every engine of venality and intrigue was put in action for its attainment. The minor honours

casion, Suzo (to whose election Russia had formerly objected) was nominated in his stead. But he did not long survive to enjoy his exaltation; he expired in February 1821, at the moment of the breaking out of the insurrection of Prince Ypsilanti.

This project was one in which the natives of the two provinces had neither interest nor concern, since the Turks were not their oppressors, and their influence (thanks to the interference and protection of Russia) had long been very slight in Moldavia and Wallachia. Michael Suzo, however, a young man who had succeeded to the Hospodariat of Moldavia on the retiring of Callimachi, readily joined in the undertaking of Ypsilanti, and involved the two provinces in commotion and civil war. The attempt was fruitless, and on the overthrow of the insurgents, the scene of the contest was left blood-stained and desolate, the Boyars and inhabitants having fled to avoid the vengeance of the Turks, and their dwellings and lands being plundered and despoiled by the combatants. After the suppression of the rebellion, the Turks hastened to restore tranquillity and order; and the Boyars, having returned, sent to them a deputation, entreating the restoration of their ancient code and constitution. The Porte acceded; they received the embassy with courtesy, and in several conferences with the Reis Effendi in 1823, at which the Sultan was present incognito, their future destination was finally arranged. Phanariots were for ever cut off from the service of the Porte. Nicolas Gkika was nominated to the Vaivodalick of Wallachia, and Jouan Stourdza to that of Moldavia, and their ancient privileges and laws, as accorded by Mahomet II. were re-established in the two principalities.

of Interpreters to the fleets or the Divan were sought after merely as initiatory steps to princely distinction, and the hoards accumulated in early life were poured with a lavish hand into the coffers of the Vizier, as the purchase of the envied honour.* The present to this minister on the nomination of a Hospodar, was usually estimated at about eighty-thousand pounds sterling, in return for which, however, his annual revenue was calculated at nearly double that sum. The form of installation was accompanied with all the pomp attendant on that of a Pacha; the kukka, or military crest, was placed on the head of the Hospodar by the Muzhar Aga; the Sultan himself invested him with the capinitza, or robe of honour; and he was permitted to plant three horse-tails before the court of his palace, and standards and military music preceded him to the cathedral of the Patriarch, where he was received with

* Eton, Survey, &c. c. viii. p. 287.

+ Such is the estimate of M. Rabbe: "Ses revenus," says he, "pouvaient monter à quatre millions de francs au moins," p. 99. Wilkinson reduces the amount to 2,000,000 piastres, c. iii. p. 68; and Thornton, vol. ii. c. ix. p. 362, to one million piastres. This discrepancy must arise from stating as a fixed sum the produce of a particular period. The taxes, says Dr. Walsh, are limited to a nominal sum, but are occasionally raised by the prince to any amount, either to gratify the cupidity of the Turks, or his own. c. xiii. p. 288.

all the sacred ceremonies attendant on the inauguration of the Greek emperors.* During the period which elapsed between his appointment+ and his arrival at his government, the province was committed to the care of his Kaimacam, or deputy, whilst the Prince remained at the capital to inhale the incense offered by the crowds of flatterers and parasites who surround his palace; his merchants and tradesmen came in oriental style to lay all their worldly wealth at his feet; his bankers to entreat with earnestness his acceptance of every mahmoudi in their treasury, and the haughtiest suitors of the Phanar to bow themselves before him and pay their early homage to the rising sun.‡

He departed from the capital preceded by his Conakzi or avant-courier, accompanied by one of his horse-tails, who was deputed to arrange the commissariat and order of his progress. The Prince followed with a guard of five hundred attendants surrounding his equipage; and his march, conducted with all the state and pageantry of a Pacha, was divided into easy stages, and generally occupied about thirty days ere he reached the capital of his future domi

• Wilkinson, p. 46. Thornton, vol. ii. p. 340. Rizo,

p. 226.

+ Usually about two months. Zalloni, p. 29.

Zalloni, 28, 35.

nions. Here he made his entry in state, surrounded by his Peiks and Solaks;* and being received by the assembled Boyars and prelates, amidst the ringing of bells, the firing of cannon, the din of military music, and all the paraphernalia of kingly pomp, he was conducted to the metropolitan church, when the Archbishop again performed the ceremonies of inauguration, and conferred on him the title of " God's anointed."+

Assuming with his new dignity a becoming proportion of Oriental effeminacy and hauteur, his court was characterised by extravagance and profusion; his costume differed but in few particulars from that of the Grand Seignior, and his palace was surrounded by hosts of Albanian guards, Wallachian Boyars, and Phanariot dependents. The latter, emerging from the restraints and despotic restrictions of the capital, here revelled in all the luxury of official arrogance and long-stifled pride. Affecting an extreme of enfeebled refinement, their slightest wants were watched by a crowd of domestics; and, lounging in motionless luxury on their splendid sofas, they exacted from their dependents an excess of that respectful homage which

Officers of high rank, who form in state processions the immediate body-guard of the Sultan.

+ Wilkinson, p. 47. Thornton, vol. ii. p. 341.

they had themselves been so long taught to pay their Ottoman masters.* Freed from the trammels of sumptuary laws, their dress vied in magnificence with the richest subjects of the Sultan; and the splendour of their retinues, and richness of their equipages, evinced the extravagant avidity with which they embraced the first opportunity of gratifying a passion which tyranny had before obliged them to suppress.

The Boyars, or native nobility, who formed from a fifteenth to a twentieth part of the entire population,+ enjoyed a reputation scarcely more exalted than that of the Greeks. The order being degraded, in consequence of the right of creating its new members resting with the Hospodar, whose choice did not always light on the most worthy objects; their rank arose chiefly from their wealth and landed possessions, and the number of those who could boast a Sclavonic, or even a moderately remote extraction, was limited in the extreme. Without education or knowledge of the world, and perpetually exposed to the contagion of

* Thornton, vol. ii. p. 370.

+ The population of the two provinces is estimated at one million, and Wallachia alone contains thirty thousand Boyars,