into a mob of plunderers; however loyal, into murmurers; and however brave, into runaways and deserters on the first opportunity. The true matter of surprise is, that the Asiatic or African can ever be brought into the field, unless by the prospect of plunder.

But the martial spirit is vivid, bold, and desperate in the Oriental, when the secret of awaking it is found. The rush of the Turkish cavalry was once utterly irresistible. The Arabs still occasionally fight with the most frantic courage. With nothing but the short sword and the shield, those naked heroes rush hand to hand, throw themselves on the bayonet, and seem utterly to defy death. The troops of India, under their native princes, have often fought like troops of tigers, incapable of being conquered till the spear was in their hearts. Europe, with all her iron barons, was swept before the Saracen horsemen; and to this hour the native valour of the Circassian tiller of the ground, fights the enduring battle against the Russian, shoots down his disciplined battalions, storms his fortresses, and keeps the mighty empire of the north still bleeding. If some great leader should arise again in Asia a man of genius, superior to the follies and feebleness of his time, able to breathe his own spirit into the soldiery, and relying only on the native power and instinctive daring of their ardent and exciteable temperament, and priding himself on his scorn of Europe; if a Mahomet, with his fiery enthusiasm; a Tamerlane, with his vast and magnificent ambition, or even a Hyder Ali, with his stern subtlety and indefatigable activity of enterprisewere to show himself on the Asiatic scene even now, it is not impossible but he might sway the balance of empire towards the East once more.

The success of his arms in the Ethiopian campaign, seems to have decided Mohammed Ali on commencing his new system of discipline. He applied to Dravetti, the French consul at Alexandria, to send him an officer fit for this purpose. The Frenchman recommended a countryman of his own, (of course,) and the camp of instruction at Esneh was put under the command of Colonel Seve, for merly aide-de-camp to Marshal Ney, and now Solyman Pasha,

This camp, which was afterwards removed to Assouan for the purpose of being near the frontier of the Pasha's territory, was originally composed of the black prisoners taken in the Ethiopian campaign. The whole corps was subsequently divided into regiments of five battalions of 800 men each, a number of Egyptians and Arabs having been sent to join them, each regiment thus forming a brigade; and the whole being disciplined, and constructed on the model of the troops of France. In three years the camp amounted to twenty thousand men. Their first service in the field began in 1824 against the Wahabees, who had again threatened the conquest of Arabia. The change of costume made the Wahabees despise them, and those gallant fanatics accordingly exposed themselves to be beaten. They were outmanoeuvered and beaten, after a daring but brief struggle.

Mohammed was now advancing to higher objects, and his fame began to excite the jealousy of the Sultan. The Greek war seemed to afford a happy opportunity of employing a neighbour at once so clever and so dangerous, and of trying a new force on the field which had been so unlucky to the Turks. The promise of converting the Morea into a pashalic for his son Ibrahim, which would be equivalent to adding Greece to Egypt, was the temptation, and in 1825 Ibrahim landed in Greece at the head of 17,000 Egyptian troops. Against this force the Greeks, divided, without a leader or without a piastre, could make no stand, and fortresses and troops gave way at the first shock. Old and New Navarino instantly fell. Three skirmishes, which the bulletins blazoned into three pitched battles, decided the fate of the "Sons of Liberty," and within a few months Ibrahim was master of the Peloponne

sus.

In the next year he crossed over to the continent, attacked Missolonghi, the headquarters of the patriots, and after a long and gallant resistance, broke his way into the unfortunate town. But this career had now begun to awaken alarms in European courts, and Ibrahim was peremptorily ordered by the triple alliance to return to Egypt without delay. The Egyptian general at first utterly refused, then hesitated, then attempted to negotiate, and would probably have been glad to

make his way quietly home, when some unaccountable rashness on the part of the allies hurried them into the battle of Navarino;" that fruitless action, which so long bore the name of the "untoward event," (a name given by the highest military authority in existence,) and whose immediate result was, to strip our ally, the Ottoman, of his whole fleet, and leave him thenceforth at the mercy of Russia. In the latter part of 1828, Ibrahim returned to Egypt; the pashalic was a dream, and the establishment of Greece as a separate power was decided.

In this expedition, the Pasha had gained nothing but fame. Yet fame was now to him every thing. He had not been beaten. Even his fleet, unwisely attacked at anchor, where ships are batteries, and where seamanship. is out of the question, had fought steadily and long. His troops had conquered every thing which they had approached; and the Pasha began to be looked on as the true champion of Islamism. Mohammed's reforms, too hastily urged, had diminished the popular faith in his supremacy, and it is not improbable that visions of more than Egypt and Pashalics began to rise before his daring and ambitious eye. A sudden and slight event promised to give them reality.

