initiated the series of degenerative 'changes' which torment the soul of Robert Lowe.

I shall take leave of this masterly but equally masterful objector, and also bring these remarks to a close, in one more reference to what Mr. Lowe has observed at the end of his able but, as I think, sophistical article. Dragging in the subject of intemperance,' as if it marked but one class of the community, and declaring that, in his ample, without being always choice, vocabulary, no words can be found strong enough to paint the degradation of those classes to some of whom it is the pride of the orator to have given the franchise, and to the rest of whom it is his wish to give it '-be his authority for so saying what it may-he calls upon our senators to admit that if these classes are fit to be trusted with the supreme power in the State, they may also be trusted with the gratification of their own tastes and appetites; or if they are not to be so trusted, that they who have not the most ordinary control over themselves are scarcely qualified for supreme control over others.' Alas! alas! for our degeneracy since the rage for reform set in! Prior to that era, every election to a seat in the House of Commons was a scene of perfect sobriety from beginning to end. Candidates and voters vied with each other in scrupulous abstinence from every kind of intoxicating drink. Neither before, nor during, nor after the election, was any candidate or any of his supporters seen the worse for liquor. There was neither bottling of voters, nor drawing of beer, nor unbottling of wine. As for broken heads, this was a casualty never known. Riot came in with reform, and excess with the ballot; the two together having become twin authors of 'confusion and every evil work.'

GEORGE POTTER.

THE LIFE OF MIDHAT PASHA.

WHATEVER fate may be in store for Turkey, or whatever may be the issue of the present war-whether the end of it still sees the descendant of the Caliphs seated at Constantinople, or driven across the Bosphorus to take up a more congenial abode in the ancient city of Bagdad-the result of all these troubles which have beset the Ottoman Empire for the last two years must be some substantial amelioration in the condition of all races on the European side of the Bosphorus and Propontis; and the question naturally presents itself, by whom are these things to be effected, or what possibility is there of finding the right man?

I desire to sketch the life of one of the greatest men that Turkey has produced in modern times-a man still in the prime of life and in the fullest vigour of intellect; a man with one fixed and dominant, almost domineering, idea, with that singleness of resolve which alone in this world works out great ends, and which in this instance cannot fail to leave its mark on, or perhaps entirely alter, the complexion of the hydra-headed Eastern Question. But to appreciate the qualities which have made this man so remarkable in our time, or to estimate the force of character which has been necessary to raise him from the lowest steps of the ladder to such a perilous height that he became a terror to his sovereign and a Power in Europe, we must take into consideration the enormous mass of ignorance which overlaid every effort in an upward direction; we must picture to ourselves the long centuries of depravity, self-interest, and immorality against which his reforms were levelled; and we must remember that his plan was to take away power from the most despotic ruler on the earth, and to check the shameless frauds of the most irreclaimable oligarchy whose existence has ever polluted the pages of history. We must remember, also, that in Turkey it is impossible for a man to climb into the high places of State without making use of many of those people as stepping-stones at whose very existence the reformer strikes his first blow. In such a land the reformer is beset by foes on all sides. Extravagance and self-indulgence see the sources from which they obtained the means of living the life they love dried up, and tremble lest their perfidy and evil-doing be dragged to light. These

and many similar circumstances can be adduced to show that for a man, loving right for right's sake and striving after a better state of things, to force his way to the summit of power, he must be of no ordinary calibre. It is such a man, and such a life, that is presented for our reflection in Midhat Pasha, late Grand Vizier of Turkey, now an exile in neglect and obscurity.

In all the blood-stained annals of Turkish history there are few years more bloody than 1822. It was the year of the great massacre in the island Scio, when, in revenge for having been beleaguered in his castle, the Turkish governor, with the aid of the fleet and an army of regulars, slaughtered men, women, and children to the number of 25,000, delivered the whole island to indiscriminate pillage, burnt all the villages, and led away captive to their harems, to suffer the most ignominious fate, upwards of 35,000 of the best and fairest of the fair daughters of Greece. In this year was born at Constantinople of respectable parents Midhat, his father being at the time a Cadi, and having the reputation of an upright and learned judge, according to his lights and opportunities. Midhat's education seems to have been conducted almost exclusively by his father, who appears to have had some dim glimmerings of what things should be, though he at the same time accepted the existing fitness of them, as far as his position of magistrate was concerned and the emoluments which flowed therefrom.

cause.

At twelve years old Midhat was first brought into contact with Government officials in the capacity of a kind of usher of a chamber, and latterly as an inferior order of scribe. An amusing anecdote is related of him in this his first occupation, and, though it also admits of an interpretation disadvantageous to himself, is too good and too typical to be lost. A certain Jew, who had a case before the court over which Midhat's father presided, and having no absolute conviction that if justice triumphed he would gain it, bethought him of seeing how far a small bag of gold, accompanied by a few plain hints, deposited in the hands of the intelligent young boy, might further his But young Midhat pondered gravely on the righteousness of the proceeding, and, finding that he evolved no satisfactory conclusion from his own thoughts, proposed the difficult matter, in the course of conversation with his father, as an abstract question. The advice of the worthy Cadi was that in such a case the money should be handed over to the judge without his being informed from whence it came, that thus, whilst judgment would be impartially given, the briber would be punished if he lost his case, and could clearly afford to lose his money if he gained it. So at night, with profound faith in his excellent father's judgment, whose experience in these matters entitled him to every consideration, young Midhat left his bag of gold lying by his father's side; and shortly afterwards, the case being decided, had cause to recognise the wisdom of his father's views, for the Jew

again approached him, but this time with a small present for himself, in a rapture of irrepressible grins and with a forefinger on the flat of his nose, after the oily fashion of his race in all lands.

