The cause of exultation to the three pedestrians on the bank is the fact that, in the aquatic struggle, their friend Popjoy has distanced, by some lengths, his local rival Pedder. The excitement is maddening. Pedder has four friends running by his side, rending the air with their shouts of encouragement. Popjoy growing elated with victory, becomes careless, and standing rather too long on one tack, runs his skiff head-foremost into the bank, and there sticks fast. Pedder's backers yell with malignant joy, and he, gathering fresh courage from his antagonist's mishap, jerks his skiff forward (this, my non-boating reader, is called "putting on a spurt"), and runs the stationary Popjoy down, in rowing phraseology, "bumps " him. "A foul" is claimed for both parties; the dispute grows warm, and Popjoy and Pedder, with their several friends and patrons, rush off to the umpires, before whom they carry on the controversy. The umpires, one of whom is classical, and quotes three times Non nostrum inter vos," &c., while another of satirical vein, calls them "Arcades ambo," and translates it (aside) "both are cads," at length give a decision, but what it was I really never cared to inquire, and cannot therefore inform my reader. I leave Trevor and Sparkey betting about a trick with three cards, which a vagabond was displaying to a select knot of men round him, much to his self-aggrandizement, and return to the ladies on the bridge. The Rev. Tomlinson, who is very strong in small talk, is still there-the ladies are all laughing. It is perfectly clear that I have not been missed, and need not apologize for my absence. But Tomlinson, of course, rallies me, and says that, during my wanderings on the bank, it seemed to the ladies" the bridge of sighs." "Pons asinorum," I retort, in a low voice, to the reverend wag. He takes forthwith to conundrums, informs the ladies that there is a connection between the spirit-rappings and table-moving, because he says the table, as it goes round, is a circulating medium. He asserts that when the spirits do not reply, it is because they do not care a rap for the interrogator, and, waxing classical, avers that the Horatian reason for table-moving is "Solvuntur risu tabulæ." I finish the line to him, "tu missus abibis," and Tomlinson thinking that, after his jokes, he can make what is called a "strong exit," takes off simultaneously his hat-and himself.

By this time the bridge looks gayer, the river more beautiful, and the whole scene more exciting. The bands are playing popular polkas and stirring waltzes on the barge; the church bells are ringing, the sun comes out brightly, and the wide reach of river sparkles below us; the two university eight-oar boats pass under the arches of the bridge, on their way to the starting post. Every one is lunching on the carriages, although the dust is blowing into the champagne and the lobster salad. The gipsies are as troublesome as ever. University men, in neck-ties of dark blue and light blue, many with "zephyrs," a few with white hats, and many, I fear, smoking, pass to and fro. The little iron steamer from a neighbouring town, runs up and down the river, with its Lilliputian funnel puffing and snorting most hilariously; on the

left bank, some people enjoy the Regatta, in a haughty and exclusive manner from their own windows and gardens; the right bank is crowded with spectators, and with the green fields behind, and the well-wooded hill above them, there lies before us such a sight as is not elsewhere to be found.

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But the race of the day will now take place. Popjoy and Pedder are forgotten. A contest between a college at Cambridge and the Corsair Club has gone off without enthusiasm, but now Oxford and Cambridge, with picked river heroes, will strive for aquatic preeminence Now, plausible young gentlemen, of a sporting turn, with book and pencil in hand, ask if you will lay the odds on Oxford. Of course you reply that you expect he will lay them on Cambridge; a small bet, on even terms, is concluded, and you feel, for the time, very sporting indeed. The boats have started; not three or four, but three or four hundred, shouting maniacs rush along the river side; Tomlinson, who passes me at the moment, observes drily that there is a run on the bank." I have so often run over people, and been run over at Henley, that, on this occasion, I stay with the ladies. It is a stoutly contested race. If you want a description of it, read the fifth Æneid, or Bell's Life." In the latter you may find, some two or three years back, profoundest criticisms by Charon, and slashing letters from Menippus -Cerberus also had his bark. Suffice it that Oxford wins-1 am in ecstasies. From the combined effects of the champagne and the victory, I feel almost maudlin with sentimental joy, and so I stroll up the town by myself, and muse over past Regattas. There stands the balcony of the inn where I was introduced to the crowd of small boys as Feargus O'Connor-a frolic long ago chronicled in "Bentley's Miscellany." There is the long room used on Sundays for schismatical teaching, which we, with daring profanity, turned into a theatre, and in it played classic tragedy, travesties most laughable, and screaming farce. Which of us does not remember the pulpit in the green room? who can forget how Stapyldon and I, who were noble Greek youths in the tragedy, had but one pair of sandals between us, and how he went on in his stockings; how I had to borrow a sheet from the hotel for a toga; how Herringham, having to pronounce a benediction in blank verse, on the youthful hero of the play, put his hand upon his head, and losing his presence of mind, said, "God bless you, my boy;" how Stapyldon, having appointed his man-servant check-taker, the said check-taker got drunk, and when a great civic authority presented an order for admission, signed by Staplydon, the inebriated treasurer first denied him entrance, and, on his remonstrating, thrashed him.

