checked foreign influence, then of the weakness of the Turkish power, in consequence of domestic factions, and lastly, of the personal debility of the reigning sultan; it only remains to enumerate the terms on which peace has finally been conceded. The conclusion of the contest has been, in a daily journal, aptly compared to the termination of the second Carthaginian war with Rome. The cases have many points of analogy; but, on the whole, the Roman conqueror prescribed less degrading terms, and acknowledged less equivocally the independence of Carthage.

The whole commerce of the Turkish empire is surrendered to the Russians. They may go to all ports, and conduct their traffic almost on their own terms, independent of any plenary exercise of Turkish sovereignty. Every Russian, who treads on the Turkish soil, is at once possessed of immunities, which the law of nations has heretofore hardly conceded to ambassadors. The Turk, who may murder a Russian, cannot avert from the Porte the disasters of a war of annihilation. The Roman tribunes were, in their persons, hardly held as sacred, or protected by as severe threats, as is every Russian subject, who may henceforth pass the Danube. The Russian government retains the right of being the protector of every one of its citizens, even after they have entered a foreign territory; and it thus obtains a conditional right of inquest into every nook and hamlet, every city and harbour, every bazaar and encampment of the Turks. The precincts of the seraglio, and the recesses of the mosques, nay, for aught we see, the presence-chamber of the sultan, and even the sanctuary of Mecca itself, are no longer sacred, except by courtesy.

These points, rendering Russians, and Russian commerce in Turkey, amenable only to Russian authorities, are manifestly inconsistent with any of our notions of independence. But this is not all. By the peace of Adrianople, the Porte is at once deprived, effectually, though indirectly, of the sovereignty of at least eight parts in nineteen, perhaps of a full moiety, of all its European possessions. We say perhaps a moiety, for the limits of Greece are yet to be assigned; but the Peloponnesus with large additions, Servia, and the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, are severed, we trust forever, from the Ottoman sway.

*The Russian general, like the Roman commander, is still a young man; the peace in each case was concluded, just as the capital of the conquered country was on the point of being attacked. The provinces beyond the Danube are lost to the Porte, as much as Spain was to the Carthaginians. Greece is to Turkey, what Numidia was to Carthage. It is perhaps going too far to compare the relations of Capo d'Istria to Russia, with those of Massinissa to Rome. But if Diebitsch shall be Scipio, where is our Hannibal ?

The Greece of classic antiquity, not very far in extent from the kingdom of Portugal, or the state of Maine, or South Carolina, contained about thirty thousand square miles; the territory, however, south of the Gulf of Arta and the Gulf of Volo, does not include Epirus or Thessaly, and so would not greatly differ in extent from Switzerland, or the kingdom of Hanover, or the three southernmost New-England states.

Whatever relation Greece may bear to the Porte and to the rest of Europe, it will stand virtually under the protection of Russia, and, for the present, will have with it a community of interests, as of religion and of enemies. It has not been forgotten, through whose hands the sovereignty of the Ionian Isles was transferred to Great Britain: the remaining isles and the main land will offer every facility for contesting with English ambition, the command of the commerce of the Levant, and the sovereignty of the Egean sea. Some protection from abroad is essential to the security of Greece. Bene vixit, qui bene latuit. Greece will probably be to Russia, what Florence is to Austria. Let us hope for Greece, a government as mild, prosperity as decided, tranquillity as perfect, as the Florentine states have long enjoyed, since the humane and exemplary administration of Leopold.

Great Britain is the only power which could dispute with Russia the equivocal privilege of protecting Greece. We associate rightly with the English government, high ideas of even justice and accountability at home. But it does not follow, that a foreign province will be administered or protected more mildly by a parliament than by an autocrat. As a question of abstract liberty, it matters little, whether the master, if he is irresponsible to the people governed, be an individual or a public body. The humane virtues are more apt to be manifested by an individual. The provincial administration of Great Britain, for example, and we will but state an historical fact, has been less marked by clemency than the Spanish; though in both cases, foreign provinces have been alike held subservient to the interests of the governing country. Or to give an illustration much more striking: when ancient Rome submitted to the imperial form of government, the provinces were divided between the emperor and the senate; those which were under the emperor, were, and continued to be, administered with much the greater mildness, and enjoyed a far less precarious prosperity. An irresponsible, despotic senate, was more fierce and tyrannical, than the irresponsible emperor; just as an individual is a more lenient creditor than a corporation. If, then, Greece must have a protector, the friends of liberty in the United States would have quite as much, and in our view more, to regret, should England obtain that trust, than if the remote guarantee should be Russia. The

wincings of the English writers, show how much their government is galled.

To Servia, the peace of Adrianople brings hardly fewer advantages than to Greece. That country, in extent about as large as Denmark, or as Maryland and New-Jersey, has been for ever swept by the besom of war, and will probably have to encounter one struggle more, previous to its entire emancipation. On comparing the conditions of the several treaties of Bucharest, Ackermann, and Adrianople, we find that the Porte retains the citadels of Servia, (of which Belgrade is the chief), and is to receive from the Servians a moderate tribute. The Russians

guaranty, that it shall not be excessive. The more vague the expressions, the more room is allowed for the interference of the stronger party. To the Servians are further conceded, privileges equal to those enjoyed by the most favoured provinces, and a right of negotiating under Russian auspices, to secure to themselves the liberty of worship, the choice of their own chiefs, liberty of commerce with all parts of the Turkish territory, the entire domestic administration, even over property belonging to Mussulmans, and a prohibition to Mussulmans, other than those appertaining to the garrisons, to establish themselves in Servia. Has not Servia, then, ceased to be a Turkish province? Is the sovereignty of the sultan any thing more than nominal? Or, rather, where does, in truth, the ultimate sovereignty reside? The Porte holds the fortresses; Russia guaranties the liberties of Servia; the Porte levies a tribute of money; Russia has on the affections of the people a hold, which can open their most secret coffers; the Porte is ever ready to prove its power by oppression; and Russia confirms to each Christian inhabitant of Servia, the peaceful enjoyment of his property and its rights. Rome, too, had its allies."

