A detailed refutation of these visions appeared in the Augsburg Gazette, which subsequently was reproduced and still further commented on in the Moniteur Ottoman. The first of these works happily contrasts, in its refutation, as it says itself, of the arguments of the statesman, but of the metaphors of the poet, the benevolence of the intentions of M. de la Martine with the bigotry of his opinions.

governnent of the country? In every key) was to be proclaimed by a simple other part of her dominions, and with very treaty neutral; and that thus, amidst jarfew exceptions, the impartial toleration of ring interests and conflicting possions, we the Ottoman government has calmed down were to see there Elis reproduced without the irritations of religious animosity. Here, its associations. the associations of the place keep alive angry recollections; but even here, all record of the fierce disputes between the Christian churches of the East and West would have died long ago, had it not been for the intrigues of Italian monks, supported by foreign powers. But we do not attribute this toleration to dogma, because we find the same feeling taking upon itself a character purely institutional; because we find the Porte not only respecting difference of creeds, but difference of local laws, usages and customs; because we trace to this spirit, combined with hospitality, the privilege that the Porte confers on the stranger of every nation-the privilege of living under his own laws though in her dominions, enjoying his own customs, gratifying his own tastes, amenable only to officers appointed by his own government. These are the obligations which M. de la Martine and every eastern traveller have been under to the Porte; and the way in which these individuals have, for the most part, repaid her, is, by misrepresenting her people, her institutions, and her system; by publishing mis-statements that favor the designs of her ambitious enemy.

M. de la Martine, in his anxiety to invigorate the East, looks around to see if he can find elsewhere renovating materials. He sees that under " notre brillante civilisation le peuple souffre et se plaint." The philosopher is not arrested in his speculations by this astounding fact, which strikes him with such force when, coming from the East, he sets his foot on Europe. No! but the benevolent poet sees in this malaise motives to induce the most unhappy sufferers from European civilization to emigrate, and thus enlighten the barbarous East. "Is this, then," continues the writer in the Augsburg Gazette, "the result of all your charity, to cast the Dejanira robe of Western fiscality over the simplicity of Eastern institutions?" But that speech carried with it its own refutation; and, had the recollection of it not been revived by the publication of his "Souvenirs," it would have passed from our mind as the weakness of an amiable man of genius-" absorbé dans une contemplation mystique plus près au ciel qu'à la terre."

ourselves this question, while wandering over the East? We saw the danger that menaced Europe; we saw that, if the name of Turkey were blotted out of the map of Europe and Asia, Russia's would there be stamped in characters which must efface every other. We heard of several proposals. We had sufficient local knowledge

We have not space to enter into all the erroneous opinions that have given a false coloring to all M. de la Martine's pictures of Eastern society. A resumé of his opinions is to be found in a speech which, on his return, he pronounced in a deliberate and solemn manner before the assembled representatives of his nation. How well But we return to our original question : he understood Turkey may be seen from Is the problem not to be solved? How his mistaking her vital principle for symp- frequently and anxiously have we asked toms of dissolution. So well had he appreciated the reforms of the Sultan, that what had curbed the arbitrary exercise of power, repressed military tyranny, secured property from rapacity, and increased the resources of his people, was characterized as elements of weakness; so well had he studied the spirit of the different races and creeds, that a confederation of states to see that, the Ottoman supremacy once was to be formed-that they were to be removed, no substitute but Russia could be bound by sympathies when the Ottoman found. The Ottoman government we consupremacy ceased to connect them; so sidered in a state of rapid decline; Russia deeply had he penetrated into Russian poli- constantly encroaching. Is there no expecy, that such a confederacy was to prevent a dient to be hit on? Can Turkey be made power so artful in sowing dissentions from to stand by herself? Is she not rotten at occupying a position, which was not with the core? Must she not always be propher a question of more or less importance, ped up? To this doubt we opposed the but one of life and death; so well had he extreme difficulty that Russia had ever exread history, that the ground (once Tur-perienced in dislodging her antagonist,

though Russia really had so many and tages were totally unconscious of their exseemed to have every advantage. What | istence. We tested the positions by the necessity, we reasoned, for those immense facts which we had been long collecting; exertions, those enormous sacrifices, those we found that they solved them, that they extended ramifications of intrigue, which completely reconciled all apparent discrepshe carries into every cabinet in Europe, ancies. to subvert an empire tottering to its fall? Why not wait patiently until it falls, and then step in quietly, to reap the fruits of a conquest which would not cost either blood or treasure?