The escape of some Arab slaves from Egypt into the pashalic of Saida, produced a demand for their restoration. Some pecuniary transactions, left unsettled by the Syrian pasha, gave additional urgency to the demand. But Abdallah, the pasha, haughtily refused to give satisfaction on either point, and Mohammed answered by ordering a strong body of troops to march to Acre. The dispute came before the Sultan, who, embarrassed by the reports of Bosnian tumults, and unwilling to break with a vassal who might so easily make himself independent, adopted Mohammed's quarrel, and even sent the few ships which he had to assist, or probably to watch him, on the coast of Syria.

In this campaign we have a remarkable evidence of that rapidity of decision and keen sagacity which have so long characterized the Pasha.

It may fairly be presumed, that whatever assistance the Sultan gave to the half-rebellious attack on Syria,

was of a most reluctant kind; and accordingly the Ottoman court no sooner heard a rumour of the suppression of the tumults in its European territories, than it dispatched an immediate order for the return of its fleet. But the clever Pasha was not to be checked in his operations by this open mark of imperial distrust. Though it was already winter, a dangerous season for operations on the Syrian coast, he instantly hurried on his armament; and such was his adroit activity, that his army, with Ibrahim at its head, had disembarked in Syria before the messenger of the Divan, who bore the order to suspend all operations, could arrive in Alexandria. Thus Ibrahim had managed to begin the attack on the Syrian Pasha, which was virtually an attack on the Turkish territory, under the declared sanction of the Sultan himself! Let European diplomacy hide its diminished head after this. But all was not finished yet.

Mohammed had remained in Alexandria. The Turkish envoy was received with all due distinction. Mohammed listened to the despatch with the deepest reverence; but, in return, observed, that nothing could be more unfortunate than that he had not received it earlier; for, said he, "The expedition to reduce the rebellious pasha of Syria to the obedience of my lord the Sultan, has already sailed, and is probably so far on its way, that, if your excellency will but wait a few days, you may have the pleasure of bearing the keys of Acre to Constantinople. The envoy was astonished; but seeing the object of the wily Pasha at once, boldly demanded an explicit reply to the question, "What is it that you really require from the Sublime Porte?" The answer was characteristic and capital, though perhaps diplomacy never exhibited such candour before.

"My object," said Mohammed, "is, to keep what I have got-In a few days Acre must be mine-If the Sultan consents to my keeping it, I shall stop there—If he refuses, I shall take Damascus If Damascus be granted to me, there I shall stopBut, if it be not, I shall take AleppoIf the Sultan will not grant it to methen-who knows-Allah kerimGod is merciful!" Of course, Constantinople would have filled up the

blank.

But Mohammed left it safely to the envoy's imagination. The effect was fully produced, at least, in his mind; for on his return to the Divan, having probably seen the vastness of the Pasha's preparations, as well as the vigour of his intellect, he advised concession and peace. But Mahmoud, who had not seen either, was indignant at the proposal, and ordered him to be thrown into chains. It is thus that Turks obtain advice, and reward wisdom.

But this bravado was speedily at at an end. Courier on courier came rushing to the seraglio, with news of the advance of Ibrahim. Every despatch brought intelligence of some additional success. Tripoli fell, almost without resistance. Osman Pasha, hastily advancing to check this tide of invasion, was beaten, horse and foot, and forced to fly to the mountains for his life. Finally, Abdallah Pasha was driven into Acre, and this citadel of Syria was surrounded by the Egyptian troops, and doomed, soon or late, to inevitable surrender. The Divan was in consternation, and well it might; for if Mohammed Ali had not, for once, made a false step, and forgotten that the rebel's sword, once drawn, must always aim at the heart, he might have long since sat down in Constantinople. At this period, neither Russia was prepared to interpose, nor any other European power prepared to defend. There was not a ship equip. ped in any sea of Europe, except the Baltic. The attention of the courts had been drawn away by diplomatic triflings among Swiss, Belgian, and Dutch; and in a fortnight from his time of crossing the Taurus, Ibrahim might have been riding in triumph to the mosque of Santa Sophia.

Some remaining veneration for the Ottoman dynasty, or some unnecessary fear of doing too much, and going too far in the road of victory, checked the viceroy in his ultimate object; for there can be no doubt that his "Allah kerim" was profoundly significant. But his son followed the call of fortune with unabated gallantry. Acre alone retarded him; and this fortress, which he ought to have masked, and left to famine, detained him for eight months! not surrendering until May 1832. Being at length, however, disengaged, he now rushed

forward again: in June, took Damascus; and pushed on to the assault of the Turkish army, which, too late for every thing but ruin, had just descended from the mountains.

