the concientious action in accordance with that faith, which they deem paramount to all worldly considerations.

Still it seems absurd, that a powerful nation should gradually fall a sacrifice to its own wilful ignorance, yet environed by nations of enlightened policy, the effects of which she daily feels. But the bulwark of ancient observances has at length been roundly assailed by the daring hand of Sultan Mahmoud, and found not impregnable,—yet, what can one man achieve towards the emancipation of a nation, which for twelve centuries has been bound down by sloth, sensual indulgence, and their hosts of demoralizing effects? A sound sheep may fall a sacrifice to the rot of his flock, but never can stay the disease,—and that even Mahmoud himself possesses this soundness may perhaps be questionable. With passions fierce and unrelenting where his ambition is concerned, yet possessing experience and chicanery in an eminent degree, he loves better the open application of force to ensure his ends, than the mere circuitous route of intriguing policy. His master stroke of action was (though writers differ) executed almost as soon as conceived; and his massacre and total extermination of the corps of Janizaries furnished the best eulogy of his character that can be well devised. His measures are projected and executed with the more promptness and confidence, from two causes. He has been educated in the school of adversity and experience. His great step to the throne was from a hiding place where his life was in jeopardy, and hence he has learned, that to plan and to execute successfully, the one must follow close upon the other; again he has the less hesitation in performing his resolves from the recollection that he is the last scion of the house of Othman, the founder of the dynasty, and the idol of Turkish political reverence. Rather low in stature, but of well knit and powerful frame, he seems capable of any physical endurance; and his form is of that peculiar height and structure, which though not striking when he is dismounted, combines in him every grace of the horseman. His face is pleasing, if not handsome, and whilst it bears every evidence of a strong mind, and matured judgment, a beard of raven blackness, (which it owes to some effective dye,) seems to endow it with a youth scarce its own. Such is the man whose works we are about to notice, and under whom a new era has opened in Turkey.

Though the earliest lessons of the necessity of a revision of the laws, manners, and customs, have been taught him in the severe schools to which we have already alluded, yet the undertaking of that revision has commenced under false and mistaken notions of the probable means of gaining these ends. It is not altering the manual and tactical manœuvres of their soldiery, nor changing the fashion of their military costumes, which is to effect a beneficial and moral result in the minds and feelings of the people. It is not by making a new garb a license for abusing, what not only among the Turks themselves, but in the Christian world also, is considered one good point in their old faith-an abstinence from the use, or at all events, the abuse of wines and spiritual liquors. It is not in short, by attempting simply any external marks of innovation, and by copyings of European frivolities, that the benefit of a new system is to be felt. The work must commence by correcting radical evils;-to lop the branches of an useless tree, is but to increase its future vigor ;-destroy it, root and branch, and the soil may be appropriated to the cultivation of good fruits.

It is to be feared that the faults of the present system are, that the new regime is rather from the impulse of vanity, than from a just exercise of the powers of reason. Ostentation marks all the movements of the grand signior, his palaces are numerous, yet multiplying; his debts are great, yet increasing, from a want of punctuality in cancelling his Russian instalments as they become due ;-and the treaty of Adrianople, so far as it provides for indemnification for the expenses of the war-a dead letter. Yet, notwithstanding this situation of fast coming danger;—when the country seems so far to have involved herself, that the national bankruptcy must supervene ;-when this probability is staring every thinking man in the face-the Sultan continues his life of gay dissipation-building palaces and barracks, and training his soldiers to the European tactics. With this he seems satisfied-like the petit maitre, who thinks his outer embellishments, will cover all of folly and stupidity within, or rather, who thinks that when he has attended to externals, he has performed all that is necessary for perfection. In the correction of errors and abuses, all experience teaches us to strike at the root of the evil. The retraining of soldiers to new tactics, so far as it goes, may do very well,—but then it seems forgotten that to support an army, subject to a strict military discipline, it is necessary to feed and clothe them;-to furnish them with good and efficient arms;—and to do all this, it is requisite to have a thriving exchequer ;-one that may be supplied periodically, by the industry and resources of the country. It is a well known fact, that Turkey never has had these advantages; her revenue has arisen from a series of exactions, which had impoverished, and broken down her people. Taxes have been levied to meet particular demands, upon short notices; and the agriculturist as he is about to reap the advantages of a hard earned harvest, sees the whole wrested from him by some avaricious pasha. But if the evil ended here, she might still thrive for a time-but alas! her agricultural spirit is on the wane,-and must soon cease to exist altogether—already it flickers like a wasting lamp, which a breath will extinguish. It is worse than idle, to look for industrious exertion, without a motive of reward. Here, there is little, or none; for the reason, that produce in the field, is always open to appraisal by the officers of the Pasha-lick; and in the event of any new exaction of the general government-it becomes a sure prey to their covetous grasp. It is to be remembered, that taxation here is conducted by the scale of ostensible means. The man, therefore, who hides his wealth as it is accumulated, assumes the mask of poverty, and by his duplicity, oftentimes overreaches the revenue officers. This system it may fairly be predicted, will save the legislative power of Turkey, all debates on the question which has so long agitated our own senate-namely, "surplus revenue."

