THE HE true author of the Greek insurrection was Ali Pasha. This man's ambition, intercourse with Europeans, and fierce and oriental catastrophe, have thrown all circumstances of his life and character into public knowledge. His birth was honourable among his barbarian countrymen; he was the descendant of a long line of warrior robbers, lords of some of those small districts into which a mountain country is naturally divided. A remote ancestor, and robber, Muzzo, had made himself master of Zepeleni, a town on the left bank of the Voiussa. Mouktar Bey, Ali's grandfather, was a distinguished soldier, and slain at the siege of Corfu. Veli Bey, the youngest of Mouktar's sons, and father of Ali, had been Pasha of Delvino, but driven from his Pashalik, and reduced to his original lordship, he died of grief. At this period, Ali was but fourteen. He had been born at Zepeleni in 1748. The death of his father exposed the town to the rapacity of all the surrounding clans. Khamco, his mother, a true barbarian heroine, instantly threw aside the distaff, sword in hand rallied the dependants of the family, and repelled the invaders. In one of these attacks, she and her daughter Shunitza were taken prisoners by the people of Gardiki, who treated them with the indescribable insults of a robber's victory. They were released at the end of a month by ransom; but the 31 ATHENEUM, VOL. 6, 2d series.

insult sunk deep into Ali's spirit, and he treasured it for almost half a century, till it was wiped away in the blood and ashes of Gardiki.

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Ali had all the restlessness and craft of a savage, mingled with the rapacity of the robber, and the native activity and bravery of the Greek mountaineer. From the age of sixteen he was a soldier and a plunderer, continually engaged in brief expeditions against the neighbouring tribes, carrying off cattle, or making descents among the richer population of the valleys. Success and defeat were for a while alternate, but at length he was on the point of ruin. tack near the sources of the Chelydnus had been followed by the total dispersion of his wild troop, and Ali fled alone to Mount Mertzika, so reduced that he was compelled to pledge his scymitar to buy barley for his horse. He made the attempt again with a force of six hundred men, and was again beaten. Khamco, for whom he had always felt a singular homage, had commanded him, in almost the words of the Spartan mother, "Never to come back but dead, or a conqueror." As he gathered the remnant of his soldiers from this disastrous field, he went into the ruins of a church, near Valera, to rest and think over what was to be done. There, in his agitation, he stood, unconsciously, striking his stick into the ground. It at last struck upon

something that returned a sound. He dug up the spot, and, to his astonishment, found a box filled with gold coin. He had now found the true way to barbarian victory. It would be a fine juncture for the pencil to seize upon the figure of this mountain warrior at the moment; the countenance lighted up with the wild exultation and fiery foresight of the whole long career of triumph, that burst upon him in the discovery. The accessories, too, of the picture would be powerful. The military equipments, stained and purpled by toil and battle; the sacred ruin round him, with its broken altars and weedy columns; the remnant of his defeated troops covering the hill side; the brilliant mountains and sky of Greece above all.

With this treasure, Ali raised an army of two thousand men, renewed the campaign, swept the enemy before him, and returned to Zepeleni, a conqueror, never to be repulsed again from the way to sovereignty.

On his triumphant return, he by force or persuasion, induced his mother to resign Zepeleni. The heroine retired to the Harem, where she soon after died. Ali, now furnished with the means of indulging his natural impulses, indulged them to the utmost, and became the most renowned among the marauding chieftains of the hills. He threw troops into the principal passes of the chain of Pindus, and was thus master of the whole traffic of Thessaly and Macedonia. Merchants, caravans, public convoys, all fell into the hands of this young and enterprising lord of the "Robbers." The slow vigilance of the Turkish government was at length roused, and Kourd Pasha, the Dervendji Pasha, or "Governor of the Passes," the officer appointed to protect the communications, was ordered to crush the less licensed plunderer. But Ali's dexterity evaded an open encounter with the Sultan, and the attack which was to have been his ruin, ended in an alliance with the Pasha, and a marriage with the daughter of the Turk

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His character as a leader was now distinguished, and he was summoned to take the command of a body of Albanians in the war with Russia. Ali had now first come within the circle of European politics, and his ambition was suddenly awakened to the more brilliant object of independ ent power. The purpose of Russia was to assail Turkey at once on the north and south, to penetrate to Coostantinople by an army from Molda via and a fleet from the Mediterranean. To detach the Albanian chieftain became important. capture of one of his nephews gave an opening for a correspondence with Potemkin, and it seems authenticated that there was a twofold conspiracy,by which Potemkin, at the head of the Russian army, was to make himselfsovereign of Constantinople, and to confer on Ali the kingdom of Epirus. But the war ceased in the midst of Russian victories. Potemkin, the most pow erful subject in the world, sunk into shade, probably from the detection of his designs, and Ali's dream vanished for the time. Yet his sagacity saw where his own strength and the weakness of Turkey lay; and from that period he kept up a correspondence with Russia until he was master of Epirus without its aid; and if he had nothing to fear from its hostility, he had nothing to hope from its friendship.

Human nature may justly shrink from the mingled ferocity and cun

ning, the contempt of faith, and the furious passions, that characterise the career of this memorable barbarian. But it is impossible not to be struck by the display of vigorous and original ability, that throws a kind of i sullen splendour over his whole gloomy and precipitous track. His purpose from the beginning is power; he is repeatedly baffled, but he rises again from the ground with fresh resolution; he hunts his prey through every difficulty with the fierce stanchness of a bloodhound. Treachery and valour, bribery and generosity, are alike unsparingly his instruments; where craft and labour will carry him through, he is perfidious without measure; but when he cannot wind round the rock, he tries some bold expedient, he blasts the rock, and finally makes a royal road to the throne.

