merited compliment to the hospitable accommodation so constantly and disinterestedly afforded to an English traveller by the naval officers of his own country.

The principal change that has taken place in Smyrna since it was described by former travellers, is for the worse, in the interruption of that social and happy intercourse among the European settlers, which procured to the Frank quarter at Smyrna, the name of Petit Paris. This, which had suffered but little from the incursions of former wars, has been wholly subverted by the malignity of Buonaparte, who suffers none of his subjects, whose conduct he can in any way influence, to hold communication good or bad with the tyrants of the seas or their allies. From this interdiction Athens and Salonika in the Levant alone are free.

From Smyrna Mr. Hobhouse proceeds in the Salsette to Constantinople. During the voyage, he takes occasion, while the absurd jealousy of the Turks detained the frigate at the Dardanelles, to visit the Troad, his account of which, and of his researches upon the subject occupy nearly 130 pages. The general result of his inquiries we shall state with little comment, in his own words, our late review of Dr. Clarke's theory having anticipated some of the remarks, which we might otherwise have here introduced. He has generally confined himself to the verification of the topography of the ancient geographers, particularly Strabo, and seems to have been unwillingly led into the question of the Homeric Troad. His researches with regard to the former are more satisfactory, but upon the latter tend rather, as might be expected, to confirm scepticism than to produce conviction. He inclines however to the sentiments of Bryant; and it is remarkable, how in the heat of pursuit, he is led to consider, in page 771, the arguments of Bryant for placing Troy near Lectum not to be got over, when he had in page 688 himself assigned, as a conclusive objection to that hypothesis, the rockiness of the whole southern shore. We confess ourselves much better pleased with the general scepticism of the following passage:

It has been shewn, I believe, that the ancient topographers looked for the scene of the Iliad on the shores of the Straits; and that the present state of the country corresponds sufficiently with their accounts, to enable us not only to understand, but to form a judgment on the accuracy of their conclusions concerning the city of Priam and the plain of Troy. Whether the fable of the poet was founded on fact, or was altogether fiction, (a point which it has been my wish entirely to leave out of this inquiry,) I see no necessity for allowing, with Mr. Blackwell, that Homer, although he may have been acquainted with Phrygia, had a personal knowledge of the precise site of his war, or had fixed upon any distinct spot for the scene of his action. It is true indeed that an inimitable air of truth is to be found in his description; that he is sim

ple,

ple, distinct, and every where consistent with himself; but this is a portion of his art, this is the characteristic of his genius: it is an excellence less likely perhaps to be found in a painter of real scenery, than in one who trusts altogether to his invention, and is not encumbered with the adjustment of actual localities; and the poet is equally minute, particular, and, it may be almost said, credible in his detail, when he conducts his delighted guests into the coral caves of the ocean, or the silver palaces of Ölympus. It is hardly necessary to add, that he cannot be affected by any of the difficulties attendant upon the examination of the question, and that there is no confusion in the descriptions of the Iliad, except when they are compared with the topography of the Troad.

The author of the Inquiry into the Life and Writings of Homer, talking of Demetrius's commentary, says, "there he ascertained the real places of Homer's descriptions, and pointed out the scenes of the remarkable actions. He shewed where the Greeks had drawn up their ships; where Achilles encamped with his Myrmidons; where Hector drew up the Trojans; and from what country came the auxiliaries." It is astonishing with what boldness these things are said, and with what facility they are admitted. If any judgment is to be formed of Demetrius's whole work, from the allusions to, and extracts from it in Strabo, he destroyed rather than established the received opinions upon the subject, and as for the particular points abovementioned, we have no hint that he touched upon them at all.

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Those who have seen the plains near Cape Janissary, or even have looked at the map of the country, may, with Homer before them, be able to find objections to the supposed site of the war, which have escaped Mr. Bryant, and other inquirers, but they may, perhaps, be inclined to think, that if the Greeks of Phrygia were wrong in their conjectures, no such discovery will ever be made of the true positions, as shall be allowed on all hands to be unobjectionable. The present plain of the Mendere towards Cape Janissary is certainly the plain of Troy of those Greeks; but the only resemblance which a three weeks residence on the spot, with the poet in my hand, enabled me to find out between that plain and Homer's scene, was that which in the eyes of Fluellin, made the native country of Alexander so like the birthplace of Henry the Fifth. "There is a river in Macedon, and there is also moreover a river at Monmouth."--p. 781.

'It has been remarked as a singular fact, that the map which Mr. Pope composed, merely from the perusal of the Iliad, is no bad representation of the plain of the Mendere. It would be singular if it was a fact, but it is not. The fact is, that Mr. Pope's picture (for it is not a map) bears not the least resemblance to the spot in question.'-p. 787.

After some further remarks upon the futility both of the praise and blame bestowed upon Pope by Mr. Chevalier, Mr. Hobhouse concludes, with no unjust asperity, that it may fairly move our spleen to behold the author of the English Iliad, the model of sewere taste and just criticism, enlisted by a French enthusiast, to.

fight under the banners of ignorance and presumption.' At the same time he pays a well-merited compliment to the integrity and correctness of delineation of the author of the Topography of Troy, and a gentleman, who has never called in his pencil to the aid of his pen, but with a candour and ingenuity very rarely to be met with, has in the fidelity of his representations furnished us with competent means of disproving his system.' After all, in spite of the very laudable pains bestowed upon this portion of his work, which may be considered as containing the refutation of every theory yet attempted, we cannot help thinking it the least interesting part of his volume; though our opinion may be rather unfairly influenced by the tedium which we acknowledge that we feel, in balancing arguments or rather conjectures upon a question so often brought before us, and from which we have so little hope of deriving any practical result or satisfactory conclusion.

