country and in the garrisons of Greece are discontented. We are trying to move them by setting before their eyes a list of the grievances they are doomed to, under Turkish rule, and recommending them to make themselves independent. The Turks have much confidence in Mahommed Ali, Pacha of Egypt; but what can an individual do with an undisciplined horde of Turkish soldiers and sailors? Upon the whole, I am of opinion that Greece will make great progress in her civil government this year, but none in her military career. The foundation laid, great things may be done next year."

"LETTER LXIII.

'Mill, near Napoli, April 12, 1824. "The elections take place next month. The franchise is universal to all males above twenty years of age. Every fifty families of a village choose one deputy, who proceeds to the central town of the prefecture. The central town elects twelve deputies. These village and town deputies then elect either one or two members of parliament, according to the extent of their district. This is all done by ballot. The legislative body chooses the executive body by a plurality of voices. This latter consists of five or seven members. They have, at present, an undue weight, owing to the want of vigour and intellectual aptitude in the representatives, the publication of whose debates would soon raise their character.

The general assembly is thus formed. Two or four deputies are chosen in each prefecture, by ballot; who then unite and form the general assembly. This is the only body that can make any fundamental change in the constitution. They discuss questions openly, and decide them by ballot and by a simple majority.

The legislative and executive bodies, indeed all the people, think that the loan will save Greece, if it arrives in time. Every preparatory measure has been taken towards the proper disposal of the money."

LETTER LXVIII.

"Salona, April 30, 1824.

"The Turkish_fleet consists of eleven ships from Tunis, the fleet of the Pacha of Egypt, now at Candia, &c. in all amounting to forty-five vessels, having on board 12,000 troops, destined to act against the Peloponnesus. As the Pacha's irregular troops are chiefly cavalry, little can be expected from them.

"From Larissa we learn that about 15,000 Turks are there assembled. They, however, desert in great numbers. The Turks have lately held a meeting at that place. This assembly has resolved to make every preparation for attacking Greece in two great divisions, the one moving on Athens, the other on Missolonghi. The invading armies have generally amounted to 60,000 men, and the Sultan pays about 200,000 for this undertaking."

66 LETTER LXXII.

"Salona, May 4, 1824.

The state of Greece is not easily conveyed to the mind of a foreigner. The society is formed, 1st, of the Primates, who lean to oligarchy, or Turkish principles of government; 2dly, of the captains, who profess democratical notions, but who are, in reality, for power and plunder; and, lastly, of the people, who are irreproachable in character, and of course desire to have a proper weight in the constitution. The people of the Peloponnesus are much under the influence of the civil and military oligarchies. Those of Eastern and Western Greece are chiefly under the captains. Of these Odysseus is the most influential. His father never bowed to the Turkish yoke; he was a freeman and a robber. Odysseus himself was brought up by the famous tyrant Ali Pacha. He is shrewd and ambitious, and has played the tyrant, but is now persuaded that the road to fame and wealth is by pursuing good government. He, therefore, follows this course, and supports the people and the republic. Negris, who once signed his sen-. tence of death, is now his minister. Of the islands, Hydra and Spezia are under the influence of some rich oligarchs, supported by the rabble, and Ipsara is purely democratic.

“The parties may be said to be three, 1st, there is Mavrocordato, the oligarchs of the islands, and some of those of the Peloponnesus, and the legislative body. These are for order and a mild despotism, either under a foreign king, or otherwise. This faction stood high, but must now change its principles or lose its power._2dly, There is Colocotroni, and some of the captains, and some of the oligarchs of the Morea, who are for power and plunder. This party is going down hill at a gallop. And, 3dly, there is Ipsilanti, Odysseus, Negris, and the mass who are now beginning to embrace republican notions, finding that they cannot otherwise maintain their power."

We shall now give some illustrative extracts from Colonel Stanhope's Report on the State of Greece, to J. Bowring, Esq. Secretary of the Greek Committee in London.

