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religion and neuer to bee shaken in it. serue, this shall bee ye last time you brother) yor most affectionate brother,

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Weh if you doe not obwill heare from (deare CHARLES R."

Mr. Evelyn does not once mention, and therefore we may presume that he did not know, this infamous connection between the two monarchs: but even Charles's cabal-ministers were not all aware of the exact extent of it, and it was not likely that Mr. Evelyn should. He once dined with Barillon, little suspecting the main object of his mission, whom he styles a learned and crafty advocate.' As to Charles's religion,-if we must call a barren belief in certain doctrines, without one practical virtue, by the name of religion,-it was certainly Catholic; and Barillon, in one of his dispatches to his royal master, has given a remarkably interesting account of Charles's declaration of faith on his dying bed. Catholics and Protestants were hovering around, both eager to catch his departing spirit, and contending for the honour of bearing it away into the realms of beatitude: but the former obtained the holy prize, by means of a Scotch priest named Huddlestone, who was introduced in disguise by a back stair-case, and who administered to him extreme unction, after he had refused to receive the sacrament from the Protestant prelates of Canterbury, London, Durham, Ely, and Bath and Wells, who were round about him. * This relation has been since confirmed by James II., in the "Memoirs of his Life," p. 747.; and a curious account of Charles's Catholic confession, corroborative of both, is now to be seen in these volumes, p. 581., and particularly p.612, &c. vol. i.; likewise, p. 229., vol. ii. part i.

TH

[To be continued.]

ART. II. Anastasius; or Memoirs of a Greek.
[Article concluded from p. 16.]

"HE reader, we doubt not, will thank us for thus punctually resuming our report of this amusing as well as informing publication. In continuing our analysis of the story of its

* Huddlestone, it seems, "parce que de lui-même ce n'etoit pas un grand docteur," had been instructed what to do by a Portuguese Carmelite. The Duke of York, says Barillon, assured me that he performed his duty extremely well, "et qu'il fit formellement promettre au Roi d'Angleterre, de se déclarer ouvertement Catholique s'il revenoit en santé" As Charles did not recover, we cannot positively say that the well-known old epigram would have applied to his case, but it is extremely probable: "The Devil was sick," &c. &c.

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hero, we accompany him in a visit to Djedda, on the Red Sea, and next to Mekkah, where he witnesses the arrival of the pilgrims after the long and fatiguing march of the Caravan across the Desert. Having walked round the Kaaba seven times, kissed the black stone as often, and complied with other rites of indispensable necessity to the true believer, he proceeds with the caravan to Medinah, a more agreeable place; and at last, having survived the privations and accidents of the Desert, which carried off nearly a fourth of the party, he arrives at Damascus.

At Stamboul, Anastasius found that important revolutions had happened during his absence, and that his old patron Mavroyeni had wriggled himself into the governorship of Wallachia, the highest post that a Greek can obtain in the Turkish empire. Here, chance threw in his way one of the early friends of his youth, Spiridion; and the growth of this friendship, from its birth to its melancholy termination, ranks among the most beautiful descriptions in the work. To Anastasius he was the good genius, whose voice, had it been obeyed, would have reclaimed him from vice and wretchedness: but the sway which that amiable youth toiled unceasingly to retain over the passions of his companion was feeble and ineffectual, and the latter falls an unpitied victim.

The dissipations and follies of Anastasius shut the door and the heart of Mavrocordato (Spiridion's father) against him; and on the twentieth of the Ramadan he finds himself with a tremendous appetite, and only five sequins in the world. In a rencontre, he kills a person who had insulted him, and throws the body over the wall of an adjoining cemetery. It then becomes advisable to decamp; and Spiridion pursues him in his flight, in order to unite his destinies to those of his friend, who was now an outcast and a wanderer. Much of the interest of the second volume is derived from the ardent, high-minded, and heroic Spiridion; of which, it is obvious, no portion can be imparted in a rapid outline, like the present.

Anastasius's interview with his brothers in his native isle, his conduct on that occasion, and the moral influence imperceptibly but steadily exercised over him by the gentle and virtuous Spiridion, are eloquent passages, full of vigorous and embellished painting; and the transactions that happened during their sojourn at Chio, which terminated in the loss of that invaluable friend, are so beautifully and pathetically narrated, as to constitute the most interesting part of the story.

He now returns to the land of the Mamlukes, in the military service of the Capitan-Pasha, (who was pursuing the

rebels

rebels of Upper Egypt,) in the place of a captain of Dellis, who had been fortunately killed on the very morning of his arrival; and he enters with alacrity on the duties of his rank by pocketing the surplus of the pay, and selling the superRumerary rations. Marching on to Cairo, which he had left a Mamluke city, he finds it changed into a Turkish camp. His old patron and father-in-law, Suleiman, being on the side of the rebels, he attempts to take him prisoner, but succeeds only in carrying off his favourite Tootoondgee (bearer of the tobacco-pouch); a prize which was afterward redeemed by a handjar studded with diamonds, and the Bey's order on Cairo for two thousand sequins.

Here

Hassan, having reaped all that he expected in plunder and confiscation, patched up a treaty; and Anastasius, having repaired his shattered fortunes, returns in his suite to Constantinople. Spiridion, though parted from him for ever, had negotiated with the family of the person whom he had killed. A war with Austria and Russia, in 1788, was declared; Wallachia was the seat of the first campaign; and, with powerful letters to Mavroyeni, our hero proceeds to that province, to which the journey is as usual described with much beauty of delineation, interspersed with curious anecdotes. Anastasius is appointed to the command of a corps of Arnaouts (Albanians), and marches at their head to the eastern frontier, which borders on Moldavia, occupied by the Russians. The contest embraces a wide field of action and reflection, and is carried on with various success. The policy of the Sublime Porte, the wretched and discordant materials which compose their armies, and the intrigues and rapacity of those to whom the conduct of it was committed, are sketched with a masterly hand, and with the faithfulness of authentic history.