Next I pass a spot where we pulled down a pig-sty, and erected a barricade, but, as Cicero says of Athens "quacunque ingredimur in aliquam historiam vestigium ponimus ;" and as I should only grow more sentimental as I think over those days of reckless jollity, I will, therefore, cry "vive valeque" to my reader, and tell him that, though I still go to Henley, I am now a wiser and a sadder men.

TURKEY, ITS HOPES AND PERILS.

THE spirits and the powers of North, East, and West, the South being identified with the East, meet at that central point of the old continent, the Bosphorus, and carry on, as they have done for centuries, an inveterate struggle. Greece, Persia, and Scythia met and fought there in the time of Herodotus. The fortune of the quarrel has since then gone every way, yet been never definitely decided. Greece conquered Asia, and Asia, in turn, conquered Greece. Turban has succeeded helmet, the crescent the cross. Now the cocked hat must have its day, and the Papas threaten to make short work of the Mufti.

Nations will never want pretexts for interfering with one another. In the olden times, it was a plain stand and deliver quarrel,-the strong came to strip and enslave the weak. Now-a-days, conquerors come forward with much more politeness in their manifestos. They are never actuated by avarice or ambition—oh, no! it would be a very casus belli to suspect them. Sometimes the wolf says to the lamb, you are troubling the popular waters, you are too noisy, too democratic, and I will devour you. But even this is growing exploded, and now the pretext is humanity. England, with great philanthropy, has coerced the whole world to join the crusade against black slavery. And now Russia says, she will not have Christians maltreated by Mahomedans. The Czar stands forth as the patron of all the Greek Church in the Ottoman empire, and demands to be recognised as such.

Hereupon all the press of London and Paris set up a clamour, that Russia demands the sovereignty over the twelve millions of Turkish Christians, leaving but two millions of Turkish Mahomedans for the Sultan to reign over. This is such a misrepresentation of the case, that it had better be rectified at once. However, the Christians of Turkey in Europe may be twelve millions to three or four millions of Mahomedans, counting the Arnauts; in Asia there are ten or eleven millions of Turks to one or two of Christians. Then, again, the Christians of Turkey in Europe are conglomerated in the northern provinces: four millions in Bulgaria, four millions in Wallachia and Moldavia, one million in Servia. With respect to all these, Russia makes no demand beyond the statu quo.

But before proceeding to give such local and personal sketches as may pourtray the seat of strife, and afford some acquaintance with its dramatis persona, let us state the case and the quarrel briefly and impartially and truly, without either bowing the knee, or blowing the trumpet, as is the necessity of diurnal writers.

The gallant and prominent part which France took in the great crusades is well known. It is well known also, that French and other knights established kingdoms in the Holy Land, and as an adjunct to those kingdoms, founded convents and Latin churches.

When the kingdoms were overthrown, the convents and churches remained. The French made what terms they could for them, amounting indeed to mere complimentary words, such as the giving them the keys of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, terms which the Turks soon forgot. When, however, Francis the First made an ally of the Turk against his great rival Charles the Fifth, the French, naturally in favour at Constantinople, made use of it to procure protection for the convents and churches of the Holy Land and of the Archipelago.

