shower down golden smiles!-beautiful maidens, with so much of delicacy, and dainty thought, and sweetness in your mild faces!-if painters tried in vain to reproduce your bloom and freshness, what can I, a poor penman, accomplish without taking refuge in pure rhapsody? Placid and mild, there is still something bright and ardent in your eyes, like the creamy foam of the sea, now cresting the wild surges, then subsiding into rest. Your forms are not material bodies, but fairy figures of moonlight, without weight or size, light as a shadow or a dream!

"Pretty bud!

Lily of the vale, half-opened bell of the woods!"

what queen of Faëry sent you into this cold material world, to soil your hands with common toils and duties, to clog your heart with dislikes or affections for those old be-powdered gallants hanging by you on the wall, in long queues, and most preposterous ruffles, and faces browned by so much sun and wind!— Pretty painted butterflies!-why was it not always summer for you-why were your fragile bodies subjected to the cold of the snowy winter, your variegated wings beaten by the chill storm-winds of this wicked world? True you vindicated, as far as lay in your power, that haute noblesse of origin I have accorded to you by a good, wholesome, aristocratic contempt for all men not born "gentlemen"-turning from all such with pretty disdain in your lovely eyes, and a tranquil sensation of superiority in your little hearts.

Bright creatures! how can we blame you for the tone of voice, the expression of eye and lip which plunged a venomed dagger into the breast of some noble nature, not born "gentleman," and vainly endeavoring to rise, perforce of the god-given majesty of truth and honor, from the low estate imprisoning the wide wings of his great soul? You could not know that such nobleness was there a hearing was not granted to the criminal: his very name condemned him. You could not listen, even, to a man of his description, much less accord your smiles to him. You were of the sangre azula, he but an ordinary man : derived your you blood from a long line of gentry, he was but a member of the commons. How could you place upon a level with yourself, a man whom the old planter, your father, viewed with

well-bred condescension-how give your delicate hand to one whose hands were brown and hard with toil, however noble and honest?

Here see again the operation of that shameful arrogance of rank in the old cavalier. Not only did it corrupt itself, but everything which approached and came in contact with it was subdued to its own color, "like the dyer's hand." Not only did the planter patronize—as we now say-all beneath him in social position, but his whole household caught the infection. His sons and daughtersthe very little children, even-demeaned themselves with this kind air of superiority toward some noble, stalwart soul, to whose arms they would have flown for shelter, had peril, that stern leveler of distinctions, visited their soft, easy lives. But let us not blame them too harshly for being apt scholars, and taking their mental shape and moulding from that father so loved and revered for his many noble traits of mind and heart, and deep affection for them. If anything palliates the unchristian prejudice in the strong man, does it not apply with fourfold force to the tender woman, who, living in and breathing everyday the home-atmosphere, has her life and character perforce stamped by it?

Let us not dwell on this ungracious subject, but rather turn our eyes on the noble courage and all-embracing tenderness of the women of the past-on the noble, true-souled dames of revolutionary days, fit mates for our brave grandfuthers, periling their all for Liberty :or, further back, the race true to its splendid instincts everywhere and in all times, on Major Cheeseman's wife on her knees before the royal governor, begging and praying as a boon of priceless value, with tears and sobs, and words that would have melted any heart but that of the dishonored Berkeley-not her husband's pardon for joining the rebellion, his naked pardon for the love of humanity and mercy-but that she, the instigator of his treason, might in his place be sacrificed! That weeping woman on her knees, and remaining there, spite of the dastardly insult offered to her by that obscene vulture, his Excellency Sir William Berkeleythat weeping woman, praying, sobbing, asking as a favor she would bless him for, her own destruction-but her husband's life-this is a figure which for

me shines with so pure, so heavenly a radiance through all the past, that all power of criticising further those Virginia women abandons me, and I have for them no longer any sentiment but love, respect, and admiration. And this is not a solitary instance; a dozen others might be mentioned did space permit it. Let us rather turn for a moment, in conclusion, to that phase of the home life of maid and matron which was brightest of all-the care and kindness they expended on the sick ser

vants.