*

But we feared that we were under delusion, and became sceptical from a desire of finding it true. We examined its effect on others, and we found even the most deeply-rooted prejudice staggered. We We could not explain the reason of the heard men for the first time actually talk of extraordinary contradiction. This very the institutions of Turkey; differences difficulty was a result of long observation. of opinion then for the first time arose. In We did not even appreciate the facts as discussion the abuse began to be separated we should have done; we knew that the from the principle. We observed, even in Ottoman dynasty was the oldest in Europe the ambassadorial circles, from which such -we could not account for it. We saw discussions had been banished by absurd populations so divergent held together for mystery and pompous trifling, these quesages, and subject provinces lost with diffi- ions mooted, attacked, and defended. But culty and retaken with ease by the Otto- what was much more important, we observmans. We could not account for these his-ed this influence over Turkish opinion. torical facts; we had not possessed our- The government had formerly felt the neselves of the key. We put these ques- cessity of reforms, of removing abuses. It tions to others-every one had his different had entered the career without a guide, theory-none was satisfactory to any but without having reasoned on itself. Anxious himself. We visited almost every province to imitate Europe, that it might he admitin Turkey-we examined every circum- ted into the European family and enjoy its stance carefully. We stored up in our protection, the imitations were undertaken mind facts, opinions, conversations. We without system, consequently they were looked into books, we found nothing satis- often injudicious, and opposed to the very factory.

organization to which the government owed In this state of gloomy foreboding were its stability. It attempted to imitate the we, when a small unpretending volume fell errors of Europe: the genius of the people in our way. It was no account of fearful formed by these unknown institutions preaccidents-it was no romance of which vented it from succeeding. Their pride the author was the hero, and in which was insulted by the necessity of change; he recounted the perils he had gone the injudiciousness of the change often enthrough while roaming over the world in nobled that pride. The nation, detached quest of adventures. In fact it was not from its habitual moorings of custom and "Travels in the Levant." It was "Tur- opinion, was exposed to every danger and key and its Resources; its Municipal Or- every apprehension. They concurred in ganization and Free Trade." The title the mass to despise their own practice, to startled us-It appeared as if it was rear- imitate foreign customs and manners, of ing at once the standard for Turkey ? We which scarcely one individual knew even glanced at the advertisement. The first the external forms; or, on the other hand, sentence riveted our attention-"The lin- they clung with a hopeless but pertinacious gering adhesion of the parts of Turkey to conviction that all was old. They knew each other is far more surprising and less not where to stop or where to begin; they easily accounted for than the dismember- knew not what was European or what was ment of the empire." Here then was one not-pride and expediency stood opposed who at length had addressed himself to the problem which so long perplexed us. We The Frank population and the merchants natusat down to read the volume: at the first rally pronounced at once their anathema against these doctrines. Their animosity has since subhasty glance we found that it bore the in-sided, as will appear from the following extract:ternal evidence of truth. It traced great" If I could speak to you I could convince you that effects to simple and natural causes. We then perused it with more serious attention; and we found here the key to the system which appeared before no system; that institutions did exist, although those who lived under them and enjoyed their advan

there is not a resident in Turkey, or an individual who had any transactions with the country, who is not under the greatest obligations to Mr. Urquhart. Should Turkey become alive to its own intrinsic value-should monopolies be done away withshould the iktisab be taken off I say, should such things take place, whom will you have to thank but the man you are so violent against ?"