‘TURKEY—is evidently on the eve of its fall. The reigning family is nearly extinct. Its provinces are disunited. Egypt and Tripoli are grown too wise for its government. A portion of Greece is severed from it for ever, and the Hellenists, who still bow to the power of Turkey, hate it in their hearts, and pant for revenge and freedom. Even Albania detests, and threatens to throw off, its hateful yoke. The Ottoman armies are insubordinate, and the fleets, having lost their Greek sailors, are become impotent.

HOLY ALLIANCE.-As for the Holy Alliance, their views are known. This corporation of tyrants has combined to support superstition, to crush all learning, and to ensure a dark futurity, for the purpose of preserving to themselves and their progeny absolute rule. Austria and France have, therefore, become the allies of the barbarians, and have formed a league against civilization and the rights of men.

"THE EXECUTIVE BODY has hitherto been composed of men of various characters. At one time influenced by Mavrocordato, when the Primates, the Fanariots, and the foreign interests, predominated. The leading features of the government were then order, and some say intrigue. At another time Colocotroni obtained, by his martial fame, his riches, and his extensive family connections, an ascendancy; then prevailed the military power, united at first with the democratic, but afterwards with oligarchical, interests; and, lastly, a sort of league was formed to put down the plunderers. Conduriotti was placed at the head of this administration, and the islands assumed their due weight. The Executive Body has hitherto exercised a degree of power that is inconsistent with republican government.

"THE LEGISLATIVE BODY is composed of persons selected by the civil and military oligarchs and the people. They naturally lean to the interests of their electors. They are respectable in character, but, like most other public functionaries in Greece, are deficient in intellectual aptitude, and have but little knowledge of business. They are friends to order, and enemies to all extortion, and they are careful of the people's money.

MINISTERS. Mavrocordato, Negri, Coletti, and others of the ablest Greeks, have filled the office of ministers.

"ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.-The Byzantine and parts of the Napoleon codes prevail in Greece. Neither are, however, much attended to, and the administration of justice is in its lowest state. Perhaps this is an advantage to Greece. She has no lawyer-tribe to teaze, impoverish, and enslave her to the end of time; she has no old prejudices and sacred mountains of parchment to get rid of; and she is ready to accept the best code of laws that can be offered.

"PREFECTS.-This is a government of Prefects.

"THE PRIMATES-are addicted to Turkish habits and principles of government. In the Morea they have great influence. In Eastern and Western Greece, that of the Captains predominates. Hydra is ruled by the Primates, who are under the dominion of the maritime mob. The government of Spetzia is somewhat similar, but Ipsara is influenced by constitutional maxims. The other islands are under mild administrators. "STATE OF THE GREEK CHURCH.-The ceremonies of the Greek church are tawdry and irrational. The priests, though they possess considerable influence, do not appear to have the same preponderating sway over their flocks that is exercised in some catholic countries. This may be attributed to their poverty and to the counteraction of the Mahommedan religion. Where toleration and a variety of religions prevail, there the power of the priests must be subdued, except within the pale of the established state creed. The Greek priests were greatly instrumental in bringing about the glorious revolution. They traversed the country, and enlisted their votaries in the honourable plot; they fought in the ranks of the noble insurgents, and many of them are permanently engaged as soldiers, and some as captains.

"THE CAPTAINS either are brave men themselves, or are the offspring of brave men, whom the Turks could not subdue, and, therefore, made terms with them, and gave them a sort of feudal tenures. They are, for the most part, descended from cultivators and shepherds.

"THE PEOPLE. The peasantry of Greece possess a large share of rustic virtue. I shall not dwell on the virtues of the Greek peasantry, because they are admitted by all

men. Their martial spirit is not inferior to that of the regular soldiery, and some consider them as the stoutest and most formidable warriors in Greece.

"Avarice is a prevailing vice in Greece. In a despotic government, it is necessary for the slave to be penurious, to hold fast, and to bury his money.

"THE RESOURCES of Greece are great but unexplored. Nature has been bountiful to her, but the Turks, blinded by prejudice and heated by passion, have neglected their true interests and have destroyed her wealth, lands, and liberties, -all have been equally blasted.

AGRICULTURE is in Greece in its lowest state. Here and there the fields are well irrigated, but this is not generally the case.

