cumstances, domestic and foreign, which related to the Turkish Government; and the political communications should be accompanied by whatever intelligence could enlighten the public mind, new inventions, commercial transactions, and all other objects of public utility.' Vol. II. p. 281.

Hitherto, all the Turkish edicts and placards had been published in manuscript; and it was at first expected, that the new Gazette would appear in that form. But the Ottoman world was now to behold new wonders. A printing office was established in the neighbourhood of the Seraskier's palace *, expressly and exclusively for the newspaper; and a learned mollah of Mecca, the historian and poet laureate of the empire, was appointed to superintend the establishment. All the political news is transmitted to him daily by the ministers of the Porte, and all military details by the Seraskier; the head editor being no other than the Sultan himself!

'On Saturday the 5th of November, 1831, this phenomenon, called Taakvimi Veekai, or the "Tablet of Events," first appeared in the Turkish capital, and has ever since been regularly published. In order to give it more extensive circulation, every pasha in the empire is obliged to subscribe for a certain number of copies for the information of the people of his pashalik, among whom they are distributed. It is printed in two folio sheets, in Turkish and in French; the latter is called the "Moniteur Oriental." The one is read by the natives and rayas, and the other by the Franks. It is issued with great exactness, and every Saturday morning it is sent up with our breakfast as regularly as a weekly paper in London. The Sultan takes great interest in it, reads it regularly, and is himself a contributor to it, writing sometimes the leading article.

The contents of the paper are usually as follow:-They commence with Constantinople, and the concerns of the Turkish empire. The principal details are those of the army and navy, their movements and the change of officers, with bulletins of actions by land or sea, fairly given, without much pompous orientalism. Then follow civil affairs, events of the provinces, with always a favourable view of things, and an eulogium on the Sultan's measures for the good of the people. Then succeed news of other countries, with sometimes extracts from the debates of the French Chamber of Deputies and the English Parliament, in which latter Mr. O'Connell cuts a conspicuous figure.

* Sultan Achmet III. had attempted the establishment of a printing press; but the introduction of printing was so violently opposed by the Ulema and the copiers of manuscripts, that his Armenian printers were obliged to desist, and the buildings were converted to other purposes. Sultan Selim erected a large edifice at Scutari for the same purpose, and competent persons were appointed to superintend the establishment. At this imperial press, forty works were produced in twelve years. Dr. Walsh has given a list of thirty-nine, which comes up to July 1822.

One could hardly imagine that violent democratic language would be permitted in a Turkish paper; as yet, however, it is harmless, for the people do not understand it. But the most extraordinary communication is a kind of budget, in which the receipts of public money are given, the expenditure accounted for, with an accuracy of detail in piastres and paras, that would please Mr. Hume. This is a thing before unheard of in Turkish policy, where public money was a mystery, and everything concerning it kept secret, both in its collection and expenditure. These subjects are varied with accounts of useful inventions, elementary sketches of the arts and sciences, and sometimes pleasing and instructive stories.

The Turks, when this newspaper first appeared, had no conception of any amusement to be derived from such a thing; but, like children, when their curiosity was once excited, it knew no bounds. The publication of the news of the empire in this way soon became of universal attraction. The paper made its way to the coffeehouses, and the same Turk that I had noticed before dozing, half stupified with coffee and tobacco, I now saw actually awake, with the paper in his hand, eagerly spelling out the news. But the most usual mode of communicating it are news-rooms, and a place is taken where those who wish to hear it assemble. A stool is placed in the centre, on which the man who can read sits, and others form a circle round him and listen. The attention paid is very different from that which I saw them give to a storyteller. There was no mirth or laughter excited, but all seemed to listen with profound attention, interrupted only sometimes by a grave ejaculation of "Inshallah," or "Allah Keerim." The first thing a Turk of any consequence is anxious to know is, whether he has been mentioned, and what is said of him, and in this he shows a sensitiveness even superior to a Londoner or a Parisian, because, as the Sultan is the virtual editor, his opinion of a man is of some importance.

The rayas of the empire soon caught the spirit of such a publication, and were delighted with the permission to imitate it. The Greek Patriarch I found was my venerable friend the Archbishop of Mount Sinai, whom I had left at his Patmos in the island of Antigone, expecting every moment to be led from thence to execution. By one of those sudden and common transitions of fortune in the East, he was taken from his obscurity and placed on the Patriarchal throne, where he sat when I visited him on my arrival, and found him no ways altered in simplicity of manners or kindness of disposition. As he was a man of letters, and anxious to promote literature in any way, he gladly entered upon the undertaking, and addressed a circular to the clergy and laity of the orthodox church on the subject, stating that a journal calculated to ameliorate and improve the social condition had already appeared in the capital, putting it in the power of every man to acquaint himself accurately with passing events, and that the Sultan had permitted to the Greeks the same indulgence. This was followed by a similar address from the Armenian Patriarch; and in a short time four journals appeared every week in the capital from the different nations which compose its population, Turks, Greeks, Armenians, and Franks, written in their respective languages.' Vol. II. pp. 281-284.