Respecting the noble provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia, which, by the way, are jointly only equal in extent to about three-fourths of Florida, there seems to be but one opinion. Russia, delaying for the present to claim them in fee simple, has entered into actual possession, under a mortgage which will probably never be discharged. Henceforward Austria has every thing to fear and nothing to hope from a war with her neighbour, who now controls the great highway of Hungarian commerce, and has easy access to almost one half of the frontier of the vast Austrian monarchy. The schemes of Peter the Great are accomplished. He found an empire which had no communication with the great seas of commerce but through Archangel. His successor is master of the Baltic, the Caspian, and the Euxine; and is preparing to struggle with the English for the ascendancy in the Egean.

The results of the late war have obviously excited alarm and

distrust in England; but not because the British empire in India has been endangered by it. The alarm about India is a mere chimera; and ages must roll away, and one career of wild ambition be succeeded by another, before a Russian Genghis would venture to stray into India with his countless hosts of vagrant conquerors. No! The points of collision are much nearer, less magnificent in extent, but yet immediate and important. The command of the Archipelago may be disputed between those who protect the Ionian Isles and the fosterer of independent Greece. England and Russia, the great European rivals, are, indeed, themselves at the extremes of the continent; but the states which are their respective clients, are situated almost side by side, and a predominant influence in the Ionian Isles is more than counterbalanced by the cluster of Greek islands in the Egean, and the deep harbours and noble bays of continental Greece.

On the whole, the peace of Adrianople is favourable to the best interests of civilization and humanity. Regions, on which nature in her kindest mood has lavished all the elements of prosperity, are now permitted in security to profit by their natural advantages. Servia gains a respite from oppression; the means of eventually securing her independence; and an opportunity of developing her vast, and, as yet, almost wholly unexplored resources. The principalities may now prosper like our own blooming states to the north of the Ohio; the desolate majesty of those rich but wasted countries shall yield to the gentle influences of accumulated wealth and protected industry. But above all, Greece is restored to the affections of humanity. Favoured by Providence in its situation and climate beyond any portion of Europe, its prosperity must be rapid and cheering. If local influences, the temperature and soil of a country, decide on the occupations, and in some measure on the character of its inhabitants, the virtues and genius of antiquity will under some aspect re-appear. However much the forms of empires may have changed, the great features of nature remain unimpaired. The same bright sun, which shone on Plato and Phidias, on the heroes of Salamis and the orators of the Athenian democracy, still rolls with undiminished splendour through the clear sky of Hellas. The streams of the Ilyssus and the Eurotus flow in their wonted channels. The olive of Minerva still ripens its fruits, and ripens them once more for peaceful citizens, who, in their turn, have struggled against the barbarian for their domestic liberties. It is, indeed, Greece, and living Greece. She re-appears to take her place in the family of nations. Her star ascends brightly through a sky that no longer lowers.

The remainder of European Turkey lies at the mercy of its

conqueror. If it had strength to commence the recent struggle, it has, in the present treaty of peace, resigned every hope of future successful resistance. Indeed the whole empire of Turkey is as decidedly prostrated before the czar, as Persia has been since the termination of its late war with Russia. The influence of Nicholas prevails from the frozen sources of the Torneo to the Persian Gulf. His ships ride triumphantly in all the Turkish waters; the lives of his subjects are charmed against every aggression and violence throughout the Ottoman dominion. He has won every thing which was essential to the prosperity of the provinces which acknowledge his sway. He has done something for the cause of humanity. But now the world has a yet deeper interest in the wise administration of the internal concerns of Russia, and in the personal character of her sovereign. Since it would be idle to wish for her many provinces that highest good which comes from the conflict of free opinions, we will hope, that the mild virtues of an Antonine may be emulated by her sovereign, rather than the less arduous and less rare distinction which follows on extensive conquest.

ART. III. MOHAMMEDAN HISTORY.

1.-Réponse à la question, quelle a été, pendant les trois premiers siècles de l'hégire, l'influence du Mahométisme sur l'esprit, les mœurs, et le gouvernement des peuples chez lesquels il s'est établi? Par M. DE HAMMER: Vienna. 2.-Memoirs of the principal events in Mohammedan History, from the death of the Arabian Legislator, to the accession of the Emperor Akbar, and the establishment of the Mogul Empire. London: 4 vols. 4to.

3.-Histoire des Arabes sous le gouvernement des Califfs. Par M. MARIGNY. Paris: 4 vols. 12mo.

FEW names upon the roll of kings have more associations in their favour, than that of the eccentric Caliph Harun Alrashid; and fewer still, have owed their reputation to an humbler source. Notwithstanding the extent of his dominions, and the splendour of his court, his sagacious policy, his military prowess, and, above all, his munificent encouragement of learning and the arts, we doubt whether he would ever have attained the posthumous celebrity which he enjoys in Europe, had not accident, tradition, or caprice, created him the hero of the Thousand and One Nights. On the history and merits of this celebrated story