But he is a devoted admirer of the fair sex, and if his love songs lack depth and passion, no poet can turn a prettier compliment. Here is one: As afternoon one summer's day Venus stood bathing in a river, Cupid a-shooting went that way, weeping at his tomb in Westminster Abbey. There let her stand, ye inquisitive critics, the true Chloe as we would fain picture her. Mezeray have a pathetic interest attachThe poet's lines to the historian ing to them. There are several stanzas, but one only need be quoted: All covet life, yet call it pain; All feel the ill, but shun the cure: Sir Walter Scott about a year before his death, on a border tour with Lock New strung his bow, new filled his hart, met two beggars-old soldiersquiver. With skill he chose his sharpest dart, With all his might his bow he drew, Swift to his beauteous parent's heart The too well guided arrow flew. I faint, I die! the goddess cried; Oh! cruel, couldst thou find no other To wreak thy spleen on? Parricide, Like Nero, thou hast slain thy mother. Poor Cupid, sobbing, scarce could speak; Indeed, mama, I did not know ye. Alas! how easy my mistake? I took you for your likeness, Chloe. Who was this fair rival of Venus, Prior's Chloe? Spence in his anecdotes asserts that she was a woman of the lowest class. Others say she was ideal. "I know the contrary," says John Wesley an unexceptionable witness. "I have heard my eldest brother say her name was Miss Taylor; that he knew her well, and that she once came to him in Dean's Yard, Westminster, purposely to ask his advice. She told him, "Sir, I know not what to do. Mr. Prior makes large professions of his love, but he never offers me marriage." My brother advised her to bring the matter to a point at once. She went directly to Mr. Prior and asked him plainly, "Do you intend to marry me or no?" He said many soft and pretty things, on which she said, "Sir, in refusing to answer you do answer. I will see you no more." And she did see him no more to the day of his death. But afterwards she spent many hours standing and one of whom recognized the baronet and bade God bless him. The mendicants went on their way and "we"it is Lockhart who is describing the scene-"stood breathing on the knoll. Sir Walter followed them with his eye, and planting his stick firmly on the sod repeated without break or hesitation Frior's verses to the historian Mezeray. That he applied them to himself was touchingly obvious." All that Prior wrote is witty and graceful, but it is in his tales that the poet is undoubtedly at his best, that he discovers what Cowper calls his "charming ease." Take Hans Carvel, the jealous husband, married to a frisky wife, the old story of January and May: He thought of what he did not name, graces, And doubled down the useful places. But fragmentary quotation is unfairmost of all of tales. It is highly diverting to find in Boswell's Johnson the usually lax Boswell shocked at the indelicacy of Prior's Tales, and the stern moralist poohpoohing his squeamishness. "No, sir, there is nothing in Prior's Tales. | tainments. In these figures appears Prior is a ladies' book. No lady is before your eye, as a series of vivid ashamed to have it standing in her realistic personalities, the redoubtable library. Your Lord Hailes" (whom Force that won and maintained its Boswell had called in aid) "must be empire for Turkey, and formed the more combustible than most persons." most powerful element in its civil and Charles Lamb tells us how he was once religious history for several hundred detected by a familiar damsel reclined years. They come out from the vague, at ease upon the grass on Primrose Hill misty background of your historical reading "Pamela," and how the damsel imagination, and stand up before you seated herself down by him and read in all their grim and terrible reality. in company till she rose, leaving the Your interest in the subject is excited, blush with him. "There was nothing to and you wish to know something more be ashamed of," he says, "but I could about them than their mere name and have wished it had been-any other office. book." Neither is Prior the book one would choose to read under such c'rcumstances. But after all Prior's one unpardonable offence is having paraphrased the exquisite old ballad "The Nut Brown Maid" into the pretentious stanzas of "Henry and Emma," with their rhetorical pomp and stucco sentiment. EDWARD MANSON. From Good Words. THE JANISSARIES. BY THE REV. HUGH MACMILLAN, D.D., LL.D. One of the sights of Constantinople, which every visitor makes a point of seeing, is the Museum of the Janissaries, at the end of the At-Meidan, or Great Square. This is a rude and somewhat dilapidated building, containing a gallery of figures as large as life, made of wax or stucco, and colored according to nature, in the manner of Madame Tussaud's exhibition. They represent the famous old Footguards of the empire, variously dressed in typical clothing, and engaged in different occupations or brandishing their formidable weapons. The collection is a most extraordinary one, and the impression which the fierce, sinister faces and suggestive attitudes produce will not soon be forgotten. It is like the effect of a bad dream after reading "Blue Beard" or the most blood-curdling tale of the Arabian Nights' Enter After you leave the weird museum, you visit the vast enclosure of the Seraglio, which has been thrown open to the public since the time of the Crimean war; and there, on the upper terrace, you see the court of the Janissaries, where the troops used to dwell, opening from a splendid gate of white and black marble, ornamented with small pillars of Verde-antique, called the Babi-Hoomayoon, or the Sublime Porte. And beyond the Mint, in a great open space, you see an enormous tree, probably the biggest you ever saw, with the exception of the famous old plane-tree in one of the streets of Damascus. This specimen is called the plane-tree of the Janissaries, and is still fresh and vigorous. Its trunk is burnt and blackened by fire, for it used to be employed as a kitchen for cooking the food of the soldiers. All these objects still further increase your interest in the great military corporation, and surround it with a halo of picturesqueness, under which you strive to recover from the