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A VISIT TO GREECE.

curiously inlaid, with many valuable pistols and sabres. His capitani are as filthy a crew as I ever beheld, and, for the most part, ill-looking, and very meanly attired; but the most miserably starving wretch that I have observed among them, is a Papas, or priest, bonneted and bearded, but still military. The usual covering for their head is nothing more than the red cap of the country; but there are generally two or three of the party who think proper, from whatsoever feeling of vanity, to burden themselves with extremely large and shapeless turbans; Colocotroni takes little notice of any of them, and seldom rises at their entrance. The fourth side of the room is occupied by a number of soldiers, who remain standing; upon some occasion Colocotroni thought proper to command them to retire, they obeyed reluctantly and slowly, and in a very few minutes returned in parties of two or three, and reoccupied their station. There is no smoking, nor any circulation of coffee or conversation. This singularly dull scene may last about twenty minutes, and then, on some signal from the chief, the party rise and disperse.

CHARACTER OF THE GREEKS.

After all that has been said and written on that most prolific subject, Greek character, we may at least be allowed to as-, sume that the Greeks have some character,

that they have certain qualities which, from peculiar prevalence among them, may be called. national; and among these it will not be disputed, that one of the most distinguishing is a keen, active, suspicious jealousy. It is for this reason that we find them all at war with each other; that almost every man distrusts and detests his neighbour; and that a body of Greeks are less qualified for any act of cordial cooperation than a body of any other existing people.

Her peasantry is manly and intelligent, and, hitherto, uncorrupted; illiterate, indeed, and uninstructed, it might still be brought to understand the real interests of Greece, and be roused to support and enforce them. There are, too, some few honest men and skilful politicians already enlisted under the banners of patriotism; their numbers would be augmented by the addition of those now resident in Europe. But, above all, the circumstances of discord, which now appear so very probable, might at last never come to pass, or speedily roll away; and no one will affect to doubt that it is eminently for the advantage of Greece to govern herself, if she possess the power of self-government.

Of genius there is an abundance in every cottage of Greece, but there is a

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dearth of sound common sense, of cool dispassionate judgment, of thought and foresight, which has occasioned, and will continue to occasion, many disasters. Acuteness, vivacity, ingenuity, obtrude themselves upon you at every step; but I know not where to search for wisdom.

GREEK NEWSPAPERS.

The late establishment of two newspapers at Misolonghi is attributed to the zeal of colonel Stanhope. The first is called the Hellenic Chronicle, and is decidedly republican; it is written in Greek; I was at Athens when the first number arrived there: Odysseus and Gourrah were thrown into consternation, and being themselves unable to comprehend its contents, they sent down to the city for some learned persons to interpret them. Publications addressed to persons incapable of understanding them, if they can be productive of no great utility, will at least do very little injury; and on this account, I believe the paper in question to be nearly harmless.* The Greek Telegraph is a Polyglott, and as it is written with moderation, and contains rather more truth than is usually published respecting the affairs of Greece, its extensive circulation in Europe, if practicable, would probably prove beneficial to the cause; but sufficient means have not been adopted, I fear, to effect that object.

POPULATION.

I made every inquiry in every part of Greece respecting population, without ever arriving at any very satisfactory result; I am, however, strongly of opinion, that the whole number of actual insurgents is somewhat under one million. I should estimate the population of Eastern and Western Greece at one hundred and fifty thousand; that of the independent islands, including refugees, at two hundred and fifty thousand; and that of the Morea at half a million.

FUTURE PROSPECTS.

The internal condition of the country was at least as promising in the commencement of 1822, as at this moment. The government was the same, or nearly so, with this advantage, that Maurocordato

Lord Byron, I find, was not of the same opinion. "I hope," says he, "that the Press will succeed better there (at Athens) than it has here (at Misolonghi.) The Greek newspaper has done great mischief both in the Morea and in the islands, as I represented, both to prince Maurocordato and to colonel Stanhope, that it would do, in the present circumstances, unless

great caution was observed."-Stanhope's Greece, p. 126,

was then at its head; the power of the capitani was not then so clearly defined, and their hostility to the constitution so decided; party and personal animosities were not then so general or so violent.

