cian Bosphorus, was amongst the most gratifying monuments of the benefits conferred on his country by Demetrius Morousi, who has been already mentioned as the agent of Selim III. for the promotion of education throughout his dominions.* Proius, a native of Scio, was its first director, and occupied for many years the chair of mathematics and natural philosophy, but being transferred to the bishopric of Adrianople, he perished amongst the earliest victims of the revolution. Platon, his countryman and successor, and Stephen Dounkas, a Thessalian, who in turn held the same honourable office, were equally distinguished with their predecessor; the latter, especially, was remarkable for his generous and extended patriotism, and to his liberality and talents Ampelakia was deeply indebted for her literary distinction. The prosperity of Couroutchesmé, notwithstanding occasional impediments, continued till the death of its patron to be strikingly progressive. The fate of Morousi, its benefactor, resembled that of numbers of his class; he was appointed Drogueman to Halet Effendi, the plenipotentiary of the Porte at the treaty of Bucharest in 1812; and the liberal concessions then made to Russia having excited the resent

ment of the Vizir, Demetrius, on his return to Schumla, was sabred in the court-yard of the palace, and his head dispatched to decorate the gate of the seraglio.*

In mentioning the names of those institutions, to which I have here alluded, I have selected only the most prominent of the Grecian seminaries; but it is by no means to be inferred that these were the only sources whence the nation was to derive education and enlightenment. The offshoots of knowledge, like the branches of the banyan-tree, bloom not, to blossom and decay; each strikes deep root into the soil which it overhangs, and becomes in turn the prolific parent of a congenial progeny. But a brief period elapsed from the first ardent cultivation of learning in Greece till its blessings were almost universally diffused; and notwithstanding the vigilant jealousy of despotism, the interruptions of civil war, and the perpetual obstructions of poverty, scarcely fifteen years of the present century had passed till every community of the Greeks, either at home, in Turkey, or abroad, possessed a school for the instruction of youth in an acquaintance with their vulgar tongue, and in most instances with their ancient language and the sciences of

* Rabbe, p. 108. Walsh, pp. 274, 275. Rizo, p. 103.

modern Europe.* The manners and habits of the nation began at the same time to assume a new aspect from the cultivation of their minds, and even the more advanced indications of civilization existed amongst them in a perfection altogether remarkable in a people who but a few years before were ignorant even in name of European refinements. Theatres were established at Bucharest, Yassi, Odessa, and Corfu,t

* Douglas, p. 73. Rabbe, p. 172. Leake, p. 228.

+ I subjoin an announcement of the performance at the theatre of Corfu on the 19th of February 1825, when Alfieri's Orestes was represented.

Κερκύρᾳ τῇ 7719 Φευρουαρίου 1825.

Σαββάτῳ ἐσπέρας παρασταίνεται καὶ δευτέραν φορὰν παρὰ τῶν ἰδίων φιλοκάλων νέων, ὁ ΟΡΕΣΤΗΣ ΤΟΥ ΑΛΦΙΕΡΟΥ, Τραγωδία εἰς πέντη πράξεις, μεταφρασμένη εἰς τὴν ἁπλοελλη νικήν μας γλῶσσαν. Τὸ Θέατρον ὅλον θέλει εἶσθαι φωταγωγη μένον. Η δὲ τιμὴ τῆς εἰσόδου ἡ συνειθισμένη.

Η παράστασις θέλει ἀρχίση εἰς τὰς 7 ὥρας τῷ Εσπέρας παρὰ τέταρτον.

and four journals, published in Romaic, were widely circulated throughout almost every district. The character of the national literature likewise assumed a totally different tone, and the preponderance which had once been usurped by theology and polemics was now unanimously assigned to history and poetry, morals, philology, and science.†

* Rizo, Cours, &c. p. 102. Leake, p. 234. Jowett, p. 71. Of an imperfect list, casually collected, of about three hundred Romaic works, original and translated, published / since 1750, sixteen are on theology and biblical criticism, three on jurisprudence and political economy, nineteen on ethics and moral philosophy, eleven on geography and topography, nine on arithmetic and algebra, ten on mathematics, fourteen on natural philosophy and chemistry, thirteen on medical science, three on navigation and military tacties, two on the fine arts, fifty-three on history, chronology, and historical biography, two travels, twenty-one poetical translations, sacred and profane poetry and the drama, ‡ three novels and romances, five on philology, six lexicography, eleven on grammar, nine on logic and rhetoric, eight on metaphysics, five on astronomy, three on natural history, besides several on miscellaneous subjects chiefly connected with education and the belles lettres, and a number of editions and commentaries on the classics.

Besides some translations of the dramas of Voltaire, Racine, and Moliere, Rizo says that "Les chefs d'œuvre de Schiller, de Goethe, de Kotzebue, de Gessner, de Wieland, d'Alfieri, de Monti, de Metastase ont passé dans nôtre langue." Cours, &c. p. 147.

It is in vain, with such details as these before us, to assert that the Greek revolution was the produce of political machinations or external interference. Its origin is alone to be traced in the aroused intelligence of the nation; it was the schools and the colleges of Greece which effectually destroyed the equilibrium of oppression and endurance; and it is to her Constandas and Philippides, her Vamvas and Benjamins, that she is indebted for her freedom, rather than to the swords of her chieftains or the cannon of her allies.

The main support of all this improvement, and that to which its earliest dawnings and its latest success are to be alike attributed, was the advancing commerce of the Greeks. The advantages which her insular and maritime population had derived from the treaties of Kainardji and Yassi,† they had ample opportunities of improving during the hostilities between France and England, which continued from the latter end of the last to the beginning of the present century, when the islanders, profit

* It was so declared at Laybach. See De Pradt's Aperçu sur la Grèce, appended to his Parallèle de la Puissance Anglaise et Russe relativement à l'Europe, Paris 1823, p. 178. Waddington's Visit to Greece, Introd.; and the first chapter of Soutzo's History of the Revolution.

↑ See ante, c. xvi. p. 420.