-yet pride, honest pride, was often useless- rapid growth. To enter into the reasons of ly sacrificed, and expediency disregarded this we must observe that he was the first in the means taken to secure it. At this European who had gained their confidence moment the opinions of a European became on account of his opinions. His position known, and as immediately obtained favor then had all the charms of novelty. Beand carried conviction-for that European sides, it is further accounted for by that commenced by reconciling them with them- very absence, among the Turks, of analysis, selves-pointed out excellences they had and of those laborious habits of thought neglected, and which were worthy of the ad- necessary to arrive at conclusions which miration of that very Europe whose contu- led them more readily to admit conclusions melious reproach had not less affected them formed for them, when these bore the characthan its untoward acts-while he urged ters of truth recognisable in their eyes; and them to hold fast by that which really was oriental society is not split into a number of good, he pointed out to them that which factions, with opposite opinions and interests. really was bad, and thus again conciliated The confidence of one man thus gained their self-esteem even in their self-condem- implies the confidence of the million. nation. While they themselves despaired, There is a difference of creeds and races, -despaired of even arriving at the con- but no difference of opinion. The unity ditions required by civilized Europe,-he, of sentiments and principles is at once sata European having examined them with isfactorily established by the fact, that the the attention necessary to arrive at such author of "Turkey and its Resources," results, did not despair; pointed out how while enjoying the confidence of the Turks, the end was to be attained; and revived enjoyed equally that of the tributaries and hope by directing opinion. One instance rayahs. we quote, out of hundreds, as proving by a single expression the reality of the mental state which we have attempted to describe. One of the doctors of the law declared to us that he had no hope for his country until he understood the principles exposed in this work.

The Turkish government had asked for encouragement from Europe by means of its official organ. "When the West confers on the East the benefit of enlightenment, may it also add that of opinion!" On the publication of this work the Moniteur Ottoman sees its aspirations realized. Reviewing "Turkey and its Resources," and putting the seal of its sanction on those principles as the authentic elements of Turkish institutions, as the directing spirit of future reforms, it prognosticates that the work will operate change in the sentiments both of the East and West towards each other; and time is beginning to show the truth of the prophecy.

"A fact occurs today, which has occurred once before in the history of Europe. The fact is, a violent animosity against Mahommedans, changing suddenly into contrary sentiments, and seeking, with all the good faith of real regret, to discover its

errors.

The Turks felt respect and awe for the power of Europe, and admiration for her institutions. From political circumstances they felt that their existence depended on its good opinion. Their feelings may well be conceived when they found themselves treated with respect. They received encouragement and confidence from feeling they had claims to that respect. Could they doubt that the European who had taken this view, who had rendered them this service must be right? How many authors have reproached the Turks with intractability, because, though they received politely the suggestions of reform offered by Europeans, in imitation of European models, they did not adopt them. How could they adopt suggestions offered in total ignorance of all that it was requisite to know, and which, consequently, generally injudicious, were often impracti-ing, opinion changes. The struggle between two cable? Could these fail to produce a most unfavorable impression with respect to individual European sagacity and judgment? The Turks, too, were intractable while we were ignorant. This change of disposition, so contradictory to all preconceived opinions, proves that we now have arrived at the truth.

The influence that the author of these views gained amongst them was of the most

"The early times of the crusades, that long cauchemar of the Christians, was a period of bitter hatred, of infuriated passions, rejecting all inquiry of men that passed over to Asia. To hate and to and exercising a despotical action over the masses fight, such was the only thought of the crusaders, during the eleventh century. But in the succeed

blind fury. It continues because begun; but the systems, religious and social, loses its character of spirit of inquiry had taken the place of passion; fanatical prejudices are effaced. The crusaders study the character and habits of their enemies; sympathies arise; and from this moment com mences that movement of civilization, which was the final result of that vast irruption of the West on the East.

