1718. A.D. the range of history present us with a spectacle more interesting or sublime than this spontaneous regeneration of Greece. It is an event unconnected with the political convulsions of the world, and uninfluenced by the revolutions of surrounding states; it has been produced by no external interference, and advanced by no foreign aid; its sole agents have been the Greeks, and its only origin the resistless expansion of mind, bursting beyond all baser obstacles, and rending every bond that would enslave the intellect, or fetter the liberties of mankind. Previously to the commencement of the eighteenth century, education, as I have already remarked,* had made but little progress amongst the Greeks. The efforts of Cyril Lucar, who has been styled the "Protestant Patriarch" of Constantinople,† about A.D. 1620, to establish a printing-press and schools at the capital, were thoroughly thwarted by the exertions of the Latin missionaries, who had been p. 183. * Vol. II. of this History, c. xiii. + Douglas's Modern Greeks, p. 75. An interesting account of this distinguished Prelate has just been published in the Rev. G. Waddington's "Present Condition and Prospects of the Greek Church," (P. ii. p. 156,) a work, of which I regret that it was not in my power to avail myself at an earlier period in the progress of these volumes. 1718. settled in the Archipelago since the time of A.D. Charles IX. They succeeded in effecting his ruin with the Divan; his institutions and establishments were dispersed and destroyed, and the Jesuits remained the sole monopolists of education in Greece. They founded schools at Salonica, Athens, Negropont, Patras, Napoli di Romania, Milo, Paros, Naxos, Santorin, Scio, Smyrna, and numerous towns on the coasts of Asia Minor and Syria.* But as their exertions were directed to the double object of proselytism and instruction, they were more generally productive of schism and disunion, than of advantage and enlightenment to the unfortunate Greeks; the seeds of knowledge were choked as they sprang up by the theological tares which had been insidiously sown amongst them, and the institutions of the monks, thus overthrown by their own policy, sank at length into contempt and neglect. In the mean time, the extensive commerce which the Greeks had enjoyed previous to the Turkish conquest, and which, though injured, had not been destroyed by that event, tended from year to year to bring them into more intimate contact with the French, the Italians, and other inhabitants of Europe; and thus opened * Rabbe, p. 65. Villemain, Essai Historique sur l'état des Grecs, &c. p. 202. A.D. 1718. an important channel for the influx of knowledge.* The insecurity of property likewise in Turkey, gradually induced the wealthy portion of the Christian inhabitants to abandon their country, and seek new asylums abroad. The ports of the Adriatic and the Mediterranean, and the cities of Russia, Poland, Germany, and England, thus became the abodes of the more intelligent and enterprising of the Greeks; and about the beginning of the present century it was estimated that not less than fifty thousand of the most opulent families were thus settled at a distance from their country. The taste for information acquired by these adventurers was rapidly communicated to their countrymen at home, who hastened to make their children participators of the same advantages; and during the seventeenth and eighteenth, as well as the present century, the continental universities were assiduously frequented by the youth of Constan Leake, Outline, &c. p. 25; Waddington's Visit to Greece, p. iii. Introduction; Rabbe, p. 66; Douglas, p. 71. + Leake's Researches, pp. 67. 171. Meletius, in his Geography, written about the beginning of the last century, estimates the number of absentees in Austria alone at 80,000 families, exclusive of those who had settled in Moldavia, Wallachia, Russia, Italy, Poland, and the rest of Europe: but this computation is evidently exaggerated. 1718. tinople, Smyrna, and the islands.* Numbers AD. of them returning thence, acquired high literary distinction throughout Greece;† and others, Rabbe, p. 65. Rizo, Cours de Litter. Gr. Mod. p. 36. + In 1720, Procopius, a monk of Moskhopoli in Upper Albania, published a list of the distinguished Greeks who had appeared from the close of the sixteenth century to his own times. It is printed in Greek and Latin, in the 11th volume of Fabricius' Biblioth. Græca, ed. Hamburg, 1702–54, under the title of "Demetrii Procopii Macedonis Mochopolit. succincta Eruditorum Græcorum superioris ac presentis sæculi Recensio; conscripta mense Junii A.C. MDCCXX." Ducange, in the second volume of his Glossarium med. et infim. Græcitatis, has likewise inserted a copious list of the authors, manuscript and printed, from whom he compiled his work. In both these lists, the number of writers on general literature bears no proportion whatever to those on ecclesiastical history and theology; and that of Procopius contains the names of numerous individuals who were remarkable only for their superior information, but have left no written memorial of their talents. It commences with Jeremias, the Patriarch of Constantinople, to whom some of the letters of Crusius were addressed about the year 1580, and mentions, amongst other celebrated names, those of Cyril Lucar, to whom I have already referred (No. viii. p. 772), Callinicus, another distinguished prelate of Constantinople (Procop. xi. p. 773; Villemain, Essai, p. 179; Rizo, Cours, &c. 23 p.), Coryadaleus of Athens, and Chrysanthes Notara, Patriarch of Jerusalem, the latter the author of some elementary works, and both distinguished as orators and divines (Procop. xv. p. 777. lxviii. p. 792; Rabbe, p. 65; Rizo, Cours, &c. p. 23, 138, 140). Dositheus, another Patriarch of Jerusalem, was a correspondent of Alex 1718. AD preferring a residence in Europe,* united with Amongst the Greeks of this period, who had settled |