Some years back, the Porte wisely determined to reduce their revenue policy to a fixed protective system. For this purpose Pasha-licks were abolished, and an office more nearly approximating to what we understand by a governorship was substituted, under the title of Merigee. This provided for a more equitable taxation, at a given yearly rate. It also restrained the executive power, and capital punishments could not be inflicted but by the countersign of the Sultan. The office of Merigee continues, but in name only; every right that it was intended to guarantee to the husbandman, merchant, or consumer, has been wrested from him. The fact is, that this

rule, which is under full and successful operation in all the civilized nations of the world, has worked too slowly with them, to give earnest of a future sure revenue; and their demands are now too pressing to admit any temporising policy. Already are their pecuniary obligations becoming too burdensome for their bending and overloaded shoulders, and should they bring them to the ground, must inevitably crush them for ever. Russia is ready to add her weight to keep them under, and France and England must find some more powerful lever to raise them again, than that which succeeded in their last effort.

The judiciary system too has been entirely overlooked, and now only exists in its pristine traditional simplicity. But power makes laws as well as judges in Turkey-and if we except the few standing provisions made from time immemorial, and the works* of one individual, there is nothing of written law in Turkey, always excepting the Koran. The Ulema, or that class of men, who form the professors of law and theology, had their rise in the early days of Mahomedanism. From this body are chosen the Muftis, who preside over those different branches, and have the expounding of all difficult questions. The Mufti, like the Pope, combines both religious and secular jurisdiction in himself. Up to this day then of almost exhausted science, whilst the empire of the Sultan is pointed at as a dark spot in the horoscope of nations, he follows up the judiciary code established in the seventh century of the Christian era. Nor has this the benefit of a profound explanation. For as Mahomet himself, made the Koran his legal, ethical and religious library, so his followers, in humble imitation of him, have merged the studies and practice of law and theology in the same person. But here again, there has been no effort made at reformation-nor in any other matter in a national point of view, save the disciplining of soldiers to a new costume and tactics; to reconcile them to which, they have been endued with special immunities, licensing all debaucheries, even those least tolerated by the leading precepts of their religion. Such is the effect of civilization, and innovation attempted by those who are incompetent to the task, and who but half understand the theory they would inculcate ;—like the North American Indian, their first step is into the most odious vice.

Their commerce is in no better train-hampered by monopolies, it seems to lead the life of one in a decline,-the revival of to-day is followed by the depression of to-morrow, till the final dissolution seems almost inevitable.

Thus, without agriculture-without manufactures-without commerce, the decline of this once mighty empire, has been as rapid as its unprecedented rise, and the finishing blow is about to be struck by the last of its tributariest on the Mediterranean. A. Z.

*Abon Hanifa-those of all others who have pretended to write on this subject, are entirely obsolete in practice.

+ Egypt was the last of these; Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers, before its conquest by the French, were all independent.

t

JOAN OF ARC.

"This admirable heroine, to whom the more generous superstition of the ancients would have erected altars, was, on the pretence of heresy and magic, delivered over alive to the flames, and expiated by that dreadful punishment, for the signal services which she had rendered to her prince and to her native country." HUME, Chap. 20. THE moon had set behind the tufted hill,

