LETTERS FROM PROFESSOR CARLYLE. 



179 



that any books had ever been sent into the East, and could not con- 

 ceive that they had ever arrived at Alexandria ; he was very sure 

 however, that they had never been dispersed. He was perfectly well 

 informed with respect to the version made use of by the Society (which 

 Your Lordship knows is the same as the Ptoman one, and I fear a 

 little warped in some places in order to favor the peculiar tenets of 

 the Roman catholic church), and he was pretty strong in his animad- 

 versions upon it. This gave me an opportunity of mentioning the 

 new edition, which I was encouraged by Your Lordship to undertake. 

 He immediately poured out a most pathetic benediction upon Your 

 Lordship's head, expressing the good effects that he trusted might 

 result from such a design, and his joy that Your Lordship was tread- 

 ing in the steps of those (meaning the Apostles) whose office you 

 filled. He declared that nothing could afford him so much pleasure 

 as to co-operate in such a work, and assured me that if it was thought 

 fit to transmit some of the copies into those parts of the East, where 

 he or his brethren had any influence, we might rely upon their mak- 

 ing every effort to distribute them in the way they should judge most 

 likely to promote the interests of religion. After being with him for 

 an hour, I took my leave ; I confess highly gratified with my visit, 

 which he made me promise to repeat. 



Both the Patriarchs are men of most respectable characters, and 

 universally esteemed not only by the Greeks and Turks, but by Ar- 

 menians and Franks. Your Lordship will perhaps wonder at this 

 seeming anticlimax ; but such is the unhappy state of things in this 

 country, that the different sects of Christians hate each other much 

 more than they do the Turks. The venerable Patriarch of Jerusalem 

 has filled the chair upwards of ten years without ever being displaced. 

 The Patriarch of Constantinople has twice been driven into exile by 

 the intrigues of a party, and a rival placed in his cathedral, but he is 

 thought to be now very firmly established. Both these Prelates seem 

 to live in considerable splendor. Their mode of living is, however, 

 entirely Turkish. The palace of the Patriarch of Constantinople is 

 verymuch like what Your Lordship may perhaps remember to have read 



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