"The crusade of civilization of the nineteenth sade of the eleventh-in prejudices, blind hate, and century commenced precisely as the religious crucondemnation, without reason. It finishes, like

that of the thirteenth, in inquiry, sympathy, and lated into Turkish, by order of the governjustice. Ten years have sufficed to operate this ment. Turkey had been calumniated by reaction, which, in another age, required two cen turies. The diffusion of knowledge, facility of Europe; from Europe she had learned that communication, and the immense power of the she did possess elements within herself of press, explain the difference. Thanks to those regeneration. By the errors of the Eurowhose high intelligence raises them above the pre-pean cabinets, particularly that of England, judices of their day, to whose investigations we owe this return to impartiality, fraternity; this return she had been prostrated; from England to the true spirit of civilization. Mr. Urquhart has again proceed a dissection of those errors; caused his cotemporaries to make a gigantic stride an exposition of the means by which Rusin the path of honor, of social science, and of hu- sia was working her destruction; of the manity. His laborious researches have thrown a new light on the question, so obscure before, of means of rectifying these errors. It is the institutions of the Ottoman empire, of the rea- shown that, whilst she depended on Engson of its decay, and of the means of its regen- land, England knew and felt the necessity of her existence. Thus, while the consideration of her dependence on foreign interference humbled her and rendered her docile, she rose in her own estimation, from feeling that her existence was necessary to the tranquillity of Europe.

eration."

After opening up the elements of Eastern society, and of the state of Turkey, the author turns round to the political question, for it is impossible not to attribute the pamphlet that appeared at the close of last year, under the title of "England, France, Russia, and Turkey," to the same mastermind that created order where all before seemed confusion--that reduced to principle what appeared only "jarring elements" -that, after having worked through the minute details of local administration, finance, and commercial intercourse, rose to all the imposing truths of political economy, social science, and moral philosophy. In both publications we find the same observation and appreciation of minute detail, the same searching analysis of facts, the same facility of combination, and, what is still more striking, the same tracing of great and complicated effects to simple causes. So evident appears to us the connection between the discovery of the cause of resistance on the part of Turkey to Russia, and an understanding of the means that Russia takes to overcome that resistance-of the necessity for those immense exertions she makes, both in East and West, and of the simple means by which Russian progress may now be arrested that we hesitate not to say, that if the author had not written on the institutions of Turkey, his exposé of Russian policy for the last twenty years would never have appeared. He never could have made that policy intelligible even to himself. We refer not to that pamphlet for the purpose of pointing out its merits or supporting its positions. We merely point out the intimate connection between the administration of Turkey and the policy of Europe. The effect of this publication on opinion, in England, is perhaps unparalleled; the question interests now because it has been rendered intelligible.

But its action on the mind of the Turk is not so well known, and yet more remarkable. It has attracted the attention of the Turkish government, and has been trans

It is wonderful to see a great nation perishing through ignorance of its own means of existence, abandoned and wounded by other powers through the same ignorance; one able power profiting doubly by this ignorance, to cause this nation to destroy itself, and to cause others to destroy it; and by such means proceeding uncontrolled to the erection of one universal dominion on the ruins of all the existing powers; and to discover that it is owing probably to some trifling accidents of every-day occurrence, which led to the observation, establishment, and combination of these simple truths in the mind of one individual, that the means are pointed out of blasting the gigantic schemes of such insatiable ambition.

ART. XI.—Tableau de la Dégénération de la France, et des Moyens de sa Grandeur. Par A. M. Madrolle. (Picture of the Degeneracy of France; and the means of her greatness, and of a fundamental Reform in Literature, Philosophy, the Laws, and Government.) 8vo.