This plainly dressed figure going quietly along in the healthy morning or fresh evening, with a basket on the arm and a book in the hand, is that beautiful girl who last night dazzled so many courtly gentlemen with the imperial light of her proud eyes. One would have said then that a palace was not rich enough for her-velvet not soft enough for her feet-air not pure enough for the "fine creature" to respire. Here is the reverse of the picture. See her enter the cabin of her old sick nurse, and hear the old sick woman's joyful expression of voice, as she welcomes "her child"-hear the

kind, loving voice of that "child" asking all about how she spent the night, and if everything was comfortable, and what she would like to have more than the little basket she had brought contained. Then see the subdued face bent down over the Bible-listen to the simple earnest voice repeating to the old woman the teachings of our Saviour:and then see her leave the room with a child-like good-by, full of fondness and affection. This simple and touching spectacle which was, and still may be, seen every day in Virginia, should make us respect and love, in spite of all their faults, those fair ladies whose portraits speak to us from the antique frames so eloquently to-day.

OF

F Master Henry Blount, the author of the book of travels named below, (a small quarto of a hundred pages,) Anthony Wood, in his Oxford Writers, informs us, that he was the third son of Sir Henry Pope Blount, of Tettinhinger, in Hertfordshire, knight. Born Dec. 15th, 1602, he was educated at the Free School of St. Albans. After he had taken one degree in arts, he removed to Grey's Inn, where he studied the law, after which he became a traveler both in Christian Europe, and, what in those times was a very rare thing, in the Turkish dominions. He informs us in his introductory paragraphs, that, desirous of extending his knowledge of mankind by observing

people whose institutions differed from those of England, he had traveled in Italy, France, and Spain; but those being "countries of Christian institution," did but "represent, under a little dif ferent dress," effects with which he had been familiar at home. He therefore turned his attention towards the Turks, as the "only modern people great in action," -so different was the relative position of the Ottoman empire then and now. Under the idea that he, "who would behold the times in their greatest glory, could not find a better scene than Turkey," and with a view of testing by his own observation the commonly received and not very favorable accounts of that remarkable people, he

undertook a journey very common now, but, at that time, full of difficulty and danger. Having agreed with a Janizary, whom he met with at Venice, to find him diet and transportation as far as Constantinople, he embarked on the 7th of May, 1634, in a Venetian galley with a caravan of Turks and Jews, he being the only Christian in the company. Crossing the Adriatic, the galley arrived in twenty-four hours at Rovenio, a Venetian city in Istria, a hundred miles from Venice. Thence it proceeded down the coast to Zara, in Dalmatia, and from that place, which Byron has made familiar, still further down the coast to Spalatro, which at that time, though a very bad harbor, was the principal emporium of trade between Venice and Turkey.

The

journey from Spalatro to the Turkish capital, including many detours for the convenience of the caravan, employed fifty-two days,, besides as many more consumed in stoppages; and so destitute was the country of all accommodations, except within the cities, that our traveler had to lodge every night on the ground, and generally in the open fields.

It was a great object with him to see GRAND CAIRO, reputed at that time to be the most populous city in the world; and after staying but five days at Constantinople, he availed himself of an opportunity to embark for Egypt, along with a Frenchman and a Fleming, whom he had met there, and whom he found desirous to make the same voyage. The three embarked together on board the admiral galleon of the Black Sea fleet, just then sailing for Egypt, having hired of two renegade Italians, who were gunners of the galleon, the exclusive use of their cabin. Coasting along among the islands of the Archipelago, in eleven days they reached Rhodes. In three days more they arrived at Alexandria, whence our travelers passed by land forty miles through the desert to Rosetta, the western mouth of the Nile, where they hired a boat for Cairo, three hundred and sixty miles distant. As the river was at the hight of its inundation, the current was very strong; but the northwest wind blew so much stronger as to carry them up in five days. The Englishman, after a stay of three months, during which he visited the pyramids, returned by Rosetta to Alexandria, designing to embark for Jerusalem; but his curiosity in examining the fortifications of Alexandria having

brought him under suspicion, he made haste to get on board a French bark about to sail for Sicily. Reaching Palermo, he proceeded to Naples; and thence by Rome, Florence, and Bologna to Venice, which he reached again the eleventh month after his departure.

Having thus given us a sketch of his journey, our traveler proceeds to what is the most curious part of his book,his observations on the institutions, religion, and manners of the Turks.