It is

But the most important and extraordinary revolution which had taken place since the Author's former visit, is that which appears to have been effected in the Sultan himself. To what this moral regeneration is to be ascribed, we are not told. certainly a change which would seem to indicate the operation of no ordinary influence. The statements of Dr. Walsh place the character of this extraordinary Mussulman in quite a new and most interesting light.

[To be concluded in our next.]

Art. VII. The Family Expositor; or a Paraphrase and Version of the New Testament, with Critical Notes, and a practical Improvement of each Section. By P. Doddridge, D.D. In six volumes. Price 17. 7s. in cloth. London.

A

CHEAP and excellently printed edition of Doddridge's Family Expositor; a work which needs no panegyric from us; but we owe an apology to the spirited Publisher for having overlooked this laudable attempt to promote its circulation by issuing it in volumes, which vie in cheapness with our Penny literature. The Critical Notes are omitted, as not being necessary for the domestic instruction for which the work is principally adapted.

THE

ECLECTIC REVIEW,

FOR NOVEMBER, 1836.

Art. I. 1. Ireland and her Evils. Poor Laws fully Considered.Their Introduction into Ireland destructive of all Landed Interests. By J. Stanley, Esq. 12mo. pp. 115. Dublin, 1836. 2. A Tour round Ireland in the Summer of 1835. By John Barrow, Jun., Esq. Post 8vo. London, 1836.

3. Instruct; Employ; Don't hang them: or, Ireland tranquillized without Soldiers, and enriched without English Capital. Containing Observations on a few of the Chief Errors of Irish Government and Irish Land Proprietors, with the Means of their Correction practically Illustrated. By John Pitt Kennedy, late an Officer in the Corps of Royal Engineers. 8vo. pp. 166. London, 1835. 4. Colonies at Home; or, Means of Rendering the Industrious Labourer independent of Parish Relief, and for providing for the poor Population of Ireland by the Cultivation of the Soil. By W. Allen, F.R.S. and L.S. A New Edition. 8vo. 1832.

5. The Real Grievance of the Irish Peasantry, as immediately felt and complained of among Themselves, a fruitful Source of Beggary and Idleness, and the main Support of the Rock System. With a Proposal for their Amelioration. By a Clergyman of the Established Church, for several Years the Resident Incumbent of a Parish in the South of Ireland. 12mo. pp. 124. London, 1825. RELAND continues to be the most perplexing problem to our legislators, the most interesting field to our philanthropists, the bug-bear of Toryism, the reproach of Protestantism, the Poland of the British Empire. Mr. Kennedy has transcribed as his motto, a startling passage from the celebrated French Economist, J. B. Say: I believe that the state of Ireland is very susceptible of remedies, but I shall take good care not to propose them, because it would require that I should have a more intimate acquaintance with the country, and because they would shock too

VOL. XVI.-N.S.

S S

'many rooted prejudices in England, and too many powerful interests, to admit of the possibility of their being well received.' What a satire is this upon the British Government, and upon the aristocracy of this country who have given laws to that Government! But every session has afforded a fresh illustration of its truth. The remedies for the evils under which Ireland is suffering, are known; but powerful interests have arrayed themselves against the Government-the first Administration that has ever honestly addressed itself to the task of redressing those evils; and the country is still to be kept in a state of unnatural agitation, in order to uphold a little longer the crumbling remains of a pageant hierarchy, and a system of oligarchical misrule which would have disgraced Austria or Russia.

6

In the closing debate of the Session, in the House of Lords, the Duke of Wellington is reported to have addressed the noble Premier in these remarkable terms: 'I would beg the noble Vis'count to recollect one fact in regard to the Church of England, 'whether in England or in Ireland. Let him recollect that the ' avowed policy followed by this country during the LAST THREE HUNDRED YEARS has been, to retain inviolable that Church 'Establishment. We are called here to consult particularly for the good of the Church.'-Yes, of the Church, not of the country for whose benefit alone any Church ought to exist. Of a Church—not the Church of Ireland, but the Church of England in Ireland-maintained avowedly for English interests, in contradistinction from those of the Irish people;-a Church of clergy without flocks, of churches without worshippers, of benefices without cures ;-a Church which, calling itself Protestant, has withheld from the native race the Scriptures in their own language, and which, having neglected the people, has been in turn deserted by them, till it now numbers less than a fifteenth of the population within its pale. But what we chiefly wish to point out to our readers, is the remarkable declaration of the Duke, that the policy which he is anxious to maintain and perpetuate is identical with that which has been pursued for three hundred years, a period which carries us back to the civil and ecclesiastical despotism of the Tudors, extending through the sanguinary struggles of the seventeenth century, and comprising the atrocious legislation of the penal code. And all this long series of unparalleled misrule and oppression had for its object— according to the Duke's shewing-to retain the Church Establishment! That is, to retain the Church property wrested from the Roman Catholics, and to force the yoke of a foreign Prelacy and a new State creed upon the necks of the people. Can there be a more emphatic condemnation pronounced upon any policy, than that it has been pursued for three hundred years, dating its origin from the sanguinary and unsettled times when the principles of