Are we then from these facts to conclude, that the hopes of Greece are suffer ing a gradual diminution, and decaying year by year? That the insurrection is less vigorous, because it is less extensive, and that a few more efforts would suffice to crush it altogether? I am very far removed from that opinion. A few extremities have indeed been lopped away, but the heart is grown stouter and warmer. By the loss of some parts of the confederacy, the population of the rest has been augmented and concentrated; and a spirit has grown up among them, which would render their extermination very difficult, and their submission impossible. They have acquired the habit of independence; they have learnt to despise and scorn their former master, and they have not ceased to detest him; in energy, in talents, in-courage, they assert or feel their own superiority; and it is this feeling which, in-spite of all their vices and their follies, preserves, and will still preserve them.

CONCLUSION.

We have omitted to notice Mr. Waddington's account of Odysseus, Gourrha, and some other of the Greek leaders: we suspect they are very unfair representations of these individuals, and from the mass of calumnious anecdote they contain, they remind us more of the exaggerated statements of rival partisans, than the delineations of an impartial observer, allowing for the peculiar circumstances in which they have been placed. We have also omitted to notice the peculiarities of our author's style. For correctness and purity it strongly recalls to mind the oratorical flourishes of that great master of English composition, the late marquis of Londonderry. Such phrases as stationary imperfectibility," and " condescension of calumny," are frequent. A young Greek girl is said to be " of extravagant beauty," and for premature we have prematurity, for perverse, perversity,

and so on.

Diary of Occurrences.

The Nottingham trade is so good that many females earn from thirty shillings to two pounds per week.-The weavers of Coventry are full of business. Those who work in the patent looms earn from three to four pounds per week, but those engaged in common old looms do not get

more than ten shillings per week so much for improved machinery.-Among the improvements suggested for the embellishment of the metropolis, is one for lighting the names of streets, and church-clocks, during the hours when otherwise they are invisible.-Throughout Colombia there is not a single carriage road; all are bridle roads, and those very bad, especially in the rainy season. The Colombian Agricultural Associations are making arrangements for sending to Colombia a number of Scotch and Irish emigrants.

SIGNS OF THE TIMES.-The "trifles light as air," which now occupy public attention, are a better test than the flourishing state of the revenue, of the glorious times in which we live. Miss Wilson, Miss Foote, Mr. Hayne, and Mr. Kean, form the engrossing topics. Poor Edmund! he is likely to have a cold reception in the northern capital. The followers of John Knox do not at all relish his doings: he returns to Drury-lane in July; at the Theatrical Fund dinner he said he was going to the Continent for several years! The "dying swain,” Mr. Hayne, has again (poetry truly!) escaped the matrimonial tie, owing to a dispute about pin-money, and a settlement for daddy Foote; to a provision for ma no objection was made.-Talma's benefit at Paris produced 1,400%.

The emperor of Russia has adopted a new plan to render escape from confinement more difficult; it consists in shaving one half of the heads of all prisoners, even those in irons, and those detained for debt!

The emperor has presented professor Barlow, of the Woolwich Military Academy, with a gold watch and chain, for his magnetic discoveries.

9.-Heard another interesting lecture from Mr. M'Culloch, on the science of money. I am well pleased at the lecturer's success, for he is disseminating, in the right quarter, invaluable ideas: among his auditors are the first merchants in the city, and several of the directors of the Bank of England and East India Company. Economical science is rapidly extending in all quarters; Mr. Drummond is about to found and endow, at his own expense, a professorship of Political Economy at Oxford.

THE DRAMA.

THOUGH at Drury-lane the public attention has not, of late, been invited by any thing in the shape of novelty, the Covent-garden managers have, in their luckless activity, produced a New Musical Play, in Three Acts-a piece so un

WEEKLY CALENDAR.

decided in its species, as no more to allow us to say whether it be tragic, comic, operatic, or all, or none of these, than to ascertain the ground-plot on which the heterogeneous fabric is reared, or to discover any beauty, connection, or consistency in the music by which it was meant to be embellished. Dramatic genius! whither art thou fled? Musical imagination! where hast thou hidden thy silent shell? Why have both of you deserted the British stage, and left it to the barren care of dulness and her maudlin handmaids?