Our travellers were detained for some time after the arrival of their firman, by the contrary winds, which for nine months in the year blow with no small violence out of the Straits. At length however they passed the Dardanelles and proceeded slowly up the sea of Marmora to Constantinople. Here Mr. Hobhouse was for some time in doubt whether to close his volume or proceed; assigning as a reason, his despair of telling us any thing not before too well known to require repetition. But he had read his Juvenal, and his publisher having handsomely engaged that there should be no lack of paper, he wisely decided that clemency on his part would be folly; and he accordingly proceeds to be very entertaining for 200 additional pages, upon Constantinople and Constantinopolitans. As we cannot give ourselves the same licence, we must of necessity curtail our observations, recommending in the mean time even this part of the Journey, as containing, besides what has indeed been often described, a very clear and interesting account of Selim's plans of reform, and of the late revolutions in the Turkish government, which have cut off the ablest and most efficient men from the state, and left the last of his race on the throne of the Ottomans.

There is also in the Appendix a good account of the expedition to the Dardanelles, written with a view to justify the ministry who planned it from any imputation in consequence of its failure. In this, though we should rather be inclined to throw the blame upon the admiral than the ambassador, we think he, in some measure, succeeds; but we apprehend that as far as the ministry are concerned, he mistakes the question at issue; which, in our view of it, is not whether they provided well for the success of the expedition, but whether the expedition itself was wise in its object. And here as we fully agree with him that its failure is not to be

regretted,

regretted, and that to have irritated the Turks by the destruction of their capital could have produced no equivalent advantages to ourselves; he will perhaps admit with us, that an expedition, the success of which was to be deprecated, could not have been very politic in its projection. Upon one point we are glad to have confirmed from him an opinion which we formerly stated, that nothing has been lost to the English character by the failure, and that every thing he could gather upon the spot induced him to suppose,

'that there was not an intelligent man in the empire, who thought that those who had burst through their redoubtable Dardanelles, were intimidated by the cannon on the mouldering walls of the Seraglio; or who attributed the safety of the capital to any other motive than forbearance, and a disinclination from having recourse to unjust extremities.'

Having thus given a sketch of the contents of this massive but entertaining volume, we have only to add our opinion, that should the defects of which we have already spoken, be corrected in a future edition, by a little more attention to the technicalities of bookmaking, and a revision of some parts of the style, which is at times perversely or provokingly careless, the work itself will have a standard place in all collections of voyages and travels; a place which it will fully merit, by the industry and ardour of research conspicuous throughout, as well as by the spirit, vivacity, and good sense of the general narrative.

ART. IX. 1. The Speech of Doctor D. Antonio Joseph Ruiz de Padron, Deputy to the Cortes, from the Canary Islands, spoken in the Sitting of January 18, 1813, relative to the Inquisition.

2. Bread and Bulls, an Apologetical Oration, on the flourishing State of Spain, in the Reign of King Charles IV. Delivered in the Plaza de Toros, Madrid. By Don Gaspar Jovellanos. Mediterranean; printed on board His Majesty's Ship Caledonia, off Toulon. 1813.

A

SPEECH against the Inquisition, delivered in the sitting of the Cortes, and another on Bread and Bulls, on the degraded State of Spain, spoken in the great square of the capital, both the genuine production of native Spaniards, may be regarded among the unequivocal signs of the times.-But when we look at the spot whence these singular productions issue, in their present dress, we cannot consider them as any thing short of literary curiosities. They are translations by the officers of the Caledonia, undertaken, in all probability, to beguile the many tedious hours spent in watch

ing an enemy shut up in the port of Toulon. If the language be not always correct, nor the style highly polished, we have, at least, every reason to trust to the fidelity of the translation. But they were printed also on board this ship; and the type, the ink, the paper, and, indeed, the whole of the mechanical processes are so well conducted as to be by no means inferior to many of the best editions of the London press.

Doctor Antonio Joseph Ruiz de Padron undertakes to prove the three following propositions :

First, That the tribunal of the Inquisition is totally useless in the church of God, and contrary to the spirit of the gospel.

Secondly, That it is contrary to the wise and religious constitution which the state has sanctioned, and to which the people have

sworn.

Thirdly, That it is prejudicial to the state.

It will not be necessary to go through all the proofs which he adduces to establish the first proposition. It is certain that no such tribunal as that which has arrogated to itself the title of 'holy,' entered into the plan of the Saviour of the World. It is equally so that nothing contained in the writings of the Evangelists, can be construed to sanction it, and that, of the ministers elected by divine authority for the promulgation of the gospel, none were inquisitors. 'Believe me, sir,' says the orator,' that neither in the catalogue of the ministers of the faith, enumerated by St. Paul, nor in the council of Jerusalem, do I find one vacant place for an inquisitor.' It was not found necessary to erect a tribunal of inquisitors to punish Arius, when he denied the eternal generation of the Word-the divines of Nice were satisfied with condemning "the impious and detestable" doctrine, and with separating the author of the heresy from the communion of the faithful. The Nestorians, the Pelagians, and all the various sects,' who moved hell itself to shake the faith of the Catholics,' shared the same fate -the Church of God trampled on all its enemies, and without the assistance of the holy office.' That it is not only useless but injurious to the Church of Rome, he illustrates, from his own experience, when at Philadelphia. Here, at the house of Benjamin Franklin, he used to join in the evening conversations where the ministers of the Protestant communion designated him by the appellation of the Papist.'

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Young as I then was,' says he, I was able to convince many of the supremacy which the Bishop of Rome obtains, by divine right, over the whole church-a supremacy of jurisdiction and not merely of honour-but I confess that when, all in a body, they beset me on the establishment of the Inquisition, I had not a word to say?'

Discussions of this nature, he tells us, also took place in the

house