J830.] Fair Play for Greece. 55 



tion, that commerce has a strong and irresistible tendency to contract 

 the mind, and to reduce all its best and most ennobling emotions to the 

 narrow sphere of self-interest. That there are some illustrious excep- 

 tions to this truth, is of no importance : they do but confirm the maxim. 

 Let the impartial observer of human nature look carefully around the 

 world, and take into cognizance the effects of that desire of gain which 

 is confessedly the ruling passion of the multitude. Let him weigh the 

 consequence of that engrossing principle, and then let him deny, if it 

 be possible, the deduction to which we would lead him. Men, perhaps, 

 who are " born in the purple/' who are reared in affluence, and know 

 not in youth the want, or the value of riches, may not be subjugated, at 

 a later period of their lives, to the domination of that powerful evil. 

 The habit of expense, and the carelessness natural to persons unrestricted 

 in their desires, are their preservatives. The name of virtue belongs not 

 to a feeling of this sort ; but still its results frequently assume the name 

 and the shew of virtue. But those whose boyhood has been impressed 

 with systems of economy whose youth has been devoted to the acqui- 

 sition of the principles of gain whose years of maturity have been passed 

 in the daily labour of the counting-house, in the hourly consideration of 

 their own interest, in schemes for its improvement, and in precautions 

 against the schemes of others how can they, and such as they, come 

 forth on public emergencies, discard in a moment, not alone the pur- 

 suits, but the feelings of years, and stand aloof from all self-love, and 

 self-interest ? It is unnatural, and, therefore, impossible. Take a turn- 

 spit from his vocation, and bid him chase the deer. Instinct will lead 

 him to satisfy his own appetite, but not to pursue for the gratification of 

 others. The line of his past duty was not chalked out to him by 

 nature, yet it had become habitual. It might be considered degrading 

 or not ; but if you free him from his durance, do you suppose that you 

 can communicate the properties of the stag-hound ? Do you suppose 

 that you can change his acquired nature by changing his condition ? 

 The Greeks were precisely in this case. Bred and devoted to the love 

 of gain ; bred, also, and devoted, as in the instance of the turnspit, to be 

 the abject slave of a more abject master, they rise with all the load of 

 past servitude, of past habits, and of past degradation, to commence a 

 new career, a new existence ! 



We ask, if such a people are in a capacity to govern, not a 

 nation, but themselves? We ask, if the new and trying situation 

 of affairs, to which they are suddenly called, be not as much against 

 their nature, as it is against the nature of a turnspit to track the 

 deer? But this is not all perhaps not the least part of the cala- 

 mity. The traffic to which these persons may have been accustomed 

 has carried them in manhood to foreign nations, and supplied a casual 

 intercourse with civilized Europe. Here they catch (alas ! how readily 

 do we catch what is evil !) the vices of civilization, without profiting, or, 

 indeed, without having an opportunity to profit, by its virtues.* In 

 those, again, few in number, who received their education in Europe, 

 what do we discover ? Removed far from home ; emancipated from 



* There is (would that we*could impress this fact upon the minds of thousands who 

 forget it !) no general rule without exceptions. Miaouli is one, and Sachtouri and Cana- 

 ris. The two Tombasis, of whom we know more than all the rest, are strikingly so : they 

 are excellent men ; and, no doubt, there may be many others. 



