OF THE TURKISH MONARCHY. 3X 



i 



accounting for the literary degeneracy of the modern-Greeks, it is not 

 sufficient to state, that the form of government under which they live 

 is arbitrary 'and despotic; there is another cause to which great 

 influence is to be ascribed; the Greeks can never be blended with 

 the Turks. When the Tartar nations invaded the empire of China, 

 they adopted the habits and manners of their subjects ; when the 

 Goths took possession of the provinces they had subdued, they be- 

 came associated with the inhabitants by customs, marriages, and 

 laws ; but since the subjugation of Greece by the Turks, a broad line 

 of separation has been drawn between the conquered and the con- 

 querors, by the difference of religion and language ; and the recipro- 

 cated feelings of aversion and dislike have been increased by the 

 influence of the former. No country in a condition similar to that of 

 modern Greece has ever exerted itself in letters or the fine arts. The 

 Hindoos since the era of the Mahometan conquest have been inferior 

 in philosophy to their ancestors. No literary production of note 

 appeared in Spain while it was under the dominion of the Moors. In 

 England no Anglo-Saxon composition was produced in the course of 

 a century after the Norman conquest ; but under Henry the Second 

 the Normans and English were blended, and about this time, some 

 poetry was composed in the English, or at least the Anglo-Norman 

 dialect. The most eminent works of modern Italy, France, and G er- 

 many were produced by writers living under various forms of govern- 

 ment ; none, however, of these individuals were placed with respect 

 to the rest of the community in that distinct and separate situation 

 which the Greeks now hold under the dominion of the Turks. 



