492 



ANNUAL REGISTER, 1814. 



dren or the horses, care is taken 

 to talk of garlic or to spit, the 



charm is broken 



After having shown how much 

 the modern Greeks are given up 

 to superstition, and the degree of 

 debasement to which their minds 

 are reduced by the slavery under 

 which they have so long lan- 

 guished, another feature of their 

 character will appear the more 

 extraordinary ; this is the vanity 

 which all have more or less of 

 being distinguished by the most 

 pompous titles. Nothing is heard 

 among them but the titles of 

 archon, prince, most illustrious, 

 and others equally high-sounding; 

 the title of His Holiness is given 

 to their papas. The child accus- 

 tomed to forget the most en- 

 dearing of all appellations, the wife 

 forgetting that which she ought 

 most to cherish, salute the father 

 and the husband with the title of 

 Signor, at the same time kissing 

 his hand. This name, which is 

 only a term of submission, is by 

 the pride of the Greeks preferred 

 to all others, for the very reason 



that it seems to acknowledge su- 

 periority in the person to whom it 

 is addressed. 



It is from this sentiment of 

 vanity that those Greeks who 

 have acquired any knowledge of 

 the history of their country, speak 

 with so much pride of the an- 

 cient relics still scattered over it. 

 According to the affinity which 

 may be found in their names to 

 any of those celebrated in anti- 

 quity, they call themselves the de- 

 scendants of Codrus, of Phidias, of 

 Themistocles, of Belisarius. The 

 same sentiment leads them to 

 hoard up money, that they may be 

 enabled at last to purchase some 

 situation which shall give them 

 the power of domineering over 

 their brethren ; and this achieved, 

 it is by no means unusual to see 

 them become more insolent and 

 tyrannical towards them than the 

 Turks themselves. They justify 

 in this respect but too fully the 

 common saying, that the Turk has 

 no better instrument for enforcing 

 slavery than the Greek. 



NATURAL 



