situation, and for a long time foiled all the stratagems which were practised to crush him; till after a series of ill success, he was ultimately reduced to an extremity which left him destitute of any means of supporting his troops. In this exigency, having made a desperate attack on a formidable band of opponents, he was compelled to a precipitate retreat, and with difficulty eluded the search of his pursuers by plunging into the recesses of a cavern. It is asserted by one of his biographers, that while reflecting in this place of concealment on the peculiarity of his fortune, he suddenly perceived the stick with which he was unconsciously tracing out figures on the sand strike against some hard substance. With a view more to employ his attention, than from any idea of arriving at an interesting discovery, he set about excavating the spot, where he found at a slight depth beneath the surface a vase filled with coins of various denominations, and making an aggregate of considerable value. Regarding this as a most favourable omen, he instantly took measures for organizing a troop of adventurers, and shortly after found himself master of a booty sufficient for the maintenance of a little army. At the head of this chosen band, he returned to the place of his nativity, regained possession of his hereditary domains, and entered Tepelini in triumph. From this epoch his authority progressively increased, his standard became a rallying point to the ardent and enterprising, and he quickly began to elevate his views beyond the narrow horizon which bounded his native province, till on the execution of the late Pasha, whose incapacity brought on his

government all the miseries of anarchy, Ali was appointed by the Porte to the Pachalic of Albania.

Superior to the attacks of adverse fortune, he has shewn himself equally proof against the seductions of prosperity. By some well-timed concessions to the districts he had subdued, he found means to incorporate their inhabitants with those of his more attached subjects, whose affections he confirmed by an unlimited toleration of the Greek religion. Thus secure in his immediate government, he had no difficulty in extending his alliance with the ruling authorities in Thessaly; and associating his two eldest sons with him in his administration, he procured for each the dignity of Pasha. At length, after a series of good fortune surpassing his most ardent hopes, his services at Widdin towards the close of the last century were rewarded with the highest marks of distinction which the government at Constantinople has to bestow. Though now far advanced in life, he is still very adroit in all manly exercises, and is regarded as consummate in the management of his horse, in whose dress and accoutrements he affects peculiar elegance.

In the exercise of his authority he is experienced, sagacious, and provident. Equally unrivalled for boldness of design and promptness of execution, the "firstlings of his heart" are usually "the firstlings of his hand;" but where a subtler policy is required, he has a wonderful faculty in engaging opposite parties to his interests, by every art of address, and the most successful application to their humours and

passions. Such are among the admirable qualities of this remarkable person. On the other hand, he is represented as being cruel, treacherous, and faithless, without honour, and without religion. Many instances are recorded of his vindictive policy, but the merciless revenge with which he visited the town of Gardiki, whose inhabitants had on some occasion treated his mother with indignity, surpasses all the rest both in extent and atrocity. The citizens were driven into an enclosure from which there was no possibility of escape, and exposed to a fire of musketry directed from every quarter. The Pasha assisted personally at the massacre, and probably considered it as a meritorious act of atonement to the manes of an injured parent. The tributary provinces were thus taught a tremendous lesson; they were convinced that the Vizier's power admitted not the shadow of resistance, and that his vengeance, like the wrath of heaven, accumulated in proportion to its delay.

It was from this formidable personage that the writer and his associates experienced the hospitable reception, alluded to in the former part of this volume.

Accounts very lately* received from the Ionian Islands mention that Ali has openly renounced all dependence on the Porte, and proclaimed himself KING OF EPIRUS!

The weight of years must now necessarily embarrass his personal operations; yet it may be remembered that Caius Marius, whose character he in many respects greatly resembles, achieved some of his most extraordinary actions at an * May, 1820.

age almost equally advanced. He will probably be joined by the Greek part of the population in the Morea. The intelligence, which the flower of the youth of that country have derived from their intercourse and connexion with Christian Europe, the marked superiority in discipline and habits of hardihood possessed by the Albanian over the Turkish soldiery, and the unshrinking confidence of all in the genius and conduct of their chief, render it not improbable that Ali Pasha, should his existence be continued, may eventually become the instrument to procure for this long depressed people a degree of national prosperity, alike incompatible with the solemn tyranny of the Crescent, and the capricious and more intolerable despotism of an ever-varying democracy.

SPECIMENS OF ROMAIC,

Referred to by note in p. 190.

A FRUITLESS effort to revolutionize Greece was made a few years since by an adventurer of the name of Riga, who attempted to inflame the passions of the people by an application of the moral means so successfully employed by Tyrtæus. Many of the songs circulated with this view are written in the spirit of the Marseillois hymn. The first lines of the favourite air,

ΔΕΎΤΕ παῖδες τῶν ̔Ελλήνων,

Ὁ καῖρος τῆς δόξης ἦλθεν,

are almost a literal version of

Allons enfans de la patrie,

Le jour de gloire est arrivé!

But the modern Athenians have very little resemblance to the ancient Spartans. The fate of Riga is well known.

Our host at Athens was a personage of great worth and integrity, enthusiastically attached to the ancient institutions of his country, and professing a most profound contempt for the degenerate follies of her present inhabitants. His house,