TO THE BISHOP OF DURHAM. 



189 



LETTER IV. 



My LORD. Constantinople, Dec. 12. 1800. 



I have the satisfaction of acquainting Your Lordship that at length I 

 have been permitted to examine the library of the Seraglio. I wish 

 I could add that I had been able to make any discoveries of Latin, 

 Greek, or Hebrew MSS. there, but, after investigating every volume, 

 I found nothing in that boasted repository except a collection of 

 Arabic, Persian, and Turkish authors, principally upon Mahomedan 

 Theology and Jurisprudence. I have not, however, quite given up 

 my inquiries in the Seraglio ; I entertain hopes of being admitted 

 into another apartment, within its precincts, which, I am informed, 

 does actually contain a number of worm-eaten parchments that lie 

 piled up upon the floor. But I confess, my Lord, I have been so 

 often deceived in the accounts that have been given me, respecting 

 subjects of this nature, that I am by no means sanguine in my ex- 

 pectations of making any valuable discovery. At the same time I 

 should wish to omit no opportunity of investigating every part of the 

 palace where there may be the smallest chance that any ancient MSS. 

 could either be left by negligence or deposited by design. 



I see by the newspapers, that Your Lordship has been employed 

 with your usual activity and benevolence, in endeavouring to mitigate 

 the distresses with which we are grieved to find our poorer country- 

 men at present labouring, from the high price of provisions. If the 

 evil be of a temporary nature, one has every reason to believe that 

 such exertions, from individuals of Your Lordship's character, aided 

 by the wisdom of Parliament, will lessen or subdue it ; but, my Lord, 

 the whole of our agricultural economy seems to be so different from 

 what it is in most of the countries where agriculture has longest and 

 best flourished, that one cannot but fear there may be circumstances 

 radically improper in the system itself. I pretend not, my Lord, to 

 be much conversant in such subjects, but I cannot help troubling Your 