The institution of the Turkish armies was naturally the first object of his attention, since it was exclusively to their military prowess that the Turks owed the position which they held in the world. The infantry he found to consist of two sorts. In time of war, every city and district was called upon to furnish its quota, greater or smaller, according to the urgency of the occasion, their ability, and their distance from, or nearness to, the scene of action. Of these levies many were Christians. After having been trained and exercised for a month or so, they were sent forth better equipped in arms and clothing than was then customary in the armies of Christian Europe. These troops, however, were a sort of militia, and not greatly depended upon. In fact, it was customary, when they were brought into action, to place bodies of horse behind them, to keep them from running away. The standing infantry force of the empire, and that upon which its military strength principally depended, was the celebrated body of Janizaries, consisting of forty-four thousand men. It was, indeed, to this singular military order, established by the second or third prince of the Ottoman line, evidently in imitation of the Egyptian Mamelukes, that the extension and permanency of the Turkish empire was mainly to be ascribed.

Originally, the Janizaries were recruited, not at all from the Turkish, but entirely from the Christian population. Officers sent out for that purpose into all the provinces, but especially into the northern ones, selected from among the subject Christians, and sent to Constantinople, such children as they saw fit. After being taught the Turkish language, and thoroughly indoctrinated in the Mahometan faith, the greater part were distributed abroad, to earn their living by hard labor till they were twenty-two years of age, when they were brought back, instruct

ed in the use of arms, and enrolled among the Janizaries. Such as seemed unfit for soldiers, were employed, some as sailors, and others as laborers, in the drudgery of the sultan's household and gardens. Those who had given signs of superior intelligence, were carefully instructed in the Koran and the Arabic language, in schools for that purpose, attached to the sultan's palaces at Broussa, Constantinople and Adrianople; and it was from this source that many of the chief officers of the empire were drawn. Their pay was perpetual in peace as well as in war, and more or less according to their personal merit, a graduation which operated as a stimulus to exertion. They were never cast off, but, when old or maimed, were kept in garrison. "These," says our author, "though the sons of Christians, hate that name above all others, and are found (as I have seen some of them) without any natural affection to their parents, as it were transplanted, acknowledging themselves the creatures of the Ottoman family; so much are the present engagements of life too strong for all ties of blood." This choice and education of persons, he adds, "apt to each use, must needs make it excellently performed, as being more natural than the course of Christendom, where princes put arms into the hands of men, neither by spirit nor education martial, and entrust their chief employments with respect to birth, riches and friends, which, to the service intended, are qualities not so proper as those personal abilities which prevail in the Turkish election."

Already, however, in the time of our traveler, this remarkable military order had deviated considerably from its original institution. Instead of the Janizaries being all drawn from among the Christians-thus made to strengthen the Turkish stock by having their children engrafted into it, while they were themselves weakened by the loss of their choicest youth-Christians were permitted, for money, to excuse their children, and Mahometans to purchase the admission of theirs into an order so respectable, opening the way, as it did, to the highest offices. Contrary to the original usage, many of the Janizaries married, and others engaged in merchandise. It was, as we have seen, under the protection of one of these trading Janizaries, that our traveler had journeyed through Turkey. When the

army left Belgrade, a proclamation had been issued that all Janizaries who lingered behind should be hanged; and yet, as we have seen, our traveler's Janizary contrived to evade the service, as did many others, by the payment of money. While the military spirit of the order thus began to decline, the Janizaries had, at the same time, attained to an inconvenient consciousness of their importance. Already they gave signs of that insubordination which subsequently rendered them more formidable at home than abroad, and led at last to their dissolution by the father of the now reigning sultan. Some few years before our author's visit to Turkey, they had put one sultan to death, and had first deposed, and then reinstated, another. But Amurath IV., the sultan then reigning, seemed to have again grasped the reins of power with, a firm hand.

The cavalry of the Turkish armies, for which they were still more cele brated than for their infantry, consisted of the great body of the Turkish nation, among whom, as military tenants of the sultan, the lands of the conquered provinces had been distributed, which lands, under these new lords, were cultivated by Christian serfs or slaves. These Spahies, or Spahy Timarists as they were called, answered precisely, except that the fiefs or Timarres were not hereditary, but held for life only, to the military tenants of feudal Europe. Thus the Turks added to the standing infantry of the Janizaries a feudal army of horse, ready to be called into service whenever the exigencies of war required it. It was, no doubt, the inferior light in which service on foot used to be regarded, which had caused the Janizaries to be originally recruited from the Christian population, the Turks in that particular agreeing in opinion with the chivalry of Europe, and, indeed, with the old Romans, among whom those serving on horseback had originally constituted a superior order in the state. These Spahies, besides their service in war, had also another important use that of keeping the conquered provinces in subjection; for which purpose it was necessary that, in all expeditions, many of them should be left at home.

