when we come to the doom of Crete, we have reached the blackest of its chapters. There is likely to be as little peace in the state in which Crete is left as there is honour in leaving it in such a state. But it is the same everywhere. Lord Beaconsfield, in the act of betraying Greece, declared that the business of the Congress was to strengthen an ancient empire, which it considers essential to the maintenance of peace.'* A state of general war and tumults seems to be what Lord Beaconsfield understands by peace. It is at least all that the Congress has as yet brought about. Bosnia, Albania, Thessaly, Thrace, bear witness to the singular way in which the representatives of Europe have striven to win the blessing of the peacemaker. Never will there be peace in these parts, never will honour be found there, till that ancient empire,' whose existence hinders peace, whose maintenance is the foulest dishonour, is still allowed to bear sway over any spot of Christian earth. We may quote the words of the renegade who, since the writing of this article begun, has fallen by the swords of the barbarians to whom he had joined himself. Hearken to Mahomet Ali, once a Christian man by the name of Julius Detroit :-

In order that the labours of the Congress may constitute a durable work of peace and concord, would it not be well to avoid, except in cases of absolute necessity, placing people of different religion and race under the rule of a foreign people?

These words, though spoken by a hireling of the Turk, do in themselves go to the very root of the matter. For spaces of time varying from sixty to five hundred and twenty years, the people of South-eastern Europe have been placed under the rule of men of different race and religion to themselves, under the rule of the invading horde of Othman. Till they are set free from that barbarous rule, no durable work of peace and concord can be wrought in those lands. Till that work is done, the opposite work to that which Lord Beaconsfield proposes to himself, neither peace nor honour can be won in the affairs of South-eastern Europe. When another Congress speaks the word for the final rending of the oppressor's yoke, then the last word of Europe on the Eastern question' may have been spoken. Till then we must look for 'more last words.'

* Protocols, p. 197.

CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE.

HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, AND TRAVELS.

New Greece. By LEWIS SERGEANT. With Maps specially prepared for this work. Cassell, Petter, and Galpin.

After the plethora of books upon Turkey and Cyprus, it was but natural that the time of Greece should come. Mr. Sergeant's work is not that of a traveller; it comes to us with higher claims. It is a combination of the historical, the economic, and the political. If it has not the vivid picturesqueness of a narrative by a Stanley or a Burnaby (due to a keenness of observation of peoples and of scenery), it is of greater importance in many essential respects. There is no other work which can be compared with Mr. Sergeant's for the comprehensiveness with which it states what is known as 'the Greek question.' The author manifests very decided sympathies on behalf of the Greeks, but on the whole his narrative is written with great fairness and moderation, and with a general absence of party heat. Yet he constructs the strongest and clearest impeachment of the policy of her Majesty's Government towards Greece that we have yet seen. There are few readers of the daily literature upon the Eastern Question, even amongst the supporters of Lord Beaconsfield, who would venture to affirm that Greece has received altogether fair treatment in the recent resettle ment of South-eastern Europe. She has been buoyed up for years with expectations that appeared on the point of settlement at the time of the assembling of the Berlin Congress. But the plenipotentiaries have separated, each bearing away some trophy in the shape of territorial spoil, while the realization of the hopes of Greece has been postponed to the period of those Kalends associated with her name. Mr. Sergeant says that we should have helped Greece long ago if we had not been afraid of weakening Turkey; and the events of the past few years have shown that the policy of defending the Porte against its enemies is still approved by a large portion of this nation.' The ennobling sentiment which animated Lord Byron and many other Englishmen half a century ago towards Greece seems to be now slumbering in the English breast. But it is as impossible for it to sleep for ever as it is to suppose that a Christian race can long continue to pose as the bosom friend of the lazy, effeminate, and dissolute Turk. There is much to be said on behalf of our author's contention, that the cause of peace and good government in Europe appears to require the establishment of Greece as a great Power on the shores of the Ægean. A strong Greece would undoubtedly secure Europe, and especially England, against the results of a weak and decrepit Turkey. Mr. Sergeant's introductory chapter upon Greece and the Congress is the one that

will cause most discussion. It is here that we get the gist of the indictment against the English representatives at the Congress; and those who wish to obtain a clear conception of the claims of Greece, and of the way in which those claims have been received and finally abandoned by France and England, will find it in these pages. The writer complains that owing to certain representations made to her by England, Greece was induced to abandon the insurrectionary method so successfully pursued by Russia, and which ended so favourably for the claims of the Christian provinces of Turkey. He shows by a despatch from Lord Derby to Mr. Stuart, dated July 2nd, 1877, that Greece withdrew from the war on receiving a distinct pledge from the English Government. The exact nature of this pledge is apparent from Lord Derby's words. 'Her Majesty's Government, so far as may be in their power, will, when the time comes for the consideration of the settlement of the questions arising out of the war, be ready to use their best influence to secure for the Greek population in the Turkish provinces any administrative reforms or advantages which may be conferred upon, the Christian population of any other race.' No language could be plainer or more emphatic than this, yet how has the promise been fulfilled? The Congress met, with the distinct understanding that there was a Greek question before it, and Lord Salisbury actually proposed the admission of the Greek representatives. Now, as Mr. Sergeant says, if the Greek population had followed the insurrectionary warfare of the Slav Turkish provinces-when the Berlin Congress assembled, in addition to Russia at the gates of Constantinople, Servia in Nisch, Montenegro in Antivari, and Austria with the title-deeds of Bosnia in her pocket, the plenipotentiaries might have had to take account of Greece in possession of Janina and Larissa.'. In these circumstances it would have been impossible for Turkey not to have reckoned with her antagonist. But Greece yielded to the wishes of England, on the understanding that diplomacy would concede to her much of that which she demanded. For a time England seemed to be ready to fulfil her pledges to Greece, but the whole tenour of her policy changed after the third meeting of the Congress. Many explanations of this have been tendered, and one Mr. Sergeant thus reproduces. If we are to assume that a change came over the English policy—not the last of many changes-between the 19th of June and the 5th of July, we can only conclude that, at the latter date, Lord Beaconsfield had signed away so much of the Sultan's territory, and had paid so dearly for Russian concessions and Austrian support, that he began to fear lest history should associate his name, as well as those of his Russian friends, with the destruction of Ottoman independence and integrity. A misgiving of this kind would account for the modification of plans, for the sudden abandonment of the Greeks, for the utter oblivion of Hellenic interests, and for the heartless resolution to make Greece pay for Slavonian triumphs. If this solution of the mystery of the abandonment of Greece be not palatable to the supporters of the Ministry, it is incumbent upon them to furnish another in its place—a somewhat difficult task. Lord Beaconsfield, as shown by the protocols, while believing that