With the vapid, incoherent, and uninteresting fable, on which the dialogue of this piece is founded, we will not fatigue our readers; but cannot refrain from saying, that little as the main business is worthy of being dignified with the appellation of a plot, the incidents and language are, if possible, still more destitute of any claims to commendation. If the poetic portion of this production is not of an inspired order, so flat and spiritless is the prose, that the interspersion of the lyric beauties of Sapho and Anacreon,, illus trated by the voices of Orpheus and Amphion, would fail to render it acceptable to any real judges of scenic dialogue whether serious or comic.

While as a drama, taking the word in its genuine sense, the Hebrew Family scarcely ranks under any particular species, but partakes of, and yet is partially foreign from, every one of them :--as an opera, it is a medley, an olio, a pasticcioany thing but a legitimate musical production; and the result of the combined abilities of ATTWOOD, WHITAKER, WATBON, and CIANCHETTINI, assisted by compilations from SHIELD, VIOTTI, and RosSINI, could not render it worthy of passing muster. By the by, this motley union of living composers, with the disjunctive congregation of deceased and foreign artists, is the result of an ill-directed taste, and, except in pieces decidedly comic, has seldom succeeded. The music of the Fisherman's Hut, brought forward by ELLISTON, was, we remember, hurried up by many hands, in the very manner in which this thing has been pushed in the face of the public, and failed, though its literary substance came from the plastic hand of TOBIN.

It is true, that in the excellent, perhaps we might say, immortal comic operas, of Love in a Village, The Maid of the Mill, and The Duenna, we have assemblages of the emanations of various musical geniuses but each of these pieces had the advantage of one ruling mind; in the first, the presiding judgment of ARNE formed the selection; in the second, that

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of ARNOLD; and of the third, the melodies were composed and compiled by LINLEY. The consequence of this regulation was a coordinate propriety, a linked closeness" of thought to thought, of style with style; and while the words and the music told the same tale, the prevalence of a certain fitness and similarity of manner gave new point to the poet's ideas, and evinced the superintendence of one regulating intellect. But, in the present patchwork production, we see not only many directors, but as many dissentients, as many mutual opponents-quot homines tot sententiæ. This was unfortunate for all parties. What new credit could the known talents of WHITAKER and ATTwood derive from such a misdirected, jarring junction-pleasing as was song by the former of these gentlemen? What foundation could WATSON OF CIANCHETTINI perceive in such a coalition for the erection of the fame they have yet to earn?

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The only apology MESSRS. KEMBLE and Co. can make for presenting the public with this theatrical jumble, will rest on the acting and singing. JONES, FARREN, BARTLEY, FAWCETT, MRS. GIBBS, and MRS. CHATTERLEY, made the best of the dull dialogue they had to dole forth; and SINCLAIR, MISS M. TREE, and Miss H. CAWSE (one of the two vocal daughters of a respectable artist, and a pupil of SIR GEORGE SMART,) exerted themselves with all the success the tasks imposed upon them would admit: but what histrionic or vocal merit can sanction, or ought to sanction, the continuing on the boards, a production that candour would blush to approve, that patience turns from with ennui, and that criticism scorns tó tolerate?

Weekly Calendar.

April XVI.-Saturday. High Water, Morn. 0. 31 m. Even. 0. 55 m. Sun rises, 5 m. past V.; sets 55 m. past VI.

GARDEN.-Dress artichoke beds; transplant cabbages and savoys; sow cauliflowers, onions, and celery; transplant fibrous-rooted perennial plants; and thin wall fruit, when it is about double the size of a pea. CHRONOLOGY.

- 1746. Anniversary of the victory over the Pretender at Culloden, near Inverness, in Scotland; event which terminated the rebellion of 1745.

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1788.-Died, in France, in his 81st year, the celebrated count de Buffon, a man of genius and great eloquence, and the most able interpreter of nature that

perhaps ever existed; and often styled the "French Pliny." For fifty years he spent fourteen hours a day in study; and when we examine the extent of his knowledge, and the number of his works, we wonder at his having executed so much even in that time.

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April XVII.-Sunday.

High Water, Morn. I. 17 m. Even. I. 39 m. Sunday Lessons: Morn. Num. 23, 24-Acts 14. Even. Num. 25: 1 Peter 1.

CHRONOLOGY.-1761. Expired, aged 85, the celebrated Benjamin Hoadley, bishop of Winchester, born at Westenham, in Kent, in 1676.