A century later, the French sought to make active use of their privilege, and under the influence of Mary of Medicis, the Jesuits were despatched to Constantinople, as well as to the islands of the Archipelago, to gain a footing. In these attempts, the French were opposed by the envoys of Venice and of England, who represented the Jesuits not only as disturbers of the peace, but as emissaries of Spain. A Greek priest, of the name of Metaxa, at this time, had set up a printing-office at Constantinople, for the circulation of religious works, and the strengthening of the national creed. The Jesuits got up a tumult and intrigue, had Metaxa sent to prison, and his books seized. But Sir Thomas Roe defeated this conspiracy, and laboured so effectually, that he procured the complete expulsion of the Jesuits, not only from Constantinople, but from Scio, from Naxos, and from Jerusalem. Not all the efforts of De Harlay, the French ambassador, though aided by the Austrian envoy, could reverse the victory gained by the envoys of England and Venice over the Jesuits.

The French journals have been trumpeting the great respect paid at Constantinople to the envoys of Louis the Fourteenth. Yet the elder Kipriuli, when Grand Vizier, ordered M. de La Haye, the French envoy, to receive the bastinado. The very same envoy returned in 1665, when the Grand Vizier refusing to rise as the ambassador entered, the latter flung the Capitulations at his feet. Whereat the Vizier called him a Jew, the chamberlain took the stool from under La Haye, and began to thrash him with it-La Haye drew his sword, when a tschaoush gave him a box on the ear; and the Vizier Kipriuli ended by shutting him up for three days. The whole story, with the references, will be found in Hammer (Book 55.) Louis the Fourteenth, however, avenged this insult; or compelled the Turks so far to make reparation, as to receive with great honour another French ambassador. The Capitulations were renewed; the Latins were placed in possession of the Holy Sepulchre, and as no Power of any importance then supported the claims of the Greek Church, whilst Austria and France sustained the supremacy of the Latins, the latter pursued their advantages at Jerusalem. The French renewed their Capitulations in 1740, and even later. But with French philosophy, and the revolution which it produced, the anxieties of France were little turned towards the Holy Land. Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt, and attack on Acre, left the French small chance of preserving influence or privilege at Jerusalem. And Poujoulat, the great champion of French rights, admits that, when he visited the Holy Land some

twenty or thirty years since, there was not a single French monk or ecclesiastic in Palestine.

During a quarter of a century, France had waived the right and lost the habit of being the first Catholic power, and a Bonaparte had few claims to the inheritance of sovereignty from Godfrey of Bouillon. During that long suspension of the religious zeal and influence of France, the Greek Church had grown in power and numbers at Jerusalem. An Emperor, professing the creed of this Church, had sprung to the first rank in the East and in Asia. In 1808, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem was burnt. It was, of course, the Greeks who rebuilt it. The French were absorbed in other anxieties and struggles. At length, in 1814 and 1815, the Most Christian King of France owed his throne in great measure to the Czar of Russia. He could scarcely in gratitude proceed to dispute the ascendancy of the Greek Church in Jerusalem. What was gained by the French was, in fact, craved and won from Russia's condescension.

Under the reign of the House of Orleans, the French government pursued a double mode of recovering ascendancy in the Holy Land. It at the same time supported Mahomed Ali in his project of getting possession of Syria, and supported the Maronites in their scheme of becoming independent. In this double purpose the French were totally defeated. But as they persisted in converting their ancient Catholicism into political capital, England and Prussia appointed a Protestant bishop at Jerusalem. And thus were the three great Christian princes represented in the Holy Land.

It was an unwise policy of the French President to stir that question of rivalry with Russia at Jerusalem. The hope of rendering the Latin or Italian church predominant in the Levant, or in any part of it, is futile. If Christianity survive east of the Bosphorus and the Mediterranean, it must evidently be in some form of the Greek or old Oriental persuasion. In Jerusalem, however, and for the church of the Holy Sepulchre there was certainly a difficulty. The Greeks not only claimed to worship there, but claimed also the right of performing an annual miracle, that of getting down the sacred fire from heaven, which illumes that tomb. This sacred fire is in reality the act of a guardian, who introduces a lighted candle into the aperture at the right moment. The Roman Catholics and Jews would not consent to be parties to such a mystification. But the fees were enhanced and produced by it, and, therefore, the Greeks could not dispense with it. Hence the struggle for the Holy Sepulchre, of which it might be truly said, as of the Temple of old, that the House of Prayer was converted inro a den of thieves.

The French Government thought that if it respected the demarsations and the treaties of Europe in great things, it might at least show its zeal and gain advantage in small ones. To recover, at least, a parity of right with the Greeks in Jerusalem seemed one of these humble questions, which might be pushed to any length, and which would vastly flatter Rome, without offending Vienna or St. Petersburg.