mouldy past some particulars regarding its eventful career. The Janissaries are unique in the history of the world. Nothing like them has ever been known in the constitution of any state. We think of them somehow in association with the Mamelukes of Egypt; but though there were some points in common between them, they differed widely in their character and aim. The Mamelukes, though originally a race of slaves, founded a sovereign dynasty in Egypt; but the Janis saries, even at the height of their | Bektache. Standing in front of the power, never ceased to be soldiers, and they maintained throughout all their history the proofs and symbols of their lowly origin. They made and unmade sovereigns, but they never aspired to the high positions of the state, and were content to fill their original posts. Not one of their number ever occupied the throne of Turkey, and the whole corps acted ostensibly only as its guardians. They formed the first standing army of which we have any record; but they were appointed not as the defenders of the national interests, but simply as the executors of the personal designs of the sultan. The name by which they were best known and which inspired most awe was Yenitzer, signifying in Turkish the New Army, because it superseded, as a perpetual and consolidated force, the old troops which were raised only in emergencies and scattered when war was over. It was Amurath I. who, in 1389, formed this military body in order to strengthen himself not only against the foes outside his dominions, but also against the internal dissensions of his own chiefs. Taking advantage of the Mahometan law, according to which he was entitled to a fifth part of the captives taken in war, he selected for his Own use the strongest, handsomest, and most intelligent of the prisoners captured at the close of his campaign against the Sclavonian races in the east of Europe. These young men were of Christian parentage; but when they became the slaves of Amurath they were converted to the religion of the Prophet, isolated from all connection not only with Christians but even with other Moslems, and shut up with their monarch alone, so that knowing no other chief or master they might devote themselves to his interests exclusively. In order to work upon the superstitious imaginations of the people, and to impart to the new corps the highest sanctions of religion, he consecrated it by the blessing not of the ordinary clergy, but of a celebrated Dervish of exceptional holiness called Hadzy youthful soldiers as they were drawn up before him, he stretched the long sleeve of his gown over the head of the foremost, and said: "May your countenances be ever bright, your hands victorious, your swords keen. May your spears, always hang over the heads of your enemies; and wherever you go may you return with a white, that is an honorable, face." Thus adopted into the Mussulman faith, they assumed the name of the saint who had blessed them, and became afterwards known as the Hadzy-Bektache Odzaghi, the hearth or family of HadzyBektache. And in remembrance of this solemn ceremony they wore on their heads during parade a kind of white felt cap called a kulah, to which was attached a large and broad strip of coarse cloth hanging down behind over their shoulders. This cloth represented the sleeve of the cloak which the great Islam saint wore when he consecrated them. The Janissaries always kept up the memory of their lowly origin and servile functions as a body of slaves belonging to the household of the sultan; and it is strange to think of this fierce soldiery deriving their military titles and dignities from their domestic duties and the homely names of common family life. They were divided into companies of one hundred men, called ortas or chambers, all living entirely in common. The chief officer was called the head soup-maker; and under him was another officer called the head cook; and under him in turn was a third called the head water-carrier; and the lowest officer bore the name of general caterer, who provided the food of the company. The ensigns of each orta or troop were the iron pots in which the soup was carried daily from the barracks to the different guard-houses. They were usually three in number, and were placed under the care of the subaltern officers. Around these pots the members of the corps gathered together, not only for their food at mealtimes, but also in solemn conclave in times of difficulty and trouble in order to shape out their course of conduct. To lose one of these pots was the greatest misfortune that could befall the troop; while if they were captured in war all the officers were deprived of their rank and the regiment itself publicly disgraced. And to carry out still further the menial associations of a slave's domestic life, the military badge which every soldier wore in his cap was the wooden spoon with which he I ate his soup. The full force of the Janissaries was maintained not only by the sultan's share of the captives taken in every war, but also by a fixed tribute of boys selected every five years from the Christian population of the frontier provinces from the Euxine to the Adriatic. The recruiting party had the right to appropriate all the Christian youths in such places, above the age of seven, who were distinguished for their beauty, their strength, or their promise of ability. Thus the flower of Christendom formed from time to time this Turkish militia; and the secret of its success was that it depended for its continuity, not upon native Turkish blood, but upon the best foreign blood of the conquered races, whose strength and proficiency were in this way by the perfection of craftiness turned against themselves. The head of the army which besieged Rhodes in the time of Mohammed II. was a descendant of the Christian sovereigns of Byzantium. Ibrahim, the favorite general of the great Solyman, was of Christian parentage; and more than a dozen of the best Turkish commanders whose names are conspicuous in history, were of Sclavonic origin. The Christians were thus crushed by the forces drawn from their own bosom, and the vampire of tyranny was fed from their own veins. The young recruits were initiated into the Moslem faith by the usual ceremony of circumcision, and then were