1790.—Benjamin Franklin, the American philosopher and statesman, died at Philadelphia, aged 84. This truly great man was originally a printer, and the interesting account he has left of his life shows, in a striking manner, how by talents, industry, and integrity, the humblest individual may rise from obscurity to the first eminence and consequence in society.

April XVIII-Monday.

High Water, Morn. II. 2 m. Even. II. 25 m.
New Moon, Morn. IX. 20 m.

CHRONOLOGY.-1689. Died, in the tower of London, justly execrated, the infamous judge Jefferies.

1794.-Expired that eminent and upright statesman, Charles Pratt, earl Camden, who acquired distinguished honour by his declaration against the legality of general warrants.

1802. Expired, at the Priory near Derby, Dr. Darwin; author of "Zoonomia,' or the laws of organic life; and "The Temple of Nature."

April XIX.-Tuesday.

High Water, Morn. II. 43 m. Even. III. 1 m. CHRONOLOGY.-On this day, 1529, a few of the electors and princes of Germany published a protestation, against a decree of the diet of the Germanic empire, and petitioned to have it revoked. Hence the name of protestant was given to religious reformers, and has since been the general denomination of Christians dissenting from the church of Rome.

1824.-Died, aged 36, lord Byron.

April XX.-Wednesday.

High Water, Morn. 1II. 16 m.-Even III. 32 m. Easter Term begins.

April XXI.-Thursday.

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High Water Morn. 111. 48 m.-Even. IV. 5 m. 323.B. C. - Died, at Babylon, aged thirty-three, through intoxication, Alexan

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NATURAL HISTORY.-About this period the blossoms of trees usually present to the eye a most agreeable spectacle. In ordinary seasons the almond-tree, and the blackthorn, put forth their flowers early in this month; a host of others follow, among which may be named the ash, ground-ivy, the box, the pear-tree, the apricot, peach, and nectarine; the wild and garden cherry, the plum, gooseberry, apple, and currant trees; and the hawthorn and the sycamore. The elm, the beech, and the larch, are in full leaf. Among the flowers which adorn our fields are the chequered daffodil, the primrose, cowslip, the cuckoo flower, and the harebell.

LIST OF WORKS PUBLISHED.

Lewis's First and Second Games of the

Edinburgh and London Chess Clubs, 8vo. 3s.-Thornton's Greenhouse Companion, second edition, 14s.-John Bull in America, 12mo. 7s.-Thoughts in Rhyme, 7s.-Rev. T. Scott's Works, 10 vols. 8vo. 61.-Joyce's Lay of Truth, 8vo. 6s.-Tales of the O'Hara Fa mily, 3 vols. 12mo. 11. 10s.-The Three Brothers, crown 8vo. 9s.-Ballantyne's Novels complete, 10 vols. royal 8vo. 147.-Mountenay's Selections on Brazil, 7s.-Stennett's Works complete, 3 vols. 8vo. 17. 7.s.-Chambers on Civil Ar hitecture, 2 vols. imp. 8vo. 4. 14s. 6d.-Cecil's Memoirs, Newton and Omicron, 24mo. 4s. 6d.-Thomas Fitz Gerald, 3 vols. 8vo. 11. 7s.-Doubleday's Babington, a tragedy, 4s. 6d.

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A FEW weeks since we conducted our readers through alleys and avenues, lanes and gateways, into the halls of Chancery; presuming on their kindness, we shall now take a saunter through the chambers of Guildhall; a district of Rhadamanthus scarcely less renowned than the domain of lord Eldon.

It was almost a pity to forsake that fine gothic structure; the new courts, however, are more commodious; with an entrée for counsel, another for attorneys and witnesses, and two more for that miscellaneous personage-the PUBLIC. The chief justice, Abbot, sits there like a king;

VOL. I

the new bench is really superb-almost as magnificent as a throne. Well, he is a judge who deserves to be honoured for his excellent temper, and the steady and even hand with which he holds the scales of justice. His attention to juniors at the bar, and the Job-like patience given to every cause, are exemplary, and contrast favourably with the stormy irritabilities of his predecessor.

Among the counsel of this court the practice is chiefly confined to four. The pale-faced gentleman at this end, Mr. common serjeant Denman-the aquilinenosed barrister, Mr. Gurney-the red

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