"PARTIES.-The political parties in Greece may be said to be three. 1st, There are the Captains, who look to power and plunder. They generally lean to the democratic interests, as a means of preserving these advantages and of avoiding a master under kingly government. 2dly, There are the Primates and Oligarchs: these, too, are for power and plunder. They look to a foreign king as the means of supporting their influence. The 3d may be called the National Party: they consist of those who are not subdued by the military or civil oligarchs; I mean the peasantry, the merchants, the townspeople, some of the islanders, and a few fine spirits.

"NAVY.-The Greek navy is composed chiefly of merchant-brigs from Hydra, Spetzia, and Ipsara. They amount to about eighty sail. These vessels have been maintained partly by private contributions, and the sailors are skilful and brave. The Greek fleet is of the same character as the Greek army. It is not equal to cope with the combined Turkish fleet, but has gained a mastery over it by its superior seamen and tactics. When I say tactics, I allude not to those of a highly organized navy, for in these they are deficient; but there are tactics for irregular fleets as well as armies, for corsairs and privateers as for guerillas, pindaries, and stratiots. This, too, is the true military and naval policy for Greece to pursue. She cannot cope with the Turks in regular warfare, but she can harrass and worry them to death.

"ARMY.-The captains are of humble origin, and many of them are descended from shepherds. They or their forefathers have distinguished themselves by flying from the tyranny of the Turks, by having recourse to arms, and by their light fugitive movements and depredations, which eventually obliged their oppressors to court their alliance. These are the men who, by their courage and constancy, have kept up a spirit of resistance and of martial enterprise in the people; till the nation being highly excited by Turkish oppression, at last broke out in a mad insurrection, and, contrary to all calculation, ending in emancipating themselves.

"The Greek soldiers are extremely hardy; can make long marches; carry heavy weights on their backs; live constantly in the open air; proceed without magazines; suffer great privations; endure dirt and vermin; and still preserve their high spirits. They are swift as horses, and scarcely tangible; and if a love of liberty can ensure perseverance, almost unconquerable in their wild fastnesses. Every soldier's mind is bent on success; no Greek ever admits the possibility of being again subjected to the Turks. If you talk of millions that are about to pour down into their country, still they never appear dismayed. They tell you calmly that as more come, more will be famished or mowed down by the Hellenists."

From these extracts our readers will judge of the general value and interest of this publication. It will, no doubt, be eagerly sought after, and few of its readers will withhold their respect for the zeal, talents, and self-devotion, of the public-spirited and enterprizing Englishman who has thus honoured his country among the Greeks.

Its circulation will also, we trust, be a means of augmenting the funds of the London Committee, since it appears that such potent results may be effected by such comparatively small means.

Mr. Ryan, the editor, has performed his duty with taste, and the worth of the publication is much increased by some fac-similes of eminent persons; but, instead of the frontispiece, we should prefer a correct map of modern Greece,

Crit. Gaz. Vol. 1, No. 6.

THE SCIENCES.

Watkins's Portable Cyclopedia, revised and enlarged by James Mitchell, LL.D. F.R.S.E.—12mo. pp. 950. 16s. bound.

WATKINS's Portable Cyclopedia has been before the public for fifteen or twenty years, and during that time has been a deserved favourite. It exhibited a prodigious body of science, compressed into a single volume by means of close printing; and, to the young in particular, and for objects of reference to all, it has been found to answer most of the purposes of extensive compilations.

Improvements in science called for a new and revised edition, and this object has been perfected in the volume before us. It will not be expected that we should attempt any analysis of a work which is itself as condensed a view as can be taken of many thousand subjects. We have, however, examined some score articles at random, and have been gratified by the obvious care and skill of the editor, Dr. Mitchell.

The work is announced as a scientific companion to the octavo Dictionary of Johnson, and it appears to answer this design in every respect. Most of the terms of science are accurately defined, and the outlines and elements of the principal sciences are perspicaciously detailed, so as to supply what is not given in a mere Philological Dictionary.