transferred for careful special education to the seclusion of the Seraglio. They had to perform hard labor, and were subjected to the severest discipline. They were trained to undergo all kinds of hardships, and to submit to privations of food and clothing and rest. They had often to spend whole nights in watching or practising their arms, and were not permitted to give way to sleep. In this Spartan fashion their spirits were made courageous, and their bodies active and hardy for the purposes of war-which was the only end of their existence set before them. When they were raised into the corps of the Janissaries, they were placed in cloister-like barracks, where the younger served the older, and the rule of silence and subjection was strictly enforced. Their frugal fare, their coarse, simple dress, their rigid discipline and habit of mute obedience, reminded one of the austerities of convent life, and they might well have been described as "soldier monks." They had a further resemblance to the monastic fraternity in their celibacy. They had no home but the common ortas or chambers of the barracks like the cells of monks; they had no kindred but their fellow-soldiers. They had to forego and forget whatever old family ties might have bound them, and they were not allowed to contract any new ones. They were to live entirely for their corps. They were bound to each other and to the sultan by the most tremendous oaths of fealty. They were affiliated with the order of the Dervishes founded by the great Saint of Islam who had originally consecrated their order; and with these Moslem fanatics they maintained throughout the whole period of their history the closest fellowship. The sheik of these Dervishes was officially the head of the principal orta or chamber of Janissaries; and they were known indiscriminately as "the brethren of the sword," and "the brethren of prayer." Thus the animating principle of the Janissaries was a religious enthusiasm, similar to that which inspired the first followers of Mahomet, and made the crescent and the scimitar every where victorious. They carried out the doctrine of the great military prophet of Mecca, that the sword is the key both of heaven and hell-the chief instrument of religion, and that the merit of fighting for the faith with physical weapons surpassed all other merit whatsoever. Their religion was the religion of the sword; and no native Mahometans were so fierce or so remorseless as these Christian renegades, who were the bitterest enemies of those countrymen of theirs who remained true to their former religion. This consecration of religion gave a great importance to the order of the Janissaries, and raised it to the most privileged position in the state. Not only did the chief Moslem saints belong to it, as we have seen, but the sultan himself, as the revered head of Islam, was enrolled as a member. He was the first common-soldier on their musterroll. He devoted his own sons to the service, and made them Janissaries from their birth. When a son was born to the reigning sultan, he took the child and placed him in the arms of the lieutenant of the corps, who after kissing the hem of the mantle of the child, gave him to the chief of the eunuchs, who carried him back to the harem. By this ceremony the child was adopted into the great order. This military brotherhood had some resemblance in the Mahometan world to the orders of the Knights Templars and of the Knights of St. John in the Christian world, with whom they often contended in arms. But they differed, not only in many particulars of organization and character, but also in this most important one, that the Janissaries were incorporated with the Mahometan Church, whereas the Christian knights, although they fought under the banner of the Cross, had no place in the monastic or ecclesiastical system. The Janissaries also existed as an order for a very much longer period than any order of Christian knighthood, and did more varied and important services to the state. The history of the Janissaries, as might have been expected from their origin, training and character, is full of exciting adventures. Like the famous band of soldiers formed about the same time of the free mountaineers of Switzerland, this infantry of the East composed of Christian slaves, proved invincible wherever their arms were directed. They boasted, and not without a very large measure of truth, that they never turned their backs upon the foe; and they passed from victory to victory with a fiery valor which never seemed to be extinguished. They were called "the nerve and sinew" of the Ottoman army; and they had more to do than all other forces put together in the extension of the Turkish sway. and in times of peril in the salvation of the empire. In their engagements they opposed a formidable phalanx of men severely disciplined, expert in all the artifices of war, blindly devoted to their religion and to the person of their master and comrade, often to the undisciplined troops of Christian princes, under the command of feudal chiefs, and a crowd of knights who had no religious inspiration and no union among themselves; and it need not be wondered at that the victory should have remained in almost every case with the Moslem soldiers. The Janissaries were reserved for the most desperate actions, for the last attack in the field, after the ordinary cavalry and infantry had done their utmost, and for the charge of the forlorn hope when the entrenchments were carried, and the walls of the besieged were scaled. There was one corps among them retained for any work that was more perilous than usual. They were known by the name of Dal Kilitz-or "warriors of the naked sword"-because they threw away their scabbards in token of their resolution to conquer or die. They had no captain of their own, but were at the orders of the chief commander of the Ottoman army-to send them in desperate cases wherever their services were required. In times of peace the Janissaries acted as the police of Constantinople, and as the body-guard of the sultan They also occupied the garrisons of the fortified places, and were employed as a guard of honor for the ambassadors of Christian powers: and they were also attached to the consulates in the commercial towns and |