There was, however, in addition to this feudal force, a standing body of horse, specially attached to the person of the sultan, known as Spahyglans.

In time of war, the Turkish armies were still further reinforced by a great body of volunteer horsemen, some of whom served in hopes of meriting a Timarre (of which, by the deaths of the tenants, there was a constant supply at the sultan's disposal), and others in the fanatical expectation of gaining paradise by dying in the Mahometan cause. These volunteers, especially those of the latter class, constituted, in our traveler's time, by no means the least formidable part of a Turkish army; and, to judge by what we hear of the present Turkish army employed against the Russians, this spirit of religious volunteering is yet by no means extinct. The Tartar auxiliaries, drawn from the northern shores of the Black Sea, were to the Turkish armies what the Cossacks are now to those of Russia.

The strength of the Turks at sea was at this time inconsiderable, being chiefly that of the piratical African States, which, though they acknowledged the supremacy of the sultan, yet claimed and enjoyed the privilege of carrying on, for their own profit, perpetual war against all Christian nations. The sailors were chiefly renegado Christians, and the best Turkish vessels, prizes from the Dutch, whom they encouraged to surrender, by a rule of allowing personal liberty to the crews of all vessels which struck without firing, whereas, if taken after resistance, they were reduced to slavery. knights of Malta kept these pirates somewhat in check, but were not strong enough to drive them from the seas. They were not very forward, so our author states, to attack English vessels; for not only were the crews apt to make a desperate resistance, but the vessels themselves, which constituted with these corsairs no inconsiderable part of the booty, were such dull sailers, being built exclusively for burden, as to be of little use as cruisers.

The

What tended-and it still tends-not a little to enhance the authority, and support the absolute power, of the sultan, was the position which he enjoyed as the head of the national religion. The caliphs who reigned at Bagdad had continued, long after their loss of temporal power, to claim and to enjoy a certain spiritual authority, as the descendants and representatives of Mahomet. But after the Turkish conquest of Egypt, in which country, among the VOL. V.-31

Mamelukes, the caliphs had been driven to seek shelter, they had been induced to cede to the conquering sultan the high position of Commander of the Faithful. The policy of the sultans in this respect was afterwards imitated by Peter the Great of Russia, in constituting himself the head of the Russian Church, and the same thing, indeed, has been more or less attempted, though with inferior success, by all the potentates of Europe.

But, however this union of spiritual with temporal authority might strengthen the sultans at home, it raised up for them, or at least embittered, not only Christian foes, but a formidable Mahometan enemy also on their eastern frontier. The Persians were not inclined to acknowledge, as their spiritual head, the sovereign of a rival nation. They evaded the claim of the Ottoman sultan to spiritual supremacy, by denying that the caliphs of Bagdad were the true representatives of the Prophet-that representation having descended, as they alleged, in the line of Ali, the husband of Fatima, and the Mahometan schism, which had lain dormant since the extinction of the Fatimite dynasty of Egypt, thus revived, gave to the national rivalry of the Turks and Persians the added virus of a bitter religious hostility.

The sultan's authority as Commander of the Faithful was, and still is, exercised through the chief mufti, whom he appoints and removes at pleasure, and whose office it is to decide in an authoritative manner all questions growing out of the interpretation of the Koran. In all Mahometan countries the Koran serves as the highest authority in jurisprudence as well as in theology, so that the authority of the chief mufti and his subordinates is no less judicial than ecclesiastical. These offices of judicature form, indeed, the only preferment of the Mahometan priesthood, "wherewith," says our author, "the priest and the judge, being maintained in the same person, two gaps are stopt with one bush, without causing any part of the land to lie dead in the hands of the clergy, or otherwise impoverishing the people with tithes."

Of the Turkish administration of justice, he gives the following curious

account.

"There are divers orders of judges, especially two, the cadi, and over him the moulacadi, like a lord chief-justice.