revolution which deposed Sultan Selim. The other is a 

 pseudonymous pamp'hlet on the Turkish army and the 

 state of military science at Constantinople. It bears the 

 name of Mustapha, and the date of 1803 J but it was in fact 

 written by the Greek brothers, Argyropoulo, and after the 

 accession of Mahmoud, with the intention of deceiving the 

 courts of Europe with respect to the strength of the Otto- 

 man empire. This palpable forgery, nevertheless, duped 

 the learned M. bangle's, who republished it in 1810, with 

 numerous notes. Few elementary works proceeded from 

 the press of Constantinople; and, if we except the complete 

 History of the empire from native authorities, nothing cal- 

 culated to engage the favour of the people. The art of 

 printing became, under Selim, part of the new order of 

 things, and the establishment was fixed in the barracks of 

 the new troops at Scutari ; in consequence, when the revolu- 

 tion of 1807 broke out, the whole was reduced to ashes, 

 and few of those connected with it escaped the fury of the 

 Janizaries. Not more than forty volumes issued from the 

 Turkish press during this second period of its existence. 

 Thus ignorance obtained a second and complete victory ; 

 for although the press has been since re-established by 

 Mahmoud, yet the general bigotry of the nation allows it 

 only an inactive and stealthy existence. As the Turks are 

 generally versed in Arabic and Persian, their literature of 

 course is proportionally extensive ; nevertheless, although 

 they have known the art of printing one hundred years, they 

 have not as yet printed as many volumes : this fact alone, 

 this slowness to feel the merits of an art which ministers so 

 largely to intellectual enjoyment, sufficiently shows how 7 

 insusceptible they are of social improvement. It deserves, 

 also, to be remarked, that the art of printing has been prac- 

 tised by the Jews of Constantinople from the earliest period 

 of its discovery. A Septuagint was printed by them', we 

 think, in 1486. This circumstance might have facilitated 

 the adoption of that art by the Turks, if their apathy and 

 bigotry offered less powerful resistance to their progressive 

 civilization. 



Reasoning from all those facts, we cannot agree with 

 Mouradjha D'Ohsson, that the civilization of the Turks is 



36 



