author of " Bertram," a 1820.

THE HE case of Mr. Maturin does not assist the argument of those who plead, in behalf of ecclesiastical establishments, that they secure patronage to talent, and offer the effectual means of enlisting it in the service of religion. He is unquestionably a man of genius and high attainments, and yet we find him under the necessity of applying to sources of emolument by no means suited to the character of a clergyman. Romances, novels, and dramas are, emphatically, the literature of the world: they at once draw their illustrations from its various scenes and vicissitudes, and address themselves to those depraved and debilitated habits of thinking and feeling which limit themselves to the present state as their proper and only sphere. To this frame of mind all such writings exclusively minister; they are "of the earth, earthly ;" and, as connected only with the lower

world, it is altogether unseemly that they should originate with an individual whose high office it is to wean his fellow men from the vanities and passions of the present life, and to direct their affections and their aims towards the life to come. Yet, to these unprofitable and injurious occupations has Mr. Maturin been urged, if our information be accurate, by the exigencies of a family, and by the insufficiency of the income derived from bis professional exertions. While men of doubtful character who can command private or state patronage, find easy access to high preferment, an individual of undoubted talent and correct life, is compelled to descend to these unworthy means of improving his situation, by the barriers which in of a secularized church are opposed to his advancement.

Not that we consider these circumstances as justifying Mr. Maturin in the election which he has made of an obnoxious department of literature; still less can we hold him innocent on the weightier accusation of having made a stimulating appeal to the darker passions of our nature. Our recollection of his works is not sufficiently distinct to enable us, even were we prompted to it by inclination, to pass them in minute review for the purpose of establishing this charge; but we can recal quite enough both of their spirit and details, to take away all hesitation in affirming, that their style and manner bear no trace of the rich and pregnant simplicity of English genius. His cast of invention and composition is foreign and meretricious, with much of the murky extravagance, and a full share of the corrupt and exaggerated sensibility of the German school. Still, they are the productions of a mind of great though misdirected powers; in the midst of unnatural excitement, there are passages of redeeming beauty and feeling; and while surrounded by a whole chaos of absurdity, we have been frequently struck with conceptions of the greatest force and splendour. Montorio was the first and the most striking of these publications: its story is of the grossest improbability both in its invention and its conduct, but it contains scenes and descriptions strongly wrought up, and admirably finished. His subsequent efforts have, perhaps, contained a larger proportion of his characteristic defects; but they are not without traces of the master-hand. The speech of old De Lacey in the Wild Irish Boy, is an admirable transcript of the hurried and impassioned eloquence of an aged semi-savage; and the following description of a clergyman is, with some abatements, so excellently executed, that we shall copy part of the extract which we made from the work when it passed through our hands some years since.

* For our review of " Bertram," see Eclectic Review, N. S. Vol. VL p. 379.