MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND ART. 109 



the reformer requires but honesty and firmnss of purpoese." And this is 

 Turkey, which from our cradle we are taught to look upon as the region of 

 tyranny and barbarism. The turbaned Turk may well exclaim to his Euro- 

 pean brethren " Quid rides ? Mutato nomine de te fabula narratur." 



The most important chapter is decidedly that on the commercial resources 

 of Turkey, which offers so wide a field to British enterprise. 



" Good sense, tolerance, and hospitality, have long ago done for the Otto- 

 man empire what the other states of Europe are endeavouring to effect by 

 more or less happy political combinations. Since the throne of the Sultans 

 has been elevated at Constantinople, commercial prohibitions have been un- 

 known they opened their ports to the productions of the whole world. 

 Liberty of commerce has reigned here without limits : it is thus, notwith- 

 standing the robberies and violence of legal and illegal bandits, the commerce 

 of the East, without exchanges or post offices, canals or rail-roads, insur- 

 ance or credit ; unprotected by courts at home, or consuls abroad ; unpro- 

 tected by a legislative body where all interests are duly represented, extends 

 its gigantic operations from Mount Atlas to the Yellow Sea from the Blue 

 Mountains, amid the deserts of Africa, to the Bakal in the wastes of Tartary, 

 and by the slow and noiseless step of the camel, maintains the communica- 

 tions, exchanges the produce, and supplies the wants of three-fourths of the 

 globe." 



In conclusion, he remarks, " Turkey is a country having 3000 miles of 

 coast still remaining, a territory of 500,000 square miles under the happiest 

 climate ; possessed of the richest soil raising every variety of produce ; hav- 

 ing unrivalled facilities of transport ; abounding in forests and mines ; open- 

 ing innumerable communications with countries farther in the East, 

 with all which our traffic is carrried on in English bottoms, where labour is 

 cheap, industry unshackled, and commerce is free ; where our goods com- 

 mand every market ; where government and consumers alike desire their 

 introduction. But all the advantages that may accrue to us from so favour- 

 able a state of things, is contingent on her internal tranquility and political 

 reorganization. Here is a field for diplomatic action of the noblest and most 

 philanthropic character where our interests are so much at stake as to call 

 forth our most strenuous exertions, and where that interest is so reciprocal 

 as to call forth no selfish motives, and to introduce no inviduous dis- 

 tinctions." 



It is to be hoped that our government will not allow so wide and extended 

 a field as is here pointed out for British enterprise to become a preserve of 

 the Russian autocrat. The relations of Turkey with Austria, Russja, and 

 France, and the views of these three powers are ably exposed ; and, lastly, in 

 a luminous chapter, he considers the affairs of Greece. Mr. Urquhart's ob- 

 servations should be treasured up by the counsellors of King Otho. They 

 point out the shoals that surround him, and the means of conducting the 

 vessel of state safely on her voyage of political regeneration. But from what 

 is passing in that ill-fated land, we fear that she has yet a fiery ordeal to go 

 through, and that owing to the egotism and inaptitude of European 

 diplomacy. 



THE SCHOOL AND FAMILY MANUAL. LONDON : LONGMAN AND Co. 

 IF the rising generation are not clever it will be their own fault, for at no 

 former period have there appeared so many elementary works on every 

 branch of science as at present. We never recollect, to have met 'with a 

 work so well calculated to lay a good substratum of mathematical and 

 arithmetical knowledge in the mind of the student, as the Conversations on 

 Geometry and Arithmetic before us. The theorems and propositions of 

 Euclid, are demonstrated in so clear and so lucid a manner, as to be imme- 

 diately mastered by the most obtuse intellect. The Conversations on Geometry 



