shine among ladies of rank and fashion, an unlucky intrigue, which he had communicated with imprudent confidence to another female, ended by the former lady being sent to the borders of the Black Sea into a convent; and his own irregularities terminated in his dismission from office as well as from his master's house, whence he departed with the remark of one of his fellow-servants as an omen that, happen what might, he was sure to fall on his legs.

Having exhausted his few piastres, and made the usual experiment on his former friends with the usual success, he wished them all at the devil, and crossed over to Galata. Here he was reduced by the assistance of a few riotous companions to his last para, and had recourse to a friend, whom he consulted as to the mode in " which people lived who had not the usual means of subsistence?" Vasili shews him a distant view of the capital as the theatre of adventure to the needy, gives him a few small coins, and urges him to purchase a meaner dress by disposing of the fine clothes which he wore. He then, Gil Blas like, enters into partnership with a Jew quack-doctor, who fell in love with his looks as he was anxiously hunting about for employment. A series of amusing adventures follows, and they prescribe, administer, and kill by wholesale: but, having practised for a time with great success, some unlucky circumstance betrays the real characters of the physician and his deputy; and they are seized by a posse of police myrmidons, who convey them to prison.

A heart-withering description ensues, painted, we doubt not, from the life, of the dreadful prison of Constantinople called the Bagnio; and here Anastasius remains some weeks, withbut a hope of liberation, till the plague broke out in its confines. In this desolate place, and in the midst of the ravages of that dreadful malady, he forms a friendship with an amiable Greek youth, Anagnosti, whose story is told with the most touching pathos. Such was the solace of their common calamity, derived from this friendship, that, according to the custom of the Greek church, they became brothers by exchanging solemn vows, imposing the sacred obligation of standing by each other in life and death, and the rites of which were accordingly performed by a priest of that communion. Just at this period, which indissolubly riveted their intimacy, Anastasius is released from prison; and, agonized by the separation, he is literally driven out of its gates, with his heart torn and desolate, and all Constantinople open before him, without a para in his pocket.

In

In a fit of inanition, he seized and swallowed a bowl of hoshab (iced beverage) from a coffee-house, the sudden chill of which overpowered his exhausted frame; and he was not awakened from insensibility, till he found himself on a porter's back, who was conveying him to the hospital, and from whom he extricated himself by fixing his claws in his throat, and squeezing him almost to suffocation. He then crawled to a stepping-stone near the place where the porter had left himto die. During a second fit, he was conveyed to an hospital of the Greeks, called St. Demetrius, and he awoke to find himself under a filthy coverlid, next to a dead man. Here, in his progress to convalescence, he formed various projects of amendment, and was at last released.

After various adventures, during which he gets a thriving livelihood at Pera as interpreter to the Franks (a term comprehending all Europeans) who visited the metropolis, and resided in that suburb, he plays a variety of pranks, involves himself in intrigues, and commits a few dexterous frauds, which considerably advance his fortunes. At last, he is caught by a jealous husband, an effendi, in the harem of his spouse, is pursued, and takes refuge in a mosque; and a mob having been raised against the Greek, he expected in a few minutes to be torn to pieces. The only measure which remained was to draw his dagger, throw his back against the mihrab, (altar) and to exclaim, "I am a Moslemin!" The proof of his being in the harem was merely circumstantial; and, though it constituted sufficient grounds to massacre an infidel, a follower of the true faith was safe, and every breath of accusation was instantly hushed. He had long meditated this proselytism: accident urged it on somewhat sooner; and in the same mosque he went through the forms of conversion.

Insulted by an emir, who had bespattered his elegant Turkish dress from head to foot with the mud of a puddle into which he had dexterously guided his horse, and meditating revenge, he saw start up before him, as from the very bowels of the earth, Anagnosti, his friend and his brother; whom he had left buried in the Bagnio, and for whose liberation, immersed as he was in business and intrigue, he had as yet made no effort, nor even entertained a thought. It was a severe rebuke to his neglect, but above all to his apostacy. Among his new associates, with whom he had disclaimed his country and his religion, and learnt to abuse the whole race of Christian dogs, Anagnosti's undesired presence humbled and disgraced him, and he sought to avoid it, but in vain.

Resent

Resentment of the neglect and the apostacy of his friend embittered the feelings of Anagnosti into rebuke: Anastasius, enraged at the invective, had mechanically drawn his handjar (poignard) from his girdle; and Anagnosti rushed on its sharpened point, and buried it deeply in his side.

The death of Anagnosti is feelingly described, and Anastasius is made to feel the heavy hand of the Almighty upon him. He had abandoned his God, and lost his friend. He surrenders himself to the nearest court of justice for trial: when his innocence is asserted by the spectators, and the cadee acquits him but not his conscience, which unceasingly upbraids him. He again resorts to the haunts of mirth and the society of the thoughtless for relief from these obtrusive reflections, and his purse begins to sympathise with the depression of his spirits. In this melancholy state, sauntering along the quay, he is recognized by an inhabitant of Chio, the captain of one of the vessels at anchor, who informs him of the events that had happened in his family: stating that his mother had died, and left her property to his eldest sister, and advising him, in his quality as Moslemin, to try which would go the farthest, his mother's partiality or the law. He accordingly obtains the personal property from his sister, after having spent half of it in the difficulties of recovering it from the hands of the person with whom it had been deposited at Constantinople, and proceeds in a Greek vessel to Chio to enforce his title to her landed property. On this voyage, the vessel encounters one of those storms which rage with the wildest fury in the Archipelago, and which the author has described with much picturesque truth. Anastasius finds himself, soon after it abated, opposite the isle of Chio, and now revisits the spots that were endeared by the incidents of early life, all of which rush on his recollection in a throng of varied associations. The paternal mansion seemed to be solitude and desolation themselves; and, like Ulysses, his only welcome is from an aged dog, whom he had left nearly a whelp. He hears from an old man, however, who did not recognize him, the sort of reception which he was likely to experience from the surviving members of his family. By them he is repulsed with unfeeling harshness; and he rushes away from the house. Helena, too, was no more! She had survived the birth of her dead infant only a few hours.