We can imagine how these early introductions in the ways of the world must have opened the mind of young Midhat. Nor need his observations have been limited to the narrow sphere of the Law Courts, being surrounded as he was by every conceivable form of corruption and roguery in the public department in which he was employed. The eternal system of backsheesh must have occurred to the same mind that hesitated as to the application of the Jew's bag of gold as something not altogether right. He must have seen the weary waiting of the poor and penniless in the antechambers of the great, in contrast with the pushing, blustering swagger of the rich. Then, as now, the crouching, timid, and starving widow, whose only support in life had fallen in some senseless fight in defence of his country, must have been found with her miserably thin linen wrapper scarcely concealing her attenuated limbs, whilst her face is veiled in the modest folds of the yashmak, shivering in the cold, draughty, marble halls of the Seraskierate, waiting to catch the eye of some one who will try and get her some fraction of the pay due to her dead lord for long years of service, to keep herself and her little ones from absolute starvation. His social position would have afforded him the opportunities of judging how iniquitous was the system of misgovernment which enabled the vilest pander to live in luxury; the cheat and the knave, the most notorious rogue, to live unpunished as long as he had money to ensure his immunity from justice; the highest posts in the State hawked about like some worthless bond; in the provinces a grinding tyranny under greedy and rapacious governors; whilst the palace itself was conspicuous for waste, idleness, debauchery, and abomination. This on the one hand; on the other the famished and hungry widow, with her half-starved, half-naked children, types of the class to which they belong-oppressed, robbed, and maltreated.

When Midhat was seventeen years old Mahmoud the Reformer died. Abdul Medjid, who was the father of Murad and of the present Sultan, reigned in his stead. Mahmoud had done great things towards reforming Turkey, and-when Midhat was seven years old-had carried out one of the most courageous schemes for ridding his country of an intolerable military pest, by slaughtering the Janissaries, 3,000 of whom fell on the 14th of June, 1829. But his reforms were never in a constitutional direction, any more than were those of the earlier Norman Kings of England, or their contemporaries in France. He was followed by a man who was a combination of nearly all the bad qualities of a Turk, and who has not left behind him one single mark for good. This was Abdul Medjid. It is true that during his reign. certain schemes or rather details of schemes of reform, which had

been initiated by Mahmoud the Second, were promulgated, but, like every other measure of a like kind, they bore little fruit. Prominent amongst these was the hatti-scherif of Gulkanjé, and subsequently the institution of a Commission of Amelioration for the provinces. These commissions, which were distributed throughout the empire, had for function the duty of inquiring into the unlicensed robbery and oppression of the various valis, whose excesses during the weak rule of the timid and effeminate Medjid had burst out all the more virulently after the strong repression of his warlike father.

To two of these commissions Midhat acted as secretary; and when the conflicting elements which constituted these commissions are considered, and when we reflect on the various interests concerned, it will be admitted that for so young a man it must have been a post of no slight difficulty. The commissions were formed of three members, a military man, a civilian functionary, and a ulema chosen by the Grand Council. A more heterogeneous compound can hardly be imagined. This was about the year 1845, Midhat being then in his twenty-fourth year; and the two places to which he was sent were first Konieh, and then Castamouni. With these commissions of inquiry or amelioration, called in Turkish medjlissi imariyé, Midhat, as must be evident, had an unequalled opportunity of investigating the state of affairs in the provinces, and must have probed to the root the infinite ramifications of corruption which he found on all sides. How carefully he stored up this experience was practically illustrated by the wisdom of his rule of the provinces over which later on he was called to be governor. But, important as were his duties in the provinces, the wise old Rechid Pasha, who at least had the talent of recognising capacity, did not leave him long in this humbler sphere. From being the servant of these commissions he was made practically their master, and the immensely important post of Chief of the Bureau of Confidential Reports was confided to his care. Through his hands now passed not only the reports of his late colleagues the soldier, the civil servant, and the priest or lawyer (as the case might be), whose special duties are above described, but also the counter reports of the governors of the provinces, and all manner of underhand and secret accusations such as the Turkish soul loveth.

Soon after this we find him employed in a mission to Syria to inquire into the finances of the country and their application, and on his return to Constantinople he was made second secretary to the Grand Council of State. Here his duties were again of a most delicate nature; for, though created for the furtherance of justice, and intended to give security to life and property, this council was in reality little better than the hatching-ground of all schemes and plots, the very focus of intrigue, to which every corrupt governor of a province turned his eyes to court its members with a hope of being able to