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After some intermediate wanderings and adventures, Anastasius is again at Constantinople, determined to act on the maxims of that philosophy which recommends every pleasure of life to be grasped and enjoyed, and to run down the stream of present prosperity with every sail expanded to the breeze. A short-hand marriage, called by the Turks Cabeen, which leaves each party at liberty whenever inclined to separate, is very agrecably interposed. He goes to Smyrna, on the invitation of a relative, who was desirous of having some branch of the family-stock to be his associate for the remnant of his days, on condition of being his heir at his decease: but, on his arrival, he finds his loving cousin gone to Trieste. For amusement, he forms an intrigue with Euphrosyne, in the mere heroism of vice; and, having enticed her from her friends on whom she was dependent, he leaves her afterward

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to misery and want. The narrative is pathetically told. The lofty, the admired Euphrosyne, who on the morning' might have beheld all Smyrna at her feet, saw herself at mid-day installed in the lodging of a roving adventurer, his avowed and public mistress !' Devoted to her seducer, without a home or a refuge, she was at last compelled to leave him, and died after the birth of her son Alexis, in wretchedness and solitude.

His next adventure is a predatory expedition to Bagdad: but his first experiment in his new vocation terminates in the unexpected discovery of a friend, the Swedish Consul-General, at Smyrna, at whose feet he casts his plunder, is forgiven, and relieved. He then joins a caravan of Armenian merchants, and the scene successively shifts to Scanderoon and Aleppo; from which last place he sets out with a caravan for Bagdad, by the circuit of Moosool, instead of the Great Desert, and every day has an interesting adventure. At length he reaches that celebrated city, through a suburb of mud, and over a bridge of boats; exclaiming, 'Is this the capital of Harounal-Raschid; this the residence of Zobeïde; this the favourite scene of eastern romance? How fallen from its eastern splendor!' Achmet, once a groom in the Pasha of Bagdad's stable, governed, during the imbecillity of his master, those vast provinces, and was at that time carrying on a war in the name of the Pasha, with a new set of heretics sprung up in the desert of Arabia, under the name of Wahabees; and we are presented with a sketch of the origin and progress of those powerful innovators. * This tribe our hero afterward resolves to join; and the occurrences of the journey across the Desert, towards the territory of the Wahabees, his sojourn in a camp of the Bedoweens, the beautiful description of the Samiel, the fiery wind of the Desert, and his residence at Derayeh, the capital of the Wahabee tribe, -follow in an interesting succession. Here he marries the sister of a distinguished Arab, of whom he soon grows heartily tired, and with good reason. The manners, tenets, and policy of these lords of the desert are amply described. Having lost his wife, his anxieties are directed towards his child; and, having become habituated to the Wahabees, he thinks of ending his days among them: but, being suspected of treachery, he falls into disgrace, and disdainfully leaves them. We next see him moving on a new but not very distant stage, with another Arab tribe, of whom a minute description ensues; and, two years after his departure from

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*The reader will find some account of this sect in our sixtyfirst vol. N. S. p. 518.

Bagdad,

The rest of his journey to
The romance is now

Bagdad, we find him at Acre. Constantinople we cannot follow. drawing to its closing scene; and, soon after the discovery and loss of the interesting Alexis, the curtain drops on the frailties and struggles of Anastasius.

We have traced this sketch, not for the purpose of conveying to our readers any notion of the turns and vicissitudes of the story, but because we consider the work as no trifling accession to the literature of our country; and we were desirous of giving, as it were in a map, a slight view of the peregrinations and wanderings of the hero, in order to point out how prolific of curious knowlege, and interesting remark, a book of this character must necessarily be in the hands of a skilful and intelligent artist. We have not much room for extracts: but we have selected some passages, which will at the same time afford a specimen of the rare powers of the writer, and impart within a short compass no slight portion of authentic information on the topics which they illustrate.

We take first the following animated picture of the approach to Constantinople, as the vessel shot rapidly through the Propontis. The outline our readers may fill up, by turning to the masterly picture of the same scenes by Gibbon *, and the accurate dissertation of D'Anville on the Hellespont. †

With eyes rivetted on the opening splendors, I watched, as they rose out of the bosom of the surrounding waters, the pointed minarets, the swelling cupolas, and the innumerable habitations, which, either stretching away along the winding shore, reflected their image in the wave, or, creeping up the steep sides of the mountains, traced their outline on the sky. At first agglomerated in a single confused mass, the lesser parts of this immense whole seemed, as we advanced, by degrees to unfold, to disengage themselves from each other, and to grow into various groups, divided by wide chasms and deep indentures, until at last the clusters, thus far still distantly connected, became transformed as if by magic into three entirely different cities, each individually of prodigious extent, and each separated from the others by a wide arm of that sea, whose silver tide encompassed their stupendous base, and made it rest half on Europe and half on Asia. Entranced by the magnificent spectacle, I felt as if all the faculties of my soul were insufficient fully to embrace its glories: I hardly retained power to breathe; and almost apprehended that in doing so, I might dispel the gorgeous vision, and find its whole vast fabric only a delusive dream!'

We cannot omit the horrors of the Turkish Bagnio, (a

* Decline and Fall, vol. ii. 4to.

+ Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions, vol. xxviii.

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prison,)

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