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By his conduct at the head of the Albanians, Ali had gained eminence as a soldier with both the Russian and Turkish armies. His reward was a Pashalik of two tails. He chose his new province with that political eye whose keenness never failed him. He was appointed to the government of Triccala in Thessaly. This appointment showed at once the habitual blindness of the Porte in its remoter possessions, and the unwearied sagacity of its new favourite. Triccala was chosen with the skill of a first rate tactician. By its position on the Great Passes between Western Greece and Constantinople, it threw the corn trade into its viceroy's hands. It equally intercepted the commerce of the districts of Joannina and the whole mountain country of the west. Ali was in fact master of Thessaly, the most productive province of Greece; and by the same step was raised within sight of the sovereignty of the whole western dominions of the Ottoman. He now lost no time in the consummation of his bold project.

The Beys in the neighbourhood of Joannina, whether from their native turbulence, or, as is equally probable, excited by his intrigues, had burst in

to sudden tumult. Assassination, robbery, and open conflict, raged through the country. The people groaned under the multitude of petty tyrants, and grew ripe for the authority of one. In the midst of the perpetual sound of battle and misery, Ali's trumpets were heard from the hills. The civil conflict ceased, for the rival Beys knew that when he advanced all were equally a prey. They joined their troops, and fought a fierce battle with the invader at the head of the Lake of Joannina The discipline of Ali's Albanians broke their irregular force, and after a long struggle, they were utterly defeated, and driven into the city. But it was among the characteristics of this extraordinary man never to run an unnecessary hazard. The walls of Joannina, garrisoned by a dispirited army, would probably have been mastered by his troops, however untrained to sieges. But he had a more secure, though a more circuitous way to victory. By threats and money he formed a party in the country, and induced them to send a deputation to Constantinople, proposing him for the government. The Beys, aware of the mission, instantly sent to deprecate the appointment. They succeeded. Ali's talents had already rendered him formidable at Constantinople, and his deputation returned with a Firman, commanding him to the bitter measure of withdrawing from the prize already within his grasp, and even disbanding his army. Nothing could have been more anxious than the alternative. Resistance would have been rebellion and ruin, soon or late. The dismission of his troops would have been, on the Ottoman principles, probably followed by the loss of his head. But by an act of more than Punic skill, he evaded this formidable dilemma, and actually triumphed. He had received intelligence of his failure, and of the Firman, from an agent who had rode some days in advance of the deputation of which he was one. The agent was immediately sent back to rejoin it. The deputation was received in

pomp by the Beys, who advanced beyond the gates of Joannina, to receive the Sultan's order with becoming homage. It was solemnly opened in the assembly, each Bey first touching it with his forehead in token of that submission for life and death, which is due to the will of the great King of the Moslems. To the astonishment and alarm of all, the Firman declared Ali lord of the Pashalik of Joannina! This daring forgery was instantly exclaimed against; but the forger was not a man to leave time for the growth of opposition. He instantly marched upon the city, now thronged with his partizans, augmented by those who either believed the reality of the Firman, or looked for some personal advantages from the known profusion of the invader. Ali's conduct in this crisis was politic; he lavished money on his friends and the populace; he disclaimed all revenge, and pledged himself to the protection and advancement of the Beys, who still continued in the territory. His chief op ponents had fled to the hills on the entrance of his army, and all was peace and popular acclamation. Yet in the midst of this public revel, he provided against a reverse with the coolness of a veteran politician. He marched a strong force into the citadel, and thus placed himself out of the power of public change. But Constantinople was still to be propitiated. Without loss of time, he sent a deputation of the principal inhabitants to the Porte, bearing his own account of the transaction, and bearing the still more irresistible argument with a Turkish ministry, of large means of corruption. It was felt too, that he was now in possession of a power which it must take a war to break down; the policy of the Porte, furious and vindictive as it is, has always been to temporise until it can destroy; and the Pashalik was finally confirmed to its dexterous and daring usurper.

Ali was now a King in all but the name, and his kingdom extended over a number of provinces that still

touch us with noble classical recollections. The Pashalik of Joannina comprehended Locris (Ozola), Etolia, Acarnania, Thesprotia, Molossia, Chaonia; and among the towns of those provinces were Actium, where the Empire of the Roman world was once decided; and Dodona, the great central oracle of ancient superstition. And this was the achievement of a barbarian, unfurnished with the knowledge or politics of civilized states; probably unable to read or write; unsustained by alliance; and forced to fight his way foot by foot under severities of fortune worse than the storms of his own inclement skies, and still more perilous, under the remorseless and subtle jealousy of the Ottoman.

The great scale of European ambition-the magnitude of the triumph the magnitude of the means, throw exploits like those of Ali among his mountain tribes into the shade. But, (throwing morality out of the ques tion,) in the innate materials that constitute the superiority of the man as the conqueror and the ruler;the distant and eagle-eyed vision with which he fixed on his purpose from the beginning :-in the resistless acti vity of his pursuit ;—the inexhausti ble dexterity of his intrigue; and stil more, in that unhesitating turn, from the most creeping subterfuge to the fiercest and most daring violence, the singular mixture of the wiliest craft that belongs to cowardice, with the boldest risk that makes the cha racter of heroism; Ali, Pasha of Joannina, has had in our time nei ther equal nor rival but one-Napo leon, Pasha of the European world.

The Russian and Austrian Alliance now issued in a war against Turkey. A secret treaty has been framed be tween Catherine and Joseph the Second, during the celebrated progress to the Crimea in 1787, for the dismemberment of European Turkey. The strength of the attack was to have been thrown on the western frontier; agents were dispatched to prepare the Greeks; engineers in disguise took plans of the country;