The type is necessarily small, but not more so than that used in our ordinary bibles and prayer-books; but it is clear, and printed throughout with uniform elegance. Every suitable subject is, moreover, illustrated with engravings, and many of them would do credit to works of much greater pretension.

After making these observations on its various qualities, we need add no special recommendation, and, in truth, the work requires none. It is an article of the first necessity in literature; and, as a sound production, it cannot fail to obtain general circulation among students of all classes, through the wide-spread literary markets of the shops of the booksellers in town and country.

Number XXI. of The Harmonicon; an Assemblage of Vocal and Instrumental Music; together with a Critical Review of new Musical Works, and a Lexicon of Music.-4to. Each Number 2s. 6d. To serve one especial purpose, that of indulging a momentary feeling of the public in favour of the operatic compositions of Weber, especially of the music in Der Freischutz, in the plot, characters, and language of which Friedrich Kind has displayed some little melodramatic ability, the present number of the Harmonicon foregoes a part of the general plan of the work, and contents itself with presenting its readers with the overture and an air or two of the German melodrama; and a criticism, or rather eulogy, on the music, as it has been performed in this country. The writer's remarks on his favorite composer, are introduced by a demi-condemnation of the works of Fioravanti, Picini, and Portogallo; Generali, Pucitta, and Guglielmi; twinkling stars, whose diminished beams are made to vanish before

the more radiant, because more recent, rays of a Rossini and a Weber, but especially of the latter, because the latter is the present subject. Rossini, with all his acknowledged merit, is "reckless of the meaning of words; is indolent and procrastinating; and is guilty of boundless and tiresome repetitions of himself, and unwarrantable plagiarisms from others, and of errors that he has not time or industry to correct." But Weber, in his Freischutz, is all excellence, all beauty, and originality. "Were we," observes the eulogist, "to say that a single resemblance to any thing else cannot be traced in it, we should assert an absurdity; but we do affirm, that it is free from all intentional imitation, and that there is less in it that leads to a recollection of other compositions, than in any other work with which we are acquainted. It is strictly entitled to the character of originality, and holds forth its author as a man possessing a rich vein of new and beautiful air, a strong feeling for harmony, united to a deep knowledge of it capabilities, a poetical mind, and a clear judgment."

In this style the writer (who, we are confident, cannot be a musician) proceeds to notice the inimitable merits of Weber's overture, and the movements of the incantation scene, prefaced with the candid observation, that his admiration of Weber's music is proportioned to his contempt for M. Kind's share in the drama, out of the meagre and ridiculous materials of which, the composer has wrought so much effect. Now, with our fullest and most liberal acknowledgment of Weber's partial pretensions to praise, and the talent which, speaking in general terms, he has exhibited in many parts of the music he has applied to M. Kind's piece, we so far differ from the opinion of the writer in the Harmonicon, both respecting the words and the music of Der Freischutz, as to think, that the composer owes much more to that drama, even such as it is, than its author to the merits of the music. Whatever we think of the subject, the plot, the incidents, and the characters, we feel assured, that, with the aiding exertions of any real master of composition, it would have been pretty certain of success. This is one of many dramas which Weber has set, but no one has had so much success; a sufficient ground for even those who do not understand music, to conclude, that Weber, in the present instance, is much indebted to certain advantages afforded him by the strange scenes and situations it was his office to ornament and illustrate.

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It now becomes necessary to enquire how he has really executed his task. After examining, with the coolest and most patient consideration, the whole of the music of a piece which has excited considerable attention, both on the continent and in London, we hesitate not to say, that, with a moderate degree of original fancy, and a tolerable adroitness at embracing, and profitting by, opportunities supplied by the drama itself, Carl Maria Von Weber has displayed more than a common quickness and accuracy of conception; but, at the same time, a conception liable to be misled. The fact is, that by a raging thirst for positive novelty, and a wild hankering after cramped combinations and melodial eccentricities, he has betrayed his disdain of the very science which he really possesses, and on which he has reason to value himself. The conjunctions and modulations of his harmony are often of a nature to indicate ignorance or madness; and the intervals in

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