such a delay would be created, and such an immense Ottoman force would be collected around Constantinople, that a Russian army would be placed in the most imminent danger from Austria, in the rear, unless the operation had been previously combined with the latter power upon an understanding of mutual aggrandizement.

A gradual encroachment preparatory to ulterior conquest is the plan, therefore, that leads most surely to success. The relative position of Russia and Turkey would be very different from that which has prevailed for the last half century, if Greece had been previously for some time divided into principalities under Russian guarantee and inspection. Its governors and other persons in authority would then be little more than Russian agents, and during a preceding state of peace such a preparation might be made for a diversion to the southward, on any sudden assumption of hostilities, as would leave the Porte little chance of resistance on the northern side of the Bosphorus.

It would seem, therefore, that the Ottoman government should above all things be averse to the plan for governing Greece to which we have just alluded, and that it ought not to be indisposed

to a friendly arrangement with the insurgents on the basis of a partial independence, by which measure alone it can hope in future to derive any useful assistance in war from the Greek seamen, whose loss it already severely feels. But the obstinacy of pride and ignorance, aided, perhaps, by the advice of some Europeans, trembling at the further dispansion of free principles, blinds the Porte to its real interests, and leads it to believe, that Greece may still be reduced to its former state of bondage.

LONDON, December, 1825.

NOTE

TO PAGE 5, line 13.

IN adverting to the Histories or Memoirs of the Greek Insurrection which have been compiled in Europe, it is impossible to avoid some more particular notice of one of them, which, having been written by a person long resident in Greece, and who, while composing his work, was in correspondence with a brother remaining in that country, may be considered, from these circumstances, as entitled to the public confidence. The work to which we allude is the "Histoire de la Régénération de la Grèce," by M. Pouqueville. It consists of four volumes, in octavo, and includes the modern history of Greece, from the year 1740 to the end of 1823.

The author, as many of our readers may know, has already published two books of travels in Greece. The first, called "Voyage en Morée," appeared in the year 1805, in three volumes, octavo, and consisted of such very imperfect information as the author could collect during a close imprisonment at Tripolitza, and at Constantinople, added to that, which some of his comrades. in captivity obtained under similar circumstances at Ioannina. The second work, intituled, "Voyage dans la Grèce," is in five thick and closely printed octavos, and contains the result of the author's observations during a residence of eleven years in Greece, in the capacity of consul-general of France.

One of the author's principal objects in these two

P

works (as it must be of all travellers in Greece) was an illustration of the ancient geographers and historians by means of topographical researches. So well satisfied is he with the result of his labours, that he congratulates himself in the Preface to the "Voyage dans la Grèce," on having at length "débrouillé le cahos, qui couvrait l'antique Hellade." It appears, however, from M. Pouqueville's Narrative, that he travelled very little in any part of Northern Greece beyond the limits of Epirus; it is not surprising, therefore, that his attempts to describe districts which he never saw, and to accommodate mere oral information to the ancient authorities, have often produced erroneous results. Even in Epirus, which he had such ample means of exploring during a ten years' residence at Ioannina, his conclusions are scarcely less defective than in the provinces which he had not personally examined. Embarrassed where to place Dodona, he spreads the honours of the site over a space of twenty-five miles; he mistakes the ruins of Charadrus for those of Ambracia, and the river Arachthus for the Inachus, errors of such radical importance that they involve in absurdity the ancient geography of all the adjacent country.

In the Peloponnesus M. Pouqueville could not so easily go astray, that country being better known than Northern Greece; but having traversed only a few of the principal routes, he has added very little to the geographical information on the peninsula which the public already possessed.

The incorrectness with which M. Pouqueville writes the modern Greek names is by no means an unimportant defect in a work that aspires to be a guide to the geo

graphy of Greece. Sometimes he Gallicizes the names, as "Loroux, Dremichoux," for Aoupos, Tpauεтous, "les monts Olichiniens," "les Haliacmonts," for the mountains called Ὀλύτζικα, Λιάκα, and often they are purposely distorted to support some favourite paradox, as in the instances of Iapouria, or Iapygia, Aidonia, Toxides, Caulonias, instead of Liaberí, Aidonát (the Turkish corruption of Saint Donatus), Toshke, Kolonia. which are the real modern names. The poverty of his acquisitions in Grecian geography is shown at once by the diminutive scale of his map, a single glance at which will equally prove its inaccuracy to every person acquainted with the country-Ioannina, the place of his long residence, instead of being nearly midway, as he places it, between the eastern and western coasts, is in truth only 32 geographical miles in direct distance from the nearest shore of Epirus, or between one third and one fourth part of the breadth of Northern Greece.

We have found it impossible to avoid these observations on M. Pouqueville's geography of Greece, because it has been necessary to enter briefly into the same subject in the present Memoir.

As to the "Histoire de la Régénération," we find it written in the same romantic and poetical style which prevails in the author's Travels, and which, although often very agreeably applied by him to local description and the representation of manners, is not so well suited to a statement of facts. Instead of a plain narrative, the author has entered into the supposed causes, combinations, and consequences of each trifling event; relating, as if he had been present, the speeches that were spoken, as well as the actions