We now come on classic ground. Ibrahim forded the Orontes towards its head, taking up a position on the shore of lake Tatli Gukul, a little to the southward of the plains of Horns. On these plains, the last of the great Roman emperors had fought the last of the Syrian sovereigns; the brazen legionaries of Aurelian, against the light-armed cavalry and rapid archers of Zenobia. In July 1832, the Bedouin horsemen brought intelligence of the approach of the Turkish army. Shortly after, it was seen advancing in three heavy columns, the whole cavalry and infantry amounting to twenty-five thousand men, under the command of the Pasha of Aleppo. But Ibrahim was already prepared in infantry, with six guns, forming the centre, flanked by two heavy corps of regular horse on the right, and another strong cavalry force, combined with irregular Arabs, on the left. The Turks rushed on with great impetuosity, but they lost many men by the fire of the cannon; and the Bedouin cavalry, taking advantage through some slight disorder, rushed with tossing spears, and wild and loud shouts, upon the flank of the column next them. The fault of all Asiatic troops lies not in their want of courage, but their want of steadiness; and the fault of their discipline is, that they know neither how to retreat nor how to rally. After the first fire, it is generally a mere chance whether they will rush forward on the enemy, or backwards on their own baggage; and when they are once fairly repulsed, every man seems to think his duty done for the day, and that his only business is to escape from the field. The repulse of one Turkish column produced the retreat of all; and the retreat was no sooner commenced, than it turned into a flight. Every thing was left on the groundarms, artillery, and baggage. Ibrahim followed his success, again beat a detachment of the Turks, and took Scanderoon, and Antioch, memorable for having been the place where Christianity first received its name, and distinguished in the days of the crusades, and generally in every other remarkable

period of Syrian history. But he had still one great battle more to fight, before he could throw the Turkish army hors de combat. The Ottomans now fell back into Asia Minor, and drew up their troops at Koniah. Ibrahim, flushed with victory, and aware of his superiority to the Turks, passed the defiles of Mount Taurus, and pouring down into the plain, attacked the grand vizier on the 19th of December 1832. The Turks fought better than in any other period of the campaign; but the generalship of Ibrahim, at the head of troops accustomed to victory under his eye, was not to be vanquished by the inexperience of the Turkish commander at the head of an army of recruits. Ibrahim's cannon and cavalry again broke up the Turkish lines, and the whole army was put to the rout, with the loss of its cannon and ammunition, leaving the vizier prisoner. There

was but one prize more to be gained; the defeat had levelled the last barrier of the empire, and its intelligence had scarcely reached the capital, when it was followed by the still more tremendous announcement that Ibrahim was in full march to Constantinople.

The Sultan, who had occasionally exhibited such remarkable energy, and unquestionably possessed both talents and courage, seems to have been then in the commencement of that long disease which finally laid him in the grave. His efforts to repel the Egyptian advance were few and feeble; and if Constantinople had been left to his defence, its keys must have been speedily sent to join those of Acre; but there was a protector at hand-a formidable one in every sense of the word. The Emperor of Russia offered his assistance to defend the Ottoman, and as a first step sent one of his officers with Halif, formerly capitan-pasha, to the Viceroy, to enter into negotiations. On their arrival at Alexandria, the sagacious Viceroy, who saw that the blow was missed for the present, immediately expressed his readiness to come to terms; but, in the mean time, the hazard had come closer still. Ibrahim had pushed forwards as far as Brussa, and the Sultan, now fully aroused by the double fear of an insurrection in his capital, and of seeing the Bosphorus crossed under the walls of the seraglio, hastily sum

moned the Russians to his aid. The Russian fleet, awaiting but this signal, instantly weighed anchor from Sebastopol. But the news of the armistice having at length reached Ibrahim, he halted, and the capital breathed again. A treaty was now formed by the suggestion of Roussin, the French ambassador, offering the pashalics of Acre, Jerusalem, and Tripoli, to the triumphant Viceroy. But his reply was instant and contemptuous. He asked, "Whether this was all that was to be given as an indemnity for the expense of his campaign, a recompense for his services to the Porte, and an atonement for his injured honour?" To all further negotiation he answered by sending an order to Ibrahim to march without delay to Constantinople. The Russians were now called for once more, and 20,000 of their troops, under Count Orloff, took post at Scutari to defend the Asiatic shore.