He now repairs to Naxos, in order to obtain possession of his property from an uncle, (Marco Politi, whose character is humorously delineated,) who for twenty-five years had taken care to nurse it as his own. The terror of the Moslemin name

influenced

influenced the primate to comply with demands which he knew not well how to evade; but Anastasius, after much bullying on his part, and a thousand quibbles on that of his uncle, when he had gotten all the concern into his hands, with all the vouchers and documents belonging to it, finds himself a loser by the bargain, for the whole was an inexplicable ænigma: a host of creditors urged their demands on the estate, for which he had made himself responsible; and at last, when he is worn out with perplexity, Marco, who watched his opportunity, offers to take the whole back again for a round sum. This proposition is adopted by our hero, who is glad to accept half the value of the property, which he puts into a bag, and departs.

In want of occupation, and without any precise aim, he embarks in a vessel of which the cruize round the circumjacent islands was to finish at Rhodes; and he contracts an intimacy at sea with Aly, a Tchawoosh (messenger) of the Capitan Pasha, of whom some amusing anecdotes are introduced, and who favours him with an account of his adventures.

Rhodes is painted with much strength and beauty of colouring. The taste of Anastasius for travelling is now fed by fresh excitement; and the conversation of Aly gives him a longing desire to visit Egypt, which is still more inflamed by hints from the same person respecting the advancement that might be expected in the land of the Mamelukes; as well as by a promise to introduce him to one of the rulers of that country, with strong recommendations of his fitness to enter into his service as a Mameluke. With these views, Anastasius proceeds on his voyage to Egypt, which is narrated with great minuteness and elegance; and he soon beholds the town of Alexandria, crowned with minarets and encircled by datetrees. Various adventures, characteristic of the manners and customs of the Alexandriotes, are well introduced; with an accurate description of the voyage from that city to Raschid, of which the verdant freshness, rising on the margin of a fine river, and embosomed in orange and date-trees, is forcibly contrasted with the yellow aridity of Alexandria. He next sails in a maash (a covered boat) up the Nile to Cairo ; and a native of that city, during this voyage, gives him a sketch of the political events of Egypt. For this long but interesting recital, which lasts till they arrive at Cairo, and which abounds with information that is inaccessible to the general reader, and we believe is not to be acquired without a local acquaintance with the country, we must refer the curious on topics of this nature to the book itself.

The

The dexterities of Anastasius in martial exercises, and a little learning which he had acquired at Pera among the Franks, astonished the Turkish grandee, who could scarcely read; and who had always supposed that India was contiguous to England, and that Voltaire had been Pope of Rome, from their constant juxta-position in the books of the missionaries. These qualities, and the recommendation which he carried, introduce our hero to the service of Suleiman, with whom he rapidly ingratiates himself, and whom he cures of a violent fever by a dose of James's powders. In recompence of this lucky hit, Anastasius, under the Turkish name of Selim Aga, is made Multezim, or proprietor of a district; and the Bey, teased to death with the jealousy and murmurings of the Mamelukes on this occasion, hurries off his favourite to his province, having added to it the more valuable post and higher dignity of Caïmakam (lieutenant-governor) of Samanhood.

The journey to the seat of government conveys much interesting information concerning the political state of the country, whose fate is to be the alternate victim of avowed rapacity or secret extortion. A thousand vexations make Anastasius anxious for a release from his office; and, being recalled sooner than he expected, he proceeds to Cairo in a state of dreadful uncertainty as to the causes of his disgrace: but his fears are agreeably dissipated by fresh marks of confidence from his patron, who offers him his youngest daughter, names him Kiachef, and confides to him an intended plan for putting down some rival chiefs, who had assumed to themselves more than their share of the joint plunder of the country. His marriage is narrated in a manner skilfully descriptive of the several local ceremonies; and the usual preliminaries having been concluded before he could be indulged with a sight of the bride, he revolts from the little uninteresting being, who is neither ugly nor handsome, when she is first unveiled to his observation. A year convinces him that, instead of a mistress, he had obtained a master; and to the tyranny of a capricious, obstinate, and jealous female, he submits with as good a grace as possible, happy to set out on an annual visit to his province, where he riots in the luxury of receiving presents and imposing tributes.

He is scarcely seated in his new office, however, when he receives news of the alarming illness of his spouse; who, as he found on his arrival at Cairo, had already received her summons from the angel of Death. The expedition against the Beys is now resumed; and its various fortunes, with Anastasius's participation in them, are given in much detail. He

at