It may be taken for granted that the author of a work under such a title could not fail to discover abundant matter for severe censure, indignant reproof, and bitter sarcasm; that, if so disposed, he would find

"Ample room, and verge enough

The characters of hell to trace ;" and this, were he merely to confine himself to the Dramatists and Novelists of the day. But his work appears to us to be a singular performance. While, on the one hand, it contains many evident truths clearly and forcibly stated, and supported by incontrovertible facts; it puts forth many notions

which will be deemed literary heresies, and many bold assertions, chiefly remarkable for the dogmatical naiveté, (if the expression may be allowed,) with which they are advanced. He dedicates his work à la jeune France. He says,

"The greatness of France is the hope of the world. France alone is great, gentlemen, and you are France. You are France, and you know it and you act accordingly. On whatever side we turn our eyes, in the lower, in the middle, in the higher classes, among all the factions which now divide society, among the citizens and the merchants, in the University and at the Bar, even in the Academy, in the Chamber, in the Ministry, and, above all, at the Tuileries, it is la jeune France that is the most prominent, that gives the law."

He then compliments la jeune France as commanding public opinion by the Journals, the young editors of which, and not Messrs. Soult, Guizot, Thiers, &c., and Louis Philip, are now the true prime ministers of France, and its kings.

ture; nothing more different from great men than men of letters. We are so blind, so simple, that the name of genius to flagrant contradictions, of we give the epithet of sublime only to ignes fatui, great men and dwarfs.'

It would require a work much larger than that of the author to accompany him in the development of his opinions, either to show their truth or to expose their errors. There is scarcely a name of eminence in literature or science, from the remotest ages to the present time, that is not pressed into the

service.

While we agree with much that he alleges respecting the existing evils, we are by no means sure that we should be satisfied either with his remedies, or the results which he would obtain. From what he says of the reformation of England, of its government and the spirit of the people, and from the whole tenor of his argument, we conclude that, while he would with reason make a religious principle the foundation We fear that those who are acquainted and the strength of political institutions, he with the French journals of the present day has the Roman Catholic religion alone in will hardly join our author in expecting from view. We apprehend that he misundertheir conductors the religious and moral re- stands the signs of the times; and that there generation of France; for which, in fact, is, perhaps, more truth than he will allow he does not seem to have any much more in the assertion, which he quotes, of the solid foundation than that his principle, Globe, the Tribune, and the National, that which is exclusively religious, is proclaimed "Catholicism, Legitimacy, Nobility, all this by the most independent of them; that one is dead, absolutely dead, in France. You of them has said, that "the annihilation of may give to it, as to a corpse, a convulsive religious faith has left a vacuum in the semblance of life, but life itself is fled for world, which it is difficult to fill up; that a religious tendency, a moral reaction are evident; that the journals hesitate less than ever to mention God." But, in another chapter, treating of the bad effect of the revolution in putting every thing out of its place, he says: "Old age, so respected among the ancients, is now an object of contempt; it has every where given way to youth, which inundates (he says encumbers, encombre) the public functions, the journals, the schools, societies, the forum. In a word, we have children every where; all that we now want is one upon the throne, and all that we do, our passions, and even our virtues, are about to place him there."

We must leave it to the author to reconcile these sentiments with his compliments to la jeune France in commanding public opinion by the journals.

"Modern literature is complex, obscure, hollow, unintelligible, untranslateable. I defy you to understand a single word of Messrs. Janin, Hugo, Villemain, Chateaubriand, Lamennais, as they themselves understood it. Only one of their thoughts is clear to every body; I mean the blank spaces, pages, and even leaves, which they interpose in their works; these are their real lucid in

tervals."

"There is nothing more systematic than genius; nothing more opposite to the sublime than litera.

ever."

M. Madrolle has composed a work called "Universal Legislation," of which he gives the heads, and which he seems to expect will produce the happy change to which he looks forward.

ART. XII.—Pensees d'un Prisonnier, par le
Comte de Peyronnet. (Second Edition.)
Paris. 1834.

THERE are many reasons why we should
not give our own opinions concerning the
above-mentioned work, of which we will
state only one.
There is a sacredness in

the present situation of the author, that would prevent us from openly expressing ourselves, either to praise or to condemn; for we might be accused of being misled by our feelings of compassion, or admiration of the magnanimous bearing of the prisoner of state; or, on the other hand, we might be thought to insult an unfortunate minister, who has been punished for doing what he deemed his duty.

However all this may be, there can be no