But

Such are the fates of empire; yet among the casualties of modern Eu rope, this was the most extraordinary. Among the metaphorical race of poets and orators there has been a fondness for comparing the life of empires to the life of man, and finding in the infancy, maturity, and decay of human life, some shadowing of the condition of national power. Thus we are pathetically told that the most flourishing country has a certain point of prosperity, beyond which all must decline by the course of nature. the argument is altogether fallacious. There is no analogy between individual life and national power. Further than that, they both are susceptible of increased vigour. There is no instance in modern Europe of the ruin of any great state, with the single exception of Poland, which, from its elective monarchy, its habitual dissensions, and the general dislocation of its government, was rather to be looked on as a vast moral quagmire than a solid government. And yet the greater number of those European kingdoms have been established for a thousand years; and there is not one of them at this moment more likely to perish than it was a thousand years ago. Even in the ancient world, the fall of empires bore no similitude to the gradual decay of nature. Some perished in their full strength by the folly or frenzy of a royal desperado,

you at last-I have traced you ever since. I might have delivered you to the law, as I did your accomplice" "Ha!" exclaimed Theodore; "did she suffer?"

"Yes; your sweet Nancy; that beautiful young creature that trusted you till you betrayed her; that followed you till you made her cruel and guilty as yourself; that watched at the door on the night of the murder! I watched her, followed her, seized her, and, while you were absent for two years in a foreign country-and even there I had my eyes on you-I prosecuted her. She was condemned-she was hung in chains-you rest upon her now! Ha! ha! ha!"

Theodore shrunk in horror from the arm of the gallows; and, on looking down, saw the remains of a human skeleton, of which the bones, in many places, were held together by the iron chains which dangled from above. "You loved my aunt," he whispered. "I-did-not-knowI".

"Is she not beautiful?" continued Methuselah, not attending to the interruption. "See, there are her cherry lips they were white with fear on the morning of her execution. This was her swanlike neck, so white and marblelike! Why don't you put your arm round it? And her shoulders they used to be plump and beautiful-won't you stoop and kiss them, Theodore? Ha! ha! ha!But come! 'tis time-wretch, that slew the loveliest woman the world contained!-murderer, that ruined the purest and most innocent! slave, that tremblest now that punishment has overtaken thee !-Die!"

His grasp was on Theodore's shoulder-there was no resistancepassive, yielding, thunderstruck-it needed no effort or exertion to push him from his place. Without a word, without a motion, down, down he fell. The contending animals with a wild roar parted for a moment, and closed instantaneously on the prostrate body. Life must have been extinct before he touched the ground, for not the slightest movement gave evidence of consciousness on the part of the miserable man. "Revenge! revenge! Ha, sainted Miss M'Gregor! I've executed the vow of vengeance I took when I saw the dagger of your nephew at

your throat-I have satisfied the longings of my heart for many years. The executioners of my wrath are howl. ing over their prey! the messengers of my fury have come from their homes in the burning desert!" "You lie!" cried a hoarse voice, as Methuselah, swaying his arms about, was uttering these exclamations, agitated with the fury of an ancient Pythoness; "you lie! they've escaped from our menagerie-lend us a hand-so Nero! so, so, poor fellow !" The man, as he said this, advanced to where the animals, at the sound of his voice, had lifted up their gory heads, and were apparently listening. He then added, as if the force of custom were too strong to be resisted, "This here is the werry tiger that had a encounter in Africa, in the West Ingies, with Mr Dinlop. His name's the famous Tippoo. Vy don't ye come down and help, master? bless ye, they're as mild as milk; they would not hurt a infant." The man looked up at the gallows, but received no answer. The motions of Methuselah had ceased. He sat rigid as a block carved out of eternity! Others of the persons connected with the menagerie, now came up, the lion and the tiger with some difficulty were got into their cages, and then the principal man of the party climbed up to where Methuselah was seated. "Vell," asked one of his companions, "can't you get the genleman to move?"

No answer.

"Vy don't he speak?"

"He can't," said the man in a deeply agitated voice.

"Vy can't he? vot's the matter with him ?"

"'Cause he's valk'd!" replied the other, sliding down the post: and true enough, the perturbed spirit of Methuselah had fled in the agitation of that morning from its tenement of clay.

Next morning, when the grey sunbeams threw an unsteady verdure over the scene, the heath was parched and desolate as before; the gibbet still reared its appalling shadow over the plain, and at its foot were the fragments of the guilty Theodore, and coiled on one of its projecting arms, stiff, stark, and pallid, sat the motionless body of Methuselah. He was dead!