History, Biography, and Travels.

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the Sultan would consent to a rectification of frontiers, still counselled Greece that she would do well to wait, if necessary. She has always been counselled to wait, but it was rather hard to receive the advice once more just at the moment when she believed her time had come. Mr. Sergeant maintains that the statesmanship of our representatives was utterly at fault as regards the Hellenic difficulty; and after reciting the various points in which they were manifestly wrong, he thus summarizes his charges against them: Our plenipotentiaries posed as the restorers of Turkey, as the advocates of the Hellenic claims in their widest sense, as the friends of humanity, as the champions of international agreements, as sticklers for the authority of the European concert. And when the time came for deeds instead of words, they left a powerful and determined enemy on Turkey's western frontier, absolutely certain to harass her perpetually; they snubbed Greece for mistaking the intentions of Europe; they took no note of Turkish atrocities in Thessaly and Epirus-as shocking in their character as those in Bulgaria; they made light of an agreement which they themselves had entered into with Greece; and they prevented the authority of Europe from intervening in Turkey on the only worthy and sufficient grounds.' Regarded from every point of view, it is a misfortune that England has thrown away the opportunity of combining the extension of the Hellenic State with the maintenance of the Porte in Europe.

We have occupied so much space with a consideration of the important preliminary matter in this volume, that we can barely refer to the body of the work. It is divided into two parts, and in the first the reader will find interesting chapters devoted to the general character and resources of Greece, the education and genius, literature and folk-lore of the country; its government, finance, trade and commerce, agriculture, &c. The second part of the volume is concerned with the establishment of New Greece, and discusses Panslavism and Panhellenism, Greek Nationality, the War of Independence, European Intervention, the establishment of the kingdom, English constraint of Greece, and other matters. The author's final conclusion is that we ought to consider, First, whether Greece, having secured a national status confessedly imperfect, and confessedly inadequate to her needs and her capacities, is not entitled to demand a further development as a matter of simple justice; and, secondly, whether we ourselves, having consulted our own interests in the creation and frequent constraint of Greece, are not in duty bound to exert ourselves on every possible occasion to give her that which she is entitled to demand.' This work, which is handsomely produced, appears to have been most carefully prepared, and it affords a full and exhaustive treatment of its subject. Even those who most widely disagree with the author, as well as those who are in harmony with his views, will find entertainment and information in its pages.

The People of Turkey: Twenty Years' Residence among Bulgarians, Greeks, Albanians, Turks, and Armenians. By a Consul's Daughter and Wife. Edited by STANLEY LANE POOLE. John Murray.

The fulness of personal knowledge and observation displayed in these volumes quite warranted their publication, notwithstanding the plethora of literature upon the subject of Turkey with which we have recently been visited. Some persons might live ten or twenty years in an alien country, and yet be unable to arrive at a correct estimate of the character and needs of the population; but this is not the case with 'a Consul's Wife and Daughter.' A mere cursory reading of her volumes would show that the writer has an observant eye, and that she writes generally with great fairness and discrimination. Whether the work is all that her able editor, Mr. Poole, claims for it, 'the most valuable work on the people of Turkey that has yet appeared,' will, we are afraid, depend much upon the individual reader; but it undoubtedly adds to our stock of original information, and can in no sense be described as superfluous. The author is an English lady who lived for a great part of her life in various provinces of European and Asiatic Turkey, and whose linguistic powers enabled her to converse equally with Greeks, Turks, and Bulgarians, as one of themselves. She has not thrown her materials together in a haphazard manner, thus making an olla podrida of valuable information, but has divided her work into four distinct parts, viz., 1. The Races of Turkey; 2. Lands and Dwellings; 3. Manners and Customs; 4. Education, Religion, and Superstition. The reader is thus enabled to gain a clear and distinct impression of the characteristics of the peoples described. If we formed our opinions of the Greeks and Bulgarians from the necessarily imperfect and hasty sketches published by the correspondents of the various newspapers, we should be under the obligation of constantly revising and changing those impressions. For this reason, therefore — as well as on other grounds—we can welcome a work which may reasonably put forward some claim to permanency. Mr. Poole complains that scarcely a single book upon Turkey is based upon a much longer experience than three months; and too many works answer to this description. Such hastily-evolved books are especially misleading as regards Turkey, seeing that no other country in Europe offers so many social and political problems for solution, in consequence of the variety and complexity of the nationalities to be found under the dominion of one ruler. If the work now before us, therefore, be read in its proper light -that of a collection of facts, and not as a vehicle for the dissemination of party views upon the Eastern Question-it will be found most valuable. Indeed, it will be perceived that the author has been almost uniformly successful in avoiding subjects calculated to engender animosity and political feeling. She neither attacks nor defends the Turkish rule; she endeavours, without setting down aught in malice, simply to give an account as to how the Turks do rule. Consequently, no opinion