The silent stars-though waning-glimmered still,
The drowsy woods were steeped in voiceless rest,
Dead stillness brooded o'er the water's breast,
The cloudless firmament was spread on high
Dark, but transparent, like the liquid eye
Of Andalusian maid, in orange grove,
Dissolved in rapture at the tale of love.
Nor voice of man, nor cry of passing bird,
Nor ban-dogs bay from cot, or keep, was heard;
The wolves were hushed in tangled coverts deep,
The very owls had wailed themselves to sleep:
But fresher yet the breeze came murmuring by,
And colder breathed the air, as morn drew nigh.
The paly streaks, that told of coming day,
Dappled the horizon's verge with feeble ray;
Yet one, who paused on yonder hillock's brow,
Above the blooming plain which smiled below,
Might linger there, nor dream a city's pride
Was slumbering by that sluggish river's side;
Though close beneath, in darkest garb arrayed,
Blent with the forest's gloom, the mountain's shade,
A gorgeous town lay stretched; with streets sublime,
Turret, and dome, and spires of olden time,
Teeming with life and wealth-war's stern array,-
The cares of commerce,- and the church's sway!-
No crash of wheels, nor hum of crowds was there,
Nor neigh of warlike steeds, nor torches glare;
All whelmed alike in night's oblivious pall!
The drowsy watchers nodded on the wall--

The haughty conqueror in his trophied bed--
The slave in chains--the serf in lowly shed.

But one was there-whose eyes nor night could close,
Nor opiate draughts could lull to calm repose.-
In bloom of beauty, in youth's earliest flower,
Condemned to brave the inevitable hour,-
To quit the verdant earth, the genial sun,
E'er half her course of womanhood was run,-
Unbent by years,-without one silver hair
In her bright tresses,-ignorant of care,

Of pain, or sorrow,-while the world was new,
While life was beautiful, and friends seemed true,-

Doomed to the worst extremity of pain,

Which flesh can writhe beneath, and not sustain,——

To die in fire, unhouselled and unshriven,

Scorned by her murderers, and shut out from heaven,-

The maid of Orleans. She whose sacred brand

Had wrought deliverance to her native land,-

Had slacked the bowstring in the archer's blood,—
And tamed the Island Leopard's* furious mood,

*The original bearing on the royal shield and standard of England, were not three VOL. I.

22

She who had crowned a monarch,-who had raised
A nation from the dust,-whose name was praised
In court and cottage, from the snowy chain
Of Alpine Jura, to the western main,—
Her country's Guardian-fettered and alone
In patient helplessness she sat,--no groan
Passed from her ashy lips,-her mind's control
O'erpowered the whirlwind passion of her soul!—
Calm had she bent the knee, and humbly prayed
From HIM-who gives to all who seek-His aid.
Humbly she knelt, and self-absolved she rose ;-
Tried in success, and purified by woes,

She felt her glowing spirit mount the skies
To meet the witness of "those perfect eyes"
Which endless time, nor boundless space, can blind,
Secure in her Redeemer, and resigned

To bear all torments, in that narrow road
Which leads-through death-to glory's pure abode.
She turned to take a long, a last, farewell
Of the dear country she had served so well,--
Of the dark skies-and each peculiar star,
Whose melancholy glance she had loved afar
In her own vale, while France as yet was free!—
She saw the Seine rush proudly to the sea--
She saw the foliage in the breezes wave-
The flowery turf, that might not yield a grave

To its heroic daughter--but her mind

Marked not the hurrying flood, nor heard the wind.

Far far away, her fancy's eyes did roam

To the known landscape, and the cottage home

The willows bending o'er the argent rill,-

The rustic shrine, and the familiar hill,-

The lawns, where oft her pastured flocks would stray,

The village green, where still on festive day

She led with artless grace the rural dance,

All hearts subduing with untutored glance,--
The cheerful hearth,-the calm though humble bed,—
The dreamless sleep which hovered round her head,--
The days of innocence,--the nights of peace.
Alas! that hours like these should ever cease!
Forth rushed the burning tears not one by one,
But bursting out as mountain streamlets run--
Her mother's face benign, her father's smile,
Palpably gleaming on her heart the while,
Till--in that gush of soul--she well might deem
The dead restored by no uncertain dream.
Yet soon that passion passed-a sudden start
Called back the crimson current from her heart,
And flushed her cheek with indignation's tide.
"Shall I,-the maid of Arc,-shall I," she cried,
"Weep like a village damsel for some toy
Of childish love--I, who have known the joy
Of triumph, and high glory--who am styled,
My country's savior--France's noblest child?"

lions but three leopards or libbards, as they are called in the old chronicles, and were first assumed by Edward I.; but were changed in process of time for the nobler brute who now contends with the unicorn.